[On Faith], [On Other], [On Schooling]

Books of 2020 and a Remnant of Readers

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With two moves, house renovations, house selling, and countless traveling, I kept my 2020 reading goal to a manageable twenty-four for the year. Plus, I process slowly and like to linger on them a bit. As a #rabbittrailreader I’ve possibly read triple this in words and pages and chapters, but it’s been good and needed for me to set a small goal of books to actually finish (I use the Goodreads Reading Challenge).

I was curiously observing some frantic discussions recently, centered around current political climates and fears of book bans and all manner of inevitable suppression and whatnot because of things read in a forum here or an article there. It wearied me, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After all, I’d probably be all #keepyourhandsoffmybooks if this truly became a problem and it’ll always be incredibly important to me that my children have access to books that are good and true and beautiful.

My husband sent this though, and I found it poignant:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

—Neil Postman

…I tend to think it’s the latter we ought to be worrying more about these days. The information overload and conjectures on all sides, continuous stimuli for fight and flight, never-ending opinions from all, each touted as truth. No time, energy, or desire to read good books because of hours and minds too filled by current events and information-overload. We’ll either rely on everyone else for knowledge or think we already have it all.

I’m personally thinking it’s the perfect day to curl up with a cup of tea, a good book, and remind myself that I have unfettered access to the Truth that will outlast all of this.

As I set my goals for this year, what books are you eyeing for 2021?

My 2020 Books:

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[On Faith], [On Other], [On Schooling]

Read a Poem a Day

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“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).⠀
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This is good advice for us all, and I’ve been thankful for The Trinity Forum and Coracle for their commitment in promoting such things. It’s hard to find places these days where reasonable words can be heard, whether about politics or poetry.⠀
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As such, I loved Marilyn McEntyre’s discussion of poetry on Friday (amongst many other things) as she and David Bailey discussed, “Speaking Peace and Seeking Reconciliation in a Fractured Culture.”⠀
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She brought up how promoting poetry is a public responsibility, rather than a private practice. Especially in these days of division and derision. Like hymns and psalms, it introduces truth in a subversive and surprising way. It helps refresh depleted soil. “Truth-telling is paradoxical,” and “reading poetry teaches us to think about words.”⠀
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“Why read a poem at a time like this?” Marilyn asks in an earlier essay I’ve read.⠀
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“The good ones offer even unpracticed readers, even resistant readers, some shock of recognition that brings them to terms with something true—a feeling, a memory, a fear, a sudden insight.”⠀
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“People who can read poetry well have learned to look closely and long at what they see and honor its complexities. They know how to think metaphorically, tolerate ambiguity, recognize the extent to which meaning is made, not just given, and read creatively and critically. They care about language and respect its power. They will not easily be duped, or persuaded by propaganda. They are discerning listeners, and make their judgments with deliberation. We need them in boardrooms and pulpits and on the floor of Congress and in labs and labor unions.”⠀
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So if there’s any good time to start the practice of reading poetry, I’d say 2020 is that year.
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[On Family]

On Homeschooling, Dyslexia, IEPs, & my 9 yo Poet/Astrophysicist

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My 9-year-old confessed to me the other day: “You know what, Mom? I feel so much smarter here than I did at school” [my Mom heart sank a bit and my eyes froze on her expressive face with her little dyslexic mind deep in thought].

“…At school it seemed like I spent all of my time just not being able to read while everyone else could, but here at home I learn about black holes and supernovas and invent stuff and write poetry. And I’m really good at those things [Exhale. There’s the confident mini-woman I know and love].

This kid. She braved through one year of IEPs the year before last like a champ, and while unlike her it often left me in tears (and few things do), the contrast of it all helped us both realize how much she loves learning. In ways a system (as supportive as it truly was), could never have brought forth.

At school, her remedial reading handed her nothing to wonder and dwell on, while at home she can ask me to read her cosmology, theology, and Longfellow to her heart’s content.

…I was hanging up some clothes in her closet and discovered her sweet impromptu solar system☝️

She informed me that she’s decided to be an astrophysicist. Because: “I think it would probably be a more stable job than a poet”😆

It’s a fascinating thing to go about our days together as I slowly figure out how her mind and soul work and what they were made for.

She will eventually learn how to properly read all the words and ideas she’s grown to love, she will eventually learn how to properly spell all the poetry and stories that pour out of her, and I will eventually learn how to properly channel the beautiful, quirky intensity of this kid I was given. …The one who can’t decide if she’s gonna be an Einstein or an Anne of Green Gables, but I have a feeling she’s going to figure it out.

(I share this because I know many are having homeschooling thrust upon them in ways none of us envisioned. But I can say with confidence that along with its high and lows, which there are, there’s an unmatched freedom to it that allows some minds and souls to become far more themself than they ever could have otherwise).

Her first tourtière🏆 (everything tastes better when cooked in an apron and snakeskin boots)

“Doing Modern Art” when she was supposed to be doing math🙄

Black Holes and distant galaxies🌌

Fiddling in the meadow💕

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[On Family], [On Schooling]

How We Homeschool, Charlotte Mason, and A Gentle Feast

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I don’t generally cover much of our homeschooling here, but I’ve been getting so many questions on it during these crazy days of pandemic schooling I thought it would be helpful to have a place for some of the information to live so I could point towards it in these days to come.

In an effort to keep this from being needlessly lengthy I’m going to link where possible to things that have already been said.

Most of our schooling tends to be within the bounds of the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education. Mason was an early childhood school teacher, a college teacher in elementary learning methods, and an educational author before she formed what was originally a union for home schooling mothers, the Parents National Education Union (PNEU), in 1891. 

One of my first introductions to Charlotte Mason was within the pages of For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (one of Francis and Edith Schaeffer’s daughters). I won’t expand on Mason’s philosophy here, but you can read on it here or here (the gist of it: living books rather than textbooks; short lessons; habits; nature study and play; art and music appreciation; and a natural yet deep approach to language, through copywork, narration, and dictation).

The more we homeschooled, the more I realized how wonderful of a fit it was for us as it organically focuses on so many of the things I wanted to be a part of our education such as literature, critical thinking, education as life, nature, beauty and wonder, good habits, and caring for the whole child. This post really mirrors my experiences and describes why I’ve come to love CM-style schooling.

We used Ambleside Online (AO) for years and it was a great place to dive into excellent books and begin learning little-by-little how to incorporate many of these elements into our days. I’m really thankful for it.

As our number of kids to be schooled increased and our available time decreased (due to multiple moves and renovations one after the other), we stumbled upon a more complete homeschooling curriculum A Gentle Feast (AGF). It was supposed to be a temporary time-saving switch during the craziness, but here we are years later and we haven’t looked back! While we loved AO, it took significantly more work to pull everything together and implement (especially with more than one or two kids in different years), and as a result many things I think were important often fell by the wayside. AGF has been so much easier for schooling multiple children together and providing us with a ready-to-implement curriculum, schedules, and resources at our fingertips.

Many ask about how it compares with Ambleside Online and Simply Charlotte Mason (SCM) and you can read more in-depth on that here but my personal opinion is that AO wasn’t quite enough (without a lot of effort), SCM is too much (very structured and hard to modify/swap out books), while AGF is just right. I tweak the schedule to suit us (we do 4 days a week and take a “Sabbath week” off after every six-week term), I can easily substitute books as needed, I spend so much less time on planning and managing, and we do a lot more things together as a family (morning time, scripture memorization, artist/composer/poet study, hymns and folk songs, tales, and much of our history/science).

Here’s how you start (I’ll do another post later on how we implement and use it daily):

1. Visit A Gentle Feast and pick your Cycle. There are four that you’ll cycle through as a family over the course of your childrens’ education, getting more in-depth each time as they get older. In brief:

  • Cycle 1 (“Columbus, Conquests, and Colonies”) covers 1000-1650 AD, with grades 5-12 also covering Early Civilizations for ancient history
  • Cycle 2 (“Wars, Whigs, and Washington”) covers 1650-~1800 AD, with grades 5-12 also covering The Greeks for ancient history
  • Cycle 3 (“Reforms, Revolutions, and Reconstruction”) covers 1800-1900 AD, with grades 5-12 also covering Ancient Rome for ancient history
  • Cycle 4 (“Marvels, Machines, & Modern Times”) covers 1900-present, with grades 5-12 also covering Early Middle Ages for ancient history

*It’s recommended you start with Cycle 1, but if you don’t you’ll still work through them all eventually. I’m a visual person, so you can see this in a graphic at the very bottom of this post

2. Decide if you want the main curriculum in a print or digital format.

This is the “meat” of the system. Schedules, assignments, exam questions, book lists, resources list, links, support groups, online resources, etc.

If you select it in a printed format, you get a hardcopy teacher’s manual (TM). The TM is not an absolute necessity and only comes with the printed version but I find it helpful as well as beautiful (various components within the TM are available individually in your online resources account with the digital version but not as a full digital pdf manual), so I always buy the printed TM with everything else in digital (both versions still include digital/online resources). The printed TM includes background and overview of everything, instructions, and printed schedules for the whole year all in one handy book (with space for lists and notes). It’s like a lovely spiral hardcopy planner. I also love the printed version because I can see all forms together in the schedules which really helps with our family schooling (the digital versions are broken out by form).

Other resources that come with it include a robust online section with editable schedules and plans, book list for that cycle (available to buy separately, but included with your curriculum purchase), links to corresponding videos, exam questions, printables, videos, monthly calls, and much more.

3. Determine what “forms” all of your children will be in. This is kind of a fancy way of saying what grade they’re in (but I much prefer it to our numbered grades that change every year):

  • Form 1: Lower Elementary (Grades 1-3)
  • Form 2: Upper Elementary (Grades 4-6)
  • Form 3: Junior High (Grades 7-9)
  • Form 4: Senior High (Grades 10-12)

I love the flexibility here. The Teachers’ Manual, schedules, morning time, and resources are provided for ALL FORMS so everything is there for all my children together at no additional cost. If a book seems a little above or below my child’s particular level, no biggie, I can see higher and lower options and switch accordingly. I have a dyslexic child who struggles with reading but her comprehension is wonderful, so I can progress her to form 2 in most things and form 1 for others. I moved one ambitious child up to a higher form this year and kept another child at his form for an extra year because I didn’t feel he was ready (but still mix between form 2/3 books throughout the year). Don’t feel tied to your form.

*Another secret, I’ve since started schooling everyone under high school together and it’s been amazing. I simply pick whichever books for each subject, across all forms, that I think would be the best for everyone and we read them aloud together (using LibriVox and audiobooks wherever possible). AGF makes it really easy to pull it off. I really need to do a whole post just on this.

4. Select which additional components you’d like included.

The options are:

  • Morning Time Bundle
  • Language Arts (LA) Packets OR Reading Programs (if not yet a strong reader)
  • Cursive and Manuscript Handwriting Programs

I’ve used all of these at different times. You can purchase them all printed or I usually purchase the digital formats to re-use and print/spiral bind myself as needed.

The LA packets are consumable for each child and include all of their Language Arts in one book broken out by day for the whole year. This was a game-changer for me and what initially sold me on the whole curriculum. They can be purchased in manuscript or cursive font. Based on form (I stick to their ability level regardless of what form books we’re reading), and it provides daily assignments for each week (many based on their book readings) in:

  • Copywork, grammar, dictation, spelling, composition, and drawing…all in one simple spiral book

The Morning Time (MT) resources are beautiful. We can print out the works of art we are studying, link to hymns, poems, etc., and it has our family morning time schedule for the whole year:

  • Bible and “Beauty Loop” (Artist/Composer study, Poetry Recitation, Poet study, Fables/Hero Tales, and Hymn Study).

There are also alternatives provided for poets, composers, artists, and hymns so as you progress through the cycles in future years you won’t repeat them. NOTE: If you don’t want to purchase, you can still access basic MT plans and links in your full curriculum online resources, but you won’t get the pdfs with all the lovely printable student and teacher packets/pages (that we put in our menus mentioned below in my summary).

Other optional add-ons are the cursive and manuscript handwriting programs and two levels of beginner reading programs (100 Gentle Lessons in Sight & Sound Levels 1 or Level 2).

NOTE: You would generally use the handwriting programs as needed in addition to your student’s LA packet, while the Sight & Sounds Reading programs would be used until they are a comfortable reader before they begin using a LA packet. Some children skip the reading programs and go right to the LA, some only need to do the Level 1 reading program, some need both before moving to the LA (check the samples provided or I’m happy to send, to help determine your child’s level).

5. Buy (or borrow/download) your books!

This is what’s called a “living books” curriculum in that there are no dry textbooks and worksheets, but excellent books that bring your children right to the source of what we’re learning about. It takes so much pressure off of me since I don’t have to waste time attempting to teach things they can get right from the experts 😉

Many are classics that we already have (or ought to have anyhow) in our personal library. We get many at library sales. You can do kindle/e-books, borrow, check out, or buy used. Tons are at archive.org and we listen to many together for free via LibriVox.

Your booklist will list out your Morning Time books, Curriculum books by subject and term, free reads, optional books, read-alouds, math suggestions, etc. (I recommend using the editable booklist in your Online Resources, it’s easier to browse). Thriftbooks and the bargain bin at Better World Books are my top places to purchase.

To summarize, here’s what I have/use:

  • Teacher’s Manual (covers everything for everyone) and the included online resources
  • Morning Time resources and printouts. I buy clear plastic menus (MT GAME-CHANGER), put my MT schedules and printables in mine, put each child’s printouts in theirs (poems, hymns, verses, etc.), and have a few extras with the artworks we’re studying that term. Even the 5yo has her own little version:)
  • Language Arts packet, printed and consumable for each child able to read
  • Books gathered from the provided booklist for each child (for the next term or full year if ambitious). Multiple children in the same form can share books
  • Math curriculum of your choice (only thing not included, which I’m glad for since math is so specific to needs/abilities)
  • Supplies. Other than our books, we basically just get a composition notebook, sketchbook/nature journal, a clipboard (I like to give them each their own weekly schedule to work through) and some colored pencils/pencils and we’re pretty much set!
  • AGF extras. As mentioned, I purchased the manuscript and cursive handwriting packet that I print/bind each year for whichever child needs it. I also purchased and printed/bound the 100 Gentle Lessons early reading program which I re-use for whichever child is learning how to read until they’re ready to move up to the Language Arts packet.

I hope that firehose of information helps. I’ll try to answer questions and update/edit here as I’m able. Julie, the creator of AGF was kind enough to pass on a coupon for me to share. Just click through here and enter the code Bonnie10 during checkout (P.S. and I buy my curriculum just like everybody else). [UPDATE: coupon has expired, but I’ll update if I receive a new one].

I will also say that every week, every year it gets better. Rhythms become more second-nature, implementation gets smoother and smoother, and we just are able to dig deeper each time around. In closing, I’ve found that A Gentle Feast provides the depth, beauty, and yet simplicity that I look for in schooling. It is thorough, yet holistic and I’m truly thankful to have stumbled upon it.

“Now, thought breeds thought. It is as vital thought touches our minds that our own ideas are vitalized in the contact, and out of our ideas comes our conduct of life. That is why the direct and immediate impact of great minds upon his own mind is a necessary factor in the education of a child. If you want to know how far a given school lays itself out to furnish its scholars with the material for opinions, ask to see the list of books in reading during the current term.”

-Charlotte M. Mason, The Parents Review (1910)

Teachers’ Manual

Morning Time Resources

Language Arts Packets (I haven’t printed mine out yet)

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[On Faith]

A Rambling Reader, and ‘What We’re Reading’

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I’ve posted before about being a rabbit-trail-reader. You know, where one book leads to another and then another, a conversation leads to four new topics, a chapter leads to twelve new thoughts, a quote or foreword leads to another author, a book review leads to another addition, then repeat, ad infinitum. Though rabbit trails, imply going around in circles leading nowhere, so perhaps a “rambling reader” is more appropriate? I mean, I get to all sorts of places, but the expediency of arriving to the last page in a timely manner is certainly hindered! Every so often though, I try to take a good look at my random, seemingly disconnected stack, and think over how they got there (often providentially) and where they’ve taken me so far…

The Sun Also Rises, began a few months ago, because my husband, Kevin, loves Hemingway. Hemingway provides him with a nostalgic juxtaposition of prior hopelessness to our current hope. I started it at the beginning of winter during a hard season where I was struggling to grasp the closeness and personal love of God. Let’s just say, Hemingway may not be the best read during a winter depression, so it was temporarily shelved until warmer days.

Studying the galaxy with my kids around the same time, led me to Carl Sagan’s, Pale Blue Dot (it has one of my very favorite quotes I’ll have to do a whole post about one of these days). I’m telling you, one of the best ways to grasp the vastness of God is to read a brilliant atheist describe how unfathomably tiny we are in relation to the cosmos. It’s fascinating.

The next step, I figured, in filling the gap between a vast God and our tiny selves, is a study of the Holy Spirit. Forgotten God, by Francis Chan, is a great, quick read to start with, though not quite the depth I needed, which then led to a few weightier books on the topic. I already had Meredith Kline’s, Images of the Spirit on my shelf, so I dove in while awaiting a few more that are on the way. Any other recommendations on this topic?

A Room Called Remember, has been on my shelf forever, and so beautifully says things we need to hear. I pulled it out at the perfect time, because I’d be hard pressed to think of anyone better than Frederick Buechner to describe the hope that Hemingway and Sagan overlooked

A perfectly-timed, sunny trip in the middle of December resulted in a few more additions, including the raw, but beautiful, A Grief Observed. It may seem like an odd vacation read, but Kevin and I usually read Shelden Vanauken’s,  A Severe Mercy (our favorite book) on vacations together, and this seemed like a logical sequel in many ways. L’Engle did the foreword, which led me to, Circle of Quiet, and we quickly devoured her ramblings on writing, creativity, and ontological selves. So good. Andrew Peterson’s, Adorning the Dark, is a great complement to these topics as he discusses creativity and callings in a dark world (I’m only a few chapters in).

My 8th grader is reading my copy of Annie Dillard’s, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, for school, so I snagged, Teaching a Stone to Talk, for fifty-cents at a library sale, to fill the Dillard void in my stack until he’s done. I always try to have some poetry going, so I invested in Mary Oliver’s, Devotions, collection, because the way she humbly observes the stark beauty of creation reminds me of Dillard.

Last Call for Liberty, was from last year’s stack, but Os Guinness is working on somewhat of a sequel, and he shared the introduction with us spurring many discussions on freedom, liberty, and it’s relation to the Exodus of Israel, and I had to re-visit it. Os recommended Stefan Zweig’s, Messages from a Lost World. A Jewish writer who fled Germany during the rise of Hitler, and his chapter on, “The Secret of Artsitic Creation,” complements L’Engle in an interesting way. An atheist attempting to navigate the ugliness of war and the depressing future of humanity with the beauty of artistic creation is fascinating. I had just begun Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, The Children of Light an the Children of Darkness, based on a Trinity Forum recommendation (founded by Os in 1991), and only a few pages in, it already added to our discussions on democracy and freedom within the framework of order. This same idea was likewise wonderfully alluded to in L’Engle’s discussion of art (“we are a generation which is crying loudly to tear down all structure in order to find freedom, and discovering, when order is demolished, that instead of freedom we have death”).

Don’t you love when so many unrelated books you’re reading, by people of all different faiths and backgrounds and centuries, mirror such similar ideas? Truth transcends time and space.

The rest were our read-alouds. Kevin has been reading, Swallowdale, to our oldest who has already read all of Arthur Ransome’s, Swallows and Amazons series, but they’ve always enjoyed slowly re-reading them together. I don’t know why I had put off, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as a read-aloud for so long, but the girls and I read a large, beautifully illustrated (though unabridged) copy snagged from the same library sale, and they absolutely loved it. We’re in the middle of, A Little Princess, now and they are equally engaged. There’s just something about the way Frances Hodgson Burnett, gives them characters who so innocently exhibit goodness amongst badness, that provides them with an attainable, simple, and tangible “good vs evil” in a hard and dark world; in ways even the youngest can comfortably grasp and yearn for (her, Little Lord Fauntleroy, has long been a family favorite for this very reason).

Any other additions you’d recommend adding to our current rambling stack?

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[On Faith], [On Family]

“I am, I Can, I Ought, I Will”

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[Trying to get this kid to come start school this morning/afternoon for the umpteenth time]:

N: “…but Mom, I just really can’t. I’m working on something SO important right now. I’M RE-DOING MODERN ART.”

It was a really tough day with this one in particular, who was fighting against Monday with all her might after a busy holiday week of traveling. But as I lay here now and think back on the day, I realized she was at her best when she was making.

…Mounds of construction paper snowflakes before I was even out of bed. Intricate train track towns slowly filling the room as I worked with the other kids. Pages of Mondrian-style artistic creations because a right-angled ruler and a tin of colored pencils caught her eye on her way to start math. Slowly and attentively tackling “Good King Wenceslas,” for the first time with her violin teacher, because even though she grumbled all the way to practice, she simply couldn’t stifle her desire to make music.

“I am, I can, I ought, I will,” is the Charlotte Mason student motto so often before me, and I’m struck by how even on days where our children get nowhere close to the end of that motto, the “I am” part of it never changes. It’s always there. And I’m convinced the only way they will ever truly make it to the whole “I will” part — at least in the way they ought — is by knowing who they are, whose they are, who they were created to be, and what they were created to do.

Even at her worst, my dear tired little girl, just couldn’t keep herself from making and creating.

Yes, we must do math. Yes, we must figure out how to teach her dyslexic little mind to decipher all the words she so loves to hear and speak. Yes, we must (all) learn to actually do what we ought because it’s how we do right by others and ourselves. …BUT every so often, if we have to spend an entire Monday just camping out on that tiny little, but eternally significant “I am,” and go to bed praying that grace will get us closer to the “I will” tomorrow, well gosh darn it, that’s just what we’re gonna do😂

#iwillbecauseiam

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[On Faith], [On Family], [On Schooling]

In the Image of their Maker

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”In our society, at the age of five, 90 percent of the population measures ‘high creativity.’ By the age of seven, the figure has dropped to 10 percent. The percentage of adults with high creativity is only two percent! …We are diminished, and we forget that we are more than we know. The child is aware of unlimited potential, and this munificence is one of the joys of creativity. Those of use who struggle in our own ways, small or great, trickles or rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world would teach us” (Madeleine L’Engle, ‘Walking on Water‘).

I’m not a craft mom. My utilitarian bent drags me down & my creativity tends to manifest itself in necessary things… learning how to lay hardwood flooring because we need a floor, cooking a meal because we need to eat dinner, sewing because my kid has a hole in his pants. But crafts are messy and superfluous, and what do I do with it when it’s done??

Curiously though, I love art and music and poetry and so many beautiful things I no longer can find the time to do or learn or cultivate.

My kids though, they CREATE. With no clause of necessity attached. They do it because it brings them joy, and I’m struck by how beautifully that reflects their Creator

One of my sons interrupted me the other night, well past his bedtime, excitedly wanting to show me this ship he was stitching. I was frustrated then, but saw it sitting in the corner today, and it touched me. This is my kid who gravitates to all things facts and reason. He lives and breathes sports and history and facts. He’s not my imaginative or creative one, but he loves making and building and executing. No pattern or instruction from me, he just bummed some supplies off his Great-Grandma and ran with it.

And I realized the importance of this. Here is my child who happens to be struggling with the abstractness of faith, yet something in him still loves the abstract beauty of creating. Because whether we see it or grasp it, we were made in the image of our maker and the “creative impulse can be killed, but it cannot be taught” (L’Engle).

There’s a flame there apart from me, that I could never ignite, but I can kill or kindle. Lord, help me kindle!

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[On Faith], [On Family], [On Schooling]

On Learning Our Children

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We take it year-by-year, but these last few years we’ve schooled our kids at home. It’s not some big principled, reject-the-system, religious-exemption sort of thing, we just decide with each child, each Fall, in each place, where we think we should put them based on their needs and our abilities.

Partially due to two years of moving, even when abilities and bandwidth were low my third kid is one who has never had report cards or textbooks or bus stops. But she’s played and experienced and learned naturally. It’s what I kinda had wanted for all of my kids. Because I truly believe that it’s hard to make a child love to learn once you’ve killed their awe and wonder, and it’s difficult to nurture that when you remove playing and exploring and discovering too soon. And boy, does this girl love to learn. In a way that I’m not entirely sure she would have discovered if she’d been sitting in a desk instead of out in the world.

But there have been moments of fear. I recently went to bed a few weeks ago in tears and panic and exasperation because this spirited, recently-turned-7-year-old is not independently reading. I mean, I was reading The Chronicles of Narnia and Nancy Drew when I was seven, and this girl could care less about barely being able to read a cereal box. She has big brothers to read her words, parents to read her stories, and she simply has never felt the need. While I thought I was maybe okay with this, the system we still have to peripherally navigate, isn’t really. A (self-imposed) 30-minute evaluation resulted in words like “delayed,” and “potential learning disabilities,” and “totally not ready for second grade,” kinda shook me and made me second guess all sorts of things.

Just know, I LOVE teachers. I so appreciate schools. They’ve provided structure at times for my children who needed it. They’ve provided support at times for my children who struggled with things I didn’t feel equipped to navigate. Systems are needed when you have to educate millions of children in a nationally standardized way. I could never do what they do, day in and day out.

Systems can be hard though. I think they catch some big and important things and I think they overlook some big and important things. I’ve had a child who struggled with the system because he learned, and processed, and read much slower than others. I’ve had a child who struggled with the system because he learned, and processed, and read much faster than others. But for the most part I’ve agreed, and understood, and felt as if they were hurdles that were beneficial to learn how to navigate as a part of life. Hard work, patience, respecting authority, self-control, waiting for others…

The Things That Fear Hides

It hit me differently with this girl, this time around though. It was unexpected in that they were words and descriptors that were so utterly different from the ones I’ve gathered while observing her vivacious, bright, quick-witted mind for the last 7 years.

This child I birthed and know so deeply in ways others don’t have the privilege to. I hear her stories, I watch her play, I experience her thoughts and ideas. She’s quite possibly the most confident (yet realistic) child I’ve ever met, and for the first time ever I caught a little glimpse of her confidence faltering. And it killed me.

I’m not one for false confidence. It’s shaky ground that will not age well, but it’s so important to me that they understand the gifts that God truly formed them with. That they see them, develop them, use them, and understand that much will be required of them in those areas in exchange.

I want her and others to see those precious gifts in ways that a thirty-minute evaluation or a standardized test will not show.

I went to bed so conflicted and worried, and woke up like God was gently shaking me and reminding me of who she really was. Who he made her to be. Who I’ve always known her to be, yet was forgetting in my worries.

Who IS My Child?

She’s like my very own Anne of Green Gables. Some of my kids are smart, some are funny, but she’s that brilliantly witty combination of both. She quotes Shakespeare (“All’s fair in love and war,” she’ll say to her big brother complaining of unfairness). Her vocabulary and ability to communicate deep things takes my breath away. Not just remembering words, but hearing them, understanding them, and using them ages later in perfect context.

She loves every place we’ve ever lived or visited. She adores the beauty of the mountains, the excitement of the city, the peacefulness of the country, the newness and sociableness of hotels, the coziness of a 350 square foot travel trailer….

She loves interacting with people, yet she can play by herself for hours upon hours. She’s never been bored. She taught herself how to ride a bike in about 17 seconds.

She’s fascinated by how things work, how things are made, how things came to be. Her theological questions and connections blow me away. She loves documentaries, she loves creating things and describing things, she loves stories.

Her imagination is intense, her excitement is intense, her anger is intense, her frustration is intense, her love is intense. I’m not sure she’s ever felt anything partially or halfway in her life. She says what she means and she means what she says.

She will talk to anyone. Not like a child meaninglessly chattering away to any person who will pretend to listen… but wherever I take her, she almost always manages to locate and plant herself next to some other soul, whether 3-years-old or 93-years-old, to effortlessly connect with them and draw them out. Eventually I’ll find her, passionately, yet matter-of-factedly discussing family relationships, hopes and dreams, personality characteristics of grandchildren, favorite places traveled, shared frustrations of life, or how they like their job, or being married, or getting old, or starting kindergarten…

Give her 5 minutes on a playground, and she’ll have a “pack of boys” (in her words) following her around, fighting her battles, and playing her games. Not because she needs to dominate or control, but because she’s insanely confident and her excitement is contagious.

She sees people and gets people and figures out how to love them practically. When I have a migraine she holds my hand and brings me ice packs. She lectured my husband before leaving on a recent trip with the grandparents, that he better take good care of me and make my coffee just like she does, until her return.

She is a gift and she has a gift.

Learning My Child

I say all this, not because it’s important to me that people understand home-schooling, or question public-schooling, or tell me comforting things like I’ve done the very best I could with her (I haven’t). And honestly, her summer reading tutor is absolutely wonderful and knowledgeable and much-appreciated, and knowing my daughter, she’ll probably be reading The Iliad and War and Peace by next week. But my point is, that even if she isn’t, that’s really okay too.

Ever since she was born, my verse for her has always been Luke 1:45. “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord had said to her will be accomplished.” Because it will. Not because she will accomplish it herself, or I will, or anyone else will, but because HE will.

If their God-given strengths aren’t diminished by their God-given weaknesses, then they certainly aren’t going to be by their world-given “weaknesses.” Even if we’re going about this all wrong it’s not going to change who they are and who they were created to be. No parent, or school, or system, or curriculum could ever take away what was given to them by the hand of God. We need to look at our children and learn them. See their struggles and help them, watch for their gifts and value them, not because they are our child, but because they are a person made in the image of God.

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