Entries Tagged 'Homeschooling' ↓

One week ago today in faraway Nottingham, England, my 23-year-old son turned in a 63-page dissertation. In so doing, he capped off a year of grad school and became a candidate for a master’s degree in philosophical theology.

Why do I share this? Because…

• Your eighth grader can’t spell her way out of a paper bag.
• Your sixth grader keeps wadding up his paper in frustration and hurling it across the room.
• Your kitchen table has become a battleground.
• This very morning, you asked yourself why you even bother homeschooling.
• Most days you just can’t believe your child will actually grow up, mature into a productive adult, and find his place in the world.

Because a dozen years ago, I was in your shoes.

At times, it’s hard to believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Try as we might, they just don’t seem to get it. We plan out our year, buy curriculum, write lesson plans. We review spelling words again and again. And again. We go over grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. In our weary minds, we think that we might as well whack our heads against a wall for all the good it’s doing.

Stepping Stones

I invite you to take a trip with me as I drift back to September of 1996 when Ben was an 11-year-old sixth grader. Beginning at that point, I’d like to share excerpts from his writing, with each year representing a stepping stone along his journey.

What was the secret to success? Lots and lots of practice, self-editing, parent input, revising, rewriting, and polishing during our homeschooling years, followed by five years of countless essays and papers for college and grad school. No magic wand produced this kind of fruit, but diligence and perseverance in the face of struggle did.

Ben will be the first to tell you he’s still not immune to the frustrations that accompany writing. From time to time he crumples papers, loses focus, procrastinates, and suffers from bouts of writer’s block—we all do! But as you watch his writing mature and improve year by year in content, structure, style, vocabulary, and mechanics, I pray you gather hope and courage to carry on.

Junior High

6th grade: Usualy my room is prity clean, some times I fourget to clean up my messes. My room wold be neater if I put away my toys.

7th grade: I am confident beacouse our leader, Goliath, the campion fighter from Gath, he is over 9 feet tall a fighting man since his youth. He is going to chalange the Israelites again. All right! They are finly sendin some one to fight him. (rough draft)

8th grade: Whipped around the corner with amazing velosity, our car rushes through the icy water. Looking over my dad’s sholder, I can see the tunel entrance up ahead. Surprised and frightened, I suddenly feel the bobsled drop from under me as it swerves dangerously into a secret tunel.

High School

9th grade: Waiting in anticipation, my team prepared to enter the secret “catacombs”. Our mission: to find the clues, rescue hostages, and avoid getting caught. Finally the doors opened and our adventure began. One by one we disappeared into the darkness.

10th grade: Each county in each state determines how its citizens will vote. Some systems are not as good as others and allow many errors. For example, the punch card ballot is terribly flawed because a voter has to make sure to punch the holes cleanly. One mistake will result in the disqualification of the entire ballot.

11th grade: Simply, he loved God, and he desperately loved the people that he ministered to. His joy was not found in material possessions, for he had none except a few books. Instead, it was the Bishop’s passion to see a good Catholic find God. (character analysis)

12th grade: Many people believe that all goodness is subjective and relative. This idea is a very subtle tactic because it allows the critic to “play God.” The critic has the power to decide what is good and what is bad, what men ought to like and ought to despise. In the end, he creates his own standards by which to judge not only inanimate objects, but also morality. This is what society has adopted; this is where society has gone astray.

Ben became more inclined toward academics toward the end of high school. Though not all students will continute on to university, that path suited his bent. So once our homeschooling years were behind us, college challenged his writing to new levels.

College

Freshman: While Clayton’s claims are well articulated and organized, his proposed solution is short-sighted and insufficient. Furthermore, he does not effectively support his primary claims or demonstrate how students will be able to suddenly rise about the relative postmodern ideology that they use to justify cheating.

Sophomore: During the age of Roman domination, the Caesars ruled most of the populated world with absolute power. Considered living gods, these men each sought to make their place in history. However, all their collective triumphs and achievements would soon be dwarfed through the life and death of a single man. The solitary life of a Jewish rabbi, raised in a backwater town on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, marked the single most significant point in human history: the point when the God of the universe became a part of his own creation in order to redeem it from its own corruption and despair.

Junior: In the realm of political philosophy, questions arise that seek to identify, evaluate, critique, and improve social, civil, and political governance. For what reason do we form commonwealths and civil structures? Why are such unions justified? Indeed, how do those who maintain power within such civil societies legitimize their use of political authority over any other person?

Senior: Wedged between the forces of privatized spiritualism on one hand and secular social activism on the other, the Christian Church finds itself in a time of transition and tension. In a world dominated by geopolitical nation-states, rapidly expanding capitalistic market places, and the global presence of multinational corporations, God has awakened the Church to a new sense of urgency to respond faithfully to its calling to be in the world, but not of it, and to live out its vocation by embodying the presence of Jesus Christ to all the peoples.

Grad School

Master’s Thesis: Accordingly, the works of mercy are fundamentally relocated outside the bounds of the Christian economy of salvation. As we have seen, for Aquinas the works of mercy are embodiments of virtue that constitute the liturgical life of the body of Christ. Grounded in the infused grace gifted to the church through the Holy Spirit, the works of mercy are irreplaceable performances of the church’s concrete worship of God.

What a picture of encouragement! When I follow Ben’s progress from year to year, I confess that even I’m amazed. It’s a good reminder that what you see today is not necessarily where your son or daughter will be in five or ten years; so much happens in our kids as they grow up! Remember too that not every child is destined to become a scholar, but improve he can (and will)—with practice, tools, and time.

WriteShop I and II laid the groundwork for us, and can help you establish a strong foundation for your student too. Visit www.writeshop.com and poke around. About WriteShop and Parent Testimonials may be good places to begin.

1. Kids only want to write a paper once. But getting it right the first time is pie-in-the-sky. Perfectionism sets your child up for failure.

2. The writing process is a lot like scrapbooking. Let’s say you have a dozen photos to use in a layout. Once you set the photos down, you wonder if there’s a better way to arrange them. You angle several pictures. Perhaps you crop a few to focus more on the subject. Then you move two or three others around, trying different arrangements. Finally, you realize the page will look much cleaner with fewer photos, so you carefully choose your favorites and make your final layout.

The writer does the same thing with ideas, words, and sentences—removing, replacing, arranging and rearranging, adding colorful touches—until the final composition is as pleasing to the eye as a well-arranged scrapbook page.

3. Rewriting is the key to writing. Say it till you believe it. Then tell it to your kids until they believe it too! Remind them that their rough draft is just that—rough. The real writing takes place once the ideas are in place. Good writing results from frequent editing and revising.

4. Pre-writing activities teach valuable skills, but they don’t teach independent writing. Use writing games, prompts, and pre-writing exercises to warm your kids up before the “real” writing begins.

5. Writing needs to be relevant. As often as possible, give your child a say in choosing a topic. When a student is passionate about hockey, horses, World War II, or Lord of the Rings, you’ll get more (and better) writing from him because he has a vested interest in the subject matter.

6. Writing takes time. And there’s no way around this. Of course, in a classroom, teachers just don’t have enough time to devote to it. But if you’re homeschooling, you have the luxury of helping your kids nurture a writing assignment from start to finish.

If you’re stopping by during today’s Carnival of Homeschooling, welcome! I’ll be talking about everyone’s favorite task—editing. What? It’s not your favorite homeschooling activity EVER? Then read on . . .

To most parents, the new and often unfamiliar process of editing and evaluating your student’s writing seems like an overwhelming, subjective effort. Apart from plucking a B+ out of the sky “because it’s not quite an A,” what can a non-English major homeschooling mom do to make editing and grading more objective? Continue reading →

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Proverbs 16:24

Ever try out a new recipe on your family? After poring over cookbooks, shopping for ingredients, and chopping, simmering, and stirring all afternoon, wouldn’t you be crushed to hear your husband grumble: What is this stuff? Why’d you have to put mushrooms in it? There’s too much garlic. It’s too runny. It needs salt. This tastes awful!

Even if it were true.

We all know how demoralizing it feels to be squished by a withering comment. We also know the warm glow that embraces us when someone speaks a word of affirmation. It should come as no surprise that our words yield such influence. After all, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).

Of course there are times when correction is warranted—daily, in most homes! Beds made in a sloppy hurry. Dishes coagulating in the sink. Careless math errors. A hastily written paper. Backtalk. Do we gently reprove, or do we rebuke harshly?

As a child, when I was pouty, whiny, demanding, or mean, my dad would say, “You’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.” Dad didn’t know the Lord back then, but he sure understood the scriptural principle about the power of our words: Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, when a missionary friend was visiting from Japan, I offered to keep his son for a day to free him up for some appointments. Since Rees was alone, I invited my grandson Eli over as a playmate, hauled out a huge crate of Legos, and set the boys loose. I could barely pull them away to eat a hasty lunch before Rees declared, “Can I go back upstairs now? Legos don’t build themselves, you know!”

So what does this little anecdote have to do with writing? Simply put, just as a Lego vehicle can’t take shape without the intentional efforts of a builder, your child cannot learn to write without intentional effort from you.

Continue reading →