Little Sinners

“Doing school” has changed our little lives. 

I’m not being very rigid about it—E is usually very eager (more than I am) for “dool time!” and so I haven’t really needed to push her at all.  Focus, yes, but not push.  Which I guess is a good thing.

I’m very surprised, though, by how much more attuned I am to what she does and doesn’t know, and how rapidly she is picking things up.  Intentional instruction is definitely making a big difference!  She’s really latched on to the alphabet and goes around pointing out letters even when we’re not in “school” and asks, quite often, what various words / letters / numbers are that she sees.  She also must have picked up a lot more from Blue’s Clues or Dora than I ever would have thought that she would… she knows a good number of letters that I haven’t taught her yet.  Conversely, there are some concepts in the “same/different” category of learning that it just blows my mind that she doesn’t understand—but she doesn’t.  I guess this is something we haven’t really run across in our daily lives, that S and I haven’t been pointing out to her.  But, see, formal school means I know this giant gap exists now, and we’ve been working on it together… and she’s starting to understand more!

It is more work than just playing was.  We spend maybe an hour and half or so per day—although a very big part of me likes the “four day schoolweek” and so Fridays occasionally fall by the wayside—usually our time is consecutive, but sometimes it gets split in two pieces.  I’ve started making use of the time after breakfast to get E started on various tasks that work well at our dining room table by herself: tracing, coloring, and critical thinking exercises.  She works on those while I do my morning chores, which works surprisingly well.  So I guess in one way, it’s less work because it definitely adds a lot of structure to our morning, which everyone seems to like.  But it’s a lot more work because I’m having to do a lot of planning and assembling activities that I wasn’t doing before.

I finally got some giant folders this past week which I divvied out the activities and worksheets into, and another multi-pocket folder which I’m going to use to divide up the activities on the weekend for the upcoming week—based loosely on this modified workbox system.  One folder per day, with maybe some sticky notes for things that don’t fit in the folders.  I did finally get my act together last week enough to sit down and figure out what my formal subjects actually are, what activities fall in the purview of which subjects, and what days I want to focus on each subject. 

It’ll all work out eventually.  I’m definitely becoming a big proponent of this kind of early schooling, though: it’s beginning to seem like quite a waste of everyone’s mental resources to just coast around PLAYING.

(Yet another short post at the end of a long, yet fun, day that sucks the brains right out of you.)

One thing I’ve been thinking about pretty seriously is trying to put together a somewhat formalized “curriculum” to use with E this year.  I think it will really help me to have the structure and goals actually sketched out, and it will definitely help next year when it’s R I’m trying to do at this level and E has moved along to more normal school.  (I.e., Pre-K 3 curricula actually exist, meaning you don’t have to come up with your own ideas, and it’s a more important to actually hit on all the usual subjects, but I’ve never seen a Pre-K 2 curriculum, and there doesn’t seem to be a common set of expectations to meet or fail.)

The main thing is that this is making me wish (just a teeny bit) that I’d been an early-childhood ed major.  Or at least an elementary ed major.  My adolescent psych classes aren’t doing me any good with a toddler!  I’m halfway thinking about finding a good early childhood education book to read, and halfway thinking that common sense and knowledge of my own child will go the distance.

The main thing I want to accomplish is being purposeful.  Instead of picking random books off the shelf to read during “school time,” I want to spend a little bit of time thinking about it (and possibly even doing a little bit of research ) and choose books that are in line with certain goals and provide a deliberate variety.  And I want to make sure that I’m not concentrating overmuch on “English” to the neglect of math, logic, or even science.  (I’m sure I’ll neglect science, because it is my least favorite of all the subjects, except for physics, which is really math and therefore doesn’t count!)

(Yet another short post at the end of a long, yet fun, day that sucks the brains right out of you.)

One thing I’ve been thinking about pretty seriously is trying to put together a somewhat formalized “curriculum” to use with E this year.  I think it will really help me to have the structure and goals actually sketched out, and it will definitely help next year when it’s R I’m trying to do at this level and E has moved along to more normal school.  (I.e., Pre-K 3 curricula actually exist, meaning you don’t have to come up with your own ideas, and it’s a more important to actually hit on all the usual subjects, but I’ve never seen a Pre-K 2 curriculum, and there doesn’t seem to be a common set of expectations to meet or fail.)

The main thing is that this is making me wish (just a teeny bit) that I’d been an early-childhood ed major.  Or at least an elementary ed major.  My adolescent psych classes aren’t doing me any good with a toddler!  I’m halfway thinking about finding a good early childhood education book to read, and halfway thinking that common sense and knowledge of my own child will go the distance.

The main thing I want to accomplish is being purposeful.  Instead of picking random books off the shelf to read during “school time,” I want to spend a little bit of time thinking about it (and possibly even doing a little bit of research ) and choose books that are in line with certain goals and provide a deliberate variety.  And I want to make sure that I’m not concentrating overmuch on “English” to the neglect of math, logic, or even science.  (I’m sure I’ll neglect science, because it is my least favorite of all the subjects, except for physics, which is really math and therefore doesn’t count!)

So I know learning is a life-long process, and good mommies teach their children 24/7, right?  But I had been kind of tentatively planning to do “formal school” when E is three, which is still a day very, very far away.

I’ve been rethinking, partly because I’ve been reading a great deal about homeschooling in a large family (i.e. teaching in a one-room schoolhouse!) and have coincidentally stumbled onto various suggestions for “what do I do with my toddler while the big kids are schooling?”  And also because I am precisely NOT the sort of person who gets specific things done unless I actually plan to accomplish specific things: I need to be reminded.

I think it would be good, for me, for E, for our little family unit, to begin some sort of formal school now.  I’m thinking I’ll try to fit it in before our naptime—I’ve been finishing the day’s chores early lately, and also been more fatigued and wanting to sit down, so it will be a good, calm time for us—and drag the kids up to the nursery, which has lots of books and not too many other distractions, and… probably mostly read books, since E isn’t even two-and-a-half yet.  But I’ll try to get her to sit still and listen and look along, and begin to gently teach R to sit still.  I want both of them to become accustomed to the idea of a structured, disciplined time where they do activities Mommy chooses instead of whatever their little hearts please.  Once we get the hang of it, these are the activities I have planned:

• books—read-aloud picture books, but also working in some longer/fewer-picture “listen” books
• alphabet books—a little Baby Einstein set of 26 books, one per letter; I’m going to try to do one of these every day
• word flashcards, homemade (for variety and personalization, but also because I can’t find any in stores without pictures!)
• premade flashcards: Same/Different; Shapes & Colors; Alphabet; Numbers
• a Pre-K3 Reading workbook
• a Pre-K3 Math workbook
• focused drawing
• counting—I have little rubber blocks, but I’m also thinking other things would work quite well
• some activities from The Toddlers Busy Book, which is the best toddler-oriented game/learning book I’ve come upon yet

I am presently thinking to do one reading book, one alphabet book, and one of the other activities every day.  It’s kind of hard to think of activities that a toddler can do that are more “learning” than “play.”  I’m not sure how long it will take her to learn the alphabet—she already knows quite a few by sight, and can say most of them in a row—but once she gets that, we’ll move on to phonics.  I’ve noticed that a lot of “Pre-K” books require more hand coordination (drawing, tracing, circling, coloring) than E has yet, so once she grows in that area, that will be an easy route to continue down as well, because already she could grasp many of the activities, if she had the manual dexterity.  I’m hoping the Pre-K3 workbooks help her move in that direction!

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
[Deuteronomy 6:6-7, ESV]

What’s really important?  What do we really want our children to know, to understand?

I don’t think most of us would hesitate to spew out the correct answer—the things of God, the fear of God, the worship of God; to know God.

I’ve been extremely bothered lately by the realization, however, that when it comes to academics and education, most of us are right there with the rest of the world in holding forth the “Three R’s” as our goal.  But the most valuable thing the world has to offer is infinitely less than the smallest morsel of the knowledge of God.  It is better that they grasp an ounce—a very grain!—of His truth than that they be the most accomplished in all their field of academia.

I tweeted earlier that there’s something wrong with our priorities if our children can discuss Hamlet better than Zephaniah, if the words “to be or not to be” come more readily to their lips than “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil” (Zeph. 3:15) or any of the rest of that amazing passage, or any passage at all that has fallen from the pen of the Almighty God.

Shakespeare was a linguistic genius in whom we can see how much greater must be the genius of the One who created him, and yes, there are moments of truth to be found in the bard’s many lines.  And Shakespeare is just one poignant example.  But do we really want to say that a good understanding of Shakespeare makes our children more “well-equipped” than the armor of God (Eph. 6:14-18) does?

I am struck by the detail and intensity of the passage in Deuteronomy.  I realize that the context is different from ours (in the sense that it’s talking about the law, and talking to a theocratic nation), but here we have a tiny, graphic picture of how God thinks people should be teaching children about Him: first by ourselves loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our might, by writing His words on our hearts… then by talking about His words when we sit, when we walk, when we lie down, when we rise; by carrying them with us always and holding them before us always.

That when-you-sit-walk-sleep-wake-up part really gets me.  Be talking and thinking and meditating on God all the time!  And in case we start to think that “all the time” just means some vague incomprehensible thing like we chalk up “pray without ceasing” to be—He spells it out.  Talk about God with your kids when you sit down, when you walk, when you go to bed, when you rise in the morning.

I don’t think it’s wrong to teach Shakespeare and Hamlet.  I pick on Hamlet, in fact, precisely because British literature was always “my” subject—I even did my undergraduate senior seminar on Shakespeare.  But I’m really concerned with the division of time that we plan to use with our kids.  I’m perplexed at the idea of spending hours a day in pursuit of things the world deems educationally important (reading, writing, arithmetic) and not spending those hours in equally formal, dedicated, focused pursuit of God and His words.  I look at passages like the one in Deuteronomy and I fall so short.  I am so completely saturated by worldly ideas about what things to teach our children, even toddlers.  Have I tried harder to teach E the alphabet and numbers and shapes than I have tried to teach her Christ?  Would that our catechism was offered with half the enthusiasm and desperation with which we present grammar and addition!

We think that our children need a good education, to be well-rounded and intelligent individuals who are well-prepared for anything the world might throw at them, including college.

They need Jesus infinitely more, and I don’t mean just a “saving knowledge.”  He’s our bread and water and life-giving sustenance: we need every morsel.  And that’s no small amount of learning—no small amount of training—no small time investment.

It’s a lot more than Shakespeare.