I Never Cared Much for Poetry...Then I Started Teaching It

I have few memories of poetry from my formative years. There were silly poems, like Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" that I was exposed to and that I found kind of fun. Then, there were the "serious" poems. We read these aloud in class and then were asked questions about them. Whatever, I thought about the poem was usually the "wrong" interpretation. I eventually realized poetry wasn't really my forte. I just didn't get it. Fast forward nearly 2 decades to when I found out that Charlotte Mason considered poetry the highest form of literature. I knew that poetry was not really considered "optional" in a CM education, but I seriously contemplated minimizing it to only once a week at the most. After all, by that point, poetry struck me as a subjective and confusing waste of time. My close friend, however, had a different viewpoint.

She talked about how much she loved poetry and how excited she was to share it with her kids during her own homeschool lessons. I had a difficult time fathoming this, but I watched her doing poetry times with her children for a couple weeks. (Ok, I actually had her do this with my children too, so that I got out of having to do it myself.) Here's what I discovered: She DID actually like poetry. You could hear it in her voice as she read it to the kids. She also didn't ask the kids to analyze it to pieces. After she read a poem, she simply asked what they thought about it. She asked them things like "Did you like it?" "What did you like about it?" "How did it make you feel?" There were no wrong answers. The kids could answer anyway they pleased. She might share her own thoughts or feelings at the end in a similar vein of sharing her own connection to the piece, and then poetry time was over. It was short and sweet.

Now, unfortunately, she couldn't do poetry with my kids every single day of homeschooling! I eventually had to tackle this subject on my own, but it seemed less intimidating to me now. I still wasn't looking forward to it, but it seemed doable. We try to focus on one poet per term in order to get a sense of that poet's voice and style in addition to enjoying the poetry. Last year, we read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, A.A. Milne, and Lewis Carroll.

Here are the books we used. We also read from A.A. Milne's Now We Are Six, but that book seems to have walked off somewhere...

Our poetry times last year and this year have been pretty simple. If I have a short, child-appropriate biography of the poet, I'll read that at the beginning of the term to the children. After that, we just read a poem per day from that poet and then talk a little about it. It doesn't take long. Often, the kids still just offer "Good. I liked it." as their response, and for now, I'm fine with that. In fact, I'd be thrilled for the children to grow up "just" enjoying poetry, and I prioritize that over parsing and analyzing a poem to death.

I'm going to be honest and admit that I still don't love poetry. I really enjoyed A.A. Milne's poems, but I have mostly just tolerated the rest. However, this means that I have connected to one in 4 poets so far, and that I know who that poet is too. In fact, I can tell you a bit about why I enjoyed A.A. Milne over Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, or Walter de la Mare (our current poet).  I found A.A. Milne's poems to express childhood experience with a sweet simpleness that was neither condescending nor overly sentimental.  It reminded me of what it was like to be a child and seemed affirming to my own children's childhoods. Connecting with a poet in this way is definite growth for me, and I suspect my children are growing in their own unique ways via our poetry times too.

I don't educate in order to fill my children with head knowledge. I want my children to grow into Godly young women who connect to and recognize that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Even though I may have been rather malnourished and eventually aversive to poetry myself, I now recognize poetry as a part of a beautiful feast of ideas I can lay out for my children. I suspect they will far surpass me in this area.

In fact, in addition to our scheduled poetry times each school day, I have made an effort to acquire some beautiful children's books of poetry that they can enjoy anytime. One of these is Eric Carle's Animals Animals, and I was surprised to discover when we reached "How Doth the Little Crocodile" in our Lewis Carroll book, that not only did my oldest excitedly exclaim that she recognized that poem from Animals Animals, but she also then recited the whole thing from memory. Later, that day, she composed a melody at the piano to turn the poem into a song too. I, personally, found Lewis Carroll poems to be a bit too goofy and satirical for my taste, and by the end of the term, I was kind of regretting that choice. The kids, however, loved the Lewis Carroll poems! 

This year, I purchased the kindle version of Ambleside Online's poems for Year 2 rather than trying to find appropriate books by each poet. Today, we read a poem by Walter de la Mare that I can only begin to guess its meaning. I'm more comfortable with that now though. I may not love each poet. I may not fully understand each poem, but I'm starting to recognize the value of poetry. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to grow alongside my children in this.

I may not do much with poetry on school days. In fact, some may think I really do nothing at all with it, but I'll keep doing my little nothing every day now.

How I'm Teaching Spanish (without actually knowing Spanish myself)

Not only is foreign language a recommended component of a CM homeschool, but I believe it to be a worthwhile pursuit for anyone. In fact, I wrote an essay about it in high school; I signed up for my University's very first Spanish course ever offered; and I went to study at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico for a month. Sadly, I have forgotten far more Spanish than I actually know. However, since I know more Spanish than any other language (besides English, obviously) and since we live in Texas, Spanish seemed like the obvious choice for our first foreign language pursuit in homeschooling. (Yes, I said "first." Students in Charlotte Mason's schools often became not just bilingual but multilingual! We'll see how we do with that.)

Last year, I purchased a Spanish book that I thought would mimic the methods used in CM schools the most.

Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and François employs Gouin series to teach language. When using Gouin series, you generally teach the kids a sequence of actions along with simple sentences that match the action. Once they know that sequence, you teach it to them in Spanish (or French or whatever language you're working on). You focus especially on the verbs, simplifying down to just the verb and coming back to the whole sentence, and you can add in questions to the students about what they are doing. We only managed to stick with this method for 2 weeks. It could be a lovely method, and as I flip through the book again today, I see many helpful additional exercises and recitations. However, to me, it felt contrived and stagnant. I quickly began to look for alternatives, and I discovered that there are questions about whether CM continued to endorse Gouin series as a primary foreign language teaching tool her whole career or not. (It's nice to see that even famous educators changed things!)

As I was pondering how to teach my 3 young children (who were 4, 5, and 7 at that time) Spanish, I realized that I actually knew a great deal about teaching young children a language. I used to be a Speech-Language Pathologist who worked with preschoolers! I knew about language development. I started thinking about common "tools of the trade," so to speak, in teaching language to youngsters. I started using Spanish nursery rhymes, simple Spanish children's books from the library, and songs. 

I stumbled across this used copy of Tortillitas Para Mama online (probably during a search for books by Barbara Cooney), and Brown Bear, Brown Bear is a classic book to use for early language learning!

The kids have especially loved this Spanish equivalent to "I'm a Little Teapot."

This route for teaching a new language felt natural and alive to me, much like a language should feel! However, it started to become more and more difficult to gather enough material to use for each school day this way. So, again, I started to look for something more.

Eventually, I stumbled across someone online talking about free, online Salsa episodes from Georgia Public Broadcasting that were designed specifically for teaching Spanish to kids from kindergarten through third grade. Eureka! There was a freely available resource that might work? I had to look into it! I discovered that there were 42 Salsa episodes (about 14 minutes each) that utilized traditional children's tales like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Each episode was fully in Spanish, providing an immersive approach, and Wyoming public schools had created a classroom curriculum guide for using these Spanish episodes that was also freely available online. It seemed like a great match for us. I cannot provide any sort of immersive or fluent Spanish experience on my own for my children with my limited knowledge of Spanish, but these episodes could do that. I watched one for myself and liked what I saw, so I decided to try it with the kids. It was a hit!

We began to watch one single episode 2-3 times per week, ending the week with an attempt to act out a scene or more from the episode. (The Salsa site provides a script for each episode along with the English translation of the episode.) The kids were hesitant to attempt saying any of the Spanish words after me at first during this re-enactment, but after a few weeks, they did this quite readily. I used the Wyoming guides to notice what key vocabulary was emphasized in each episode, and I started slipping in more Spanish words and phrases around the time we'd watch each episode. After a few weeks of this, I noticed the kids were starting to slip Spanish words into their talk with each other too. 

This year, we're still working our way through Salsa episodes. For the first couple weeks of this school year, we skipped the end-of-the-week reenactments as I felt we were all a bit rusty on Spanish, but we'll be incorporating that again starting tomorrow (hopefully). We also try to review the key vocabulary more formally once a week, do some kind of activity with the new vocabulary for the week (like having a tea party in Spanish to practice "por favor," "gracias," and "de nada"), review our Spanish songs, and work on a new Spanish song.  I imagine I'll squeeze some more Spanish or bilingual children's books in here and there too that fit with whatever we're learning that week.  I think these methods will hold us over pretty well for the remainder of this school year, and I figure I can see where we all stand then before trying to figure out what the next year's Spanish learning might look like. 

Here is a shot from the resource available from Wyoming that helps me keep track of the focus vocabulary per episode particularly.

This shows a page of script from the first episode with English in the left column and the Spanish to the right.

This sheet also came from the Wyoming resource. It was a good reminder to me that I could be giving directives in Spanish during our Spanish lessons!

This is an example of one of the pages I put together using clip-art found online to help us formally practice the past focus vocabulary.

A Retrospective and Prospective Look at Our Many Subjects: Intro

There are many homeschool bloggers that are more well read and more experienced than I am, and I've pondered before whether I really have anything worth typing out. In the end, I come to a few conclusions about that. 1) I blog more for myself than for others probably anyways. If I get something out of the experience, that's good enough. If others can glean something helpful from my ramblings, that's awesome. I feel the need to teach, but truly I am the one who learns the most in my time spent "teaching." 2) My perspective is unique as there is only one me. No one else has my exact same background, views, or circumstances. Each blogger is unique just as each person is unique. We can all still learn and grow from each other. I don't have to be the most knowledgeable, the most experienced, or the best writer in order for my writings to have value. 3) I have spent many, many hours searching through information and reviews on various resources, curricula, etc., and at times, I have come up nearly empty in my searches for specific information. Maybe I do have some experience that would help someone who is also searching for answers.  

In the spirit of all of that, I've decided to start a series of posts regarding the things we've used and done for our lessons last year and what we've chosen to use this year. There are some things I changed mid-step last year, and others that I wished I had changed. I imagine there will be more things this year that I will have to change. (I've already changed my geography plans!) However, I find information like that from others to be helpful too when trying to plan, so I'll include what I thought didn't work last year for us as well as what seemed to work perfectly.

As is often the case with me, I have a caveat before I really begin. Although I identify myself as a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, I have not read CM's original 6 volumes. I know this is frowned upon, and hopefully, someday, I will get around to that. I'm sure it would be insightful and instructive. I HAVE, however, spent a lot of time looking into what other CM homeschoolers and CM experts say about her philosophies and her methods. I'm not claiming to be an authority, but I do try to follow her practices as best I know how to at this time.

So, if you've happened to stumble across this post, is there any particular subject you'd be interested in hearing about first? Let me know!

First Week of School Weariness

First, let me say that I teach 4 brilliant and unique young women. Now, let me explain that as much as I see that as one of my greatest privileges, it is also one of my greatest challenges. Not all of these girls have been officially tested for their IQs or have even undergone any standardized test. However, those that have, have scored VERY high, and those who have not been tested run at the same pace as those who have been. In many ways, this is a blessing. In fact, our culture tends to have a pretty rocky relationship with gifted individuals, at times admiring them, at times mocking them, at times resenting them, at times ignoring them all together, largely because I think people see those with high IQs as having it easier than others in life. Although a high IQ can speed up the learning process (but not always), there are so many challenges involved for these individuals that are usually overlooked.

At times, I feel like this household could be a case study for the pros and cons of giftedness. Our first week back to school this last week was a prime example of some of the cons, which can also be the pros. It's complicated.

One Pro & Con: Gifted kids NEED to know.
When I worked in an early childhood school, there was a boy in one of the classrooms who was clearly very intelligent. At 5 years old, he could answer why the sky was blue and why a compass needle always pointed north (2 questions I asked him because I thought he'd have learned the answers at home and because the poor kid was in a classroom that was teaching other kids how to count to 5 or even how to follow a single step command like "sit"). I have clear memories of this kid irritating the teacher to the point of exasperation because he HAD to know. He had to know why the class was lining up in a certain order for recess. He had to know why the class schedule was different that day. He had to know why the teacher was teaching something different than the way he'd teach it. It seemed to me, as an onlooker, that the teacher felt the boy was being disrespectful when he'd question her on many things in the classroom. I could tell that wasn't his intention though. He just yearned to know.  My job in that classroom was largely to focus on the kids with speech and language disabilities in the classroom, but I made it a point to engage this boy when I could. I saw his need, and I saw how he was chastised for it. (By the way, I also sat in on his parent teacher conference, and I don't think the teacher ever gave any hint to the parents about her exasperation. They had no way to know how she responded to his questions.)

Now, I teach 4 young people who need to know. They need to know why we're studying out of a different book than we studied out of last year. They need to know why we have new activities. They need to know why our schedule is different than it was last year. They need to know why we do everything we do. Why is lunch ALWAYS the same thing!?  Why are we doing something different for lunch today?  Why do I need to hold my pencil this way? Why aren't we doing history today? Why are we doing history today when we didn't do it last week on this day? Didn't we study zoology last year? Why are we studying botany this year? What is the point of the science experiments this year? Do we get to do one today? The next day? The next? Why that day?

In general, I try to head them off at the pass. I'm pretty good at anticipating what might be questioned, and I tend to explain why we do what we do anyways. Unfortunately, this makes the first week of a new school year amazingly long. Each school day last week was nearly double our normal amount of time because EVERYTHING had to be explained. If I glossed over something, they caught it and asked about it. I try my best to be patient and to recognize this for what it is, curiosity and a yearning to understand, not disrespect. However, I'm going to be honest, last week was exhausting. I couldn't remember the last time teaching had made me feel that tired, and I'm betting the kids had a similar feeling. I ask a lot from these kids, in terms of attention particularly, and longer days were stretching them too. My youngest fell asleep in our van 2-3 times last week as we'd drive around town. She very, very rarely falls asleep in the van.

I was desperately wondering how much I needed to try to cut out of my lesson plans. What was making the school day so exhausting? My expectations? Their behavior? Just working out kinks the first week? I was left praying for things like "patient endurance" and "wisdom" because I knew I didn't have the patience or the endurance to keep going or the wisdom to be sure what to persevere through and what to change. Fortunately, I decided to collect some more data points by continuing largely as planned this week to see how that would go, and today was back to a more normal length for us. I didn't have to spend so much time explaining and getting buy-in for every subject and activity!

I labelled this need to know as a pro and a con up above. It's obviously a "pro" educationally in that these kids are self-motivated to learn and to learn pretty much everything. However, the teacher has to be willing and able to explain everything or to point the kid in the direction of self-learning on the topic without losing her cool. This can quickly become a "con" in a classroom setting. I know that at least 2 of the 4 kids I'm teaching have experienced problems in a classroom setting merely for being curious or ahead of her classmates. Fortunately for my children, I remember being this kid. I remember needing to know what happened in the rest of the history book we didn't finish during the school year (and thus reading it over summer vacation). I remember asking teachers questions or pointing out inconsistencies and getting backlash for it because it was seen as impertinent. I remember struggling to understand when it was okay to talk about something or to ask a question and when it wasn't okay. I even remember, my parents coming back from a parent-teacher conference and talking to me about how the teacher was concerned about what to do with me.  I was learning the material more quickly, remembering the details more readily, and pointing out spelling mistakes the teacher was making. This was in Spanish 1, and the teacher was a fluent Spanish speaker. I had never taken Spanish before. What was she going to do with a kid like that in a classroom setting? I learned to keep my mouth shut more. Really, that was one of the biggest things I learned in K-12. I needed to stop asking questions. I needed to stop talking about certain things or risk the consequences. I needed to stop asking about inconsistencies in what I was being taught. I needed to hide my grades from other kids. I learned all this despite the fact that, overall, I had incredibly concerned and sympathetic teachers. Eventually, I fear, I'm going to have to teach my kids that this is the reality of the outside world they will eventually enter. Before they go on to college, I will need to make sure they can navigate settings with less sympathetic teachers and more resentful classmates. However, that day is not today. For now, we can all grow together in how to ask questions and to seek to learn, to clarify, or to share knowledge while still being respectful of each other as humans and respectful of the authority of the teacher. My authority isn't challenged by their curiosity.

The Scripture that popped into my head last week as I was barely holding on to my patience was Galatians 6:9. "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." I'm going to be honest, in my exhaustion, I didn't really want to be urged to not become weary. In retrospect, when this verse came to me after I'd been praying and pondering about whether to change things or whether to persevere through the exhaustion as is, I probably could have taken this Biblical conviction as a gentle prodding to persevere rather than as a tough mandate to try to live up to. (I couldn't even remember the last half of the verse...just the first...I was that exhausted and probably under spiritual attack.) As I look at this entire section of Scripture, I see many applicable words for my situation.

"Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves...the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor...Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

I desire to discipline these children gently, to not succumb to temptation myself in moments when everything feels hay-wire here, to help carry the burdens of these children, to walk in humility, to have relationships with these children that allow us to share what we have each learned with each other, to not become weary in doing what is right, to take the opportunities before me to do good to these young people, and to respect that they already belong as full sisters in the family of believers.

In reading all that over again, I see that as a really tall order, a very high ambition. Fortunately, that chapter of Galatians ends with the following encouraging farewell, which I will take hold of and with which I will also end this post: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen."