Kamana and My Evolution from "Sage on a Stage" to "Guide on the Side"

Although it is Spring Break--at least for me due to UNM schedule--N. has been working on his Kamana. The weather has been so wonderful that he does the reading outside. He does a reading in the morning and practices an awareness exercise all day and then he journals about it in the evening. That's the Wilderness Awareness Trail. Then, every other day, he also does the Resources Trail--which involves researching in his North American Wildlife book, map study, listening to the Native Voices cd's, and more journaling. Both sets of journaling also involve detailed sketching of various organisms and field observation.

It is so wonderful to see N.'s absorption in his Kamana studies. He is no longer paying attention to whether he is "on break" or not. He has started managing his learning for himself, so that it is just another part of daily life. It is my challenge to let him alone and not intervene unless he requests help. That help usually involves me driving him to library or helping him find resources on the internet. It may involve solving technical issues with the computer. It is very rare that I am actually "teaching" him or even arranging his studies.

One of my professors in gifted education said that was important to use the Autonomous Learner Model so that students would become learners--guiding their own studies. And teachers would evolve, becoming "a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage."

This was very difficult to do in today's classroom. Even though I taught a gifted resource the last two years, the general educators who were in charge of my students' time were very jittery about the NCLB testing and wanted to know exactly how what I was doing was meeting grade level standards--even though my students were working above grade level by at least two years. If one of my kids goofed off during computerized testing and got a poor score on even one question they were put on a "watch list" for an Academic Improvement Plan (AIP). This led to a lot of micromanaging of classroom performance and activities. The one thing missing was the sense of patience that is required of a good teacher. "Outcomes based learning" is not based on a year's work. It is about making each child produce every single day. And every single day there must be improvement. No one is to have a bad day, a lazy day, a sick day.

Good teachers know that this is not the natural rhythm of learning. People seem to need periods of intense activity followed by periods of rest and consolidation. People seem to need to explore sometimes and to focus sometimes and to just lie and look at the stars sometimes.

The type of education that is being promoted today is a system that does not take into account the organic nature of learning nor is it based on human reality. It is the factory model sine quon non!

And what I am realizing is how much my work in that system has turned me into someone who needs to see unrelenting progress every single day in order to feel that I am being accountable for N.'s home education.

And yet I know--somewhere deep down--that this is not the reality of deep learning.

So, I am biting my tongue and sitting on my hands a lot--just like a good midwife. I tell myself not to interfere in a natural process. That just as there is no textbook labor, so there is no "textbook" autonomous learner.

Sometimes I fail and then I see the consequences of my impatience. It usually sets us back for some time and I have to reconnect with N. and we both have to come back round to a place of trust in the process.

This appears to be more of a struggle for me than for N. He has been de-schooling himself unconsciously for some time now. I am somewhat behind in the process--having many more years of schooling to resolve. There is a lot of grief in the process. I find myself remembering all the myriad ways in which school deformed my learning and all that I lost in the process. And yet, I am also remembering all the wonderful ways my parents did guerilla learning with us--totally without plan. So it is a matter of getting back to that child that is buried deep within my adult self.

It is also a matter of observing N.'s instinctive knowledge of what he needs to learn and allowing that to be my guide.

This is hard when I let myself get in the way. And at the same time, it is easy and joyous and I watch it evolve.

This is the most fun I have had "teaching." Except that "teaching" is the wrong word. Now I am doing what I truly wanted to do in the first place when I decided to become a conventional "teacher." I am learning with a child. My child. And learning to know him--his heart, soul, and mind--is truly the most fulfilling experience I have had as his mother.

I am so full of joy that we started on this journey. It has certainly taken us somewhere other than I had planned. And that joy is constantly with me, running deep beneath the monkey-mind chatter that keeps me sitting on my hands and biting my tongue.

Turning the House Over

Spring Break for mom means one thing!

It is time to turn the house over for Pesach (Passover).

During Pesach, Jews cannot own leven (Chametz). So we "turn the house over" in order to remove chametz from the house. Of course, it would be impossible to get rid of it all so there is an escape clause in which after honest effort, one can declare any missed chametz to be ownerless as the dust of the wind.

I started my honest effort yesterday. I always start in the bedrooms and move toward the kitchen. This makes sense because the kitchen must be made kosher for Pesach last, since we have to eat while the house is being cleaned.
Above, you can see that I have stripped the bed and am ready to go at it! I got the master bedroom and the masterbath done before I took N. to Boy Scouts last night.

One cool thing is the bathtub is finally in!

Bruce and a neighbor completed the work recently.

I got a shot of Bruce putting in the faucet and the spray attachment. The guys had gotten the tub in before I got home that evening.

You can see that the tub is now in the hole in the tile where it was supposed to have resided before the Bar Mitzvah. You know what they say about "best-laid plans of mice and men..."

By the way, that little white triangular shape to Bruce's lower left is Zoey's tail. Nothing happens in our house without her presence--except vacuuming!


Yesterday when I finished cleaning and getting everything ship-shape, I took some pictures of the bathtub in place.


It will probably never look so good as it did after I finished the cleaning job. I really wanted to turn on that hot water, start the jets and add some muscle ache bath salts--and that was after the first day of cleaning. It was relatively easy work.

Today, I was planning to do my office and the hall and possibly start on the living room, but...

I walked into the laundry room, and the cat sand was filthy, and the laundry room was is general disarray. When I opened the cabinet to get out the soap, I realized that there were drips and drops of soap with borax powder and baking soda all stuck to the floor. And cat hair on the curtains, and...well you get the picture!


I couldn't let that go a day longer without going completely nuts. So I ended up doing the laundry room.

That little room took 4 hours. That includes, cleaning the table where the cat food is put, cleaning the cat-tree (If I knew how to card and spin, I could knit with that hair), cleaning the washer and dryer, vacuuming the lint traps, washing the curtains, vacuuming the ceiling corners, walls, and floor, cleaning the baseboards (I love Murphy's Oil Soap in the spray bottle--gotta get some more of that stuff), and washing the floors. Oh, and I washed the window and the screen. It looks great!

But I did a lot of bending, stretching, climbing, and sneezing. It was very dusty. So this afternoon, my bathtub looked even better!

Since N. is mostly working on Kemana, he did that but helped with the cleaning, too!

Yesterday, he cleaned the front porch and picked up litter from the yard. It is amazing what gets under the snow!

Today, N. groomed the dogs and kept them occupied outside. (The cats live in the laundry room in the daytime because Lily and the cats don't get along well without supervision). He also took out the garbage and learned about "elbow grease" since I don't use a lot of commercial cleaners.

He also decided today was a good day to cut back the purple sage and the desert lilac in the front dooryard. I think he might have done it with a samarai sword (wince) instead of the clippers...

Residual Anger

A rant!



I have been meaning to write on this topic for some time, but life has gotten in the way.



A few weeks ago, the lawyer for special education at our local school district gave a presentation in my Special Education law class. He talked about how to have your ducks in a row as a teacher so that parent due process hearings are decided in the district's favor. What he did not talk about was what happens to the child when parents lose the due process hearing, or the extremity of the difficulties that would lead a parent to actually go to court with the school district in the first place.



Background:

Our local school district is not particularly respected in our area. It is too big and does not handle money well. The latest issue is that money that was supposed to go to teachers and classrooms went to remodel a fairly new building the district bought--in order to provide posh executive bathrooms. (In the school I taught at, the teachers sometimes had to provide toilet paper for the staff and kids). Somehow, they could never get one of the john's working, so that many teachers had to go well past 4 hours without a chance to use the bathroom.



Another problem with the size is that the middle management does not listen to parents and the tax-paying public very well. One community activist in an area where the children were not learning to read finally told me that she was giving up. She said the middle-management would have to die off before effective change could be made. She ended up starting a charter school when the charter school bill was passed.



This is not to say that there are not good and caring teachers and principals--and even staff at the district office. But the problem with a system like this, is that the needs of the system become paramount over the original purpose for it, so that the good done by well-intentioned people is overshadowed.

End of Background



Anyway, back to the lawyer guy.

I asked a simple question. I asked if the district actually has a policy that says that a child may not be moved from one classroom to another for any reason. This is what I had been told when my son was in third grade. We had just moved into this school district from another, smaller and more responsive district. My son was an identified child with a disability, qualifying under IDEA for Speech Language Impairment. (we had recently learned that my son has AS, but in discussing eligibility with his neurologist, we all determined that SLI was a good eligibility for him until he was up for review in another year). I hand carried a copy of the IEP since I didn't want to risk waiting for the slow-turning of the beauracratic wheels. The head teacher duly called an IEP meeting. I went rather casually, because in the former district the goal was to work together to meet the needs of the child and I was regarded as another professional. At this first meeting, I was told by his teacher ( called Miss Snip to protect the guilty) that I really did not know my child, that she could do everything he needed and that the goal was to exit him from special education as soon as possible. (Miss Snip had known my son all of three weeks). I was not impressed. I provided the diagnostic information from N.'s neurologist, as well as the recommendations for his education. At the other school district he had been provided with Speech and Language services to deal with language pragmatics as well as with Occupational Therapy to deal with the physical difficulties he had with writing and with his extreme sensory integration dysfunction.



This teacher claimed he could write (true--but he was very slow and his hand tired easily) and that his sensitivities were due to poor parenting. The meeting became very adversarial--after all who was this little snippy girl who had known my son for three weeks to make these outrageous claims? Naturally, I was more diplomatic in my vocal response, but that's what I was thinking. We hammered out an IEP, finally, that included the clause that N. was not to be deprived of recess if he did not complete written work or for disciplinary reasons. Miss Snip did not like that at all! But she got her way on the matter of testing--he was to be tested in a large group instead of the small group that his previous teachers and therapists recommended. (Later, when he doodled a pattern into the bubbles of his answer sheet in the NCLB mandated testing she had reason to be sorry. After all, those tests were not about N,--they were about her (in)competence).



When I got home, I shared with N. what the accomodations on his IEP were so that he could advocate for himself. (I have always had an honesty policy with my kids about anything related to health or school). About two weeks later, I got a call from N.'s teacher. (I was teaching at a private school at the time, and my principal courteously took my class so I could respond. She thought the person on the other end sounded a wee bit upset). I picked up the phone to hear Miss Snip yell: HOW DARE YOU TELL N. WHAT IS ON HIS IEP! (Note: Actually, according to the federal IDEA legislation, the child is supposed to be a member of the IEP team unless there is an educational reason why that should not be so). She went on to say that she kept him in for recess because he had not finished a worksheet and a writing assignment and that he told her she couldn't do that because it was on his IEP. She accused me of damaging my child by even telling him that he had an IEP and that it embarrassed him in front of the other kids. (I guess she didn't read the material I gave her about AS). I mentioned that the IEP is a legal document that must be followed according to federal law and state regulations and that an excuse such as "I just can't do this" is highly unlikely to hold up in court.



After this encounter, I spoke with the Sp. Ed. teacher about moving him from her class. I was told that it was not their policy to do so because "then all the parents would want to move their kids." (I was thinking wow, this teacher must be really incompetent if all the parents want to move their kids). This started a year long struggle, during which my child was punished daily for his disability--a violation of federal law--while we had several IEP meetings and had to get advocates and finally had to threaten a lawsuit in order to get N. moved out of the Ditto Queen's room. (At one point, when N. did not finish a written assignment, she actually had him take it out to do at recess and put him on a bench to do it. It was a windy day and when N. dropped his pencil, he set the paper down to retrieve it, and the wind blew the paper away. My adult daughter went to pick him up and found him in the isolation corner. I really don't know how she thought that sending N. out into the wind to write when writing is difficult for him at a desk in a quiet classroom would improve his skills).

I was accused several times of being a bad parent, of not knowing my child, of using poor discipline (after all, I was actually on his side), of allowing N. to "use" his disability to get out of work, etc. etc. All of this from someone who was far less educated in any formal sense than I, clearly knew far less about efficacious interventions, and who had no idea of our home life or anything else about us. The parent advocate said it was one of the more difficult negotiations she had ever seen. I finally asked the principal, in the presence of the parent advocate, if I could see a written copy of the policy they kept refering to. Of course there was no such policy, as it would violate federal law to have such a policy. If a child with a disability is not meeting IEP goals, the school must find a way for them to be met. My son not only lost a year of education, he also became terrified of tests and began a several-year long writing strike. He is only now becoming confident of his abilities--this in a child who has tested in the extreme high range for cognitive ability.



Only now, after several years on damage control at school and the choice to remove him from school completely, am I really seeing the wonderful, smart, curious, goofy kid who is my son.



I explained (more briefly than here) to the lawyer at our class, that with all due respect--(which is not much)-- that a parent's concern is not with "winning" but rather with the soul and spirit of a child. I explained that parents do not want to sue--they only go to due process when no other solution can be worked out. After all, a suit can last for years, and the parents concern is that their child get an education. The district may have chance after chance to obstruct parents, but parents only have one chance with their child. I explained to this guy that I put up with accusations and name calling that could only be considered slander in order to try to advocate for my child. I ended by saying that I finally took him out of school in order to ensure that he reached his potential.



By the way, school does not exist to aid a child to reach his or her potential--you can read this for yourself in the Supreme Court Decision Board of Education v. Rowley. "Free Appropriate Public Education" does not mean what most of the tax-paying public thinks it means.



What is interesting in all of this is two-fold. One, I was amazed at the residual anger I felt about what had happened to us. It is really quite amazing that competent adults can be reduced to tears and anger by a school teacher with far less skill and education. I have still not recovered, despite the fact that I am a licensed teacher, and further I have graduate degrees in biology and in special education. (I have a small inkling from this of what it must be like to be poor, to not speak English well, to be a single parent, etc). And I am still very angry! (I know, it's not good for my blood pressure! Om! Om!).



Secondly, I learned something else when I said all of this to the lawyer guy. I got a round of applause from my classmates, most of whom teach special education in this district. Since I taught special education in that district for two years, I know what it was about. It was about all of the IEP meetings, teacher's lounge encounters and other unpleasant experiences that Special Ed teachers tend to deal with when they try to get the needs of their students met and meet contempt and resistance from general education teachers. It was about all of the times that Special Ed teachers are told by the general education staff that "you aren't a real teacher," "you have it easy" and "please get this child out of my classroom and out of my hair." It was about being part time at three different schools and being upbraided by a general education teacher because you "left early." I understood that round of applause when I heard it, but I was still surprised.



And I thought: We need to have a revolution in the schools--it is clear that these teachers know what is happening to kids and parents.



Unfortunately, the revolution will never come from classroom teachers. After all, how can a person who is not even allowed to go to the bathroom when s/he needs it going to make a break for freedom?



I think one reason so many good teachers leave the field after only a few years is that they come to realize that school systems are the bastions of petty empires and little power plays by people who have no power and get damn little respect. And they find themselves losing empathy for their students and they feel unable to do what they passionately wanted to do--spend time learning with kids. But some stay because they feel stuck, or they are close to retirement and have few options, or they don't know anything better--and some of these take it out on the kids.



There--got that off my chest.

Tomorrow I will get back to the wonderful life we have now--as N. takes more and more charge of his learning, and I have the distinct honor and great joy of really taking the time to know him for the wonderful, unique, smart, and spirited child he has become since being freed from the tutelage of the Miss Snips of the world.



Pictures tomorrow--I promise!



Oh, well--here's one for the road.

With a view like that up the road to feed the soul, why would you want to go back to school?

Sweet Shabbat

What a beautiful sunset! There is nothing like a beautiful sunset on a Friday night at the beginning of spring break! This was a beautiful beginning to a very sweet Shabbat.
Mid-terms are over, and I think I did well on both of them.

Last night, after watching the sunset, we got ready for Shabbat. The chicken had been roasting in the oven, the food was prepared. The table set, the wine poured. The challah warmed.

Shabbat evening is always a sweet, peaceful time. Everybody bathed, everybody dressed in clean clothes.

When the candles are finally lit, the peace of entering holy time settles upon us. We make the blessing over the candles, over the children, over the wine and bread. We talk, we laugh, we eat.

This week was especially relaxing for me, as it came at the end of a busy week of studying and writing exams. When Shabbat comes at the end of a particularly long and intense week, it feels really wonderful to let go of cares and concerns and step into the freedom of Shabbat. No work or worry for twenty-four hours. Rest.

I used to think it was redundant to be commanded to rest. I thought it was like being commanded to eat. Who needs to be commanded to do such a basic thing?

In these days of 24/7 everything, I see the wisdom of the commandment. Free people can stop one day in seven and spend some time human being instead of human doing.

Today, we took a nice walk with the dogs.
We went to the very special Bar Mitzvah of a friend and the son of friends.

There was time to spend outside in the afternoon.

Notice something funny about the picture? Yes--he's barefoot. Yes that's snow! It was 65 degrees when the picture was taken, but we still have a good deal of snow leftover from the many snowstorms. Our hill is a north-facing hill. So N. spent some time barefoot because of the warm weather.

He thinks he's a hobbit!

This evening, we ended Shabbat with the simple but beautiful ceremony Havdalah--which means separation.

In havdalah we say good-by to Shabbat with wine, sweet smelling spices and fire.

Here are some of our hands, as we look at the reflection of our nails in the flame.

The spices are in the little pomegranate that hangs on the candlabra.

Here is N., surprised by the camera, as he got ready to extinguish the flame in the sweet wine.

I don't know why he was startled, exactly, because these pictures were taken after we had actually concluded havdalah. We just lit the candle again for pictures when Shabbat was actually over.

Good-by sweet Shabbat!

"May the One that separates the holy from the ordinary make our children, our wealth, as plentiful as the sands on the seashore, as the stars in the heavens."

Tomorrow, I will start my normal spring break ritual.

It is time to start cleaning the house for Passover!

Next week, Shabbat will be a welcome rest from real physical labor.

Each Shabbat is different!

Midterms & Carnival of Homeschooling 63

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up over at Tami's Blog!

It looks to be very good, with articles about homeschooling in general, math, science, social studies, and more!

Check it out!

Unfortunately, I will be checking out the Carnival a few articles at a time during breaks in studying. See the molecule to the right? That's Serotonin. It is a neurotransmitter important to learning and memory--among other things.

I will rely much on serotonin for the rest of this week.

I just finished writing for two hours straight for my Special Education Law class. There was some information to remember about the purpose of law and human rights, but most of the test covered IDEA 2004 and two SCOTUS cases, which we had in front of us. I tabbed my statute in order to find information more quickly.
Now my hand hurts!





Unfortunately, I am not done yet!
I still have Neurobiology to go. That test is on Friday and there will be no notes or diagrams allowed.

And for this kind of class, you must know everything covered in the last 4 weeks of lecture.

Today, I spent some time reviewing G-Protein receptors (pictured to the left) and how they work.

Colorful, aren't they?

They are important in second-messenger signaling in the cell. A neurotransmitter attaches to the receptor outside the cell and this causes the receptor protein to change shape and release the alpha subunit of the G-protein, which in turn causes the phosphorilization of a protein kinase, and activates a cascade of messengers in the cell that can in turn activate a gated channel in the membrane, or activate or inhibit neurotransmitter vesicle movement, or even enter the nucleus and change gene expression.

So I remember something, but I've got to go back and memorize specific pathways and the conformation of specific protein kinases and so forth!

Somebody remind me of exactly why I am doing this to myself!

I have three full days of studying ahead of me before my Spring Break begins at 5 PM MST on Friday.

The Good Life

Don't you just want to lay down there with them?



Sometimes, I say to myself, wow, I'd love to just lay down there with them!

The daybed in my office has become Nap Central.








And look at these feline nappers!

They have a two story Napping Heaven!



We should only be so lucky.



In Israel, they have menuchat --a few hours in the afternoon when the shops close and people gather to eat lunch--the main meal of the day--with friends and family. Even school ends before lunch, with sports and music lessons and scouts after menuchat.



They say that "only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun."



Sigh! In America, only dogs, cats and babies take a daily nap.
Somehow, in our Puritan work ethic, we are missing out on the Good Life. (Capitalization on Purpose).



We will be taking a break from formal lessons this week. At least, I will. I have midterms tomorrow and Friday. No menuchat for the weary! N. is working on his Kamana. I will be a week behind him.

Chag Purim! Happy, Hilarious Holiday

Isn't this fun! Last night, after Shabbat, my daughter, MLC, and I got a pedicure and had fun flowers painted on our toes. It was the beginning of our celebration of Purim--the Feast of Esther. We decided to pamper ourselves a little just as Esther was pampered before she was made Queen of Shushan.

PURIM

by N.

Purim is the Feast of Lots. The word pur means "lots" in Hebrew. The holiday is called Purim because the evil Haman (Booo! Hiss!) cast lots to determine the day he would kill Mordechai, and all the Jews of Shushan. That day was the 14th of Adar. But Haman (Boooo! Hisss!) did not know that Queen Esther, the wife of King Ahashverus, was the neice of Mordechai and that she was a Jew. (Her name, Esther, comes from the Hebrew root for "hidden" and Esther was a hidden Jew in the court of Shushan). When Esther found out that Haman (BOOOOO! Hissssss!) had plotted to kill the Jews, she risked her life by coming to the king unsumoned, and she saved our people. The king then declared that on 14 Adar, Haman (BOOOOOO! HISSSSSSS!) would be hung from the gallows that he made to hang Mordechai on. And the Jews were allowed to fight back against those who had come to kill them.

This was all written in the Megillat Esther, the book of Esther, that we read on Purim. The Megillah ends with: "LaYehudim hayesa orah, v'simcha, v'sasson vi'ykar. And for the Jews there was light and joy, gladness and honor."

So on Purim, we celebrate that we won--for once! And we read the Megillah and drown out Haman's name. We sing and we eat Hammentashen--cookies shaped like Haman's hat!

THE END

(Back to you, Mom).


MOM's Part

Chag Purim is indeed a happy holiday! Tonight we will be going to hear the Megillah, the scroll of Esther. Purim is a hilarious holiday that comes at the tag-end of winter. It comes one lunar month before Pesach, Passover, and the preparation for Passover begins in earnest just after Purim.

Yesterday was Shabbat Zachor--the Sabbath just before Purim, which is called the Sabbath Remember! Yesterday the Torah portion that describes how Amalek attacked Israel from the rear as they were crossing desert lands in a mixed multitude. It is an act of great cowardice to attack the rear, where the women and children and stragglers are, rather than the fighting men at the front. We are told:

Remember what Amalek did to you on the road as you came out of Egypt- how he met you on the road and with no reverence for G-d, attacked all your stragglers in the rear, those who were famished and weary. Therefore, when the Lord our G-d grants you safety from your enemies, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do Not Forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19; Exodus 17:8-16)

It is said that Haman (may his name be blotted out!) is a descendant of Amalek and so when we hear the Megillah on Purim, we blot out his name. And we celebrate with hilarity because Purim commemorates and unexpected deliverance, for in the book of Esther, G-d is not mentioned. Esther is the hidden Jew and G-d is the hidden power for redemption.

The Megillah is read with it's own tune (trop) but it does not sound as joyous or hilarious as might be expected. Rather, there are echoes of the trop for Eicha, the scroll of Lammentations. This is because the Megillah is a story of galut, exile, in which G-d is hidden and Jews are vulnerable. That is why the deliverance is unexpected. We are reminded by the trop that although we were delivered that day, it was accomplished through desperate and courageous acts by Jews, without the presence of G-d made manifest. And we are reminded of the great cost of deliverance effected this way, and of the times when there was no deliverance because G-d is hidden.

So many Hamans, only one Purim.

But still we rejoice in our deliverance. But that rejoicing has a hard edge because since those days we have had to fight and struggle for our existance. That is why the holiday is hilarious rather than joyous.

Tonight, we will eat and drink and send out misloach manot, gift baskets to friends and to the poor among us.

Those of us not driving will drink enough wine or schnapps so that we cannot tell the difference between "Curse Haman" and "Bless Mordechai!"

We will defiantly sing: "Utsu-aytsah v'tufar! Dabru Davar v'lo yakum! Ki emanu-El!



"They have devised schemes but they have been foiled, they have made declarations [against us], but they will not be fulfilled, because God is with us! (Isaiah 8:10). "

But we will also sing the "Al-Hanissim" (For the Miracles) which is sung at Purim and Channukah:

Al hanisim, ve'al hapurkan, ve'al hagevurot, ve'al hateshuot, ve'al hamilchamot she'asisa la'avoteinu, ba'yamim hahem, ba'zeman hazeh.

"(And) for the miracles, and for the redemption, and for the mighty acts, and for the consolations, and for the battles that You performed for our ancestors, in those days, at this time."

For in these days at this season the people of Israel lives because of the mighty acts performed for us, by the courage given to many.