Why I Homeschool #1: Stability

I first started thinking about homeschooling for my future children while I was adjusting to my ninth school, during the third half of my 8^th grade year. Lest you think my ability to grasp fractions is not consistent with what you would expect of a Caltech graduate, let me elaborate.

If you attend school in the northern hemisphere, your school year begins in late summer, during the months of August or September, and ends in late spring, in May or June. If you attend school in the southern hemisphere, your school year begins in late summer, in late January or February, and ends in early summer, in time for a long Christmas break, so you can enjoy the traditional Christmas Day braai (barbecue, only more delicious) and pool party. There is no way of timing an international move between hemispheres in order to seamlessly transition from the end of one school year to the beginning of another. I ran afoul of this hemisphere transition three times.

I started formal schooling in Pretoria, South Africa. I attended Hatfield Primary for about 3 months until the end of the first term. We knew that before our upcoming move to Dallas we would spend some transitional time with my grandparents in Durban, so my parents sent me ahead to live with them and start second term in Durban in the hopes of easing the transition. It might have worked better if I hadn’t picked up head lice at my birthday farewell party the day before I left for Durban, and had to spend the entire first week out of school. I don’t remember if we stayed in Durban long enough to finish that term, but it didn’t matter when we arrived in Dallas – I had recently turned 6, and the fact that I was an early fluent reader whose other passion was math wasn’t enough for them to place me in second grade instead of at the beginning of first grade. I was on my third school, and (because universal kindergarten hadn’t caught on as thoroughly in 1986) many of my classmates had never attended school before.

2 schools later (having switched once because of moving to a new school district and once because of being admitted to a Talented and Gifted program), I finished fifth grade and we moved from Dallas back to South Africa. This time, when we switched hemispheres, the fact that I had been in a gifted program and had won several city-wide math contests and the school spelling bee was enough to advance me to the middle of sixth grade. We lived with my grandparents in Durban while my parents attempted to find jobs in Pretoria (school #6), and then moved to Pretoria once they succeeded (school #7).

The transition from school #5 to school #6 was probably the most shocking for me. The gifted program in Dallas had been a good fit academically, and although I was bullied, I had a best friend I loved. My teacher really cared about me as a person, buying me a gold-colored tiger pin “for good luck” before the Dallas-wide spelling bee and writing thoughtful responses to my journal entries. Segue to school #6: on the first day of school, when the teacher entered the room, the students all rose en masse and chanted in unison, “Good-mor-ning-Mis-ter-Shep-herd.” They remained standing until he told them to sit, which everyone did simultaneously. I honestly wondered if I was on the same planet as I had been a month before. On the second or third day of school was a spelling test. I knew that there would be an extra U in words like colour and neighbour, but didn’t know how many other variations there were until the test returned with TWO words marked wrong which I knew I had spelled correctly. I don’t believe this had ever happened to me before. Jewellery. Manoeuvre. Who knew?  In math, there was the unique beast known as the milliard – Americans recognize it as a billion, but the number South Africans refer to as billion is known in America as a trillion. And answering questions, particularly if you were new and the questions were hard, was a social faux pas, at least if you had been placed in the B class instead of the A class. (I’m not quite sure what the school officials were thinking there). My sense of alienation was profound. I didn’t replicate the mistake of knowing it all too soon in school #7, but making friends was still hard. Fortunately, the differences in math were merely cosmetic and it remained the constant friend it had always been.

School #8 marked the first time in my life I switched schools at the same time as everyone else, transitioning from the end of primary school in Standard 5 (7^th grade) to the beginning of high school in Standard 6 (8^th grade). This may be why I made 4 decent friends. However, I lost respect for most of my teachers, whose relationship with students was a stark contrast to my experience in Dallas. From calling us “mensies” (little people) to publicly (falsely) accusing me of theft as I climbed onto the bus after school, teachers at that school showed they were not to be trusted. The woman who taught my beloved math had less understanding of the subject than I did, and the geography teacher insisted that our solar system was on the left-hand side of the galaxy (see? In the picture?) and wouldn’t listen to my explanation to the contrary. That explanation was “backchat” – an unacceptable expression of disrespect. 8^th grade in South Africa finished and I was entirely disgusted with it, quite happy to escape to a place where most people wrote from right to left because it wouldn’t mean more of the same.

My 9^th school, thank God, was the last – I stayed there 4 and a half years. It was the American Community School of Amman, which meant a return to the American system and way of relating to teachers, though very few of them actually broke through my barriers of distrust. When I heard I was being placed in the middle of 8^th grade, I tried to argue – I FINISHED 8^th grade, for crying out loud! Will that year just not die? – but this way I would be the same age as the other kids, which seems to make the grown ups happy. Time to figure out what the new rules are.

I immediately made a best friend, a year younger than me, in French class. She had been the only girl in the class before my arrival, so it was almost inevitable that we’d hit it off. Katie was an army brat and I believe she had never lived more than 3 years in one place. I had spent 5 years in Dallas, so I was curious about whether her school tally might exceed even mine. It didn’t – she’d only attended 5, if I recall correctly – but that was because she’d been homeschooled for some of her school career. I remember feeling that the very idea was a revelation. Even if I grew up to move around the way my parents had, if I homeschooled, any kids I had wouldn’t have to deal with all those jarring transitions.

There are many more reasons I decided to start, and more reasons I continue, homeschooling my children, which I hope to address in future posts. But at its root I think stability is my biggest “why”, the reason I can’t conceive of any temptation, any life situation, that would make me willing to put any of my children in a brick and mortar school.

This has panned out pretty well. We haven’t moved as much as my parents did, but P14 would be in her 5^th school by now and E13 in his 4^th if we hadn’t been homeschooling. We have used Sonlight Curriculum for history, Bible, and literature every single year since P14 was 3, and although we’ve used other curricula for other subjects, my teaching philosophy and ways of interacting with my children haven’t fundamentally changed. I certainly haven’t switched up spelling rules and math terminology on them! Since they study the same books, my children have a lot in common, not sharing my experience of only really relating to my 2 years younger brother once I hit high school and we started having had the same teachers and classes. All my observations tell me that my children are happier than I was, and I am thankful for the stability homeschooling has offered them.

Do you homeschool your children? What is your biggest "why"? Let me know in the comments!

Who Controls the Weather?

Sometimes, I pray, and don’t see obvious results for a long time. But then, some days are like yesterday.

First, I have to say that 3 John 1:4 is absolutely true. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. E13 was baptized at the end of May, and he and his sister immediately put their faith into practice by attending CYIA. Christian Youth in Action is a 2-week camp held by Child Evangelism Fellowship on Moloka’i, training Christian teens in how to share the good news about Jesus with children. The first week was intensive training, followed by a week of leading 5-day clubs in several locations on Moloka’i and explaining our common human problem and God’s solution through Jesus. 

Back on Oahu, last week P14 and E13 participated in a club closer to Honolulu. Since we live almost an hour away (more when there’s traffic), I dropped them off each day and then usually hung around a nearby park or library for a few hours with the 3 younger boys until they were done. We prayed that 20 children would come to the 5-day club, and at least once there were indeed that many children. I was also praying for this week’s 5-day club, which I am hosting.

Hosting a 5-day club is not complicated. You need to secure a location, which in our case was the park down the road – I just phoned and checked that they were okay with me setting up a shade tent and attracting children to it. You also need to provide snacks, and do some advertising. I taped up flyers all over the neighborhood and sent an announcement to our online Nextdoor neighborhood group.

On Monday, I woke up and saw rain. It was drizzly and humid most of the morning, so we prayed, and God provided clear skies and bright sunshine during the club. Other than my 3 little boys, there were 3 children from another family that we know fairly well. I mentioned that the weather was an answer to prayer, and some of the children suggested that I ought to have prayed that it wouldn’t be so hot!

Monday night was stormy. In fact, we heard thunder, which has happened about 4 times total in the 4 years we’ve lived here. It was pouring buckets when I woke up yesterday morning, and the ground was soaked. Our ladies’ Bible study group (CBS) meets on Tuesday mornings at the beach for prayer, but the meeting was cancelled due to rain and thunder, so I texted everyone asking them to pray for a few dry hours in the afternoon. Then, since we would be missing our prayer meeting, the children and I had a little prayer meeting of our own in our living room. We prayed about the rain, and I specifically requested that it stop and not start up again until after 4:30. One of the children added a request that it wouldn’t be too hot, either. And we asked for more than 6 children to come.

It rained on and off throughout the morning, but by early afternoon the rain seemed to be tapering off, with occasional drizzle. By the time we started setting up the tent at 2:15, the sky was starting to clear. This time, though there were patches of blue sky, we set up under a shady tree and it wasn’t quite as hot. Everyone was much more comfortable. And another family I hadn’t met before arrived, saying they’d seen the posters around the neighborhood, so although one of the other kids was missing, our total ended up at 7 children, 8 if you count one who showed up briefly and left. (7 is more than 6. I need to pray more boldly.)

As club was starting to wind down, I noticed that the clouds were gathering. At 4:30, we started packing up, and by the time we were taking down the tent at 4:35, it started drizzling. You’d think the King of the Universe had been listening to our pleas for practical mercy so we could share his glory! Throughout the afternoon, the rain intensified, until by 6:30 it was coming down so hard that our back yard flooded. This has never happened before. All 5 kids went out and waded around in it.

So what are the odds that, on a day that started and ended with torrential rain, we would get dry weather at precisely the time and place we needed it? It isn’t a question of odds – it’s a question of who is really in charge.

Okay, Lord, since you’re in charge and you want children (and people who used to be children) to hear about you, I’m adding to my request. Please give us dry weather for 5-day club the rest of this week, and bring 30 children to club by Friday! 

 E13's baptism. Having the Pacific Ocean just down the road from church is convenient!

E13 (in orange shirt) climbing onto the plane to Moloka'i. P14 went in a different aircraft.

5-day club on Tuesday. See how dry the ground is! E13 is enthusiastically teaching the motions to the song while P14 and a friend hold up the words.

Blog Reboot

What do whaling, lightning conductors, and family moves between Norway and South Africa have in common?

I have neglected this blog for a few years, but I now have a specific goal in mind and plan to post more regularly. As far as I know, the best way to improve one’s skills in any area is to spend time practicing those skills. In this case, the skill in question is writing. I have done little writing in the past few years, but it is absolutely necessary if I am to achieve the goal that explains the question with which I opened this post. I want to write a book about my great-grandfather.

For those of you who have ever asked me where I am from, I may have given the super-truncated story (Everywhere. How about you?) or the brief story (Well, my dad is South African, my mom’s Norwegian, and I grew up all over the world). However, if you have appeared truly interested, I may have given the long version, which begins with my mom’s maternal grandfather.

My great-grandfather was a sailor. In fact, he worked as a whaler for much of his life. He sailed tall ships and even became a captain. On one occasion (though the family members I have asked aren’t in consensus about exactly when), he was shipwrecked and, for insurance purposes, wasn’t allowed to rescue anything of value from the ship, but he hid his sextant under his jacket when they left the ship because it was a good one. At some point he heard that in Durban, South Africa, sailors with experience on tall ships were in demand to brave the heights and install lightning conductors on buildings. He moved his family to South Africa, and my grandmother grew up there.

Now, when she was old enough, my grandmother wanted to spend some time in Norway, where she had been born. While she was there, she met my grandfather. They married and moved to South Africa (where my mom was born), but I guess my grandfather missed snow and people who spoke Norwegian, so they moved back to Norway when my mom was 4. Mom grew up in Norway. However – how’s this for symmetry? – when she was old enough, my mom wanted to spend some time in South Africa, where she had been born. While she was there, she met my dad. They married and had me, but by that point Dad had joined South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs. As a result, in between stints in South Africa, I grew up in exotic locales like Tel Aviv, Israel, Amman, Jordan, and Dallas, Texas.

The “where are you from” question has always made me a little uncomfortable, because of course there is no simple explanation. A flippant response I heard another person offer to that question may be my most satisfactory answer: “I’m from my parents.” And they, of course, are from my grandparents and great-grandparents. This is the inherent interest in genealogical research. But my great-grandfather was such a fascinating character that I want to focus on him. He’s also the one who started my family’s wandering habits, so I’m curious about what drove him. Right now, while my mom and many of her older cousins are still available to question, is a better time than, say, 5-10 years from now when my homeschooling tasks may be less demanding but there may be fewer people remaining who knew him.

So, I am re-booting this blog. My intention is to post once a week on a variety of topics. Some will involve homeschooling, some will involve my research on topics pertaining to my great-grandfather’s biography, some may contain musings on social or political issues. By writing on a regular basis, though, I hope to hone my skills and to keep on track with this project. Constructive comments on my writing style or content are welcome.

Praying Consistently

For years, I struggled to pray with any consistency. I knew I ought to, and felt guilty, and tried various approaches, none of which stuck. I wanted to pray for certain people, such as missionaries and government officials, and I'd start, do it for a few days, but then forget. Before I was married, I made a big list of everyone I wanted to pray for, and went through the whole thing every morning - for about 2 weeks, when going through the same list in the same order became so boring and time-consuming I just couldn't get through it. After getting married, life encroached and my prayer life really slipped. I particularly wanted to pray for my husband and all my children daily, but I'd get sidetracked (repeatedly) and forget who I'd been praying for before the distraction occurred. I found it easy to commit to daily Bible reading, but prayer tended not to happen, or at least not much. But now, I finally have a system that, while not perfect, has helped me achieve more consistency in prayer than I've had at other times in my life, and I want to share it in the spirit of possibly helping others be more consistent in prayer, too.

The first part of my system consists of a set of 6 bracelets. I got the idea from a magazine article I read (by a mom with more children than I have!) and it's my "bare minimum" daily prayer goal: pray for my husband and 5 children daily. I have a bracelet for each person, with names spelled out in alphabet beads. I used white alphabet beads and blue and purple glass beads, which match pretty much everything I wear, so I can wear the bracelets daily. In the morning when I get up, I put all the bracelets on my left wrist. Then, even if it's a crazy busy day, I can pray for one person at a time as I do other tasks. When I've prayed for someone, I move the bracelet with their name on it to my right wrist. Sometimes the little ones will keep me on task, as E3 demands that I read the names on each bracelet (serving as a reminder of who is still on my left wrist).

The second part of my system involves a set of note cards. I started making them after buying and trying to use the book The Busy Mom's Guide to Prayer, by Lisa Whelchel (available from Amazon). The book guides you through 20 days of prayer in each of six categories: Praise, Self, Husband, Children, Personal Influences, and Reaching Beyond. A different aspect of each category was featured each day (for example, in the Husband category, different days might have you praying for his priorities, role as husband, role as father, or work). Something particularly helpful about the layout was that for each day's prayer in each category, a Bible verse was quoted, so that you could be sure you were praying out of the truth of God's word. However, note that I said "trying to use". There were items - particularly in the "Personal Influences" and "Reaching Beyond" sections - that really didn't apply to me (such as associate pastor, which our church doesn't have, or coworkers, which homeschool moms kind of don't have by definition), and things that I really wanted to be reminded to pray for more than once every 20 days (such as missionaries and friends). I also simply couldn't make myself pray the scripted "Praying the Word" prayer that followed each Scripture reference - a conversation with God in which my part is already written down for me is not appealing! So I took the basic idea and adapted it to my needs. I took a set of 4x6 note cards and cut them in half (resulting in cards that are a comfortable size to hold in my palm), with some of the halves having a part that sticks up higher than average so I can write a category name on it. I included some of the book's categories (Praise, Self, and Husband), and added some of my own, including a separate category for each child, and expanding "Personal Influences" and "Reaching Beyond" into categories including Missions, Ministries (Christian activity within the USA), Persecuted Church, Extended Family, Local Friends, Other Friends, Leaders, and Thanksgiving. On the basic cards, I wrote out verses that serve as a launching point for prayer. As I do my personal Bible study, sometimes a verse stands out to me and I think, "I should pray that for myself, or for Ari or one of the kids," so I copy it onto a note card and add it to the deck. I have verses for Praise, Self, Husband, and each of the kids, and then just names of specific people or organizations in the rest of the categories. As I receive updates from people, I can jot down specific prayer requests on their cards. Even with all those categories, if I spend a minute or two on each one it only takes about 30 minutes, which easily fits into the time I spend running 3 mornings a week. As I pray inspired by each Scripture reference, I move the card to the back of its category (or, in the case of the children, to the back of the next child's category), so my prayers are different each day and I don't get bored. It makes the prayer more of a conversation, as I'm hearing God's voice through his word and responding in prayer. Over the course of a few weeks I'm praying for everyone and everything I want to, I'm praying based on the Bible, and I'm staying on task. I'm still hoping to move more toward "praying without ceasing" - but at least I'm no longer "ceasing without praying"!

What's neat is that, by being more consistent in prayer, I can see specific answers to specific requests I've made recently. Ari and I had been concerned about one of our children having a constant sense of grievance - nothing was ever good enough for him. As I prayed for that child daily, I asked God to work a sense of gratitude in his heart. A little over a week ago, he came up to me, and said, "There are big happinesses that happen every year, like Christmas and my birthday, and little happinesses that happen every day, like yummy food, and tiny happinesses that happen every second, like having a shadow." It was so encouraging to see his attitude change as a direct result of God's work in his heart!

What have you found helpful in seeking to be constant in prayer? Let me know in the comments!

First 5K

This morning, E11 and I ran our first 5K. Ever since he started, a few months ago, running the equivalent of a 5K every morning, he's been wanting to run in an official race. But I was reluctant to get up before the crack of dawn to go to something an hour's drive away in Honolulu, at least for his first race ever. Then I saw that the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center was holding a 5K starting at the Waianae Mall, just a 10 minute drive from our house, and that it was a run/walk, not just a race.

Since getting a smart phone back in May, I've discovered a number of useful apps, one of which is a run/walk timer. I like the idea of running, but I have a special-needs left knee. (That's what happens if your car hits a tree at freeway speed and God is super-gracious to you and you don't die, and your husband and unborn baby are perfectly fine, but pieces of your kneecap are visible through the gaping hole in your knee). Almost 14 years after our car wreck, I still have metal in my knee and occasional pain after long walks, so I really didn't think I could run non-stop for any significant distance, let alone over 3 miles. I've tried running a few times since the accident, but always ended up stopping for one reason or another (pregnancy, usually, but the knee pain was annoying too). However, I stumbled upon this site, http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/run-walk/ and thought it might be worth a try. When E11 started his daily long runs, I started adding very easy runs to my walks a few times a week. I started with 10 seconds of running for every 50 seconds of walking, and at that pace I had no knee pain at all. Then I increased the run times and decreased the walk times by 5 seconds each every week or two, which was a gradual enough increase that I am still not experiencing pain when I run, and I'm doing 30 seconds of running and 30 seconds of walking. So when I saw the WCCHC 5K run/walk, I decided to go for it: I didn't expect to place, but with lots of walkers I certainly wouldn't come in last, and was curious as to how well I could do.

E11, of course, was hoping to perform well. He said that if he could be in the top 10 in his age group (12 and under), he'd start working toward a 10K. The race course was to a certain point and back again, so as I was run/walking toward the turnaround point I started to see the fastest people on their way back. I kept a mental tally of how many of them looked younger than teenagers, and the third boy in that category was mine! So I knew, probably before he did, that he was likely to get a medal. The course was hilly, starting out with a downhill (which meant an uphill toward the very end), but it wasn't as steep as the street I've been run/walking up and down on days I run, so I didn't feel completely spent at the end. I felt the "runner's high" during my walk breaks, and even toward the end I was eager to run again after each walk break. I ran 3 miles last Saturday and it took me 37 minutes, but with the less-steep hills I completed the 5K in only 31:25. E11 had been waiting for me long enough that he was no longer out of breath, and when the times for the first 50 finishers were posted I looked only at his results: 24:51, fifteenth overall, 1 second faster than the fastest female racer, and 3rd in his age group. I didn't realize I had finished in the top 50 overall until they posted the next page of results and I saw the 51st finisher had been slower than me. I actually came in 45th overall and 6th among women 20-64 years old (and the 15th female to finish - there are some fast teen girls out there). So without even expecting to, I met E11's criterion for deciding to start working toward a 10K. And you know what? This was so much fun, I think I'm going to do it!

Here's the young man, in the blue shark shirt and blue shorts. The envelope contained his prize: two $5 gift certificates to the farmer's market just behind me. While I looked for fresh produce for this week's meals, he bypassed the technicolor popcorn and lilikoi haupia (passionfruit dessert) and went straight for a coconut and a dragonfruit.