Odd Bits: Spring Birds, Audiobooks, and More

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American White Pelican, courtesy WikiPedia

I've always had a hard time knowing what to do outside, but counting birds for the eBird project has become a favorite. So far this year I've seen ten species (and I didn't hardly peep a foot outside in January, because it was so miserable), and but surprise was that there are already American White Pelicans in the area this year. I looked them up, and they're not common in our area until closer to April, though it's not unheard of to see them around the area now, either. Pelicans are cool. They have a really distinct way of circling around overhead, always near our river. I like watching them; this year we'll have to see if we can't get down to the waterfront while they're there so we can watch some of the other things they do. Pelicans are fun to watch.

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There's some cool free audiobooks out there. LibriVox has several of our favorites, such as Children of Odin, and The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Before Achilles. Those are some that the kids go back to over and over. This week, I found another free one that I want to have a listen to: Lafayette and the Revolution, about how a French Marquis came to be fighting in the American Revolution.

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So, NASA's been finding planets around other stars for a while. I even had an app on my phone for a while that would show me things about them, before I deleted it in favor of language learning stuff. Now, they've found some cool ones: planets that might have water. And they're not even that far away. I need to figure out where Aquarius is, because that's where NASA says this Trappist system is located, and it'd be cool to know how to stare in their general vicinity.

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The kids invaded and nabbed my electrical tape to enhance their sticks. The big guy has created a pilum; the small two immediately copied him, but theirs are swords, they tell me. It's really quite remarkable what a little electrical tape can do to a stick. And the things they come up with in "play"; I certainly didn't tell them to recreate ancient weapons. I just said to go outside to play! I'll be interested in seeing how long these stick around: they are carefully stacked outside the door, after I told the kids that their "weapons" were not allowed in the house.

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I'm a Constitutionalist, and I learn foreign languages for fun: I believe that words matter. They have meaning and how you put them together is important. But it still sometimes catches me by surprise to see how big a difference it makes to change the structure of a sentence, even just a little bit. With a little bit of mindfulness, we can avoid teaching (or at least avoid reinforcing) ugly stereotypes by tweaking the way that we speak about groups of people: The "zarpies" example in this article is particularly interesting. Reading that article made me think of the research on teaching colors that I read a while back - the one that explained why color is so difficult to teach, and why kids often will take a lot longer than you'd expect to really get the hang of it. Turns out that some linguistic mindfulness will go a long way here, too.

In Process of Time

There's this interesting phrase: in process of time. It's used a couple of times in scripture.

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And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
 -Genesis 4:1-3 (emphasis added)

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Eve had a baby: Cain. And as babies do, he grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he became a man. And once he was a man, he took up farming, and the land produced. In process of time; not all at once. Not in a hurry.


Here's another one, from Exodus:

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And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. 
-Exodus 2:23 (emphasis added)

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It doesn't sound like anything happened to hasten the king's end, just he came to the end of his days. In process of time. Like happens to most of us. We grow old a little at a time, slowly, almost imperceptibly, not all at once.

Righteousness grows, bit by bit, little by little, line upon line as well. You can see that in the City of Enoch:

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And it came to pass that the Lord showed unto Enoch all the inhabitants of the earth; and he beheld, and lo, Zion, in process of time, was taken up into heaven.
-Moses 7:21 (emphasis added)

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Lately, I've been pondering how "all things testify of Christ", and watching for it, trying to see how it happens. It's so easy to walk past so many good things, to not see the forest for the trees. I want to be able to see. So I've been watching. I've been thinking about this idea of "in process of time" -- not in the process of time, it never says that in the scriptures. It's always, "in process of time".

I read an article a while back (sadly, I've lost the link and can't find it) about how hard it is for city people - people like myself - to understand how things can improve over time. The author pointed out how cities degrade, properties devalue. The old television doesn't gain, it loses over time. The couch, the television, the car, all the trappings of urban and suburban life are like that. They age, they wear out, they get thrown away. The process of time is a process of degradation and decay, at least in the urban environment.

But in nature, it's not like that. Nature is different, and suggests different lessons.

The sapling grows up into an apple tree, and, in process of time, it starts bearing. It becomes more beautiful, more useful as it ages.

The chick grows to a Robin and fledges, and then the cycle renews with another generation of songbirds.

Seeds go into the ground, and in process of time, we have tomatoes, peas, and other delicious things.

Green apples will ripen in time.

Good things come to those who wait.

Time leads to growth, to maturity, to ripeness.

It's an interesting thing to ponder.

Whose Job Is It?

Education. Whose job is it, anyway? We talk about it in ways that suggest the responsibility lies with the adults:

"Education is important to me, so I am making sure my kids get the best education possible."

"I've decided to educate my kids at home."

"We bought a house in a good school district so that the kids will get a good education."

"My parents made some significant sacrifices for my education."

Certainly, parents do have a responsibility to provide ample educational opportunities for their children, but I wonder if we underestimate the importance of the child in the process when we talk this way. I think there is some danger in thinking education to be a thing that happens to a person (and children are people), rather than a thing they actively participate in and pursue.

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Young people increasingly need to be learners who act and thereby receive additional light and knowledge by the power of the Holy Ghost—and not merely passive students who primarily are acted upon.
-David A. Bednar

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I was reading this lovely article from Charlotte Mason Help, and pondering what they said about making lesson plans and who the education belongs to. That's what made me think about my question: Whose job is it? I recently joined a couple of groups that study Charlotte Mason's methods. One of the things I've seen them talking about repeatedly is "spreading a feast." They aim to create the conditions for kids to receive ample instruction on a wide variety of topics. But in the end, no matter how beautiful the feast, it is the child who determines how much goes in: they must act. If they are simply present to be acted upon, then most of that feast will go unabsorbed. It is the activity of the mind that makes learning sink in, and stay with you.

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Too much learning, without requiring any effort on the part of the student. The teacher works too hard to use all her training and experience, but the student does nothing. If education is made too easy, then students are robbed of the active mental challenge of learning.
-Mr. Paterson, quoted by Charlotte Mason

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I think I have been letting Hero skate by too much, and expected too little from him. I forgot that education is work, and that there is value in the work itself, as well as in the learning. So, when there was pushback, I backed off. I had been reading about the value of play, and unstructured time --and there is a lot of value there-- but I went too far, and now it's time for a correction. He needs free time to play, it is true, but he also needs the challenge of work, and at almost 8 years old, he can handle more than what I've been asking for. When he puts forth his own effort, he qualifies himself for blessings from the Lord that simply aren't available when he is a passive passenger in the experience. In this, as in so much else, we need balance.





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White Space

I posted an article about the benefits of allowing kids to be bored from time to time. (You've seen my page, right? I'm posting all the interesting articles I find but don't have time to blog about.)

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The academic, who has previously studied the impact of television and videos on children's writing, said: "When children have nothing to do now, they immediately switch on the TV, the computer, the phone or some kind of screen. The time they spend on these things has increased.

"But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them."

It is this sort of thing that stimulates the imagination, she said, while the screen "tends to short circuit that process and the development of creative capacity".

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I loved the comment that Wendy made:

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"White space is not your enemy."

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Photo credit.

White space, or negative space, is an art concept. It's the empty, quiet area in artwork, and often adds impact. I ran into it in high school when I was working through the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. They had some of these cool vase-face things.
The vase is the "positive" space, the profiles in the black and white picture highlight the white or negative space. If you look closely you can see them on the sides, mirroring each other. I used to draw the vase-faces as doodles on my school work pretty regularly, and there's a section of my sketch book that has quite a few of these. In art, leaving "white space" can increase the impact of what you do, which is the effect I was going for in this scrapbook page I did a while back:

Wendy made white space into an extremely effective metaphor for life. Structured activities are wonderful. Structure gives organization to our days, and that is something that children thrive on. They like routine. I like routine. I'm most productive on days when our routine is functioning well. But, like the piece of art that has too much in it, a life filled too full looses focus and effectiveness. Children need white space, where they have to invent their own games. Adults need white space as well. It is in the white space of our lives that we ponder, and probe the profound. It is in the white space, and the things we choose to do when we don't have to do anything at all that we discover what is truly important to us.

You can learn a lot about yourself in your white space. But, if life is so scheduled and hectic that there isn't any there, then what are we denying our children? From the article:

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"But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing the world around them."

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Don't fear the white space.

Just Swinging

I learned quite a bit the other day in a visit to the park that took less than an hour. In addition to learning about photography, I relearned the value of doing Nothing.



I'd planned to show him the creek I found. It's got fish and frogs and I was sure he'd love it. Not so much. He wanted to swing. So we did that, on an oldschool swing with a board, rather than the flexible ones you usually find. He thought it was pretty cool. Pretty soon, he's discovering things. Like, he makes wind when he swings, and the wind can push the leaves out of the way. Like, when he swings the stick at the leaves, it makes a cool noise.



Raven did Nothing for a while too. Monkey suggested that he'd like a stick to play with. Raven appeared to enjoy it, and tried to grab some stuff on the ground, though he's not quite that coordinated yet.

I believe Miss Mason calls the art of getting out of the way of our children's learning "Masterly Inactivity," but really, I think Nothing pretty much sums it up.

Weekly Wrap-up

I'm noticing a trend, as I do these weekly wrap-ups: every week, I look back on the week and feel like it was very busy. This week was no different, though we had some different sorts of activities going on! I had lots of frosting stuff to do, between the class I am taking, and the class I taught this week. I am pleased to say that we did a good job on school too, in spite of all the craziness this week. We almost got healthy this week. In fact, my husband and I are both doing much better. But Monkey, poor little sausage, caught the fever thing that's going around. I'm having a hard time deciding if it's influenza or a sinus infection, though now that it's the weekend and I can't take him in until Monday, I'm leaning toward the sinus thing. So there may be a trip to the doctor in the near future for us. When I called thinking that it might be the influenza, they told me that I should keep him home and just treat his symptoms. Ugh. It'd sure be nice to get all three of us healthy again!

Phonics: Nothing fancy this week, just keeping up the blending practice. We used just a piece of paper I'd folded in quarters one day. I wrote the letters on it while we snuggled - we're working on 2 letter blends with short /a/ - and then helped Monkey "read." I knew his attention was done when he wanted my pen, so then he colored all the letters I'd just written. We practiced blending the syllables on my shirt the other day. (It had Grumpy the Dwarf on it, and said "Grumpy" in big fancy letters.) He asks all the time, "What does ___ start with?" We're having a good time with reading. Hopefully in this next week I can get organized enough to get some of our games out again. I can see that he could still use some extra practice telling b from d. We also played with our food:



Math: We did our math with food. We spent a lot of time playing with food this week. It worked. Monkey cracked eggs and counted them up as we went along a couple of times. We also got Anno's Counting Book in the mail, which is such a fun book! It has no words at all, only numbers on one side of the pictures, and cubes that look like base-10 blocks on the other side of the pictures, and a beautiful watercolor scene in the middle. We read it several times, but I was too busy to get my Math Expressions book out and figure out what the "official" use is supposed to be. I think the first thing you do with the book is just read it anyway. Not that it matters. We would likely have just read it regardless. It's a great read. We had a lovely time, all snuggled up and counting. This is going to be a fun math program.



Nature Study: We didn't do tons. I did get him to a park early in the week. I turned him loose out of our truck and then sat back to see what he would do. He ended up noticing several different kinds of seeds and doing a lot of seed crunching. I took some pictures, but I don't know what's happened to them. It was really laid-back. I was thinking about Masterly Inactivity at the time, and I felt like it worked beautifully, though we didn't have time to stay as long as either of us would have liked.

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But we must get clearly into our heads what we mean by masterly inactivity. Carlyle's happy phrase has nothing in common with the laisser allez attitude that comes of thinking 'what's the good?' and still further is it removed from the sheer indolence of mind that lets things go their way rather than take the trouble to lead them to any issue. It indicates a fine healthy moral pose which it is worth while for us to analyse. Perhaps the idea is nearly that conveyed in Wordsworth's even more happy phrase, 'wise passiveness'. It indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action. But there is, from our point of view at any rate, a further idea conveyed in 'masterly inactivity.' The mastery is not over ourselves only; there is also a sense of authority, which our children should be as much aware of when it is inactive as when they are doing our bidding. The sense of authority is the sine quâ non of the parental relationship, and I am not sure that without that our activities or our inactivity will produce any great results. This element of strength is the backbone of our position. 'We could an' if we would' and the children know it––They are free under authority, which is liberty; to be free without authority is license.

-Charlotte Mason

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Memory: Monkey is doing so well with this! I forgot to do a thing with Who Has Seen the Wind?, but we've been very consistent with the Bible verses we're doing. He's getting quite good at saying Romans 8:16, and we added 2 Timothy 1:7 this week. I'm hoping that the 2 Timothy verse will help him overcome his fear of the dark, which is why I chose that one. It's too soon to tell for sure how effective that's going to be, but I'm hopeful.

Art: I was reminded what the difference between product-oriented art is (I want this to be beautiful) and process-oriented art (This is enjoyable; let's do it some more!) We had some of both, though it was mostly me worrying about my product, and Monkey enjoying his process. Not surprisingly, this mostly worked itself out in food this week, though I did make my first contribution to the Giraffe Man's Giraffe Collection. This was another place where we saw product vs. process in our art this week. My giraffe picture is hung up on the wall; Monkey's got chopped to smithereens after he finished coloring, because cutting is so enjoyable. And that's OK.

Mom's Ed: This is really the source of all the food in our education this week. I'm in the middle of my 3 weeks of fondant class, so there is cake and fondant around. I need to practice and when I last asked Monkey if he wanted to "do fondant class" with me, he lit up like a Christmas tree. His eyes sparkled, he bounced on his tippy-toes, and he said, "Please!" So we did fondant class. I'd do it again with him, but he's sick. We'll do it more after he's better. But I did get my first fondant cake done.

I was also teaching an icing class this week. I was teaching how to do my fancy cookies, and I learned some in the process of teaching. For one, I need to control things a bit more carefully when I do the classes. Several of the things I've taught at church over the past year had "iffy" results, and they could have been better if I'd delegated less. There's a fine balance between getting your students to be hands-on, and making sure that everything is set up properly. I think that I need to be a bit more careful in my set-up so that I can make sure that they have success at the class. Success in the class is so important to having confidence to try again on your own! I also learned that 2 classes in one day is too much. Next time they want a morning and an evening class, we'll have to separate them in time. Two in one day was too much for Monkey.

Masterly Inactivity in Action

Took a gander at the current Charlotte Mason Carnival, and found this:

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“Masterly inactivity,” an expression of Thomas Carlyle’s brought to life in detail by Mason, is the perfect balance between being a dictator and a doormat. It is a letting alone that is rooted in insight. A parent’s wise self-restraint is grounded in the authority and self-confidence of experience and knowledge, which the child lacks and needs.

“She must see without watching, know without telling, be on the alert always, yet never obviously, fussily, so,” Mason explains. “This open-eyed attitude must be sphinx-like in its repose.” ...

My kids went through a time when they would fill up on the main course and wouldn’t feel like eating a salad after it, as is the French custom. So I began to serve the salad first. I just got them to the table hungry and served the salad, while the main course was still cooking. I did not tell them, “I want you to eat salad. You must eat your salad. It’s good for you.” I knew what was going on but they didn’t need to know. They ate it and were happy.
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