Monday, October 10, 2011

Something More Than Quiet


Day 24

            I thought homeschooling would be hard. I contemplated daily the struggles I assumed I would encounter willing my four and a half year old to listen to me, respect me, and learn from me on purpose and at scheduled times. Twenty four days into our school year and twenty two of those days have run not just smoothly but peacefully and with joy and enthusiasm. As Eli continues to prove his eagerness to learn I continue to show my eagerness to teach through individually, hand-crafted lesson plans and field trips.
            I thought I would teach Eli through monthly thematic units but then September’s unit based on our field trip to the Discovery Space and Science Museum never took off. I lit the fuse and gave the count down but by early October I sat back and realized I never even built the space shuttle. Just because I said I would teach thematically, to just about everyone who would listen, did not make the lesson plans materialize.
            As I planned for October’s field trip to the train museum in Sacramento I had another afternoon ripe with intention to create a thematically based unit when reality hit me up side the head. Among all the titles in an ocean of books, those for pleasure, those for education and those for lesson planning I noticed I had one maybe two books on the topic of trains. Hmmm, thematically planned units may be taking a back seat in order to fully utilize the books and materials I do have.
            What I did not expect from homeschooling was the solidarity. The core group is us, me, Elijah and Luca. I once had fantastical ideas of meeting up with other homeschool moms and their children to play in the park and travel together to field trips. But despite my dozens of olive branches I have put out there none have been reciprocated. Loneliness has always been in my life despite being happily married, loved by my family and having a vey close relationship with my mom. Years of yearning to be connected to a group of like minded women, to be one of the gang, one of the girls has often weighed heavily on my heart. But in the midst of the loneliness I have come to know who those are that are  most important in my life, God and my family. My boys that I cherish. My husband that I adore. My parents that I love so much. And Christ, who is always there, a shining beacon in the shadow of solitude.

            Something More Than Quite

I am the reacher to those who don’t reach back,
            Sending out olive branches left to flutter in the gust of those who blew me off.
I am the step mom, though not of the “cool house”. Less wicked than Maleficent, less    strict than Machiavelli. 
I am the teacher to those untaught.
            Those who roll their eyes and write in text.
I am the one who wants to connect, to reach out and be reached for back.
I am the one who searches for the bond of belonging.
I am the one who leaves the mark.
             My own mark on my own heart.
I am the one who is waiting for someone to leave their indelible mark on me,
            Something more than shunned. Something more than dissed.
            Something more than quiet.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

The First Two Weeks

Days 1-9


            A silent bell rang Monday morning during breakfast, Labor Day 2011. Eli and I sat at the table peacefully chatting about what the first week of home school would bring. I chose Labor Day purely because I wanted a Monday in the beginning of September to begin school. However, choosing Labor Day proved to be a more fitting day than the innocence of my singular desire.
            I labored in my sleep for a week prior to the first day of school. I tossed and turned and battled with Restless Leg Syndrome, which normally subsides the instant sleep takes over. I took my laborious nights up with God, going to Him in thoughtful prayer, God, please show me the days and times to accomplish everything I have taken on this week. I trust Him and I trust that peace and structure will come. I have a place in me that is unexpectedly calm, a place that would normally be in a complete frenzy. Yet, part of me still felt nervous to begin this new adventure. I found myself stretching my arm, holding an olive branch, toward anyone who felt the way I felt, or thought I felt at the time, about how daunting home schooling would be. In conversations with other adults the topic inevitably always turned to kids which lent itself to the topic of school. People asked, “Will Eli be starting school this year?” Normally expecting a quick yes or no, this question pried open a canyon of self-doubt through what began as a crevice sized question. My face would contort, squashing my mouth into itself and downward. My eyes widened showing fear and uncomfortableness. And my voice squeaked out, “Pray for me”, time and time again. The underlying cause for this ugly distortion of my face finally came to a head only after the first week of home school was said and done. I was reaching out for someone to understand what I assumed I was going to be going through, frustration, fear, pain, and fighting with my sweet four year old over respect for me not only as his mother but as his teacher too.
            Breakfast was served, eaten and cleaned up on this Labor Day, and I saw the open opportunity to begin school at that time. I had planned the whole week out a month ago. Each day is categorized into one or two subjects. Each month is thematically based on a field trip, September’s trip; The Discovery Space and Science Museum in Sacramento, CA. Armed with a white board, weekly calendar, and marbles for The 100 Days of School marble jar and my logically yet creatively planned lessons I felt ready to dive in. I shakingly began to go over the rules of our classroom with Eli when I realized I had only written in my “logically” planned lesson plan book to go over the rules, I had yet to create actual rules to follow. So, I winged it. Turned out school rules look a lot like the rules he already abides by (most of the time) as a resident of our home.
            We continued with our lessons, occasionally involving Luca, my boy who is a year and a half, handing him paper and crayons. As he toddled in and out of our kitchen classroom playing, giggling, coloring and sometimes crying I had my very own Oprah Ah Ha! Moment.
             Elijah began the first day fairly enthusiastic, at least until the workbook was opened. A brightly colored workbook he has delighted in numerous times. But today somehow he viewed it as tedious. “This is boring!” The first declaration of boredom was overlooked and only slightly annoying as it was mostly expected. No less than three, “This is boring”, comments later and my annoyance level began to give. I breathed and looked into his eyes which were full and bright, not covered and dim with sleep. His mouth was half cocked into a secrete smile he thought I could not see. Deep breath in and out,
            “Eli, I know you are not bored, I see you, I see your smile.” Downward he took his gaze and smiled wide. He pushed and I stayed strong. As much as I thought the reluctant respect would tear us and my heartfelt attempts to home school down, it did not. In fact as the first week continued on, concluded, and the second week followed suit. With two weeks and our first field trip accomplished I realized respect gained from Eli will come from strength in me and the willingness to do what God told me to do, to go forth with home school with a joyful heart and I will be provided with the rest in Christ. My scrunched face attempt to connect with that olive branch was really not an attempt to commiserate with others in my choice to home school but rather a search for connection with others. Now instead of asking people to pray for me as if the choice to home school was a wrong choice I hold my head up and proudly state, “Yes, he is in school this year. We started him early in kindergarten. I am home schooling.”

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Life Gives Lessons

A few poems I wrote this summer.

6/12/11
TROUBLE
Show me a quick temper
I’ll show you a fool.
Ain’t no lesson you’ve ever learned in school.
Ain’t no lesson you’ve never learned in school.
Life comes from art,
And art bleeds life.
Help comes from hunger and hunger causes strife.

6/12/11
SHOWER
In the rain of the shower all the world is possible.
Molehills squashed mountains climbable.
Ideas pour from the spout and wash through me clean and doable with extra enthusiasm.
All the can do’s flush my tiredness and my negativity rush down the drain,
Making me whole and alive again.
Nozzle turned off, dreams of the day still bright,
Door opens, flashed with reality, everything moves back to just might.
I might clean the house, but what’s the use? I might write today, but why?
The might’s stick around like glue before it hardens, sticky and binding.
Yet with force I pull my foot out of the glop and pull my soul back into the shower.

8/23/11
BRILLANCE ON WINGS
Goodbye to the apples and oranges and me,
Goodbye to the things that laugh and things that sing.
Goodbye to the flower that just once was,
Goodbye to you and for me because,
            Truth lies within and leaves room to sleep,
            Not just within but deep.
            Deep to and through my heart,
            Diving deep, turning corners, awaiting something new to start.
While it waits it burrows in for the cold.
Twisting and turning up tales to be told.
Stories of past and of present times,
But none of the future, they have yet to unwind.
The truth in not merely one color, nor one tiny wing.
Once opened up, a butterfly is what I’ll make of the whole darn thing.
The truth will then soar with brilliance on wings,
Set free from the world and all of its bindings.

Purpose

Day 0.2
Nine months and counting
Grade: Kindergarten

            I will homeschool my son, Elijah. We will be in kindergarten together, I as the teacher, dutiful and strong, and he as the student, willful and boundless. I have come to this juncture in my life being pushed. I was pushed out of home ownership when our finances went belly-up.  Little income meant little spending. Among a list of extras in life to go, the XM satellite radio, cable at times, and frequent jaunts to Starbucks, I had to say goodbye to my son’s private Christian preschool. The mere two days a week he attended was going to be financial suicide in the fall if we did not cut the bill this spring.
            I hated to see school on the chopping block, yet I knew my family needed the slash. I applied for Head Start and state run preschool to be turned away! We made too much money per month. And then I was stuck but only for a fleeting moment. My husband, Nathaniel, had been a constant buzz in my ear for four years to homeschool. I always shooed the buzz away and tucked a minuscule amount of the idea under my belt, I suppose to ponder over at some far off later date yet to be pinpointed.
            Well up-cap the Sharpie and pinpoint that date on the calendar because this summer was when the time came to talk about it more seriously. I have my B.A. in Liberal Studies, I am ready to teach elementary school and I already teach in the adult school system, but stay at home and teach my four year old? I held fast to my argument that Eli would not listen to me as his teacher, I barely pass muster with him listening to me as his mom. I realized I refused to allow a whole year go by without any formal education for him, especially since he had already been at school, I did not want him to be behind educationally or socially. However, I continued to hold onto my fears and as scared as I was to jump into homeschool I felt the desire start to trickle in. I felt myself step aside and allowed God to take over.
            Making the decision to listen to God and my husband opened my eyes to my reality, I was always going to homeschool I just didn’t know it yet. My purpose this year is to learn who I am in Christ, because He is who I follow. I will teach my son and learn to give my worry, my strife, and my brick walls to God.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

I Mourn the Traditional and My Senses Wake

Day 0.1
Still nine months to go
Grade: Kindergarten


            Open classroom door, wind blows by. Tacked memos and posters flutter against dingy white walls. Flap, flap, flapping in the breeze. The wind picks up early fallen leaves. Asphalt, concrete and crunching leaves resonate through my reminiscing ears.
            Early September smells like brown bag lunches and salty, dusty kids gleefully playing at recess. The air conditioner switches on with a low grade click, the teacher breathes deeply, sweaty children fan themselves.
Laminated posters line the walls promising perfectly sharp edges that will poke little fingers when explored. Coveted posters covered in thick plastic splash inspiration along the classroom walls.
             Plastic pencil boxes creak open exposing joyfully colored writing implements promising pages of stories and perfectly written cursive. Pencil lead tap, tap, tapping on laminate desk tops.
            Art work, prized by the teacher and student, hung, to be applauded by parents, from fishing line or unfolded paper clips from ceiling tiles.
            The mystery stain on the carpet half hidden by a bookshelf, almost always brown or faded gray, cleaned but only dulled, attracting dirt illuminating itself among the rest of the carpet the way patches of silver hair reflect light on a brown head of hair. Hidden, forgotten, accepted, and loved.
           

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Preschool Nightmare



Day 0
Nine months to go
Grade: Kindergarten

            The day I floated the now infamous “whatever” past my lips directed at my then boss was the day I became a Libertarian, thumbing my nose at The Man, I just didn’t know it yet.
            More than five years ago I sat in yet another meeting to discuss my obvious dislike for singing with the preschool class I was teaching. I sat and listened to Ms. C run down a multi-layered list of viable reasons for me to sing with these sweet three year old children. I listened but I refused to absorb. I knew the information she was trying to impart me, I just didn’t care to be told how to teach my students. I would sing when I was darn well and ready and today I was not all that darn well and ready.
            “O.K. Whatever!” spilled out of my haughty, know-it-all mouth severing any tie to authority Ms. C believed she held over me. Seeing fury, truly fury, build in her eyes, I began to back peddle. “I’m sorry. I mean…Whatever!” Out it came again.
            She sprung from her seat pushing herself up and out of a tiny plastic chair and stormed out of the classroom. Before she, principal of a religious school, slammed the door she forever burned me with,
            “Don’t tell ME whatever! YOU…..ARE…..FIRED!” Bang! The door slam was heard by the remaining campus teachers and the teacher aids. I hung my head and collected my things and walked to my car shamed.
            I did, however, learn a couple of things that day:
                        1. Never tick off The Man, he will screw you.
                        2. I should have sung with those kids. Not to please her but to stop being afraid of myself.