Setting Our Children on a Path to Success

As homeschool parents, we all want to ensure that our children are prepared for college and their future careers. However, it's important to remember that college and job employers value character just as much, if not more, than content knowledge. The problem is that it is much easier to teach a person new information than it is to teach them character.

Character is formed at a young age, and the home is often where this formation takes place. According to DeMill, teaching is more about the teacher than the student. As homeschool parents, we must be aware of how we react to our children and how we create systems to deal with them.

One way to ensure that our children are well-rounded and have strong character is to strive for ideals in our homeschooling. The concept of "The Idea of a School" by John Dewey highlights the importance of having ideals to strive for, even if they may not be fully attainable. A good school, according to Dewey, is a "faculty of friends that attracts learners."

But how do we create attraction for learning in our homeschool? One way is to be intellectually excited about the subjects we are teaching. Our enthusiasm can be contagious and can spark curiosity in our children. Additionally, we should also focus on physical and mental readiness for learning. Preparation alone is not enough; we must also create a culture of care, love and provide a rich curriculum.

It's important to remember that love is a vital component of any education. As homeschool parents, we believe that we love our children, but sometimes that love may not be active. Active love means showing it through our actions, words, and intangibles. It's also important to be aware of what is happening invisibly in the classroom. The sense that a student is believed in can make a huge impact on their development.

In conclusion, as homeschool parents, it is important to remember that character formation is just as important as content knowledge in preparing our children for college and their future careers. By striving for ideals, being excited about learning, fostering a culture of care and love, and being aware of the invisible dynamics in the classroom, we can set our children on the path to success.

Process Over Product

As a parent, it is important to remember that the process of learning is just as important, if not more so, than the end product. Our children leave school with the experiences they have had with learning, not just the knowledge they have acquired. With this in mind, it is crucial that we, as parents and educators, do not become too attached to the end product and focus solely on grades or test scores.

This is easier said than done, as it can be difficult to not impose the same expectations and pressures that were placed on us as students. It is a part of us at almost a cellular level, ingrained in our way of thinking. However, it is important to recognize that the experience of learning trumps the content of what is learned.

One education researcher, Paulo Freire, in his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, questioned constructs such as grades, age segregation, and the use of textbooks in education. He believed that the way one studies and learns is just as important as what is being studied. However, he also recognized that there is no one solution for every child, as all children are different and therefore should be educated differently.

The education system, unfortunately, does not take into account the individuality of each child. It treats them all the same and expects them to learn at the same pace and in the same way. As parents, it is our responsibility to challenge this notion and to advocate for our children’s unique needs and learning styles.

We must also remember that progress does not always mean better. New is not always better, and more of a broken way or system is not better either. It is crucial that we critically evaluate the education system and strive for progress that truly benefits our children and their learning experiences.

As parents, it is important to remember that the process of learning is just as important as the end product. We must challenge the traditional education system and advocate for our children’s unique needs and learning styles. And we should also keep in mind that progress doesn’t mean better, new is not better and more of a broken system is not better either.

Mindsets for High School

Recently we made some big decisions regarding our oldest and her high school path. While in the process of thinking, praying and researching I jotted down the following items as points of discussion. Don't get me wrong I am far from perfect at this. I had to wrangle the husband and review these items with him, make sure we were on the same page Then the conversation with the teenager did not come without a few eye rolls and “mom, I already know this.” looks. Purposeful conversation is a must for clear communication and well, I try.

A MATURE MINDSETS FOR HIGH SCHOOL

• This is your full-time job it will require full-time hours (30-40 hrs a week).

  • This time does not include lunch, field trips, travel time, wake/get ready time, break time.

  • Focus, diligence and doing things right the first time all factor into time spent.

• 9th and 10th grade will be the most work, 11th and 12th grade present more choices with more adult responsibilities and freedoms.

• You are apart of a family and the time frame for doing your “full time” job must work together with the family schedule.

• We, your parents, will be involved in your academic life.

• We will make changes to school, friends, and life if ever we feel the need to.

• While we value education, it is not the most important thing in life.

• We are not done raising you yet - the true season of discipleship is really just beginning.

• You have not arrived, you do not know it all, you are not an expert in ANYTHING - humility in this will make the journey easier.

• We talk, discuss and ideally make decisions together before acting, however, mom and dad have veto power. (we care what you think but ultimately as long you live under our roof the decision & responsibility is ours)

• Actions have consequences.

• Attitude Matters - Facial expressions, tone, body language.

• Complaining only makes it miserable for everyone.

• We can’t fix everything for you anymore.

• It is your choice how your feel and if you will be happy.

Challenge - A, Daily/Weekly Planner

Everyone has to organize their child's work in one way or another. There are some amazing planners and strategies out there. If you know of something great please feel free to share with us in the comments.

I have found the biggest challenge in Challenge A is communicating schedules and helping my child manage their workload. The Guide dictates the weekly work. Yes, I as the teacher can scale* as needed. In order to be prepared in class, my student still has to get at least a portion of the work done.

In previous homeschooling years I was the master of our schedule but now I must blend with the Ch A schedule.

I might know that we need to get a bulk of our work done on Tuesday because we have guitar lessons, a doctors appointment and grandparents coming into town. However, my Ch A student, who is learning to take ownership of his work, may not know all these things. They think they can focus on just Research and Reasoning and the next day get caught up on their LTW paper. The results between parent and child is frustration. We have to communicate schedules and expectations.

Here is what I highly recommend. No matter how tired you are after a Community Day sit down with your student and plan out the week. If you wait till the next day, your student will forget important instructions given in class and it will cut into your productivity. Have your student bring out their planner, we use the attached sheet, discuss your week. As the parent, let them know of family commitments, late nights, or interruptions in a day. Together fill in their planner and strategize how they are going to get their work done that week. If you have other kids or commitments it's ok to tell your child when you will and will not be available to review work and answer questions.

It is best to establish a routine for what days and what order your child will do work on. Let them have a say in this. However, it is important to provide boundaries. Such as, your student wants to start with Research. You make it clear that that is acceptable but Logic and Latin must be done before lunch. Also, establish if you are unavailable to help them or check work between 11- 12 because you are working with another child.

Attached is the planner I will be using with my son. I type it up as we go through the Guide and discuss his tutor's instructions on Mondays after community. We print it out and put it on a clipboard for him each week. If this is not your thing you can do something as simple as writing it out on notebook paper. Do not make this harder than need be. Keep it simple and help your student take ownership by effectively planning. Welcome to the teenage years of your child having a life apart from you and learning to blend the two!

I am providing this in an editable form so you can customize it and change it for your specifics. The sample content is for week 2 work of Ch - A. We have a Monday community day and my son will be out of town with his dad on Tuesday. Therefore I have cleared our schedule for him to work fervently for 3 days.

“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. ”

* A note about Scaling: As your student's teacher, you can scale your child's work. I am not a Challenge A Director but can I encourage you to communicate with you Director when you scale. Email, call, text them and let them know. Directors want to hear it from you, not the student that their work was scaled.

Ch - A Henle Latin Exercises

As your student embarks on their Challenge A journey there is so much to learn. One area that can be intimidating is Latin. In this post I am not going to take on the questions of Why Study Latin? I simply want to offer you a tool to help. Your student will be learning a new language, making flash cards, learning new vocabulary, and grammar rules. It is a rewarding process but The Struggle Is REAL!

There are a couple of ways to approach the assigned Exercises from Henle 1. 

1. The Latin A Workspace is what is recommended by CC for your student do to their Latin exercises in. It serves as a nice template guide to keep the students organized. 

2.  Handwritten Exercises on notebook paper.  It is the true stick in the sand method. It allows for plenty of room to work out translations.  If you chose this option I highly recommend a spiral bound notebook. My first year we used this plain paper option and I found Latin exercised everywhere! 

3. The third option is a pre-printed workbook with the Exercises in it. The reason I like this format is that it cuts down on handwriting. The kid's hands will be falling off the first few weeks of class. It also helps students with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia. I know some directors do NOT prefer a workbook style. The goal of a Challenge A student is taking ownership of their educations. Pre-printed forms are sometimes seen as detracting from that goal. Learning to look up and copy exercises is a valuable skill. 

You decide what is best for your child and your goals. 

A Note about the sources used to compile this document. I used several PDF's that contained the Henle l content. I cut and pasted it together into one document so that the Exercises line up with those assigned in the Challenge A Guide as of 2018.

Art and Humor in Challenge A

In the Reasoning strand, there are catechism questions your student will memorize. The catechism questions are facts and snippets derived from It Couldn't Just Happen. These pegs of information are deemed worthy of memorizing. You need to learn and review these catechism questions just like you would Foundations memory work in a question and answer format. Regular review of these questions is needed through the entire year.

The most popular way to do this is by creating flashcards for the catechism questions. We felt that the flashcards were cumbersome and didn't allow for much creativity. Many Challenge A students are already making a myriad of flashcards for Latin and we needed to find something different. One great tool to be aware of is Quizlet. Quizlet is a flashcard App and you can get anything and everything on it. However, after using it for a few weeks, we realize that electronic flashcards did not help with long-term retention. Our solution was to get creative and have fun with our catechisms.

Each week The Challenge A Guide will assign you three to five catechism questions. They are all listed on pages 160 and 164 of the guide. We made a notebook page for each catechism question. I am not joking when I say we started simple; a piece of paper and some crayons. As we had more fun with it our art skills and storyboards became more elaborate. Here are some examples:

 Here is one of my favorites  I created for my daughter.

Catechism Question number 3 is about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states things left to themselves will decay. As you can see, I used my awesome art skills to draw a little picture of what her room looks like clean and what it looks like a couple of days later.

She decided to get a little bit more silly on number 34 where the questions is a fact about termites. She did a cartoon about a termite having gas and disrupting the temperature of the termite mound. Everyone had a good laugh. She loved sharing her creations with her brothers and me.

“Humor can be one of our best survival tools - Allen Klein”

The second semester we brought in some technology and we used her iPad and Apple Pencil. She started creating her pages on an App called Notability. This option was fun because she was able to import photos and other images such as memes. For one question, she has a picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur. It makes zero sense to me but it makes sense to her.

Making sure you review your catechisms on a weekly basis. Reviewing previous weeks work is key to long-term retention. After the first semester, you will have a good amount of catechism questions. At this point, we started reviewing them by category, bible, theory, animals, miscellaneous. I

In conclusion, you want to do what works for your student. You want your student to discover what form of studying works best for them. If your kid is a visual learner then get them doing something visual. If you have a kinesthetic learner have them make up hand motions. If songs are your student's thing find songs. ( I have not found all of the catechism songs on CC Connected.) Take all your Foundation skills and apply them here and find a method that works well for your child. Help them discover what ways of studying make the most sense to them.

Challenge A is a lot of hard work but don’t forget to have fun!

# 1 Challenge A Prep Hack

Challenge A is known for its quantity of work. The goal is not to burden the student, but to help them learn time management and self-discipline. The mission statement of Challenge A is... "We believe that when students take ownership they can achieve great things." As a parent, our number one job is to help our students learn how to manage their workload, and take ownership of their education. The first thing I recommend is that you front-load the reading. For the strand of Exposition and Composition, you will be using the curriculum Lost Tools of Writing (LTW)

Throughout the year you will read eight to nine books, and write eight to nine papers on those books. Week one is a little tricky. Students need to have read most of the first book before class, or be close to finishing it. They are going to start the first paper the first week. Traditionally, “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” is the first assigned book. From that point forward, students will be writing an LTW paper on a new book every three weeks.

They'll take three weeks to read a book, and three weeks to write a paper. This is a much slower pace than those who have been through IEW. The trick is that while writing on one book, they're going to have to be reading the next book. The Guide doesn't assign reading pages, you as the parent have to assign pages and set the pace for your child. To lighten the load during the first nine weeks of class I recommend you read at least the first three books during the summer if not all of them. Usually, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Carry on Mr. Bowditch, and The Magician's Nephew are assigned first.

They are going to start the first paper the first week. However, it will be weeks before they start writing papers on some of the other books. They're going to forget important details.

What I recommend is that you use the resource Words Aptly Spoken. You will notice in your Challenge A Guide that Words Aptly Spoken is never mentioned or assigned. This can make you feel like this was a wasted resource or a waste of money. It’s meant to be used as a tool for directors and parents for conversations with their students. The goal is to engage in dialectic discussion with your student and use these questions to help launch those discussions.

In Words Aptly Spoken, there are Review Questions and Thought Questions.

To "front load", take a book, and read it. Then I recommend your student answers the Review Questions from Words Aptly Spoken, You can do this in one of three ways. One, you can actually write in the Words Aptly Spoken book, in a keyword outline style. You will have to write small, so that may, or may not work for you. Two, you can make copies of the pages, and then your student could fill in the answers. Three, you could have your student write the answers on notebook paper.

I recommend that you go chapter by chapter. If your student reads the whole book and then goes back and answers the questions, the details get lost in that process. I am not going to lie my kids did not like doing this process. However, it has taught them to read actively and look for details. When it comes time to write the paper, they can revisit their questions and answers to remind themselves of the details.

Christmas break is another great time you could front load the next set of reading.

As a parent, I pull out the Words Aptly Spoken when we start a new book. I take about 15 to 20 minutes and talk with them through some of the discussion questions. This is where the richness lies in the discussion with them. It is where you will learn how your student sees the world, how they view different issues, and what their thought process is.

Challenge A is called Challenge for a reason. Be tenacious, work hard, and know when to give yourself, and your child grace.

Why You Should Tutor Foundations

I am outgoing. I like talking. I don’t mind being in front of a group. All these things made me a natural fit to be a Classical Conversations FOUNDATIONS Tutor. If you have been asked to tutor and the answer is an immediate, YES, then good for you! However, for most tutors, it is not that easy. I wanted to share with you some of the Affirmatives and Negatives (you will understand when you get to Challenge) of tutoring. 

Affirmatives - 

1. You will receive training - Classical Conversations will train you in a 3 day summer practicum. After 20 years Classical Conversations has packaged up the best of the best, hashed out the bumps and created a streamlined way to equip you. A veteran tutor will take you through the material and answer all your questions. You will get to spend 3 days collaborating with other tutors about fun creative ideas.

2. You will understand the why behind the what. - When you dive into tutoring you will gain a greater understanding why Classical Conversations works the way it does. I remember my first year, when I wasn't a tutor, I thought my kids tutor was mean. She did not allow them to tell their long drawn out story about visiting Mt. Rainer when she was introducing it in Geography. Only after receiving training as a Foundations tutor did I understand all that has to happen in such a short time.

3. They will pay you - You won’t exactly be bringing home the bacon but yes Foundations tutors do get paid. For many this helps offset the cost of tuition or buying books. Classical Conversations understands that many families are single income household. Tutoring is meant to be a blessing. You will put in some extra effort and a bit of energy on your community day.

4. Watching gets boring - My 7th year in Classical Conversations due to some life events I ended up not tutoring at all. At the beginning of the year  I would plant myself in the back of my oldest kids class (the tutor didn’t need much help) sip my coffee, check my email (which you are not suppose to do) and enjoy a few quiet productive moments. When the opportunity to tutor came up at the semester, I jumped to do it. You are already committed to be in class on campus for the day so why not contribute and meet a need. I must acknowledge that helpful, quality, non-tutor parents are necessary in the classrooms and we tutors love them.

5. You do not have to be a gifted speaker or presenter - One of the key skills practiced in FOUNDATIONS is how to do a presentation. If you are nervous about talking in front of a group this is your opportunity to be a Lead Learner. If you have a shy child, who dislikes Presentation time, your example with encourage them. No one is asking for perfection, your audience is at max 8 kids under 12 years old. Parents watching can step up and tutor if they think they can do a better job. As Christians we always need to be prepared to share the Gospel. You will only grow in your ability to share Jesus with others.

6. You do not have to be extremely creative. - Classical Conversations philosophy is simplicity, also known as “the stick in the sand” method.” Get your class moving, shaking, chanting, singing, signing, picture drawing or whatever suit your style. There are an amazing amount of resources available to aid you if needed. CC Connected, Pinterest, Youtube and the list goes one. Beware of the time vortex that can suck you in. Keep your planning simple, guard your time, and don’t compare yourself with other tutors.

7. You get to know the kids and families in your class/community better - This is one of the greatest rewards. The purpose of Classical Conversations is community. Kids I tutored 5 years ago are some of my kids best friends. I know the kids and their parents better because we spent 24 weeks together. I know which kids are sassy and wild and which ones are sweet and well behaved. I know the hearts of the moms and how they parent and handle situations. Which as my kids become teenagers makes it so much easier to let me kids go hang out with friends.

8. Kids Teach You a Thing or Two - My daughters tutor for her 5th and 6th grade year would take notes during the kids presentation. At the end of the year she shared how much she had learned from the kids. Countries they had research, books they had read, She felt like it kept her current with bands, movies, TV shows, APPs and lingo of the younger generation. Her testimony was that being their tutor was an enriching experience for her.

Negatives-

1. Tutoring does require energy on your community day - You have to be awake and ready to lead a small band of excited students. But hey you are there anyway!

2. You have to attend a quarterly tutoring meeting with your fellow tutors and director. Usually, tutor meetings include fun discussions with like-minded tutors, chocolate, and a few hours away from your kids. So if that is not your thing you should strongly consider not tutoring.

3. You do have to prepare - My first year I spent about 3 hours preparing for each Foundations Community Day. It now takes me about 30 min. It's just a few minutes to preview what I am introducing and rounding up anything I want to bring to class. There are so many blogs and website to help with planning. Some tutor plan 6 weeks at a time, others a semester at a time. You can do what works for you. I promise it is very doable.

Why write a book?

Growing up I read mostly historical fiction. I loved it! However as my oldest daughter started devouring books, I realized I had missed out on a huge section of wonderful literature. Fantasy! I will admit it - I had never even read the Chronicles of Narnia. I didn’t understand symbolism, themes, or literary devices. When I found Teaching the Classical, a whole new world opened up. My best conversations with my kids have come from discussion literature. It has allowed us to enter worlds and situations far beyond our experiences. Quickly, we discovered that the literary world needs more fantasy fiction/action adventure for Tweens.

One day I opened my mouth and said to my daughter, “Let’s write a book.” You come up with the characters, setting, main plot and I’ll figure out how to put it all together. From that day forward we have discussed villains, conflicts, heroes, worlds, and everything else under the sun. As we embark on this process, we want to invite you to come along with us. Help us name characters, frame worlds and create an epic tale of adventure and bravery. Stay tuned to your social media accounts for progress and voting opportunities. Note - this process could take us a while.

The Library of Congress - picture for a recent trip