The Truth About Schedules

I suffer from chronic depression. One of the things that makes that worse is lack of structure in my life. But the flip side is that when I'm overscheduled, I'm seriously stressed. I constantly walk a tightrope when it comes to structure without rigidity. My kids obviously feel the effects of my little circus act and, sadly, suffer the ill-effects when my foot slips from the wire.

Last summer we "played with" homeschooling. Being type A, I had lessons planned down to the minute. In the end, the rigidity of my self-imposed schedule put us all off of homeschooling. But it's still been very much on my mind and in my heart. Which is why it seemed like kismet when I made friends with an unschooler online this year. Unschooling suits mine and my children's natural inclinations much more than "classroom at home" homeschooling.

But one of my reservations about unschooling initially was the lack of structure. Over the past couple of weeks I've been thinking, praying, and experimenting. Finally tonight I stumbled upon an epiphany. Quite simply, we can have a flexible schedule. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Duh, Mari! Aren't you supposed to be smart???" And yes, thank you, I believe I am pretty smart. But one of my major flaws (should I save this for the Plank Pullin' meme?) is that I tend to think of real-world things in very black or white terms. My thinking has always been, "I need schedule. Therefore I will schedule every minute of every day and follow it strictly," or "I hate schedules even though I need them. Therefore I will do what I want except when outside forces impose a schedule upon me."

What I decided today and will experiment with for a while until we make it work is that I can create a loose (hour by hour, broad) schedule and follow it unless something more absorbing comes up. So I started by relaxing the summer schedule I had started with. It looks something like this:

9 AM - up and at 'em. Eat breakfast, clean up, get ready to face the day!

10 AM - Outside time before it really heats up out there. Do whatever we want outdoors in the fresh air

11 AM - Back inside for a little housework. Do whatever needs to be done to make the house a friendly place to be

12 PM - lunch

1 PM - kitchen time. I try to do a little cooking or baking daily even if it's to give away or put in the freezer for the future. The girls love to help and can do whatever they want in the kitchen with me

2 PM - creative time. Already mentioned this in an earlier blog post. Anything that's creative is a-ok, individually or together

3 PM - get our bodies moving. If anyone wants to brave the beginning of the hot part of the day, they're welcome to do so. Otherwise, we have workout DVDs, exercise equipment, and music all over the place. As long as your body is moving, you're doing fine

4 PM - free time to pursue whatever interests you

6 PM - Mom's putting dinner on. Do you want to help or keep pursuing your own interests?

12 PM - bedtime so we can face another day well-rested

And here's where the epiphany comes in: if we're doing creative time (or whatever) and everybody's having fun and doesn't want to do something else, who's making us?? We can be the boss of the schedule instead of the other way around! This kind of schedule can give us some structure to make me feel like I'm doing something and keep the kids from getting into boredom fights (you know the ones I'm talking about - the kind where they pick at each other just because they have nothing better to do) but if we get engrossed in a project, we can see it through until we're done with it.

I CU - a little belated ;-)

OK, I'm a little late, but better late than never. I think maybe participating in this meme will help ME deschool.

This week we want to...finish up Daddy's t-shirt, do some tie-dying of our own.

The kids are...Mindie is very focused on working on her website. Shannen just wants to read (no surprise).

I am learning...that a couple of art projects is enough on the list of goals. I struggle with wanting to go back up to that first sentence and add ten more objectives because it feels "sparse." I'm learning to let go and not overload us with my good intentions and guilt issues.

I am struggling with...how to show the hubs that we can do this and we don't want to go back to school next fall.

This week is the first time...LOL there are lots of firsts for this week. One of the big ones is that this week is the first time Shannen has been willing to do something without me outside of school. She begged and begged me to audition for "Narnia" with her, but I just really wasn't feeling it, so she's been begging and begging me to stay for rehearsals. Finally Tuesday, for the first time, she let go and didn't ask me to stay. I'm glad to see she's finding something she enjoys independently and is starting to branch out make make friends.

I am grateful...that I've met such a fabulous group of Christian unschoolers! Not only are they bringing me peace about unschooling, they've welcomed me as a friend and accept the weirdness that is ME. They've shared their children with my Mindie, who is discovering that she's not as weird as she thought she was; she's just been a very big, bright fish in a very small, dark pond.

That u-word again

I haven't mentioned to the kids that we're trying this whole unschool thing out. Last summer we tried "homeschool" and it was an unmitigated disaster. I didn't want to saddle them with my wacky experimentation this time and since this entire educational philosophy is very holistic, I thought we'd try it without them knowing we were trying anything at all.

Unfortunately I underestimated the keen eyes and mind of Mindie. She's on Facebook and asked me yesterday about all the sudden new friends popping up on my Facebook page. I tried to shove it off as "this group I joined" but she wasn't about to be blown off that easily. After many questions that I answered as vaguely as possible, I finally told her the group was for Christian unschooling. "Un-what-the-huh?"

I explained some of the educational philosophies. "There's an educational theory that if you leave a student alone to pursue what interests her, encourage her, equip her to follow those interests, and then let her fail or succeed on her own without forcing her to study things she isn't interested in or ready to absorb she will eventually learn the things she needs to know without hating the learning process or clubbing her brain into mush along the way."

"Hey, I like that theory!" But I wasn't ready to let it pass so easily now that we were talking. I decided to play devil's advocate.

"Well of course you do. It's an excuse to do nothing, right?"

"No way! You could learn better this way. And you wouldn't be doing nothing, you'd be learning, right?"

"What if you decided that all you were interested in was playing Guitar Hero?"

"Yeah, that's fun," she started, "but I couldn't do it for like a whole year."

"Just a whole summer?"

"Yeah, but it's summer. I have to let my brain breath from all that stupid stuff they keep cramming into it at school. Besides, you know it won't last all summer. In a few weeks, I'll be ready to do something new and different."

"You think so?"

"Well yeah! Once I really 'get it' I'm ready to learn something new. That's why I hate school so much. They never let you stay on something long enough to really get it but then when you finally do they keep making you do it and do it and do it even though you already know how!"

"Ok, but how would you know what to learn if nobody told you what you were supposed to be learning?" I posed.

"Hmmmm...good question. I guess I could learn the things I need as I need them."

"But if you need to know how to solve an algebraic equation, are you going to have time to go learn how to solve it?"

"I dunno. How often am I going to need to know how to do that anyway?"

"I do pretty often. Like when we're going to San Antonio and I want to figure out where we'll need to stop for gas so I can plan when/where we're going to eat. I have to figure that we leave Lamesa with a full tank of gas that'll comfortably get us about 300 miles. But it's about 350 miles to San Antonio. So how shy of San Antonio will we be when we need to fill up? And what time do we need to leave Lamesa for us to hit that point around a meal time?"

"Yeah, but Mom you don't need ALGEBRA for that. Just - y'know- logic and math stuff."

"Sweetheart, algebra is just APPLIED 'logic and math stuff'"

"Oh. It never seems that way to me."

"That's because school presents it as these equations with no context. And besides, you haven't had 'the click' yet for algebra. You know, that moment where it finally makes sense?"

"And that's why we should be doing the unschool thing!"

That's my girl.

A fun day

We did errands today, which is always -erm, interesting - with my girls. We played our word game as we did them. At one point Mindie got the letter "e" and shouted "emasculate!" in the post office parking lot, which earned us all "a look" from the gentleman parked next to us. Mindie had heard the word but didn't know what it meant. She learned what it meant after we got back in the car and we all had a nice talk about not using unknown words in public. Another "fun" moment with the word game had Shannen musing "Hmmm...what's a body part that starts with c?" To which, Mindie smirked and burst into giggles. I warned her off of explaining the source of her mirth.

Yes, the word game continues. They've added a new layer of challenge. With no formal agreement, they've started trying to use words that fit into some category or have some sort of similarity until somebody can't find another word that fits classification and then they move on to another one. Body parts have been done and I was surprised with their grasp of anatomy. They did cars for a while but got bored with it. They tried adverbs and then adjectives. They introduced the game to a friend this evening and she got them doing words with Latin roots. The game continues to mutate, educate, and entertain.

We started through a box of books that Shannen rescued. The book situation is reaching critical as more and more teachers retire at the girls' school and offer up their classroom libraries to their students. Few of the students are interested and the school library refuses to take them, so Shannen brings home boxes and boxes of the things. When we go through the boxes we weed out multiple copies to parcel to others, pass on books of no interest to the girls and books too far below their reading level, and then try to shelve what's left in with our own library. Unfortunately that's getting to be difficult because we're running out of walls for bookcases. It's helped that I'm converting my cookbook collection to digital which has freed up a bookcase for now, but I expect that to refill by the time we're done with the latest batch of rescue books.

This evening Shannen had rehearsals for "Narnia" and the director finally assigned parts. Shan is a host of bit parts which suits her fine. She's even more excited that her host of bit parts are all on the - stern? mean? evil? - side. And she's not required to do any singing, which elates her. She was very pleased that the director told her that her voice was a little weak but her acting was exceptional. That's my girl! And Mindie and I join rehearsals next week as we all begin working on costuming, sets, and props. My favorite part is that I'm not wardrobe mistress or property master but I get to have a hand in both and I'll get to help dress backstage on performance nights. Mindie is excited to get out of the booth and work in the wings this time.

After rehearsal the girls invited their friend along to the concert. I'm flattered to be "a trustworthy adult" (something I've never considered myself ;-) to the friend's father. It was a beautiful performance put on by a trio of Julliard juniors who call themselves, unsurprisingly T.R.I.O. It's an acronym for "Teaching and Rehearsal Internet Outreach." Apparently one of the girls, after having a pre-audition "rehearsal" via Skype with a touring professor had an epiphany that this was a method to share quality music training and mentoring with students in rural areas who had limited access to well-trained musical instructors. The performance is a fundraiser for this project. The young ladies played French horn, piano, and violin. It's an unusual chamber composition for which there are limited arrangements (well, actually there's ONE arrangement) but the girls overcome this by arranging their own compositions.

We got a few stares because the three girls were in tanks, shorts, and flip flops but nobody said anything to our faces. Personally, I'm of the opinion that music doesn't have a dress code. The girls were enchanted, even Shannen who usually makes faces when Mindie and I flip to the classical radio station. The reception afterward was nice and the girls were beautifully behaved. I was most impressed and have resolved to take this trio more places.

Now we're home and getting ready for a decent bedtime because the girls are going to Lubbock tomorrow with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for manicures, pedicures, and shopping. Thank heavens somebody else is willing to take them for the girl stuff because that last trip to the salon just about killed me. It's amazing how much energy "girl stuff" sucks out of me. Normally, three hours of sitting with a book is awesome but somehow, three hours of sitting with a book while people around me get their hair done and talk about girl junk is draining.

Word games are fun for everyone

Verbal skills in this house are king, queen, monarch, emperor, figurehead, supreme authority, and everything else. We love, love, love word games, word puzzles and just generally words.

Yesterday the girls started playing a word game that's lasted for 2 days and counting. Every time we're together but not involved in conversation we're playing. Over baskets and baskets of laundry (Mt. Washmore is dwindling rapidly) one girl will say a word. The next person says a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word. There's no strict order to "turns" except that I'm limiting myself to one for each of the girls' offerings. If someone has an inspiration, they shout it out. The girls have surprised me with their vocabulary (and I didn't think that was possible since I'm sick to death of hearing how amazing their vocabulary is). Words have ranged from lagomorph (the fancy taxonomy for rabbits and hares) to xenophobic (fear of strangers or foreigners) to equinox. And those weren't MY words. I haven't wanted to interrupt the fun for "spelling lessons" so if there's a question about what letter a word ends in, I just supply the spelling and we move on. Stupid silent e's sometimes still trip them up.

What word games do you play with your kids?

Unschooling in public schools?

An interesting topic sprang up yesterday on the Unschool group on Facebook. We were talking about "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." It got me thinking about my own public school experiences. Honestly, I went to a pretty "average" school district. They weren't exceptional in any way. But along the way, I did have some pretty exceptional teachers. They were the teachers who really made an impact on me because they saw how I learned and worked with me to make the most of my education instead of trying to cram me into the mold of the other students.

I was a very motivated learner. Even a stifling public school couldn't crush that out of me. I did best with open-ended self-directed assignments. Math was rubbish for me and it wasn't just the usual math problems that most kids have (although I had my share of them, too). Verbal-oriented subjects were my best. Part of that is because I'm just a very verbal person. The other factor there, though, was that verbal subjects (language arts, reading, English, social studies, etc) were more suited to the ambiguous assignments that I craved. I fell off in English with teachers who gave assignments like "Read the section on adverbs and answer the multiple choice and true/false questions at the end of the section" and really shone when the teacher assigned "write a story using 20 adverbs." In fact, when I had those kinds of assignments, I often found myself working in 50 or 60 adverbs just because I could. I would experiment with adverbs which didn't end in -ly. I would deliberately not mark some of my adverbs and see if the teacher noticed them. It became a game of wits and some teachers joined in with enthusiasm.

Even teachers who didn't want to test wits with me are among some of my favorite teachers, though. By my senior year in high school I was burned out and didn't care much anymore. I only needed my English credit to graduate and was kicking myself for not having taken it at some point in summer school. You weren't allowed to take only one class but certain vocational programs allowed you to do half-days so that you could work the other half-day. I took advantage of that, dropped out of AP English in favor of "regular" (or in my social circle "stupid kids'") English, threw in a handful of technical/vocational classes (two of which were repeats of courses I had already taken for college credit) and pared myself down to a four-period school day. I went home at noon, killed time, and went to work at 3:45 in an after-school program for elementary kids. Because I greatly reduced the challenge of my English class, I discovered that I had already read all the books to be covered for the year. I started skipping English more and more often.

My teacher noticed after about 7 weeks that I attended only on test days and to turn in assignments, but I was acing those tests and assignments. So we had a little confab. If I didn't start showing up to class, she was going to be forced to fail me even though my average was a 99. What was the problem? I admitted I'd already read all the books and that the class discussion was boring and basic. She hatched a brilliant plan. I had to show up to class every day during attendance to be counted present. While she took attendance I was free to take orders and collect money and then go on a "doughnut run" for the class while they discussed the novels. I was technically present because I was there at attendance, I was doing everybody a favor, and I wasn't bored. The condition was that I had to keep my average above 95 and I was to double any numeric criteria on assignments ( ie if an essay had to be 500 words for the rest of the class, I had to write 1000 words). For the rest of the year, I did daily doughnut runs for my classmates. I finished senior English with a 98. I actually re-read several of the novels to keep my papers flowing. And Mrs. Wilkinson goes down in history as one of my favorite teachers ever.

I know that Mrs. Wilkinson would have been severely reprimanded and maybe even lost her job if our arrangement got out but she was willing to go out on a limb to nurture the fire for learning in me. I bet she never dreamed that she was also fostering the seeds of rebellion that would end in "unschooling" because there just aren't enough of her to go around in public schools.

I need to give this a title but I stink at titles

I haven't posted in a couple of days because there really just hasn't been much to share. It's been a lazy few days around here. There's been lots of playing "Rock Band" and lots of reading webcomics.

Mindie archive-binged on DM of the Rings and sucked down the entire story in one day. She laughed so hard I'm surprised she's not dead of suffocation. The pressure is mounting again for me to DM a family D&D game, so I'm working on it. I really don't feel equal to the task of DMing, but I'm the only one willing to do it and it seems a small price to pay for a gaming fix. I'm looking at my collection of pre-packaged adventure modules to see what can be adapted into something interesting because I'm just not feeling creative enough to invent my own from scratch.

Shannen will be joining the game for the first time. She's been after me for ages to let her play but I really wasn't sure she was ready until recently. I guess we won't be playing in Ravenloft, though. Not a huge deal since Ben doesn't care much for Ravenloft campaigns anyway.

Ben also made a deal with the girls that if they'll get their rooms really, really, really clean by tomorrow night he'll take them to GameStop and buy them anything except a new console. We'll see if that happens because with a day and a half left, they've not really put much effort into the cleaning. That's not such a big deal for Mindie because she's a fast worker when she decides to do something, but Shannen has one speed for everything and that speed is "so slow I'm moving backward in time." It's not at all uncommon for her to take days just getting her room habitable again. I have a feeling her plan may be to beg Mindie for help. Guess we'll see how it all plays out.