Written by Louise A. Vernon, who wanted to make history come alive to children, she certainly succeeded with this one. The children begged for *just one more chapter* every time we sat down to read. They couldn’t bear putting the book down and having to wait to find out what would happen. It wasn’t actually *that* well written, but it captured our kids.
We now have a greater understanding of what it means to give up all for Christ, a greater understanding of the sacrifices made by individuals throughout history, and of course a greater understanding of the Anabaptists.

We have recently been reading of the martyrdom of many of the Reformation men and women. It is easy to assume they went willingly, without internal struggle to their deaths; to perhaps think of them as super-heroes. “The Secret Church” put a human face to one (fictional) family, and one lad in particular, and followed his many struggles towards belief.

three stars

Well, it’s not exactly Augustine’s City of God

It’s the first we’ve watched in a series of DVDs put out by the Moody Institute of Science.
They are over fifty years old, and I guess you can say they’ve almost stood the test of time. If you’ve got used to fast flashy scene changes and raucous music, these probably won’t appeal, but if you are willing to listen to a man in a grey suit accompanied by some classical music, there’s certainly scope for learning. Actually, it’s not all lecture-at-you. The majority of this half hour presentation was devoted to showing various aspects of bee life. Very interesting. And not just to the wannabe-apiarist in our family.
The Lecture-at-the-End focussed on the difference between bee-community and human-community. It would be a great starting point for further discussion on social engineering and the structure of society, perhaps picking up on such topics as controlling population growth, law enforcement or the foundation of order.

I’m sure we’ll watch this DVD again, and might even invite round a group of friends to watch it together and engage in stimulating discussion.

This book made it into the “even better than Milly-Molly-Mandy” category for my eight-year-old daughter! And that’s saying something. It also fell squarely in the “EVERYONE enjoyed this story” category. M5 could be heard chuckling as loudly as the older ones, sometimes more so. Even the three year old was overheard quoting a favourite passage and many exclamations of the week were borrowed from the book: CAPITAL!
*get the book or listen more carefully tomorrow and insert some more!*

However, I had a few little objections, which mean the book doesn’t make it to my all-time-favourite list. None of them are great enough to prevent me picking up the book again to read aloud, but I would be more inclined to go for Anne of Green Gables or Little Britches or even Robinson Crusoe!

• It’s a bit preachy at times. Can I think of an example off the top of my head? Nope.
  Maybe it was just a feeling I got. Maybe it’s even unwarranted. But that is one thing I don’t like in a book!
• The eldest daughter takes far too much of the mother’s role and responsibility (in my opinion). This is something I actively try to avoid with my own eldest ones, and I didn’t appreciate seeing it in print. On the flip side, she did get to go to leave the little brown house to study in town. Almost the book’s saving grace, but not quite!
• Related to the previous point, the mother was fairly uninvolved (apart from running errands, sewing in the corner and being able to give directions on writing a letter, which was actually a wonderful example of need-to-know learning). Quite possibly this is because the story was told from a child’s point of view with Polly as the main character, but I do feel the mother could have been given a stronger position. For example, the younger children could turn to Mother instead of Polly when something went wrong. They could ask Mother for permission to do things, rather than Polly. You get the idea.
• Polly makes one very foolish decision, which has no negative consequences and, in fact, turns out “happily ever after-ish”. She allows herself to be accompanied home from town by a total stranger in the dark. Hmmmmm. We had a wee chat about going anywhere with strangers!

And the things I particularly liked:

• very very very strong work ethic
• community involvement
• self-motivated at study
• the recognition that learning can be hard and that you have to work at it
• trusting that God will provide
• serving others
• real-life learning
• positive family relationships contrasted with the “rich family” bickering that unfortunately more resembled our home last week
• youngest family member toddling around doing her thing while everyone else worked hard
• “delayed academics”
• the children’s struggles to do what they knew they should were realistically portrayed

In our recipe books we have a star-rating system.
One star is *make this again only if you have no ingredients for anything else*
Two stars is *this is perfectly adequate, but doesn’t have the zingy WOW factor*
Three stars has it and is made over and over again!

And here beginneth our story-book star-rating system.
One star = read this again only if there is nothing else to read
Two stars = there’s nothing wrong with reading this book, but it’s not brilliant
Three stars = not quite a classic, but I’d read it aloud again
Five stars = classic to be reread over and over

This one will get three stars. 

I’ve been in a wee bit of discussion about <prepare yourself> UNSCHOOLING <gasp><recover> on an online forum. A few months ago I would have written the same ideas as I typed this week, but without the little phrases that come from A Thomas Jefferson Education. In recognition of the influence of  A TJEd, I decided to copy-n-paste my scribblings in here too - I did write it, when all is said and done. (Please excue the disjointedness; it picks up on a few different ideas that had come up in the online covnersation.)

I don’t think you can *make* a child learn anything.
I see my responsiblity (as an educator if you like) is to *inspire* my kids/students to want to learn for themselves. The responsibility for their learning is THEIRS. That doesn’t mean I ignore them. No way! Inspiring is hard work! It means you have to be learning stuff yourself, you have to be discovering things and have a love of learning yourself to pass on.
But if you have that, it really does seem that it is contagious. Do you notice your kids copying you? Even when they are really little? Well, the same thing just happens as they get bigger and bigger. They copy the sounds you make and before you know it, you can’t stop them talking. They pull themselves up on furniture and before you know it, they are doing their first triathlon (and in that case, they are exceeding the example I set!) They see you reading books and at some stage they are both ready and desiring to know what the squiggles say (they may want to know before they are ready, and in that case you end up teaching them about having patience!)….and they learn to read. They see you writing and they want to use a pencil too. At first they eat the pen or pull the paper off the crayons, but eventually they scribble and you frame it if it’s your first child’s work. Then they make recognisable shapes and give them names and put in backgrounds and patterns and words and before you know it you are finding love notes in the strangest of places (and you file them away even if they are from your fifth child, because the novelty of them never wears off)……in short, they learn to write and draw.That’s my basic premise. If you set the example, your kids will follow at their pace. On top of that I build a foundation that looks something like this: in the first few years (it seems to be around 8-ish years) we focus on learning to get on with other family members, learning what is right and wrong, learning mum and dad are there to help you, learning to serve.
Around 8-ish they tend to be reading and starting to create things (not the kindergarten activity where everyone makes identical flowers out of paper plates and pipecleaners - things they actually make up out of their own imaginations usually fuelled by some game they are playing). Then I notice the child is moving on from that “Very Foundational Core Phase” and into something, which more than one person has called Love of Learning Phase (actually, three people that I’ve come across, including me). This is not a set time - it’s not a consecutive thing. They don’t stop the Core Phase values when they move into LOL (not like if they move into Year Two they are no longer Year one students). They become LOLers and still have the Core values firmly planted in them. Likewise the Love of Learning will continue hopefully for the rest of their lives. But at this stage, it is the thing that is majorly focussed on. Our focus is not writing. But that they learn to love to write. Our focus is not maths, but that they learn to love mathematical concepts yada yada. When they are ready (and it is unlikely to be before the age of 12, and could well be later) they will move into a Scholar Phase - that’s when they’ll really get their education. And I won’t have to cajole them into it - they will be self-motivated. And why wouldn’t they be if they love learning? If we have focussed on them enjoying life, why wouldn’t they want to know more?

I knew a guy once who talked about going to Mongolia, because there weren’t many Christians there. He went to Nicaragua and is still radical. Today he posted a really interesting video on his blog and if I can’t work out how to put it up you’ll have to go visit him here.

Woohoo! I did it. But I’ll still leave the link to Steve - it’s worth looking at for the questions he raises about it.

I watch it a little differently (for the purposes of this *I’m getting an education* blog). I wonder whether the access to such technology is actually a curse that would have the potential to distract us from true education or if how it could be used to enhance a real education. I’m sure some Grandma somewhere said similar things about telephones! Surely it’s about *how* we use the technology…and we gotta think about how to do it to best serve our goals.
I wonder if my kids will not be Facebookers, because they are busy reading classics. I never saw The Dukes of Hazard or The Brady Bunch or dozens of other shows that my peer group grew up with, but I’m fairly well-adjusted, have picked up what most of the programmes were about and probably haven’t missed out on too much. Will my kids be like that? Or will they do both?

And how much do you say “Well that’s how youth ARE communicating these days and so we need to stay up with it”, and how much do you say “You know, son, there may not be many others doing it, but it’s great to read books”?????

I’m glad I don’t have to answer these question in a public education setting (whether that be school or church) - I have the advantage of being able to create a culture within my family that promotes the reading of real books and so in part I can Stick My Head In The Sand And Ignore The Issue for now, but then again I can’t, because it has intrigued me!

Where *has* this week gone?

It started sulkily with the still-no-books-in-the-letterbox….but I cracked open A History of Europe instead. Raids and rampages and kingdoms falling and assassinations there may ahve been, and in abundance, but it didn’t grab me and it’s now Thursday and I’d be dreaming to think I’ll have it finished this week. Even less chance of a review. Am I not meant to be writing something every day?

So *my* education has ground to a halt, only a matter of weeks after starting (unless you count the fact that I learnt you should slip stitches purlwise on socks and what an eye of partridge heel is).

How about the children?
Monday was a holiday, a Dadda-stays-home-from-work holiday, a people-come-and-spend-the-day-with-us-holiday. But we managed to finish off our book from last week and do a few other bits and bobs, so it would be fair to record it as a Good Start.
But when Monday is a holiday and Mr ERO comes on Tuesday and you go out on Wednesday, because you realise you won’t be able to on Thursday and you look after other kids on Thursday and another friend drops by and so you invite her in, because you’re not really *doing* anything anyway…….very soon it feels like Friday is nearly here and you haven’t done much this week. We’re almost halfway through The Secret Church, but we haven’t done any of the art lessons we had planned and we haven’t listened to the CD we had planned and we haven’t written thank you cards to friends who showered us with gifts on Monday. But we haven’t done *nothing* either.  The children have made a hut outside and this morning played their astronomy board game for a couple of hours and the older ones have plodded on with their maths texts (some days) and we’ve learnt two songs and revised Every Single One of our memory verses and baked a birthday cake and made birthday cards and the eldest boys have learnt to use their new Nepali knives and we’ve been to the park and had a broken pot replaced (keep those twenty-five-year guarantees with proof of purchase and you too might be smiling after ten years!) and climbed trees and mixed “concrete” and flown a remote controlled helicopter and got the drawbridge working on the Lego castle and refined the bows and arrows and J13 ran part of the powerpoint at church and some went swimming and we’ve visited friends and and and

As Mr ERO observed on Tuesday, it is “difficult to define, but impossible to deny that they live such  integrated and full lives brimming with enthusiasm and delight.” (I keep going over that sentence in my head and out loud whenever I can!)
It’s just not easy to put in boxes!
Actually, it’s a perfectly acceptable week for a bunch of children who are in Core Phase and Love of Learning. It’s just been a bit of a disappointment for me not being able to keep up my Scholar Momentum. But what can you do when you don’t have the books?

ER (18mo) waved at him as he drew to a stop on the driveway.
That was a very good *social* start to a visit from the Education Review Office, don’t you think?
Having performed her trick (totally spontaneously, actually), she disappeared to bed for the remainder of the visit.
And the rest of the children played nicely Without Any Fighting for the next two hours. I’m going to invite Mr ERO-Man back again next week - heehee. Plus the curry was cooked for dinner, the bread was baked for a couple more days and I was easily convinced to say “yes” to the doubtful-but-hopeful request to make an apple crumble for dessert (we only have dessert on *soup nights*, not curry nights - those kiddies knew they were on to a good thing!)

I made sure we talked about ATJEd. In fact, it was exciting to talk about it with someone who really appeared interested, someone who has the potential to influence many families. “What else has he written?”, he enquired.
“Apart from some practical how-to booklets to accompany this more philosophical book, I’m not too sure, though he has started a university!”
“I think I need to get a copy of this”….and he wrote down the title and author.
I hope he does.

Mr ERO-Man also scribbled down many of the phrases from the book, that have become my new mantras in such a short time. 
“inspire, not require, but that doesn’t mean ignore”
“structure time, not content”
“we set the example by learning, reading, thinking, pondering, writing, discussing and requiring quality work of ourselves as adults”

They pressed his right buttons.

And if he wasn’t already impressed with the University of Auckland Science Competition First Place Certificates (which I suspect he was - he had noticed and mentioned them before the children got to talk about what winning them entailed!), he was certainly convinced that we are not ruining our children when he saw their blog - and, as he had never come across a blog before, he was enlightened by their mini-tutorial of how to start one.

When it came time to write down particulars about “The Seven Essential Learning Areas” he observed it would be difficult to define, but impossible to deny that they live such  integrated and full lives brimming with enthusiasm and delight. Does “blog” go under technology or English or social studies? It could even go under maths at a push! He did write down that they have had 844 hits. Why, I’m not sure!

While I would still prefer the freedom to just keep my children home without needing to request permission from the authorities (who IS the ultimate authority in our children’s livee, after all - is it really the State?), it is reassuring to know that at this stage we still do have the freedom to take a very non-conformist approach to education. Long may it remain so.

Does watching Rob Bell DVDs count as lectures? I think so!

I watched Rhythm, Noise, Trees, Sunday and Rain last night. I want to watch them all again and mull over what they say. Maybe that’s the Scholar starting to come out - it’s not enough that I watched and had a “Oh yeah, I relate to what he’s saying” gut level response. I want to watch again and take notes! And change.

Reviews will follow

not what I do to the kids
or even at them!!!

I went to one.
Well, Almost.
It felt ever-so-TJEd-ish.

Even if it was in my own lounge and I was ironing new quilting fabric for the duration!

I listened to the first and a half CD by Oliver and Rachel DeMille - the ones that go with the Core and Love Of Learning booklet. It was so good to *listen* to them chat.
Now I can enter it in my Lecture Record.

But before I do that I’ll need to remember something of significance to record! It was too hard to take notes AND iron at the same time.

* recognise the seasons and work with them
* do “Sundays”
* be intentional

Nothing “aha” - more “yes, I agree with that, despite not doing it and need a kick into gear to make it happen”.

ALSO, very exciting…….last night I spent the evening with a friend and we got to chatting about reading books and discussing them together. She wants to do it. The reading group is beginning.

I made up a little rule that I could read a TJEd book one week, and then a *book of my choosing* the next week so that I actually get through the books I simply want to read as well as the ones I want to read for TJEd. I’m meant to be on to the next TJEd book, but it hasn’t arrived on my doorstep yet, so I’ve picked up an autobiography of a friend’s friend who has spent many years in Nepal. It’s proving to be an interesting read - well written, informative, insightful, with an interesting seasons metaphor running through it. I stumbled when when she suggested if you live in Nepal you are thrust into thinking about what you do with your life, what matters etc….whereas if you live in Australia (or, I suppose, New Zealand) you just live your life and don’t ask the big questions. “Speak for yourself,” I found myself  accusing her much as I had felt she was accusing me! And I realised she was speaking for herself! She needed God to take her to Nepal to make her question what matters, what’s important. While I would appreciate her not assuming I don’t ask those questions in suburban New Zealand, I accept this is *her* book, her story. In fact, by the end of the book I was no longer so concerned about that one paragraph near the beginning! 

Entitled “my seventh monsoon”, Naomi Reed documents the lessons she learns about God’s purposes and herself as she journies through the seasons of life.