Rebellion

Being a rebel for the sake of rebellion has no intrinsic value. Trust me. Rebelling against rules, propriety and manners is not difficult--most one year old's and every two year old can do it! Rebellion itself is not great or glorious. Rules, propriety, manners and culture exist to make us better individually and as a society, and blind rebellion weakens us individually and as a whole.

However, Rebellion for the sake of changing parts of society that are "broken" is of tremendous value. It is also much more difficult. There will always be people who hold the Andy Warhol's and Jack Kerouac's up as examples, simply because they behaved badly--but with flair. That is not true rebellion of change--it is merely bad behavior and public demands for attention.

The symbol of Gandhi's revolution was--a spinning wheel. The Charkha is a small, compact, portable spinning wheel that Gandhi invented. He understood that there was no point in overthrowing a government if your people don't have a way to support themselves. Spinning cotton was an ideal solution--India's tropical climate is ideal for growing cotton, 1 cotton plant provides enough fiber for 3 dishtowels or 1 small t-shirt (as well as seeds to continue growing more supplies!), and the box charkas are cheap to make (there are even plans available for making them from cardboard!) This is truly revolutionary thinking!

Any moron can destroy what others have built. It takes true genius and leadership to inspire every one around you to build up and improve.

Escaping Tyranny

I think all homeschool moms experience feelings of doubt, guilt, and occasional panic, wondering if we are REALLY doing the best thing for our precious children.

Every morning, I watch the school bus go past my house without stopping for my children, and every morning, I feel like we have escaped from prison. We aren't scrambling around making sure everybody has a lunch, a backpack (which, incidentally, for a middle schooler weighs about as much as your average senator) and any stray notes or homework. Whether we were in an organized phase (thanks, FlyLady) or a disorganized phase, there was always a scramble.

Now, we get SmallDaughter onto the van for her school, and then the rest of us go tackle our day. This morning was fairly typical. I got up with My Favorite Gentleman at 4:45, packed his lunch for work (it makes him feel loved), he wheeled the trash dumpster out to the curb (it makes me feel loved!) and I had my early morning seminary class at 5:15. (I am teaching New Testament this year, to some EXTREMELY awesome high school students--who attend this extremely early class every day, and then go to school and do great things!

After class, I invited BigGirl and LargeBoy in for "Snuggle Time" in my room. Snuggle Time is a long-standing tradition, born back in the day when they HATED to get rushed out of bed straight into the school chaos. I realized that their schedule was: get up-get ready-go to school-come home-do homework-eat dinner-go to bed-do it again. These are FIRST GRADERS! When did we have time for fun? For Love? For knowing that they are the most important things in my life? So they started coming into my room before they had to get up, for snuggles, reading aloud, back and foot massages, movie watching and, occasionally, sleep. When I am old, what I will look back on with love and nostalgia, is snuggling with my beautiful children every morning.

So, this morning, LargeBoy (who slept very well), was not sleepy, and wanted to be productive, but both of his sisters were still asleep. What to do? He went and got his scout notebook, wrote several thank you notes, and worked on memorizing the Boy Scout Oath and such. While he was snuggled up to me. When he finished, he went back to sleep. When he gets up, (I know from past experience)he will have a great day. He is very sleep dependent, and lack of sleep makes him a very grouchy guy.

When BigGirl was having a hard time with math, we started doing it snuggled in my bed, where it was warm and we could reduce her stress. Ironically, she is very good at math, she just gets frustrated and panicky (just like her mother!). Since I am doing math with them (I am learning and RETAINING more than I ever have, thank you for asking--I really love the Saxon Math program), we just got comfy and worked through the hard places together.

We are no longer under the tyranny of other peoples schedules, other peoples expectations, and other peoples ridicule. Why can't math be learned in bed?

So, my observations about "am I doing the right thing" and other guilt and panic?

I love to spend time with my kids. I would rather be with them than most other people--they are funny, kind and intelligent. I don't need to send them off to school to have other people babysit them because they drive me crazy.

In a typical classroom of 25, a teacher can only give each child 5-7 minutes of individual attention per day. Now, even on a crazy busy day, when I am rushing between projects, I can give them at least 15 individual minutes.

15 minutes doesn't sound like very much, does it? But consider this--it is three times more than they would be getting! And that is on my worst day!

In my school, we have no bullying, no harrassment (well, except from me about room cleaning!), no peer pressure to try drugs, sex or tobacco (let alone steroids given by overachieving coaches, etc.) AND if anybody in my school has a gun--it is because we are doing target shooting!

How can I possibly do WORSE for my children than the public Junior High Schools?

I am going back to bed, to snuggle my beautiful children and to lovingly face the future!

Quiet Rebellion

Honestly, I did not set out to become the Leader of the Rebel Alliance!

However, over the course of the last year, at least 3 families that I love (and talked to A LOT!) have decided to home school their children. Now, while I do accept partial responsibility, I can't take it all, because a WHOLE LOT comes from the schools.

Now, I have to tell you that my fabulous children attended our local (small) public school from K until either 5 or 6 grade (ie, this last year). That is because I am not their only parent, and we needed to follow the desires of our good daddy (My Favorite Gentleman). They received an adequate education there. However, this year, they (the school)--without really informing the parents-- decided to move the 5th and 6th grade into the junior high. I am sure it was for reasons like space or budget issues. However 10 year olds do not need to be in the same culture as 8th graders.

Here we find ourselves, and our cute, perfect little babies are now tall, willowy (in some cases) wiry (in other cases) people whom we have carefully raised to have LOTS of personality, curiosity and life all stored up in them, and then they are forced to go into schools that systematically try to crush all of those traits OUT.

In my opinion, Junior High school is the cesspool of our civilization. At this age, personalities are delicate and are forming the traits that will shape the rest of their lives. So, we send them to school for "socialization"--do you remember jr. high? The only people meaner that jr. high boys are jr. high girls!

Also, if you think about it, the only other place that has a comparable social setting is prison. That isn't what I want my children to think is normal.


Today was the first warm spring-like day. It seemed like a criminal act to force them to stay in (and there was no good reason why they should!) so they went out to run in the fresh wind. They came running joyfully back to report that one of our trees is not only hollow!, but also contains a squirrel nest, and is completely full of stored nuts.

LargeBoy of mine reporting to his dad:

Daddy:"what have you learned in school?"
LargeBoy: "nothing."

Dad indignantly told this to me, which made me laugh, because that was the same day LargeBoy had reeled off the names of all the kings of Mesopotamia--which he learned about a little bit from our history lesson, but mostly from a "They Might Be Giants" song!

I reassured his daddy that LargeBoy was just used to thinking that learning has to be drudgery, and that if it is fun, it can't possibly count!


So, here we are with a brand new paradigm--where we learn for the joy of it! Whoa--what a radical idea!