The slower simpler pace of schooling

After finishing "The Right Side of Normal" a few days ago I feel like my thought process has been altered in a good way.  I not only see my children differently (or more to the point, I see them as who they actually are instead of "what they are supposed to learn at this age.")  I feel like I'm "seeing" them for the first time in a long while.  Though one might be good or doing well with learning something it doesn't mean she actually likes it or "should" be learning that at this moment in time.  I want my girls to experience things and try different aspects of learning and life, but I want to avoid the push or "drive" that is so common in our culture today.

Near the beginning of the book she says, "One of the hardest things I will ask of parents and educators in this book is to wait out the time frame of the creative learner.  I didn't come to this conclusion lightly.  Though there are thousands of research studies indicating academics shouldn't be rushed, our fast-paced society influences decisions to learn sooner..... 'We would be aghast at such a performance in medical science.  We wouldn't tolerate such ignorance even in the manufacture of our cars.'  Yet, the research on when children optimally learn is ignored."  (The underlined part was my own... I  never used to underline or mark in books, but after realizing my own Right-Brain dominance thing I decided to go with it and it is SO much easier to find those nuggets when I flip back through the book!)

So this brings me to Perfectionism.  I found it interesting to note that Left-brain dominant learners have a different type of perfectionism than Right-brain dominant learners. 
Quote-- A left-brained person tends to exhibit external perfectionism.  This is when she wants to exact perfection on everything she does and others do because she thrives on accomplishment (products).  An external perfectionist might think, "I want a perfect product; I'm frustrated because I want it to turn out right."  A right-brained person tends to exhibit internal perfectionism.  This is when he wants to exact perfection on everything he does and others do because his creative expression (process) is an extension of how he feels about himself.  An internal perfectionist might think, "Why am I so stupid?  Why can't I get this right?  I'm no good!"  Because many right-brained learners tend to be highly sensitive, this tendency to internalize the effect of their actions or products makes sense.  Interestingly, both perfectionist acts can look similar to one another; the difference is in the motive and inner effect.

She goes on to talk about her son and how he gave up drawing for a time because he couldn't do something as well as his father could.  I HAD that moment as a child and had given up drawing for years because I "couldn't do it."  I remember when I was older and was in a drawing class with my Dad, I was feeling like an idiot because my drawing looked so terrible compared to everyone elses (I think I was about 12).  The teacher didn't say anything about mine, but had an expression that told me enough, then he turned to my Dad and praised his drawing.  I actually did later go on to learn to draw on my own and got quite good at drawing, but I see that perfectionism in me.  Not to get the product perfect so much but to be satisfied with it.  It is heart breaking to be this sort of perfectionist (I always called it "overachieving") and be satisfied with what you've done only to be told all the "mistakes" that an external perfectionist will point out.  Once you recognize this however you can hopefully keep yourself from crushing the spirit of your child and also help them to realize that trial and error and trying again are great!  The external perfectionist is just trying to point out how you can make the product more perfect, but to an internal perfectionist your criticism is attacking them and their value as a person.

At the beginning of this week my oldest (7) learned about trial and error.  While working on her "Cat Shmat" game that I found on a math games website we had to try and fail and try again to figure out how to move the pieces so that the cookie would roll to the cat.  (This was perfect with the cat school theme!)  And I was able to talk out loud about what they could try.  When it was my 5 year old's turn I would ask, "What would happen if we put it here?"  or "Where do you think the cookie would fall if we turned this piece?"  All trying to get her to think logically and try and try again.  That last level was even hard for me, but it was okay because the girls saw me figuring out how to make it all work and failing, but trying again and again till we finally figured it out!

For father's day we'd gone to an art museum and I HAD to buy this book.It was just so creative and messy and fun!  Definitely NOT something you should try to get perfect or "inside the lines"... I remember that being a big deal when I was a kid and I have no idea why it should be.  Why do we care if our kids color outside the lines of a coloring book?  I remember the feeling of sadness as a little girl when my coloring accidentally arched outside of the line. 

Staying with the "cat school" theme I bought and photo copied some coloring pages of wild and/or big cats.  The coloring book emphasized in detail how each cat was colored in real life.  I wanted to avoid this "perfection" mindset and didn't feel the need to have them color the pictures realistically.  I encouraged them to color the pictures however they wanted.  "You can color them as rainbows or poke-a-dots or scribbles."  But the whole time they worked on their paintings they listened to some cat facts and were interested enough to repeat them back to their Daddy when he got home!  It was a lovely little time and all of my girls enjoy painting.

 Now for another quote about halfway through the book--
--There are two criteria for good reading resources for right-brained children.  They have to be meaningful and interesting, and highly visual.  Many reading programs contain dry and stilted material barely bordering on a storyline.  Because reading is all about the visualization for the right-brained person, such material doesn't capture the imaginations of these highly creative learners to entice their efforts.  As if that wasn't bad enough, many reading programs separate learning words from the context of reading.  Some reading programs even leave out visuals to prevent "cheating."  Because right-brained learners are whole-to-part people, they want to capture the big picture and they use the story and visual context to do so.  Separating words from context cripples their learning process.  (end quote)

Now I understand why I actually enjoy watching a movie before reading the book that it came from (usually) because I can pretty easily change how I see the characters if the book pictures them differently, but watching the movie first helps me get that over-arcing "big picture" and I love to go to the book and get all the details to really enjoy it (I'm rarely disappointed because the book is generally better!  So if I liked the movie then I'll like the book even more).  I probably would never have read "Pride and Prejudice" as a teenager if I hadn't watched the movie first for instance (and the book is full of so much more humor in the style of writing that I just loved, but wouldn't have sat through without that big picture first.)

My goal now as I read out loud to my kids or teach them something is to give them that "big picture"... rather than becoming impatient because they "just weren't listening" or because they need to "keep listening" - that doesn't work.  They need to picture it.  Re-capping a story to help them "see" where we were is so very helpful.  I remember how frustrated I was as a child listening to nursery rhymes or other stories with too many words that I didn't recognize and how I couldn't visualize it. I want to take the time to paint a mental picture for my children so that their vocabulary can grow as they enjoy the stories!

While the girls were having lunch I turned on a free on-line reading of The Chronicles of Narnia and when their attention seemed to be wandering I turned it off only to find they wanted me to turn it back on.  I asked them where we were and they'd lost the visual of what they were listening to so I caught them up by retelling (dramatically) what the story was talking about and what it looked like (it's hard for them to catch some of the words that we don't often use here, like "parcel" for "packages")  After we'd listened to the first 25 min segment and they were wanting to hear more I decided to hold them off and show them part of the movie just so they could understand more and talk about it more (They only watched as far as they'd heard the story.)  My oldest was especially interested in SEEING what she'd been hearing to really catch the visual.  We talked about how some things are different in movies than the books... how they will change hair colors to say the least.  As the 7 year old was watching this she suddenly wanted to grab her camera and take a picture of the movie playing.  So the picture above is her taking a picture of what they were watching.  I see more and more how her mind works and how I can better teach her and talk to her.  She so clearly is visualizing things and she is so picture oriented.  Note:  The words that I had her illustrate that I'd blogged about a month or so ago I finally hung up on the wall and she remembered practically all of them right away!  That visual stuck so well with her that suddenly reading was the easiest thing in the world.  ;)

 Which brings me to another great thing that I found.  A reading program specifically for right-brain dominant picture oriented thinkers.  I looked through as much as I could on their site and felt this sense of relief as a teacher.  I WISH I'd known about this when Lily was almost 5 and wanting to do school.  We did "Sing Spell Read Write" and while the first book was fine, the second book was more difficult for ME to teach even then for her to learn from.  I found myself changing or slowing SO much of it down that it was getting ridiculous.  They said not to move on from one place until the child can do the thing perfectly, but at one point I had a choice to either keep trying to go ahead or discourage my child by staying there when it clearly wasn't teaching her what they wanted her to learn.  Plus I felt very scattered when trying to figure out how I was supposed to teach her with it.  My husband tried to help me, but his "lesson plan" didn't help in the long run.  I think I was just sensing the resistance of my daughter and was growing more and more frustrated that I couldn't teach her with that method (the thing is expensive too!)  Anyway, resistance in learning is a red flag.  If your child is resisting learning something or more specifically HOW you are trying to teach them then you've got to back up and try a different road.  I'm learning how to do some "trial and error" of my own.  I thought it would be so great if I could pick one curriculum and learn how to teach it and use it for each kid.  It would save money in the long run, but while I might be able to use similar things for each kid I've got to look at them as individuals first.  My second two girls could probably be able to do a more traditional learning to read style (since they were are more verbal than my first), but my oldest being so picture oriented really needs a more specific program for her.  But here's the thing.  It's SO much more interesting and it's actually easier for a left-brain learner to translate pictures into symbols, so even if my younger ones "could" learn from a traditional method they might have more fun with the picture oriented program.  And.... lets be honest, this right-brained teacher thinks it will be much more fun to teach.  :]

These flash cards were so fun to find too as I'd already started having my daughter illustrate her own!  I'd like to get these and still have her make some of her own too.  I showed her some of these and she looked so interested in them and wanted to see each detail of how the word was portrayed in the picture.

So, all my reading and linking and looking brought me to some more schooling style discovery.  Now about what Waldorf schooling looks like.  It values oral story telling before age 8 and doesn't teach reading till 8 years old.  Using amazing visuals and gentle teaching style it is so exactly what I'd imagine a combination of simplicity parenting and right-brain dominant learner moshed together would become.  Here's an article about teaching reading Waldorf style.  And here is another article about some of the ways you can incorporate Waldorf type schooling into your home.  Whenever I read about Waldorf and their toys and so on before I always sort of stopped short with that because it can get so basic that it become unrealistic.  I don't have the finances to buy beesewax clay (is something I thought back then), but I guess I'm beginning to catch the flavor of simplicity schooling rather than getting caught up in how THEY do it.  Eating by candle light is a beautiful idea and my children love doing that!  It's not practical for this to happen ALL the time though.  My goal is always to simplify and create a nurturing rhythm to our days, but as the last blog entry demonstrated.. it's just not always possible.  We can easily turn an "ideal" into an "Idol" and anything short of meeting our ideal is too tragic for words... that's not a healthy way to live.  If good things become too important to us then they are suddenly in a place of worship without us even realizing it.

Another quote from "The Right Side of Normal"  -- "Right-brained children wilt under these pressures to perform on demand, especially in the early years.  Their process focus is about creatively figuring things out, unlike the product focus of getting it done."

I not only saw that in my first born (even as a toddler!) but I see that in myself and now recognize it in my own quest to teach my own children.  The left-brain teaching sequence was pressing down on me even as a teacher.  Perhaps if I had a left-brain dominant child I wouldn't have felt so discouraged since then it would have "worked" but as it was, I felt myself wilting more and more.  But in many ways that's okay because it drove me to find something better.  Here pretty soon, maybe I won't be on my computer so much searching for help and resources and be more present with my kids.

Speaking of not being on my computer to read as much.  Yesterday I just went with the Waldorf encouragement that values hands on activities and knitting and felting and weaving and (frankly) all the stuff I got super into when I was in my mid teens and totally loved!  I dug through my dwindling supplies that I haven't looked at in too long and pulled out some project ideas.  I already had the strips of paper cut from back in the day when I was making my art to sell (Still have some available to sell even though I haven't been making any recently.)  At Paper Artist on Facebook

And the weaving project was created.  I used double sided tape to put the first strip on so that they could keep following the pattern.  Bend back every other paper and slide your next paper in!  They were delighted with the pattern of squares that they made. 

Here is what it looks like with every other one bent back.  My oldest loved this project so much that she made 2 more!  She called it a "Paper quilt"  .. Our next project might involve fabric.  :]

My five year old was fascinated with this little hand knitting tool and did amazingly well at it!  And we had a relaxing quite afternoon listening to music in their room for several hours while doing projects.

My girls love making and playing with snakes.  The purple one that my oldest is holding was mostly made by me from yarn that I spun way back in the day.  They had fun picking out the buttons for the eyes and my 5 year old is still excited about making more snakes and even made another one today!  She wanted a little brother for the red girl snake.

We pulled out my ball winder at this time as well and they both took turns winding up yarn balls that were a little messy.  I also loved doing this at a young age.  I'm not sure why it's so fascinating, but it was.

When the 2 year old woke up she helped me pull the buttons all off the papers which made another sensory bin type thing for her to play in for later besides the usual bean boxes and rice bags.

The little one also had a blast helping with dinner this day.  She cut the cucumbers in half.

While I love the ideals of the Waldorf school, the spontaneity of unschooling, and "living books" and the outdoors like Charlot Mason emphasizes... it's important to realize that those ideals are just that.  Our days will look different.  I probably won't ever be introducing the school day with a song and provide only faceless dolls for my children (who insist on adding faces to anything that doesn't have one.)  I will strive for less TV time for them and slow our days down so that they can play more and be entertained less, but I probably won't cut out cartoons in the morning when they first wake up (only because I'd much rather sleep in than make them turn the TV off!)  Computers are here to stay and so are video games and technology.  What I feel like we need is not to get rid of it all, but to use it wisely and to find the balance of using it well so that we control our own pace in life.  That balance will look different for each family and if we were living in different circumstances it would probably look different for us.  It's been difficult in the heart of such a big city by a busy highway on a busy residential road completely full of apartments IN a little apartment to find nature and a slower pace, but it can be done.... a little bit at a time.  It's always a re-balancing act though as other people press their ideals onto what life should look like, but what we each need to get to is what our own family's pace of life should be.