When I grow up I'm called to be...

I've read a bunch of social media posts and the like lately by people who are proclaiming that they've discovered that what's important in life is "finding out what you want to do" and "doing what makes you happy" and "focusing on doing what's right for you."

And I think that's a terribly empty way to live a life.  Because here's the thing: your life isn't about you.  It isn't about crossing off things on a bucket list or finding a cool job or having a fun hobby.  It's about emptying yourself of yourself and leaving yourself open for God and others to fill you up again.  It's about making yourself vulnerable to maybe not being filled up exactly the way you would have chosen, and accepting that Thy will be done, and not mine.  It's about giving, and giving, and giving again, and then being unexpectedly but perfectly replenished just as you're emptied out.

Funnily enough, I've found that the more successful I am in clearing away my own me-ness and becoming open to what others need of me, the more fulfilled I am.  Am I gosh-darn happy every minute?  No - but there is a deep, satisfying joy and contentment in service.  I find myself going about my day often just so overwhelmingly grateful for everything - the sky, my grilled cheese sandwich, a cheerful e-mail from my boss - that it feels like I could crack wide open.  I lose that feeling sometimes, but I know where it's coming from, and that it means I'm on the right path - and I know that when I do lose it, the answer is not finding more me, but becoming less me.

I've tried to impart a sense of that to the kids.  We were sitting around the table having dinner a few weeks ago and were talking about the upcoming ordinations in our diocese and the topic of vocation came up.  SweetPea asked what a vocation was, and I told her that she would do a lot of great things, but her vocation was the most important job that God had for her to do in her life, and that God would let her know what that was.  We talked about listening to God and about the difference between being called to do something and wanting to do something.  We talked about how when I was little I didn't think I wanted to be a mommy, but that is my vocation and it is awesome and makes me very happy, and I'm glad I listened to what God wanted me to do.

I want my kids to grow up and do fun things and have rewarding careers and see great places.  But more than that, I want them to be open to where they're being called to serve and the joy that can bring.  I want them to know that putting yourself aside - sometimes in big ways - can lead to unimaginable fulfillment.  I want them to know that "what I want to be when I grow up" is a good question, but "who I am called to be" is a much greater one.  It's a more difficult path, I think.  It's not a popular path.  And it's darned hard to raise kids who are open to the difficulty of finding their vocation and listening to God when most of the world is telling them that "doing what makes them happy" is the way to go.

But I'm growing, and learning what it means to follow, and we'll keep trying to show that to the kids - and maybe, hopefully, it'll work.

Curriculum, Part II

A bit ago I wrote about the books we really loved and felt were a good fit for our kids.  There were also some subjects where, while we weren't unhappy with what we used this past year, we felt that it wasn't quite right.  We'll be making some changes this year, namely in:

Grammar - Kolbe English Grammar 2 and Voyages in English

It's frustratingly difficult to find a grammar curriculum for the elementary grades at all, actually, as it's not taught as widely as it used to be in schools - diagramming sentences and even parts of speech are going the way of the dinosaur.  But SSHH and I have a wall full of literature degrees, and darn it, our kids are going to learn to write.  I spent a few years teaching freshman composition to some of the "best and the brightest" and an astonishing number of them didn't have a solid grasp of how their native language functioned.

We're also going to be starting Latin this year, and want Sprout to have a decent grasp of English grammar before he has to transfer that knowledge to another language.  Learning a foreign language beyond the "Rosetta Stone level" requires studying grammar and mechanics - the boring stuff that makes up the backbone of a language.

So all that means that we've spent considerable time researching our grammar curriculum.  Last year we used Kolbe's texts after reading reviews praising them for being rigorous.  After working through the second grade book this past year, however, we'll be making a change.  Kolbe's book worked through the broad strokes of grammar in an age-appropriate way and with enough practice, but the explanations of concepts were often lacking and the book was quite dry.  There was also very little tying the grammar work to actual writing, which is, of course, why one bothers to study grammar in the first place.

So while the Kolbe text did an adequate job and we really have no complaints, we'll be jumping ship to the popular Voyages in English series this year.  There are very thorough explanations all the way through, and more than enough practice between the textbook and workbook.  The focus is on understanding how language works, and that will form a solid foundation for all of the foreign language and writing work we'll be doing.  Despite the minimal explanations, Sprout did well with the Kolbe text and is ready for the fourth grade book of Voyages - so he'll be "skipping a year" in this, per Kolbe's recommendation.

As a bonus, each book contains a section on writing that complements the writing curriculum we'll be using (Classical Academic Press' Writing and Rhetoric - more on that later).  We're following the Classical model for writing, but with some "normal" extras thrown in, too - elegant prose is great, but things like the structure of a business letter and the mind-numbing five-paragraph essay are going to be necessary, too, and Voyages in English picks these up.

Geography - Evan-Moor Daily Geography Practice and The Complete Book of Maps and Geography

We didn't mind the Evan-Moor book this year, although I'm not sure that Sprout really learned anything substantial.  There were two pages of questions each week about a fictitious map, and Sprout usually dispensed with these in under fifteen minutes.

Since he's clearly just fine with the concept of reading a map, it's time to start learning the content of geography.  This year's book - which we'll actually be spreading out over two or three years - is a solid overview of U.S. and world geography, along with practice reading different kinds of maps.  It's inexpensive, colorful, and not dumbed-down - just right for a pretty cut-and-dried subject that doesn't require too much of a creative methodology to get through.

Last Day

It's the last day of school.  We celebrated with Mass and math games on the computer and chocolate-dipped strawberries for lunch and strawberry shortcake for dinner.  SSHH and I made a big show of telling the kids to get to bed because they had SO MUCH schoolwork tomorrow and then acted surprised when they gleefully shouted "NO!!" and danced around the room.

They've learned a lot this year.  Times tables and typing and how to write a paragraph and a bibliography and how to read and how a plant grows and how to write the number two.  I've learned a lot this year.  How to knock out a lesson plan in the ten minutes before I collapse in bed and that spelling word lists are less important than I thought they were and how to help Sprout focus when his head is in the clouds and how to skewer a bean seed on a pin just so so that it sprouts suspended in mid-air for a science experiment..

There have been times this year when I've had to laugh out loud because the kids and I were just having so much fun.  And there were days when not a single worksheet got finished and Sprout and I stood in the hallway, hands on hips, yelling at each other until we both left in tears.  There were days when we thought about quitting and when it seemed like the right thing - and definitely the easier thing - to just send him off on the big yellow bus in the morning and to turn all this school stuff over to someone else.

The homeschool world talks a lot about how homeschooling helps build wonderful close family relationships and blissfully happy, confident children.  But what they don't say is that this is really, really hard, and that there will be times when your family is wonderfully close and times when it feels like school is driving a wedge between you all.  I wish I had known to expect that in the beginning; it might have spared me a few sleepless nights, wondering if I was ruining my children's lives forever.

Looking back I can recognize those dark days and weeks as growing pains and adjustment, and we've come through them for the most part.  Sprout is usually cheerful about his work these days, and recognizes when he's getting off-track and knows what to do about it - a big skill for an eight-year old!  And the close, happy moments far outnumber the trying ones now.  We've all learned a lot about patience and respect and compassion - and I'd bet I've learned more than the kids have this year about all those things.

The year began as a trial, a hopeful experiment, and it's turned into a way of life.  We've got a crew of wonderfully wise, prayerful, supportive, joyful homeschool families who have offered friendship and advice.  We've got piles of books for all three older children for next year.  We're busily demolishing the family room to turn it into a schoolroom/playroom.  We live for fieldtrip days and start "worksheet days" together with a hug and a sigh.  We still have a lot to learn on this journey - but we've come a long way this year and with God's grace, hard work, prayer, and a sense of humor about it all, we'll keep moving forward as a homeschool family.

Berry Day

We are wrapping up school this week, and like the public schools, there just isn't much work to do in the last few days.  Tests are done, books are finished, and since I'm the boss, I guess we could just be done, but gosh darn it, I told the kids we were ending school on June 4 (180 school days after we started), and I'm going until June 4.  I think it will be better for all of us to put an ending point on the year, rather than having each kid peter out individually as work comes to an end.

But in any case, there's not much book learnin' left.  The kids have loved reading the Little House books this year and read about berry picking in Farmer Boy a couple weeks ago - so off we went to the strawberry fields today.

And it was a wonderful, amazing day.  Children shouting and having fun, racing up and down the rows with their little buckets, tasting juicy strawberries as they went.  A picnic lunch, which Sprout started with a spontaneous grace before meals.  Brother and sisters truly enjoying each other, with not a fight to be heard.  And although it was a fun day, it was a school day, too - we talked about measuring by weight and by volume, about parts of flowers and food chains, about nineteenth-century subsistence farming.

All in all it was a day that made me profoundly grateful to have the opportunity to educate our children at home.  They've had so much fun this year, learned so much about the world and about themselves, and turned into such fascinating little people - watching them run and yell in the sunshine today, all I could do was thank God for the gifts He has given us in each other.