Storm Recovery, Trials and Blessings

It has been a long 5 months of messed up living conditions and extra work on top of our regular responsibilities. Yes, we are still trying to recover from our tree damage. We have been through numerous trials that have stretched where we needed stretching, and the blessings have been abundant.

Our ancient air-conditioner was replaced. We will soon have a newly updated bathroom. The window in our son's room that looked into the garage is gone--always hated the view. ;) Our house is getting a new paint job that is a decade overdue. Lots of improvements. I have NO reason to complain, but we are getting weary now, I'll admit.

Our mortgage company is micro-managing us. We feel they are not helping, but hindering our progress. The finish line is within reach if they would just release the final portion our Insurance has paid us and move out of the way. We can do a better job and be more efficient without them. Hasn't this gone on long enough? >whine, whine<

It is a very real truth that says the borrower is slave to the lender.

Dear reader, if you think of it and if the Lord leads, continue to pray for those who are STILL trying to recover from damage and experiencing hardships similar or worse than ours. Fur us pecifically, we could use prayer concerning an important inspection we are having this week. If all goes well, the mortgage company will endorse our final check in its entirety, and the end will be nearer. When this our repairs are complete, we will put renewed effort into getting out of slavery!! ;)

I Have Young Learners Again!!

After, I taught my big girls their math facts, good reading skills and strong study disciplines, they took off. The time I am needed in their academic pursuits is minimal. What do I do as a home-educating mom of a 6th grader and 10th grader? I plan, buy and provide resources, check their work and make suggestions and encouragements. That is it!! We face occasional challenges, but with determination we work through them. My oldest has worked her way from Saxon 4/5 (4th grade) to Saxon's Algebra 2 level course without my help. All I do is check and track her work. She self-educates, as many home-educating children do.

No need to feel sorry for them!! They will never face the limits of being under a teacher and all teachers have limits to the amount of academic meat they can provide. These children are given tools to reach unlimited possibilities, rather then being dependently spoon-fed. This is why a well-disciplined child does not need teachers who are "specialized" in certain subjects or grade levels. Give a self-educating child books and he/she will devour them. Dr. Art Robinson's essays and methods were helpful in getting us to this point...

...this post is about my young learners right? Even though I had already taught two children to read, I wondered if I could do it again. After all, I am no spring chicken. Perhaps, my ability to lead little ones to the trough of information through deciphering words was...well... dead already. :)

Good news!!

By God's generous grace, I am still alive and I am teaching young'uns again!!

Aaron will be four after Christmas and Victoria will be two after Thankgiving. I am thrilled that Aaron has been so motivated to learn the letters and their sounds. He can even sound out a few short vowel--consonant combos. Today, I caught him staring at a page of words, NO pictures, just observing the letters and words. This is very encouraging to me. I have been nervous because he is my first boy, and I understand that many boys just aren't ready until they are much older even though they are just as intelligent. I had prepared myself to relax with him.

Victoria likes whatever her big brother likes. She is has proved capable to learn the letter sounds and is going to be so easy- a gimme.

Now, all children are different, but I am sensing that my boy is NOT ready to learn to write quite yet. I have found that the even my girls were ready to read long before they were capable of writing and that is okay with me. We can tackle that at a later point when fine motor skills are better developed and it will be an instantly successful and tear-free event.

I have noted few things that I think help my little ones learn to read:

*Severely limiting TV and video viewing. They seek more creative and stimulating ways to entertain themselves--like reading.

*When naming letters, I call them by their sounds instead of their names. I don't even think they know the alphabet song. I have cut to the chase and provided the phonetic sounds right off the bat. All they need to do is learn to apply them. This is an idea I learned from Ruth Beechick.*READ, READ, READ- Reading aloud is how I spend a significant portion of our time. I read around 3 or more books per day to just the little ones. (I welcome repetition during the early years.) Their big sisters read to them, too. They have access to books they can explore when no one is available to read to them. I try to provide only well-written, interesting and morally uplifting books. It is helpful to be picky in the selection process.

I read a vocabulary lesson, current event articles, informative articles and books that challenge everyone, including myself at times. These are geared toward my older girls, but I require my little ones to sit still on a blanket or bean bag during these read aloud sessions. You would be surprised how much they absorb. We just assume it is over their heads! To our surprise, they start asking questions about something you were reading in that "big book". Just tonight, I was reading about missionary Steve Saint when an encounter with a Jaguar was experienced. Our boy did not know about Jaguars, so questions came like a flood. We had to get to the computer to learn about them as soon as reading time was over. He also pointed out a word that I read--"vast". He mentioned that he had heard that word to used to describe outer space. These little ones are observant.

*At night, while my tots are settling to sleep, I read stories to them. No picture books at this time,, and nothing with high adventure that would stimulate them. Passages from God's Word are a good thing to hear when falling asleep, especially when spoken in the voice of a loving mother or father.

The only curriculum that I "loosely" follow for this age group is Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row.

It's your turn! I would love to hear what has brought reading success to YOUR home!

Is Education Neutral?

Education is a not religiously neutral. Having attended traditional and government sponsored schools it took me a time to see this because I didn't know of alternatives. Now that I have been free from public schooling for some time and while helping my children pursue an education from a Biblical viewpoint, I have begun to see clearly that an education that does not acknowledge the works of God is inadequate and even a hindrance for the Christ-follower. Doug Phillips helps us understand:

Education Choices are Not Neutral: The Implications of Islamic Madrasahs and Government Schools for Our Christian Children

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Pslam 1: 1-2

By Doug Phillips

Education is inescapably a religious discipline. The content, methodology, and the very culture in which education takes place are the product of the theologies which drive them. There is no neutrality. When parents choose between a Biblical vs. non-Christian educational paradigm for their children’s education, they are actually making a decision between competing faith systems. The question is simply this—in which religious educational system will my child be discipled?

Content is Not Neutral

As to content, the choice of which facts to emphasize and which to exclude, the interpretation of those facts, and the organization of ideas are all driven by faith assumptions which are entirely religious in nature. Without the correct starting points, even “facts” will not be adequately explained within the context of a truly Christian worldview. As Van Til has observed, “brute factuality does not exist.” All facts must be interpreted to have meaning. Furthermore, the Bible rejects the notion that facts can be taught in a neutral environment when it declares that one must first fear the Lord before presuming to attain knowledge (Proverbs 1:7).

Methodology is Not Neutral

Educational methodology, or pedagogy, is not neutral. For thousands of years, men have debated over educational methodology. All of these debates have centered around issues like “What is the true nature of the child?”; “What are the true goals of education?”; “What is the role of the state vs. the parent in training the child, ” and “How are values, ideas and information best taught to a child?”; just to name a few. The answers to these questions are at the heart of the greatest religious battles of all time. These questions can only be answered in terms of religiously-driven faith assumptions about God, man, the state, etc.

From the ancient Greeks to the evolution-driven pedagogical theory of the 19th, 20th and 21st century, religious beliefs have always driven educational models. It is inescapable. The modern government school classroom is a reflection of the religious priorities of men who are at war with the God of the Bible. The government school model is a self-conscious rejection of the biblical model, and an advancement of a humanistic, evolutionary and statist view of the child. It was built on the philosophies of some of the most virulent God-haters in history from Plato to Rousseau to Dewey.

Ultimately, there are only two pedagogical models—that which was known to Abraham and Moses and Solomon and can be described as the biblical or Hebraic approach to discipleship, and everything else. “Everything else” might be described as the Greek model. It comes in many shapes and sizes, but at the end of the day, it grants to the state a jurisdiction reserved to the family. It is based on a wrong view of the goals of education, the nature of the child, and the nature of the universe.

Culture is Not Neutral

But there is even more on the line. The very culture in which education takes place is a reflection of the religious assumptions, values, beliefs, and character qualities of the people who form the environment in which education takes place. Plato understood this. His religion was heavily rooted in statism. The child was a ward of the state. Plato was deeply concerned about the negative impact of the culture of the family on the educational objectives of the state for the child. This is why he made it a primary objective of his pedagogical philosophy to remove children from their parents, strip them of their clothing, place them in gymnasiums (“place of nakedness”) and have a special class of state approved experts disciple children in the objectives of the state with an emphasis on athletics, philosophy, and warfare.

Moses understood this too which is why, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he set forth and prioritized a form of discipleship training that required substantial parental involvement through face-to-face interaction that would occur in real-world environments over the course of a day. The very culture of the family—both the household and the family enterprise—is a primary backdrop for this walk-along-side, educational model communicated in Deuteronomy 6 and elsewhere.

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