Teacher Notes

Yesterday was a much better day.  Thank you for your prayers as we’ve been transitioning.  Yesterday was very good.

This week at school was not at all like the first.  I was very disappointed in myself about that.  It wasn’t a complete failure or anything.  I have a certain expectation, though, and don’t like when we don’t reach it.

I know it’s fine.  I honestly don’t like that it’s fine, but I know it’s fine.  The rational seeps into my brain, that at “regular” school, kids have assembly days.  They have fire alarms.  They have days where nothing gets done.  I mean, most schools spend their whole first week doing get-to-know-you stuff.  We just went straight to the meat and potatoes.  It’s not like we’re behind.

However, I hate that expression too.  “Behind.”  It’s as if we were in a race with the public school kids to make sure that we’re “on track” (another racing term).  It’s not that I hate public schools, because I don’t.  It’s that I don’t think our school is any comparison, so I wish that I, and others, would stop comparing us to them.

It just reinforces the myth that public schools in this country are the standard that we much all reach towards.  That idea rubs me completely the wrong way.  I’ll try to explain without going on a tangent that will raise such a online fight that I’m in no mood to have.

I think that as Christians, we should not reach for standards set by our government, we should reach for standards set forth by God.  Whether or not we use the public schools to equip our children does not matter to me.  I do not think I’m better than those moms who send their kids to school, because I believe God calls some families to do that.

However, the public school mentality is that we must all be on the same page.  The super smart kids need to wait around until the slower kids catch up, and we must all move forward at the same pace.  It’s one of the reasons we left.  I personally feel that each of my kids are gifted in different ways, and my goal is to educate them to the fullest extent of their ability, and not to the universal standard that is set forth by the state.

So take note, Moms: we do not all need to be the same, do things the same, and be all on the same page.  If you believe that, or struggle with that thought, then you’ve given into the public school mentality.  I myself do it all the time.  I need to remind myself that yes, we all are different, and different is good.  Different means that we’re not all hands in the body, or all elbows.  Some are feet, some are hands and some are knees. The body of Christ implies diversity.  We are called to lean on God for guidance, not the state.  Although God does sometimes provide, or resource guidance through the state. 

So when I have a bad week, and someone (no one has yet, this time) says “O, you’re far ahead of the public schools, so don’t worry.”  I want to wave my hands and say “Yes, but what does how we compare with public schools have to do with anything?  It’s irrelevant!”  If I wanted to insure that my kids were on target with public schools, I would have left them in public schools.  I wanted something different, so I need to stop looking over my shoulder to see if we’re the same enough.

So now I’ll step off the soapbox and tell you about our week.

Monday was good.  We got a lot done.  Tuesday was a joke.  We had a few minutes of school, and then somehow it all unraveled.  I’m not even sure what exactly happened there.  Like I mentioned in previous posts, Solveig has been teething and getting up a lot at night.  So the mornings are a bit hazy for me as Knut leaves for work, with me just standing there with my cup of coffee, bathrobe on, and my eyes peering through my broken glasses.  (Solveig broke my glasses this week.  She was handing them to me, and snapped off one of the parts, which is now connected by electrical tape until I bring it in to be fixed.  It should be an easy fix, but they fit crocked now.)

Wednesday I was determined to do better.  I was going to lay down the law and be strict.  School was going to be the #1 top priority that day.  Well, that backfired because it turned into a day of me yelling at the kids and the kids yelling at each other.  It was awful, as I wrote about yesterday.

Part of the problem was I was trying to get too much done that day, and the kids were feeling neglected.  One story I’ll always remember.  After having devotions, the pledge, and our history reading for the day, I left Silje reading her independent reader on the living room couch, and David had a math worksheet that he had to work on at the dining room table.  Solveig and Elias needed a bath very badly, so I was going to be right upstairs in the bathroom with them.

Well, pretty soon, I hear Silje and David fighting and yelling downstairs.  So I peek my head out of the bathroom, and tell them that I gave them no work that required them to talk, therefore NO TALKING!!  So then they were whispering and squealing.  I yelled down the stairs again.  Normally I would go down and see what all the fuss was about, but I didn’t want to leave Elias in charge of the bath.

So since I couldn’t move, the next time noise came from downstairs, I called David upstairs to talk to me in a normal voice, since I was pretty sure he was the instigator of all this.  Silje came with too, to assure me she was reading nicely, but David kept interrupting her.  I had already figured this, and was annoyed at her joy in telling me of her brother’s faults.  She went downstairs with rebuke.

I ask David what the problem was, and he said he lost his math.  I was confused.  Lost his math?  Wasn’t he just sitting there doing his math?  How do you loose your math when you are working on it?  He started screaming that he couldn’t find it, and Silje wouldn’t help him look for it, and he didn’t know what to do.

I told him to go downstairs and look everywhere.  Perhaps he was wiggling on his chair and it fell below the table.  I told him to look under his chair.  I said he better find his math and get it done!  He started crying, and ran back downstairs, crying and screaming every minute or so that he couldn’t find it.

So finally I got the little 2 dressed, and we came downstairs to help David look.  There it was, on the table, right where I had left him working.  David had a sheepish look, and shrugged his shoulders.  “O!” he said.  “I didn’t think to look there!”  I was so angry.  Sometimes I don’t understand what goes through his brain.

That anger followed so much of the day.

So Thursday my plan was to have a day of healing and instituting some better habits.  We cuddled and talked more.  I never left the room when they were working.  I pushed aside all other work so I would have no distractions.  We took more breaks, and just talked about life.  We still didn’t get to our memory work, so that subject was pretty much not done this week, but we can catch that up easily.  We had some catch up work to do from the day before, and I wanted to make sure we had a lot of Friday’s work done too, because we are doing a day trip today and wouldn’t be able to do our curriculum work today.  We got most of it done, though not all.  Enough where I feel good about it.

So today we’re off to go shopping in the city.  A children’s consignment shop is setting out all their winter coats and boots for the first time this season, and my kids need to get suited up.  We spent a decent amount of time this week trying on all our winter gear to see what still fits, what can be passed down, and who needs what.  Here’s our shopping list for the day:

Silje needs: new snow boots, at least 1 decent sweatshirt, snow pants, and winter dress shoes.
David needs: mittens, a light fall/spring coat, and new boots.
Elias needs: snow pants, and tennis shoes
Solveig needs: tennis/casual shoes and some more pants.  (I realized that most Silje left behind for her have holes in them.)

So we found more coats in the kids’ “big boxes” (the boxes full of clothes that people give us) than I had expected, but since the weather is turning, it’s time to make sure that the kids have other shoes than just their sandals, and that when the snow does fly…probably not for another month or 2 at the earliest…we’ll be ready.

We’ll also get to see the kids’ cousins while we are in the city.  It will be fun to see how the unpacking has been going at their house.

I hope you all have a great weekend!  Tune in tomorrow when I’ll post the first in my “Freezer Cooking” series.