Homeschooling entropy
Political and legislative events of late are more than just a little discouraging. I was in Nashville watching my eldest son as a witness at the state mock trial competition during the fateful days before “the bill” passed. I had the opportunity to stay with my sister in her lovely home in Franklin which comes equipped with a media room so I could watch Fox news in surround sound each night until I could no longer hold my eyelids open.
I was mesmerized by the health-care battle, never thinking the bill would pass, taking heart in a few stalwart congressmen who surely would not fold on important issues such as abortion. And now it is just so disconcerting to read or hear the news as it seems we are losing the war. It is times like these that I find it hard to get back into the daily routine. What is the point of drilling math facts when it seems as if the constitution is being shredded and we are losing more of our freedoms in an increasingly socialist society. How can we fight this? What are the battles that lay ahead?
But is it precisely during these times that we can take refuge in the familiar and the routine aspects of family homeschooling life. It is even more important to inspire those thoughts which become actions, to encourage those actions which become a habit and to instruct in those habits which form our children’s characters.
Apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the humanist and existentialist for borrowing his words here.
For the past year I have been part of a group reading the book Laying Down the Rails: A Charlotte Mason Habits Handbook by Sonya Shafer of Simply Charlotte Mason (a free sample of which is available at simplycharlottemason.com). In the study we have been encouraged to work on just a habit or two at a time, both in our lives as well as in our children’s lives. Sometimes I have been successful in instilling a habit in one of my children. I am heartened when I see annoying behaviors change, or rudeness turn to civility. Then I stop working on that particular habit and surprise, surprise, the habit is lost and the old behavior returns, sometimes with a vengeance.
Charlotte Mason had something to say about this: “The little relaxation she (the mother) allowed her child meant the forming of another contrary habit, which must be overcome before the child gets back to where he was before.”
When you excuse lapses in a newly formed habit you do yourself and your child no favors. In the introduction of Sonya’s book, she gives five principles in the formation of good habits.
- Be consistently diligent to deal with your child the first time and every time he offends. Divert their thoughts to redirect. Attend to small things. Realize discipline is not just punishment. What you are giving your child in forming good habits is more valuable than gold or silver.
- Devote yourself to the formation of one habit at a time, keeping watch over those habits already formed.
- Develop your own habit of watchfulness and cultivating good habits in your child.
- Motivate your child with an interesting and inspiring example of a person who possesses the habit you want your child to develop.
This law of things tending from order to disorder is known in science at the law of entropy. In the home it is known as clutter and in the garden it is known as weeds. I have an intimate acquaintance with this law. It is my boon companion.
We should see it as a further evidence of intelligent design. If evolution is true and order came out of disorder, why does this not work with countertops in the kitchen? OK, I am being a bit facetious. But the point I wish to make is that we have to be quietly on guard with our children’s training just as we have to be vigilant with our housekeeping.
Enough about that.
In March I promised to tell a bit more about the Biblical Student Worldview Conference for students ages 15 through college. This conference has been going on for many years under the auspices of a church in Virginia. Each time I would see the speaker roster and list of topics and wish my children were old enough so I could go as a chaperone.
Last year I finally got my wish. Providentially for us, the conference is now held in the Tri Cities area in Tennessee, at picturesque Milligan College. This is one rigorous conference. I have not sat through lectures and taken notes like that since I left the university. There are usually two lectures in the a.m. after an early breakfast, then lunch, then two lectures after lunch with a break from 3 to 5:30 or so for supper and then two more talks in the evening. Needless to say it stimulates the old bean as Bertie Wooster is fond of saying in Wodehouse’s madcap tales of Bertie and Jeeves. I am planning to return again this year as a chaperone and am looking forward to hearing Joel Belz the founder of WORLD magazine speak on journalism, Gary DeMar the founder of American Vision speak on politics, history and culture and James Nickel speak on mathematics, among other speakers. All the info including cost and registration forms are available at westminsterkpt.org.
❒ If any of you are interested in the Charlotte Mason ideas of education, I would like to recommend another conference, the Childlight Conference at Gardner Webb University between Ashville and Charlotte, N.C. Lord willing, this will be my fourth year to attend. The conference starts Wednesday, June 9, and goes through Saturday afternoon. This year it is an intensely practical conference with workshops covering every topic that you are likely to teach.
The conference is geared for private school teachers as well as homeschool moms. I always appreciate the blend of the hands-on as well as the mental challenge of the intellectual ideas. I have met lifelong friends at this conference and always come away refreshed and inspired. If any of you plan to go, let me know and perhaps we could carpool (jmtulis@gmail.com). More information including a complete schedule is available at childlightusa.org.
The warm days are warming my soul. Praise to God who reminds each spring of new life, of hope when all hope seems gone, of the incredible beauty of His creation. I hope we all find the time to notice all the wonder of the spring wildflowers, learn some of their names and rejoice in their loveliness.