Poetry Friday: How to Wreck Poetry (Inspired by Michael Rosen)

Inspired by Michael Rosen and "Dear Ms Morgan: your guidance is a mini-syllabus on how to wreck poetry",  and with an additional and lovely bit of inspiration from the follow-up letter, "Where Go the Boats? A poem in a little child's head."

{A disclaimer: This is not a shot at teachers. I know teachers would love the freedom to teach as they see fit. I live with and passionately love a particular English teacher who happens to be my husband. It's not the fault of teachers that they are often being cornered into teaching to tests.}

How to Wreck Poetry
by Karen Edmisten
(with apologies to real poets)

Force and enforce it, require and grade it.
Suppress the mind wandering,
stop all their pondering.
Find the right answer
(You know's there's but one!)
Dissect it and quiz them.
You're under the gun.

Never mind that the riches
of luminous words
now mean nothing to them.
Sublime's for the birds.
There are standards we've set.
It's your duty, you see.
You'll make them retrieve and infer
then they'll see.
No, it's not about beauty.
Oh, no, it is best
that they learn at a young age
it's all for the test.

~~~~~

Laura Purdie Salas has the round up at Writing the World for Kids.

~~~~~

And, courtesy of Atticus: 

Without Homework or Tests? How Is That POSSIBLE?

It's fascinating to me, the ways in which people react to what they consider (or don't consider) an education.

This headline says, "Photo Series Explores What Happens When Kids Don't Do Homework." A little foreboding, no? Kind of a, "This is your brain on drugs," feel to that one. The headline for the Toronto Star article is a little more straightforward: "Children of Toronto alternative school, 40 years later." I also saw a tabloid headline that screamed, "What did the children who went to school WITHOUT homework or tests do next? Students of free-spirited experiment 40 years later."

(Without homework or tests?! Horrors! Witness the freaks of educational nature as they grapple with pencils and backpacks, moaning, "I don't know how to fill in the bubbles on this hellish thing called an answer sheet!")

Anyway. Got that out of my system.

To get the full story, rather than just the snippets that Yahoo or a tabloid would have you to read, visit Michael Barker's website. He's a photographer who attended the Alpha Alternative School in Toronto in the 1970s. With Ariel Fielding (who provided the text and interviews for the project and also attended the school), he has put together a fun and interesting "Then-and-Now" scrapbook of lives and experiences. It isn't definitive; it isn't meant to be. It's not a treatise on education or an in-depth examination of alternative methods. It's just a handful of stories -- stories of people who happened to go to a school that was different.

It was worth visiting the website for the full essays -- especially due to things like this Yahoo snippet from Flannery Fielding, for example. In the Yahoo bit:

She says, "I think most kids at Alpha had a sense of supe­ri­or­ity about the free­dom we had -- to learn, to play, to be our­selves — although for me and my friends, that even­tu­ally trans­formed into a kind of dread about what we might be miss­ing, how hard it was going to be for us in the 'real world.'"

On Barker's site, her quote goes immediately on to say,

From ALPHA I went on to two dif­fer­ent alter­na­tive junior high schools and then to a ‘reg­u­lar’ high school, which was ter­ri­fy­ing at first but turned out to be eas­ier to adapt to than I expected (although I never really got the hang of home­work.)

Fielding affectionately recalls the freedom and joy the school provided. She also honestly mentions that, "The down­side of that free­dom to do what I liked was less expo­sure to math and other sub­jects, and I think that worked to rein­force my sense that I wasn’t good at math or French."

Another former student, Maggie Marelli, said

I’d say ALPHA gave me a sense of com­mu­nity and of myself as a val­ued per­son, with things to con­tribute, and also the abil­ity to explore and learn in an inde­pen­dent fash­ion. The dis­ad­van­tage was prob­a­bly that, as a kid who really hated aca­d­e­mics, I took every chance I could to avoid the for­mal learn­ing ses­sions, and thus have some holes in my foun­da­tional knowl­edge.

Gaps.
Early influences.
Weirdness in school or out.
Trying to pin down the definition of an education.
Questions about what might have been different had we gone to a different school.

We all have those. I went to public schools for twelve years (thirteen, I guess, if you count half-days and naps at Kindergarten, where the main thing I remember learning is that I loved to quote my Kindergarten teacher to my siblings: "Mrs. Nelson says it's not polite to interrupt.") I still have gaps in my foundational knowledge. I always will. One thing I've learned is that learning is lifelong.

Marelli also said:

At my main­stream high school I was quite shocked by the stu­dents vs. teach­ers men­tal­ity, which seemed like such a bar­rier to learn­ing....

I believe the demo­c­ra­tic nature of ALPHA has made me a more sen­si­ble per­son. I also see that qual­ity quite strongly in the peo­ple I went to ALPHA with, now that we are all grown up....

ALPHA was a home to me, and my class­mates were a fam­ily. I don’t think you can have a bet­ter start in life than that.

I didn't closely read the comments on the Yahoo page -- I skimmed just a handful of them and some were exactly what one would predict: criticisms of the school, triumphant proclamations that alternatives will never produce math geniuses, snarky comments about the lack of doctors and lawyers among the eight subjects. But there also seemed to be a contingent who saw the project (even that edited piece of the project) for what it was: a snapshot. A look at some interesting, sometimes average people. Some quirky, some "normal" (whatever that is.) The acknowledgement that some people will thrive in an alternative educational environment and others will not. An affectionate look back at a unique place and time. A brief, human reflection.

Just as the Alpha School Project was not meant to be an exhaustive research piece, my musings on homeschooling are not definitive proclamations. I never claim that our way of educating is the best possible of all ways and I won't claim that we don't have gaps, are academically superior, that we have all the answers, or never take a misstep.

What I can claim is that our eclectic methods work for us, and our situation is really all I can speak to. We are average, sometimes-interesting, sometimes quirky, sometimes normal people making our way in the world. We're figuring it out as we go. We give each other room to make mistakes. We love each other. We forgive.

And, as Maggie Marelli said, "I don't think you can have a better start in life than that."

"And in fact it is by falling in love with a subject ..."

Thinking again about the Homeschool High School carnival and wanted to share this quote from Kenneth Clark:

Now, although I believe that this part of education* is the most important part, it has one great defect. One may achieve intellectual discipline, but one doesn't remember a single thing that one learnt in that way, because one doesn't absorb it. I can't translate the simplest Latin inscription, and if you ask me what Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is about I couldn't tell you. 

Education has another aspect -- what you learn through delight. It is a pity that the Nazis spoilt, by adopting it, a very good slogan: "Strength through joy." And in fact it is by falling in love with a subject, a period, a style, an individual hero, that one absorbs something so that it becomes a part of one's living tissue, and one never forgets it ... And the first advice I would give to any young person is, when you fall in love with Roman baroque or with the essays of Montaigne or with whatever it may be, give up everything to study that one, all-absorbing theme of the moment....

*Clark is referring here to intellectual discipline, of which he says, "It's absolutely vital to the conduct of life, and it's absolutely vital to the action of the mind throughout the whole of the rest of one's life. We used to achieve it by having people learn Latin, the most disagreeable thing I've ever done in my life. I did it for ten years and hated it all the time. But I did get some sort of -- well, I suppose one can only call it intellectual discipline out of it."

You Find What Works and You Do It, Part II

Part 1 is here.

Today I'm taking a look at this question:

"What did you think high school would look like for your oldest and how that has become a reality?"

I'm not sure I had any idea what high school would look like. (I apparently once told my daughters, "We'll deal with that when we get to it.") But that lines up neatly with not really knowing what my life will look like from one year to the next. I like to make plans, but I'm always open to the changes that I know life will throw our way.  And I know that living a deliberate life can certainly be compatible with flexibility and surprises.

What we did know was that we wanted to consider the following as Anne headed into high school:

• Anne's strengths and interests
• Her goals (personal, spiritual, educational, vocational) 
• Her gaps/areas of complete disinterest/weaker areas
• My strengths as a teacher 
• Atticus' strengths as a teacher 
• Outside resources (such as job shadowing or community college classes) 
• What an education means, what it is for: in high school, in college
• The reasons we started homeschooling in the first place 

Atticus adds: "As Robert Frost said, we must have 'the courage to start with insufficient knowledge.'"

And so, with insufficient knowledge, we started.

What we knew:

Reading and discussion have always been at the center of education in our house, so (as I always have) I made booklists:

• books I love
• books Atticus loves
• books Anne loves
• books Anne will love once she reads them
• books everyone should read
• books no one should have to read but everyone does
• books about history
• books about our faith
• books about science
• books about culture
• books about art
• biographies
• poetry
• Shakespeare
• books that defy categorization

I knew I wanted Anne to start keeping her own list -- she kept track of everything she read (which was very helpful down the road at transcript time.)

I knew that we would write (and we've had a weekly writing group with friends since Anne's sophomore year.)

I knew that we would probably use some stuff from The Teaching Company. (Budget note: you can often buy these on sale, or find used copies that are very inexpensive.)*

I knew that we would make use of a math curriculum (because I don't unschool Algebra well. I'm too busy hating advanced math to live it/learn it joyfully and my daughters inherited the anti-math gene from me).

I knew that I would continue making use of Living is Learning Guides -- for ideas, checklists, and resources.

I knew that we would use the community college* (via the early enrollment program), especially for foreign language classes.

I knew that I would be grateful for homeschoolers who blazed the trail and inspired me.

I knew that I would read books about homeschooling through high school. My list:  College Prep Homeschooling, Homeschooling the Teen Years, Homeschooling: A Family's Journey,  Homeschooling Through High School.  I can't say any single book is the book to get but I did take away helpful bits and pieces from each of these. (These days, I would add A Little Way of Homeschooling, but not my chapter -- I didn't have high schoolers when I wrote that, but other contributors did.)

I knew that I would take notes and keep records. I have always kept lots of notes on what we do, no matter how off-the-beaten-school-track it seems.

~~~~~

That's what we knew going in. And my half-formed vision did come into focus, did become the reality. I had a vague idea that high school would be a continuation of the ways in which we've always approached education at our house. For the most part it was, with various periods of panic, doubt, terror, or fatigue. Punctuated with happiness and delight, and saturated in gratitude that we kept going. 

I still have insufficient knowledge, and I'm still tweaking the process -- I'm guessing I won't have this whole high school thing perfected until sometime after Ramona's graduation. Too late for my own girls, but then I can pass my sufficient knowledge on to my daughters, in case they homeschool their offspring. Then they can say, "Mom, everything you did is old and out of date! This is insufficient knowledge!" 

And I'll say, "Yes! It is! Now go read some Robert Frost to your children."

* We ended up using Teaching Company courses for some American history, neurobiology, and math. Anne took courses at the community college and did a great job with Spanish I and II.

Part III is here.
Part IV is here. 

A Deliberate Life

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, 

to front only the essential facts of life, 

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, 

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

~~ Henry David Thoreau 

Shortly after I started this blog, I considered alternate names for it -- I humbly acknowledged that "Karen Edmisten" is not particularly clever, and I daydreamed about what I might've named my blog had I given it more thought before I hit the "Create Blog" button. My favorite alternate-universe name was A Deliberate Life.  It summed up what I want my world to be: Deliberate. Thoughtful. A life with love and purpose. Conviction.

"Deliberate" also tends to conjure the notion of "A Plan." But I've never been terribly good at plans, and certainly not at anything like The Five Year Plan.

But not to worry, because "deliberate" and "planned", it turns out, are not at all the same thing.

I can think of numerous deliberate lives that were not particularly planned.

Take Robert Frost, for instance. Although he went to Dartmouth and Harvard, he never earned a degree. He worked at a variety of jobs just to make a living. A biography at Poets.org notes that "Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel." From the outside, before anyone knew that Robert Frost would be Robert Frost For Heavens' Sake, he might've appeared to be something of a slacker. A job hopper. People perhaps shook their heads over the college dropout.

But he was deliberate.

He was a poet. It's who he was, and he knew it.

Van Gogh was an artist. He was a mess, but he was an artist, and he knew it. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta fed the hungry for Jesus, even when she felt dry and far from His embrace. It's who she was. Marie Curie was a scientist, Madeleine L'Engle was a writer. Though difficulties and sufferings came upon them, they lived deliberately. They knew the essential facts of their lives.

At my house, we will embark this week on our twelfth year of homeschooling. My life has been full of meanderings, changes, about-faces, and periods when I appeared undoubtedly to the world to be a slacker. But, since my conversion, I have been living that deliberate life. Unquestionably still full of twists and turns, alarming developments -- such as becoming a mother, becoming a Catholic, becoming a homeschooler -- and messy days and sometimes anguished nights. But deliberate.

I know who I am.

And I can only hope that as we continue to follow this adventure that is homeschooling -- as we look at the final year of "high school" (whatever that is, really), and college, and job and life possibilities, and the swirling middle of the teen years for another daughter, and at an age that the world calls "fourth grade" for yet another --  that I can pass on to my cherished children the essence of the soul-calming peace that comes with knowing how you want to live.

I followed Jesus because I wished to live deliberately, 

to front only the essential facts of life, 

and see if I could not learn what Jesus had to teach, 

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not loved Him. 

"What we're really talking about is an education."

So, the other day I apparently said, "Actually, what we're really talking about is an education: what that is, what it means, how one acquires such a thing."

The trouble with saying something like that is that it makes me appear to have something to say. It sounds as if I actually have a post planned. It prompts people leave comments such as:

"I for one am looking forward to that next post, still trying to figure out 'what it all means' myself."

and

"Naturally, waiting impatiently for the next installment... ;)"

I'm grateful Dweej winked. I think she has me figured out (i.e., 87% of the time, I'm just talking, talking, talking ... y'know? I have no plan, no wisdom -- just a lot of words and ideas and caffeine. Or wine. Oh!  The talking is worse when I've had two glasses of cabernet.)

Anyway.

What is an education, and how does one acquire such a thing? My ideas about these things have changed so much over time.

I used to think that "An Education" was a set of objective truths and procedures, but as educations have unfolded over the years (my own education, and those of my children) I have seen how fluid the processes and definitions can be.

I used to think that to acquire an education one had to attend school and then, naturally, college. As my own education has progressed, and as my children have grown, however, I've seen so much autodidacticism that I now believe there's not a simple, single, well-defined way to learn, and that a classroom isn't always necessary for intellectual growth.

For today, I'm going to rerun an old post, from a series I did a couple of years back. Feel free to jump in and discuss -- let's educate ourselves on the nature of education.

(The post below is Part 4 of the series. For links to the previous three parts, see this post, "Joining Michele's Discussion: What is Education?")

~~~~~
from March, 2009:


My ideas about education.

They.
Have.
Changed.
Beyond.
Recognition.

When Anne-with-an-e was born, I had never, ever considered homeschooling.

Oh, I knew about those homeschooling fools. They were the people I'd ridiculed years before when they were fighting for the right to legally educate their kids at home. I'd heard of them (noisy religious fanatics that they were) and forgotten about them.

By 1993, when my first child was born, I didn't have an ounce of interest in homeschooling. I knew that my child would attend whatever public school was nearby, wherever Atticus taught. Because public school was simply what people did.

(I still believe in the ideals of public education -- that a great, solid education should be available to everyone, which is quite different from an education that is compulsory, but that's another post.)

I remember having thoughts about things that would be a part of "Kindergarten and so on" and I therefore didn't worry too much about some of those basics: "Oh ... she'll learn that in school," I would think.

In 1997, when Anne was about three-and-a-half, and I'd been a Catholic for two years, we bought a home from a family who homeschooled. I still remember the first time we went to see the house. As I knocked, I wondered what kind of demented woman would answer the door, and what kind of freaks would her children be, having been shut up in the house all day long, day after wretched, home bound day?

But shortly after that, I began to hear more about homeschooling from various quarters. A close friend was looking into it, though his wife wasn't convinced. At a Bible study I attended, a couple of people were discussing it. I began to find myself strangely intrigued. Oh, I knew we would never do it -- could anyone imagine Atticus, a public school teacher, homeschooling his own children? Preposterous. But, ummm ... tell me more, I found myself saying. Tell me. More.

They told me more. I began to read, and discuss, and explore online, and then read some more. I was drawn to it again and again, despite all my doubts and fears. I remember asking someone on an e-list, "Can I really do it? I'm already tired all the time. How will I teach my kids, on top of everything else I do?"

Those lovely moms assured me that it could happen, it does work, and that it's a process. Kind of like growing into grilled peanut butter.

I decided that if I completely blew it the first year, well, at least my daughter wouldn't be ruined forever. I could still put her in school for the final eleven years of her education, right? Eventually, Atticus was on board, too, and we began.

Now I marvel at how much my mindset has changed.

The idea of waiting for someone else to figure out our path? Or to determine all that my children need to learn? Conforming to others' ideas about what an education is, how it should be accomplished? It sounds like a foreign language now.

And, it all brings home the Church's teachings on the principle of subsidiarity:

The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."

-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

We, as parents, are capable of making these choices and carrying out these plans. And, by not depriving ourselves of the most basic responsibility as the primary educators of our children, we have created something -- in the way of education, lifestyle and family relationships -- that we treasure.

In short, my idea of education has changed in this way: I used to think of it as "something they would get in school."

Now, I know it is "something we define, plan and pursue."

"Education" is a wide open space, a vast universe, a wilderness waiting to be explored; it's unconventional and traditional, depending on the day, the book or the topic. It's full of things that are fun and fascinating, not just things that are required to pass the test. It is books, discussion, and knowing when we don't need to talk.

It is our life. As Betsy said in this post, "... let's take years and years and years to learn everything!"

"Education" isn't something that's confined to a desk, from 8 to 3. It's a full-time job, and yes, sometimes it is exhausting to homeschool. But, I'm so glad those noisy, crazy religious fanatics fought for their right to pursue it. For my right. And my privilege, because make no mistake ... no matter how much work it is, defining, planning, and pursuing my kids' education is an enormous privilege, one I'm extraordinarily grateful to have.

On related notes, here are links to a couple of past posts on homeschooling:

Here's one about finding support for homeschooling.

Here's a post from 2006 about "What is 'normal' anyway?"

~~~~~