Scholar time

How is it that one family can produce such different learners and learning styles?

One of my kids is easily distracted and forgets due dates, another could read and do homework in the middle of a fiesta at Disneyland.

One actually puts together a timeline for big projects with mini steps along the way without any urging (clearly not my genes coming through there), another lives in la-la denial land until the day before it's due and then panics (no comment).

It became clear, halfway through last year, that I needed to figure out a way to help all three have better study skills and planning. (This may or may not have had something to do with the mid-year report of one of the kids where missing homework assignments and such had led to a midterm warning of a very low grade. Measures were needed.)

I've always loved hyggli family routines and cultural traditions. I think I should have been British, given how much I adore the tea time tradition. So I stole the essence of tea time, slapped the title Scholar Time on it, and made it our own new tradition.

Scholar Time is from 3 to 5 at our house in the winter, later in the fall and spring (with a little variation for lessons and sports practices, as needed). It's nothing revolutionary: just a set aside learning time for my kids and me.

Truly, it's all in the spin and marketing, folks! I try to make it more of a nice ritual. Put on some music, light a couple of candles, sometimes add cocoa or a treat.

Basically:

We all unload our homework, books, etc. on the table. If there's homework, they do it (I do mine, too). But it's not just about homework.

I make everyone fess up about looming tests, quizzes, etc. If someone has a project coming up, we map out the small steps to make it feel more manageable. I ask (I learned this from my Aunt Annette) how much support they want: minimal (just reminders about due dates, etc. and putting it on the calendar), some (need materials from the store, want to brainstorm, need a proofreader), or a lot (don't know where to start, help with understanding the concepts, helping organize an outline, field trips [our high school has the freshmen find and catalog 100 different leaf varieties; that's a big one]).

If someone comes upon something really interesting, they share it with the rest of us and we stop and chat about it.

Here are the keys:

1. Keep in mind my kids are 11, 13, 16 and all in middle school and high school. Two hours isn't too much to ask; yours might only need 1/2 hour. We try to do it Monday through Thursday and make Friday afternoons an anything-goes day but usually at least one other day just doesn't work out.
2. I am there to help out. Available. Sitting right there. I think this is the biggest shift.
3. It's quiet as possible (for the easily distracted among us)
4. It's scholar time, not just homework time. So if they don't have homework (or finish early), they go over something they've learned, study for a test, outline an essay for next week, read ahead, go practice their instrument (out of earshot).
5. When they're done, they pack up their backpacks for tomorrow (I'm so over the hurry-before-the-bus-comes-I-can't-find-my-essay-and-math-homework). Celebrate another day of learning, woot!

As I said, nothing revolutionary but a great improvement over our laissez-faire homework-doing of the past. That particular low midterm grade? It sprang back up into the zone of better grades. Like most "programs" sometimes we're better at it than others. But I do look forward to a couple of hours of sitting with my kids + watching them learn. And I get my hyggli ritual.

(Maybe everyone already does something like this and it's just taken me 11 years to catch on! Recently a couple of families we know have asked about it since Sam was talking about "scholar time" so I thought I'd put it out there in case it makes sense for others to do, too.)

Plus, I'd love to hear any suggestions about what you do around your house to help kids stay on top of the academic demands (or what you did as a student). I think my kids have more homework now than I had as a college student!

Staring up at the mountain

I got some unexpected news over the weekend.  I was selected for a fellowship from Zero to Three, the nonprofit that coordinates training and research about and lobbying for children from birth to age three. I applied back in November but it had been so long that I had pretty much counted myself out and forgotten.

It's a two-year fellowship and I will meet periodically with the other fellows to support each other in our individual projects and present and publish our results. My project will be to expand the guide and assessment I worked on in Guatemala to be used in different settings & other places in the world to train volunteers and temporary caregivers of infants and young children.

I really am excited. Do I sound like it?  Cause I am. I did about 26.9 minutes of celebrating, took a big breath and started feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I will have benchmarks and deadlines and expectations to meet. Yay! And: Oy.

* * *

The lesson yesterday in the young women's church class I taught was about courage.  We talked about the story of Esther.  And about trying difficult things and getting help when we need it. About not letting fear get in the way of good things. I read this poem to them at the closing and suddenly it felt like just what I needed to hear:

how to climb a mountain

by maya stein

Make no mistake. This will be an exercise in staying vertical

Yes, there will be a view, later, a wide swath of open sky,

but in the meantime: tree and stone. If you're lucky, a hawk will

coast overhead, scanning the forest floor. If you're lucky,

a set of wildflowers will keep you cheerful.  Mostly, though,

a steady sweat, your heart fluttering indelicately, a solid ache

perforating your calves.  This is called work, what you will come to know,

eventually and simply, as movement, as all the evidence you need to make

your way. Forget where you were.  That story is no longer true.

Level your gaze to the trail you're on, and even the dark won't stop you.

* * *

This was funny timing, though.  I had been feeling at a bit of a standstill in my PhD program, trying to decide whether to keep going. This felt like a nudge to keep going. Also, as if in ironic response to my desire for a 40th birthday trip, the first fellows meeting is over my birthday in October.  Somebody out there has a sense of humor.

Postcard from Denver...

Voila.  My hotel room.  I forgot my camera.

Thank you MacBook photobooth!

Oh, I love the west.  I feel at home here...the air is just the right recipe of closer-to-the-sun oxygen and crispness, the sky (when it is not snowing, as it was yesterday) is blue.  People are friendly--oh they are friendly.  I'm not saying people aren't friendly in Boston...it's just a different kind of friendliness.  The kind you have to scratch the surface a little to find.

I know we're pretty much settled in Boston and I definitely know its good points, but there's a part of me that is always holding its (my)breath and crossing its (my) fingers that we someday wend out way a bit westerly.  The truth must be spoken and there it is.  I just feel so at home here.

So far I've attended some great sessions. One of my favorites was a symposium on child development research/programs in Africa.  Fascinating...they are being very mindful about developing a canon of child development research generated by African scholars and researchers and reflecting the realities of their setting and culture, rather than importing paradigms and assumptions from the west (but still learning from its lessons).  And another great cross cultural program comparing the interactions of infants and mothers (and the maternal beliefs) in Italy, Netherlands, Korea, and the US.  Next I'm heading to a symposium about attachment relationships in extreme environments like orphan settings and street children.

Lots to think about.  I have to balance my own personal parenting questions with my "scholarly" pursuits when choosing from the HUNDREDS of talks and sessions.  Oh, my.

What are those "scholarly pursuits"?  That is the question.  Also, "what are you going to do with that degree?" a question I both get from others and ask myself all the time.  Hmmm.  It's evolved into a combination of infancy/early childhood studies, international programs, and especially helping children in extreme environments.  Somewhere along the way I found a little niche doing program evaluations and creating trainings for programs like those. I don't know where it will lead.  Sometimes I'm afraid to try because I might fail. Sometimes I'm afraid to try because it might go well!

 But, I do know this.  

I love jumping on the bed in my own little hotel room in Denver.

Help! I'm reading and I can't stop....

As part of my TA role for a personal/social psychology class, I get to grade papers, which I actually enjoy. The first assignment is to select a book from a list provided (mostly memoirs), read it, and analyze the character from a theoretical viewpoint. Great assignment, right? More fun than just a research paper summarizing theory and research, don't you think?

That was my first reaction. Then it started to dawn on me what this meant for me. Hmmm. How many books are on that list, anyway? Thirteen, you say? Just for clarification purposes, do you think the TAs need to read the books in order to grade the papers? I thought so, that makes sense. Oh, no, no...it will be fine...in addition to my coursework...and research work...not to mention my real life that starts when my kids get home from school...to read half of the books this week. Gulp.

Whee! Nothing like mandatory, concentrated, deadline-looming reading to take all the joy out of my usual enthusiasm for reading. On the other hand, I'm getting paid for reading, which feels a lot decadent and a little unethical! But does anyone know any antidotes to serious binge reading?