Education is a discipline: It starts with us

At the L'Harmas retreat, Tammy Glaser did a demonstration lesson using "The Story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig," from Little House in the Big Woods. In the book, Pa uses this family story not only to teach Laura to behave herself on Sundays, but to make the point that his Sabbath-keeping expectations are not nearly as strict as those of previous generations. In other words, she has it comparatively easy.

As do we, around here, in homeschooling.  Non-homeschoolers are downright shocked when I tell them that no, we don't have to send in curriculum reports or have our children write standardized tests. In Ontario, it's more than enough to just send in names and ages. That's good for personal liberty, and I wouldn't have it otherwise, but it can be risky for the parents' self-discipline. There is very little accountability to anyone outside the family.

"What Mary does shows intelligence and pleasure in her work; but then she has done so little. She has only attempted one-third of the questions, and, even so, two of her answers are incomplete."  "She does not know as much as Bessie?"  "She knows six times as much. I believe she could have answered every question had she been able to pull herself together and get the work done in the time." ~~ Charlotte Mason, "The Parents' Review School," in the Parents' Review, Volume 2, 1891/92, pg. 308-317

And Ambleside Online, being a resource, a project, and a community, but not an umbrella school, has no authority either, if one-third or two-thirds of the exam questions get answered, or if the nature notebook stays empty. It's up to the teaching parent. Charlotte Mason conceived the "Parents' Review School" as a means of increasing accountability and discipline in home schools, and AO functions as that for us, to some extent.  But when some of what should be done, doesn't get done, what then? And how does a parent know how much to push?  To require?  How does one actually get Mary to work up to Bessie's example?

"But while we all think that our parents and guardians made gross mistakes with us, and that our turning out so well is entirely due to our superior natural dispositions, we fancy that our children at least will have no cause to complain of their training, and no pretext for making their forbears accountable for their failings and follies." ~~ Mrs. Ward, "'Grit,' Or Raising and Educating our Children," in The Parents' Review,Volume 2, no. 2, 1891/92, pg. 49

Well, first off we want to be examples of what we expect.  Why should we require self-discipline from our children but not from ourselves?

But if it's up to the students to learn good habits and eventually practice the Way of the Will (CM's theory of self-discipline), how do we get them there?

Maybe we start with a story.

(Another Treehouse post you might like: Get Some Grit.)

Sheer nostalgia #4: Tupperware toys

Tupperware toys were everywhere when I was a kid.  At our house, at friends' houses, in doctors' waiting rooms.  I was invited to a Tupperware party recently and noticed that they still have some of the same toys.  Too bad our kids are too old for them.

 Our kids' dentist had a vintage set of these animal toys in his waiting room.

 We had Pop-a-lot toys like this pair, but ours had a sort of snap-action instead of a squishy bulb.

Shape Sorter:  still in the catalogue!

Sheer nostalgia #3: Mis-named dolls

Sometimes tracking down childhood toys, especially dolls, can be stymied by the names we gave them; we know that we named a favourite doll after a friend or someone in a book, but we don't remember what it really said on the box.  Usually the box is long, long gone anyway.  I had a drink-and-wet doll that always went by "Bat Baby," named not after the superhero but because I had pointed at her in a store just before Christmas, when I was almost two, and asked for "bat baby."  I think she was a Horsman doll, but it's hard to tell because, like a lot of inexpensive dolls of that era, her pretty blonde hair quickly acquired the texture of a pot scrubber.

The doll with the red-and-white stripes was called Rosemary.  I have no idea if that was her real name.  (That's a visiting friend holding Rosemary and wearing the luffly hat.  I'm the one in the fedora.)

The doll in the photo below was always called "Kimmie."  I assumed that I'd named her...or someone had...after my cousin Kim.

Turns out the doll actually was a "Kimmie."  She was one of a line of very popular Native-costumed dolls sold by Regal Imports in the early 1960's.  Well, once in awhile you get lucky.

Sheer nostalgia #2: toys from our past

Found on Ebay here.

I had forgotten about this toy for about forty years.  When I started searching for "plastic steam roller," I wasn't sure I'd even remember what it looked like...and I think my grandpa might have had more than one.

But this was one of them.  Almost for sure, unless my mind is completely playing tricks and I'm thinking of my aunt's grey-and-red roller skates.

My grandpa?  He loved steam trains and steam farm equipment.  He drove a vintage steam tractor at an annual Labour Day steam fair.  Somebody probably gave him this for a joke present...and it became something for the grandchildren to play with.  Being the oldest grandchild, that would have been me, until the others came along.  On the floor, from the dining room into Grandma's kitchen, and back again.  Over the heating grate.  Back to the kitchen again.

I'd forgotten.  Sometimes it takes a picture to drag things up.

Sheer nostalgia: a toy from my past

I didn't own this push-toy.  It resided in a tiny bookcase in the dining room of a great-aunt and uncle, along with a tub of kindergarten beads and a fake book with a snake that popped out.  These were their "toys to amuse visiting children," and we pushed those piggies, strung those beads, and popped that snake many times over the years, while the adults visited.

(It's not my photo either--I found it online.)