I WILL. Do Anything. I WILL. Teach. (Slam Poetry)

January 21, 2009

Reading.

Writing.

For these skills, more than anything else. This is why I wake up every morning and stretch out, breath deep, and report to work at the dining room table.

My son can't (YET) read at grade level. He's 8 years old; he struggles to understand street signs and read basic instructions. All the testing in the world has come back with a diagnosis I already knew: he's wired a little different.

So we plug forward. Armed with everything they could give me and the wisdom of more. I implement and discard, press and retract. And? He can read more today than he could last week. Last month. Last Year.

I will use anything, anything, to help my son learn to read and write that doesn't kill his joy of either.

This week, I decided to bring slam poetry into our lives. I'm constantly trying to change things up and find new ways to make reading and writing and words interesting to Bear. Armed with Wham! It's a Poetry Jam! by Sara Holbrook from the library, Bear and I spent the non-inauguration parts of yesterday and Monday hopping about the house and performing poems.

We started with a call/return piece that he could easily read:

TO BE
I am
you see.
I am
what's me.
I am
not done.
I am
to be.

Since there's an odd number of lines, we went around this for 10 or 15 minutes a go. He acted out his words a little differently each time, sinking his teeth into it.

Then he flipped through the book looking for another one and found "Copycat" He absolutely loves this poem; it sounds just like a sibling fight. There's another called "Baseball Player," that he turns into a 1-boy play.

I have to help him read the poems the first few times, then he's able to read in time himself. Embellishing as he gets comfortable.

Times like this make me feel 12-feet tall. Just...12 feet tall. And mom to the most persistent, beautiful kid in the universe.

He woke me up asking if there was any other kids doing slam poetry out there we could listen to. I found some (most is laden with enough profanity to curl even my hair).

And this bit, which I saw on Def Poetry Jam ages ago - by Taylor Mali that made me feel like saying 'Amen'. (profanity: "ass-kicking" & G_d dam)

Life, on $20 a day

October 16, 2007

The thing no one tells you about homeschooling? It's expensive.

Besides the thousands in taxes we pay for schools we aren't attending, there are the thousands we're not paying for Montessori tuition.

And, in between, the thousands for homeschooling.

The textbooks run you in the hundreds. Then there are the ink cartridges and sundry other dozens of supplies you'll need. The library helps, a lot, but the fact of the matter is that it isn't enough.

From supplies and education materials and library fines there are also the big ticket items - especially the additional activities you pay for to make sure your child is getting the peer interaction and specialty learning that you can't provide. Like enrichment programs that run $35 a week, and sports clubs, and art or music lessons.

In Bear's case, it's worth it. He feels absolutely perfect in the studies he has. And even though he knows that reading and writing are hard, he doesn't feel behind. And this is a critical difference. One, I believe, that will really matter to his self-esteem down the road.

That said, it's become an interesting challenge to make do. At first, I really resented it. Like a fish resents the big invisible wall at the end of the tank, I tell you. But brandy helps.

Plus, and I'm gonna share this little private bit of wisdom with ya because, hell, why not... anyone can get used to just about anything. Including the added time and energy it takes to do things on the cheap.

I'm here to testify. I'm here to say it loud.

My goal is a field trip every other week. My budget? $20 per trip. I discovered it can be done. If you don't mind planning. A lot of planning. And being really, freakishly, flexible.

The key for us so far has been that most places have "free" days - usually when the rest of the world is at school or work.

A-diggity-ha, I tell you.

Like the Swedish Museum in Andersonville has this wicked cool Children's Museum where kids can re-enact pretty much life on a Swedish farm all the way through the immigration trip via steamer to establishing a farm in the American Midwest.

And it's free on the Tuesday of the second week of each month.

Once you do the algebra on that one, the rest of the plan is simple. Street parking costs a couple of quarters. Plus the Swedish bakery and the Erikson's Swedish market are both a couple of blocks away, so you can top off the visit with an authentic treat for only a couple of bucks.

....I've been thinking of starting a website and gathering all this, plus our experiences, but somehow it seems a little silly. Despite knowing how important all this is, and being proud of it, most of the time I still feel somewhat marginalized in my new role.

A meekness I can not explain, or shed.

But that said, here's some pictures of last week's and today's $20/day outings.

"I, Lord BedHead, do claim this lake for all redheads!"
(Frolicking at Berger Beach last Tuesday)

Playing in the Swedish Museum's Children's Museum's interactive '1800's Immigration' display

"Bear, dagnabbit, I know that Swedish grocery is around here somewhere..."
"Uh, Mommy? Look behind you."

Checking out the planet at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry today. Prognosis? Not good. Looks like we're all on status Ernie...

Checking our bad selves out in the thermal imaging scan.

Bear and friend loving the exhibit where they display, using lights and bubbles, how sludge gets clean.

The Hum of the Dishwasher

October 02, 2007

We have reached our limit - and it is 4 hours.

More than 4 hours and the world falls apart in screeches and stomped feet.

For more than a week now, we have been "With Kitchen". A world that is infinitely nicer than the alternative.

For more than a week now, I've kept up with the dishes and the laundry and managed to squeeze in at least 4 hours of homeschooling each day.

We rely mostly on Spectrum's "Little Critter" series for the basics of Reading, Writing, and Math.

And then I have an entire crate to fill in with each day: Pirate stories, tales from Scandinavia, puzzles, mazes, hidden pictures, logic problems, patterns (like tessellations or linear what's next ones), sign language, maps, dinosaurs, and astrology projects.

I have a couple of books that tell me what he should know at the end of the year, and my own education experience. And it comes together.

But spend more than 4 hours at that table, and he boils over. Even if I break things up with Magnetix and walks and housework and errands.

But around here? There are no deliverables. The quotas need never be met. The return on investment is drawn with big markers and the project plan consists of the available groceries divided by possible dinner menus.

I read my last post, and it made it seem like life was gray, that the song was a dirge, and that I was wallowing in my own fear.

But that is only 15 minutes a day.

No, I won't lie and say the impression is wrong.

I'll just say, it isn't exactly... right.

The days are so much more that what I am afraid of, or angry about. They are also filled with my son's voice reading a story made up of words he learned from me. Of the puppy slinking off her rug closer and closer to us until she can lean herself against our legs.

And the blessed hum of the dishwasher.

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

October 01, 2007

I know God must be close.

First of all, the Cubs are going to the playoffs. This was foretold when my beloved Red Sox won the World Series. There is only one other team with such a losing streak. One other team playing in its own old park with rabid fans and basement stats.

But that's not the only reason I spend most of my hours propped up almost entirely by faith these days...

I remember when I got my first real, full-time paycheck. I was 19, living in my first apartment, and I'd given up my 4 part-time jobs in favor of going to a temp agency and asking for something beyond minimum wage.

I drove the check to the bank and deposited it. Then I spent. I paid back a friend who'd loaned me some the month before. I did my first real grocery shop. I had the oil in my car changed. I got my hair cut.

Each and every expenditure was the right thing to do.

Except, I didn't have enough left over to pay the phone bill and it got turned off.

This is the lesson of the forest and the trees. And big pictures. And budgets. Hans Christian probably wrote a couple of fables about it. Much better than my nonfiction version, I bet.

We said we knew better. And we made one big decision: to have me be home with Bear, Homeschooling him until he could read and write at grade level - or until we decided there was a better way we could support to get him there.

And everything since that decision last April has come from it.

So, like a million other families, we face each week a million right decisions we can not afford to do. Oil changes for the car. Eye doctor appointments.

It saps your soul, you know?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of things being hard. Sure, it's humbling to be living on 30% of our former income. It's a challenge. It's word for challenge that means even more than just 'challenge'. But life should be hard; we're ready for it to be hard. I wouldn't bitch and moan about that.

OK, maybe I would, but I wouldn't mean it so much.

Like complaining about the snow as you hike up Everest. It's not like you expect ponies and rainbows, you know. It's EVEREST. You expect the snow, you're dressed for the snow, so even if you say 'Damn! It's a lot of snow!' - you don't really mean it.

I'm not complaining about not having money. I left the job that brought the money. So, there that is.

But there's hard... and then there's the edge of impossible.

That makes us question ourselves. Bends our confidence.

If what we've decided is truly right, then how come we aren't able to take care of the basics?

And that's where we lean on our faith. And each other. Or drown trying.

There's no nobility in being poor. Any honor in it must come from the reasons for the condition.

And so we hang on to that. And look for the silver lining. Or, as CD says; Brass. We'll take brass. Or any shiny rock.

We celebrate our newfound simplicity. Solidarity. And faith.

Good things, and yet some days they don't balance out the pain.

Brought to you by the letter F, the number 1, and the conviction that wavers and then finds a gust to soar on, wearing a blue baseball cap.