Good to be me here with you

(This is a post from summer 2015 that was never published...playing a bit of catch up here!)

I'm dumbfounded that a whole school year has flown by without so much as a single blog post documenting it! And yet, I'm really not surprised. We were so busy just living it, there weren't many opportunities to come up for air. I'm hoping to adjust that more this coming year, I've missed writing.

There's no way a blog post could do our year justice, or begin to convey the growth we have experienced together, but it seems worthwhile to at least share a few glimpses.

To preface this - remember that pictures usually share the best of life - that's when we think to take out the camera, right? One thing you should know about the Hill family's homeschooling journey, is that like most families, it has been a very circuitous route, with quite the array of diversions along the way, and by no means have we 'arrived' anyplace (other than summer 2015! hooray!). Our path is eternal growth, and I am so grateful to be where we are on that path.

This has been a really special year. It was our first year using the Ambleside Schools (Charlotte Mason-based) approach and curriculum. We absolutely loved it. It was rigorous yet gentle at the same time. It was full of discovery, humbling, intense, and life-giving.

I just finished our year-end assessments for each of the kids and am so amazed - how could we have packed so much in to 180 days? When we are plodding along day to day it hardly seems like anything is happening, but looking back it is pretty awesome.

For those unfamiliar with the Charlotte Mason approach to education, there are two main ideas that I have pondered a lot this year.

The first is, that she talks about how education is "An Atmosphere, a Discipline, and a Life". That is, an atmosphere where children are treated as persons created in the image of God and not products of a system, nurtured by the discipline of habits laid down with great care, through life-giving texts full of living ideas that shape our hearts, minds, and actions, and thereby shape our character.  Because the development of character is the great achievement of education.

The second is, she says that "education is the science of relations". Which is to say, that we are designed for relationship with everything God has created, and that rather than simply the acquisition of data, education is only worthwhile when we have actually developed a personal relationship with that subject - be it math, or history, or poetry, or art.

Those ideas are easy to read but to actually put them into practice is something else altogether. People  (especially little people) are living, dynamic beings and naturally prone to resist discipline. That naturalness has been a struggle for me to accept, and I'm continually reminded to focus on first focusing on atmosphere before discipline.

One of the insights from the ASI internship I attended in Colorado last April, led by school director Bill St. Cyr, was to create an atmosphere that breathes the feeling: "It's good to be me here with you". The video Bill shares about joy in the air is awesome.

Another one of the insights I gained was that there are potentially three sources of disobedience in children:

1. The first is ignorance (i.e. just because there are sound waves going from your mouth to the child's ear does not ensure understanding has taken place!!) In which case - you provide further instruction, in gentle, clear ways.
2. The second potential reason is weakness, where there is some level of understanding but lack of strength or experience or confidence in being able to do what one knows they ought to do. In which case, you provide loving support, expressing genuine/sincere desire to help, not to control.
3. The third potential reason is rebellion, where the child knows outright what is expected and is fully capable of performing and decides to do otherwise. In which case, you use the method you've established in your home to handle rebellion.

What often happens in families and schools is that reasons #1 and #2 are all-too-frequently mislabeled as #3. And when you are in a high-stress or high-anxiety state, it makes it even harder to discern the difference.

But, on a more comforting note, I know that tomorrow will come with it's own set of problems ("sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" - Matthew 6:34).

I want to share more but this is about all I can capture today. Much still to learn, much much more.