Alone

Good morning.

Yesterday had the potential to be a very hard day. It was not. Emily West came over in the morning to sew and got two seams done. That was good. Joanna and Zak were here and that was good. Then Amena came home and then the boys came home and that was good. And then it was time for me to go to class and that was good.

After class, I was talking to Meredeth and that was good. I am so glad I was able to meet her. We talked about doula work and midwifery and life and Daniel. And that was good.

On a little aside, I was looking for pictures Monday, one in particular, and ended up going through all the pictures I have. I ran across some pictures of my dad and was overwhelmed anew by the sense of loss from his death. He died relatively young, he was only 51, but he was still my dad and older than me and I guess we kind of all expect our parents to die before we do. He’s been gone from this life for 24 years. I think what really hit me is that I’ve become accustomed to his not being here. To me, one of the hardest things about death is knowing that there is no direct line of communication; that as hard as it is to imagine life without the person who is now gone, you won’t be imagining it—you’ll be living it and you are going to find out, like it or not. I decided looking at the pictures that I don’t want to be accustomed to my family being gone; I don’t want to get used them not being here. I want to cry when I think about them because I miss them because I love them and because I can hardly wait to see them again.

This is the picture I was looking for: Daniel emptying the toy box on October 28, 1997 (Laura's birthday, by the way).

Don’t ask me how I got from that line of thinking to the next, but I did. I was eating a cupcake (I made some yesterday afternoon and took seven to class which left seventeen at home for everyone after dinner [which I thought was cool since Daniel would have been seventeen yesterday]), leaning on the fireplace because it’s warm and thinking about public school. “Is it good for man to be alone?” came to mind and in spite of the fact that I didn’t want to spend the day in front of my computer, I sat down and looked that up in the scriptures. Genesis 2:18 reads: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Italics in the original, bold added by me.) So, it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone so Eve was created. I am guessing that it is not good for woman to be alone any more than it is for man and that the man here also indicates mankind, not just men.

Fast forward a few years from the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve have had a few children (maybe kids too, who knows?). Are they ever alone? Probably not very often. I’m not saying that they spent every waking moment together because that doesn’t seem all that likely, but as children were added to the family and grew up, they would have been with their parents learning how to do what needed to be done.

Fast forward a few years to, say, Abraham’s time. Was he ever alone? Were people in general ever alone? Some families lived in tents. The whole bloomin’ family in one bloody tent. That doesn’t seem to allow for much solitary time. Life seems to have been much more communal then; everyone had to do their part for the common good.

Fast forward a few years to, say life in medieval times. In general, unless you were nobility, you lived with your family. If you were born into a farming family, that is what you learned; if you were born to a miller, that is what you learned; if you were born to a butcher, that is what you learned; etc., etc., etc. You never really got to spend much time alone and the time that you were with others was typically with your family.

Fast forward a few years to today. Life looks a lot different now. It may be true that we don’t spend much time alone but how much do we spend with our families? I submit to you that we do not spend nearly enough time with our families. Not nearly enough. Paul isn’t alone; there are people there where he works. Joanna isn’t alone; she’s at school or at work or with Zak. Amena, Cedric, Seth, and Joseph aren’t alone; they’re at school. Laura isn’t alone; she’s at work and has roommates. I am alone. None of this is good. I understand that society has changed but all change is not good.

When did public school come to be the norm? Free (think publicly funded), government-supported schools were instituted after the revolution. I really wish we had more bookshelves because I would love to pull out some of my books that have some supporting information for some of my opinions but we don’t currently and I really don’t want to make statements without having that backing.

Whatever I may say or think or feel or believe, public school is not what it once was. That could be a good thing but I think that it is not. Furthermore, our government is entirely too involved with the education of our children. And when we have idiots like Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry (I dare say she’s an idiot when she appears to have a degree that I do not? Yes. I do. I gave birth to these younglings; it is my life that was at stake. It was no community giving birth with me in any of those birthing rooms. It was not a community event and my children are mine.) saying things like: “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities  (Jacobson, William A. "MSNBC — All Your Children Are Belong to Us." Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion. N.p., 6 Apr. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.),” we have some problems.

I would like to tell you about 1^st Grade in McCloud Elementary School. It was the school year 1974-75 and the teacher was Mrs. Holmquist. There was a lot of cutting out and writing letters and coloring and working in workbooks.

There was this elusive thing called ‘reading’ that I knew I needed to learn but it was out of grasp. I knew that if I could finish the workbook I was in, I would be able to move on to the coveted purple workbook; Becky and Marci were already in it and I so wanted to be as well. I don’t remember the day it was but I do remember how it happened. It was like a lightswitch was flipped in my mind and all of a sudden I recognized that all these letters that I knew formed abstract WORDS (I did recognize that some letters grouped together formed words—we made trains in kindergarten and each car was a different color and on each was the word for the color—I distinctively recall ‘purple’ and knew that the word meant the color but until that day in 1^st grade, nothing else made sense)! Oh my goodness! I could read! Suddenly it all made sense! Wow! It was like a new world.

Quite frankly I do not remember if it was in the fall or spring but I suspect it was in the spring. This means that I was likely seven-years-old when I learned to read. Seven. I wasn’t five. I was seven. And now I read because I love to read. I love words. I love the meanings of words. I love syntax. I love sentences. I love books.  And I didn’t even learn to read until I was seven.

My youngest sister, on the other hand, figured it all out before she even went to kindergarten at the tender age of four. She had already learned to read, without any coaching from our mother. She had already read at least some of the Little House books. When the kindergarten teacher doubted that she really understood what she was reading, my mother told her to ask Marie about the books. When the teacher did, she knew that Marie was not only reading, but comprehending and remembering. Darn little twerpy sister! Actually, I think I may have had something to do with her learning to read that early if only by being an example. By the time she was four, I was ten and had been reading voraciously since I learned how when she was just a few months old.

My point is only that children, if they are given the right encouragement and environment, will learn to read when they are ready. My sister would not have learned to read when she was four if we hadn’t had books in the house and visited the library regularly. I might not have even wanted to read if I hadn’t witnessed my parents reading and sat on Papa’s lap while he read the paper.

My point is that forcing children to learn to read before they are ready is not good for them and I do not believe that the public school system is serving our children, and therefore our society, well. Think about the Common Core Standards we hear about now. They make me cringe. Seriously. Literally. (Yes, I do mean literally.)

The Common Core Mission Statement reads: “The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy  ("Mission Statement." Common Core State Standards Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.).”

Really? Wow.

“Students develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers based on their prior work with small numbers. They use a variety of models, including discrete objects and length-based models (e.g., cubes connected to form lengths), to model add-to, take-from, put-together, take-apart, and compare situations to develop meaning for the operations of addition and subtraction, and to develop strategies to solve arithmetic problems with these operations. Students understand connections between counting and addition and subtraction (e.g., adding two is the same as counting on two). They use properties of addition to add whole numbers and to create and use increasingly sophisticated strategies based on these properties (e.g., “making tens”) to solve addition and subtraction problems within 20. By comparing a variety of solution strategies, children build their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction.”

That’s for grade 1 in mathematics. “Develop strategies” is a farce. They don’t develop strategies. They are given strategies. I could really be grasping at straws here but when I read this I thought, ‘Wow, it seems like they might need some logic here.” And when do we fully develop logically (if ever)? In our early 20’s? Are you kidding me? (I swear, I am so tempted to use swears I sometimes gag.) So, on these little six- and seven-year-old children, who are so cute and eager and still willing to please, we are foisting the strategies of man and expecting them to use them in a logical manner. Yeah. Seems perfectly logical. NOT!!!

I’m afraid to look at grade 4 but here I go.

I knew I didn’t want to do that. It’s mind boggling. Truly. “They apply their understanding of models for multiplication (equal-sized groups, arrays, area models), place value, and properties of operations, in particular the distributive property, as they develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to compute products of multi-digit whole numbers. Depending on the numbers and the context, they select and accurately apply appropriate methods to estimate or mentally calculate products. They develop fluency with efficient procedures for multiplying whole numbers; understand and explain why the procedures work based on place value and properties of operations; and use them to solve problems.” That’s just a taste of the first part of the introduction.

Yeah. I don’t know what to say.

In all seriousness, I really think Common Core should be done away with. All children are different and learn in different ways and at different times. Rather than forcing a child to learn different strategies (which is what I have been watching with my boys) it seems to me that it would be more beneficial if students were shown one way of accomplishing a task. If that method doesn’t work for all, that’s okay. For them, show them another way. And another if need be. And if nothing works, wait a while. It might make sense next week, next month or even next year.

My youngest sister and I learned to read when we were ready at different ages. (Hey, Becky, when did you learn?) In the system today, I would have been labeled and would likely have ended up with an IEP and everyone would have been concerned about getting me ‘up to speed.’ Heaven forbid.

Ultimately, it’s all about shapes and sizes. Public education is very one-size-fits-all. My square, triangle and rectangle children are not going to fit through the round holes. Stop trying to make them.

Let’s back track a bit. Remember when I was talking about Adam? And how it isn’t good for man (or woman) to be alone? Well, in spite of the fact that Cedric, Seth, and Joseph are not physically alone right now, in a very real sense they actually are. They are alone in a system that is designed to make them conform. Is that really what we want? Is that really what we need?

Have a terrific day!