I hate to say it, but... Lapkins.

Okay, this was our first "official" school day since the craziness with moving to Virginia started in mid-October. Just as we were getting into our rhythm (yes, it took us that long) I had to stop everything and use our homeschool days to pack up boxes and run errands. All you unschoolers out there---yes, I know running errands can include learning. Trust me: these didn't.

Now we're ensconced until December at our temporary lodgings, and today I began implementing the slightly ramped-up lesson plan for Ezra's reading (as compared to normal Waldorf learning). The three of us recited our fall verse three times, then I wrote the first line for Ezra on this itty bitty chalkboard for him to copy in his main lesson book, with accompanying illustration. In case you missed it before, this is the verse:

"Come little leaves," said the wind one day,
"Come over the hills with me and play.
Put on your dresses of red and gold;
Summer is gone, and days grow cold."

After that, I read a made-up story about a nomad girl named Tarak from The Story of the World Volume 1 and we talked about what archaeologists do and how they discover things about the past. Although I'm pretty much dead-set against introducing such abstract concepts to children at such a young age, Ezra continues to defy my every expectation for what he can absorb, comprehend, and make his own. After that lesson, we went outside for a nice long play session. While Isis filled her watering can over and over and went around watering everything from dead plants to Jeep tires, I sat in the shade and read from School as a Journey by Torin M. Finser. Meanwhile, Ezra collected some tools: a shaving cream brush, a stick, a tiny shovel. He disappeared for a while an came back with quite a collection, which he decided to show me just as I began to type this entry.

"See the one... it's breakable. Very old wood probably (sagaciously said). That's breakable too. You can look at my rocks, and this wood is crumbly mumbly wood. I found all this under the dirt!"

Anyway, I started this entry to talk about teaching children. This may seem obvious, but everyone has to figure these things out for herself and I' finally understand a piece of it. The first thing is, how you say something is just as important as what you say. I might repeat, "Ask a question, don't make a whine" or "Be reasonable and respectful" until I'll blue in the face, but the same sibling squabbling keeps cropping up time and time again--- this morning was a perfect example. I try to stick to a single phrase, so that I don't have to wrack my brain to think of some new defense against juvenile arguments. It's boring to say, so I figure it's boring to hear and hopefully behavior will adjust accordingly.

My father did this with us. Every night at dinner he would say the most vile, despicable, unimaginative, horrible, atrocious phrase: the most disgusting words to ever be strung together, bar none, to date. "Napkins on your lapkins." I shudder now to think of having to hear that--- how it would just put you off your food, no matter what mom had cooked. To outsmart him, we learned to slap those napkins on top of our thighs before he even got a chance to open his mouth and announce the dreaded words.

I'm not a big fan of the vast majority of my father's parenting ideals, but this one actually does seem to be worth emulating. Only, I've noticed that my robotic, half-concentrating repetition of my own stock phrases seems to be having little effect on my own small band of rogue anti-napkinists. Probably because the words are robotic and issue from a distracted, hands-full mother who has thirteen other things on her to-do list that top "solve war of who gets the blue crayon first" in priority.

So I tried a new tack today, one that I've read about countless times in Waldorf-related journals, books, and curricula. For young children, the rhythmic stability of a song has more impact than a reasonable request given in a rational voice. I know this works in other areas--- take math, for example. Ezra is learning his times tables through songs that I make up: "2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate? 10, 12, 14, knights, fairies, kings and queens. 16, 18, 20, share your toys and we'll have plenty." These verses really stick with them--- even Isis can rattle off "4, 8, 12, here I see some little elves."

When I sensed that their natural competition was about to develop into something nasty, I called them over in a conspiratorial tone and chanted, "I need two scouts to help me out. In the mailbox lives a letter--- working together makes it better." I sang it two more times, and then they both got the idea and raced outside to get the mail. After lunch, I needed two scouts to help me out with cleaning up. "I need two scouts to help me out. Each boy and girl has a task; working together makes work go fast."

Okay, so maybe these aren't Shakespeare-worthy rhymes, but I'm keeping the tune the same. I'm addressing them directly, at eye-level, and speaking as if I'm imparting the secret of a great mystery. I'm also begging myself not to forget how well this is working--- the next time I'm presented with a Kid Problem, I need to flip on my cheerful rhyming switch instead of delivering a stern mandate.

Which brings me to the fact that teachers have a "teaching persona." It's easy to keep up that level of energy, that focus on appropriate tones, kind looks, and gestures worthy of imitation, when you're with your army of carpet sharks for six hours a day. Homeschooling parents don't have that luxury. Even when there is no main lesson learning going on, we have to maintain a grip on the family rhythm, keep everything mild and co-operative, watch our words, be worthy.

This is something that I could definitely use help on. I know that when I first started teaching Latin at the Waldorf homeschool co-op, I was amazed at how much parental "education" went into the learning experience. The moms and dads felt that they also had a personal duty to learn and grow in order to be better humans and therefore more suited to be better teachers.

Although I don't subscribe to every article of Steiner's Anthroposophy, I do feel that this one idea is vital to being a successful parent and homeschooler. We as adults have so far to go before we can assume the responsibility of teaching a child--- for myself, I should probably start by learning from them first.

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations