My Parenting Lesson for the Day

I needed this today. Take a look (it's SO worth it).

Lead Like the Great Conductors

Now really, don't read on until you've watched that or you won't get most of the rest. It's 20 minutes if you just watch it straight through (took me at least an hour because I was taking crazy amounts of notes).

I love to learn about leadership. I love how leadership principles apply in so many many ways. In fact, I'm even very slowly working on a book about leadership. I have a few posts I've written about leadership that have never been posted with the book in mind. Maybe I don't want bad feedback on something that is so deep in my heart. One post even involves a great conductor I saw in person once. Maybe I'll have to share that since it's so closely related to this.

So about this particular leadership lesson from Itay Talgam. I want to lead like the greats, especially when it comes to leading my children. Unfortunately today was a Riccardo Muti kind of day. How things slide down that slope I don't know. I don't have the excuse that I was trying to tell a story as beautiful as Mozart's.

About my own mother. She's not one that most would call a great leader, but she's someone I've been trying to study and figure out for a very long time. I read something a few months ago that opened my eyes to her leadership a bit, and I wish I had written it down, but as it stands I'll have to try to find it again. I don't remember her ever being like Muti, or most of those conductors. I would put her in the category of the last Bernstein clip. I don't remember a lot of lectures or instruction from her during our growing up years (maybe she's rolling her eyes right now at my great memory), but like the orchestra, I guess we knew what was expected, how to make it great, and we did it. And she has five awesome children to show for it.

I am not that parent! And far too many days I find myself sweating by the end. Do I look at the "trombones" too much?

I don't know if I'll ever be a Berstein, but maybe I can at least make it to Kleiber.

"You have the plan in your head, you know what to do, and you become a partner to create the sound as you take the ride."

"When it's needed, the authority is there." (Poor trumpet guy!)

"He's there 100%, but not commanding, not telling what to do. Rather enjoying what the soloist is doing."

Thank goodness tomorrow is another day. There's always another concert to play. It's their story that needs to be nurtured and told, not mine. Hopefully the conductor shows up more prepared. At least they haven't fired me yet!

(For your viewing enjoyment, here's the full version of that last Bernstein clip.)

Chicken vs. Eagle

*I promise the chicken theme is entirely unintended! Maybe it's my desire for chickens unconsciously waving its little hand to remind me (as if I need that - I have chicken books sitting around in various stages of being read).*

I always prided myself in school for being a top student. Unfortunately, the rewards in real life, or at least in my real life, are far less evident than an A on a paper, test, or report card. I have so many areas that I know I'm average or below average, that I know I could be better at.

I was reminded of the parable of the chickens and the eagle recently. If you haven't read this story, go right now and do it. There are lots of versions of this story out there with differences here and there, but I really like that one.

Every time I've heard that I've paused long enough to think "I want to be an eagle!" How long that motivating feeling lasts depends on the circumstances where I heard it and what happens to be going on in my life right then, but I think I'm gleaning a bit more out of the story this time, or at least trying to.

Adam will be starting up with a new homeschool group in a couple weeks, and they had a little kickoff hike Saturday, after which they got their notebooks for the coming year. The chicken/eagle story is in it, and printed on the back are some questions to ponder. Here they are for your own internal searching and improvement enjoyment:

Who has expectations for you life?

What high expectations do you need help to meet? Who is your "naturalist"?

Are there any unrealistic expectations people have for you? (yourself included!)

What "chicken" behaviors do you hold on to? Why do you hang on to them?

How can you get rid of your "chicken" behaviors?

What "eagle" purpose do you have?

If you were the eagle, what is one thing that you can relate to?

And a few others to add:

Are you a chicken or an eagle?

Isn't it time to spread your wings and make majestic circles in the air?

What's keeping you?

When is the last time you dreamed something for yourself and did it?

The questions helped me think through things I need to be doing (or stop doing) to help myself become the eagle I want to be. Chickens are cool and all, but if someone offered me a chicken or an eagle, I would take the eagle anyday. Even if I didn't get to scramble up their eggs.

And for your viewing enjoyment, a slightly different version of the chicken and eagle story told very well and with accompanying music to boot.

Ay, There’s the Rub!

At 4:30 am the night after posting that last post, I woke up thinking about another quote from L'Engle's "Circle of Quiet" (sorry folks, Madeleine is in me; plan on hearing about her for a while):

"You are basically not teaching a subject, you are teaching children. Subjects can probably be better taught by machines than by you. But if we teach our children only by machines, what will we get? Little machines. They need you, you as persons." And I quoted Emerson: "What you are speaks so loudly over your head that I cannot hear what you say."

So I know, with a sense of responsibility that hits me with a cold fist in the pit of my stomach, that what I am is going to make more difference to my own children and those I talk to and teach than anything I tell them. (156)

If my goal, then, is that my children are often coming face to face with greatness, I need to do what I can to become great. Ay, Hamlet, there IS the rub.

This reminds me of Mrs. March in Little Women telling Jo, "I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. . . The love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts to be the woman I would have them copy."

Back to Madeleine (feel free to substitute "teacher" with "parent"):

All teachers must face the fact that they are potential points of reference. The greatest challenge a teacher has to accept is the courage to be; if we are, we make mistakes; we say too much where we should have said nothing; we do not speak where a word might have made all the difference. If we are, we will make terrible errors. Be we still have to have the courage to struggle on, trusting in our own points of reference to show us the way." (181)

(Sidenote: I LOVE everything she said about points of reference. Get the book and read the rest.)

This "become what you want your kids to become" IS NOT EASY! Mrs. March was apparently excellent enough at it that her girls didn't believe she ever had any faults. But she is a fictional character, and you and I are not. It's a comfort to read all this greatness from Madeleine, yet have her confess things like "When I scrubbed the kitchen floor, the family cheered. I couldn't make a decent pie crust. I always managed to get something red in with the white laundry in the washing machine, so that everybody wore streaky pink underwear" (21).

I know I have plenty of areas to improve, things like personal discipline, housework, consistency, not procrastinating, housework, and housework among many other things. Madeleine gives a few others to add to her list as well. "I would, quite often, like to be grown up, wise, and sophisticated. But" she adds, "these gifts are not mine" (42). That brings out something I love about Madeleine - her word choice. She is excellent at finding just the right word, and I never would have thought of those things (except maybe being wise) as gifts. But if they are, then other things I wouldn't always see as gifts are also gifts. Like maybe the ability to play!

I've been trying to wrap things up for this post off and on for a while now but it hasn't happened yet. I will have to tie things up in another post, if even then.

Face to Face with Greatness

I have been feeling very uncreative lately. Like someone stuck a cork in my bottle of creative juices. I was blaming this on Madeleine L'Engle's "Circle of Quiet," which I am currently reading. Hands down one of the best books I've read. Beautiful and inspiring, full of greatness and truth, but maybe my head is so full of that that until I'm done with it my own thoughts won't flow as freely. Or maybe it's something else entirely. Maybe I just have nothing to say.

Because of that I'm going to share some of Madeleine's greatness. There are so so many things I could share (and I'm sure you'll be hearing more of her), but there is something that makes me say "YES!" every time she mentions something about it, because it's something I strive for and is a goal in teaching my children as well - coming face to face with greatness.

Oliver DeMille states that "reading and working with greatness inspires selves to become greater," and "who we are changes as we aspire."

Madeleine L'Engle talks about it in this way:

"When we talk about ourselves as being part of the company of such people as Mozart or van Gogh or Dostoevsky, it has nothing to do with comparisons, or pitting talent against talent; it has everything to do with a way of looking at the universe. My husband said, "But people might think you're putting yourself alongside Dostoevsky." The idea is so impossible that I can only laugh in incredulity. Dostoevsky is a giant; I look up to him; I sit at his feet; perhaps I will be able to learn something from him. But we do face the same direction, no matter how giant his stride, how small mine" (38).

When she was being rejected by publishers, "It was great writing which kept me going" (39).

And more:

"Nobody can teach creative writing--run like made from anybody who thinks he can. But one can teach practices, like finger exercises on the piano; one can share the tools of the trade, and what one has gleaned from the great writers: it is the great writers themselves who do the teaching" (61).

"A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can't wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else...

"It is beauty crying out for more beauty" (147).

I actually feel terrible in a way for sharing this now, knowing that she'll be dropping more gems on this through the rest of the book. But here I go to hit the publish button, all in the name of sharing greatness.

I am loving learning from Madeleine.

Life of Fred Math Review - Day 1

About a week ago I heard about Life of Fred, a math book series, for the first time. After laughing (ha, laughing!) my way through some of the sample pages, I showed it to Adam and Sammy. They laughed as well and wanted me to go through more of it ("Sorry kids, they don't put the whole book online because they want you to actually buy it"), so I bought it. Another bonus to the fun content, they are not expensive!

It arrived today. "Hey look kids, Life of Fred came!" I set it down and promptly forgot about it.

I was gone for a few hours this evening, and when I got home I went in to tell Adam good night. He said something I thought I would never hear from him. "I read seven chapters of that math book." Picked myself up off the floor. "Did you do any of the math?" "Yes."

For a day 1 review, I would have to say I like it.

Shining Eyes

Thought for the day...

Besides a variety of other credentials, Benjamin Zander was the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra for 28 seasons, beginning in 1979. At one point he realized that the conductor doesn't make a sound, "he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful... My job was to awaken possibility in other people. And of course I wanted to find out if I was doing that. And you know how you find out? Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. If the eyes are not shining you get to ask a question - who am I being, that my players' eyes are not shining? We can do that with our children too. Who am I being that my children's eyes are not shining? That's a totally different world... Success is not about wealth and fame and power, it's about how many shining eyes I have around me."

A powerful measuring stick. The eyes are windows to the soul.

TED.com - Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things

This set of talks are some of my very favorites. The speakers aren't brainiacs that grew up digging fossils with their parents in Africa. They aren't masterminds of math and science performing experiments that cost millions and millions of dollars. They haven't been taking music lessons since they were 4 years old. They are "ordinary" people doing extraordinary things. They took an idea and ran with it. They saw something that needed to change and worked to make it happen.

Dave Eggers - This talk is absolutely inspiring to me, probably one of my top 3 favorites so far. Eggers saw a need and not only helped to fix it, but he did it in a really cool, really creative way (I had to force myself to not give it away). And he's really fun to watch talk about it. But not only did he help others do the same thing, he started the site OnceUponASchool.org where people can post their ideas to help local public schools, or just read about things others have done already to help. You can also go to the Pirate Supply Store website (though you have to watch to see what that's all about). Do not miss the Gallery of Signs.

Jonathan Harris - We all know that everyone has their own hopes and desires. Harris goes out and finds out what they are, both literally, and computerally (thank you, another word I just invented). This talk makes me want to type "I feel..." in every post now, but I would feel like a fame seeker or something if I did that. Watch the talk to see why, then visit WeFeelFine.com.

Rick Smolan telling the story of Natasha, an Amerasian from Korea. Just beautiful.

I'll keep adding...

Feed vs. Inspire

Since Adam had been through 5 years of school when we decided to homeschool, the school way of 'education' was a lot more ingrained in him than the rest of the kids. The day school started, he parked himself at the kitchen table and said, "What are we learning today?" "What do you want to learn about?" I asked. "I don't know," he replied.

Thereafter came a discussion of how homeschool is different than going to school. They don't show up for me to feed them new knowledge every day, the educational meal being entirely decided for them. A lot of what they would like to learn about is up to them, and I am delighted to help them along that process. I'm happy to introduce topics, new flavors if you will (to keep the metaphor going), but if interest isn't there, we'll put it away until another time.

I'm sure this idea is entirely baffling to many, and truth told, several months back I was highly skeptical of this approach myself. The more I've learned and the more I've thought about my own education, I see this as at least another way to go about things. Superior? Could quite possibly be.

For instance, I've always done very well at English, grammar, and the like. It all came very easy to me, and I enjoyed it. I was also introduced to computers at an early age by my dad. They were always available in our home, and he had lessons in computer programming available to use if we would like (well, we were told that to play we had to give equal time to the learning, and yes, there was a time log). Compared to other kids I went to school with, anything computers also came very easily, thanks to the many opportunities at home. Fast forward to my college degree, and though it took some discovering on my part, I ended up majoring in Techincal Writing, which is basically English and computers. You know what they say, hindsight is 20/20.

I had been fed many other things through my years at school - biology, geometry, physics, calculus - some which has stuck, others, not so much. I mentioned a portion of my history education in my last post, but besides those two high school classes I had been taught history from elementary school to college. With all that teaching it stands to reason that I should have done much better than 65% on that test. I wasn't a poor student - through all my junior high and high school years I had a 3.9 GPA and if I remember right I received an A in my college American History class. But the fact remains that I was being fed, not inspired. Not that the information wasn't interesting, but I had apparently learned the fine art of learning to the test, then clearing space for the next bout of information. No time to dig for more depth and understanding. Sad how it all works, isn't it? And yet, we keep doing it.

Whether the kids and I homeschool to the end or for just a year or two, the biggest thing I want my children to learn is that education is their responsibility and life-long. If we wait to be fed, more often than not we'll end up with not enough or of a variety that doesn't sustain.

I still feel like we're going through the deschooling process, but starting to become more... something. (Not sure if structured is the word I want to use.) I'm still learning about homeschooling myself, so I'm glad we haven't jumped too quickly into anything, but so far it's been very cool. We find an interest and run with it. For instance, last Wednesday we thought we would do some science with hot and cold water. I introduced it using the freezer, showing how the cold air goes down when we open it, but steam of course, rises. Cool, but let's do more. I remembered an experiement I had seen at some point during my education with red hot water and blue cold water, showing how when the hot starts on the bottom the two mix very quickly, but when the hot is on top they stay separate for a very long time. They were totally wowed. (Even the Star Wars dudes had to come in to check it out - see the pic.) That led us to try similar experiments with water the same temp, but some with salt and some regular, and even Melanie hypothesized that the salt water should be on the bottom to keep them separate longer based on the science we learned from the other experiments. And from there we made salt volcanoes which applies the same science in an even different and cooler way. I should have counted how many times we refilled the salt shaker they enjoyed that one so much.

Sammy, by his very nature, was never so ingrained in the system even though he had been there for 4 years. Thank goodness his curiosity wasn't lessened by the methods, especially since I think his brand of creativity would suffer more from it. Or maybe it's that his teachers would suffer more from trying to break him down, LOL.

Right now on his own Adam is learning about baseball and hunting, and I'm good with that because one, he's a MANIAC when it comes to reading about that stuff so he's learning good study skills, and two, we go in other directions as well so he's not left entirely to his own devices. In our history reading he's realizing how dumbed down it is at school because the Founding Fathers mention God and religion so much they can't even be quoted. Bummer, because they've got a lot of great advice regarding our country.

I have to keep wondering where this all will take us. I'm looking forward to the 20/20 backview someday.

P.S. Do note, this is the first picture I've included on my blog. It is a special, special day. :)