On Being Like a Child: Hildegard's Gift

Some of our special needs children face many illnesses, and a book like Hildegard's Gift by Megan Hoyt offers encouragement. In full disclosure, this review is biased because Megan is my friend. I did buy a copy for her to sign with my own money. And, if you don't believe my praise, read the wonderful review at Publishers Weekly. And, it happens to be on sale right now!



Hildegard was a composer, nun, herbalist, writer, and many other things who lived nine hundred years ago. From the time she was a young child, she suffered from terrible headaches that left her worn out and bedridden at times. Megan's book weaves many big ideas into this children's biography of Hildegard: not all gifts come in packages, with some gifts comes pain, sometimes our frail bodies need rest, sometimes we must persevere even when our body is not cooperating, sometimes our talents are as plain as day, and sometimes they appear in God's good timing. Megan sprinkled Hildegard's words throughout the text. The illustrations by David Hill strike me as Narnian, and that is the highest praise I can give to a piece of art. The tone of the book is sweet and gentle, but also gives children a glimpse of the dark times in Hildegard's life.

We were blessed on July 28 when Megan did a book signing event for us during Clockwise. My friends from prov.en.der came to Harvest and shared what they know about "unhurried time" with our teachers, parents, teachers from one of our sister schools, and homeschoolers.



Humility, being childlike, going through a day done Mason's way, helped us understand "unhurried time." We did copywork, studied dictation, recitation, picture study, history, poetry, prayer, hymns, literature, math, handicraft, nature walk, etc. Our special guest Megan introduced us to Hildegard, not just through her book, but in many ways. She gave us more details about her world and what life was like. She showed us paintings of how people portrayed this visionary woman.



Megan shared many delightful things about Hildegard in ways that tapped into our senses. Throughout the day, we listened to her music while we did work that required quiet thought. We tried singing "O Ignis Spiritus" in the best melisma style that we could. She invited one of our teachers, who grows all sorts of herbs in her garden, to share those that Hildegard might have enjoyed. I don't want to give it all away, but we enjoyed it so much I plan to invite her back so our kids can get to see a bona fide author who is published! If you live within a reasonable distance from the Charlotte area, I encourage you to contact her for a book signing.

Experiencing the Fuller Life

Pamela and I have just finished our third week at Harvest Community School. We found this week quite hectic because the elementary class teacher enjoyed a week of vacation. That meant the headmaster and I took turns teaching. While I did not engage much with Pamela one-on-one, she still experienced a fuller life. She fascinates children because of her savant skill in calendars, her artistic abilities, her princess lunchbox, and her boldness in telling a teacher—me—, "Director! Director! Cut!" and "You're fired." When I am not working with her, she keeps herself busy, building puzzles and triazzles, swinging on the porch swing, playing with her calculator, and using a laptop. She has far more opportunities to interact with people in an environment similar to the kind of learning environment she has enjoyed for over a decade. Thursday, she helped the elementary class build a water filter for the school pond!







I have thoroughly enjoyed applying Relationship Development Intervention ideas as we help our auties (two full-time students in the spectrum and another part-time in addition to Pamela) adapt to this new way of learning. I glean so much from them in one-on-one moments when they take a break from the classroom. Thursday, I taught one boy who has a mechanical mind and nibble fingers to sew a needle case. On Friday, he hardly needed help in sewing a running stitch in the first line on his tic-tac-toe game. The other boy and I have been sharing many perspective-taking conversations to help him see that what he thinks is not always what another person thinks. Their parents are delighted to have a school where students are doing more than the three R's—where they are engaged with the kind of hands-on, meaningful tasks that Temple Grandin recommends for students in the spectrum: drawing, handwork (right now, sewing), cleaning the pond and surrounding area, building a water filter, etc.

Friday the 13th was delightful! While chatting with a parent dropping off her child, we spotted two hummingbirds seeking nectar from a can of bug spray with a bright orange cap. (Note to self, we need a hummingbird feeder!)



Friday is The Feast, a day in which homeschoolers join us for the whole day if they choose to do so. Pamela joins the elementary class in reading two science books that they only read once a week. She is familiar with one book (Project UltraSwan) but has never read the other book (The Wright Brothers). In this photo taken last week, you can see by the expression on Pamela's face how much she enjoys the class.

Yesterday, after the morning meeting (prayer, pledge, hymn, and Spanish), the elementary students headed to the reading room. Angie walked in and saw Pamela—all smiles—sitting in the teacher's chair. Having observed Pamela and I co-read books, Angie suspected that Pamela wanted to see the text. So, she sat in the chair next to Pamela. Angie was thrilled to see how Pamela felt like she belonged. First, every time, Pamela was asked if she wanted to narrate, Pamela said, "Yes," and then narrated. Sometimes, when other students were narrating, Pamela shifted her attention to the speaker! She smiled and stayed engaged the whole time (about a half hour). Finally, when Angie started reading the unfamiliar book, Pamela leaned in to see the book. Angie and I were so excited for Pamela to take so much delight in learning, side by side, with her academic peers!

Then, the whole school headed out for our weekly nature walk at Santee National Wildlife Refuge. After a little chaos the first week, we learned to assign a group of children to one or two adults and teens. We space out the departure of the groups, some walking the loop trail in one direction and some in the other direction. Last week, one of the school co-founders, who wrote a lovely blog post about nature walks the other day, showed her group how to "fish" for "chicken chokers" (tiger beetle larvae). This week, the children from her group, all assigned to different groups, showed their friends how to lure them out of their holes! None of the adults made this happen: the students figured it out all on their own!

We returned to the school for lunch, and the afternoon was so hectic that I neglected Pamela. The homeschoolers joined us at this point for readings about Egypt (Seeker of Knowledge, Voices of Egypt, and Tutankhamun), a van Gogh picture study, wool felt sewing, living science (projects about flight), and Shakespeare. In time, I hope to fold Pamela in once we figure out our rhythm and everything flows well.

A couple of lovely moments happened yesterday afternoon.

I watched one of our auties marvel over van Gogh's Village Street and Steps in Auvers. He kept staring at it, running his fingers over the brushstrokes, narrating the vivid colors and objects in the painting. The eyes of this boy, who has the same kind of word retrieval issues as Pamela, sparkled with delight as he gazed at the masterpiece.

Before I began reading aloud to the elementary class, one of the students recalled a discussion we had had about how to remember what they read more clearly. He said, "Remember we need to narrate from the beginning of the passage to the end, and not just jump around." In the past three weeks, we have seen greater mindfulness and improved attention.

Shakespeare's Henry V was a blast. Since Act I, Scene I, has only two actors, I broke up the reading into five pages, two students per page. I gave more experienced readers the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury. To help the viewers tell them apart, I made a tall archbishop hat with double horizontal bars on the cross while the bishop wore a shorter hat and a single bar on the cross.

I gave the younger students important actions to perform: posting signs to set up the scene and representing "the church" (by holding a picture of a church), "the angel" (whipping the Adam out of Henry V), "the king" (Henry V) and "the dauphin" (future king of France). Their "acting" was perfect, even though they had not rehearsed. I gave a purse of pennies to "the church" and, when I asked "the king" to try to take it, "the church" tried to take it back from "the king" and said, "It's mine!" That is exactly what the archbishop and bishop were discussing. I gave the "Gordian knot" to the autie with nibble fingers and, while the clergy discussed the studious nature of Henry V, "the king" worked hard to undo the knot. "The angel" giggled at whipping "the king." Our youngest student wore the crown of the dauphin and his lip quivered when "the king" snatched his crown (and I had warned him that is what "the king" was supposed to do).



The past three weeks brings to mind this quote from Charlotte Mason. You can read some thoughtful ideas about one mom's take on this passage here.

Every new power, whether mechanical or spiritual, requires adjustment before it can be used to the full... to perceive that there is much which we ought to do and not to know exactly what it is, nor how to do it, does not add to the pleasure of life or to ease in living. We become worried, restless, anxious; and in the transition stage between the development of this new power and the adjustment which comes with time and experience, the fuller life, which is certainly ours, fails to make us either happier or more useful.

The Frog Eggs in My Cracker Barrel To-Go Cup!

Another chapter in The Raptor in My Prius series and sequel to What Happens When You Kiss a Frog.

On atmosphere, Charlotte Mason wrote, "It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the 'child's' level." In science education of today, I believe examples of stultification are posters, plastic toys, puppets, magnets, and stacking blocks showing the life cycle of a frog. They reduce the interesting life of transforming tadpoles into a factoid to be learned. Anyone who has spent weeks following a tadpole from egg to frog does not need pricey memory tricks.

My friend Shea and I wanted to find some frog eggs so our kids could see metamorphosis firsthand. Her kids donned their boots and grabbed their net, and we hauled our buckets and searched promising puddles until we found some frog eggs. We had worked up quite an appetite, so we headed to Cracker Barrel for a hearty meal. As luck would have it (or I prefer a whisper from God), while we were eating lunch, in walked a fellow lover of nature study—the headmaster of a school nearby! We ran up to her almost giddy with excitement—or, at least, I did.

"Guess what we have in the back of our cars?"

"I have no idea!"

"You'll never guess, so just we'll tell you. FROG EGGS!"

"Frog eggs! Can I have some?"

"Of course! Do you have a container in your car?"

"No, but I can ask for a to-go cup!"

Which of course led to a rash of rather confusing stories being spread in the homes of first graders attending her school that Mrs. B got frog eggs from the Cracker Barrel. And, now, we are all hosting and observing Southern Leopard frogs in our respective classrooms. We settled upon that classification for a couple of reasons. We know they are frogs for toads spawn eggs in a long ribbon. Southern leopard frogs are common in our area since they thrive in our wet habitat. We found ours on what looked like a temporary wetland, brought on by winter rain. Other frogs in our area do not mate this early in the year. We also recognized their call in this you-tube video. The truth will out, however, in about three months, which is how long they take to transform! Raising tadpoles is not a short-term flirtation.

As I've not seen frog metamorphosis with my own eyes, this study is a perfect example of what Mason described as a "bracing atmosphere of truth and sincerity"— "the common pursuit of knowledge by teacher and class comes to our aid and creates a current of fresh air perceptible even to the chance visitor, who sees the glow of intellectual life and moral health on the faces of teachers and children alike." You can clearly see the delight in Pamela's profile as she tries to spot a toad tadpole shape matching ours.

What a poster? Not exactly! I printed out an illustration of the abundance of shapes a toad tadpole takes on in its journey to adulthood from my favorite book for study, Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study.



That illustration came in handy. At first, we thought some eggs had already hatched. But, these "tadpoles" visible in the bottom left corner of the picture below did not develop as depicted. They did not behave in the manner described by Comstock. Later, when we spotted some dead, striped bugs floating on the water, we surmised that the tadpoles had really been insects. When teachers let living things instruct students, the teacher does not need all the answers in advance. All we learners need are strong powers of attention and curiosity.



When the tadpoles first emerged, Pamela thought they looked like beans. They must have been only a few days old for they lacked the large prominent head. The only way we could tell the ones floating on the surface were alive was by disturbing the water. Then, live ones would swim away (in case you don't know tadpoles have a high rate of mortality). My first question was why my friends saw their tadpoles hatch first. We found out that southern leopard frog eggs hatch more quickly when they sense predators nearby. We kept our tadpoles rather quiet, while the tadpoles in my friends' home and school had far more frequent visitors!

Then, the tadpoles began to look like what Pamela called balloons: their heads grew large and they seemed to hang suspended vertically, head up. Comstock states that tadpoles secrete a sticky substance and attach themselves to weeds, resting head up. When Shea and her children discovered their tadpoles hanging around en masse, they felt like it was Christmas morning!



We are learning all sorts of things not found on a life cycle poster. Sometimes, in early development, tadpoles look like bubbles. Their bodies are almost transparent. They also play dead! When you move the bowl, they stiffen up and float to the ground. Violently disturbing the water will cause them to swim away, tails a-twirling! Shea and I both nearly threw out live tadpoles when we changed the water to freshen it up a bit.

Pamela records her observations in her science journal (not some contrived worksheet). Again, we are trying to avoid artificial relations set up by me. Mason wrote, "It is not an environment that these want, a set of artificial relations carefully constructed, but an atmosphere which nobody has been at pains to constitute. It is there, about the child, his natural element, precisely as the atmosphere of the earth is about us."



I will close with a page from the biography we are reading for South Carolina history this term, A Hunt for Life's Extra by Idella Bodie. Having heard the enticing croak of the southern leopard frog, Pamela and I know why the boys traipsed around in mud puddles wearing their finery. Do you?

When the inevitable day came, Hugh and Archie were dressed in their finery and told to keep themselves spotless while last-minute details were looked after.

Far more restless than grave, quiet Hugh, Archie wandered out on the spacious front porch to wait for the family. For a time he stood there marveling at the beauty of an April morning washed fresh in last night’s torrential rainfall. The trees and shrubs sparkled with cleanliness under the bright sunlight. Here and there rain lay puddled.

Thoughtful Hugh, whom Archie later said was his "balance wheel," came to stand beside him.

About that time Prince, wet, bedraggled, and happy, rounded the corner of the sprawling porch.

Seeing his playmates, he came to an abrupt halt as if he had slammed on brakes. "Listen to dat!" he grinned.

From somewhere behind the stable-yard frogs croaked.

"Des 'bout a thousand. Les ketch 'em."

"We can't," Hugh spoke up, "not in these clothes."

"But a thousand," Archie moaned. "Les just go look at 'em."

With that Archie and Prince struck out toward the wet, boggy field where last night's rain had formed a pond. As Prince promised, heads of croaking frogs thickly dotted the tawny water collected in the lower part of the field.

Archie leaned down to grab a frog at the edge.

"But you said we were just coming to look." Until Hugh spoke, Archie had not realized his brother had followed.

Prince had grabbed a burlap sack from the stable, and now he stood wide-eyed, holding it open for the catch.

In a moment Hugh, too, could not resist. It seemed the best frogs were in deeper water, luring the boys out farther and farther.

Every time they grabbed a big one, they had to make another sloshing trip back to Prince, who was grinning over the slimy, kicking collection.

Archie was standing in the middle of the pond when he looked up to see a curious expression spreading over Hugh's face. A quick glance toward Prince showed only a deserted burlap sack with frogs jumping gaily from it.

On the shore of the pond stood the Colonel. A little while later as their clothes dried and the brothers sniffed by a bedroom window, they heard Prince getting his in the kitchen.

Here are a few more pictures for all y'all to enjoy!