Resiliency during Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

I want to THANK all the people who have worked tirelessly to keep us safe (firefighters, police, EMS, tree cutters, etc.) and warm (electric and gas company workers).

The week began uneventfully. I prepared two posts for the blog carnival: one on Sunday and one on Monday. I hosted the blog carnival on Tuesday. Pamela and I attended school like we always do. Our headmaster (also a volunteer firefighter) called off school because of Winter Storm Pax, which seemed scarier than Leon. The governor urged everyone to stay home. They were right. Early Wednesday morning, someone in our county died in a car accident.

While everything looked sparkly and lovely with an icy glaze, I worried about the power. My folks had gone several days without it in the ice storm here back in 2001. I headed out to take pictures for Steve and posted them before we lost power. It rained and sleeted off and on all day. David cleaned the tub and filled it with water for the toilet. I filled jugs with fresh water for us to drink. Then, we waited.


When lights flickered that evening, Pamela turned off the ceiling fan lights (4 bulbs) and turned on the desk lamp to dim. She explained, "I don't waste power." Her thoughtfulness impressed me, and I posted a note about it on Facebook. At about ten o'clock, we heard a tremendous crash. Pamela woke up and asked me, "What happened?" My favorite branch had bit the dust (sniff, sniff). Then, we all went to bed warm and cozy, and the temperatures dipped below freezing.

At 1:30 AM, I woke up to the Amityville Horror in my house!

The blue LED light of my alarm clock was blinking madly. The smoke detector was beeping at odd intervals. The house alarm system randomly cut on and off. A bright orange glow blazed eerily through my window. I grabbed a shawl and ran out to the front porch to see wild sparks and a grass fire along the telephone pole in my neighbor's yard. My dad told me later that he saw it through his bedroom window and thought he was dreaming that his front porch was on fire. I shivered in my socks and jammies and watched to make sure the ice would prevent it from spreading. Pamela popped her head out and asked, "Is the power off?" I told her, "Not yet."

Once everything looked safe, I ran inside to wake up David. I grabbed my cell phone and we watched a spark that flashed between blue and orange travel down the power line. Here is a short clip (turn up the volume to hear the crackle). These are the last dying breaths of our power.

We heard a terrific BOOM. The sparking stopped. We had no power. The next morning we figured out that a tree branch had smashed the light bulb of the street light and caused the light show. We headed back into the house. David used his new iPod as a flashlight and I looked up the number for the power company in the phone book. Since Duke bought Progressive Energy recently, I couldn't find the phone number. We bundled up and went back to bed.

The most amazing thing about that night was that Pamela didn't freak out. In spite of the noise and the fire and the loss of power, she didn't cry and she didn't scream. She saw that I was calm and that her brother was calm and that our neighbors across the street were calm. She borrowed our perspective and didn't lose her cool.

Do you know how amazing that is for an autistic person?

We woke up the next morning (Thursday). Pamela wasn't upset nor did she cry about the loss of power or the lack of electronics. At some point, she had rummaged through kitchen drawers and pulled out two flashlights for me. The house was very cold, but the thermostat had reached rock bottom. I found the thermometer we use for science and discovered that room temperature was 50°! I headed outside to assess the damage and take more pictures.



Until you've been through an ice storm without power, you have no idea how eerie it is. Dead silence. Totally cut off from the world. Silence broken by the branches cracking, which sounds just like gunshots. Sirens blaring down the road. Heavy vehicles rumbling past to help someone in need. Melting ice sliding off the metal roof and hitting the windows.

I decided to keep warm by cleaning house since Steve was due to arrive the next day. I had a pile of laundry to fold, dusted, and worked on the floors. David woke up at around eleven and said, "That's weird. I'm picking up Opa's wireless." When offered the chance to hang out at her grandparent's house, she refused. I took a break at one point and enjoyed a cup of coffee before heading back to Planet Hoth. At about one, we decided to find some hot food. Hardly anything was open and what was open had Soviet Union style lines. I managed to order a delicious meal for us, only to learn that they couldn't take credit cards. An hour later, we came home with groceries from The Pig.

Pamela got a little upset at one or two times, but she did well in the face of so much uncertainty. She consoled herself in the car by comparing the situation to history. "No power. Just like cavemen." "I pretend to be Ma and Laura." "Knights had no power." When we heard a favorite composer, she'd say, "Mozart had no electricity." I was so impressed with how much self-regulation and resiliency she displayed in the face of adversity.

I cleaned until sundown, and the thermometer was at 46° when I left. Miraculously, my folks still had power. Mom offered me a glass of my sister's award-winning Madeira. I rarely drink but the thought of going home to a frozen house with temperature dipping into the twenties convinced me to sip a quarter of a glass. At around eight o'clock, their power went out! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! We went out to the street to look for a cause and, to my great joy, a man from the power company was working in the cold and dark to restore power! I jumped up and down on my mom's porch like a contestant on The Price Is Right! Before long, the power came on so I checked on my house. I turned around to get Pamela when I heard the lovely purr of the heating unit.

We slept well in a warm, cozy house. And we slept in! I spent the day vacuuming, doing laundry, running the dishwasher, etc. I emptied out the freezer and counted birds. Pamela and I picked up our hot meal. Bright sunny day. Ice gone! Except for the fallen trees and debris and the sound of chainsaws you'd never have guessed that our town had looked like Narnia the day before. Of course, lots of people are still without power, even now.

That evening, I was doing the finishing touches of cleaning up. There seemed to be a bunch of power trucks in front of the house. I found out later they were pruning the live oak in the yard of the neighbor across the street. Apparently that tree was an outage epicenter. While I was working on the bathroom, Pamela burst in and announced breathlessly, "I saw CBS."

Me: "At Oma's house yesterday?"

Pamela: "A reporter."

Me: "Where?"

Pamela: "Over there!"

She pointed to the window. I looked out. Seven power trucks lined the street with a WLTX vehicle in front of my house. A reporter was giving a live report for the news for a station in Columbia — the night footage is in front of my house.

You don't see that everyday! You might not think much of what Pamela did. Let me explain. First, she noticed something extraordinary in a week of unusual events. Second, she realized I was so busy cleaning I failed to notice what was happening on the street. Third, she could not keep the exciting news to herself. She searched for me and went upstairs to tell me.

This is one element of what they call experience sharing in RDI. Situations like this may seem minor but, when you add them up, you see a huge improvement in quality of life as a friend has shared at her blog.

Steve finally made it home and we were so glad to see him. He took a nap while I waited for the blanket to finish drying. Just when things had finally calmed day, Pamela and I felt a sharp jolt shove the house. Pamela asked, "Is it earthquake?" I replied, "I'm not sure," and waited to see if a tree was going to fall on the house. About a minute later a friend on Facebook asked, "Did anyone just feel an earthquake?"

Yes, as far-fetched as it might seem, a 4.1 earthquake hit Edgefield, SC, and we felt it on our side of the state. So, like any good citizen scientist, I filled out an earthquake event form and went to bed before the locusts arrived. After all, you never know what might happen with a full moon.

On Mindfulness

Welcome to the February 11, 2014 edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival. The two carnivals for the month of February focus on Chapter 11 of School Education, and I encourage you to read it in Mason's own words or Leslie's lovely paraphrase (Sh..., no one will ever know). Not only do I encourage you to read the chapter first, but narrate it, copy your favorite phrases, make your own connections. How can we expect our children to develop mindfulness if we aren't doing it ourselves?

Carol focuses on ideas in her post on this chapter, and ideas are at the heart of intellectual habits. They are the things that our minds digest to absorb nourishment that causes new ideas to grow. Like many of us, she longs to hone her own mindfulness,

I underline passages, scripture or quotes that stand out to me as I read. It's telling that often when I go back through books I've read and see what I've underlined, I think, 'Why on earth did that strike me at the time?' and I am clueless because I allowed it to pass over the surface of my mind. Taking the time to write some notes in the margins or in a notebook makes all the difference for me.

Nebby shares her struggles with mindfulness, too because she wants more for her children. Don't we all?

All those things that my kids in a Charlotte Mason education are supposed to be learning, the habit of attention, concentration, being able to focus all their mind and to remember after one reading, I am horrible at those things. Perhaps that is why I am so attracted to Charlotte’s methods; I want something better for my kids. My mind always drifts during sermons. And I rarely remember things I read well. That’s actually why I blog on books so much — so that I can look back myself and remember what I read. It’s actually kind of nice when it comes to movies because I can watch them again without knowing what is going to happen.

These are great questions. Does my mind drift during sermons? Can I remember what I read? What intellectual habits might I encourage for myself? This year, I'm expanding my habit of keeping. I draw and write in a nature notebook consistently. Now, I'm adding a language arts notebook for my own copywork and narration to better understand what students at my school are experiencing. Doing so led me to some wonderful connections between Psalm 100 and this chapter on mindfulness.

Amy has asked herself similar questions with an eye toward the aging process. Here's her plan:

I hope this year to really give my children an opportunity to develop their intellectual habits, and I think my own could use some tweaking as well. I think our explorations with AO will give us some lovely scaffolding as we explore and form our intellectual habits. Reading, discussing, asking some tough questions and paying attention to how we present our ideas and our written work will all play their role.

Nancy shared an important discovery in asking questions about the leading questions at the end of Mason's book Ourselves. Mason wrote this book for students whom she trusted to read one time and narrate. Why include such pointed questions? Well, you'll have to read Nancy's post to learn why but it connects to our struggles with developing our own intellectual habits.

While many place their faith in reason, Mason viewed it with doubt. Look where Lady Reason lead the French during their revolution. Being mindful is reading something old and comparing it with something new. Kristyn pondered the limitations of reason with the recent debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham (as did I at my math blog). Her questions illustrate beautifully what an active mind does naturally:

Could your reasoned conclusions of any particular point be unreasonable? How do we know if they are? And how do we change, if so?

Blog carnival coordinator Amy Tuttle describes a hands-on way to develop mindfulness through paper sloyd. She and her children are seeing intellectual habits emerge as they make projects together. She explains,

I had to learn to be clear and careful in GIVING instructions. We have all had to work to maintain a friendly and relaxed atmosphere (struggle on, perfectionists!). The kids have had to make an effort not to get overwhelmed or frustrated while listening and concentrating in a group context with various skill levels represented.

Speaking of sloyd, Gina shared pictures of her children making an envelope. She compares it to the Japanese art of origami, but with more cutting, drawing, and measuring. Like Amy, Gina hopes her children will refine intellectual habits as they do more lessons.

Our first sloyd project was a simple envelope but it required the kids to carefully measure and cut. I assisted them a little. I showed them how to use a ruler and where to find 'inches'. They carefully measured, cut and folded to make an envelope. For the succeeding lessons, my job is to read the lesson and have them figure out how to measure, fold, and cut based on the instructions and diagram with minimal assistance.

Moreover, sloyd shows students one place where math ideas live in the real world. Yesterday, I was guiding a boy in making a picture frame. When he drew the two diagonals, he exclaimed, "Hey! I just made an intersection." I probed a little further since he started the conversation, "I have a bonus question! What kind of angles are formed when the diagonals of a right triangle intersect?" He grinned, "Right angles!"

Today, a girl elaborated on her ability to make a 6″ by 6″ square. She needed a 10″ by 10" square to draw a frog. I have no idea how this turned about because she didn't show me the process. I was excited for her to link what she learned in paper sloyd to what she wanted to make. Elaborating on a previous idea is another example of mindfulness.

Speaking of math, our potpourri of posts touches on Cindy's take on living math. Two more posts point to nature study: a year-long milkweed study by Barb and Friday's Great Backyard Bird Count by me. And, if you have littles underfoot while you try to teach the older ones, Celeste shares how her days with six children and one on the way look.

Thank you to all the bloggers who worked so hard to make this carnival possible. You have given us all food for thought. If today's posts inspire you to write about the topic of mindfulness (intellectual habits), feel free to submit it to the next carnival. The carnival schedule for the year is here.

Psalm 100

Multitasking thwarts the habit of attention. You can read what it does to health, IQ, learning, and productivity here.

There I was. Friday night. Doing a very tedious task. Making a 137 graphs for a video explaining how to curve stitch a heart on a paper sloyd picture frame. To break up the monotony, I popped on the head phones and "listened" to a John Piper sermon on education. I should say half-listened. To be honest, it didn't make much sense because only a sliver of my mind was paying attention.

One sentence drove me to dig deeper when I had more time the next day. "For . . ." A whole philosophy of education hangs on this word. How could an entire philosophy of education hang on one word? I replayed the sermon on my Nook while falling asleep. It still didn't make sense.

The next day, I put my full attention to work. I copied Psalm 100 into my notebook (thanks for the inspiration, Laurie).

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord himself is God; it is he who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the Lord is good; his lovingkindness is everlasting and his faithfulness to all generations.

I pondered Charlotte Mason's twenty principles in light of "the old one hundred." I wrote in my notebook. I listened to the sermon, and it made much more sense. A whole philosophy of education rests on for because knowing God is the aim of true education. Both Piper and Mason believe in an education rooted in God. He wrote, "God-centered Exultation is rooted in God-centered Education." She wrote, "The knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education."

When I turned to the chapter to study for the blog carnival, and joy swept over me as I read this line: "We realise ourselves as persons, we have a local habitation, and we live and move and have our being in and under a supreme authority."

It fits so beautifully with these verses from Psalm 100.

Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Piper put it like this, "We need to know three things: 1) The Lord is our God. 2) He made us. 3) We are his people, like sheep in the pastures of a shepherd."

Mason's three ultimate facts –– not open to question are, "God is, Self is, the World is, with all that these existences imply, quite untouched by any thinking of ours, unprovable, and self-proven –– why, we are at once put into a more humble attitude of mind."

God has lovingly placed us in a pasture to feed on great intellectual and spiritual ideas and to be active in our exploration. As my pastor pointed out in his sermon yesterday, the pasture has some boundaries, and, within those boundaries, we can play freely. He has given us the Good Shepherd to guide us, protect us, and lead us to living water and rest. He has given us the Whispering Spirit to offer us knowlege of "witty inventions, of man and nature, of art and literature, of the heavens above and the earth beneath," to help us discover, and to share great ideas.

A more humble attitude of mind avoids a great fallacy. Our natural tendency amplifies Self and World and puts God to a small corner in the pasture. We forget that the source of great ideas whether they be scientific, literary, poetic, or artistic is God, who sends the Whispering Spirit in the name of the Good Shepherd to "teach you all things" (John 14:26).

Humility takes me back to the word upon which a whole philosophy of education rests. The last verse of Psalm 100 explains it well. "For the Lord is good; his lovingkindness is everlasting and his faithfulness to all generations. The Creator of Self and World, our authority, is good, is always loving and kind, and is faithful to us all." Knowing these three attributes of God is the point of education.

When we follow the Good Shepherd to the still waters and pay attention to the Whispering Spirit, then we can know something new about God. New to us, not to the Father, of course. That's when we see the glory of God and He fills us with joy.

"Child, know thyself, and thy relations to God and man and nature." ~ Charlotte Mason

"He desired not to assist in storing the passive mind with the various sorts of knowledge most in request, as if the human soul were a mere repository or banqueting room, but to place it in such relations of circumstance as should gradually excite its vegetating and germinating powers to produce new fruits of thought, new conceptions and imaginations and ideas." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Plato's aim (page 24)

Great Backyard Bird Count 2014

We've had a rare snowfall here in the midlands of Carolina. I couldn't resist taking pictures of birds and their tracks. We saw our typical favorites: northern cardinals, chipping sparrows, and goldfinches.





I also spotted two kinds of birds that are new to my feeder. How exciting! Truly! I squeal when I discover new birds. The first was something completely new to me: an eastern towhee. Its unusual behavior first caught my eye: the towhee was flicking leaves up as it foraged. Later, I spotted it perched on tree branches not far from a sparrow. Since towhees look like a large sparrow, the picture with the chipping sparrow clinched the identification for me.



The other bird that thrilled me is the slate-colored, dark-eyed junco. I first met them behind Pike's Peak where they live year round. In years of bird watching here, I've never seen any. Monday, I spotted a flock at the school. I loved seeing them at home today. Aren't they cute?



Long-time blog readers know that we celebrate the Great Backyard Bird Count every February. This year will be quite an event since Pamela and I will be counting at two locations: our schoolyard on Friday and our backyard the rest of the weekend. Because we needed to prepare an entire school for this event, I came up with several things to teach students and staff to identify birds. At the beginning of the new term last December, I incorporated a bird theme into some elements of our curriculum.

Living Books - At the beginning of the school year, the elementary students started reading UltraSwan by Elinor Osborn and The Wright Brothers by Quentin Reynolds. Now, they are reading John Audubon: Young Naturalist by Miriam Mason and the primary students are reading The Boy Who Drew Pictures by Jacqueline Davies. I also recommend a birthday present I gave to a young naturalist: For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson by Peggy Thomas.

Nature Study - We have bird feeders stationed in the school yard, and students help us keep them filled. When playing outside for recess, students see things in nature and ask us about them. We give them proper names so that most of them have from saying red bird and blue bird to cardinal and blue jay. They also know mourning dove, robin, mockingbird, and tufted titmouse. Some students are quite advanced and know yellow-bellied sapsucker and Carolina chickadee. Instead just knowing the name of our state bird, many students can describe how the Carolina wren looks. They ask for the names of birds that they see while looking out the window at school and even at home. They have to give a good description, and then we head to our bird books.

Our staff and students have come a long way since the beginning of the school year. We are all more aware of birds and able to identify some and able to observe and describe them in enough detail to classify them. It's quite common for children to ask me about a bird that they saw at home or grab me at recess to take a picture of one. It's not unusual for students to flock around the big window near the bird feeders suddenly because one student exclaims, "I just saw a huge bird!" The other morning, one girl asked me to identify a bird. "It's brown on the back and has brown splotches on its chest. It's about the size of a blue jay. It was on the ground looking for seeds or worms." I showed her a picture of a brown thrasher, and she smiled, "That's it!"

One little boy's mother majored in biology in college. They were out bird watching and he said, "I think that's a tufted titmouse." She thought he was making up the name, so she looked it up on her smart phone. He was right, and she was amazed at what he knew about birds. We have a little flock of tufted titmice that adore our bird feeders.

For science, they have made detailed drawings of a dead yellow-bellied sapsucker that we found on the grounds one day. While recording observations in our science notebooks, a live sapsucker was bring into a red maple tree nearby, so we quietly stalked it and found the holes in the trunk. While we were gone, an anonymous bird dropped a "gift" onto one girl's notebook and we all had a good chuckle.






Science - To go along with the book on the Wright brothers, the students learned about Leonardo da Vinci's flying machines and built some models as described in this book. It also helped them understand some principles as flight and they saw how da Vinci used nature study to design his flying machines. They were quite amused at how da Vinci tested them.

Picture Study - The artist we chose for picture study this term is John James Audubon, specifically this book. Since we have about a dozen students per class on Fridays (our homeschooler day), we have two books and two pictures. They have to sit quietly and study the picture for at least two minutes. They are such chatterboxes it is hard for them not to talk. When they are ready, we close the books and each child gets a chance to say one thing. They go around in a circle until they run out of things to say. Then, they switch pictures.

Silhouettes - We've read several books about our state. Mama, Let's Make A Moon by Clay Rice, a silhouette artist who has been to our county many times, inspired us to study bird silhouettes. I've made about ten of them. Sometimes we hand out individual silhouettes to half the class and bird pictures to the other half. Each student has one. They have to match the silhouette with the picture. I used a picture from this GBBC blogpost as a guide.



Plans for February 14 - I plan to make copies of the checklist and count birds during the day. I'll have a small group of children with me to help me spot and count the birds. As always, I'll have my camera, bird books, and my Nook available for tricky identifications.

Mirror Neurons and Habit Training

Before sharing thoughts on physical habit training, I thought share some news I alluded to last month. I've started a math blog focused on helping parents and teachers to see the beauty and joy of math. Math lovers and haters alike are invited to read about captain ideas that inspire me. Many of the downloads or ideas shared are great props for doing RDI. Yesterday, Pamela and I made picture frames through paper sloyd. I curve stitched mine. If you want to learn more, head over to my new blog!

Today's contribution to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival how mirror neurons (MN) play a role in physical habit training. Mirror neurons in the brain fire not only when we perform an action but also when we watch someone perform it. The activity in the brain is the same whether we do something or we see it modeled for us. Some believe mirror neurons are important to imitation, empathy, social, and language development, which are all affected in autism.

RDI consultant Simona Onnis outlined the role mirror neurons have in learning as follows:

• Child visually observes (sensory).
• Child observes a motor action (motor planning).
• Child applies meaning to the action (activation of MN), by understanding the intention of the one who acts and by anticipating the possible goal of action.
• The child retains the experience in his memory (retention).

Yesterday, Pamela and I made picture frames using paper sloyd. This model is the third one elaborating upon a 6" by 6" square. Pamela learned how to construct the square using a ruler and pencil. We made a paper envelope for our first model. I took a small step, briefly explained it, pause, and waited expectantly. Drew a point at the top, described, and waited for her to do the same. Drew a point in the middle, described, and waited. Drew a point at the bottom, described, and waited. We followed the same process for drawing a line, rotating the paper, drawing more points and lines, etc.

Last week, we made a wall pocket out of the square and, yesterday, the picture frame. Because each model begins with the same square, Pamela learns to tap into her episodic memory. Next week, we will make a pinwheel beginning with the 6" square. The article about mirror neurons explains how to make sure we give our children the opportunity for their mirror neurons to fire in sharing an experience. Paper sloyd done right fits the bill. First, we are making little keepsakes with our hands. Each model involves following a pattern which is elaborated upon from one model to the next. Varying the pattern makes the process dynamic. I work slowly, involve nonverbal communication, and speak descriptively rather than rely on commands. I pause and wait for Pamela to engage. At certain points, I say or do something to increase anticipation or invite curiosity.

I take these same steps with children in the spectrum at our school. Eman recently shifted from half to full days, so he didn't know that students have chores after lunch. Before heading out to recess, they do a chore and sit down to wait for recess. After he finished eating lunch, I said to him, "Guess what?"

"What?" he said.

"Do you know what kids do before recess?"

"No, what?"

I pointed to Tman, a friend that Eman admires. Tman was wiping the book shelves with a duster. Eman said, "What's that?"

"A duster! The kids have chores after recess."

He saw a duster on the table and asked, "Can I help?"

"Sure!" So, I called Tman over and told him that Eman would like to help. I just sat and watched while mirror neurons and partnering with a peer took care of teaching Eman what he needed to learn. When they were finished, Eman was wandering around, so I said to him, "Poor Jman!"

"What's wrong?"

"Jman's chore partner isn't here today. He has to wipe four tables all by himself." I pointed to Jman who was busy with a Clorox wipe.

"Really? Can I help?"

"Yes! I know he'd appreciate that!" So, I called Jman over and Jman came up with roles. "Hey, Mrs. Tammy, I could pick up things while Eman wipes under them." I told him that was a great idea. The two of them wiped the last table together.

Again, I spotted Eman wondering, so I let his mirror neurons figure out something else. "Do you know what the kids do while they wait for recess?"

"No, what do they do?"

I encouraged him to look around and he said, "Some are sitting quietly." Then, I pointed to one of the teachers and explained, "Mrs. Jenn is watching to see who is ready for recess. The way you tell her is by sitting quietly. She calls the quietest kids first." His eyes widened and he sat down, lips sealed. He didn't say a single word and, to his delight, she called him first to recess.

In this case, learning to do chores was to prop to a more important lesson: watching what others do and copying their good choices. Eman loves helping people: he's eager to help me push in the chairs, take care of the pond, sweep the outdoor patio, and walk to pick up lunch. Watching people do good deeds helps him develop a habit of service and builds positive memories of making the world a better place.

Alertness – Many a good man and woman thinks regretfully of the opportunities in life they have let slip through a certain physical inertness. They missed the chance of doing some little service, or some piece of courtesy, because they did not see in time. It is well to bring up children to think it is rather a sad failure if they miss a chance of going a message, opening a door, carrying a parcel, any small act of service that presents itself. (Page 108)

Seizing Opportunities

This year, the bimonthly Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is spending an entire month on one suggested theme from Mason's third volume: School Education. January's topic is physical training, and, as a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, I have had my fair share of that! Since this blog focuses on autism, homeschooling, and now private schooling, I'll turn to one aspect of physical training that is vital for all of us, but especially people in the autism spectrum.

Mason believed that an alert child will have more opportunities to see. Opportunities to do what? To serve others, to gain knowledge, to do something. Imagine for a moment what a daunting thing that can be to teach a child in the autism spectrum. First, let's read what my favorite educator wrote,

Alertness.––Many a good man and woman thinks regretfully of the opportunities in life they have let slip through a certain physical inertness. They missed the chance of doing some little service, or some piece of courtesy, because they did not see in time. It is well to bring up children to think it is rather a sad failure if they miss a chance of going a message, opening a door, carrying a parcel, any small act of service that presents itself. They should be taught to be equally alert to seize opportunities of getting knowledge; it is the nature of children to regard each grown-up person they meet as a fount of knowledge on some particular subject; let their training keep up the habit of eager inquiry. Success in life depends largely upon the cultivation of alertness to seize opportunities, and this is largely a physical habit. We all know how opportunity is imaged––a figure flying past so rapidly that there is no means of catching him but, in advance, by the forelock which overhangs his brow (Page 109).

I believe the number one thing parents and teachers do to discourage autism spectrum children from thinking is to issue commands. I know we're often in a hurry. Our kids process more slowly. But, if we consistently give them directives, they only have to be alert to us. They don't have to pay attention to their environment, much less persons in their environment.

One child with autism rarely looked at anyone at the beginning of the school year. I suspect that a steady diet of "look at me" prompts was the issue. He didn't realize the benefits of looking at people because others were looking for him. The adults at our school use a different style of communication as described in my friend Di's poster. While we may help students observe, we encourage them to think for themselves.



Slowly, over time, things began to change for him. Because he wasn't paying attention to his classmates, he appeared to cut in line. For a couple of weeks, in our half hour of individualized work, we played follow the leader. The leader took all sorts of unexpected and circuitous routes. He had to be alert to changes in direction even though he knew the expedient way to put lunch bags in the refrigerator. After that, he had no problems in line.

Because we rely more on facial expressions and gestures and not on commands, he has learned to be alert to what we say with our bodies as well as with our words. He has learned to look in the direction of the speaker during group time as well as share joint attention when it's just two people. He is even trying to play with his friends at recess. He is growing in awareness of how his actions affect his friends.

Pamela has come a long way in cultivating the habit of alertness. She enjoys doing little things for me like retrieve the mail every day, bring groceries in the house, and carry our lunch bags into the school. She shops for things and helps us remember all sorts of details. Occasionally, I've completely forgotten about meals on wheels until she reminded me! She still has some lessons to learn. She doesn't always remember to hold the door when I'm behind her.

And, what do I do? Do I prompt her to hold the door? No!

Sometimes, I wait until she realizes she has left me behind.

Sometimes, I cry out, "Hey! What about me?"

Sometimes, I catch her before the door slams and say, "My hands are full."

Sometimes, I knock on the door.

By avoiding the direct command, "Hold the door," I'm requiring her to be alert to my needs and to think for herself what opportunity she can seize. Mason knew that direct commands lessens the ability of a child to remember. In training Johnny to shut the door, she didn't give him a direct command when he forgot. She calls his name pleasantly. She makes a declarative comment, "I said I should try to remind you." The mother of the girl lacing her boots uses eye contact and facial expression to remind her to work more quickly.

Finally, alertness is a two-way street. For us to cultivate alertness in our children, we must cultivate it in ourselves. Once we settle on a new habit to form, we must be watchful of those situations in which the habit can be trained naturally. We must be alert and spring into action with wide and varied responses of indirectly reminding our children of what is not to be forgotten. We are wise if we mind Mason's words about our own habits: "Tact, watchfulness, and persistence are the qualities she must cultivate in herself; and, with these, she will be astonished at the readiness with which the child picks up the new habit" (Page 122).

Reflections of an Odd Year

Like my friend, Amy in Peru, I prefer doing reflections at the end of the year instead of resolutions at the beginning. I spend more time blogging the resolution of my camera, which captured the lovely reflection of sunshine on Lake Warnock to the right, than I do blogging New Year's resolutions. In fact, not one post talks about them!

I have noticed a distinct pattern in the past decade of my life. The oddest things happen in odd years: major changes of job for Steve (necessitating a move), amazing projects landing in my lap or dwindling away, switching churches (not often I am glad to say). Some of the most surprising shifts that I could not have predicted in a million years (and, yet, God knew all along) happen in odd years.

The year 2013 was no exception. Some things, I have already shared. At the beginning of the year, I had no idea that two friends and I would found a school based upon a Charlotte Mason style of education. God clearly had been carefully laying plans for years, but He did not bother to tell us until June. Watching Pamela integrate into a class (more on that in another post), helping other families with autism, and seeing children get excited about the world makes the hard work worth it. It also keeps me busy when Steve is working in Kansas (and started working there in 2011—another odd year).

While it stinks that eleven hundred miles separate us from Steve, we are enjoying being able to see so many wonderful things on the long trips back and forth as regular readers of this blog know. This time, we are doing something different and, as my friend Di points out, change gives our older children with autism a chance to think and become resilient. Steve scored uber cheap tickets, so Pamela and I are flying back to South Carolina. What luxury!

About a week before we were due to drive to Kansas, Pamela realized that the babies could not come. She has flown enough to see the disadvantages of hauling five babies through TSA. She asked her brother David, who planned to stay home and rack up some overtime, to babysit for her. She also told me she could only carry one backpack, instead of two or three or four. Since we are without typical schooling materials, Pamela texted the following to Steve, a week after our arrival: "I am getting journel, pencil, chip, hamburger, pickles and coke cola."

Two things I loved about Pamela's mindfulness: (1) she spotted the problem and solved it and (2) she shared her plan with me. If your child in the spectrum struggles with being mindful, Di came up with two important questions and changes you might want to try: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? The poster she created summarizes what has helped Pamela learn to think for herself.

Some exciting changes have been brewing all year, but I cannot share them until January 2014. Years are like road trips. You never know what is going to happen along the way. Steve and I took turns driving through two weather fronts on the long trek from Carolina to Kansas. We left pleasant, sunny weather in Carolina. While going through Kentucky, we discovered that the weather app on his phone makes a loud noise when severe weather alerts are issued. A tornado watch and flash flood accompanied the heavy rainfall. The next day, we saw vehicles, askew in odd positions with parts flung every which way, on the icy leg from St. Louis to mid Missouri. [Notice how I subtly worked in another photograph of a reflection.]

Since the ice storm had already blown through, the road conditions were better than we had expected. When we stopped for coffee on the icy section of the trip, we spotted thick layers of ice, coating the branches of the tree. As we headed to Kansas City, the precipitation shifted to six inches of snow. The ginormous Angus cow statue sported an icicle goatee and a white blanket. The temperature on Planet Hoth was a brutal ten degrees and simply getting out of the car sucked the breath out of me.

At sunset, about a half hour from Steve's place, the Missouri river bridge leading to Kansas offered a neat view. Wave upon wave of black birds flew over us. The procrastinating geese that had gotten caught in the frigid weather traveled in their V-formation.

What surprised us most was how uneventful the drive was in spite of all the wide and varied road and weather conditions. The smooth journey ended at Steve's place. The landlord had failed to have the neighborhood and public parking areas plowed. In eleven hundred miles of traveling across half of our country, we nearly got stuck in the driveway when we backed out to make a supply run.

God sure has a sense of humor!

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
Job 38:22-27

Peacefully Guided

In God's wisdom, our Sunday school class read Isaiah 55 last week. Reading from this Old Testament book of the Bible in the weeks leading up to Christmas is quite appropriate because so many passages foreshadow the coming of Christ.

Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost! Why do you spend money on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods. Isaiah 55:1-3

Many think the goal of education is employment, or working for food that spoils. Jesus knew that life is more important for he said, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" (John 6:26-27). What kind of work endures? As we head into a new year, we might want to take a breath from busyness and consider what work brings light and life into the lives of others.



Last Friday, we read Tennyson's "The Dying Swan," so today, we discussed our poem for recitation ("The Owl") before finishing the last chapter of our science book. One student wondered why Tennyson chose the word hay instead of grass. We ended up talking about the last word in each line and then came the "aha" moment for her. Then, we noted what Tennyson was trying to portray (the owl's view from the belfry). Another student added, "Owls can turn their heads all the way around"—implying how much of the world the bird could see while sitting still. I had not intended this for happen, but the section of the science book that we read included this quote,

Other aircraft are a danger as well. Turbulence from a helicopter can slam an ultralight to the ground. When an army helicopter cut in front of Mark south of Numidia, he had a few anxious moments before he knew he was safe. As for swans—they can hit the plane. Mark says, "You have to know where the birds are all the time and be ready to dodge every second. I need an owl’s head so I can turn to see directly behind me."

Everyone's eyes lit up. We were all amazed that an accidental pairing between poem and science book had happened twice in a row! Accident, or whisper from God?

Education is life. A mind awakened to beauty and truth in the world God created. A soul seeking His presence. A person who cares enough to ask, who longs to know.

Pay attention and come to Me; listen, so that you will live. Seek the Lord while He may be found; call to Him while He is near. Isaiah 55:6

In this busy season, we find it hard to pay attention and come to the Lord. Yet, the only way to live is to seek Him and pay attention. This habit is hard to come by in this screen-infested world. Getting outdoors and seeing what God created with His own voice is one way to practice the habit of attention, especially when we are quiet and still. Nearly everyone in our walking group passed this katydid without noticing it. The student who found it explained, "I just saw this tiny bit of green. Everything is so brown right now that green just pops!" She has been walking this trail for almost a year and a half, which helped her develop the habit of attention.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways." [This is] the Lord's declaration. "For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." For just as rain and snow fall from heaven, and do not return there without saturating the earth, and making it germinate and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and will prosper in what I send it [to do]. Isaiah 55:8-11

Some friends are facing a season of rain and snow because of heartbreaking challenges in life, due to no fault of their own, beyond their ability to change or control. The extreme and exhausting behaviors of puberty on top of autism. Sitting at the bedside of dear ones in the hospital. Waiting in the emergency room watching your child in pain. In the long winter nights of cold, hope is hard to see. God's ways and thoughts are hard to understand when things appear bleak. Somehow, even after tears saturate the earth, God provides and His will is done. Narnia will thaw; it always does. Spring is always around the bend, whether the bend is in this lifetime or the eternal one.

You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap [their] hands. Instead of the thornbush, a cypress will come up, and instead of the brier, a myrtle will come up; it will make a name for the Lord as an everlasting sign that will not be destroyed. Isaiah 55:12-13

Poetry for Its Own Sake

A few weeks ago, I copied the following entry from The Living Page in my commonplace book.

When my aunt gave me a poster for the back of my bedroom door so that I regularly fell asleep to Emily Dickinson's avowal, "or help one fainting robin into his nest again" no moral imperative needed to accompany it. I knew that Love notices. I knew already what the "poor robin" looked like.

Because the elementary class at Harvest studied Dickinson last term, I shared the quote with them. A deep magic began.

Two students recited "or help one fainting robin into his nest again" as I read it. Then, they begged to recite the whole poem "If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking." Half the class joined in the group recitation. One student stood up, announced with dramatic flair, "Let me say it alone," and recited it from memory in a crisp, joyful voice.

One student confessed, "When we did exams last week, Mrs. Tammy let me say only one poem. I wanted to do them all."

Another chimed in, "Me, too!" A third said, "Let's do it now."

The class recited three more Dickinson poems en masse: "Hope," "I'm Nobody," and "Autumn." I saw smiles beaming from the large table around which the students gathered.

We turned to the term's poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. One boy asked why we were not reading Dickinson. He seemed a bit sad! We sailed into new territory, and I recited a new poem, "The Eagle." They quickly spotted alliteration in "He clasps the crag with crook hands, close to the sun in lonely lands."

The first time they studied alliteration required attentiveness and thinking. I wrote several examples from Dickinson's poem "Forbidden Fruit" and asked them to spot the pattern. To prevent one person from robbing another of the opportunity to discover, each student had to come to me and whisper what they noticed. The class was delighted to work out the definition for themselves:

• forbidden fruit
• hopeless hang
• color on the cruising cloud,
• the hill, the house

Poetry is rich towards words. We cannot help mining new gems from poems. The students wondered what Tennyson meant by the phrase azure world, so I pointed them toward their knowledge of Spanish. "Azul!" declared one student. "He's talking about the blue sea," exclaimed another. Another opportunity to wonder and think and discover.

On Friday, on a whim that turned out to be a whisper from God, I read "The Dying Swan" to the class. At the end, several students remarked about how sad the poem was. Then, another smiled and concluded, "At least, we know it's in swan heaven." I picked the poem to go with the science book we have been reading all term. Unbeknownst to me in advance, the passages we read included the death of a swan! We all marveled at the unexpected connection, and again, they reiterated, "As least we know it's in swan heaven."

We also assigned the next poem, "The Owl." Pamela and I spent the weekend memorizing the first three lines (yes, I memorize them, too, for my own sake). Pamela struggles with the first line because it lacks articles. The second line comes more easily because the grammar follows the rules. Learning to be flexible with language for the sake of beauty gives her the chance to think dynamically. Since this poem has such a striking rhythm, I have spotlighted rhythm for her to feel why Tennyson leaves out the article the.

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground.

Adding proper grammar crumbles the meter.

When the cats run home and the light is come,
And the dew is cold upon the ground.

As Law writes in a Parents' Review article about Tennyson,

The first poets were invariably minstrels, and it is still expected of a poet that he should be able to "sing a good song." Nor is this a bad test of poetic faculty. In a song a lack of melody (if I may borrow an illustration from music) cannot be disguised by cunning harmonies or learned orchestration. It is also a test of sincerity: a song makes a direct appeal: we can tell at once if it rings false. Again, we know as soon as we hear it whether our poet is quite spontaneous, or straining himself, forcing the note. As a song writer, Tennyson ranks with the highest.

As we are studying John James Audubon for our artist and birds for nature study to prepare for the Great Backyard Bird Count in February, we will ask them to classify the owl based on the clues in the poem. Several phrases ought to give away habitat: "merry milkmaids," "new-mown hay," "thatch," and the cock singing "his roundelay." "The white owl in the belfry sits" gives it away completely if you ask me.

Students in some schools churn out slipshod didactic cinquains as a scheme to practice their parts of speech—a recent experience for me during a tutoring session last month. The children at Harvest are far more blessed. They get to build memories of sitting with a friend and reciting together for practice... acting out a poem to forge a link to the next line... sharing a poem with a student in another class at lunch... getting to recite a poem as part of their exams...

For more on the teaching of poetry for its own sake, check out this Parents' Review article.