Happy New Year!

Next week is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  The yummiest part of Rosh Hashanah celebrations is when you dip apples in honey, symbolizing your prayers for a sweet new year.  Tomorrow, Ezra will go to Andy’s synagogue to do a presentation on our beehive for the Shabbat school there.

He worked on the presentation with Governess, who has been teaching the boys about “the main idea and the supporting details.”  When they are reading or telling a story, when they are solving a math problem or giving an oral report, Governess pushes the boys to first “visualize the gestalt,” and then tease apart the main idea and the supporting details.

She helps them how to create vivid pictures in their minds and then how to convey those pictures to others.  For his bee presentation, she asked Ezra to name four pictures he would like the students to have about honey and honey production.  Then he had to come up with images that would help his audience see the same pictures he has in his mind.  The diagram below, which Governess drew as he dictated what to draw, shows a typical Shabbat-school student, and what he hopes that student will see.

For the image of a SUIT, he has the words ‘protect,’ ‘net,’ and ‘gloves,’ and he can give a great report just looking at these few words.

Very cool.

When Zach wrote a word problem for Governess today, she said, “Let me tell you what that problem makes me picture.”

After she described the picture in her head, Zach shouted, “I forgot some important details,” and then corrected himself.

Very cool.

And apparently, it’s going to become a part of the vocabulary around her.  On his way out of the house this morning for a doctor’s appointment, Zach shouted up to Ezra, “Watch the rest of the show and remember everything.  When I get back, you have to tell me the main idea and all of the details.”

I’ve been trying to think of how to end this year of blogging, during which I have posted something nearly every Monday through Friday for just over a year.  Taking my cue from another of the boys’ exercises with Governess, I will provide you a story summary:

Scared mom, skeptical sons, and somewhat reluctant dad decided to homeschool for a year.  Mom found out that: she had been shamefully undereducated; her boys had significant learning challenges; and that she was even more impatient and controlling than she had known.  God sustained them; husband was wise and steady; Mom read a lot of books; and boys learned to play, and be together, and learn in new ways.  They decided to do it for one more year.

Here are a few supporting pictures:

1.  Mom crying on couch.  Boys crying on floor.  Everyone accusing the other of ruining homeschool. (Click here for an example.)

2.  Mom up late reading books about exercise and habits of mind and the latest parenting research.  Anything that might have AN ANSWER from an expert. (Click here for an example.)

3.  Mom sitting in waiting rooms while boys were being tested for various “special” learning styles, trying to remember what I really believe about who they are.  (Click here for an reflection.)

4.  Boys tromping through the woods, and building a bee hive, and reading funny books, and zip-lining through a cloud forest, and talking to Pilgrims, and brush painting in the museum, and running around a track, and wrestling, and playing soccer, and cooking, and wrestling, and fighting, and making up, and spending lots and lots of time with Mom and Dad.  (Click here for a reflection.)

5.  Dad reminding Mom that things will get better, that the boys can go back to school at any time, that kids don’t change just because someone gives them a label, and praying for school every morning.  (Click here for an example.)

6. Mom hunched over her computer late at night thinking of what to write about, discovering that writing helps her notice what’s happening, and that people who read and write back give her energy and hope.  (Click here for an example.)

The last picture might be this:

7.  Mom, now ten pounds heavier than in picture one, furious that boys aren’t listening.  Boys crying because Mom is being mean.  But no one is threatening to quit homeschooling or asking to go back to school.  We all settle in and open The Little Prince.

It’s a new year.  And we’re praying for it to be sweet.  Which is my prayer for you as well.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!