Upheaval

I am so tired of having every legal, financial aspect of my life examined; every piece of furniture, every wall hanging, every box of undergarments and private papers fondled by young men; every corner of my home(s) inspected, that I cannot believe I am actually online. I want to escape to an uncharted island for a while, then come back and rejoin my life, already in progress.

We are all cranky, and I will not elaborate on the other surprising and alarming ways my children are exhibiting their reaction to so much change, even very welcome change. I was not expecting it, and I am too frazzled myself to be as responsive and soothing as I would like.

I will protect their privacy — oh, privacy, please! — and relate instead that even our dog is unhinged, and has been refusing to poop until — finally! — this evening.

Is it optimism that leads me to forget the inevitable effect of one life’s top 3 ( or 5) stressors, or or simple cluelessness?

I’ve also discovered a new homeschool worry — have I not taken away a source of routine and reliability, which they could really use right now? Of course when I was trying to read online about how children experience the stresses of moving, it was all about school, so maybe it’s a wash.

One good thing about moving (as this post is reading mainly like a negative vent — which I think it is!) — I am reminded of how great it is to have friends, and how much is to be gained by leaving behind the illusion that there will be extra cookies in heaven for people who do everything by themselves.

Two lovely examples: the night before the movers came, I was exhausted — like, not quite able to drive exhausted — and on the verge of a bona fide panic attack. My husband sent me into the shower and then to bed with a book. No, we were not as prepared for the movers as I would have liked, but when I mentioned to him that I was rehearsing scenarios of movers telling me we were the worst organized movers ever, he said, effectively, “and how bad would that be, really?” Not that bad, in fact.

The morning of the move, however, I was regretting getting a good night’s rest rather than staying up knocking myself out, and I was back in panic mode. Suddenly, my good friend who had offered to take the dog for the day appeared at the door. We hadn’t been in contact for several days, but she just showed up, ready to help. Then she said, “should I take the girls, too?” though her own children were in school for the day, and off they went.

These were my tiny oases of good feelings in an event that seemed designed to bring all my shortcomings and self-doubts fully into play, and I was so glad to have them and accept them wholeheartedly.

Speaking of good feelings, I think I shall order some groceries for delivery and either tuck into bed with my new book (that guernsey literary society one everyone has been reading) or knit and watch a movie on the DVD player my husband just got set up in the den. Those boxes aren’t going anywhere, but with any luck my inner slave driver may be off for a little vacation.

The Thing About Moving

In order to move, you have to stop your life long enough to get it all into boxes, carry them to another place, and then unpack them again.

But what if life doesn’t stop?!

Wow

A lot has happened since I last checked in with you, my tiny handful of faithful blog readers.

But here are a few of them:

We sold our house. Five days on the market, and we had 2 offers in hand. If you live in Minnesota, I know a great realtor.

I turned 40. This was not as monumental as it could have been, since I have been calling myself 40 for the past 18 months. I am feeling the 40, and not just when I get up after sitting cross-legged too long on a cement floor.

I am feeling what my mom told me she felt when she was in her 40s — you are who you are, and you don’t care what others think. Not the defiant “I don’t care what you think!” of an adolescent, or the “I’m going to stick to my guns” of early parenthood or career searching. The “I don’t care” of 40 is when most of the time you forget even to consider that you should maybe care. This a kind of not caring that is really worth waiting for.

I celebrated 14 years of marriage to a really great guy. I could get all sappy, but nah. I did that on our anniversary. What I will say is that while in Rapid City, So. Dak., on our anniversary, I had one of the most spectacular and memorable meals of my life. Seriously. Corn Exchange — check it out. We started with a cheese plate that had the best olives I have ever had, and just kept going from there. *Everything* was close-your-eyes-and-groan good. The kind of meal that makes sex superfluous. There, I said it.

I went home. I grew up in South Dakota, at the edge of the Black Hills. I went back this month for my longest stay since I was 18. Of course staying with my mother always feels like home, but I also got more time in the hills, more time just being there, more time to think about the people I used to know who decided to stay there. It’s a beautiful place — my mom and step-dad have a beautiful house that they built just before Violet was born — and I love that I can go back there. It’s funny — it’s definitely home for me, but not my ultimate home, which is Minnesota now.

We move in 7 days. Actually, we will start in about 2 days, but I hope that within a week we will be totally moved out of this house and into the new one. Can I make that feel like home? I feel displaced right now — this house is echo-y, all staged for selling. After two weeks with my mom, it also feels tiny!

I realized at my mom’s house — regardless of my affinity for Eliza Bennett, I don’t feel ready to be the mistress of a big house. I feel like a small house person. I could be Mary Elliot, cooped up in a cottage feeling jealous of the big house. This move doesn’t just compel me to adjust to a new town and neighborhood — I have to grow up a little more, accept responsibility for having more, become a better steward. Really — I feel so unmatched to my good fortune I’m not sure how to phrase what I need to do or be to really feel at home in the new house.

But I am feeling little twinklings of it — I attribute it to my 40-ness.

We “started homeschool,” whatever that means. Maybe it just means one more fall of not sending the kids to school. As I told Eggmaster, how could I? How could I when I hand a stack of new math books — algebra, advanced algebra, geometry — to my 10 year old and she grins like a crazy person and begs to start reading? How could I when my girls listen raptly to Greek myths and my 6 year old says “read more about Medusa!”? How could I pass that up?

As I type, Violet is sprawled on my bed, writing a story in longhand — except when she jumps up to tell me that she’s written a fantastic sentence that I have to hear or a hilarious new chapter title. Victoria is falling asleep after reading from Howl’s Moving Castle. My husband is restless, thinking about how quickly we can start living in the new house.

How good is this year? How good is this life?

Violet, Meet Anne

Ever since Violet was an early reader I have been holding back books that I thought she might appreciate more as an older child — Harry Potter, the Little House series, and now Wrinkle in Time (though I think she is more than ready now). I doubt my judgement, sometimes, seeing that younger gifted kids are reading things I’ve been keeping in reserve, but it’s usually worked out.

One series I have waited on is Anne of Green Gables. I loved reading the Anne books, and read them all several times as a child and teenager. I did not want to risk giving these to a child fixated on fantasy and slapstick humor. What if she didn’t love them as I did? She’s already rejected Nancy Drew!

While we are busy with house stuff, I’ve tried to ply her with more reading, and finally I have gotten her a copy of Anne of Green Gables. The edition I found at Borders looks almost ridiculously designed to fool a modern girl into giving a gentler kind of book a chance. Being a little shameless myself, I chose it over the book covers that looked more like the ones I owned — something out Victoria magazine.

And it seems to have worked! She toted the book around all day yesterday, and claims to have read the whole thing. I knew she was hooked when I saw her reading in the midst of group activities, returning to the book after every task. Of course I like to think that she is embracing a book that I loved during my own childhood, but more than that I like to see — finally — her giving a little more attention to her gentle, dreamy side. Seems that Anne Shirley is the perfect guide for that adventure.

College Match Matters

I know it is unfashionable–perhaps heretical–for homeschoolers to care about where or if their kids go to college.

It’s always been my opinion, however, that college match matters. I found college and grad school to be great opportunities for meeting really really really smart people — other students, professors, TAs, etc. There’s a critical mass of ambitious, intellectual people, which is often a missing ingredient in the lives of asynchronous gifted kids, who get serious about intellectual pursuits well before many of their age peers.

There is not, for example, a critical mass of preteens who want to talk linguistics and comparative grammar in our lives right now. But someday . . .

So I want my kids to find the college that is right for them. An article in the NYT today describes the broader consequences of poor college match:

The first problem that Mr. Bowen, Mr. McPherson and the book’s third author, Matthew Chingos, a doctoral candidate, diagnose is something they call under-matching. It refers to students who choose not to attend the best college they can get into. They instead go to a less selective one, perhaps one that’s closer to home or, given the torturous financial aid process, less expensive.

About half of low-income students with a high school grade-point average of at least 3.5 and an SAT score of at least 1,200 do not attend the best college they could have. Many don’t even apply. Some apply but don’t enroll. “I was really astonished by the degree to which presumptively well-qualified students from poor families under-matched,” Mr. Bowen told me.

They could have been admitted to Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus (graduation rate: 88 percent, according to College Results Online) or Michigan State (74 percent), but they went, say, to Eastern Michigan (39 percent) or Western Michigan (54 percent). If they graduate, it would be hard to get upset about their choice. But large numbers do not. You can see that in the chart with this column.

In effect, well-off students — many of whom will graduate no matter where they go — attend the colleges that do the best job of producing graduates. These are the places where many students live on campus (which raises graduation rates) and graduation is the norm. Meanwhile, lower-income students — even when they are better qualified — often go to colleges that excel in producing dropouts.

Granted, so far my kids are not the low-income students the study was tracking. They are statistically more likely, based on their parents’ education alone, to be in the group that graduates no matter where they go.

But the point stands — shooting low is a bad way to get a good college experience. So I’ll continue to keep college acceptance up in the list of homeschooling goals.

I learned of this article from a friend who maintains the Learn in Freedom website, which has a lot of information about homeschool-to-college.

Ya think?

Got this link from someone on twitter, who retweeted from someone else, who RTd someone else, and so on and so on . . .

Nice summary of “Gifted Children-Social Emotional Challenges” from James Webb — so familiar, so good to be reminded that it’s all pretty normal.

This one made me laugh:

Gifted children often have several advanced capabilities and may be involved in diverse activities to an almost frantic degree. Though seldom a problem for the child, this may create problems for the family.

You don’t say . . .

A little freaked out by the blog name: The Triumphant Child. I mean, I like it, but . . . what about The Modestly Successful Child. My midwestern sensibilities are much more comfortable with that.

Why We Chose to Assess

That is, why did we choose to have our then 6-year-old daughter take a battery of tests to assess her IQ and approximate grade level in various subjects? And what good does it do us now?

It’s great question, and since I never planned on doing such a thing until I found myself doing it, I can understand why people ask it. Someone asked it on a local gifted e-list I’m on, and this is a version of my response. (Sorry if some parts of the story are familiar!)

We hadn’t thought of doing an assessment until we found that our daughter’s first grade teacher seemed determined to ignore us. We thought we were bringing her useful information about what our daughter already knew, but she seemed sure that we were demanding parents with an inflated opinion of our daughter’s intelligence. (Ironically, that is part of why we hadn’t thought of doing any assessments earlier — I was so concerned that our daughter’s obvious “advanced abilities” would indict me as a hothousing, pushy parent.) The teacher told us that when kids say they are bored, often things are too hard for them. . . oh, I could go on and on!

We tested with a local psychologist who specialized in working with gifted kids. I was worried that my daughter would be uncomfortable with what turned out to be hours and hours of testing, but she actually enjoyed herself, even as a 6 year old. It is embarrassing to say so, but one of the first benefits of the assessment was that I did not feel as crazy. That’s a lot of money to spend to feel sane, but honestly I was so determined to respect the teacher and the school and not act like one of “those” parents that I was starting to think I was wrong about my daughter.

The information proved to be much less helpful with the school than I had hoped. When we discussed a grade skip, our principal said, “I know she’s advanced in reading and writing, I don’t care about that. They have to be advanced in math.” When the achievement tests demonstrated that she was able to do work several grades above her current level in math, however, we still got no acceleration in math and a one-grade bump in other subjects.

The psychologist had already told us that a one-grade skip was really not going to be helpful in this case, and boy was that true! When Violet figured out that 2nd grade was really no different from 1st grade, her behavior took a nose dive, and we were at our wit’s end.

So the immediate educational benefit of our assessment was not that it got us any further with the school, but that it gave us the confidence to pull her from school and start homeschooling. We were ready to trust our own judgement and act accordingly. (I do hold out hope that test numbers will help someday if we stop homeschooling, however. We continue to do above level testing through talent search.) Had homeschooling not been an option, it would have spurred us to take some other action, rather than let her sit and suffer because I didn’t want to look like a demanding parent or ruffle any feathers with teachers or friends. I can’t really reflect on my reticence up to that point with any pride.

If we had not done those assessments, not only would I have been unable to get *any* movement from the school, but I suspect I would not have tried so hard. I really had no concept of how out of place she was.

Along those lines, the assessments helped us understand *why* school wasn’t working. Like many parents of gifted children, my husband and I are bright people. We work in competitive professions with bright people, went to selective colleges with bright people, and so tend to have friends who are bright people with bright kids. I skipped two grades and graduated college early before going to a competitive grad school program, where I felt outclassed by geniuses at every turn. Of course from my perspective, I am nothing special, neither is my social circle, and neither are my kids.

Numbers really help in this regard — they provide a good reality check that says yep, my kid really is measurably, significantly different in some respects and so needs some significantly different things in some respects. I am less likely to underestimate what she is really capable of, which matters when I am the one in charge of her curriculum. When she seems resistant and listless, 4 out of 5 times it’s because she’s underchallenged. I don’t know if I would understand that without having good assessments, and having done the subsequent research about kids like her, and it has made a tremendous difference in successful homeschooling.

They also help when people question what we’re doing. We don’t share a lot with “outsiders,” but I don’t like to lie either, and so we do get some flack when I mention something that is high school or college level. It’s good to be able to remind myself that the numbers, as well as my own observations, support what we’re doing.

Sorry to be so long winded. I guess the gist of what I’m saying is that the assessment went a long way in helping us to understand our child, trust our own understanding, and see where our own experiences distort our understanding. I also understand that plenty of people out there will still disapprove of such assessments and labels, to which I can only say “bully for you!” I needed more help.

Many parents and teachers need more help, and for them assessments are a good choice.

I should add that we have not done any assessments with Victoria, who is just now 6. We’ll do the Peabody with her in the fall just because that’s what we’ve done in the past to fulfill homeschool legal requirements, and we’ll see. I am starting to consider it just because I think I am guilty of underestimating this child, because she is not the same kind of learner I am and her sister is. I will probably wait at least another year to decide. We assessed the first time out of a sense of desperation, and thankfully we are not there now!

At least this has made me more sympathetic with teachers (except that one first grade teacher!) It is quite possible to love a child and watch her closely, and still not get just how gifted she is.

To The Lead of My Moving Team

Dear young sir,

You are a friendly, competent, and professional young man. You have been prompt and efficient. I have no complaints.

So please forgive me for being unable to stop staring at your gigantic, oxen-style nose ring. It’s just that it’s so huge and has a big black bead in the middle. I want to look you in the eyes. I respect body piercing as a valid personal choice of adornment and expression. But lord, my eyes are drawn to this monster piece of metal that looks like the result of an industrial accident.

I am not judging you. I am not even wondering how you blow your nose — the most common question strangers asked me 15 years ago, when I, this soft middle-aged homeowner you see today, had my own nose piercing.

So please don’t mistake my inability to look at you properly as shock or repulsion. It’s just — wow — that thing is huge.

Plans Are Made For Changing

And yet I am making some plans.

I am not yet sure how much we’ll be homeschooling in September, beyond what we are doing now, but I think we will give it a go. I need to choose some things that we can do anywhere, so that when the hoardes come knocking down our door to see our house come Labor Day, we can comfortably sit at the library or coffeeshop for a few hours.

Violet’s schedule is filled to overflowing as usual — we’ll see what lasts til the end of the year.

History: Sonlight. I am having her go along with Victoria’s ancient cultures studies, with some additional books. Lots of Greek and Roman myths to start out. We will resume our Sonlight Eastern Hemisphere stuff later, working it into what Victoria is doing. The girls very much enjoy having something that we all do together, and so do I. I am thinking we will be listening to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series during our many car rides, too. Both girls love Greek myths.

Literature: Lightning Lit with Online G3. This is one I’m excited about, because she is so excited, and because it is something that we can be consistent with even when we are traveling around, moving house, etc. Violet is also delighted that the course includes The Hobbit (which she loved) and A Christmas Carol (which she is curious about).

English: Ongoing Michael Clay Thompson, Word Within the Word and Magic Lens. We are rather sporadic with this, much as we enjoy it. I think as we do more Greek and Roman history it will be fun to get back to the stems — we haven’t looked at MCT all summer.

Linguistics: Once we get the TV set up in the new house, we’ll get back to our friend John McWhorter and the linguistics lectures. We are missing them!

Math: Life of Fred Algebra. I haven’t actually gotten the books yet, but Violet really enjoyed looking through the earlier books (she just read them for the story, as the topics were a little old hat) and is excited to try this. I am all for it, and will let you know how long the honeymoon lasts before we are setting timers, confiscating doodles, and otherwise stressing over Violet’s tendency to daydream after about 15 minutes of doing math problems.

Science: co-op will be our main science source, though we will be watching more NOVA from now on. Can’t get enough of ScienceNow. This year should be interesting: They are doing some minor dissection in the spring.

World Languages: Chinese and German, as always.

Other outside classes: programming with Alice, art, creative writing, piano/music theory

I assume there will be something theatre-related in there too.

Victoria has a less frantic schedule, naturally.

History: Sonlight. I’m just going to go out on a limb and say it. We are enjoying the Children’s History of the World. I know some people really don’t like it, but for a *children’s* history it’s effective. And I’ll tell you Victoria can find Egypt, the Tigris, and the Euphrates on a world map lickety-split!

Literature/English: I don’t plan anything formal. She is rather an inventive speller, but I’m just letting her go with that for now. Another year of strong reading under her belt and we’ll see where she is. Just lots of reading reading reading. The Sonlight 2 readers are way too easy for her now — not that you could pay me to get rid of Frog and Toad for any amount of money. When I am old and in the nursing home, they can come read Frog and Toad to me, and I will be very happy. For Victoria, lots of Beverly Cleary. We’ve also found the secret store of Magic Tree House/Secrets of Droon that I never gave away, so that occupies her, along with memorizing the entire Calvin and Hobbes corpus. I need to remember the early “chapter books” Violet was reading. She could probably re-read the Little House books on her own now, too.

Science: co-op and NOVA again. And Magic School Bus. And I am really going to try to do some kind of experiments at home after we get settled in. I mean it!

Math: We’ll be starting with Singapore. However, come January I may dump it and switch if it is not exciting Victoria a little more. I think it worked well with Violet because it seemed like we were rapidly filling in the concrete foundation for the abstract ideas she could already grasp. For Victoria, I don’t think it is working the same way. I will consider RightStart or Miquon, perhaps. But Lord, I can’t handle yet another study of math curricula, not now.

World Languages: Spanish at co-op

Other outside classes: art, karate, dance, piano/music, chess

I hope Victoria will like chess — it’s what was available for her age group at the G&T co-op while Violet is in programming class. I think she has the right mind for it — watching her put those gears together the last few weeks I could see her thinking several steps ahead. Me — I don’t do strategy games. Word games, yes. Trivia games, selectively OK. Chess, Go, Mancala — I am awful.

After Labor Day I think I will start adding the history/geography and the math most days — Violet will also be doing Lightning Lit, Chinese, and German — and see how that goes. Our usual co-op will start then too, though we will miss much of the first month.

Once we set up a base camp in the new house (early October) we’ll get the rest going. I suspect the rest of 2009 will be taken up with trying to find a new rhythm, new cozy spots and productive spots, not to mention new routes to the store, new parks, new church (argh!), new everything.

That means that I have these plans to start with, knowing full well that not all of it is going fit into our days for quite some time.

Around the house

It is a rather gloomy day, and not much is getting done. Thunderstorms last night, which kept me up, so I let myself sleep in. As usual: the later I get up, the more I drag my feet the rest of the day.

But I have seen some sights to cheer me up:

Victoria got out her newly discovered gears and got back to building. She has been doing amazing things with this toy, which has sat unused for a year after being enjoyed thoroughly at first. She is so patient and careful, and continues to show herself as the little engineer we’ve always considered her to be. I still remember her as an infant at her great aunt’s house, patiently trying every key from a big ring on a locked cupboard. Such a different mind from mine — so cool to watch!

Meanwhile Violet got set up to take an online intro to some of the tools she’ll be using for her Lightning Lit class. She is sooooooo excited. She is also really excited about the forums — if you have kids doing OnlineG3, get them into Continue the Story. Violet lives for this kind of activity — each new contribution sends her to the moon.

I chatted on the phone a while, then turned to see Victoria sitting on the sofa, happily reading the Marcia Williams’ graphic version of The Canterbury Tales. Always nice to see an early interest in Chaucer — though I assume much of it goes over her head. Sometimes it still goes over my head — or at least I start reading too fast and don’t get the necessary details. Something about Chaucer makes me feel impatient.

I have been reading a fair amount of Pilgrim’s Progress for a work project, and other Puritan writings, and that clunky Anglo-Saxon — compared to zippy Latinate prose — really does feel bogged down to me. Lively up yourself, John Bunyan! (I liked Grace Abounding better.) Those nice Romance words that roll trippingly off the tongue just read faster, even when you’re reading in your head. Which perhaps, when you are reading Bunyan, is the point.

We are all boxes and detritus around here, which is really bringing me down. At least I was used to the organization of our old clutter. Now I am stumbling around our rearranged furniture and there are boxes stacked in every corner, and I am totally disoriented. I forget how hard I work to make myself comfortable, the extent to which I get things “just so” in order to function (“just so” does not mean clean or neat) — and when that is disrupted I find out I am not so easy going after all!