Hello, all. I've been busy, even if it seems from this site that things have stagnated again. I have two new posts at the Wordpress site. No offense to the keepers of this domain, but I'm just more inclined to work on my posts when my mobile application is working on my iPod, and for some reason Blogger just doesn't like mobile uploads. So here are the latest links...
Without You
Saying What He Said
I'm writing from Atlanta where I'm accompanying our Pastor on a church visit. The fellowship has been nice, but I'm feeling a little beat after dealing with the loss of our dear friend Mr. Wilkes Kemp on Monday. Mr. Kemp was Marcus' godfather and a constant presence in their early lives. He and his wife watched the kids for many a day while my wife began working. Their granddaughter and our kids grew up side by side, and Mr. Kemp helped mentor Christopher through the youth program of the fraternity Phi Beta Sigma, called the Sigma Beta Club. In all these things Mr. Kemp was the consummate gentleman, Christian and role model. His homegoing on Monday promises to be an emotional day for our church and family.
Of course, life has gone on, and I'm also taxed by the family and ministry concerns of the week. But I don't want to spend time magnifying my problems when others have much more do deal with - plus the fact that I'm definitely not prepared to maintain 2 blogs, much less three (my music site has been quiet for months!) So please click on the following link if you wish to subscribe to the RSS feed for Wordpress. I'll leave this link active as long as needed for others to find my new address...
http://homeschooldaddy.wordpress.com/feed/
Thanks again to everyone and may God bless you according to His riches in glory...
Looking unto the hills,
homeschooldaddy
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Ready or not...
OK, it's time for the perfectionist in me to move over. I've toiled and tried theme after theme in the Wordpress site and still, I don't feel like I've gotten the look I like, but it's been two weeks and even my wife is questioning my commitment to changing the site. Blogger looks better with the new header, huh?
Anyway, it's time to unveil the Wordpress site and let you be the judge. Yes, it doesn't have many of the gadgets I have in Blogger, but I like the chat feature and the overall look. If I don't get major feedback on the positive side, well, maybe I'll leave it here. Or, more likely, I'll start learning how to create my own template so I can have exactly the features I want. The site address is the same, except "Blogger" is now "Wordpress."
http://homeschooldaddy.wordpress.com/
I've placed "Back to Basics - Part 2" in the Wordpress site. All of my former posts were also imported for archival purposes. Again, please let me know if you approve of the new design. I could be swayed either way at this point.
Looking unto the hills,
homeschooldaddy
Anyway, it's time to unveil the Wordpress site and let you be the judge. Yes, it doesn't have many of the gadgets I have in Blogger, but I like the chat feature and the overall look. If I don't get major feedback on the positive side, well, maybe I'll leave it here. Or, more likely, I'll start learning how to create my own template so I can have exactly the features I want. The site address is the same, except "Blogger" is now "Wordpress."
http://homeschooldaddy.wordpress.com/
I've placed "Back to Basics - Part 2" in the Wordpress site. All of my former posts were also imported for archival purposes. Again, please let me know if you approve of the new design. I could be swayed either way at this point.
Looking unto the hills,
homeschooldaddy
Thursday, October 02, 2008
On the Move....
I'd like to take a moment to thank any and all of you that have been so gracious to spend time reading my ruminations. It's been incredible just looking back over my old posts and realizing how much I've changed, how my children have matured, and how our family has become stronger and closer through this wild ride of family learning. As I was inspired by the blogs I mentioned in the last post, I've also been inspired to update the look and feel of the site, and I can't figure out Blogger's advanced features enough to make any major changes. So, I'm making a major change of my own and moving the blog to Wordpress.
I'm not totally done with the transition yet, and when I'm done the blog will appear in this space but won't be updated anymore. I may do a few more posts to make sure that everything is in order, and of course I'll post links and RSS Feeds to the new address. I will probably leave my other blog (Help, I'm a Church Musician) in Blogger as well since I'll still use Picasa and other Google services.
Hope this won't throw off any long time readers (all 3 of you...) Keep living, learning and loving.
Looking unto the hills,
homeschooldaddy
I'm not totally done with the transition yet, and when I'm done the blog will appear in this space but won't be updated anymore. I may do a few more posts to make sure that everything is in order, and of course I'll post links and RSS Feeds to the new address. I will probably leave my other blog (Help, I'm a Church Musician) in Blogger as well since I'll still use Picasa and other Google services.
Hope this won't throw off any long time readers (all 3 of you...) Keep living, learning and loving.
Looking unto the hills,
homeschooldaddy
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Back to Basics...Part I
I've been inspired and maybe a bit chastised by reading some great homeschooling blogs as of late, including from Charlotte Mason experts and fatherhood proponents. Perhaps my last few entries have strayed from the purpose of detailing how this homeschooling dad makes it through the day.
I thought I might detail the basics of our family learning philosophy, as fragmented as it may be, to provide context to the examples of our curriculum and activity choices. There's no formula that I picked up in any one book or manuscript here; rather, it is the combination of all the learning and experience of the last three years that we have taken this journey. Here's the first and most important -
1) Knowledge and learning are gifts from God, and are to be used for His purposes.
There's no doubt in my mind that the Father is the source of all knowledge. Not only in the theological sense that He knows all, but in the practical sense that everything we think about had to have a source in someone else's mind. As babies our thoughts are formed and shaped by the environment and experiences of our parents or caretakers. We slowly come to a consciousness of our own conscious, but we never forget that it was formed and developed through contact with others. In the same way, our thoughts and ability to think was generated by the initial contact of the Creator, not by some leap of evolutionary biology. C.S. Lewis talks about this in the moral sense when he points out that without some source of the concept of "good", we would have no idea what constituted right behavior, except that which pleased us or made us feel a certain pleasurable way. But it is clear that even morally bankrupt people have some idea of a standard. No culture ever decided that being dishonest to your neighbor was a good thing, or that abandoning one's children is admirable. This standard wasn't simply developed in a vacuum, it was placed there by the Creator to remind us that we have a higher standard to reach to. As Romans states, "They are without excuse".
This impacts our family learning decisions in that I always consider how my educational choices impact my children's spiritual development. It may seem that only would affect science (creationism vs. evolution), but it has much wider impact. When choosing the language arts component, I noticed most traditional workbooks had a very liberal view of business - meaning, every time businesses were mentioned, the connotation was negative. That doesn't square with the scriptural principle that God grants us the wisdom to gain wealth. I didn't want my kids constantly reviewing a concept that was at its heart against the work ethic that Christians are to aspire to. Also, we have spent many days discussing how we should challenge ourselves to do better than the norm - even when we are ahead of our peers educationally. The question is not whether we are doing better than others, but whether we are learning and producing work "as unto the Lord" (Col 3:17). Since He is the one that gifted us with the ability to learn, isn't it His purpose and His approval that matters?
This is a very freeing concept in this day of testing and accountability. My daughter may not learn her time tables as fast as others, but in God's sight she is striving as mightly as Paul was 'toward the mark'. Marcus may be sometimes impatient with his ability to get every problem right, but in God's sight his mind is "fearfully and wonderfully made." It reminds me every day that it is not my approval either that counts. When God is the source and the standard of our learning, all of my efforts become secondary when viewed in light of the superior teaching ability of the Holy Spirit to guide them. When I remember to always trust His plans and His purposes in my children, I can rest in the fact that He that began the work will complete it. Whatever their eventual career choice, I will know that their education was designed to give God the freedom to take them anywhere He feels they will glorify Him the most.
When viewing family learning in this light, the final exam is not the test at the end of the book, nor even the SAT or the MCAT. It is the test from the parable of the talents, in which those that did the most with what the Master gave them heard the words, "Servant, well done." That is the statement that will determine whether I was successful in my homeschooling efforts, and of course, it is one that I pray and trust my children will aspire to and one day hear for themselves.
To be continued,
Looking unto the hills,
Homeschooldaddy
I thought I might detail the basics of our family learning philosophy, as fragmented as it may be, to provide context to the examples of our curriculum and activity choices. There's no formula that I picked up in any one book or manuscript here; rather, it is the combination of all the learning and experience of the last three years that we have taken this journey. Here's the first and most important -
1) Knowledge and learning are gifts from God, and are to be used for His purposes.
There's no doubt in my mind that the Father is the source of all knowledge. Not only in the theological sense that He knows all, but in the practical sense that everything we think about had to have a source in someone else's mind. As babies our thoughts are formed and shaped by the environment and experiences of our parents or caretakers. We slowly come to a consciousness of our own conscious, but we never forget that it was formed and developed through contact with others. In the same way, our thoughts and ability to think was generated by the initial contact of the Creator, not by some leap of evolutionary biology. C.S. Lewis talks about this in the moral sense when he points out that without some source of the concept of "good", we would have no idea what constituted right behavior, except that which pleased us or made us feel a certain pleasurable way. But it is clear that even morally bankrupt people have some idea of a standard. No culture ever decided that being dishonest to your neighbor was a good thing, or that abandoning one's children is admirable. This standard wasn't simply developed in a vacuum, it was placed there by the Creator to remind us that we have a higher standard to reach to. As Romans states, "They are without excuse".
This impacts our family learning decisions in that I always consider how my educational choices impact my children's spiritual development. It may seem that only would affect science (creationism vs. evolution), but it has much wider impact. When choosing the language arts component, I noticed most traditional workbooks had a very liberal view of business - meaning, every time businesses were mentioned, the connotation was negative. That doesn't square with the scriptural principle that God grants us the wisdom to gain wealth. I didn't want my kids constantly reviewing a concept that was at its heart against the work ethic that Christians are to aspire to. Also, we have spent many days discussing how we should challenge ourselves to do better than the norm - even when we are ahead of our peers educationally. The question is not whether we are doing better than others, but whether we are learning and producing work "as unto the Lord" (Col 3:17). Since He is the one that gifted us with the ability to learn, isn't it His purpose and His approval that matters?
This is a very freeing concept in this day of testing and accountability. My daughter may not learn her time tables as fast as others, but in God's sight she is striving as mightly as Paul was 'toward the mark'. Marcus may be sometimes impatient with his ability to get every problem right, but in God's sight his mind is "fearfully and wonderfully made." It reminds me every day that it is not my approval either that counts. When God is the source and the standard of our learning, all of my efforts become secondary when viewed in light of the superior teaching ability of the Holy Spirit to guide them. When I remember to always trust His plans and His purposes in my children, I can rest in the fact that He that began the work will complete it. Whatever their eventual career choice, I will know that their education was designed to give God the freedom to take them anywhere He feels they will glorify Him the most.
When viewing family learning in this light, the final exam is not the test at the end of the book, nor even the SAT or the MCAT. It is the test from the parable of the talents, in which those that did the most with what the Master gave them heard the words, "Servant, well done." That is the statement that will determine whether I was successful in my homeschooling efforts, and of course, it is one that I pray and trust my children will aspire to and one day hear for themselves.
To be continued,
Looking unto the hills,
Homeschooldaddy
Sunday, September 28, 2008
A couple of rhetorical questions...
Nothing deep today. I just need to ask rhetorically for a couple of questions. There are several things in the proverbial frying pan right now, and I suppose airing it may bring suggestions from others or clarity from myself.
1) The economic mess. My rhetorical question is... what WERE we all thinking?
It's easy to blame Bush, blame Wall Street, blame anyone that has more than a 100K in the bank. But let's face it. Everyone in the world was ga-ga over the real estate market when it was booming. Interest rates were at 40 year lows. Home equity was as plentiful as air. And I can't remember anyone who was really riding through the streets like Paul Revere warning of an economic collaspe based on the greediness of both loaners and debtors.
The fact remains that the Bible warns us about credit in all its forms. There's not ONE instance that credit is mentioned in a positive light. We as a country are simply reaping the consequences God warned Israel about in Isaiah 24.
BEHOLD, THE LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. 2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. 3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for THE LORD hath spoken this word. (KJV)
Sorry, no one is exempt. If you can't pay, you shouldn't buy.
This has provided a great opportunity for me to teach the kids that even banks and governments are subject to the same financial realities that our family faces every day. In a sense, the only salvation of our economy will be the individual family's ability to survive without relying on the institutions that we have allowed to have too much influence over us. Why should I worry about whether Lehman Brothers or AIG has enough assets to cover their own debts, if I have saved enough to cover my own needs? Yes, I know we rely on investments and the like in this system, but in principle, if we simply live on less than we make and save the rest, no one will find themselves in the turmoil of not being able to have the "mattress" fund available for emergencies. I'm preaching to myself as well - we had a emergency fund but it's been eaten up several times this year. My loathing of credit was broken down by the lure of quick fixes, of taking my wife with me on trips that I knew I couldn't afford but didn't want to be alone on.
But never has the result of my use of credit been positive. If anything can be learned from this mess, it should be that we can't ignore the pains of the future for the pleasures of today's purchases. That goes for McCain, Obama, Pelosi, and especially for the Pauls.
2) Fitting in...how do you do it? and should you?
My wife and I have decided we will refer to our social / racial status in cookie terms. Specifically, we are now considering ourselves "ginger snaps." You remember Ginger Snaps - the orange and white box with the hard cookies that had that 'bite' to it. You don't eat a Ginger Snap when you have a sweet tooth craving. It's not the coolness of an Oreo, or the comfort of a Nilla wafer. It shakes you up a bit, and doesn't easily fit into a cookie category.
In the same sense, Miki and I are not your common cookie cutter couple. We are equally at home with John Cage, John Mayer and John Legend. Our radio in the morning is set to "Steve Harvey", in the evening to "Glenn Beck". (I would mention Rush Limbaugh but I'm afraid of being castigated by my kids and wife, who don't like him) We're Kirk Franklin on Sunday morning and Chris Tomlin on Sunday night. We homeschool from 9 to 3 and then go to open houses at the high school from 7 to 9. We veer from noticing racist tendencies in 'white' society to decrying the subtle racism we see in our own African -American culture. At times we have felt the ire of those who noticed we did not automatically take up the "cause" of equal rights - that is, in the way that blacks have traditionally seen that fight since the 1960's. We choose to see equality as the right to be equally independent, rather to be unequivocally linked to a mass groupthink cultural monolith. Miki, with her racially mixed background of Hispanic and Carribean ancestry, is especially sensitive to the lack of connection with others that 'get her'. At the same time, we understand that much of what we have become is owed to the strong traditional African American culture that we interface with most often. We just feel like we don't quite match the smoothness and ease that others may have in our social landscape. So the 'snappiness' comes out. We are in the same aisle as the vanilla and the chocolate, but when you dig in, you get much more than a simple flavor. You get the edginess of someone who's looking for a way in, and a way out. Of those that acknowledge the obvious, but won't always accept it. Of people that are slowly realizing that to simply blend in is to deny the uniqueness that our experience and our emotion adds to our relationships. Ginger may have a bitter taste at the beginning, but at the end it has a soothing effect. We certainly have needed that balance in dealing with our various challenges, and I suppose we should be grateful we can be ourselves with each other, even while we decide whether our taste is compatible with a very chocolate or vanilla only world.
More later on our homeschool progress - suffice it to say I'm already feeling like I need to put the pedal to the metal, 'cause Marcus and Naomi are braking a little too much.
Looking unto the hills ,
homeschooldaddy
1) The economic mess. My rhetorical question is... what WERE we all thinking?
It's easy to blame Bush, blame Wall Street, blame anyone that has more than a 100K in the bank. But let's face it. Everyone in the world was ga-ga over the real estate market when it was booming. Interest rates were at 40 year lows. Home equity was as plentiful as air. And I can't remember anyone who was really riding through the streets like Paul Revere warning of an economic collaspe based on the greediness of both loaners and debtors.
The fact remains that the Bible warns us about credit in all its forms. There's not ONE instance that credit is mentioned in a positive light. We as a country are simply reaping the consequences God warned Israel about in Isaiah 24.
BEHOLD, THE LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. 2 And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. 3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for THE LORD hath spoken this word. (KJV)
Sorry, no one is exempt. If you can't pay, you shouldn't buy.
This has provided a great opportunity for me to teach the kids that even banks and governments are subject to the same financial realities that our family faces every day. In a sense, the only salvation of our economy will be the individual family's ability to survive without relying on the institutions that we have allowed to have too much influence over us. Why should I worry about whether Lehman Brothers or AIG has enough assets to cover their own debts, if I have saved enough to cover my own needs? Yes, I know we rely on investments and the like in this system, but in principle, if we simply live on less than we make and save the rest, no one will find themselves in the turmoil of not being able to have the "mattress" fund available for emergencies. I'm preaching to myself as well - we had a emergency fund but it's been eaten up several times this year. My loathing of credit was broken down by the lure of quick fixes, of taking my wife with me on trips that I knew I couldn't afford but didn't want to be alone on.
But never has the result of my use of credit been positive. If anything can be learned from this mess, it should be that we can't ignore the pains of the future for the pleasures of today's purchases. That goes for McCain, Obama, Pelosi, and especially for the Pauls.
2) Fitting in...how do you do it? and should you?
My wife and I have decided we will refer to our social / racial status in cookie terms. Specifically, we are now considering ourselves "ginger snaps." You remember Ginger Snaps - the orange and white box with the hard cookies that had that 'bite' to it. You don't eat a Ginger Snap when you have a sweet tooth craving. It's not the coolness of an Oreo, or the comfort of a Nilla wafer. It shakes you up a bit, and doesn't easily fit into a cookie category.
In the same sense, Miki and I are not your common cookie cutter couple. We are equally at home with John Cage, John Mayer and John Legend. Our radio in the morning is set to "Steve Harvey", in the evening to "Glenn Beck". (I would mention Rush Limbaugh but I'm afraid of being castigated by my kids and wife, who don't like him) We're Kirk Franklin on Sunday morning and Chris Tomlin on Sunday night. We homeschool from 9 to 3 and then go to open houses at the high school from 7 to 9. We veer from noticing racist tendencies in 'white' society to decrying the subtle racism we see in our own African -American culture. At times we have felt the ire of those who noticed we did not automatically take up the "cause" of equal rights - that is, in the way that blacks have traditionally seen that fight since the 1960's. We choose to see equality as the right to be equally independent, rather to be unequivocally linked to a mass groupthink cultural monolith. Miki, with her racially mixed background of Hispanic and Carribean ancestry, is especially sensitive to the lack of connection with others that 'get her'. At the same time, we understand that much of what we have become is owed to the strong traditional African American culture that we interface with most often. We just feel like we don't quite match the smoothness and ease that others may have in our social landscape. So the 'snappiness' comes out. We are in the same aisle as the vanilla and the chocolate, but when you dig in, you get much more than a simple flavor. You get the edginess of someone who's looking for a way in, and a way out. Of those that acknowledge the obvious, but won't always accept it. Of people that are slowly realizing that to simply blend in is to deny the uniqueness that our experience and our emotion adds to our relationships. Ginger may have a bitter taste at the beginning, but at the end it has a soothing effect. We certainly have needed that balance in dealing with our various challenges, and I suppose we should be grateful we can be ourselves with each other, even while we decide whether our taste is compatible with a very chocolate or vanilla only world.
More later on our homeschool progress - suffice it to say I'm already feeling like I need to put the pedal to the metal, 'cause Marcus and Naomi are braking a little too much.
Looking unto the hills ,
homeschooldaddy
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