So far, September has been a wonderful month, Bill's parents were here and we celebrated their 40th anniversary before they left.  Bill and I went to a pastors retreat at the camp where we used to serve as missionaries.  Friends who have been out fishing are returning from the water.  Other friends who have worked rediculously crazy hours all summer are nearing the end of the "work season".

Of course, we are just gearing up with church and all the ministries that start in the fall.  In fact, those all start this week.  And school continues to gather momentum...

We tried schooltime "contracts" in the month of August which lasted for the month; and for September, we reviewed and renewed them.  I am pleased with the idea which came from the TJEd Home Companion and specifically from Diann Jepson.  The kids have been excited to choose exactly what they study and how much studying they will do each week. They actually get fairly ambitious in some subjects that I would not have guessed.  I do discuss their plans with them and I gently encourage them to stretch themselves but I have not had to require studying in any particular subject. (read: I ask questions and bite my tongue a bit)

Do they fulfill their contracts?  Well, the month of August was fairly well done.  My plan is to review daily  the journals they keep of their activities.  They are supposed to write the subject and how much/how long they worked on that subject.  My son gets off the hook a little since he is still working enough on his educational skills that I don't want to overtax him with record keeping on top of it.  He is only required to record the subject he studies.  I didn't get my daily reviews done as much as I had hoped in August and, so far, September has been crazy with visitors and travelling.  Hopefully, we will get down to brass tacks now.

The other night I was in bed wishing I were asleep when my thoughts randomly arrived on the subject of TJEd and how it all works with my kids.  Are you that kind of person?  I can start thinking about the firehydrant across the street...that reminds me of the time we lived in Chicago and someone opened the hydrant for kids to play in (highly illegal)...which reminds me of the house we lived in...our upstairs neighbor was Puerto Rican...some guy at a playground in Juneau was telling me about his vacation house in Puerto Rico...if I could have a vacation house it would be in the alps (I just wouldn't have the money to get there to use it!)...the alps...Heidi.  Firehydrant to Heidi.  Yep, that is my quirky brain.

But that is not the point of this post. 

I realized that TJEd is hard because we want methods and plans and checklists of which there are none.  And yet there are.  It is like a gardener who really gets into gardening.  Not just the stick-some-plants-in-the-ground-and-see-if-they-will-grow kind of gardener.  The TJEd parent(mentor) is like the gardener who studies every detail of the particular plants he is intending to grow. 

He figures out what he has to do and when to do it so that the plant will then do the work of producing fruit.  I must study my children.  I must figure out what it will take for them to get inspired to do the work of learning whatever it is I want them to learn. 

 He figures out what the plant needs and how to keep pests from interrupting the plant's work.   I must study my children some more.  I must figure out what tools I need to give them so that they can carry out their inspiration in the hard work of learning.  I must be discerning about the activities that distract from the goal.

The real gardener may experiment and stick a plant in the ground to see what happens, however, for the most part he has a plan for his garden.  TJEd can seem like unschooling in the worst sense of the word but it isn't.  I must have a plan, do the studying, and carry out all the checklist items I discover are needed to lead my children to the "fruit" of learning.

This is such a different paradigm from the authoritative stance where I say they are to learn thus-and-so and learn it now no matter if they care one bit about it or not.  Instead I am watching for cues, learning to cultivate interest, providing tools and opportunity as well as modeling the learning process. 

This is hard work.  I think I'll go to bed now.  I'm tired.  :-)  Hopefully, I will fall asleep without thinking about hats people wear in Iceland or something just as ridiculous at eleven at night.

No, we aren't really slogging.  We have read several wonderful books together recently.  We did a science experiment (it didn't exactly turn out...chemistry gets me every time).  We have played several games and puzzles that I think have benefitted the kids.

We have been doing the TJEd thing for a few weeks now...the problem is this: I don't know if I can keep up the schedule.   Since all three of my kids are in the Love of Learning stage, I feel like all schooling depends on me being there to administer the various activities.  Or else I have to delay whatever I was going to do so that I can get a list of acceptable school activities for the next _______ (fill in the blank with a time period) for one, two or three children. It made me late for Bible study the other day and then I couldn't get out the door to the grocery store yesterday.

I admit it.  I miss the days of saying that while I am working with a certain child, the other children can work on the assigned worksheets, computer programs, reading books or whatever.

I am not giving up yet but the frustration level is rising.  This brings me back to my wish last spring when I was studying the TJEd thing so closely.  I wish I had someone who has walked this path to help me know what I am doing.

On the positive side...my son and I had a great conversation about ordinal numbers, days of the week and months of the year today.  Usually, he totally resists learning the months of the year and sometimes even the days of the week.  We will definitely not be doing the worksheets from this lesson in math!  I already have a game idea for tomorrow.  I am going to make a memory game out of family birthdays, etc. to match with the months of the year.   The name of the family member (or holiday/notable event) and the ordinal number of the month will be on one card and the name of the month will be on the match.  As we make matches we will arrange the months in order.

It just occurred to me that if my game works out well, my son will know exactly when my birthday is!  I am so totally kidding!  Absolutely.  March...if you're wondering.  Just kidding.  Really. 

So where am I on this issue?  I am still in the fog but perhaps it is lifting a little...

I have decided that we are certainly in the love of learning phase with my oldest occasionally toeing the line to scholar phase.  My son was entering the hate of learning zone but I think we have turned him around a bit.

Apparently, to do this phase we want to structure time and not content.  I have heard that this means tossing all curriculum out the window and using strictly  classics (classics = anything that you can learn from over and over again).  To keep yourself on track you use something like ED Hirsch's books or another such resource.  However, I did notice that DeMille lists the Saxon math series in his list of classics in the appendix of "Thomas Jefferson Education." 

I don't see myself getting rid of Math-U-See.  It  has proven (is proving) three times to teach my children basic math quite well.  I do see myself not requiring them to do so many worksheets per day or some such requirement.  I also don't see myself getting rid of Story of the World since we have thoroughly enjoyed this curriculum this year.  We do read real books with this curriculum so it seems like it fits and the activities suggested by the curriculum are key in the love part of our learning.

Now I am looking for a science curriculum that is literature based.  Since I haven't found anything remotely like that we will probably find a standard curriculum but do our studying from books, videos, etc. (classics) that address the topics in the lessons.

Science and history we do together in what some call "mom school" and this year we will also be doing a literature class together.  The literature class will coincide with a discussion group I hope to start among homeschoolers in our area.  Other than that the rest of school time will be sort of self-directed.  To be precise, we will have a starting time and an ending time for school work.  During that time, when we are not studying together, the students are to be engaged in an approved academic activity.  I plan to prepare a list that they can refer to.  Also, each student will have a contract lasting a month at a time that specifies what they are going to accomplish that month.  It will be something that we plan out together so that it is a sort of self-requirement the children make for themselves.

These are my plans.  Lord willing, we will be taking a new leap this coming schoolyear.

Since Mountainsong commented on my post regarding TJEd I realized that I never said what I have been reading to learn abut TJEd.  So far, I have read The Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.  Then I read the Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion also by DeMille, his wife and Diann Jeppson.  Lately, I have been working on digesting several papers and a CD-recorded lecture all from Demille and others at George Wythe College.  Those papers and the lecture are sold as a package by the Institute for Excellence in Writing or you can buy them individually from the college.

The first book was good but left me wondering how in the world it all works.  I think it was certainly worth my while to read it but I definitely needed to read something else to understand it.  I am planning to read it again soon; I think it will make much more sense now that I have studied it in other books.

The Home Companion is more practical.  It is simply a collection of articles by the three authors.  Included in the book is an article on feminism that is absolutely the best thing I have read on that subject.  If it were not copyrighted I would post a copy of it here.

Now having gone through those and still finding myself fairly bewildered, I started in on the lecture on CD and the papers.  These have been incredibly helpful, answering many questions raised by the first two books.

Someone just starting into the subject may be tempted to skip the first two to begin with the package deal from IEW.  I don't know.  What I do know is that I I don't know if I can do it!  One day I am ready to give it all I've got but then the next day I look at myself, my family, my house and realize it is beyond me!

Still working through it...

Michele

This getting off the conveyor belt is a tough, scary proposition.  It takes all my courage even to suggest it to myself  let alone anyone else.  But I must admit it looks suspiciously like an adventure!  Even if I can get my own self to commit to such a leap it will require a change in actions (mine) over time to really make the break.  So, if I accept the challenge of getting off the conveyor belt then I am jumping into...phases.  These phases are not to be seen in a timeline fashion but perhaps more like a sphere.

The center of the sphere is aptly named the Core Phase.  This is where children (or adults) learn right/wrong, good/bad, and true/false.  Next is the Love of Learning Phase with a name that describes the phase itself.  These two are foundational.  If we were considering our model a pyramid, these would be the lowest level supporting everything else, the foundation.  The key words for these two phases are: home, love, work, play.   The foundational phases are essential to the leadership education and in fact the DeMilles assert that these are the basis of who a person is and "what he or she can and will become." (Core and Love of Learning: A Recipe for Success by Oliver and Rachel DeMille)

Proceeding through the foundational phases from the core of the sphere outward we come to the Scholar Phase and Depth Phase.  These are the educational phases.   The student is mentored rather than taught and learns from classics rather than textbooks.  Note that classics are defined as anything that is worth studying over and over; anything that will teach you again and again.  What caught my attention was that in the Scholar Phase the student begs to study for hours per day. Can this be true?! I don't have a clue about the Depth Phase because I am still stuck on this Scholar Phase.  Actually, I may be stuck on the Core and Love of Learning Phases; I am not sure. 

Beyond the educational phases we have applicational phases and the mission.  These are so far in the future and there is so much right here in the now that I haven't gotten much about these at all yet.  But I do know that the goal of Thomas Jefferson Education is to bring a person to the point where he or she is one who leaves an impact on his or her world. 

I think this is what I want for my children.  Can I pull it off?  I am not sure if I am ready to make the jump off of the conveyor belt yet.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime I continue to study and pray for God's leading.

Anybody out there familiar with the Thomas Jefferson Education model?  I am studying some books and lectures regarding it.  Supposedly, this is not a method but principles that can be applied to just about any homeschool method. 

Here is what I have picked up so far...

1. I have been taught via a conveyor belt education.  This means that as a child reaches a specified age, certain pre-determined abilities are to be mastered.  As a child grows more components are added to the child's repetoire.

2. This type of education is great if you are one of the masses and you just want to get a job and keep that job.  It has served the US well in educating many, many people so that they can be a part of the national workforce.

3.Actually, my education went farther than enabling me to obtain a job. I continued to the "professional" stage of the conveyor belt when I attended college. Once I earned my degree from a university I now had the skills to know what to think in a certain realm of the professional world. (All this according to TJEd)

4.Leaders (statesmen as they are called in TJEd) are not educated that way.  They are led along by mentors who help them educate themselves. They may simply obtain a job and keep it or they may become professionals or they may change the world.  The difference is that they can do any of the above and will certainly have an impact on a certain segment of society if not the whole world.

I am still getting my mind around the practical side of this model, the daily teaching that is required.  Wait, I used the wrong word; according to TJEd I don't teach, I educate myself and mentor my children. Anybody have thoughts on any of this?