TWTM for Low Income Families

[stm4him]

It is absolutely ok to just study chemistry right now. Do you have anybody you are tutoring right now?

[Hunter]

It is absolutely ok to just study chemistry right now. Do you have anybody you are tutoring right now?

As of today, I am not in the middle of an intensive and explicit course of instruction with anyone. That could change at any minute. My crew is more unstable than I am. I am on call for my self-educators and keep them supplied with stuff.

 

I even have one young lady that I keep supplied with a Kindle in my name, so I can pick books out from the library app on my phone and push them to the Kindle for her. She just has to get to a hotspot to sync. We don't even have to be in the same state. Which is important, because that woman can cover some distance.

 

I am in a period where I will help when asked, and strew materials to encourage unschooling, but am doing nothing to encourage anyone to start something major that requires a lot of organized effort on my part, until September.

 

This roach thing and the other issue in my life has disrupted EVERYTHING and the disruptions are not over yet. I'm not even at the dust settling stage yet. Not even close with either. And I'm not sure that I might not just pick up and move to another city or even country right now, since everything is so disrupted. Now would be the time.

 

For my own self-education, chemistry is my focus right now, and some grammar. Always the stinking grammar. And I guess I'm going to start the year 3 reading lists. Don Quixote seems to be first.

[stm4him]

Have you ever thought about using The Well Educated Mind? Didn't she just come out with a new one that includes science?

[Hunter]

The new Well Educated Mind is due out in November. I am planning on buying that and the science book as an early Christmas book to myself. The science book is in whispersync!

[luuknam]

I really crave rhythm right now.

 

Another perspective on this:

 

I took a Coursera class a year or so ago in which the prof said something along the lines of that the key factor of poverty is uncertainty. It may be as extreme as being uncertain where your next meal comes from, or it may be uncertainty of what will happen if one small part of your car/bike/transportation breaks (and you can't afford to fix it) or what will happen if you get a (minor) illness or w/e. That thing about poverty as uncertainty resonated with me a lot.

 

Rich people have so many more buffers... they don't have to worry about where their next meal comes from, or what happens if their car needs a new tire or if they break a leg. Not every little thing turns into a crisis for a rich person. Just to be clear... I'm not talking about absolute value of income here... there are people who make a fair amount of money and manage it so stupidly that they go from one crisis to another. And if you know you need to walk to the river every day to get water, at least that's not an uncertainty (though if you get hurt then you would have a problem unless you have the social capital or w/e it's called where a neighbor or whomever will help you out). I'm not saying, btw, that people who have to carry gallons of water for miles per day aren't poor. I just wanted to point out that there is some sort of relationship between high levels of uncertainty about how to satisfy various needs and poverty, and that the psychological impact of that might be one of the reasons Hunter is more comfortable with TWTM now than in the past. Hunter now knows the WTWM rhythm and as such using TWTM could reduce uncertainty, rather than increase uncertainty.

 

(not sure if I'm making much sense... I should go sleep)

[Hunter]

Another perspective on this:

 

I took a Coursera class a year or so ago in which the prof said something along the lines of that the key factor of poverty is uncertainty. It may be as extreme as being uncertain where your next meal comes from, or it may be uncertainty of what will happen if one small part of your car/bike/transportation breaks (and you can't afford to fix it) or what will happen if you get a (minor) illness or w/e. That thing about poverty as uncertainty resonated with me a lot.

 

Rich people have so many more buffers... they don't have to worry about where their next meal comes from, or what happens if their car needs a new tire or if they break a leg. Not every little thing turns into a crisis for a rich person. Just to be clear... I'm not talking about absolute value of income here... there are people who make a fair amount of money and manage it so stupidly that they go from one crisis to another. And if you know you need to walk to the river every day to get water, at least that's not an uncertainty (though if you get hurt then you would have a problem unless you have the social capital or w/e it's called where a neighbor or whomever will help you out). I'm not saying, btw, that people who have to carry gallons of water for miles per day aren't poor. I just wanted to point out that there is some sort of relationship between high levels of uncertainty about how to satisfy various needs and poverty, and that the psychological impact of that might be one of the reasons Hunter is more comfortable with TWTM now than in the past. Hunter now knows the WTWM rhythm and as such using TWTM could reduce uncertainty, rather than increase uncertainty.

 

(not sure if I'm making much sense... I should go sleep)

You are making a TON of sense to ME. Thank you!

 

I am known for saying that the only thing consistent about my life is that it is inconsistent. :lol:

 

The constant uncertainty is an issue. And with each crisis not of my own making, the less trusting I get of being able to hang onto stuff. I guess I get more trusting that I will be able to survive and adapt, though. But not hold onto stuff. And TWTM rotations seem to be something I can hang onto.

 

Fear of injury. That is a big one. I have no buffer for that, because being physically fit IS my buffer. And pretty much my only buffer.

[Loesje22000]

I keep wondering if it's worth getting. As you know, it's available from used book sites in the US. As you also know, shipping and taxes (you have those too, right?) would make it cost an awful lot, even if the actual cost of the book isn't that bad.

 

I like what I hear about it a lot, so it may be worth the hassle and cost.

I don't have to pay custom charges if I can get it at Alibris.com

And shippings are cheap there.

But not all descriptions are accurate in editions...

[Mom22ns]

Another perspective on this:

 

I took a Coursera class a year or so ago in which the prof said something along the lines of that the key factor of poverty is uncertainty. It may be as extreme as being uncertain where your next meal comes from, or it may be uncertainty of what will happen if one small part of your car/bike/transportation breaks (and you can't afford to fix it) or what will happen if you get a (minor) illness or w/e. That thing about poverty as uncertainty resonated with me a lot.

 

This makes tons of sense to me.

 

I have never lived in poverty, although when dh and I were young, we certainly lived below the poverty line in the US. Uncertainty was the key at that time. If anything came up, we were in crisis. Now, when a car needs repair, we repair it. The uncertainty created a great deal of stress that we no longer live with. 

 

I think WTM is a wonderfully flexible way to homeschool, that financially works well in poverty. There are few resources needed that aren't available free or inexpensively to a typical US family. However, financial stress is not the only issue with poverty. When a family is overwhelmed with trying to make sure they have food and shelter, the time and mental energy necessary to organize library resources may be just as unavailable as the funds to buy a pre-planned curriculum. I think WTM could be a perfect solution for a great education for someone living in poverty with poor public school options. However, it isn't for everyone. But I think that is true of homeschooling in general and any specific methodology.

[stm4him]

All the curriculum listed in WTM is frustrating for me to wade through.  I may black out the curriculum and read it again since the new version is coming out anyway.  

[Hunter]

Someone once said she paperclipped the curriculum pages together, so she couldn't see them.

[SnMomof7]

Amira, no running water is tough! BTDT and really don't like doing that! I still sometimes start crying in the shower because I am SO thankful for not just running water, but hot running water.

 

This. For years. It's not the shower that makes me cry. It's washing dishes. I'm so so thankful for hot running water. I was out of commission for a month or so after a bad burn when I spilled a bucket of boiling water on my foot when I was carrying it from the wood stove to the sink. It was terrible. I should have gone to the doctor sooner. :/

[Amira]

This. For years. It's not the shower that makes me cry. It's washing dishes. I'm so so thankful for hot running water. I was out of commission for a month or so after a bad burn when I spilled a bucket of boiling water on my foot when I was carrying it from the wood stove to the sink. It was terrible. I should have gone to the doctor sooner. :/

 

Washing the dishes without indoor plumbing is such a hassle.  I cried too when I was able to stand at the sink and wash the dishes without doing anything besides turning on a faucet.  I'm so sorry you were hurt because of it.

[Hunter]

Jennifer! :grouphug:

 

When I lived on a boat, I used to wash the dishes in the ocean. I remember once, washing dishes with another boat family and one of the boys had emptied their toilet bucket way too close to where we were doing the dishes, and some toilet paper floated by. Yuck! Thank god for the antibacterial properties of sun and salt.

[Spillman6]

Just read every post in this thread. A crazy fun read. I might run downstairs and wash my dishes now. maybe not.

[Kareni]

The new Well Educated Mind is due out in November. I am planning on buying that and the science book as an early Christmas book to myself. The science book is in whispersync!

 

 

I  hadn't realized a new edition was coming out, so thanks for mentioning it.  Here's a link for others who might be interested:

 

The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had (Updated and Expanded)

 

Regards,

Kareni

[MaryMak07]

My husband lost his job.

He refused to apply for unemployment.

We have one rental house.  The renter's breadwinner lost his job--actually, he went to work and found his building padlocked, had had no inkling that it was about to fail.

We had no income.  None.

 

OK, so.  We had a rental.  We could sell it.  At a loss, and paying a huge tax hit.  And eaten out our own insides.

 

So we didn't have poverty exactly.  What we had was absolutely no income.

 

What I did:

I applied for a HELOC while DH was in the waiting period for the lay off.  Hence we still had income at that point with which to qualify.  It's still eating your own insides, but it's possibly recoverable.

I applied for a job.

I helped DH not feel like I was blaming him.

I kept homeschooling.

My friends stepped in when I got that job, and helped get through the remainder of the school year.  One of them hired DH two days a week.  Not enough, but something.  He networked and got little jobs here and there.

I worked 55 hour weeks, and homeschooled at the same time.  It was pure hell.  Most of the fun of it was gone.  The drudgery of it was worse than ever.

Luckily I had my subsistence systems up and running--bulk food, thrift store clothes, etc.  So we could batten down the hatches and live on very little.

I had to look like I was happy in order to succeed at my job.  And in order to support DH and give DD some stability.  That was probably the hardest part.

 

We went through 17 months of pure suspense.  Then DH got a fulltime job offer, right before we would have lost our COBRA health insurance.

 

It wasn't poverty by world standards, but it was something that, if it had gone on much longer, we probably never would have been able to weather.

 

I am blessed, we are blessed, to have gotten through it.  Subsistence skills work.  Working hard and scrambling works.  But we had a lot of grace, too, and this was not just a 'hard work pays off' story by any means.  We had our health.  We had community.  We had the grace of God.  Oh, and BTW, we extended grace to our renters, and let them stay until they figured out what to do--6-7 months?  I can't remember exactly.  It was much harder that way, but it seemed like the right thing to do.  And eventually they even paid us back, which I didn't necessarily expect.  Grace. 

Thank you for sharing this.  It sounds horrible to have lived through, but truly a story of grace.