Ella Frances Lynch

[ElizaG]

This gets back to the subject of recreation leadership, and the "playground movement," which is the only one of the movements of EFL's day that I haven't come to terms with.  I think I buy into their basic idea:  that play and recreation are an important part of children's formation, and that, in our current cultural circumstances, adults have to provide quite a bit of intentional leadership in this area.   There's quite a bit of overlap between their recommended play activities and adult vocational skills (e.g. hobbies and handicrafts) and culture (e.g. singing and dancing).  To advocates of the playground movement, play leadership was thought of as the "other side" of education, and it seems to me that everyday recreational guidance is the "other side" of homeschooling. 

 

It's also apparent that the social institutions that were developed to meet this need have mostly forgotten their original holistic goals, and have gone off-track in various ways.  Overall, I think the parks and recreation departments might be in even worse shape than the schools.   And there was a pretty short window between the time the movement started, and the time it went pear-shaped, so there's much less material available, especially regarding family life.  

 

But the main thing that's been getting me stuck is just inertia.  I don't have a lot of energy, and sometimes have health constraints, and I'm just not the natural type to lead active games.  However... being honest... I haven't really tried very hard.   Even for the less active pursuits, and even for the ones I really enjoy.   If it's not some book or material that I can put on the shelf for the children to figure out on their own, it doesn't get done. 

 

Susanna Wesley would have done better.  Not that she was into "recreation leadership," I'm guessing.  ;)  But if she thought something was important for her children's education, she would have just gone ahead and done it, prayerfully and fearlessly.   And made her own system.  So that's evidently what I need to do here, as well. 

 

What to Do at Recess?  by George E. Johnson (Ginn, 1910) says,

 

"We have reversed the order of importance in education as it was observed by the Greeks.  The Greek education was essentially a playground education, and the education most nearly approaching it to-day is that supplied by the playground of America."

 

I found about about that book from the article "Learning Play Leadership" in the Catholic Educational Review (1922).  It's written with religious sisters in mind, and presumes the reader has access to organizations that no longer exist, but it's still interesting. 

 

So... I'm feeling like it's time to start thinking of all the "extras" in terms of "recreation leadership."   And maybe just doing this for five minutes, a couple of times a day -- one session that's aimed more at the older ones, and one more for the younger ones.    The children would be invited, not required to take part.   And I could enlist them to help clear out or build anything that's needed.  

 

But that's only part of the picture.  I still need to figure out some guidelines to help me decide what to keep.   Because, really, the clutter isn't so much because my house doubles as a  school.  It's more that it doubles as a rec center.  :001_rolleyes:

[ElizaG]

Interestingly, the very popular handbook Games by Jessie Bancroft (recommended in that article, and available at archive.org) says that country children have just as much need of play leadership as city children.  Perhaps even more, because city children are pushed into social games from an early age.   She suggests that teaching rural children more games and sports might be a way to keep them on the farm.   I've seen similar statements in books written for teachers of rural schools. 

 

I'm sure the loss of neighborhood play culture has leveled out a lot of those differences.  And I'm not even going to venture to guess how homeschooled children -- in town, suburbs, or country -- compare to today's school children.    My guess is that there are no overall "winners" here. 

 

Thinking about it... it's kind of ironic that there are many dedicated parents who are willing to spend hours playing mind-numbing games with ponies or trucks; driving children to activities and camps; buying and cleaning up toys, kits, and art supplies; organizing playgroups... probably adding up to far more time and effort than they spend in support of schoolwork...  but there's not much higher-level talk about "being concerned about our children's recreation," the way there is about "our children's education."  

 

It's like people have all been assimilated to some Recreation Borg.  We must serve it; we cannot question it, or even think about it.  :huh:  

[ElizaG]

I'm looking at the other book by George E. Johnson, Education by Plays and Games.   I appreciate the way he connects play to the development of the "work habit;" it's very compatible with EFL and Montessori.   He disagrees with those who say that play is defined by the lack of any end outside itself, and says that area of imperceptible shading between "play" and "work" is where play enters into education. 

 

"It is a mark of genius to love one's work, to enjoy it in the doing, but it might be a matter of common occurrence.  All play involves work, and children sometimes love to work, even to work for a definite result, as they love to play.  This is a matter of observation time and again.  I hold that it is one of the chief ends of education, to develop a habit of joyousness in work.  The fear that love of play will interfere with love of work is the most groundless of fears."  

 

There's a long footnote about his observations of boys sometimes choosing to do chores and errands in their playtime. 

 

"I would not for an instant give the impression that I minimize the sense of duty in work.  But is not love of duty a higher thing even than sense of duty?"

 

There are some sweet photos of old-time children playing, too.   :001_smile:  

[Tress]

Fascinating discussions!

 

But I have a more practical question :).

 

This is our third week doing EFL style lessons. It is going very well with dd5 and dd7. But..... for my dd9 it feels like I have only *added* EFL style work, while retaining everything else. I didn't even try adding those lessons to my dd12's schedule.

 

How do I make sure I'm not just adding stuff? ElizaG, how do you get your oldest to only have schoolwork for 12 hours a week? If I remember correctly, you are doing school 6 days a week, so that would be 2 hours a day, right?

 

Is that only possible if you push all sciences, history, geography into high school?

 

In the Netherlands we do the sciences simultaniously, dd12 is studying Biology and Physics, next year Chemistry will be added. She studies Dutch, English, Latin and Greek, due to health reasons we dropped French. AoPS Math needs a good bit of time. No way, she can do all this in 2 hours a day. And don't even get me started on History and Geography, and next year we need to add Economics.

 

I had been thinking that those short days would be over, when a child becomes 10yo and starts 'book lessons'. I don't think my dd-9-soon-to-be-10 is really ready for full on book lessons, so I envisioned some kind of gradual easing into that. But still it's going to be more than 2 hours work. And for my 12yo it's going to be a lot more. But maybe I'm making a mistake?

Edited June 28, 2016 by Tress

[ElizaG]

How do I make sure I'm not just adding stuff? ElizaG, how do you get your oldest to only have schoolwork for 12 hours a week? If I remember correctly, you are doing school 6 days a week, so that would be 2 hours a day, right?

 

Is that only possible if you push all sciences, history, geography into high school?

 

In the Netherlands we do the sciences simulatiously, dd12 is studying Biology and Physics, next year Chemistry will be added. She studies Dutch, English, Latin and Greek, due to health reasons we dropped French. AoPS Math needs a good bit of time. No way, she can do all this in 2 hours a day. And don't even get me started on History and Geography, and next year we need to add Economics.

 

Hi Tress,

 

The numbers I listed were an average between my oldest two, just based on their current required subjects (languages, math, religion).  They weren't intended as a recommendation for anyone else!   :001_smile:  

 

I think that mine have picked up enough "content" for their age, so the plan is to put off more formal study of the bolded subjects until high school, as on the sample schedule that I posted a little while back.   Since we don't have exams or required material for now, it's not a problem.  

 

With your family, it sounds as if you'll need to spend more time to meet the requirements, whether they're coming from your own judgment or the school system's.  I'm sorry that the EFL language work is seeming like an extra burden on top of that.   I've been substituting it for other exercises in our language and literature textbooks (I'm quite willing to skip parts that seem less useful!), but maybe that wouldn't work for you.  

 

In her system, I think the older ones are still supposed to have fairly short days, but can't remember where she discusses that.   My older children have a time-based schedule for their independent subjects (20 minutes for this, 40 for that), but I'm thinking about moving to a task-based schedule (do pages ...).  IIRC, EFL found that the students in her schools worked much more efficiently when she gave them a good-sized task, since they knew they'd have free time as soon as they were done.  This would require more work on my part, to come up with the assignments and make sure they're not getting into the habit of rushing through them, but it seems like a step in the right direction. 

Edited June 28, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Also realized that I should have put down about 4 hours for driving to & from places (spread over the last three categories).   And about 2 hours for getting ready for the above, and putting things away when we get home.  Then there are special events -- not every week, but sometimes long, so maybe averaging 2 hours a week.   So that leaves 40 hours.  Or even a bit less during the school year, when there are more activities with other homeschoolers. 

 

Of course, this raises questions about the definition of "free time."  Does park day qualify?  Or sitting in the car?   I'm not even going to go there.  :laugh:

 

I will say, they don't always love all of their work and activities -- they seem to go through phases -- but everything I can think of is enjoyed at least sometimes, or by some of them.   And conversely, there's nothing that isn't at least sometimes done reluctantly.  I was going to make the exception of sports, for one child, but then I remembered that this child was actually by far the most reluctant early on!   

 

"But then quite suddenly (just like us),

One got better and the other one got wuss"

 

:001_smile:

Edited June 28, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

The war must have given a temporary boost to Americans who advocated for frugal, home-based amusements.  I found this one online:

 

Home Play from the National Recreation Association (1945)

 

The first part is heavy on jokes and board games, but it gets better.  There's a section about recovering the lost art of reading aloud, and several mentions of children or adults keeping notebooks (which they call "scrapbooks") on subjects such as outdoor cooking and pet care.   The section on children's books suggests that the child can illustrate the story, or make clay models of the characters.   Sounds like an EFL-inspired homeschool.  I like how this is all fitting together.  :001_smile:

 

Here's a shorter one:  Home Play in Wartime.  It says that square dancing fell out of fashion because city spaces were smaller.  That never occurred to me.   Of course, crowded apartments were also a major reason why the education system shifted from "the child preparing the lesson" to "the teacher teaching the lesson."  So the children couldn't study at home, couldn't work at home, and couldn't play at home.   Sounds pretty bleak.  No wonder families were so thrilled by the radio. 

[ElizaG]

Looking at some of the older books, I'm impressed by the attention that was given to sand play.  This also turns up in Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Homemaker, but I didn't realize it was part of a larger movement.   Primary teachers and play leaders could actually earn diplomas in the subject. 

 

My children like to build elaborate scenes -- often from times and places that we've studied -- but not in the sandbox, which is more of a toddlers' and preschoolers' domain.   It does seem much more interesting than just moving objects around, though.   Will have to think about this.  In the meantime, I tried setting out some "living sand" along with plastic figures, toothpicks, etc. on a table indoors, and several children, up to age 10, had a blast.   It required some clean-up, and I had to intervene a few times, but that seems to be true of most worthwhile activities.   So the medium-and-big-children's sandbox or sand table seems to be a keeper, especially for rainy days.  

 

Those miniature garden scenes that people make in planters, etc., are really another version of this.  My girls enjoy them, but the boys find them a bit girlish, even if the fairies are left out.   So I think the sandbox has wider appeal.   

 

One thing that I'm finding helpful, in reading these old-time descriptions, is just the realization that ongoing maintenance and repair used to be seen as normal -- not as a sign that the "system" or "technology" was defective.  Everything had some amount of inconvenience; that just went with the territory.   But the great advantage was that the equipment was fitted to the people's needs at the time, rather than the people having to compromise their needs to fit with some rationalized piece of equipment.   

 

For instance, the swing sets were all built on site, and used hemp rope that had to be replaced every year or two.  The little children's chair swings were mounted on wooden frames, with canvas covers that extended outward a bit to keep the sun off.   These had to be carried inside at night, but were made to be lightweight enough that this was possible.  They wouldn't have just left off the canvas; for the smallest children, shade was a sine qua non.   When did this go by the wayside?  Certainly by the 1970s, where I lived, the chair swings had no protection from the elements.  But at least they had a metal bar that went up and down, so that we could get in and out on our own, while still having the extra security of a back and sides. 

 

And now they've pared down the apparatus even further to those one-piece bucket swings, so that the little ones can't even get in and out without help.   They either have to depend completely on a grown-up, or use the big kids' swings, even if they're still little.  So there's a period of time where swings aren't much fun, either for children, or the grown-ups supervising them.   And this is perhaps the age when many children enjoy swinging the most. 

 

Putting this together with my feelings about, say, the furniture and women's clothing that are currently for sale in stores... to me, DIY isn't just a recreational activity, or a way for children to develop potentially lucrative skills.  It's a way to get back our agency, and restore some control over our way of life.  

 

Now I really, really want to go nail some boards together.  :hurray:   :laugh:   Alas, the regular housework is not done.   All revved up and nowhere to go...

Edited June 29, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Ester Maria is talking about studying literary forms using what Fr. Donnelly would call "scientific methods," as developed in 19th century European universities.   In at least one thread, she does mention that there was an even older way than that, but she doesn't describe it, except to say that it was also focused on the forms.  I don't know how familiar she was with it at the time. 

 

So the debate in that thread is really between different modern approaches to literature, some of which have been around so long that they're considered "traditions" in their own right.  The earlier way doesn't even enter into it.  Except that at one point (if it's the thread I'm thinking about), a board member's son comes on and says that, to him, the purpose of studying literature is to become a better writer.  (ETA: those posts are here and here)  But nobody follows up on that. 

 

This sort of thing is why it took me so much time, and so much outside reading, to come to an understanding of the older system.    It was almost completely obscured, even though there are a lot of relevant books online today.

Edited July 3, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

The first post from EM that's quoted above, about the types of books children read, also makes sense only in the modern context.   In many times and places, there wasn't a "children's literature," nor was there necessarily an "artistic literature" that was in a different category from the standard texts that everyone, young or old, would have read or listened to.

 

Maybe the two developed around the same time?   In other words, as the literature that was valued by the elites started to have less of a solid religious foundation -- so, along with the rise of the novel? -- perhaps there was an increase in the sense that children needed suitable books of their own, that would contribute to their formation, and wouldn't contain morally doubtful bits.   Just a guess. 

 

Looking at dates, Robinson Crusoe (1719) is sometimes called the first modern novel, and it's much more secular than, say, Pilgrim's Progress (1678).  

 

John Locke wrote about education right in the middle of that interval (early 1690s), and histories of children's literature often point to him as an influential figure in the development of the field.   He said that children should be given "easy pleasant books," as well as picture books.   He also seems to have invented a game similar to Boggle.  So, in those respects, I guess he was a lot like Ruth Beechick.   :laugh:

 

I wonder what Catholic and Orthodox children were reading in those days.   I don't know of any children's books written in France, Italy, or Russia until well into the 1800s.  Even in England, it's not clear to what extent these ideas had reached the average family.  

 

Anyway, just some thoughts.   This post is getting into the territory of what I wanted to study in graduate school, but I was lacking both formation and information at the time, and couldn't find a suitable mentor.  It's not very useful in a practical sense, but very interesting, to some of us anyway! 

 

It's good to hear about your educational (and self-educational) adventures, OrdinaryShoes.  Thanks for describing them.  :001_smile:

Edited July 3, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

I just started reading the Bonnie Landry booklets; they're available on Kindle Unlimited, which we're signed up for at the moment.  Good stuff!   To me, her approach seems sort of in between EFL and Ruth Beechick:  more indulgent and hand-holding than the former, but with a slightly higher literary standard than the latter.  

 

I'll probably end up buying three of the booklets: dictation, building a curriculum around a book, and "what matters most."   (The ones for math and writing weren't so EFL-ish.)   I think these would be very helpful for people who are interested in simple, relational homeschooling, but need a bit more encouragement and some more modern examples.  :001_smile:

[ElizaG]

Here's another very interesting book on recreation from the time that EFL was writing.  IIRC, it was recommended in an article I linked to above. 

 

A Philosophy of Play by Luther Halsey Gulick, M.D. (1920)

 

Dr. Gulick was the founder of the Camp Fire Girls [ETA: and the inventor of water polo]; took a leading role in the development of school sports, playgrounds, [ETA: organized folk dancing, gymnastics, the Boy Scouts of America,] and the YMCA; and was closely involved with the invention of basketball (though his staff member, James Naismith, is usually given the credit). 

 

So many dedicated people in that era, creating so many institutions that we take for granted today.  The more I read, the more I feel that their thinking can shed a lot of light on our contemporary problems.   We just have to be willing to try to find forms that work in our own circumstances, even if they're different from anything we've heard of before.   :001_smile:

Edited July 9, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Gulick's descriptions of the seasonal nature of traditional recreation have me thinking that I've been going about the "leadership" part all wrong.   My children do some activities very sporadically (on the rare occasions that we can arrange them, or that a group we're part of happens to be doing them), and others for months on end.   I have noticed that the first situation tends to leave the children disappointed and asking "when can we do it again?," and the second often turns into waning interest and foot-dragging, but I'd never put two and two together and considered that there might be some importance to allowing the activity to run its natural course.  I can see that this is going to be another area where we'll have to do some rethinking.   :huh:  

 

On another level, though, his enthusiasm for time-limited activities comes as a relief.   Growing up, I was repeatedly given the message, from part of my family, that changing interests and hobbies frequently was a bad thing.   Of course, I ended up "going through phases" anyway -- as did some other relatives, who were also looked down on for it.   But I did internalize the sense that there was something wrong with this, and that it would be better just to pick one or two favorite interests and stick to them.  

 

Looking back, it makes no sense.  If we forced ourselves to keep doing activities past the point where we were interested, they wouldn't actually be interests at that point.   :laugh:   And just as in the examples that Gulick describes, the members of our extended family who've "gone through phases" have developed a lot of knowledge and skills that they wouldn't have acquired otherwise, and enjoyed themselves a lot in the process.

 

Page 182 is also challenging:  repetition does not produce character and habit.  Just having a child brush his teeth every day will not necessarily form the habit of doing so, if he doesn't want to.  (I believe he's correct here, based on personal experience and observation of my children.)   It takes desire to produce a habit.   The desire comes from instinctual drives, guided by group tradition.   This is something I find really interesting about Gulick; he starts to sound like Montessori or Dewey at times, but then he puts "tradition" in there.  

 

I think what he's calling "group tradition" is what some Christian homeschoolers have started calling "secular liturgy," as in "the tooth-brushing liturgy."  ;)    And I'm very glad he's given us such a straightforward term for this.    Well, straightforward for Catholic and Orthodox Christians, anyway.  Some others might prefer to sidestep around the word "tradition," even though it's the literal term for how culture is handed on, in the family or otherwise. 

 

There are some powerful ideas in this book.   They could be developed into a philosophy of leisure and education.    But they're also very much against today's status quo, not only in most schools and homeschools, but even in organized recreation.

 

"As a rule, it is quite futile to plan team-games for the years from seven to twelve."   There go the soccer mom and the little league dad:   :svengo:  :willy_nilly:

 

How did all of these movements get so far from their scientific and cultural roots?    I wonder if it's because the founders grew up in an environment in which most of the adults in charge were classically educated, of rural origin, or both.   Even if the content of their own education was more modern, they still had these traditions available, and could use them as a reference point.  Those who came after them, in the 1940s and later, didn't experience this; the whole context was modern.

 

 

[fixed typo]

Edited July 13, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

ISTM that it's possible to opt out of the bizarre, and IMHO damaging, educational theories of the modern era by homeschooling. But how do you avoid the damaging culture while participating in the normal activities of an American middle class child? Obviously extracurricular activities are voluntary but there is tremendous pressure to participate . And once you opt to participate, you must follow along with everyone else. My DD's public school was way more accommodating of us than our daughter's ballet teacher. Ballet was my way or the highway. Of course that was after we wrote the check in full before the semester began. :)

 

WRT to ballet, DD was interested in it for a time but then wanted to try something else which I think is perfectly normal for a 6 year old. But I was scolded for allowing her to quit. 

 

I'm on a little bit of an outside activity strike now and haven't signed DD up for anything for the fall. I feel like an oddball. I actually had someone tell me that I had to start my DD in soccer NOW because she would be too old to start in 2nd grade. One of the benefits of being a working mother is that you don't have much time to chat with the other mothers and learn about how you're doing everything wrong. :)

Try having a 12 year old who wants to start playing soccer.  It's not at all obvious how this can be done, and at the time, I just gave up.   It actually seems easier to find recreational team sports for an adult beginner, than for an adolescent.  And yet, according to Gulick, 12 is the ideal age to start these sports.      

 

Scouting is another activity that was intended mostly for ages 12+, but seems to be packed with little ones and their mommies.   In the US, anyway.  European scouting -- and youth movements generally -- still seem to be based around the older members.

 

 Another part of this is that traditional recreation is often participated in daily, or even more than once a day, during the "season."   As you point out, it's now normal to do this for "passions," but not for casual activities.   Gulick gives the example of playing marbles.   I'm trying to picture the reaction I'd get if I tried to organize daily "marble classes" for a six-week stretch.  :lol:   And then two weeks of "wandering around the pond" classes, and a spate of kite-flying, and three weeks of tree forts.  That would be some wild co-op.

 

As a child of the 70s, this would actually be a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of my experience, as memorialized in Raffi's "On My Way Home."   The "free-range parenting" movement takes it as the historic norm, but looking at the primary sources, I think it was a fairly brief anomaly for middle-class city children.  In the 19th and early 20th century, they were protected and guided by nannies and mothers (and the occasional St. Bernard  :laugh:).   In the Progressive era -- for better and worse -- these mothers started movements to provide similar protection and guidance to other people's children, too.  Playgrounds were built as a place where that could happen, and were never meant to be used by the children alone.   But then the organized activities fell apart over the next few decades.  I'm not sure why; perhaps due to lack of funding and shifting interests on the part of the elite.  So we were left with the structures, but no supervision, and for a while there, children had a field day -- again, for better and worse.  And then the 80s arrived, and the lawsuits started.    :001_rolleyes:

 

What concerns me about the free-range movement isn't so much the risk of injury, but the lack of positive guidance. The early playground movement saw it as their task to fill in the gaps in the school curriculum -- to teach physical skills and pass along culture, beyond the realm of stickball and skipping-rope songs.  The free-rangers are in favor of children finding adult mentors for this sort of thing, but my sense is that they think it will happen organically, and I'm not so sure it will.   This also relates to our standards of culture.  Around here, it's quite likely that random adults at the park would offer my children junk food and let them watch movies on their phones.  Which is a step up from the swankier neighborhood, where the parents tend to hog the play equipment for themselves.  Sorry, but I'm not about to entrust my children's formation to the example of some pasty bearded dude who thinks it's his prerogative to take a nap in the sunshine on a toddler-sized wiggly bridge.   :001_huh:  :D

[Soror]

gah, rereading this I sorely need to edit but my brain is too tired to make much sense today :(

 

Eliza- I love your idea of a co-op :) My friend and I are currently brainstorming starting an alternative co-op. A group to focus not on traditional academic activities, still trying to flesh it out. Thankfully I have a likeminded friend. We mainly want time for the kids to just play together without an agenda but when there is an agenda it will not be on traditional academics

 

re: Scouting- Boy Scouts is 11+ and isn't populated w/ little kids and mommies. Cub Scouts was actually formed after BSA, sometimes there are both a Troop and a Pack in the same location but not always and they are ran separately b/c the structure is so different. 

 

I don't know anything of Girl Scouts. We do AHG and we do have more smaller kids, likewise Boy Scout Troops are generally smaller than Cub Scout Packs, I think just b/c a lot of times kids find other things of interest by that age. My son'BS Troop is still plenty big enough however. I don't know how AHG will go as my own girls get older, we just have a harder time retaining them as they age. One thing I've considered is Venturing w/ BS, it is co-ed and for kids age 14+, there are just so many opportunities w/ BS I can see them switching over.

 

eta. I've never much played marbles but kite flying is on my list :) We'll see however what the kids are interested in doing.

 

eta2. I completely agree w/ you IRT totally freerange/unschooling AFA guidance for kids. Another thing my friend and I are talking about now is working on finding mentors for the kids, I think it is way too much to expect them to do it on their own, it seems too many groups expect more from kids than adults.

Edited July 13, 2016 by soror

[Soror]

 On another level, though, his enthusiasm for time-limited activities comes as a relief.   Growing up, I was repeatedly given the message, from part of my family, that changing interests and hobbies frequently was a bad thing.   Of course, I ended up "going through phases" anyway -- as did some other relatives, who were also looked down on for it.   But I did internalize the sense that there was something wrong with this, and that it would be better just to pick one or two favorite interests and stick to them.  

 

Looking back, it makes no sense.  If we forced ourselves to keep doing activities past the point where we were interested, they wouldn't actually be interests at that point.   :laugh:   And just as in the examples that Gulick describes, the members of our extended family who've "gone through phases" have developed a lot of knowledge and skills that they wouldn't have acquired otherwise, and enjoyed themselves a lot in the process.

 

YES! I've always felt guilty for going from this activity to that but I read something as an adult about how some people are dabblers and a light bulb went off, that is me and it is not wrong. These days especially we expect kids to pick an activity at such a young age and keep with it forever, they are to be searching for their passion even from a young age. It is ridiculous. I'm glad for more opportunities but I hate how serious it all is. 

[ElizaG]

I don't have experience with any boys' scouting groups, but I'm not a fan of either GS or AHG.  To me, they're just two sides of the same coin:  bloated bureaucracy; agenda-driven; low interest in traditional skills and the outdoors; high interest in forming young women who fit their model.   I realize that individual troops can do their own thing, but the organization-wide activities, handbooks, etc. are just a complete turn-off. 

 

More to the point of this thread, from what I've seen, both are very heavy on younger girls.   And they don't meet very frequently - it's either weekly, or every two weeks.  That's not often enough to make much of a dent in the younger children's needs for organized recreation, nor is it enough for the older girls to do much substantial work on their activities, including group projects.  If this work took up a significant part of their time (as it naturally tends to do, for children who are very interested), they'd likely have to get together outside the meetings anyway.   If there were a lot of girls in a neighborhood working on different things, the meetings might make sense as a "check-in," but if there are only few older ones participating, it's hard to see the point. 

 

There are other options for skill development, such as 4H and Pilgrims of the Holy Family (Catholic badge curriculum for homeschoolers aged 10+).   But for general recreation on a frequent basis, it seems to me that a casual, supervised drop-in arrangement would be better.  I have no idea at all how that would work, though. 

[ElizaG]

Here's a "backyard playground" article from the 1920s that gives advice on working with children's changing interests in a limited space.  This is from Child Welfare, published by the PTA (another movement that seems to have forgotten its original mission).  

 

"Backyard Adventures -- In Safety" by Ernest L. Thurston

 

EFL's article on observation lessons is in the same issue, about 10 pages after this one.   I can only find this volume on Google Books; sorry if it's not viewable for you.  I'm going to try to compile a list of better links to all of the Child Welfare back issues.

 

[LostintheCosmos]

That backyard adventures article was interesting - thanks, ElizaG. I'm looking forward to reading through some of these other recreation-related links and hopefully coming to terms with my organized-activity-angst.

 

While we were on vacation, I read a few articles by the anthropologist Barbara Rogoff in which she describes how children learn in traditional societies by "observing and pitching in." I've read some interesting things before on this topic, but they have tended to be a little romantic about how this works and conclude with the message to just free the children! The children Rogoff describes are very free, but there is also definitely adult guidance, although certainly not of the type you'd see in a public school classroom (I guess this is why some people don't seem to recognize it as the exercise of authority?). It reminded me of the discussion we had somewhere about how the tendency to see homeschoolers as a spectrum from radical unschoolers to authoritarian fundamentalists distorts the actual history of home education, which is rooted in the kinds of cultural practices Rogoff studies. 

 

Rogoff also has some interesting articles (here's one) on cultural differences in attention that seemed relevant to the question of interweaving work and leisure. She describes the different practices of indigenous children, who frequently attend to more than one event simultaneously (Rogoff argues this is not what we describe as "multi-tasking" or "switch-tasking") compared to schooled Westerners, who focus on one thing at a time. 

 

I also spent some timing poking around vintage home ec books looking for advice for the "woman who does her own work," and came across this book chapter that tells it like it is.  :laugh:

[ElizaG]

Thanks for those links.  I can't remember if we've discussed RDI much, but it was influenced by Rogoff (among others), and one of my ongoing projects is to figure out how to use RDI theory to improve our homeschooling overall.   It's kind of gone on the back burner, but maybe it's time for another look. 

 

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find out what was being said about recreation among Catholics in EFL's day. 

 

Around 1909, there was an article in the New Catholic World about "recreation and delinquency."  The author said that the Church had a role to play in recreation, and that its first priority should be to help families to develop good habits of recreation in the home.   This sounded promising, but looking at later journals, I can't find any examples of efforts in that direction.  The focus seems to have shifted to providing activities in parishes, schools, and other out-of-home contexts.  

 

The National Catholic War Council (the first version of the US bureaucratic octopus) had its own settlement houses, called "National Catholic Community Houses."    These differed from one neighborhood to the next, but most seem to have offered some lodging for travelers, a cafeteria, and a program of activities for various ages.   Around 1919, in the Catholic Charities journal, [Rev. John M. Cooper of CUA] criticized the "class and club" model of the community houses, on the grounds that these activities only ever served a small percentage of the people, and that they required so little from the participants that they should really be called "passivities."   According to the article, after the first year or two, the community house should (and often did) shift its efforts toward social activism, in order to solve problems that faced the whole community.   

 

So recreation was taken from the home and put in little boxes in a public place, and then turned into politics.   Which is remarkably similar to what happened with other parts of Catholic education.   

 

There's no smiley for "feeling like our family life has been co-opted, and too annoyed to go to sleep, but tired to figure out how to fix it right now."   So I'm just going to use this one:   :cheers2:  

 

in honor of our recent homeschool lesson on Germany.  (We were wandering around Munich on Google street view, and accidentally ended up in a dark tunnel full of oncoming traffic.  That was unexpectedly exciting.  :D)

 

 

[edited author's name to fix mistake]

Edited July 19, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

There is one notable type of playground that's still staffed:  the "adventure playground," full of random junk for exploring and building with.   They were invented in Scandinavia in the mid-20th century, never went away, and seem to be having a revival in some places.   

 

The New Adventures of the Adventure Playground (The Spectator, 2015)

 

In this model, trained adults are present, but only as helpers -- so they're subordinate to both the children and the stuff.   This seems like a variation on the "free the children!" mentality.   We're only needed to facilitate their entry into the world of technology.   (Which, looking at the current round of educational toys, seems to be an increasingly widespread idea.) 

Edited July 22, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Here's a recent UK report:

 

"People Make Play" (PDF)

 

The author says that adults are important, "not in the actual play of children but in the provision of the physical and social space that it needs."  I'm not sure what he means, exactly -- how do you maintain a social space for an activity, without being involved in the activity itself?   Then he goes on to claim that the playworker is a recent idea, originating in the 1950s with the "adventure playgrounds."  :huh:  

 

Moving from theory to practice, if you look at the quotation from the boy on page 27, he describes play leaders who are getting involved in actual play, teaching skills, even inventing new games.  At this point, the author says that there needs to be a "balance between freedom and intervention."  This is simply common sense, and goes right along with what they were saying 100 years ago.   Why does he keep insisting that the adults are only there to provide a "social space?"   On p. 34, he mentions "cooking on an open fire" and "carving with knives" as ideas that were introduced by the leaders -- oops, I mean playworkers. 

 

"Using tools (...) is a core part of play (...) ideally they'd have the confidence and skills to get on with those things themselves but city life isn't like that..."

 

What, so outside the city, they'd just be born with those skills?   Dear earnest playworker, they're children.  They have to learn to carve from someone, whether formally or informally.   Where did you get the idea that you need to make excuses for teaching them?  

 

The next section is about the sort of situations where old-time play leaders would have provided moral guidance.  This is clearly outside the new style playworkers' job description, so they just stand around and watch, supportively, while children torture one another.   Then someone who grew up going to one of these playgrounds, and is now a playworker there, reflects that, "You can make anything you want out of anything you want, and it's right.  If you make it, it's right, because it's what you see."  

 

On p. 36, the author mentions that they made one of these parks neater and greener, because apparently Asian parents (these would be south Asian, I think) weren't keen on sending their children to play on junk heaps, staffed or otherwise.   So, while tidying up is a no-no in general, it becomes okay if it's classified as "minority outreach." 

 

The adventure playground starts to seem like one of those places where ideology goes swinging through the air and collides with reality. 

Edited July 22, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Much of the rest of the paper looks like re-inventing the wheel, for anyone who's read about the older US playground movement. 

 

Page 40 has an interesting bit, in light of the articles that LostCove posted. 

 

Quotation from 14 year old girl:  '(... )they're great, they've taught me to build tents, do barbeques safely, lots of little things I couldn't do before.'

 

The author:  "Lots of little things -- that seems to be the key.  When asked to be more explicit, the children seemed to get a little impatient, as in fact these 'little things' are self-evident to them."

 

 

[ElizaG]

While reading this, it occurred to me that to some extent:

 

Old-style "playground leadership" : New-style "playwork" :: RDI : Floortime

 

although I was hesitant to post this, because it seemed like a strange analogy. 

 

Then I came across a listing for a book called Sandtray Play in Education, published in 2016.   It sounded like a reprint of a vintage book, but turned out to be new.   The author decided to take the idea of sandplay -- which has become very popular recently as a form of therapy -- and apply it to the education of typical children. 

 

So I guess the analogy wasn't strange after all.   It might not even be going too far to suggest that "therapy is the new play leadership."  

 

From a description of the book:

 

"These items include a small tray of sand and miniature figures. (...) 'When I added my appreciation of storytelling to the process, I realized that I had discovered a form of creative expression that has proved to enhance children‘s learning and emotional-behavioral development.' After a great deal of development and research, Kristín gave this method a name, Sandtray Play in Education. Although it would not exist without its roots in Sandplay, Sandtray Play stands on its own as a separate method of working with children in education and is distinct from Sandplay therapy."

 

Not to be a wet blanket, but I'm pretty sure Sandplay therapy wouldn't have existed without its roots in, well, sandplay.   Which was used extensively in education -- miniature figures, storytelling, and all.

 

I can't decide if this is "reinventing the wheel," or "going around in circles," or just "spinning our wheels."

 

"The wheels in the sand go round and round, round and round, round and round,

The wheels in the sand go round and round,

At the licensed therapy center." 

[LostintheCosmos]

I'll admit I'm sympathetic to those poor playworkers because I've had to work through similar issues around the idea of authority since becoming a mother. I wonder if the fact that these settings are still separate from adult life - a "compensatory environment" the UK report says in one place - rather than truly integrated into the larger society adds to that confusion. The adults in charge are too aware of how contrived it is and thus feel greater anxiety over their responsibility for it perhaps? And in the end, can we carve out a space that "is fit for [children's] needs where the larger environment is not" if part of what children need is to be guided to participate in that larger community? 

 

The sandplay stuff is wild... Is there a more historically-illiterate field than education? Doubtful.

[ElizaG]

These are interesting, and have many references:

 

The Beginning of the Recreation Movement in the United States (The Social Welfare History Project)

 

Evolution of American Playgrounds (Scholarpedia)

 

According to the first article, the innovators in the mid-1800s German and Scandinavian "play movements" were themselves influenced by the importance of athletics in the public schools and universities of England.  Their work had a different feel from previous German athletic movements, which were overtly nationalistic and focused on gymnastics.

 

So the playground movement was sort of a remote outgrowth of British classical education.  That was unexpected!   I don't know to what extent this attitude to sports and games was native to England, though.  It might have been influenced by Renaissance humanism, as mentioned in the Vittorino da Feltre thread.   Something to look into, maybe.

 

The second article refers to The Story of a Sand-Pile (1897), by the early developmental psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who observed boys up to age 15 learning from sand play.   It also mentions the first US book on playgrounds (also 1897), and an article on its author, Bulgarian immigrant Stoyan Vasil Tsanoff.  Yet another major figure I'd never heard of.  And he seems to have been one of those elusive types who was both cultured and of "sturdy peasant stock."  ;)

 

On a practical level, I'm finding this extremely helpful, but as slow and challenging to implement as EFL's homeschooling advice.   I expect to have worked out "what to do this summer" some time around Thanksgiving.    :001_rolleyes:

[ElizaG]

Just had another serendipitous moment like the one with "The Courtship of Miles Standish," in which the characters in the literature were doing things that matched up with my educational research.   

 

The current selection in eldest DS's English textbook is "Rip Van Winkle."   I've been having him read the prose passages independently, but he found this one difficult, so I decided to help him out by reading it aloud in small chunks.  (BTW, we came up with over a dozen words to define, just on the first two pages.  So if you're often lost for what sort of exercises to do, try picking harder literature!) 

 

Anyway, this was on the second page:

 

"The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians."

 

So there you have him:  America's first literary play leader.  :laugh:

 

As it turns out, "Miles Standish" is next in the textbook.  I told DS he can skip it, since we read it together recently.  He's quite relieved.  ;)

 

[ElizaG]

Apart from suggestions about what sort of activities to offer at different ages, my main take-away from the "play movement" is that there are two strands to our homeschool, and to everything we do:

 

1) Practical work, to help us to survive and serve others in the family and community

 

2) Leisure, including play/recreation, but with worship as the highest expression

 

"Subjects" and "skills" are studied either as necessary for #1, or as freely chosen to enrich our lives for #2. 

 

I find this much easier to handle than the idea of "schole" as some lofty and intangible ideal we're pursuing.  Simply put, if we're doing things in our homeschool that don't fit clearly into either of the above categories, then we should probably drop them.   Within that structure, I think we and the children can pursue the forms of leisure we're most drawn to, and find our own balance.

 

Re-reading Christopher Perrin's article, "Learning to Love What Must Be Done," he writes about the work involved in liberal education in the same terms as the work involved in mowing the lawn.  IDK, isn't there something missing here?   I agree that we have to develop a routine - or a "group tradition," as Gulick put it - and thus get into the habit of doing the individual tasks.  But at some point, our desire for the higher forms of leisure has to be internally motivated, so that we're drawn not by the familiarity of the tasks, or by the fact that everyone is doing them (did anyone become a great scholar or contemplative by peer pressure?!), but by the promise of something higher in itself.  And so we're really "learning to love what is good."   While still developing the habits of doing "what must be done."   My sense is that it's never too early to start cultivating both attitudes.  

 

So I guess that's the distinction that seems to be missing there, between our chores and our studies.  While we can appreciate the good that comes from doing chores, it's probably not such a great idea to love it very much.  Otherwise we can get lured into the cult of food, the cult of health, the cult of interior decorating, and so on. 

 

With that, I'm off to do "what must be done" with the washing machine, and will try to muster up some appreciation for the results.  (I think I'm at very low risk of violating the First Commandment in my feelings for the laundry. So, you know, that's something!)

Edited July 29, 2016 by ElizaG

[ElizaG]

Just when I was feeling stuck about how to keep our priorities straight, yesterday's first Mass reading was my old favorite -- warnings about "vanity" from Ecclesiastes -- and the homily was on St. Ignatius.    So it seemed like a good time to put aside the leisurely study of leisure, and firm up our homeschool plan for the next half-year or so. 

 

It works out to just over 3 hours a day of teaching, which is more than I'm doing now.  Through high-powered analysis of possible reasons for this discrepancy, it occurred to me that I'll have more students, and they'll all be doing more work.  :001_rolleyes:  So, no room for wasted time, or clutter getting in the way of a smoothly running schedule. 

 

Also wanted to share another serendipitous quotation.  Apparently there's been a lot of media attention given to Pope Francis's use of the phrase "new humanity" at WYD.  This sounded to me like standard recent pope-speak, and a search of Vatican.va proved this correct.   The earliest instance that turned up was in Gaudium et Spes, a document that I used to find confusing, but now find increasingly encouraging.  (Not sure if this means that it was ahead of its time, or that I'm returning to childhood Kumbaya experiences in my dotage.  :D) The surrounding passage relates to education, and it made me think of EFL, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and those "people of good will" in the early recreation movement.   I thought you all might like it as well. 

 

"30.  (...) For the more unified the world becomes, the more plainly do the offices of men extend beyond particular groups and spread by degrees to the whole world. But this development cannot occur unless individual men and their associations cultivate in themselves the moral and social virtues, and promote them in society; thus, with the needed help of divine grace men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity can be forthcoming.

 

31.  In order for individual men to discharge with greater exactness the obligations of their conscience toward themselves and the various groups to which they belong, they must be carefully educated to a higher degree of culture through the use of the immense resources available today to the human race. Above all the education of youth from every social background has to be undertaken, so that there can be produced not only men and women of refined talents, but those great-souled persons who are so desperately required by our times."

Edited August 2, 2016 by ElizaG

[marisolstice]

Does anyone want to discuss object lessons? And Pestalozzi? 

I just read the object lesson chapter in Bookless Lessons, and got very excited because it is something that can involve all my kids, and I thought it might improve their nature journals (when using natural objects.) We just happened to bring home a salamander on our weekend hike, so today I gathered the five older kids and used it as the object. And it was great! They all observed it very closely, made connections to other amphibians, talked about habitat and camouflage and gills...and their drawings afterward were much more detailed than usual. Even the two year old could count the toes and say how it felt when he held it.

 

And that chapter reminded me of Pestalozzi--does anyone know if EFL was influenced by him? Her emphasis on training the senses makes me think so, but maybe he had just influenced everyone by then. I remember reading about object lessons in the Eclectic Manual of Methods, but it doesn't give as explicit detail as EFL in how to do them.

[marisolstice]

Also, I can't really get into memorizing Hiawatha, but this term I decided we would all memorize 12 verses from Isaiah (usually I assign the older kids their own individual passages), and we would discuss each word or phrase as we memorized. So sort of in the same vein but using different literature. And the little kids are learning it just as fast as the big kids. I like it so far...one week into it :)

 

[Tress]

It works out to just over 3 hours a day of teaching, which is more than I'm doing now. Through high-powered analysis of possible reasons for this discrepancy, it occurred to me that I'll have more students, and they'll all be doing more work. :001_rolleyes: So, no room for wasted time, or clutter getting in the way of a smoothly running schedule.

I haven't had a 3 hour teaching day in years, sigh. Reading and rereading EFL did help me shave off an hour each day, so now I no longer need to start at 6:15 with dd12. Which is good, I can use the time for self-ed.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Tress

[ElizaG]

Pestalozzi was very influential, and it's highly likely that EFL was also directly familiar with his writings, though her recommendations are different from his in many places.   The title of one set of her newspaper columns -- "How Florence's Children are Taught" -- seems to be an acknowledgement of the significance of his book, How Gertrude Teaches her Children.

 

There's a bit of discussion about object lessons in an "EFL language arts" thread that ltlmrs started on the Curriculum board.   Also some links about Pestalozzi - not directly EFL-related - in an old thread about Grube's Arithmetic.

 

They're both big subjects, but feel free to bring up any aspects you find interesting.  :001_smile:

[LostintheCosmos]

Time for a back-to-school EFL update from the LostCove homestead. Shortly after worrying in some thread around here somewhere about adequately meeting my 8yo's "second plane" needs, my 5yo suddenly decided she wanted reading lessons and arithmetic work. So we are currently in a bizarrely consistent daily lesson routine with very little effort on my part. Rampaging toddler and a meddling 3yo aside, I think we're all really enjoying it! 

 

8yo is continuing with EFL arithmetic lessons, 5yo has just started those, and together we're studying "The Wreck of the Hesperus." We generally read a new stanza one day (I write it up on the white board), discussing vocabulary, explaining references, looking at etymology, maybe discussing some grammar, whatever we need to be sure we all understand the piece. So, for example, yesterday's stanza had us looking up "helm" in the dictionary because we thought maybe it was the front of the ship, but actually it's the steering wheel, defining "veering" complete with demonstration by bicyle, discussing the etymology of "flaw" (Old Norse), clarifying what was being blown and where it came from, reviewing compass points and wind direction, learning what a nor'easter is, and identifying New England on our wall map. The only thing I prepped ahead of time was looking up "flaw," since I knew that wouldn't be in our children's dictionary.

 

The 8yo then does each line as copywork for the next few days, and then we move on to the next stanza. One thing we have stopped doing for the moment is a formal recitation of the poetry we're studying...I have mixed feelings about that, but everyone seems to be memorizing well enough just with what we are doing - even the 3yo, who doesn't usually sit in on these lessons, drew a picture today and told me it was a wintry sea.

 

Interestingly, since increasing our lesson time and his schoolwork expectations, my oldest has been spending more of his free time with his siblings in imaginative play again rather than always having his nose in a book. Looking forward to the weather cooling off so we can spend more time outside again and move back to doing more observation lessons. 

 

I'm also playing around with adding some more "content subject" stuff to our week, not everyday. I got BFSU and we've done a few of those lessons, but I'm still trying to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. Same with Latin (using I Speak Latin - the kids do really enjoy it and ask for more frequent lessons). And I've finally made the art supplies more accessible, so there's been a lot more art happening, and a little bit of handcrafts. Chores continue, as do my efforts to include the kids more in my own work. Reading the Rogoff back at the beginning of the summer has helped me with that a bit. I still think our environment is getting in our way and could be simpler, but I'm also starting to think that maybe it's just me and that I'd still feel that way in a monk's cell as long as there were also four children in there with me.  :001_rolleyes: So we'll just keep muddling through on that.

 

I've been musing a lot about notebooks - Hunter posted some helpful thoughts elsewhere recently on notebooking, and I reread what EFL writes about notebooks, poked around the internet a bit looking at Waldorf main lesson books and Principles Approach-style notebooking, and am finally reading Dom Leclerq's book The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, in which he makes the point that, in general, medieval commentaries were written for the benefit of the writer himself (or at most a small community around him) - they were personal exercises as he read and contemplated a text. This all has really deepened my ideas about how writing and annotating aids the digestion of a piece of literature. So everyone got a color-coded binder at the beginning of the year - we'll see how our use of them evolves as a lot of our work is still oral at this point. For now, the binders contain required copywork and arithmetic lessons and any other freely-chosen work that relates to our studies. 

 

My kindle died and I don't like reading on my tablet or computer, so my consumption of vintage education books has temporarily declined. Trying to hold out until Christmas to ask for a new one, but we'll see if I make it. 

 

Lastly, an item we've been using lately that I don't think we came up with for our list of home reference library volumes: historical atlases. 

Edited August 31, 2016 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

Thanks for the update, LostCove.   It sounds as though your literary studies are really coming together.  :001_smile:

 

I think I'm finally finished launching my eldest into secondary mode.  The last step was to figure out how electronics fit in to our homeschool, both as a tool, and as the subject of recreational (and occasionally useful) tinkering.  This has taken even more attention than I thought it would.  At every turn, there's been some pull to set aside one or more of our values, and either give in to some trend we're not happy about, or restrict the children's ability to do things that we think would be worthwhile at their age.   But EFL, the McLuhans, and Fr. Jaki helped keep me on track.  

 

Among other things, we now have a family computer that's equipped with some useful software and hardware, but no Internet and only a couple of simple and non-addictive games, so the older children can use it with no concerns (apart from accidentally trashing the system, which has already happened once :001_rolleyes: ).  Anything found online has to be downloaded to my laptop and transferred onto this machine by hand, but that has an unexpected benefit, in that it makes us think multiple times about whether or not we need it.   Much of the time, we really don't.   And it's usually the child who points this out, which is sort of embarrassing, but also heartening. 

 

I'm hoping we can work together on some of the scanning projects I've been putting off, so I can share them with y'all.   :001_smile:  

[LostintheCosmos]

Oh, I've been wanting to talk about computer technology, etc, in the EFL-ish home, so I'm glad you mentioned all that, ElizaG. My eldest is like a moth to the flame whenever we are around other kids with screens, so I know we need to get a little more proactive about this - probably starting with a honest look at what I'm modeling...  :blushing:

 

And I am really enjoying our literature studies! My idea is that we'll continue in this way for another two years or so, and then, when the 8yo is a 10yo, do some formal grammar and start Latin in earnest. But we'll see.

Edited September 1, 2016 by LostCove

[ElizaG]

OrdinaryShoes, I think that's at the core of what EFL was getting at.   Our family culture is the foundation of our children's education, whether or not they're schooled at home.

 

Also, even if the school isn't ideal, at least you're doing your part to improve the system.   More than once, I've spoken to people who started small private schools, and ended up closing, not due to lack of paying students, but because they couldn't find enough students whose behavior and media habits weren't a bad influence on the school culture.   Teachers in public and parochial schools also have to deal with this, although for them, it affects the calibre of the work they can do with the class, more than whether or not the school continues to exist. 

 

Note that the PTA, in its early years (when EFL was involved), was focused on helping parents to raise and educate their own children.  It was clearly understood that this provided the foundation for school learning, and that it was by far the most important thing the parents could do to help the schools.   This is written over and over in the literature of the time.  It's remarkable how far removed it is from most current ideas about "supporting the school."  

[ElizaG]

New thread:

 

Ella Frances Lynch thread #2

 

Please put any replies there.  Looking forward to seeing you!  :001_smile: