Limitations and Confidence

I had one of those conversations today that got me thinking about limitations and confidence. As I contemplate my ongoing work as a teacher (in the midst of parenting, ministry, and writing) I often struggle to find the distinctions between knowing and acknowledging my real limitations and simply lacking confidence.

Does anyone else have anything in their life that they feel this way about?

I got into teaching very much through the back door. I’ve never been trained as a teacher; everything I’ve learned as a teacher I’ve learned from experience. I rarely get opportunities for ongoing conversations or professional development that help me grow as a teacher, except in the cracks and crevices of an ongoing learning life of my own.

And these days, I seem to be teaching everywhere: as a homeschooling parent, as a children’s ministry worker, as a graduate school adjunct, as a teacher for an online diocesan lay institute, as a curriculum developer and writer. There’s almost no part of my life that isn’t suffused with teaching of one sort or another, and this past year I literally worked with students as young as three on up through retirement age. The fact that the door keeps opening for me to teach leads me to believe…I hope, I pray….that it’s a calling I’m supposed to be embracing.

I love teaching. There are parts of it I know I do well. There are other parts I know I don’t do so well, sometimes due to lack of time – time to read, think, process, discuss, experiment, grow, pay attention, check out new scholarship. Other lacks that frustrate me at times are lacks in financial resources and decent technology. There are other parts I know I don’t do so well because I just don’t do them well. I don’t know if I could ever develop certain skills as a teacher because I’m not sure I am gifted in certain areas. Like most teachers (I guess?) I try to build on my strengths.

But there are times when I am called upon for a teaching project when I find myself standing in front of it, feeling so unsure if I am adequate to the task, and not always knowing if it’s just me being tired and overwhelmed and lacking confidence, or me coming up against a real wall because I just don’t have the brain and the gifts needed to go any further. This is not intended to be some sort of false humility, by the way. I’m serious about the fact that I sometimes feel very limited as a scholar and teacher, especially when it comes to my work in formal academia.

I don’t mean to be navel gazing. It might sound like that’s what I’m doing, but I honestly wrestle with this question, which becomes a question of practical import when I’m trying to decide which projects to take on and how to approach them. It may not be popular to talk about limitations, but I sometimes need to face the fact that I have them – both tangible and intangible ones. I don’t like the fact that lack of confidence is sometimes part and parcel of the limitations I face, but I suspect it often is. Trying to detangle all that is difficult. Sometimes I retreat and sometimes I take the plunge; sometimes I serve my students better than others. 

Grateful for opportunities, but I do confess sometimes I wish I could put my energies into one or two places, at most, and really dig in wholeheartedly and deepen in those places. Given the current season of our lives and our family's needs, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, which means I need to keep on learning to do as well as I can putting together the myriad small pieces that make up the mosaic of my working and creative life.  And being as faithful as I can to do them well, even when I can't give some of them the attention they deserve.

Middle School Reading: Then and Now (Or Old Books and New)

An interesting post hit my FB page earlier today, with a link to this list of middle school reading in Minnesota today and Minnesota of 1908. (And all Betsy-Tacy fans will almost immediately think, "Margaret Ray would have been in middle school just a few years after this!")

The accompanying article, which I confess I only had time to skim, addressed the significant differences in the time periods, thematic elements, and reading levels addressed by the books in question. Under time period, she was chiefly pointing out that the 1908 list didn't hesitate to recommend reading to students that had been published 50-100 years before, while the current list mostly features contemporary work of the past 20 years.

While I think the article makes some valid and important points, especially on reading levels and on our current trepidation about giving young people older books, I think the discussion could be even more fruitful if we allowed ourselves to notice that at least some of the contemporary books appear to contain literature that provides some cultural perspective beyond Anglo-American. I agree with the writer of the article that we need to give our young people literature that helps them understand the foundation of the United States and of western civilization. (And I totally agree we need to give them language and sentence structures that challenge them.)

Without addressing the merits of the individual books in question on either list (some of which I know pretty well, and others I don't know at all) wouldn't it be wonderful if we could both give them the foundational literature of our country and culture and the more contemporary literature that tries to broaden our understanding of the complexities of American history, the riches of the American melting pot, and the responsibilities and joys of global citizenship? Just a thought, but wouldn't having the grounding in foundational American and English literature prepare them to better read (and appreciate in context) some of the literature that is being produced in the English-speaking world today?

Seems to me that we would all be well-served by C.S. Lewis' idea of varying our reading diet to include three old books for every new one (not a challenge I always meet, but one I appreciate). If you haven't ever read Lewis' Introduction to Athansius's On the Incarnation, where he explains this idea and the reasons behind it, it is well worth your time. In fact, the whole book is worth your time, and one of those delightful exercises in reading something "relatively new" (the Lewis introductory essay) and then something very old, the Athanasius work. As someone who has sometimes questioned my own ability to read, comprehend, and absorb older literature, I occasionally read Lewis to bolster my courage and enthusiasm. He helps me want to dive and dive deep, even if I end up getting in over my head. (Was it Karl Barth who once used the metaphor of surfing to describe reading theology? It sometimes feels just about that vigorous!)

The Roar on the Other Side

The seventh day of school found me wanting to shake things up a bit by adding some poetry into the mix. I’m pretty much always wanting to add in poetry (reading it, writing it) but these days S’ schedule is so packed, it can be hard to do. I hit upon the idea of tying a writing exercise into eating, and we did it over lunch.

I’ve long been excited about Suzanne U. Clark’s book The Roar on the Other Side: A Guide for Student Poets. I didn’t buy it, originally, as a homeschool book. I bought it because I consider myself a student poet. I’ve read it and enjoyed its prompts, meditations on the poetic arts, and great collection of poems for several years. When it dawned on me that it might be a good year to incorporate some of it into our home learning, I got quite excited.

One of the first “stepping stone” exercises that Clark includes in her first chapter, which has to do with the importance of noticing/seeing, is to write a journal entry describing an ordinary piece of fruit. I love these kinds of exercises that compel you to look at something “common” that you’ve seen a thousand times, but to look at it thoughtfully, slowly, and carefully, using all your senses. That’s what S. and I did at the lunch table with a peach today. We called it “mindful eating,” and by the time we were done, we not only each had a journal entry and a poem draft (S. really wanted to go on and play with writing a poem based on her descriptive notes) but we’d thoroughly and completely enjoyed all the juicy slices of that peach.

I’d almost forgotten that we had a small peach tree in my backyard for a number of years when I was growing up. Smelling and holding the peach, I let my mind wander to associations, and suddenly I recalled the golden color of the knobby bark and the smell of ripened peaches in the grass (we never seemed to harvest many, since the squirrels beat us to them).

I love how such a thoughtful exercise can be so many things at once: a break for hearts and minds in the middle of a busy day, a lesson in observing and writing, nourishing time spent together, food for the soul.

The Changing Shape of Church History (Notes on Intro)

Several years ago I read a little book by Justo Gonzalez that felt like a real conversation changer for me. It was called The Changing Shape of Church History. Conversation changers are what I call those books that shape my thinking enough that I begin to talk about things differently than I used to. This book has not just changed the way I've thought about church history, and the church in the world today, but how I've taught it.

I have gone back to parts of this book so many times that I've decided to re-read it, but this time through I want to take notes. Yesterday I dove back into the introduction, so thought I would post my notes on that today. I'm summarizing, but also adding some of my own thoughts and glosses as I go.

• In the introduction, Gonzalez makes the claim that "the entire field of church history is changing" (2) and then says, someone is bound to ask, "how is it possible for the past to change?" (2)
• He makes the obvious but important (and I think often overlooked) point that "history is not the same as the past. The past is never directly accessible to us. The past comes to us through the mediation of interpretation. And that interpreted past is history." (2)
• He provides the useful image of a dialogue. When we speak with another person, that person is not directly accessible to us. We have their "words, gestures, and tones" (2) and we receive those things and interpret what they are attempting to communicate. When we are in an authentic dialogue, we do our best to respect the "givenness" of the other person's words. But we also have no choice but to "hear and interpret those words" from our own perspective, which is shaped and colored by our own unique experiences. Dialogue is really impossible, he points out, and yet we engage in it all the time -- and it forms the basis of our social life. (Just think about the last time you tried to have a meaningful "conversation" on Facebook, minus all the visual and body language clues he just referenced, and think about how hard real dialogue can be!)
• Now that you have the image of a dialogue firmly in mind, "think about history as a dialogue. It is a dialogue in which it is not only the past that addresses us, but also we who address the past." (2) In other words, we're not passive observers -- we speak with the past, we ask it questions. And the answers we get from it depend in large part on what we're asking. 
• So it makes sense to realize that church history changes, as the church itself changes.
• History is pertinent "not that it is what happened in the past, but rather that it is what happened in the past as seen from our present and toward the future we imagine." (3) (Keep that one in mind -- and think how, as the people of God, we're called to live faithfully in the present, inspired and encouraged and deeply connected to the past, as we walk boldly into the future that God has not only imagined for us, but the future he can actually bring to pass.)
• So why is the history of the church changing? You might think it's just because "scholars have new sources" (3) but there's more to it than that. It's because "the church and the world are changing. And these are changes that we can only begin to understand as we look at them in historical perspective." (3)
• He goes on to highlight changes seen in the world around the time of 9/11 (which happened a few months before he penned this intro...the book was published in 2002). 9/11 reminded us the map of the world was changing. 9/11 revealed to us the shared vulnerability of humankind, even in places/centers of power which we might have thought were invulnerable. As we reflected on what happened, we also became aware "that the world is not really as secular as Western modernity had thought, that many nations are no longer culturally or religiously homogeneous, that events in the past that many of us did not consider important still have great power to shape the future" (4).
• And changes in the way world history is perceived and written about will also have an impact on how we think and write about the history of the church. 

More notes to come.

Two Movements: Into and Out of the Sanctuary

This week I have my students thinking and writing about the different ways the Anglican church engaged the culture in the 19th century. The Oxford Movement, with its emphasis on the "church gathered" and the importance of gathering in worship to "be the church," sometimes had reservations about the Evangelical movement and its commitment to social action, the way it was "being the church" within the world. (This would be the second generation of the Evangelical revival, folks like Wilberforce and his Clapham friends.)

The distinction drawn, for the sake of the question, is purposefully overdrawn for the sake of compelling thought and discussion. Of course the higher church folk often engaged the culture "in the world" in specific ways, and of course the Evangelicals didn't cease to gather in worship to remember who they were. It's more a matter of emphasis, of looking at where each found its firmest understanding of who they were and where they stood. But it's a good question and a perennial one: what does it mean to be church, and how do we best relate to the world around us with fresh gospel energy?

So during my morning quiet time, when I came across this passage in Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book, I just had to chuckle:
 

 "The task of liturgy is to order the life of the holy community following the text of Holy Scripture. It consists of two movements. First it gets us into the sanctuary, the place of adoration and attention, listening and receiving and believing before God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives ordered to all aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus.

Then it gets us out of the sanctuary into the world into places of obeying and loving, ordering our lives as living sacrifices in the world to the glory of God.  There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives out on the street participating in the work of salvation."

Two movements. Into the sanctuary, out of the sanctuary. Both involving the same kinds of actions: listening, loving, obeying, believing, ordering, giving God glory. Both involving all parts of us. Amen. Yes.

Psalms ~ For All Ages

Tomorrow we kick off a new year of Sunday School in our parish. I'm the point person for Sunday School this year, and D. and I jointly teach the pre-K/kindergarten and elementary grades. What that means is that, on a Sunday when enough of the pre-k/kindergarten age kids are there, I take them off to do the Bible storytelling time separately from the older elementary age, and then we all come back together for our missions moment, prayer time, and snack time. Since we're a small congregation, there are some Sundays when we don't have enough kids to do separate classes, and then we keep them all together the whole time -- though it's always a challenge with the little ones needing more wiggle time than the rest.

It keeps me on my toes knowing that I might, on any given Sunday, need to do the Bible lesson for 4 and 5 year olds. They have a whole different level of understanding as well as attention. It happens to be one of my favorite age groups to work with, so I welcome the challenge! I also find the preparation is often good for my own heart. Sometimes shaping the truths of the Scriptures in their simplest terms is not just what the little ones need. It's what I need.

And since we're working our way through the Bible with the kids over a few year period, I sometimes find myself faced with shaping a lesson on a portion of the Bible that not many packaged curricula for this age group tend to touch. A case in point -- this year we're kicking off with five weeks on the Psalms. My dear D., always so thoughtful when it comes to shaping the lessons for the older kids, has divided our focus over the weeks into the wisdom psalms, hymns, lament psalms, royal/Messianic psalms, and thanksgiving psalms.

So I find myself thinking through how to pull this into manageable, teachable pieces for the little guys, and here's what I've come up with:

~Staying on God's path/living God's way
~Praising God
~Telling God when we're sad
~Knowing God is our king
~Saying thank you to God

And really, when you think about it, aren't all five of those pieces part and parcel of the Psalms and of our lives as Christians? If we choose the wise way, not the foolish way, if we remember that God is worthy of our praise no matter what our circumstances and actively praise him, if we're honest before God and pour out our hearts when we're sad or lonely or afraid, if we remember that we serve the King of the universe (and nothing or no one else) and bow our hearts to him, and if we try to live each day as gratefully as we can, remembering to thank him for all he is and does -- well, that's a pretty good grounding for our spiritual lives, isn't it?

The poem I wrote and posted here yesterday, by the way, is very much a lament Psalm. I am tired and stressed and worn out on a lot of levels right now, in some deeper ways than I have ever felt those things before. But you know, it was good to bring my heart before the King and tell him what was on my heart. I learned how to do that from reading and loving and praying the Psalms.

And the Psalms, the prayer book of the community of faith, are not just for mid-life folks like me. They're for the little ones too.

Pondering Teaching Literature in Mid-Grade Years: Part 1

Ten days from the start of the sweet girl's fifth grade year, I find myself pondering -- a lot -- a subject I would have suspected I'd spend very little time contemplating: how to effectively teach literature in the middle grades.

I love literature. It was one of my majors in college, and I've been a bookworm almost since before I can remember (I learned to read very early, and have only one vague recollection of not knowing how to read). I have read to the sweet girl pretty much every day of her life. Our house is full of books. Her dad loves to read, I love to read, she loves to read. She is also beginning to love writing stories, perhaps at least in part because I do too -- and we've spent a lot of time talking about how stories work. We are a story kind of family. I would have told you I had this literature thing down cold -- that it was something I didn't have to think about because reading and loving literature is just a natural part of the way we live.

That's all still true. I do think the most natural way to teach an appreciation and understanding of literature is, quite simply, to a) read a lot, and b) talk a lot about what you love to read. This natural way of teaching and learning is part of why I'm drawn to the Charlotte Mason method of education, which pretty much promotes that kind of learning across the curriculum. Learning is part of life. Approaching it in a natural way fuels learning passions and just plumb makes sense.

So I fully agree with the sentiments in articles like this one, which does a nice job of laying out, simply and clearly, the Charlotte Mason approach to teaching literature. And that is basically like the CM approach to teaching most things: read lots of living books (no twaddle) and then have your children narrate what they learn. Though this discussion of teaching literature adds two tweaks I appreciate: the fact that many books are simply read for enjoyment, not primarily for discussion/narration, and that narration can and should be shaped differently for older students. I think it's that last that I find myself pondering.

What I find myself musing about is the balance between teaching literature the natural way and yet providing my daughter with good tools for beginning analysis of literature -- both the mechanics and literary elements of good writing, and a way of learning to discern deeper meaning in the text. The one thing I don't want to do is turn literature into a dreaded subject by making analysis a heavy lifting exercise, the kind that turns books into chores or into "things" to be decoded. I always think of Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry" when I think about the way some of us have been taught to 'read', especially the ending:

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

(You can read the whole poem here.)  While I think it takes a lot of time and practice for a student to get to the place where they feel a need to "torture a confession" out of a piece of writing, that's the place where I don't want any student I teach to ultimately end up!

But back to my main reflection. I believe that works of art have inherent, intended, and sometimes even non-intended meaning -- and that the deeper layers of meaning are there for us to find and ponder. That's true of any good work of literature, be it written for children or adults. And while it's true that some works of literature don't require us to "go deeper" to fully enjoy them, many of the best ones do. So part of my job as a teacher of literature is to help students unpack those layers by giving them the knowledge and tools to dig and discern. I also think, as readers/learners get older, it can become an enjoyable thing to be able to see how a writer did something. That may be especially true if you enjoy writing -- because you find yourself beginning to understand the tricks of the trade and to appreciate more deeply the craft it takes to shape a piece of writing.

I've been reading a little book called Deconstructing Penguins where the authors, who travel around to libraries and schools promoting book discussions involving kids and parents, suggest that one way of teaching younger children literary elements/devices is to help them become "book detectives." They suggest teaching children (and they work with kids as young as second grade) elements such as protagonist/antagonist, setting, crisis/conflict/climax, theme, and point of view. They further suggest that an effective way to do so is to help kids understand those elements through discussion of particularly chosen stories, where they're guided to look for "clues" and "evidence" about the "message" of a given book and whether or not an author plays fair and writes honestly. They invite kids to figure out what a book is really "about," and they show, through reporting some of their groups' findings/experiences, some of the creative discussions this method of teaching has engendered.

On the one hand, I'm intrigued by this idea. What kid doesn't love a mystery or enjoy playing detective? There's a playfulness about the approach that I think probably helps it be effective (and from their reporting, I sense they manage to keep the discussions pretty open-ended, not always expecting everyone to come to consensus/agreement). On the other hand, the metaphor does lend itself to the idea of a book, like a mystery, being something that needs "solving" -- as though one could find the footprints and the cigarette ash on the ground and know these things will lead, without a doubt, to a "right" conclusion. (We know how the great Hercule Poirot feels about that idea!) As much as I've enjoyed reading the recaps of their discussions, I think the weakest chapter in the book so far has been the one that should be strongest, where they present their "book detective" approach. The writers themselves seem to realize, even if they don't say it aloud, that there's something intuitively more to discerning meaning than a mere connecting the dots. I think their approach shows better through their discussion recaps than it does through their attempts to explain how it works. 

So...not sure I'm up for the book detective idea, at least not entirely, though I appreciate their insights into the various literary elements, which they explain simply and well on an elementary/late elementary learning level. (Especially good is their discussion of protagonist/antagonist, where they deepen our perception of those terms from simple good guy/bad guy to character trying to push the action forward/character trying to hold the action back. I like the way they emphasize the movement of a story here and elsewhere.)

For the purposes of our learning life together this year, I think an easier and more natural approach will be to simply present literary elements pretty straightforwardly, as ways that help us understand both a story's meaning and art on a deeper level. Some of this, I realize, I've already taught without realizing fully I was teaching it -- just through discussions we've had about books as a family, and perhaps more so through the discussions we've had about the book I'm writing. The sweet girl has a good grasp of the concept of point of view and has even played with using different points of view in her own story-writing. She has begun to ask intrigued questions about certain words that have come up in our book conversations. The other day she wanted me to explain what I meant by "sub-plot" (I had used the word in reference to something we'd been reading in one of the Trixie Belden books). I fumbled around a bit on the spur of the moment, but she must have gotten it. The next day she walked in with her beloved Penderwicks on Gardam Street in hand and announced she had figured out that the main plot was the "Saving Daddy" plan and the subplot was the "Sisters and Sacrifice" play that Jane wrote for Skye. I found that a pretty astute assessment of plot and sub-plot in that particular story! 

I guess what I'm getting at is that many literary elements have come up naturally as we discuss stories we've read and stories we're writing, and I'd like to find a way to tap into that natural learning to make it a little more intentional and explicit. I've thought of having a literary element of the month and using it as a lens to explore whatever books we're reading together as a family (which would likely influence my choice of when we read certain books this year). 

I've been looking for some books and resources that might help me play with this idea and have found at least a couple that look potentially helpful. This post has already gotten very long, so I think I'll save those ideas for part 2.

Summertime...and the Livin' is...Busy?

I know, I know, it's supposed to be easy!

Our summertime schedules rolled into town with a vengeance this week. Beginning of AYI Arts Camp (D. directing, S. attending), seminary homecoming (time with friends old and new), and the Ancient Wisdom Anglican Futures conference (check it out here). Our brains, hearts, and bodies are all on overload, but in a good way.

I'm far too scattered this morning to do a cohesive post (heck, it took me three tries to spell cohesive) so I'll just jot a couple of random links and thoughts.

I found myself quite thoughtful this morning over this piece by Timothy Keller. I'm really coming to love his writing. This article seems to get at something I've been thinking toward for years, but have never quite found a way to articulate: how the way of Jesus offers us a "third way" of being in the world and understanding family, one which isn't fully defined or understood through either a conservative/traditional or liberal/secular lens. Good food for thought.

Having an opportunity to hear William Harmless, SJ yesterday on Augustine of Hippo and the ancient catechumenate -- what a delight! Since D. and I are tag teaming the conference this week, he heard part 1 of the lecture and I heard part 2. We agreed we didn't have time to exchange notes last night, but ended up talking about it for twenty minutes anyway, as tired as we were.

Listen to this wonderful quote from Augustine's De doctrina christiana, on the "three aims of preaching":

"A certain man of eloquence has said -- and said rightly -- that an eloquent person should speak in such a way that he 'teaches, delights, and persuades,' adding: 'To teach is a necessity, to delight makes it enjoyable, and to persuade is a triumph' (Cicero, Orator 69). Of these three aims, the one mentioned first, that is, the necessity of teaching, shapes what we say; the other two shape how we say it. So the one who speaks with the aim of teaching should not think he has spoken to the person he wishes to teach so long as he has not been understood. Although he has verbalized what he himself understands, he should not consider that he has really spoken -- really communicated -- if the one listening to him has not really understood."

And on the "Evangelist as Tour Guide" (love this thought) Augustine writes:

"Now if we feel disgusted because we are so often repeating things geared to the little ones, familiar things, let us equip ourselves with a brother's or a father's or a mother's love, and by linking our hearts to theirs, those things will again seem new to us. For so great is this feeling of compassion that when people are touched by us as we speak and we by them as they learn, we each dwell in the other, and so it is as if they speak in us what they hear while we, in some way, learn in them what it is we teach. Isn't it quite common that when we show certain beautiful, spacious locales, whether in town or out in the countryside, to those who have never seen them before, we who have been in the habit of passing them by without any enjoyment find our own delight renewed by their delight at the novelty of it all? And how much more enjoyable the closer our friendship, because as we come together more and more through this bond of love, what had gotten old becomes new to us all over again. But if we have some progress in contemplative matters, we do not wish those who are learning from us simply to enjoy and be amazed when they gaze upon human handiwork, but we want them to enjoy and be amazed by the deeper design and underlying purpose of the Artist himself and, from there, soar up in admiration and in praise of the All-creating God, where the richest fruitfulness of his love finds its endpoint. How much more ought we to rejoice when people now approach to learn of God Himself, for whatever things we learn, we learn to learn of God; and how much more ought we to be renewed in their newness, so that if our preaching, now a routine, has cooled off, it may again catch fire because of our hearers."

Amazingly good stuff (all from Fr. Harmless translation Augustine in His Own Words published last year by Catholic University of America Press). My teacher heart needs this, on all sorts of levels...I hope to have time to ruminate and write more about it later. For now, just passing on a little bit of ancient treasure.

The Bible and Children

An interesting post over at titusonenine on "Teaching Children the Bible".

I especially found this bit thought-provoking:

"...when we commit something to memory, it sinks deep and often resurfaces in surprising ways to meet new situations. Biblical fragments (”knit together in my mother’s womb,” “her price is far above rubies,” “plans for your welfare and not for harm”) happily can grow with us, providing both a touchstone to the past and points of connection to new people and new meanings. We stuff our memories with so many things (lyrics to Sesame Street songs, Santa’s reindeer), why worry about adding the names of the apostles and the words of Psalm 23 to the mix?

Those biblical words are, in fact, the common language we speak as Christians, part of the tool kit with which we build ourselves and our communities of faith. If nothing else, the Bible’s existence means that we do not have to start from scratch in building a community of faith. And its infinitely multivocal and multiform self also means that there is plenty of material to work with as we and our communities change. Thinking again about how scripture works, I have become convinced that having a canon matters, not just because the words are uniquely inspired or holy or true, but because this is the core set of stories that we’ve all agreed to share and that have shaped us and our forebears in manifold ways. There are always other stories and always many interpretations, but those who have called themselves Christian for all these years have these characters and plots in common.

Spending time building up that core, then, is essential..." (Nancy Ammerman)

I think some of this could be said even more strongly, but the core of what's here is good and worth reflecting on.

"That rat is sad."

It's been a slow week for blogging...or for anything else. At the end of last week I was busy finishing my essay and attempting to clean my house (note I said attempting) before my sister came in to visit. It was a lovely visit, though too short! She left Sunday, I worked Monday, then got sick (some kind of intestinal bug) and have had two hazy days at home. I think I turned the corner this afternoon, which means back to work tomorrow -- and I'm now way behind on office tasks and extra tired.

I've had to take it easy the past couple of days, but one thing I have done is get back into the routine with the Sweet Girl's reading lessons. We had a couple of weeks where we were only doing the lessons sporadically. I've tried not to be a slave to doing it "every day" especially since she tends to balk if the lessons get too long or too challenging right now. I don't want to force the issue if she's not ready. But I also don't want her to have so much time between lessons that she forgets what we've already gone over. As a result, I've kept the lessons as relaxed as I can, given her breaks on the days it seems like she needs breaks (or when I do!), and sometimes spent time reviewing parts of old lessons before going into new ones. It's worked pretty well.

Today we went over lesson 17 and she read an entire sentence/story: "That rat is sad." This was momentous because it was the first time the words she was reading had spilled over onto a second line (two words on one line, two words on the next) so we were practicing reading left to right on one line, then getting to the end of that line and knowing to go back around to the left for the next line. I think that concept went over fairly well. She likes that these little "stories" (so far only two-four words) have pictures next to them too. We do the sounding out of the words first, and then we look at the pictures and talk about them.

She was able to read the entire sentence on her own except for "that." I just introduced the "th" sound in yesterday's lesson, and she's struggling mightily to say it. I know she often has trouble with consonant blends at the beginning of words ("sp" has always been a huge challenge) but I hadn't realized that she was essentially saying an "f" sound instead of a "th" sound. I've been trying to get her to watch how I hold my tongue, but she's mostly in her "I can't do it!" phase.

In general, she's been so enthusiastic about learning to read, and today was no exception. We celebrated that we finished lesson 17 and she was in a happy mood. Until she realized (looking at the book cover and the size of the book) that there are 100 lessons. Hmmm...the blessings and drawbacks of having an observant child! She got a bit despairing then and told me that she didn't think she really wanted to learn to read after all. I took this with the gigantic shaker of salt that I knew I should -- she's just feeling a bit daunted -- and simply said "But you ARE learning to read...and you did such a good job today! That rat sure looked sad in the rain, didn't he?" And suddenly she was all smiles again.

I'm learning to navigate my daughter's learning weathers. It's an exciting and challenging aspect of my learning too...my learning to be a better, more patient teacher.