Iron-Hearted Violet

The walls were filled with color and the room smelled like school.

Book boxes lined the window which looked out at the bus lane and beyond - brand new, color-coded and uniformly filled with a Composition book and some other tidy little Kindergarten writing prep text.  It's like all the boxes were smiling and in chorus saying, 'we have so much to teach you!  you are going to learn so much and we cannot wait to be filled with your emerging thoughts, dreams and ideas!' 


In other words, Benjamin was in good hands and he would surely succeed in his 1/2 day Kindergarten classroom.  I had nothing to worry about - it was my other kids, the home schooled kids, I was now worrying about.


The tables were little, round and clean - each stamped with a tidy collection of pencils, glue sticks, scissors, etc. inside a craft tote.  Oh, you know, EXACTLY what a child might need at any moment during a daily math lesson or craft project -- efficient.  Efficient keeps eluding me with her quick ways and fair weather friendship - she's only here when I have time for her and goes away whenever I turn my back to help with a lesson, walk a dog, do laundry, make lunch, scrub dishes, handle arguments.  In the moment I feel as though Efficient is just one in a long line of folk who think I should probably take a lesson and send the kids to school... NORMAL school.

Normal school: where the Common Core has been mapped out and neatly organized into a 170 lessons and 10 exams -- each with their own software program to chart the child's progress which is then saved somewhere in space and uploaded to every university in the world.  A software program that pinpoints every struggle of each child in each subject and spins you off onto a supplementary track so that your child still meets standards on June 12, 2014.  Ready for the upcoming year.

There's a blog about it.

In this little world in my brain, the kids are smiling while they read... whizzing through math whilst giggling with the girls next to them and walking up front to have the teacher take a quick look:

100% BAM!

They show up proud and confident although not all of them get chosen for kickball because where does that actually happen?  For real.  The kids learn how to be kids but kick ass academically.

Because they're in a school.  A NORMAL school.

Even though I know Kate is struggling in some core subjects, she'd be in such better hands were she in a system that was closely monitoring her every spelling, her fluency, her WPM and her fast facts for math -- it would just be better.  With where I see things right now, we'd need to choose curriculum here at home that is under her grade level and start building up -- it would be a lot of time wasted from her third grade year and maybe we wouldn't even meet the proper standards by the end of the year... so what am I doing?!  Thinking I can school my kids!  Harumph... it's too much work.  Too much slowing down to repeat basic concepts -- just give her a class and a teacher and I'll supplement at home.  We need to hurry this learning process up!  I'll begin praying about how to transition from what I thought was a good idea into what is a better idea...

DONE. 

... but ohhhhhh how my heart longs to school my kids here at home.  WEIRD and sad... cause I can't.  I feel like I keep going back to square one -- I didn't like the Language Arts that arrived in the mail today so I'll send it back for a refund... I loved the one that just happened to be on the shelf at a curriculum consignment store this afternoon but it doesn't address all the Common Core so that's bogus.  Right?  Back to square one... 

In my concern and self-doubt, I began reading articles on how to assess the proper reading level for your child at home.  

If she reads smoothly, makes no errors or just a couple of errors in reading the words, and can tell you about what she read, then the book is probably at a "just right" level for her. If her reading sounds choppy, she struggles to read words, or she does not understand what she has read, try an easier book. 

This was GREAT for me to read -- I had handles on how to address Katie and how I believed she was trying too hard to read above her reading level.

Katie and I sat on the couch this evening and she read aloud her favorite book -- Iron-Hearted Violet.  She sounded choppy, she struggled to read words and I was certain she wouldn't be able to repeat back to me what had happened.  So then we grabbed a Magic Tree House book and she read very well.  We talked, er, I talked, about needing to find books that would encourage her reading more fluently which would then, in turn, bring greater rewards in the end!  She glared at me and quickly walked away to her room... I called her back and invited her to sit in my lap.  She began to tell me, through tears, that it was embarrassing that EVERYONE can read better than her.  That her friends were reading books at a 4th and 5th grade reading level like Iron-Hearted Violet and she's always in the other group reading Kindergarten books... that she feels dumb and HATES reading Magic Tree House books because it reminds her that she's just not (sniff) that good.  She's frustrated that William was reading chapter books before her and that it just doesn't make sense that she can't pick up Iron-Hearted Violet and start reading...

and that's when I thought... 'and that she has to go back to the basics'.  

As I sat and talked with her gently and lovingly about her reading level, I was careful not to praise her for how good she was in other areas because I didn't want to attribute some intrinsic value to being 'ahead of the game'.  She's already got the idea that the world's perspective matters and I didn't need to feed that fire -- she cried and said pathetically, 'I'll probably be reading at a 4th grade level even after I'm done with 5th grade'.  I wanted to grab her shoulders and exclaim, 'no!  Katie-bug!  You're so smart, Love!  You will be just fine...' attributing, once again, some perverse value on meeting standards that God never laid on her heart.

 

I kissed her forehead and smiled when she looked me in the eyes... 'maybe you will.  Who cares?  Eternally speaking, Katie-bug, NONE of this matters... NONE.  None.  When we get to Heaven and we're worshiping at the throne of God, He is not going to care about your reading level... 

and THAT is why we chose that I would be your teacher this year.'

THERE IT WAS.  I had said it... and God has whispered it to me.  

Krista, stop reading Iron-Hearted Violet, if you will, and throttle back -- teach them as I'm leading you and trust that it will be the best education they receive this year... go slow and don't try to meet a standard that I haven't put in front of you.  Don't teach your child through your actions that there's some reason for feeling less than who I've created you to be... where you are is just fine and with discipline and excellence IN YOUR OBEDIENCE you will succeed.

So here I am this evening... looking back at the beautiful little book I bought off the consignment store shelf tonight and getting jazzed.  It is simple and beautiful and mixed with the spelling curriculum created for this year it just might work as I'd fleetingly imagined it working...

Perfectly.