Encouragement

Know This About The Challenge Of Annoying People To Avoid Being Derailed Finding God

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

We take libraries for granted.

But think about it for a minute with me for illustration.

So we excitedly sign up for a library card, rubbing our hands with glee. We think, “I am now a MEMBER of a special COMMUNITY!” These people will give us access to tons and tons of books!!

At your request, they will order what they don’t have in the vast building of books from another library.

OH! All of these books are FREE to read and borrow. Who WOULDN’T be excited to be a member of said community?

(Besides people who don’t like books but stay with me for illustrative purposes.)

So we rub our hands with glee, excitedly awaiting a moment to sit in a corner with our favourite snack and a travel adventure.

“Are you a member of the LIBRARY COMMUNITY,” we are asked. We are annoyed. We want to enjoy our free book, which we borrowed from the LIBRARY.

“Sure,” we say, returning to our snack and the next paragraph.

“Oh.” The person nods assent and then sits cross-legged, cross-eyed, cross-limbed, and sticks out their tongue in a strange pose.

We are not interested in this behaviour because we want to return to page 4 of our book.

Then another person, and another, joins the first person, sitting next to them, adopting the same pose, staring cross-eyed at each other.

“Um – what are you doing?” we reluctantly ask.

“Oh, this is what we do at the library,” the person calmly states. She goes back to her pose.

WHAT??? Now, we are baffled, and we have one of three choices.

1. Renounce our library cards. These people are crazy! Of course, we also lose the privileges of ALL those free books . . . OR

2. Stay at the library and join them in the weird poses. After all, it’s only a tiny amount of time, and there are ALL those free books . . . OR

3. This is my recommended choice: We MAINTAIN our library membership, but clearly state that we will not join in the weird cross-eyed poses.

And what is the point of this entire post?

1. A library membership is like belonging to a church.

2. The weird poses are like some aspects of church culture.

3. Do we give up the church simply because a few weird-os are doing a bunch of strange poses – or otherwise having some sub-culture that has NOTHING to do with reading books or, in the case in point, with Jesus?

No.

That’s the answer.

So, let’s fight past the people on the front lawn standing with one leg up and posing in strange ways. Let’s fight past the person wearing a pink unicorn suit.

No – wait – that person is me, and I am reading a book and waiting for you. Unicorn suits are cool.

But don’t let them ruin your enjoyment of reading great books, or – SURPRISE! – of finding Jesus behind that huge library bookshelf. He offers you a hug.

He’s so glad you made it.

How To Save* (Or Destroy?*) Your Marriage – Two Advanced Acronyms

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

We start skiing on the green runs. We start working on our marriage by successfully applying two nonsense words to our marriages. But you are ready for the blue runs, the intermediate terrain.

One blue ski run (or intermediate acronym) for the daring only is:

N.O.C. – This acronym will be defined after describing the proper application of this term.

This acronym is used when your spouse talks about baseball when you aren’t interested in baseball. Or maybe he is discussing the minute details of some problem with the kids that you both SHOULD care about, but you have a headache, and the kids are doing okay, sort of – we all survived another week together. Do we HAVE to talk about this RIGHT NOW?

If this is how you are feeling, try saying this acronym.

N.O.C. means No One Cares.

This acronym is like moderate terrain when skiing because this phrase SHOULD be used sparingly, at least at first.

Are you ready for the black diamond ski run (or advanced acronym)? Here it is:

S.U.Y.A. – Can you guess this one? This phrase should be used VERY sparingly but produces excellent results.**

S.U.Y.A. means Shut Up, You’re Annoying

Use at your discretion only!

The application of this acronym is highly confidential and is to be used by experts only.

Or by (both) spouses who don’t take themselves too seriously.

And that’s the trick.

Know you’re an idiot.

Know your spouse is an idiot.

Move on!

And there you have it, folks – Marriage Class 101.

You’re WELCOME that we have saved you over $150 on a therapist. Oh, and if your spouse hates you after you apply these helpful tips? Well, go back to paragraph one in the initial blog post.

Marriage is a LOT of work, JUST LIKE getting ready to go skiing on the first day of the year.

Maybe pull out your wallet and try an actual therapist, one that can help you.

But that won’t work either unless you know you’re an idiot, you know you have a lot of stuff to be sorry for, you know you should speak less than you listen, and you are thankful that someone still wants to be around you.

Celebrate! You and your spouse made it through another day together! What more do you want? You’re an idiot, remember?

You’re welcome for this marriage advice.

Good luck!

Oh, and I realize this post is not as serious as it could be. And this is a serious topic. Sorry about that. (A bit more) serious advice will be given next time.

In the meantime, let’s pray: God, help us not to take ourselves and our spouses so seriously. Help us, however, to learn to take You more seriously.

How to take God more seriously so that our marriages have an opportunity to flourish will be discussed next time.

And that’s about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure. 

The Message, 2000+ year old text

Blogpost Footnotes

*Results not guaranteed

**Sample size = 1 marriage (Our marriage)

How Death Of This Plant Creates New Life In Us

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The amaryllis is slowing diminishing in size and splendour, and shrinking back to that mysterious place in its pot where life begins.

My amaryllis blossom will be no more very soon.

You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. 

The Message

And like all death, the point is not that there has been a death but that a new season is beginning for those who carry on.

Plants take time to grow. He has time to wait. And though this amaryllis flower has no voice, God spoke quietly, inaudibly to human ears, through the life of this ordinary bulb when it flowered for the first time in twenty years, as described here.

This flower is a megaphone, taking the inaudible sound of the voice of Jesus from deep, deep within the earth and transforming His words into a glorious flower that our eyes can perceive.

The flower has no mouth to magnify the words spoken by God, and yet its life points us to Jesus, to the place in His heart where inaudible sounds are translated to the muffled sounds that we pick up and examine and ask each other to help us translate.

This flower is another clue on the journey.

Are you ready to go on an adventure with me, dear friend, and to try to unpack what God may be whispering through the life of an ordinary plant, one that blooms for as long as we can stare at our watches, unhurried, before it’s life is consumed, once more in darkness?

This flower teaches us how we should live, our lives erupting as a firework from below ground, to just as quickly be extinguished as the fire of our lives burns out, and we return to dust.

And this silent flower has spoken so loudly to my soul that an awakening has occurred deep, deep within. Do you sense it, too? Come with me, friend, on a journey of waking up, sitting up, opening our ears, getting our legs to move and run, and learning to fly.

And as is the case, whenever the most important lessons are to be grasped, we find our most significant clues in the things the world ignores. I sent this plant on its last stop before the garbage dump, not once but twice. I didn’t have patience for the things that required me to be transformed before I could perceive them.

This amaryllis plant became my teacher.

A series of blog posts (if I remember to write them) will describe what this plant taught me so far, including:

1. It’s not our lives that matter, dear friend, and we comfort each other once we have the strength to recognize this truth. And yet, when our lives produce an aroma like fresh bread, that strengthens another, God’s orchestra produced from the instruments of each life overwhelms the darkness. This symbolic orchestra is our hope.

2. Sometimes, God upturns the soil of our lives. This uprooting is chaotic for us and disorienting. But this is also where we find hope.

3. Where is God about to grow a new leaf in your life? We can never tell exactly where the amaryllis will sprout leaves, only that it will, eventually, despite all apparent odds, sprout. Everything living must grow.

Can you remove the rocks where He may be hovering over the waters or the soil, about to spout new life in you?

4. Do you need a friend who can help you lift the rocky burden that stops the new life from flourishing, where His Spirit is hovering? We need those who see in the Spirit when we are looking for our eyes on the ground next to us. We need a doula or a medical doctor to help us give birth. Journeying with others is safer for the life we carry. Who is on your team?

5. The thing that kept me awake at night back then, that my community and I pleaded with God to change, is the amaryllis that has grown through my softened heart this season. Noticing how God watered, tended and then showed us a new leaf sprouting in our past hopeless situations or dry amaryllis pots gives us faith for the next impossible thing He whispers.

God, give us faith for the hope you long to spring forth from our dry amaryllis pots. You have enough breaths from Your Spirit of guidance and encouragement for every seemingly hopeless situation. Give us eyes to see further than the mundane ordinary.

3 Common Responses To God’s Clues – Choose This One

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

My child said she saw an angel.

And so, children sometimes peel back the curtain of heaven for us to quickly glimpse before the curtain is closed again. All we have left is a memory. What is our response to hearing stories that seem to push us into the realm of the divine, whether we want to go there or not?

Will the divine moments that we hear about be wasted on us?

There are three typical responses to another’s spiritual experiences: we become blind, jealous, or thirsty.

Most commonly, we become blind. Like a beautiful pristine camping spot, one mountain range further than we usually travel on our summer holidays, we won’t go there. It is not within the realm of our routine.

And so we are unable to see.

WAS there ever a pristine camping spot one mountain range over, we wonder, years later? WAS it an angel she said she saw? And then we are distracted again by our lunch.

The second most frequent response to stories of divine encounters is jealousy.

Instead of falling on our knees in worship and petitioning for a similar outpouring of the divine in our parched lives, some of us will compare. The soil of our hearts hardens just a little bit. That didn’t happen to ME.

They must think they are SPECIAL, we reason. They must assume they are MORE SPECIAL than ME. Often, that idea hadn’t crossed their minds.

But we’ve already tossed the implications of the divine moment in self-righteous indignation.

The third response, that very few travel, is a recognition of our spiritual thirst.

This heart response is gas for our car. We understand that each of us is offered an adoption certificate into the family of God, which comes with a royal inheritance. And from that identity, we can petition the Father, on our knees before Him, and ask, “Can You please pour out the divine in my life, God?”

We can beg Him for water because we see another who seems to have found a drink.

He always has more water.

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God.

The Message

God, soften the soil of our hearts equally through the encounters we experience in ourselves and those we hear about from others. Thank you that we can come to You with our doubts too and that You meet us exactly where we are. I pray we stop trying to stuff You into a box.

Keep waking us to a deeper understanding of your love, I pray.

How To Wake Up To Divine Moments – Treasure The Clues

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

So, my toddler said she saw an angel one day.

Fast forward about seven years. We had moved to another house by that time. The subject of angels came up over lunch.

“You saw an angel once,” I ventured to that same child, now about ten years old.

I wondered if she would remember.

“WHAATT?” Her older sister demanded. She prided herself, as an older sister’s right, to know ALL of the family stories. How had she never heard this one?

I hadn’t mentioned it in all those years except for telling one friend and my husband what happened immediately afterward.

Who would have believed her anyway?

Children don’t have many words when they are three years old. Would she remember the incident now? And if so, could put more words around the experience? As much as possible, I wanted the conversation to come from her, not directed by me or influenced by my memory.

“Do you remember seeing an angel?” I ventured.

She said, “Yes”

I wanted to test her, to see if she was speaking accurately.

“Where were you when you saw the angel?”

“At the other house.”

I was startled.

Yes.

“And where was the angel?”

She said, “Outside”.

Oh no, I thought, she doesn’t remember. This event happened in the playroom. I was about to clean up the dishes when she continued, explaining more, “The angel was outside”.

Oh! Yes, I thought, the angel was outside the window we were staring at. That made sense.

Without my prompting, she explained that she was looking out the window in the playroom at the time.

She had remembered this very incident, which brought me shivers. This child was officially diagnosed with memory challenges a short time after this event*.

And yet she remembered the details of this event from many years earlier.

“What did you see?” I asked gently.

“The angel was singing. It had gold shoes and a gold sash.”

I sensed that we were standing on holy ground.

“Oh,” I said.

What else was there to say?

And then we finished our lunch.

~

And what is our response when divine moments encroach upon our lives?

Everyone should allow divine moments, either our own or others, to propel them further along God’s spiritual path for them. But how? The softness of our heart, exposed as one of three common responses, will determine whether we stay stuck in the mud spiritually or whether we are launched further and deeper along our spiritual paths.

In the next post, we will evaluate these most common heart responses after God interrupts the mundane.

He ordered his angels to guard you wherever you go.

The Message

God, thank you that sometimes, for a brief moment, You open our eyes to the possibility of the divine through our or others’ experiences.

Help us wake up to grasp what is right before us when our eyes are opened and our ears can hear. Help us to speak openly about what we have heard and seen. May the unusual become commonplace in each of our lives, we pray.

While we do not place our faith directly in angels, we should place it in the God who rules the angels; then we can have peace.

Billy Graham

What unusual divine moments have you experienced? Or what is a sacred moment that another has told you about that seemed plausible? Has this moment or a curiosity about this experience propelled your spiritual journey?

Blogpost Footnotes

*These cognitive challenges were later healed years after this event through diet, but that is a story for another day.

How To Look Good At Church

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Photo source

Now she looks good.

This lady is 82 years old and wears a fancy hat EVERY Sunday at church.

Yes, I DO want to be like her when I grow up!

I even started collecting fancy hats at thrift stores to prepare for my old age. Below is a picture of me as Ms. Lovelybottom, the alter-ego who teaches our homeschooled kids manners. (Don’t ask. That advice is for when I know you better. A lot better).

So, yes! Some of us look GOOD when we go to church! And some of us look REALLY GOOD!

Once, I was featured on (my) blog detailing in the footnote WHAT name-brand clothing and accessories I was wearing! (For those who read that post, please don’t tell them EVERYTHING!) The point is that I am clearly qualified to advise on how to look good at church.

Ahem . . .

There was once a family led by a single mom who attended a church. She had four boys and one girl and EVERY WEEK, they were late. Sometimes, we would see one of the kids swatting the other as they pushed each other through the front door.

There was also a single lady who attended that same church.

Every week, the single lady looked like Mary in the show Downton Abbey. She looked VERY VERY good. AND her clothes were ironed.

And she didn’t push anyone on her way in the door.

She arrived early and unhurried.

But she turned up her nose at the four boys and their little sister. She looked down on them a bit, revealing her skinny, naked heart without much life. Her love was cold.

Through God’s eyes, she didn’t look as good as she thought.

Because God looks at the revelation we STILL HAVE compared to the revelation that we HAVE BEEN GIVEN. (If confused, see the explanation here).

The four boys still had some character issues to sort out, as they pushed each other around, missing their father, who could have modelled gentleness but was absent.

And their little sister, looking up at the four boys, sucking her thumb, her unwiped nose and big curious eyes peeking over her stuffy? She looked over at her brothers and smiled. They are learning.

Some of their rough edges rub off as their hearts register a few more millimetres of God’s love each Sunday.

The siblings’ incremental, growing love for each other infects the well-dressed woman too. The boys are making her look good as they grow and learn to direct their God-given energy and love to each other well. Eventually, they also serve her, in love, helping her with some outdoor work one Saturday afternoon.

And soon they are all – the little girl, the four boys, the well-dressed single woman – looking much better in their hearts, where it matters to God.

And that’s how we look good in church.

We keep going every Sunday and let the annoying people there refine us, grow us, and stretch us.

It’s the idiots (um…including us!) that make us look good at church.

And God looks at our hearts and is pleased with the growth.

We glean a drop or two more of understanding of God’s love for us, which gives us patience and a sense of humour to pour a drop or two of love onto our neighbours, especially the annoying ones.

Our hearts look better than they WOULD HAVE if we had stayed home each Sunday.

And there is a little more love in the world.

But having a nice hat helps, too, of course.

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

How To Be Brave At The Dentist’s And Doctor’s

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

I was having considerable dental work done, about a 3-hour appointment.

I brought my audiobook so “I can pretend I’m somewhere else,” I told the dentist. I was listening to a dramatization of people who were persecuted and even martyred for their faith. That audiobook helped to put my own relatively minor suffering in perspective.

And yet, as the dentist said, “This is the part when I’m like a woodpecker,” and placed a metal rod on my teeth which he then proceeded to hammer on like a mallet, I felt slightly… uncomfortable.

I sensed Holy Spirit in the room, almost like He was sitting beside me, wanting to hold my hand.

It used to be surprising to me when God wanted to speak or envelope me in His love.

But not anymore.

At that moment, I briefly remembered some ridiculous things my daughter feared. One summer, for example, she was scared of house flies and would not go to the park or eat outside without screaming as this terrifying flying animal approached her. I brushed off her fears and told her to move on.

And yet that’s not how Holy Spirit treated me with my concerns, which are so tiny in the scope of life.

Every time the dentist gently smashed me in my face, I could sense my adrenaline rise, and then I could sense Jesus comforting me. Like a roller coaster constantly about to head uphill, he smoothed out the hills and valleys of this experience so that my roller coaster ride was less bumpy. As I fearfully clutched His hand, He calmed me repeatedly so that the essence of this experience was the peace of His comfort.

He seemed to be holding my hand.

When the ordeal was over, the dentist and dental assistant commented that dental work would be much easier if more patients were as calm as I was.

I couldn’t have been more shocked.

“Who, me?” I wondered, looking around.

God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.

The Message

And God, may I be the comforting presence to another’s fears next.

And so, what are the easiest ways to be brave at the dentist’s or doctor’s?

I have no idea, unfortunately, however three clues we can glean from this recent experience are:

1. Listen to audiobooks about people who die for a cause they believe in while people are deliberately maiming you. It helps! Try this one to get you started.

2. Practice picking up the clues of God’s presence in your life, and talk to a trusted friend about your questions and experiences.

3. Ask Him to comfort you and hold on tight when Jesus surprises you by showing up in your life.

God, may You comfort everyone reading this at their upcoming medical appointments more intimately with your soothing words, voice, and tangible arms of love. We pray for strength for today with the challenges each of us faces. Help us to learn how to more fully lean on You when life’s challenges come, we pray.

Anger, Expressed As Love, Is Hope For Culture

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

God is very different from who I thought He would be.

I’m a lot different from who I thought I would eventually become when I first started longing to know more about God, too.

At Sunday school or elsewhere when we first heard about God, He often appeared as a “turn the other cheek” when an enemy tried to smack Him kind of a guy.

And since we are made in His image, I had a vague impression that the ultimate goal of the spiritual life is to become the kind of person who lies down so people can wipe their feet on us.

If that’s the case, then I was blown away by what God spoke into the recesses of my heart that day. God, are you who I think you are? 

Of course not,

is His inaudible answer, and in his fury at the audacity of the question, He erupts as a violent volcano, splashing the earth with ashes of his love.

A volcano . . . erupting . . . love? I can explain because I am a mini-volcano formed in His image.  I haven’t exploded yet. But I can feel the rumble, and I know it is coming. 

And he is edging me on.

Don’t be afraid of your anger,

He spoke gently into the recesses of my heart recently. He comforted me in empathy, the way my dad would rub my back when I was a child, just before I would throw up. You know that feeling just before you are sick when you remember you will feel much better to have the bile removed from inside of you? That’s how I have been feeling.

I had been covering up the threatening volcanic eruption with my best church bonnet and long white Sunday dress. 

Like the person who travels to a volcano that threatens eruption, and pours a bit of water, a shovel full at a time, on top of the huge mountain to pacify it a little bit, I placated my growing anger. 

I shoved the equivalent of a baby pacifier into my mouth at church, turned aside, and listened to relentless chatter. Another shovelful of water, please. Or she’s a gonna blow.

My anger terrifies me. 

I once climbed an active volcano in Costa Rica, la Rincon de la Vieja. Tourists would never have been allowed that close to an active volcano in ultra-safe Canada. They wouldn’t have been allowed within miles of that place. And as I stood at the top of that mountain and looked around, I was shocked at the scale of the devastation. 

An entire mountainside of bare rocks, with the jungle forest beginning abruptly in the valley far below.

Yet scientists know that after the initial devastation, volcanic ash enriches the soil with its dense nutrient load. 

Soil from this ash produces some of the lushest plant life on earth. 

So as God rubs my back, gently telling me it’s okay to be sick, I realize that holding in my anger only makes me feel sicker.

At that moment, the clerk at the checkout counter seemed to silently ask me as she wrapped my package with a smile, “Would you like modern-day slavery with that?¨

And my anger, rightly expressed as love, compels me to take one small step in a direction that opens the door to better alignment with my true identity.

And this anger, no longer stuffed inside but rightly expelled as love, contains the soil that can nourish the seed of hope.

Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?

The Message

Stop Agonizing – 2 Unmissable Reasons To Homeschool (Or Not)

/ Lori Lawe / 5 Comments

For most of us, deciding whether to homeschool or not is an agonizing decision.

So, let’s say we choose to homeschool. What if we wake up one Saturday late because we are exhausted and realize with terror that we’ve ruined our kids? That they are irrevocably broken?

On the other hand, what if we put our kids through the cookie-cutter “everyone-else-is-doing-it” public school experience, and after confidently sipping lemonade with our feet up, discover the cookie-cutter is broken, and we have a different-shaped kid than we expected?

This parenting gig is not for the faint of heart.

But you must decide by Monday because school starts then, and you still don’t have your books (I’ve been there), if you will plunge into the homeschooling world – the beautiful, exhausting, messy, societally outcast-able (your kids do WHAT all day??) world of homeschooling.

So, to homeschool or not?

The cons of homeschooling and public schooling should be thoroughly evaluated to decide whether you should consider homeschooling.

First, let’s study the cons of homeschooling.

#1 – The number one con of homeschooling is that they are HOME. ALL the time. Wow. Need I say more? Before you grab a martini and try to forget that you were even considering this option, please read on.

#2 – The number two con of homeschooling is that you have to regularly flip through your Rolodex, or whatever, pick up the phone and CALL their friends so that they have a play date.

Well, of course, now we do all that in one swipe, but you get the point. It is ANNOYING. If you toss your kids in a room full of kids exactly the same age as them and leave them there every day for a year, you don’t NECESSARILY need to ensure they are spending even MORE time with these same kids. Enough said.

Now, let’s study the cons of public schooling.

#1 – The number one con of public schooling is that they are GONE. ALL the time. Wow. Need I say more? We shuffle the little snotty cuties off to dance or soccer practice after school and then to play dates or birthday parties. They NEED even MORE time with the same kids discussed in point #2 above so other kids don’t climb over them in the grade school pecking order.

Now, there are only drops of water in the jug of time the kids have left over for YOU. Before you grab a martini and try to forget that you were even considering this option, please read on.

#2 – The number two con of public schooling is the school system may put you in the equivalent of a dark closet and shut the door while your child is going through something that will affect them for the rest of their life*.

They will do this to you because they want to help your child. Whether they are right or not is a discussion for another time.

The point is that abdicating parental involvement in a life-altering event for your child is now part of what your signature indicates when you enroll them in kindergarten.

It’s worth considering this, at least, as you have tea and perhaps flip a coin to help choose a schooling option for your children.

And the point of this blogpost? Perhaps every involved parent should seriously consider homeschooling. Now, I do know that homeschooling is not an option for every family. And indeed, this is not the best choice for every family. And even if it were, most families aren’t crazy enough to try it.

God, as a parent Yourself, you empathize with us that parenting is not for the faint of heart. Please help us to confidently decide which schooling option is best for each child this year. Guide us as You see the future and know what is best for each unique child.

Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace.

The Message

Do you sense that God may be nudging you toward homeschooling? What makes you want to move in this direction? If you are currently homeschooling and want to quit, we encourage you to keep sailing in the same direction until the skies clear, friend.

Blogpost Footnotes

*Parents from Mongomery County, for example, took the school system to court because “Parents should be in the loop” of a “decision that can have some very life-changing effects – and parents are principally in charge of helping their children through those types of situations.” Source: The Washington Post – Link to the full article

Make Your Homeschooled Kid Look Like An Idiot So They Ace The SAT

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was frothing at the mouth again, spewing words of dissent, grumbling to myself. My husband was sitting next to me in the car, waiting for my spaz to end. This tantrum was my regular 3-month routine.

I had gotten more report cards for my kids.

And I wasn’t happy.

Our kids excelled in some areas, according to these report cards. However, some of the grades reflected ME as a homeschool teacher more than my KIDS as students. I hadn’t been toeing the line again.

And my kids were getting the academic spanking.

However, if, as a homeschooling parent, we TRY to do every little thing that the school system asks, we will end up as blobs of discouragement, unable to get off the couch again. The system is designed for us to fail. As homeschooling parents, we must set sail in a new direction, slightly off-center from the true north the school system uses.

And so our kids may look like morons for a while.

For example, after I exited from the Canadian public school system in Grade 12, I had honor roll status and the coveted knowledge of about 200 years of European settler’s Canadian history, which had been drilled down my throat at least weekly for 12 years. I hadn’t realized that other countries had histories, too! And some of their histories were longer than 200 years!

So, I CHOSE to have my kids learn world history more often from a challenging, classically based curriculum.

Therefore, their Canadian social studies grades plummeted for a while.

However, their social studies grades were assigned assuming they hadn’t done ANY socials instead of reflecting that they hadn’t studied the EXACT socials curriculum recommended in that grade.

Whatever.

And it’s not just social studies that follow this pattern.

Our school systems are based on Greek methods of learning*, where we dissect learning down into thousands of pieces, and they divvy out hundreds of “goals” for a SPECIFIC age level to learn. Check out these PLOs (fancy word for goals) for Canadian students for each grade. Studied astronomy in Grade 4 when your kid was actually interested in it instead of in Grade 3? Zero on their report card.

And so I was frustrated.

We solved this little problem by not telling our kids what report cards were until high school. It’s surprising, in retrospect, how infrequently their public school friends mentioned report cards. So, our kids “skipped” viewing their report cards for about a decade.

After seeing their early report cards myself and having my little verbal spaz that my husband happened to be near enough to hear, I had a nice sugary iced latte (my therapy of choice), and then my husband and I talked about other things. This routine was just another homeschooling rhythm we observed. We didn’t have to discuss the details.

Years later, when our first child graduated from high school, she aced much of the SAT, an average score among her classically trained students. (The SAT is a standardized test taken by, generally the top 30% of academically achieving students. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either. I was public schooled, too.)

Dorothy Sayers wrote about this effect almost 80 years ago.

Classically trained children don’t do as well as other kids early on. They don’t have time to systematically jump through every hoop and complete every learning goal assigned to them. They are too busy learning to think.

Later on, they often do comparatively better academically than their peers.

Maybe encouraging our kids to read hard books** and then reading challenging books aloud really pays off in the long term.

And even though our kids LOOK like geeky academic superstars, we all know that academic prowess is not the PRIMARY goal for our homeschooled kids.

But if we do want their brains to flourish to their full potential, maybe encouraging them to look like idiots for a few years is not such a bad idea.

Sugary latte, anyone? (Sugar is one of my coping tactics to help me not follow the crowd. WEREN’T YOU LISTENING earlier in this post when I first mentioned my iced latte?! What? NOT EVERYONE listens to my every word? Oh well. I can feel a bit better about myself because at least my kids are smart.)

Sure, I’ll have a double caramel iced latte, too.

Thank you!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*Much has been written comparing the Greek and Hebrew educational philosophies. For a brief summary, check out this talk.

**My daughter is reading The War with Hannibal by Livy (circa 200 BC) as I write this. Hey! Flaunting ego is the path to true success, remember!