English

Alright, more reasons to homeschool…Remember 8th. grade grammar? Parts of Speech, BAD sentences you had to label and correct. Then you did the same thing in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th ? Frustrating, isn’t it?

Sooo, Ryan is in his college level business class and guess what’s in his textbook? Yep, those same old BAD sentences..he has to identify the problem, label the problem, and fix the problem…this, is just repeating 8th. grade (again) and has no benefit. It’s the premise..if you start with the BAD sentence…
Okay, so here’s my (slightly sarcastic) response.

Federal marshals have unique training. They do not look at counterfeit bills. They study the real thing. How do aspiring writers become great authors? How do artists improve their work? By studying the masters. Students even pick their favorites.

Why hasn’t this concept made it to the teaching of writing? Especially college writing. It seems we are all destined to repeat 8th grade. We look at really bad examples. These sentences appear randomly and are rarely, if ever, in context of any REAL piece of writing. (Yes, I am referring to numbered exercises). The student is asked to identify the bad part (modifier, clause, adverbial, etc.). Then the bad part must be labeled. Then it must be fixed to create a better sentence.

Apparently the purpose of this exercise is to identify and correct mistakes. However, this does not cross over into the students own work. At best, it’s busy work. At worst, it’s playing with garbage.

Why not find great business writing and emulate it? Even sentence combining exercises have more merit than identifying and fixing dangling participles.

As a teacher, I want my students to aspire to be their best. I am not going to feed them junk food. I want them to have the real thing.

There is great curriculum out there for home educators who follow my train of thought. LLATL comes to mind, plus lots of other literature-based curriculum. Still, I was surprised by Ryan’s COLLEGE textbook. Perhaps a well-worded email to his instructor can help push things in the right direction. In the meantime, my poor husband is trapped changing around sentences for no apparent gain.

Shine your shingle

Since Ryan has been unemployed, I have been thinking about how I can help the family with income we need, other than some babysitting I do.

He suggested shining my shingle (shining your what?). That's right, my shingle. You see, I am not this simple ponytailed homeschool soccer mom you know and love. Underneath this mild-mannered exterior, I exist in an alternate plane. That's right, folks...I am grammar girl. Okay, so I'm not really "grammar girl". Go ahead, google her. Her cartoon personna does have glasses and a dark-haired ponytail. She can accurately explain how to use "however" with a semicolon! She knows why a preposition is something you should never end a sentence with. (oops! yes, "with" is a preposition and yes, I was intentional. Sheesh!)

Still, while I am not "grammar girl", I do have a God-given passion for English grammar, writing, spelling, and yes, editing. I love it that Ryan is in school and he regularly asks me to go over his papers. I even had the opporturniy to help one of his classmates daughter with a high school research paper. Ahh, students... He has noticed my red-ink giddiness. He suggested I think about getting back into tutoring. Yes, actually shining the shingle and hanging it up again.

So I am thinking and praying about it. I recently caught a radio sermon on "work" and how society at large seems to regard it as a "means to an end". It "pays the bills" or funds our weekend excursions. He reminded his audience that this was not God's intention for work. He challenged me to think of "work" as an act of "worship". Worship that brings glory to God. Paying the bills, while important, is a side benefit. God wants us to not only pay our bills, but to be generous, to be overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunity to worship through our work. How do I communicate this to my kids when I sigh at the state of my kitchen, or complain that the laundry is NEVER done? My "this house is a mess" comments really don't help them regard work as worship.

Back to the shingle. (I do get off on tangents, don't it? Is there a verb form for that? Tangentizing, maybe? Oops, I'm doing it again. Yes, I did that on purpose). When and if my shingle goes up, it's not my shingle. It's God's. It's those gifts and talents (yes, spelling is a gift) that God has given me to USE with HARD WORK for HIS GLORY. So, I leave you with the verse I used to have my students write on the front of their folders, "WHATEVER YOU DO, WORK AT IT WITH YOUR WHOLE HEART, AS THOUGH WORKING FOR GOD AND NOT MAN." Colossians 3:23

Things are not always what they seem. We own one of these large crockery jugs. Ryan and I bought it in our first years of marriage from an antique store, and we keep our change in it. (That was when we actually went to antique stores). In those first years, we didn't have any kids and the only thing in the jug was actual coinage. Today it is a different story.

Imagine yourself a four-year-old, imagine the tempting dark recesses of the antique jug. See how temptaion is located conveniently at eye-level. Imagine what wonderful sounds would emanate from its interior once you dropped something, anything, into its depths. You step closer. You notice the marble in your hand. Your hand moves before you realize it. You watch the small glass ball disappear and hear a satisfying thump as it lands somewere inside. Your mind turns. You begin to wonder, what else? What else? It beats out it's tempting mantra as you search for...oh look, another marble....

I emptied out the jug recently and I did find some change. I also found several other interesting items, including a butter knife from the kitchen, several ink pens, and surprise, a necklace from my grandmother I was certain I had lost. There were a few dominoes, two matchbox cars, and at least SIXTEEN, yes, SIXTEEN marbles. It was a little tough to get out the drumsticks from the toy drum... At this point, I became weary of hefting the jug. It is not a light object. Since I had some coinage out, I put the jug back. The next day, Ryan says to me, "You won't believe what I found when I emptied the change out of the jug."

I smile and briefly wonder what to say. I decide on "Do tell," raising my eyebrows in an interested manner.

"They put forks in there. Actual forks!" I smile as he adds to the list. He did find several interesting items, including hair barrettes, ink pens, and forks from the kitchen. There were candy wrappers, a few dollar bills (yeah!) and yes, even a pair of white panty-hose. Things are not always as they seem.

A few weeks ago, Ryan and I received a gift from our Children’s Church Co-ordinator at church for helping. They were tickets for something called the APOSTLES COMEDY TOUR. I thought it would be cheesy. We’d need a sitter, we have no extra money, negative, negative, blah, blah… Anyway, Ryan got a sitter (two sisters, actually. Thank you girls.) and last Saturday we went. I envisioned staying until intermission then sneaking out, especially when I saw the first guy was a juggler. But then I smiled, and then I laughed. You know what, laughing felt really good. They were actually quite funny. There were four comedians all together and we stayed for the entire thing, which went long as one guy shared his testimony, which Ryan declared as the best part of the night. We had a great night out which we needed more than we realized. Click here to see a short clip. Back arrow to return to blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGCMlArl6LE

Another successful mother’s day. Homemade cards and hugs from all four kids. I am so blessed to be a mom. God truly answered the cry of my heart and I am so grateful. So, in true mother’s day tradition, I did the same thing I did last year. I went to one of my very favorite restaurants all by myself. Yes, all by myself. Just me, and the newspaper and my own personal pot of coffee at a table for one at IHOP. Yes, IHOP. Yes, I did order the chocolate, chocolate chip pancakes, which were served hot and delicious. Yes, I did glance around at all those moms wiping syrup off their faces and their toddler’s faces, dealing with the crying baby or the teen who wouldn’t stop texting at the table. I felt sympathetic for the mom on two different “potty” runs with the same little girls, and the one whose son kept shooting people with his finger, “stop that!” But mostly, I was grateful to be alone, enjoying immensely my “table for one”, my coffee, my hot food, and my newspaper. A special thanks to my husband, whom I left at church with all four kids. I am a truly blessed mom in so many ways. Granted not everyone chooses to celebrate Mother's Day this way, but I was grateful for small bill and the time alone.

Marcus dripped milk from his cereal on his clothes this morning. “Huh,” the four year old observed, holding up another spoonful of Cheerios, “there must be a hole in the spoon.”

Sometimes we get so busy looking for the source of the problem that we don’t realize it was our own mistake that got us there in the first place. Sometimes I wish there was a “hole in my spoon”.
Instead, I need to admit my mistakes. My kids don’t make me raise my voice. “That was me. I did that. Sorry.” Teaching “sorry” to my kids is more than teaching “bummer,” it’s modeling repentance. “I’m sorry” means I am going to try my hardest not to let that happen again. So if I’m apologizing for yelling, the yelling needs to change. My kids don’t really “drive me crazy”, I made the decision to go there.

Is there a hole in your spoon today? Nope. Flip the spoon over and look at the back. Do you see your image? Your image is a likeness of your creator. You belong to God and if you have accepted Christ’s blood sacrifice for you, you are FORGIVEN, and you are not alone. God will be with you. I don’t change on my own, but it is Christ within me. Yep, I’m going to make mistakes, but I am going to be truly sorry and try my hardest not to let that happen again.