Hoeing a Rough Row

We have been hoeing a rough row the last several years. We are direct casualties of the economic fall-out of  2008, and it has been rocking our boat since then. While I feel the details of this are too personal to share publicly, the result has brought serious struggles to our personal economy, our marriage and family, and even my spiritual life. We have been facing questions daily about our future for over three years now and it is really eating at us. Praise God that Father R followed his wise grandmother's advice and "paid himself first" (not omitting God from that; she was also a believer, but this was just a motto to make a point.) This means saving. Had we been spending as fast as he was making it (like so many were), our lives would have been much more drastically altered already. I'm sure we would have had to sell our home and put me to work, doing what I have no idea. I have been out of anything resembling a paycheck since 1986.
    Of course, this would have meant putting Mei back in the high-pressure, award-seeking government school as from which we had just removed her.
    Mei came home from there after 1st grade. I knew she was struggling. The pressures were already mounting. Missing the bus because she is a slow eater.Cramming addition facts while driving her to school. Dressing in the back seat on the way to ballet, snack in a bag. Spelling homework at 8 in the car on the way home. Writing exercises for someone who still had trouble forming her letters (This was Kindergarten and first grade, remember.)
    And the evidences of it in her behavior: badgered by teachers about her thumb-sucking habit who believed they had her best interest at heart, ("She will be harassed by her peers." She wasn't, only by her instructors.), she took to chewing on her sleeves! When I pointed that out, she was switched to a stress ball. FOR A FIRST-GRADER?? Those things are for powerful, white-collar executives in high-rise offices that are nearing a heart attack!
   Father R and I haven't made any decisions yet, but his current job leaves us with almost no family time from Monday through Friday. He commutes an average of an hour-and-a-half EACH WAY every day (commute times in the Washington, DC area are the highest in the nation. Woo Hoo! We're Number One!!). He leaves before we get up, and is asleep before we fall in bed ourselves because he knows he's going to be up before the sun again in the morning. At least two nights a week, he works late on top of that. So Mei can go more than 48 hours without even having face time with her dad who she adores.  I know there are many, many people in this country that are living like this, so I'm not trying to start a pity party here. But, for us, we keep asking, "Is it worth it? And if not (it's NOT), what choices are we left with?"
   I will leave off here. We know God holds us in His hand as He has always demonstrated. And I know that  He has allowed struggles to bring us back to Him, which this one does. Secretly I get excited at the possibilities that He may be preparing for us at the end of this Valley. But patience and releasing control are not my strong suits. Yet I will trust in the Lord.

   My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.  For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.  He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.  Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Psalm 2:1-11 NIV
Proverbs 31 Ministries: God Is Waiting 

 

The Way Home

As the frustrations and the dots mounted, we investigated all possible alternatives. Expecting the school to push desks apart or raise walls between classrooms was probably expecting too much. (The classrooms were doubtlessly designed around the plan of clustered desks to conserve real estate: education per square foot.)
    A suggestion was made that MeiWei could have a "study carrel" to work in the following year to help her distractedness.  (I always think of Steve Carrell who might have also been exiled to one when he was seven.) She could also have an assistant teacher assigned to her to help her stay on track.
    But kids being smarter than we give them credit for, she, if not her peers, would eventually be asking, "Why the special treatment? What's wrong with me?" Everyone- being-different-in-their-own-special-way doesn't hold up very well on the playground.
      After looking into all the private schools in the area and seeing our little life savings going down the tubes before she graduated high school, darling hubbie turned one day and said, "You were the best teacher Tai (big sis) ever had. Why don't you homeschool this one?"
    I must say I got a knot in my throat, even though I had a knot in my stomach as well at the thought.
  

Background to Homeschool Part 2: Why MeiWei Can't Do the 3 R's

Now there was the math curriculum to be dealt with.
     It was deemed logical to introduce a subject, work on it for three days, and then introduce a new subject that had NO BEARING ON THE PREVIOUS SUBJECT!
    Not: Count by 10's, then Count by dimes, then count by 5's, count by nickels, etc. More like: Count by 10's; fractions; addition facts of 3 and 4. In the space of ten days. Huh?
    So MeiWei is getting farther and farther behind. And developing that all too familiar song of "I hate math." Who wouldn't?
    Another peeve was the introduction of Spelling. This was, after all, first grade. These kids were still learning how to FORM THEIR LETTERS! What is the sense of cramming spelling down the throats of little kids who barely know how to write? So every night there would be spelling homework. Always the same rote lesson too. Monday: copy all the words;  Tuesday: alphabetize; Wednesday: use in a sentence; and on and on. You knew what day of the week it was by the spelling homework.  If any of those kids was blissfully thankful the following month that she was able to remember how to correctly spell a word she was using in her "journal", I'll eat her report card.
     Speaking of the journal, what's the point of that?? Well, it would be fine if they had been allowed to write whatever they wanted (scrawl would have been a better description). But there was a Format! (All hail the Educational Powers-That-Be.)
     The Format was, on Monday, to write a sentence stating whether they had a good or bad weekend, another sentence stating what they did, and then a concluding sentence. This consisted of summarizing that they had had either a good or bad weekend. How's that for creativity? And being persuasive?
   So when MeiWei, the reluctant, left-handed writer, was finally inspired, in February, to write about a subject dear to her--horseback riding--she acknowledged that it had been a "bad" weekend. She explained that she had been riding. She further explained that it was bad because she had fallen off her horse. Then the expected summary.
    THIS entry was lambasted. Why? Because--gasp--she had given a supporting argument (that dreadful extra sentence about falling off the horse) for her declaration that it had been a bad weekend! The teacher actually drew a big line through it  and marked "Follow the FORMAT."
    So from then until the end of the year she only churned out Formatted entries. And boy were they boring.


 

Background to Homeschool

MeiWei went to PS for 2 years. The most she learned was how to count to three. As in the number of DOTS it would take to get a nasty-gram sent home from the teacher....As in "3 dots, you're sunk."
     Apparently the teacher's job, along with guiding 20+ little faces through readers and number lines, was also to walk around with a Magic Marker poised to strike a special "report card" on each child's desk. Of course, most kids probably never even knew of the system, they were THAT kind of kid. But MeiWei got to know it all too soon.
     This of course was supposed to be an effective Pavlovian tool to shape behaviors. The child would certainly NOT want to get dots, so she would be shamed into altering her actions. That was their plan, anyway.
    But they hadn't encountered Mei. She was non-plussed about dots. Dots, shmots. You could turn her into a dalmatian and she'd smile brightly.
    The problem was, she was much too interested in what was going on around her. Naughty girl. No looking at your classmate--even if we butt his desk next to yours. And two other kids. No dropping your pencil, breaking your crayon, needing too much help. (?) No being distracted by the open-plan classrooms that allow teachers and students from other classes to drift in and out of your line of sight all day while announcements interrrupt the already-established din.
     Naughty, naughty girl. There's something wrong with you. You just don't pay attention.