Solitaire

They punish prisoners by isolating them, placing them in solitary confinement.

I fear that we live in a culture that isolates.  It sells us the idea that we can be more connected sitting in front of a computer screen or tapping buttons on our phone than we can be looking into our children's eyes, sitting quietly on the couch with our spouse, or taking a walk through our neighborhood.  We have so many opportunities for virtual community and interactions that we often miss out on reality and authentic interactions available to us. 

Solitaire is a game, or a set of games, that you can play alone.  The way I learned it as a child was by shuffling cards, then laying them out in a pattern, turning them over and trying to create a sequence to get through the entire deck and "win".  Now there are a variety of computer based Solitaire games that can be played with the touch of buttons or click of a mouse in front of a glowing screen. 

As the name implies, only one player is required.  It's you versus the deck, the tiles, the pegs, the clock, any number of things.  There could be some strategy involved, but ultimately it's just you and the game. 

These leisurely games are great for a brain break, mindless shuffling and playing, dealing and re-dealing, sorting and re-sorting.  I've noticed that for me, sometimes the game becomes consuming.  The challenge of beating my last high score (or more likely my husband's), "just a few more minutes," and "let me finish this level" slowly erode minutes then hours and probably even days from my life. 

I wasn't made for "alone" as comfortable and easy at it can sometimes feel.  I was made for relationship and family and community and there's nothing easy or mindless about it.  Relationships are messy, in an ugly-beautiful kind of way.  Relationships don't show me how messed up others are, but show me the glaring reality of my own faults.  Relationships can bring out the best and the worst of me and that's not always easy to reconcile.

Some would say that it's better to avoid the hurt, disappointment, and pain of relationships.  But then we miss out on the healing, restored faith, and comfort that relationships can bring.

Generations ago people often spent their entire lives in the same community.  People that lived and worked together experienced the unedited version of family, friends, and neighbors. 

Now we are physically more mobile and virtually we can span the globe in seconds.  We offer to others the most flattering pictures we can find on Facebook and voice our opinions on Twitter to those who follow and will most likely agree with us. 

We insulate ourselves and if we aren't careful we will isolate ourselves.  The games that we've played will eventually play out and we'll find that we've been playing alone and then we've won nothing. 

Why we homeschool, for now...

I must begin by saying that 10 years ago, with a degree in education, I never would have thought that I would become a homeschooling mom. Even 5 years ago, after our first child was born, I really didn't consider it. Now, here we are, nearing the end of our first full year of "at home school", as my children call it.

Some people are curious when they find out we homeschool. Some just think it's odd. Some are very excited and encouraging.

There are several reasons we've decided that it's what is best for our family right now. Here are a few (in no particular order):

VALUES-We want our children to know their own value and how to value others. We want them to love God and love others. We want them to act with kindness and honesty. I'm not saying that these things are not taught in schools (public or private), but I know that we can hold our children more accountable to these things when they have more one on one time with an adult that encourages these attitudes and actions.

RELATIONSHIPS-I know that many critics are concerned about a "lack of socialization" for homeschoolers. I also know that family, especially sibling, relationships are some of the longest lasting relationships a person can have. I want these relationships to be healthy. I like that all three of my children play well together. I'm glad that our schedule allows my children to spend time with their grandparents, because they are a wealth of information that simply isn't available in a traditional classroom setting. A walk through the woods with Grandpa pointing out various birds and trees, morning stretches with Halabeoji, Korean children's songs and dances with Halmoni, and stories from Nana are all priceless. These are teachable moments with some of life's best teachers. I don't want the kids to miss out on this time and these people.

ACADEMICS-I've taught in a traditional classroom setting. Ideally, I wanted to provide every student with the opportunity to reach his or her potential. Realistically, it didn't happen. If I knew a student was struggling with a concept, I couldn't slow everyone down to help that student "get it" before we moved on. If I knew a student had mastered a concept, I couldn't move on and leave the rest of the class behind to keep the student engaged and challenged. The reality is, in a class of 20+ students, you have to teach to the middle, and with curriculum "standards" in place, teachers are pressured to cover a certain amount of content within the school year. At home, with one-on-one instruction, when I see that my child is struggling, we can take more time. When he "gets it" quickly, we can move on. The curriculum works for him instead of against him.

TIME-There are plenty of things that demand our time and I want to be more intentional about how we spend our days. If we were sending our kindergartner to the local public school, he'd be getting on a bus at 6:55am. This is my child that requires 12 good hours of sleep each night. If I wanted to put him on the bus fully dressed, fed, and having brushed teeth/washed face, I'd need to wake him around 6:15am. With his sleep needs, that means bedtime would be 6:15pm. This would mean that most days of the week he wouldn't spend any time with Daddy, not even a bedtime story, and we're not okay with that right now. He's a little boy and time with Daddy is more valuable to us than time spent with 18 other 5-6 year old kids.

Another note about time, a lot of the traditional school day is spent in "transition". I taught in a junior high school where the students' school day was from 8am-3pm. This was an academically strong school in a high-ranking system. There were seven, one-hour periods a day. Ten minutes of first period was for homeroom (attendance, announcements, morning news, etc.) There was a 5 minute break between each class for class change/locker break (30 minutes total). One hour a day was for lunch and study hall. Consider that each teacher probably spent 3-5 minutes at the beginning and end of class with an opening and closing transition, maybe attendance, collecting homework, giving homework, etc..(We'll say 5 minutes per class if everyone was concise and efficient=30 minutes for the day.) Also consider that each class may have had one disruption or interruption that required the teacher to stop academic instruction (let's say 2 minutes or less x 6 classes=12 minutes total). At the end of the day there were additional announcements that took about 5 minutes before the final bell. Now if you add all the "transition" time up, it's about 2.5 hours. The kids are at school for 7 hours. About 4.5 hours could be considered academic instructional time. This is why some homeschoolers are finished with school by lunch.

I'm not saying that everyone should homeschool. I'm also not saying that I'm devoted to homeschooling exclusively until my children go to college. I am saying that this is what works for our family now. I think it is what is best for MY children now.

Connections

When I was younger, and even now, if I were telling my parents or grandparents about meeting someone new and mentioned the person's first and last name, a round of questions was almost certain to ensue. Not in the form of an interrogation, but as the beginning of a conversation...

"Is he related to so-and-so? She might be his grandmother. Do you know his daddy's name? Does his grandpa live over on thus-and-such road? Did they have goats in the early '80s? Yeah, I think his uncle used to drive that old '74 Chevy pick-up...I towed him up outta Sims Creek that summer it flooded."

Now these are not direct quotes from any specific conversation, and if they were I likely would not be able to provide accurate answers, but you get the idea. It is all about how people are connected. Maybe it's because this was a big part of the culture I grew up in, maybe it's a personality trait I've inherited from one, or both, of my parents, but I can't help but make connections. When I play trivia games, especially if one of my siblings is a teammate, I work toward the answer through a series of connections. When I meet people for the first time, I may talk too much because I'm trying to find a connection, a common interest, a mutual friend, something that links us.

Being connected doesn't end with trivia and social interactions for me. It is woven throughout my life experiences, encounters I've had, people I've known, places I've been, and even my beliefs about God. It motivates my actions and reactions daily.

As an eighth grader, I remember being required to copy a quote from the board each day, then journal about what I thought it meant. One day we copied a brief quote from John Donne, "...No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main..." Some time later I read more of Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions from which this quote was taken. It resonated with me.

I'm glad that we are connected. I am thankful that this is part of the heritage that was passed down to me. It allows me to see my neighbor as a neighbor, even if we don't speak the same language. It encourages me to be charitable and hospitable, without a prerequisite. It causes me to grieve a loss of life, even when I didn't know the people involved intimately. It gives me hope, that when I improve a moment in a day for one person, the consequence can impact numerous others. It also reminds me, that my choices will always have consequences (positive or negative) and those consequences are not limited to me, because, after all, I am connected to others.