We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
2006-02-02 - 14:06
Home schooling and languages
Rod and I are in agreement that we want Jack to have broad exposure to languages.
It's especially important to me because my mother grew up in a French speaking household, but she was one of the youngest children, and her older siblings had had so much trouble when they started school that the later children were never taught to speak French, so that they'd have an easier time in school. I always had the impression that she regretted that, and being bilingual seemed like a very, very good thing to me as I grew up.
I studied French and Latin in school, and When we lived in the Republic of Panama, I studied Spanish, both at school and "in the streets". Both of my parents encouraged us to strive to learn to speak Spanish well, and for a while there, I was often mistaken for a native Spanish speaker "from somewhere else".
I later married a Swede, and while I never became particularly adept (Swedes all speak better English than I do!), both of my older sons are bilingual.
I really want that for Jack, too.
So, the plan is to start studying Swedish together as a family (since we have a built-in opportunity for practicing immersion style right within the family) in the next few months.
When Jack is a more fluent English speaker, and is able to do some reading and writing, we want to introduce classical Greek and Latin. The classical languages will help Jack with almost anything he wants to learn because it will vastly expand his English vocabulary. Too, it's been my experience that language shapes thought. I think it will be easier for Jack to understand classical literature and philosophy if he has a background understanding of the languages they were first conceived in. And once one understands classical thought, once can more easily understand our modern western cultures.
All of that seems to me to be the best basis for a complete education. After all, the main point of education is to learn to think well. Facts can be picked up easily once you know how to look, but knowing what to make of the facts requires the ability to reason well and spot logical fallacies and flaws of reasoning. Our culture isn't very good at teaching that -- as a glance through any day's headlines and analyses of research findings will show.
Once he has a grounding in Greek and Latin, maybe around the age of 10 or 11, we'd like to introduce either Japanese or Cantonese. Again, learning an Asian language will add a whole new layer of complexity to his (and our) understanding of the world, and those seem likely to be particularly useful languages to know 20 and 30 years from now, as the global village expands and the ability to communicate with the majority of its population becomes more important. (An Indian language would also be useful that way.)
Again, immersion seems like a good way to go, so after several months (a year?) of study, we'll probably arrange for Rod and Jack to spend several weeks or a month visiting Japan or China. It would be a lot of fun, don't you think?
But we'd better start saving now!
Little Frustrations
Mostly, Jack is a joy.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't sometimes drive us nuts. He is, after all, a human child. (Or maybe I should leave it at "human".)
One example is that Jack wants us to be the "all singing, all dancing Mamma and Dad show". He asks to play with paint, but then hands us the brush and asks us to paint letters, numbers, shapes, and pictures -- he's not interested in doing it for himself. He asks to play with his modeling clay, but then expects us to create shape after shape -- again, he's not interested in doing it for himself.
If we refuse to do it for him, rather than painting or squishing clay for himself he wanders off. I'm trying to figure out how to encourage him to experiment, but haven't had much luck so far. I have tried "taking turns"--he doesn't want to take a turn. I'm not sure what his reasons are. Perfectionism, perhaps? Whatever it is, it's frustrating.
Another frustration is the sleep and nap thing. Jack has been trying to give up his naps for months. Mainly at this point, he goes without -- but when he does nap, he usually does it late and then he's up half the night.
That's sort of OK, I guess, because Rod doesn't have to get up at any particular time most days, so he stays up with Jack and then sleeps in with him.
But lately, he has a new trick -- he's been waking up at 3 or 4 am, then napping in the late morning and going to bed with me. The going to bed with me part is great -- but that waking up at 3 or 4 am is killing me. He often wakes up in the middle of the night famished when he's growing fast, but then he goes back to sleep quickly. The first few times he tried this new trick, I thought he was hungry so I got up with him to give him a drink and a snack -- and he ate and drank. Then wanted me to play with him. I refused, of course, but his chattering meant I didn't fully get back to sleep before the alarm went off. *sigh*
After the second night, I informed him that he was welcome to get up and have a drink, and then he could read books in bed, but he isn't to wake me until my alarm goes off at 5:30. So far so good ... so I guess this isn't as big a problem as it could be, but when Jack is awake when I get up for work, it really slows me down.
Usually, I get up, read my e-mail while I have a coffee, then shower, dress, and head off to work with a second coffee in a traveler mug. When Jack is awake, I get up and change his diaper, get him his vitamins and juice, and get myself a coffee. Then I try to check my e-mail to see whether there's anything important in there, but mostly, I talk with Jack, receive a million beautiful kisses, and act as a jungle gym. Eventually, I am awake enough to try to make Jack some breakfast -- if Rod hasn't already gotten up. (Usually he has.) Then I take a shower -- with an assistant. Or, more likely, I realize that I'm out of time, wash my face, comb my hair, get dressed and go. All of which takes more than twice the usual time, as Jack and I discuss everything under the sun and do everything "togeda" (together). I enjoy those mornings, but I am so late for work that I just can't afford to do it often... and we've been doing this all week so far!
She changes everything She touches ...
Of course, I strongly suspect that the reason that Jack's sleep schedule is so wonky all of a sudden has a lot to do with the fact that we're expecting a whole lot of changes very shortly.
We're buying a house and moving, of course. On top of that, before we even move, Rod is going on a trip to Belgium for a few days. Jack's Grandma will be here for a couple of weeks, and we'll go to see Uncle David and Aunt Tricia for a few days while Grandma is here. Then a few weeks after the move, we'll be going to Sweden to visit for a little while.
I knew it was going to disorient Jack when we told him, but I feel strongly that it's important to warn kids about impending changes. They need time to internalize it all before it starts to happen. Since so many things are happening at once, there was really no way to spread the news out.
He's been a bit clingy and has been sleeping less, but overall he seems to be handling it well. We try to remember to reassure him frequently. We could probably do better about that, but we try.
Metablogging
We used to use Notify List when we had updated. Unfortunately, it seems to be broken and we haven't been able to get Andrew's attention to fix it, so we're looking for a new notification tool.
Anyone got a good one?
I know some people set up Yahoo groups for the purpose, but I'd just as soon create my own mail list and handle it on my computer. I use Yahoo a lot, but I know that there are quite a few people who are unhappy with the Yahoo privacy policy. The other tools I've found all seem to be specific to one blogging tool. It seems especially important to notify people now that we've gotten so sporadic about posting.
