Category: Life

A Round Peg in a Square Hole: What is Learning?

Before any of my children were born, I had ideas about what education was supposed to look like. I had been homeschooled and knew I wanted to homeschool my own children, but I thought in terms of curricula, subjects, schedules, and grades. We were going to be academically rigorous and graduate at the top of every expectation. Then my children were born.

My oldest daughter talked fluently at a year old, loved stories and educational TV, and exhibited an empathy and understanding beyond many adults even as a toddler, but couldn’t read until she was nine. My oldest son couldn’t contain himself, struggled to meet anyone else’s expectations, but could name dozens of dinosaurs by the time he could talk, learned to read with zero instruction, and thought like an engineer. My middle daughter struggled to focus on anything, froze up in the face of any expectation, but had perfect pitch and rhythm. My youngest son had no emotional control and struggled with milestones, but could tell you anything you asked about reptiles or amphibians and had an instinct for finding and loving the lonely. My youngest daughter has a mighty will, an insatiable craving for attention, a memory like a steel trap, and a spirit that could not be contained by external forces.

The more they grew the more apparent it became that my grand plans for their education were flawed. Personalities didn’t fit the boxes of expectation. While one was a natural at languages and human behavior patterns, another died of boredom unless producing art of extraordinary talent. While one ravenously feasted on biological principles and mathematical concepts, another lived on exploration and observation of the natural world. Isolated subjects may as well have been babble, assignments caused panic. Stories filled their minds, however, and through stories they learned of mythology, historical events, great minds of the past, and human behavior, and their language skills exploded. Cooking and art instilled mathematical truths about the universe without complicated formulas on paper. Modern technology provided many other opportunities. Games involved strategical reasoning, creative problem solving, and coding skills. Videos and virtual reality allowed experiences that could never have occurred otherwise, exposure to distant places and cultures, scientific experiments beyond our resources, and tutorials for any skill desired.

Although I have watched them learn in wonder every single day, rewriting my expectations of education has taken many years. Societal pressures are powerful, and fear of failing to meet them still remains in the back of my mind. It rears its ugly head whenever someone asks questions about our learning. Usually the questions involve what curriculum we use (none), how we plan to teach advanced high school subjects (they’ll learn it if they need it), what their grades look like (we don’t have them), and other relatively recent constructs. Rarely are the important questions asked, like how well they are able to incorporate skills into life, what understanding do they have of human behavior and natural law, do they know and develop who God created them to be, and the like. When the usual questions are not answered as expected, confusion and worry are plain to see, growing tendrils of unjustified doubt. Because all those expectations have come to be the round hole, it’s hard for most of us to notice square corners. For many, that round hole may be what learning looks like, contained, structured, and entirely predictable or controllable. For the neurodivergent mind – the square peg – learning is in the corners, out of bounds, unpredictable, and exciting, filling spaces that others cannot even see. Learning is life and will never end, will simply change.

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: No Words

I’m a writer. I don’t mean that I write for the public, though obviously I do. I mean that I express myself through the written word. I love the way words come together to depict complex ideas and emotions, the beauty in the way they flow. With my pen, I can think. Except when I can’t.

For a person with neurodiverse brains, self-expression is a constant challenge. When left alone, expression finds outlet in natural ways: sounds, movements, sensations, hyperfocused interests. But other people expect words. Not just any words, but specific combinations of words delivered in specific ways. There are no official rules, and different people expect different combinations. Different situations require different combinations.

You try to translate all your natural self-expression into words, but things don’t match. You can’t find a word that describes the feeling relieved by cocooning in a heavy blanket in ninety degree weather, or the surge of undirected energy prompting the need to hum a set musical phrase on repeat. The words other people direct toward you don’t make sense either; they are too flat somehow, or the sounds making up the words trigger responses that confuse and anger the speakers.

Living in a household full of neurodivergent brains has taught me a lot about communication. While words are still a huge part of our lives (seriously, they never seem to stop talking), we have to listen beneath the words to understand. Because sometimes there are no words, not for the real things we need to say.

As a word person in a non-word house, I have discovered a strange empathy with that deeper, wordless self-expression. The strength of it overwhelms until I must share it or drown, yet all I have is words. I try to write the feelings and ideas down in ways that other people can see their beauty. I try again and again, writing and erasing until my mind is as full of rips as the paper, but I cannot find the combination that others will understand. Suddenly there are no words left.

Listen to the notes. Dance with the motions. Oggle at the skill produced from hyperfocus. Buy the heavy blankets. Share the smiles and the tears and the squeals. Maybe you’ll find no words are needed.

I Remember

I remember.
The stunned faces of teenagers watching horrific history play out in real time on classroom tvs.

I remember.
Teachers calling relatives in New York and crying for missing loved ones and the inevitable death toll.

I remember.
The face of a president in a room full of children when the news was whispered in his ear.

I remember.
Emergency personnel running into debris storms and collapsing skyscrapers in desperate attempts to evacuate as many as they could.

I remember.
Civilians organizing rescue support while traumatized themselves.

I remember.
The voices of heros in the air who knew they would never make it home.

I remember.
24 hours of no parties, politics, or arguments as a nation reeled in unison.

I remember.
Impossible rescues from smoking, creaking rubble.

I remember.
The soot-streaking tears of rescuers over the dead they could never have saved.

I remember.
For days we watched footage narrated by red-eyed reporters with shaking voices, and we wept and prayed with them.

I remember.
When a handful of the worst humanity could produce wreaked destruction, the rest of humanity loved.

I remember.

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: Decisions, Decisions

To be clear, I am the abnormal one in my family. No, not the “neurodivergent” one. That’s the other six people in the house. I’m the round peg. All my life decisions were something I took for granted. What will I eat for breakfast? Which TV show do I feel like watching? What job will I apply for? Which chore will I tackle first today? Even more stressful decisions merely took more time; I thought about them carefully, eventually made one, and life moved on.

For square pegs, decisions are something else entirely. The extra space in those corners reflects variables that simply do not exist for circle pegs. Some decisions careen off into empty space, out of the realm of conscious thought, rather like Dug’s attention in the movie _Up_ whenever he sees a squirrel. Some get jammed into the corners like the dust in the cranny where two walls meet that neither a broom or a vacuum cleaner can reach. Some jump from corner to corner and side to side like the old Windows screensaver, skating away in a new direction whenever almost within reach.

In a world requiring fast-paced decision making, square pegs stay in a state of agonized malfunction. Squirrels might become amazing adventures, but who can enjoy adventure with the decision posse riding around every corner? The posse is sure that square pegs can be reformed, that a decision can be forced with enough pressure, but all they accomplish is driving their prey into hiding, jamming that dust deeper and deeper into corners. No one gets anything, not decision or adventure.

As the circle peg, learning to appreciate the corners was a challenge. I was sure that love or responsibility or both would ensure efficient decisions in matters that affected all of us. That is, I was sure about that until I decided to go on the adventure too. When I did, I discovered a different kind of decision making, the decisions of imagination and possibility. A process independent of time or expectations, intuitively reacting to every new idea. A process that, rather than preventing functionality or progress as perceived, provided new solutions to problems, new paths to expected decisions.

My expectations about decisions were quite right for circle pegs, but entirely wrong for square ones. The pressure of rapid decisions polished my curves but scarred their corners. Their decisions weren’t “efficient” in a circle world, but when given time to sharpen the corners were often richer and more complex, adding variety, beauty, and excitement that as a circle I would never have otherwise experienced.

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: What is Normal?

Most of us played with shape sorters as children. As part of learning the different shapes and creating the proper connections, we tried fitting shapes into holes they didn’t match. Some of those mismatches didn’t fit at all; the shape simply would not pass through the hole. The corners of a square, for example, will never fit inside the curves of a circle. Others, however, would sometimes slide through, or could be forced through, certain incorrect holes. A circle could actually fit through the square hole, even though its curves did not fill out the square’s corners.

From the time we are very small, our society pushes patterns of behavior on us. “Be normal,” we’re told. If we don’t fit the shape expected, we are labeled, separated, and therapied to death until we meet expectations or break. But who decided which shape is normal? When we played with the shape sorters, we might have begun by trying to fit everything into the same shape because we liked something about that shape, but eventually we learned that each shape had its own place. Can you imagine someone saying, “The only shape allowed in the world anymore is the square? Circles, triangles, stars – they are all wrong and must be redesigned into squares.”

Two terms that have become popular in recent years are neurotypical and neurodivergent. I understand the intent behind the use of these words, and occasionally use them myself in order to frame concepts in a way people can understand them. Unfortunately, these terms also reinforce the idea that only one shape is normal. Labels are created, therapies are invented, medications are prescribed. All of these have the purpose of making people with different shapes appear to be the preferred one. The focus is always placed on what is “wrong,” what is “abnormal,” that makes a person different then eliminating it.

But again I ask, what is normal? Just as every shape is unique and has its own place on the shape sorter (and it’s own mathematical purpose), every human is unique and has place and purpose. What is normal for one is abnormal for another. What one is capable of doing another is not. What one cannot accomplish another can. Corners and curves are both necessary; elimination of one or the other creates a world that cannot function.

What if, instead of looking for “normal” we strove to celebrate individuality? What if, instead of trying to shave off corners or flatten curves, we recognized the needed functions of both? It’s true that circles can fit within the square, but they don’t belong. Circles will never be able to reach into the corners and fulfill the purpose of squares. If forced to pretend to be squares, circles will always feel inadequate, and will never experience or even know their full potential as circles. Squares, on the other hand, can never fit in the circles as they are. They will either try to shave off parts of themselves leaving raw, gaping wounds in order to squeeze in, or they will be smashed against edges again and again until they break. Either way they lose their identity and their purpose and, like the ill-fitting circle, will never experience or recognize their potential as squares.

Our society has become adept at forcing round pegs into square holes. We admire the work and contributions of those circles who managed to find their circle holes and give us great discoveries or achievements, as long as we don’t have to acknowledge that they were circles in the first place. Because we carefully avoid recognizing the ill-fitting circles, we also prevent ourselves from seeing the broken squares. We have decided to be the infant trying to smash all the shapes into the hole that pleases us best, but unlike the infant, we don’t learn from our failures. We just keep smashing and screaming in frustration until everything is broken.

What if, instead of breaking others to look like ourselves, or breaking ourselves to look like others, we all found our own purpose as who we are? God doesn’t make mistakes. He made each of us exactly the way we are. He has purpose, specific and absolute purpose, for each and every individual exactly the way He created us. Imagine what we could all be together if every single one of us found our own.

Recession Christmas, Part 3: Hard Blessings

Part of Christmas tradition is the giving of gifts. It has been argued that this tradition has become too commercialized, that focus on gifts detracts from what is important. I certainly saw advertisements that missed the point and pushed the idea of social status rising from gift quality or price. However, the concept of giving gifts stems from the core of God’s nature and is one of the ways humans in our limited capacity can try to reflect Him in our lives.

Gift giving is one of our favorite family traditions, and rather than allow financial restrictions to cast shadows on our joy, we decided to let it motivate us to deeper intention. Wish lists became highlights of interests and favorites. The kids used their own money saved from birthday gifts and odd jobs for family to buy things like stickers or art supplies, or used their talents to make gifts to suit the receiver’s personality. I raided my fabric stash and used outgrown clothes to make hand-sewn treasures.

It was a simpler approach, reminiscent of a time when life was simpler, but there was nothing easy about it. Handmade gifts take time. A lot of time, squeezed between the usual chores and responsibilities that don’t vanish because holidays are coming. Artwork requires both work space and space for drying paint, which in our full little house means the dining table. Sewing with scraps and old clothes means working with materials that weren’t designed for small projects or for particular work with needle and thread. It means aching eyes and fingers from hours of close work creating straight, invisible stitches. Handmade gifts make surprises difficult, as everyone is working right in front of each other.

The hard tried to take over as Christmas drew closer, raising stress levels and encouraging distractions. Tears flowed, panic attacks occurred. It’s harder for adults to remember the important things than for kids, it would seem. It was the kids who kept us grounded with their excitement for everyone to open the gifts they had made.

When the time came to wrap everything and fill stockings, the true blessings began to be revealed. What we had feared would be a sparse spread had grown to as many or more packages as usual. They were small, but so much thought and effort had gone into every single one that they seemed larger than life. On Christmas morning, stockings that had felt underfilled were received with unmitigated joy. Sticker sheets and snacks produced reactions associated with gifts of gold and incense. Paintings and purses were pored over and strutted with as if made by the world’s finest creators.

Simplicity isn’t easy; it never was. In so many ways our lives are much easier now than when life was simpler. There’s nothing wrong with easy, but sometimes having everything at our fingertips makes us a little too focused on what we can have. Love isn’t about stuff or money, it’s about what we are willing to give up or go through for someone else. Nothing we did was extraordinary; our usually easy lives made hard begin to feel burdensome, but hard carried love that would never have been seen otherwise. Sitting in their little piles of love offerings, our kids declared our recession Christmas to be the best ever. They understood better than we did the blessing of love found in hard simplicity.

Recession Christmas: Part Two

No matter what other traditions people may have around the holidays, food is always a key factor. Every family has their favorite recipes, associates certain flavors and smells with family and good times. My favorite holiday memories from childhood involve baking with my grandmother. We made piles and piles of candy, cookies, and pies.

Although most of the time I rather hate the perfectionist and time-consuming nature of baking, for a few days in December I throw myself into the process with joy. My children wait impatiently for the announcement of “baking day,” and all have their special requests. This year they were all old enough to participate independently, and my thirteen-year-old has fully co-opted her particular preference: sugar cookies.

Made of little more than flour, sugar, and butter, those economical little cookies are the perfect family activity. Everyone’s fingers and noses (and probably clothes) are floured as much as the cutting board. Reindeer, trees, snowflakes, and “gingerbread men” take shape under cutters pressed by small hands. The oven is impatiently watched between turns to “cut,” and golden cookies cover every surface while voices clamor for “just one.”

Other easy recipes soon join the marching shapes. Pretzel and cracker dips splatter chocolate in remote corners. Oatmeal cookies redolent of cinnamon fill the house with their comforting aroma. Gingerbread puffs delightfully in muffin tins. Homemade eggnog whips in the mixer.

When all the beautiful food is finished, it’s time to package it up. You see, while we do enjoy eating some of our goodies ourselves, we bake with another purpose. The time spent together is our gift to each other as a family, and the results are our gift to friends. A little of everything is packed into little bags with holiday notes attached, and on the Sunday before Christmas the kids get to hand deliver every package with an excited hug and a Merry Christmas. These gifts, made in an atmosphere of love and by the labor of their own hands, unconsciously reinforce the meaning of giving in their hearts.

Only when the gifts are ready and the mess cleared away do we taste the fruits of our labors. With a holiday movie on the screen, a fire crackling in the heater, and lights twinkling on our rather Seussical tree, we savor the taste of love.

Recession Christmas: Part One

For many years our family has been extraordinarily materially blessed around the holidays. Both parents and kids felt the magic of love (perhaps parents more than kids by knowing the sources of those blessings). This year, however, few have been unaffected by economic trials, and holidays must adjust accordingly. Instead of being stressed out or upset about this fact, our family decided to embrace the situation and make a different kind of magic.

One of my favorite holiday entertainments is looking at Christmas decorations. Beautifully coiffed trees, houses bedecked with twinkling lights, and outdoor displays that inspire awe capture my imagination every year. Not so very long ago, none of the materials for those displays existed. Instead, people used plants to dye fabric and ribbon into bright colors, and wove vines and branches into garlands to turn their homes into fragrant, cheerful, peaceful wonderlands. While fake plants did exist, materials were expensive and such things were hard to find even for the wealthy.

Instead of buying more decorations this year, we decided to emulate our ancestors and make our own. The woods are full of beautiful materials that cost nothing but the time taken to gather and arrange them. Moss, pinecone, and bark become a forest mountainside. Bare twigs in a painted bottle become winter ambience. A wild grapevine becomes a perfectly twisted wreath in my husband’s skilled hands. Adding a little saved ribbon and a few well-placed bits of bright paint creates a festive air.

The best part of it all is something that can’t be found in a store or on a website, something that can’t be bought for any money. The whole family went to the woods together, kids shouting with excitement over the perfect pinecone or insisting that a brightly colored freshly fallen leaf should take center stage in our table centerpiece. Eyes and minds focus on what God created, lungs breathe in clean air beneath the trees. Imaginations soar with possibilities. Innocent joy is shared. The world around us – filled with angst, selfishness, and materialism – is shut out. Pressures of work and school and our own differences melt away for a little while and we are just together.

A Chicken Story

Two weeks ago we embarked on a new adventure by adding six chicks to our flock of three. I grew up with chickens; I thought I was prepared. From day one these birds set out to prove me wrong.

To begin with, I didn’t realize how small four week old pullets were under all those brand new feathers. We left the house for two hours the first evening, and when we came back after dark all six had blissfully jumped through the dog wire of their run and bedded down two feet outside of the fence. I managed to pick them up three at a time and snuggle them in my shirt tail back into their appropriate sleeping area.

After adding chicken wire to the entire perimeter the next morning (while continually chasing escaped chicks), I heaved a sigh of relief. It was taken as a challenge by those overly curious toddler birds. I had built their run attached to the existing run for socialization, but separated by mesh that I could easily cut out later. By afternoon they had found a way through a gap in the mesh barrier and delightedly raided kitchen scraps under the indignant beaks of their elders. I managed to chase them back through their convenient hole and close it up before bedding them down for the night.

Problem not solved. Not a day went by for the next week that didn’t find me chasing houdini pullets and closing up microscopic escape routes. In the meantime, like all toddlers, they emptied their (supposedly chick-friendly) feeder all over the ground, turned over their water dispensers repeatedly when they weren’t kicking grass and bedding into them, and made a mess of their sleeping quarters.

It wasn’t all bad; the amount of time I spent corraling those birds meant they got used to me. By the end of a week they would call back to me when I talked to them, and when I let them out in the morning they would squabble and flutter so close to me that their wings hit me. When I brought food they would rush the gate so I had to be careful not to step on them. For a day or two they seemed to have settled in.

Then they discovered how to breach the blocked holes. Peck until the thing moves, then scratch it out of the way. Fly higher and find the hidden gap at the top. Dig a new hole! Me and those pullets spent a whole lot more quality time together. They started to argue with me and throw themselves at the door to their little coop when I didn’t open it fast enough to suit them. They started trying to eat my shoes and investigating my clothes.

We settled again for a day or two into a routine; all the escape routes seemed to be managed, and I started thinking about raking the big run in preparation for joining. I didn’t reckon on just how devious my little friends were, and I set myself up for what had to be the funniest chicken story ever.

I headed out to bed them down, but I knew as soon as I rounded the corner of the house something was amiss. I could hear them from much farther than usual, and couldn’t see them in their run. Yep, you guessed it. All six pullets were in the big run, merrily exploring in and out of the big coop. It might have been a boring story if they had stayed there.

They heard me coming. All six rushed to the gate, chirping madly in greeting. Their elders were already asleep, having the sense to know it was nearly dark, but not them! Did I mention the gate to the big run is dog wire? By the time I could get it open, those overly excited birds had pushed through and were running circles around the pen, cackling wildly. I called for reinforcements: extra hands and food.

The food was a dismal failure; they weren’t the least bit hungry. They were, however, delighted to stay up late and intended to keep that illicit privilege in spite of me. My eight year old son covered himself in glory by catching three by himself; my husband caught one. The others came to see what all the fuss was about and that was one battle won.

The next was to get them in the coop; they were gonna sleep with their elders because I wasn’t even trying to get them back through whatever new hole they discovered. I carried the food inside followed by chicks. By now they had already pecked up my shoes and tried to burrow under my shirt tail while I squatted trying to keep them contained as we caught them. They had finally realized it was bedtime, had decided I was mom, and as far as they were concerned I wasn’t leaving. Three surrounded my foot and snuggled up, one fluttered up the roost and perched on my wrist, and two curled up on my back as I bent over trying to reach things. They weren’t moving.

Once again my son came to the rescue. He closed the door so they couldn’t get spooked and escape, then moved them off me one at a time. While they were flapping around complaining about it, we ducked out and locked them in. By then it was completely dark and I wasn’t sure what gifts had been left on my shirt. In case the solar-powered but temperamental door decided to actually open at sunrise the way it’s supposed to, we hung a blanket over the gate until I can add chicken wire. What would you like to bet I find those chickens in the yard tomorrow morning anyway?

No Limits

https://i0.pickpik.com/photos/93/917/182/mountain-landscape-sky-natural-thumb.jpg

When people ask me what grades my children are in, I have to stop and think where they would probably be assigned in the public school system based on their age, because we don’t level our homeschool in that way. Homeschooling multiple children of varying ages more strongly resembles the one room schoolhouses of 150 years ago than any modern classroom. Learning occurs based on developmental readiness rather than on arbitrary divisions.

We also don’t really divide our education into disconnected subjects. Mathematics tends to be set apart for the moment because numbers have never been my forte, and needing help means we need some sort of curriculum. However, the principles of logic, reason, and spacial relationships naturally form the foundation for learning everything else. And without the enforcement of artificial boxes, even the smallest question can lead to a full educational experience.

For example, my ten year old chose a project about games played during the 1940s from an available suggestion list. I had him write down a handful of questions he wanted to answer on the topic, starting with the obvious “what” question. Before I knew it, he had chased the game of hopscotch back to the Roman empire, learned how to build an early version of pinball from scraps, and followed the game of chess to ancient China.

Because there are no subject divisions or levels to pass, there are no tests. Without age-assigned levels, there are no time limits, so there is no need for scored work. With enough time to practice a skill or explore a concept, mastery or at least comprehension can be reached, therefore failure is never ultimate. Without the randomized sets of skills and concepts assigned to each level, education becomes about the process of learning rather than about deadlines. The mind is trained to look and to think, to process new information and produce with it in whatever context occurs. And what is produced is much more practical than the ability to recite information; it is conversation, play, invention, business, art, architecture, medicine, and so much more.

Without grades, without subjects, without tests or scores, there is no need for carefully controlled classrooms. Discipline becomes about character rather than classroom management. The world expands outside of four walls as far as feet and imagination can carry us, and every experience is food for the mind. There are no divisions. There are no limits.