Unschooling

As I have just graduated and received what some call a diploma signifying completion of a “higher” education I would like to put down some of my thoughts on the subject. As some of you have tried or considered homeschooling I write some of this specifically to you.

I have a pretty typical love-hate relationship with school that I believe most of you can relate to. I love the social aspects, I love the discovery, and I love the feeling when I finally figure something out that is terribly difficult even if I can’t brag to anyone about it. Unfortunately to get there I have to deal with the daily busy-work homework, droning teachers, over-pressured schedules, and a lot of topics that I could care less about. Really, is it worth it? Couldn’t there possibly be a better way? There has to be options out there to the regular public education system…we are a consumer society and need options for everything, yet even homeschooling is schooling and elective courses are still courses. The option presented in the attached website may not be the best alternative, but it does give a pretty interesting case study that should be looked at.

This is where you stop and read the linked write up (http://tinyurl.com/cs2gyg)

Here are the issues I see with this:

He makes the comment that “You develop deep peer relationships around areas of common interest, (using the unschooling program) once you're allowed to explore and discover what those areas of interest are. And the Internet and online gaming allow you to make those relationships anywhere in the world, to draw on the brightest experts on the planet, and to communicate powerfully with like-minded, curious people of every age, culture and ideology.”

Is that what we really want? Is that good education? I would submit that a large part of education and learning is true, real, face to face communication with individuals of all different backgrounds. Why do you think colleges hold diversity in students as such a high classification when judging applicants? My stake president a month ago is quoted to say “Facebook and texting are not the Lords way (of communicating, building relationships, or dating,) Face to face communication is what the Lord wants.”

My theory is that people only get weirder as they get older and it is mostly due to their narrow focus. Children’s minds are so diverse. With age comes a narrowing of scope and the narrower the scope the weirder they are. Look at some of the physicists dad works with. Look at most of the students in the engineering building, the music department, accounting, business, or English classrooms. Narrow minded people become stereotypically weird. They are “those” people. The only way to avoid this is to diversify your knowledge and continue to learn many new things.

I do not want to just shoot down his ideas though. I think he may be on a very good track here. We do need some sort of change. We should be more excited about our schooling. Students should want to learn and should be taught in subjects they will be excited for. This leads to my next issue.

I have discussed the issue of public schooling with a number of my roommates. We talk about public schooling as a student factory, driving production of students and bringing the average education up. The issue is then that everyone is at the average and few excel. The suggestion given in the attached essay is the same given by my roommates (one of them actually sent this to me) which are to teach what students are interested in learning and ignore the things they are bored of. The idea is that when a student wants to learn how to build a rocket the teacher will explain that there is lots of hard math involved and that they need to get started now in order to understand it. In the mean time lets learn about art, English, and tell stories from history which have such a small learning curve that we can dive in to them right now. OK, so I am exaggerating a little, but this is how I see it actually happening. Students will only learn easy things. The hard math and sciences will be lost.

I learned a lot in the public education system. I learned more than just to read and write well. I learned the math and the science right alongside good people skills and, in college, religion. These “extra” subjects helped round me out and make me (hopefully) less of a stereotypical dry boring engineer. I won’t say it was perfect, there are plenty of problems with it, but it has worked for me. I might even say it has worked well for me. Thanks, mom and dad for giving me this opportunity to become a more contributing member of society.

Now

I am on the airplane on the way home from a really good weekend. Last
night as we enjoyed everyone I couldn't help but wish that the moment
would last longer. Two weeks ago we were in Europe and Joyce was doing
all she could to keep the experience from being over. Often when I come
home from a particularly eventful trip or a cold camping trip I think
about one of the strangest words in English: "Now."

We use "now" to describe the present time, but as soon as we say it, it
is no longer true. What is "now" now is "then" now. When we are
experiencing something we are usually not aware of the part time plays
in the event until it is over and just a memory. Sometimes we would
like to just stop time and savor the "moment," but even that is
impossible without time. Try to imagine music if time were taken away.

Time is an interesting concept. In the mathematics of physics, time is
just another dimension like up, down, north or east. There is one
important exception. Even though all of the equations are symmetric and
can run either way in each of the four dimensions, time always goes in
one direction called the arrow of time. Yes, Jared, time really does
fly like an arrow. But it doesn't always go the same speed. If I am
standing still and watching someone approaching (very fast) my time is
running faster than his. By the same principle of relativity, the guy
approaching me sees me approaching him and, to him, my time is running
slower than his. If I were to travel near the speed of light to the
nearest star and return, I would find that I had aged only a little,
while those of you who stayed behind would all be old. This can
actually be measured - clocks in orbit run slower than clocks on the
ground because of their relative motion.

Strong gravity also makes time run slower. This can also be measured.
Light from stars slows down and bends if it passes near the sun on its
way to us. If you fell into a black hole you would never reach the
bottom. The closer you got the slower time would run, and you would
fall forever.

If physics sounds too weird, try biology. Remember when you were a
little kid. Days seemed to last forever. Summer vacation seemed to
stretch on and on. The school year was even longer. There is actually
a biological reason for that. We each have "clocks" built into us that
slow down as we age. To us, the time between "ticks" is the same
whether the clock is running fast or slow. So if a little kid has a
clock running twice as fast as mine, he will feel like the same amount
of time has passed by noon as I get in the entire day. I have heard
that if you count "ticks" of your bio-clock, life is half over in your
late twenties.

Back to the concept of "now." Again in physics, "now" is an "event" in
"space-time." That means that it has a location in each of the three
spatial dimensions and in time. It is a "place" in four-dimensional
space. It is what we call "invariant." It will always be there - the
same point in space-time. The catch is that, because of the arrow of
time, we can never go back to it. Or can we?

Even a superficial reading of the scriptures shows us that God and His
messengers have a different relationship with time than we do.
Otherwise it would be impossible for them to visit - or even be aware of
- other worlds in the universe. How does God know "the end from the
beginning?" It may be that celestial beings can control this fourth
dimension and move around in it like we move around in three. It may be
that we all could.

What if we all left our pre-earth life at the same "time" and came to
earth together, only we entered this existence at different points along
the time dimension. That might actually make more sense than to picture
us all sitting around wondering, and then suddenly hearing someone yell,
"There goes Jared! He's going down!" That gives "now" a whole
different meaning. My current "now" won't happen for Joyce for another
two years. It won't happen for Sage for another 62 years, and it
happened for Grandma Miller 34 years ago. Maybe we all left excitedly
at the same time and will return at approximately the same time and have
a big reunion and swap stories.

Well, my "now" has advanced another hour and it is time to ponder the
meaning of my advancement along the fourth dimension, and to wrap up
this essay. What are the myths of time? We are told that we are all
given the same amount of time. This is not true - none of us knows how
much time we really do have. They say that we each have the same amount
of time each day - also not true. This is subject to our bio-clocks as
well as to things that distract us (both good and bad) and keep us from
being aware of time. What is true? Moments are precious. Gems are
precious because they are rare - but you can always go back and get
another one. "Now" is unique - there is only one and will never be
another.

StrangerDanger

Lucy and Anabel are a little confused by the whole “stranger danger” idea. Anabel happily yells “Hi! Hello!” to everyone she possibly can. And Lucy thinks that everyone is put on this earth to tell her how cute she is, and if she’s wearing a dress, then they’re suppose to tell her that her dress is “lovely”. She’ll also accept “beautiful”. So I am faced with trying to instill in them a healthy fear of strangers, especially ones that ask them a lot of questions or offer them things. Anabel is okay with telling people no for a ride in the car, but she’s a little iffy on the whole treat/candy offer. She’d take that in a heartbeat. And I can’t even blame them. Nope, not even a little. Because not so long ago, as an adult, I found myself happily perched in a stranger’s van.
They didn’t offer me candy (would have turned that down, flat), but they said the magic words. Words that caused my eyes to glaze over, my heart to pound and my brain to shut down. They whispered them to us as we exited the subway in New York. “Do you want to see some Coach purses?” the lady asked. “Yes!” I cried. “Come this way” she instructed, then quickly turned and walked away. We followed her a couple of blocks, zigzagging through stinky ally ways that made us walk faster and closer to each other, then finally to a less crowded side street. There, parked at the curb was a white, ugly, non-descript van. Mecca, the Promised Land of cheap knock-offs. Danger? Whatever! Shirley and I scrambled to be the first inside, and our heads swiveled, trying to take everything in at once. Joyce hesitated, unsure of what to do, and Shirley and I both spoke at once. “Get in!” we encouraged, anxious to get our hands on the clutches, the handbags, the evening bags and wallets. She finally climbed in and the door slid shut, locking us in with all those tempting bags. Shirley and I immediately got down to business. “I want something in white” I said. “Oooh, white!” Shirley exclaimed. And we were lost. Should we get something small? Impractical and absolutely lovely? Joyce was a harder sell. “What if they kidnap us?” she asked. “What if they…Oooh, I like this purse.” And just like that, rational thought had officially left three adult women. Instead, we oohed and ahhed over colors, fabrics and designs.
The whole experience lasted less than twenty minutes, all told. We escaped unscathed, with purses slung over our shoulders, new wallets happily resting in the bottom of our beautiful new bags. I loved every minute of it and only regret that I didn’t get that sable brown leather number that I debated over. Shirley and I still laugh about how quickly we followed that woman and how eager we were to be the first in the van.
I’m not sure if I should be insulted or just frightened by how easily my mind went blank and I followed a stranger through a strange city to a strange van. All because she offered me something impractical and lovely and not at all necessary. So I guess if you want to lure women to a party, offer them something that will make their eyes glaze with the promise that they’ll look at it and think, “Oooh, shiny!”

Lark Ascending

Imagine yourself sitting at the top of the hill. It is late in the afternoon and everything is quiet. As you look out you see a single lark ascending from the ground cover. It flies up, catches the wind for no apparent reason other than to feel it under its wings. It glides in place for a minute then lets the wind take it away as it stalls and begins a free fall descent. This view draws your attention further as the lark shows you the beauty of the vista with its village and pasture lands and mostly its cerulean sky. This is the imagery of The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Its peaceful, simple melody unquestionably and beautifully describes this view through uses orchestral voices, imagery tactics, and skilled usage of modernistic effects mixed with a twist of folk music.
I loved the music performed by the symphony orchestra at BYU where I first heard this piece all the way through. Williams did an excellent job of depicting a beautiful scene using the lines from a poem by George Meredith as his guide:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instills,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

The listener can quickly understand the violin to be the instrumental voice used for the movement of the lark. In its introductory few measures it trills and slides through a graceful melody and grows throughout to its highest trill. The image is a lark landing on branches with each cadence takes short little flights up in the air and then back down, landing again on this branch or another. As the tonal center changes so do the branches he lands on giving a sense of the natural. It seems random yet there is structure in the chaos. The bird in the vision is seen ascending to a stalled position as the wind holds it steadily gliding in place until it falls to back to the branch once again. This is clear through the natural speed ascension of the melody to a trill which then falls quickly back to the current tonal center. Natural trills and swells then continue the depiction of the simple rise and fall of his flight.
The second voice is that of the rest of the orchestra. The orchestra shows a beautiful view of the pastoral landscape with its villages and fields, hills and trees, and that ever present blue of the sky. “‘Tis love of earth that he instills” shown through the passing of the melody here. The orchestra comes in at the times when the lark seems to disappear, yet really our focus has just changed. We now see the beauty of the scene because of the larks influence. We watch the lark fly high into the sky through the 8va trills on the violin and then are pleased to view the rest of the scene. One time we see the sky and hills and trees through a broad open melody from the orchestra and a second time we see the village and pastoral lands through a folk sounding melody using the same orchestral voices. Each time though we are brought back to the lark as the soloist violin comes in midway through the orchestra’s melody and builds until the listener’s focus is back on its flight.
This effect is an impressive one to pay attention to. Williams was able through his music not only depict a scene, but take that scene and zoom our focus in and out as if he were using a computer. The main focus is on the lark, but at times that lark’s melody is used to show the scenery behind. The times the soloist is playing alone on stage are when sole focus is on the lark, and the view is zoomed in to just his flight. Other times a general idea of the backdrop is in our minds through a gentle hum from the orchestra, and finally the music takes and zooms out of the scene completely to show a full view of the valley, yet in doing this the view nearly loses the lark until attention is brought back to it.
Williams wrote this piece just before the First World War. It was a time in music when things were supposed to be different and you were not to follow the prescribed plan laid out by prior musicians. Williams followed this advice from his contemporaries to a certain extent. He did not keep a strict tonal center throughout the piece, but as mentioned before, this was for the purpose of depicting the natural randomness that happens. He did not keep a normal meter either, but was able to still put a beautiful, peaceful, and most importantly for the topic, easy to listen to melody together. This is due to his melody choice, but also to his use of these effects correctly. He borrowed themes from English folk music as well as their pentatonic scale giving the piece a naturally peaceful feel. He also was able to blend the orchestra in such a way as to bring this peace to its listeners.

Summer

It’s hard to remember some of the summers I had as a kid. I recently came across a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Hobbes mentions that Calvin complained all summer about how bored he had been. Calvin’s response is that he must have been delirious from all the fun that he was having. That’s how I like to remember my summers, but there weren’t all too many specifics that stick out to me.
Back when I didn’t have any responsibilities, I didn’t have any homework to worry about, and all of my friends were in the same boat, what did I do then? How did I find something to keep me busy for three whole months? I wasn’t old enough to drive, I didn’t get enough money from my allowance, and I wasn’t smart enough to know how to spend money if I had it. What did I do?
Well, one year I remember racing bikes down the lane. But my chain came off and I didn’t have any brakes and I ended up with my feet sticking out of the blue spruce behind the old basketball hoop. That definitely wasn’t a joyful experience…at the time. There were other summers where all I remember are the reunions and the unusual exciting things. Like when we made the wagon into a handcart for the 24th of July parade.
But other than that…
Now things are different. I have something to do all day every day, but when I don’t, then what? I’m hoping that it is as easy as it used to be to have fun. Hopefully my friends will come out to play. And now I can drive and I have money, so I’ll definitely have fun, right? Luckily one of my conditions of living with Holly and Mike this summer is that I’ll spend lots of time playing outside with the kids. I’m really excited for that. Maybe I’ll make this summer memorable for them somehow.

Europe

Before I started traveling to Europe many years ago, I remember thinking that is would be a waste to spend so much money to go to Europe. After all trees, grass, mountains are the same wherever they are. Well needless to say, one trip to Europe quickly changed that thought and I was hooked. I love the architecture, the history, the customs. The more I travel, the differences in scenery don’t awe me quite so much, and I am more and more convinced that the very best part of traveling is the people – meeting new people, renewing old friendships, learning something new about or from someone, having a discussion with the person on the train or plane, meeting up with people from Kent’s work.
As you all know we just returned from driving through Andrew’s part of Germany, visiting Kent and Kae Servoss in Rotterdam Holland, and returning to London. It was an impressive trip as far as the places we visited – Bremen Germany, Keukenhof Park in Holland, Stonehenge and Salisbury and London, but the really impressive part to me was the people we visited and the connections we made. It was so fun to drive into Osnabrück and then Leer where Andrew served on his mission and have him direct us around town by telephone. He directed us to a family in Leer that he became good friends with, even though they were not baptized. We went to their door and were very disappointed when they were not home. In Osnabrück he made sure we saw the “Joseph and Brigham” statues in the church courtyard. Andrew’s mission became more real to us for sure.
Going to Rotterdam Holland, Kent and Kae Servos were so excited to see us they drove over an hour to meet us. We stopped to have dinner in a town square outdoor restaurant before we continued the last hour to their apartment. We enjoyed part of general conference with them over the weekend. They took us to the beautiful city of Delft where we not only did a little pottery shopping, but saw the canals and architecture. We saw the tulips at Keukenhof and in the fields. Before we left on Sunday afternoon they took us to peaceful Kinderdijk to see the windmills. We learned firsthand about being couple missionaries, we came to understand things about Kent and Kae and their children that we had not known before and we gave them some much needed home-friends- family love and connection.
In England it was like going home. The double-decker bus 15 still went the same route through the city past most of the landmarks. It was still just as much fun sitting on the top deck right in the front, watching all the awesome sights. We rode to Windsor and through the Buckinghamshire countryside with our friends the Ayles. We thrilled with the miracle of Sue and Terry Ayles finally getting pregnant after 12 or more years. They shared all the miracles that they have seen in their lives since we saw them last and how that has made them determined and bold in sharing the gospel. We had a party at their house and invited friends from High Wycombe Ward. Friends we had not seen or heard from for 10 years were just as dear and just as fun to catch up with as if it had been yesterday that we saw them last.
We returned with great pictures (see the Blog) of tulips and buildings, and also with friendships and lessons learned, great memories and our testimonies strengthened.
I love Western Europe, but I don’t have much desire to travel to Asia, it is SO different there, I would probably feel uncomfortable. But if I went there ….

Speed

I like to drive fast. And more often than not, I’m running to the bus stop rather than strolling. I speed walk through Costco, because I have a very limited amount of time Owen will put up with riding in the cart. We hurry out the door so we can be sort-of on time for…well, anything we’re hurrying out the door to. In fact, I’m not sure the last thing I was early to. I’ve decided there must be a time warp between my back door and starting the car. I loose ten minutes in what I swear takes us less than thirty seconds. While I was in the car running between appointments, two songs came on the radio back to back and I marveled at their difference. Which, I wondered, would be the anthem of my life right now? Which would I choose to have? The first said, “I’m in a hurry to get things done. I rush and rush ‘til life’s no fun.” The second starts “It’s a great day to be alive.” Then continues “And why can’t every day be just this good?”
I realize a life without a little hustle-bustle is one that is probably pretty boring and one I wouldn’t choose. But in the midst of all the Speedy Gonzales moments, there is happiness that lends itself to the giggly moments in life, moments that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. I had the chance to watch my girls play in their fist soccer games this weekend. It was crazy getting there, but as I watched Anabel skid to a stop in the middle of the field, bend down, pick a dandelion and run over to give it to me with a wide grin and a fast “I love you, Mom!” I was overwhelmed. I doubt the kids notice the frantic way I try to get things ready, make sure we have everything we need, get to the right place at the right time without forgetting anything along the way. But it doesn’t matter. They do notice if I smile while I’m running around. They notice when I give them hugs, smile at them and tell them I love them.
Late last night, Lucy came and crawled into bed beside me. She wasn’t awake enough to tell me what had woken her up, but she said “I just needed to snuggle.” So I pulled her in close and watched her as she relaxed back into a peaceful sleep. As I looked at her, I was reminded of another song that says, “I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings.” I have more in my life than I ever thought was possible, more than I could have dreamed. While I’ve got times in my life when I feel like we’re running more than anything, I still can close my eyes at night, counting my blessings. And I fall asleep wondering, “why can’t every day be just this good?