Boys Will Be Boys

T chose to help me out cleaning up & grooming plants this week while foregoing the opportunity to play with his siblings. He worked so hard all the while negotiating for payment in time on the PlayStation. He spent most of Wednesday afternoon diligently raking and sweeping up yet still managed to seize the opportunity to pour dirt down his sister's pants.

Night School

It's spring! Well, close enough to count anyway. I have lots of work to do and I'm already falling behind (as usual.) Therefore, the kids will primarily be having night school for the next few months while I deal with the spring rush.

I have it all planned out. They'll do some of their schoolwork, like reading, in the mornings leaving most topics for the evenings. In between, they get to play and receive impromptu lessons in botany, horticulture, entomology, mycology, marketing, small business management and whatever else I can come up with whenever I manage to corner one of them. Sounds impressive doesn't it?

In reality, we're somewhat cutting back on the intensity of their studies. It's not going to hurt to do so since we've decided to eliminate summer vacation and go with year round school. That's one of the reasons I like homeschooling so much - the flexibility is wonderful.

Grading Papers & Doing the Math

I am tired of 4th grade. I am sick of grading piles of papers. Why do I feel the need to keep grades for everything they do? When they're working diligently, cranking out assignment after assignment, the pile of papers and workbooks is overwhelming.

My friend has a son who is one year younger than T, attends public school, and only brings home about 6 completed worksheets per week. When she called me concerned that her son wasn't getting much of an education and mentioned the piddling amount of work brought home each week I thought "Goodness, K & T can do that much in an hour!" The conversation had me wondering if I might be overloading the kids with schoolwork. I know homeschoolers don't have to spend half their school time waiting on 20 - 30 children to get down to business; but, six worksheets for an entire week's worth of classwork is about one per day! That's not much by any standard. Apparently, she isn't the only parent of a child in that class who is worried about the lack of schoolwork. She asked around and learned that the teacher has a reputation for being lazy. What's sad is that it isn't just that teacher who assigns so little. My own children brought home roughly the same quantities when they were in public school. K's second grade teacher was the exception.

I did the math & was shocked at the result. If the above mentioned teacher had 25 students (actually it's more like 18) and assigned 6 worksheets per week to each of those students she would be grading 150 papers per week. If my kids do 12 pages (usually more) per day per child the result is 120 pages per week. Now, if one were to consider that I spend just as much time on lessons in front of the white board as one would assume that teacher does (the rumor is she stays behind her desk much of the day) one could easily reach the conclusion that I am doing the same amount of work as a school teacher. It's pretty amazing to think about it. What is even more incredible is the realization that my children are doing the equivalent of 20 of that teacher's public school students! Remember, that teacher actually has 18 students in her class. It would be accurate to say my children do more schoolwork each week than her entire class.

That little piece of information got me to wondering if I was overwhelming the kids. They don't seem overwhelmed, bored perhaps, but not overwhelmed. They still have time to play, go to karate, do their chores, and veg out. No, the kids aren't overwhelmed. I'm the one who's overwhelmed, buried under piles of not yet graded papers. Yeah, I definitely need to give up on the notion of grading every single one.

The Yellow Belt

It's been a year since K & T started taking karate lessons. From January to mid-September they went to karate classes run by a man who required only one kata per belt level. He spent most of his time out in the hallway talking to the kids' moms while 13 & 14 year old black belts, who couldn't control a room full of elementary age kids, attempted to teach the classes. The classes were mostly calisthenics followed by 20 to 30 minutes of karate moves. It was borderline chaos, not what one would expect to see in a karate dojo. So, why did we leave them there for 8 months? Well...it was cheap, nearby, and we didn't notice the shortcomings at the beginning. Furthermore, we weren't sure karate was their thing. My ignorance of what a karate school should be is also to blame. I should have done some research.

Over the summer, it became clear the kids were really into karate. I watched them go up in belt rank every three months like clockwork just for showing up to class. There was a belt test, sort of. All the students went through the moves as a group while the instructor stood in front of the class giving commands. The belt tests weren't announced beforehand; yet, no one ever failed one. Anyone absent on belt test night simply took the test at the next scheduled class. At the end of class, he handed out belts and large, fancy certificates adorned with a stalking tiger on one side. They looked impressive. I watched my kids come home with 3 pretty tiger certificates and yellow, orange, then purple belts. As purple belts my kids couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag even though their Gis were adorned with patches won during school sparring matches. They knew a few moves and three katas, although they didn't know what purpose those moves served. Even though they realized their instructor just might not be all that after all the kids wanted to stick with the karate classes. E & I were proud of their determination. We had several discussions and asked the kids what they thought about the karate school. We decided to begin looking for a legitimate karate school. What we found was a real Sensei who ran a real karate school.

Having learned my lesson after the last instructor, I did some googling and put together a list of questions for potential martial arts instructors and spoke with several in our area. When I made the first contact on the phone with him I knew this Sensei was different. He talked about the school and his students, not himself. All the others started their sentences with "I." He invited us to the dojo for a look-see.

We showed up to class that night. Everyone in the dojo stared at my kids sporting their recently received purple belts tied around Gis that were literally covered with patches. Parents walked up to me & asked about them. The kids did look sharp, and perhaps a little overdone, in their trappings. The Sensei talked with us for a minute then asked the kids to show him what they knew (more like, didn't know.) Rather than standing there watching their sloppy performance he went into teaching mode. I hadn't indicated to him that we were going to sign up for his classes. He had no obligation to teach them a thing. He automatically did it. The kids participated in the last half of the class that night & decided he was the Sensei they wanted. During the hour & a half we were there I watched the students. His orange belts looked better than the former instructors black belts did! I was amazed at the difference. Looking back, I realize I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

He talked to us at the end of class and told the kids that they would have to start over as white belts. He explained that his students were required to know much more & properly execute the moves before they received yellow belts. He asked the kids if they thought, after seeing the performance of his students, if they thought they knew enough to have the belts that were tied around their waists. They were honest with him & said 'no." He asked them how they felt about starting over at white belt. Although their disappointment was obvious, they said they wanted to really learn karate and truly earn their belts. He warned the kids that he would be a tough teacher; but promised them he would teach them. He was true to his word.

Over the last four months I have watched him teach. He attends to each student, children and adults alike, ensuring they get help when needed. He's put 100% into helping K & T get to where they are now. There have been times when the kids have made his job hard - days when they goofed off or didn't listen. He has pushed them, praised them, and disciplined them consistently. This past Saturday he tested them. This past Saturday he and a promotion board of two other black belts awarded yellow belts to my children and husband. The accompanying certificate was small, 8 x 11, and didn't have a pretty tiger on it. My daughter, who really likes tigers, commented that she thought it looked much better than the other certificate she has from her former karate school. Fishing for the answer I had waited almost four months to hear, I asked her why she thought the new one looked better than the much larger, tiger adorned one. "Because, I really earned this one," she said quietly, smiling to herself. The Sensei gave my children much more than a brightly colored belt and a certificate last Saturday.