A Sunset Home Run: The Power of Analogies

Do you ever wonder how much of what your children learn will be forgotten in a year? what about (gulp) two years? I often question the effectiveness of my methods - when we go to the trouble of learning something, I like it when we actually remember it later.

Somehow, some of the things we learn do stick, and I'm always so curious to see which things stick, and why. I love to look for clues that point out the best ways for each member of our family to learn AND REMEMBER.

(and, if we're lucky, even USE - oh, happy day!)

Recently, we were driving home from a short beach trip, and we were treated to one of the most breathtaking sunsets I've ever seen. It wasn't particularly colorful, although there were some of the swirling oranges and reds we are used to seeing.  There was this one pale cloud, though, that was entirely rimmed with white light, and several times we even saw it form a little cap or "halo", a neon rainbow circle that crowned the cloud's highest peak.  And behind us, the full moon was brilliantly lit with reflected light.

Which led us to discussing how the moon and the clouds don't actually generate light of their own.  We'd covered this a couple of years ago, but I had no clue if the kids would remember much from the lesson.  Madeline piped right up though, and said, "Sure, it's just like a baseball game, remember?"  And then I remembered that when we talked about how the sun's light reflected off the moon back toward earth, Madeline had come up with that baseball analogy.

The sun is the pitcher.  He throws the ball (light) towards the batter (the moon, or other object), and the ball is hit back towards the fielders (us).

This visual had stuck with her all that time, and, from what Claire said when it came up, it had stuck with her sister, too.  I've found that analogies to familiar concepts really help me understand and remember new concepts and relationships.  Apparently they help the girls as well.

So, now I'm curious how we can come up with more analogies.  If a textbook doesn't point one out (which they often don't) then it means we have to do a little thinking about what we are learning, asking ourselves what this information reminds us of.  ("This is just like . . . ")  I'm guessing this is where a fertile imagination comes into play!  So, maybe searching for analogies helps in more than one way.

• #1) it helps cement understanding and retention
• #2) It helps exercise and develop the imagination.  

Analogies are also indispensable in writing.  They help communicate information to an audience in a clear and colorful way.  Just like a picture, sometimes one apt analogy can be worth a thousand words.  (see the analogy I used, there?!)  I suppose that makes three ways that working to think in terms of analogies can help:

• #3) improves writing and communication

Looks like devoting a little extra brainwidth to focus on analogies is a solid investment.  What would that look like in your family?

Planning and Pondering - What is Success?

As many of us (homeschoolers or not) get ready to plunge into a new school year, it's a great time to make the effort to ponder that Big Picture. What do we really consider success to look like? What are we really, ultimately, trying to do in raising our children to be (hopefully)successful adults?

Here are a couple of quotes I've run across that help me think about my real goals. I now have them posted front and center on my kitchen whiteboard (using black construction paper decorated with glittery gel pens). They are helping keep me on track in this season of planning our curricula, projects, and activities:

"All success consists of this: You are doing something for somebody - benefiting humanity - and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this." - Elbert Hubbard, 1923

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein (1955)

Those are great thoughts to ponder. To me, the trick, (and the fun!), is figuring out what to do with them.

I find that our path twists and loops - a sort of 3-D cursive that looks different every day. Once our feet hit the ground each morning, we are off on another adventure. The way our madcap wanderings unfold makes planning a challenge, at best! Even with all the bumps and ruts, challenges, and choices, though, it is still enchanting to anticipate what could lie around the next bend. . .

It could be worse . . . And maybe it should be?

No doubt you've noticed that different people can have strikingly different feelings about the same kind of learning experience. I'm sure many of the differences are due to personality and learning style characteristics. These are the factors that are usually pointed out. I think these factors miss something big, however.

As a homeschooler, I can't tell you how many times I've heard parents rave about how their kids finally came to love learning when they left school, while at the very same time I've also heard heaps of other homeschoolers bemoaning their children's lack of enthusiasm toward learning and wondering where they went wrong. Curriculum reviewers talk about how their children are finally loving math, while others lament their children's boredom or frustration with the very same curriculum.

These differences probably go beyond just what could be explained by personality, learning style, or educational merit. When you think about it, doesn't prior experience have as much to do with success as anything else? So much depends on the setup, the context, into which a learning experience is introduced.

A simple example: A student who has struggled through a math program with 50 practice problems a day might think a program with only 25 problems is like a vacation. What about a student who has always just done 25 problems, though? Or a student who is accustomed to doing 15?

I'm guessing they won't be impressed, to put it mildly.

Similarly, a student accustomed to a traditional, regimented, classroom learning environment may revel in the comparative freedom that even a rigorous homeschooling approach allows. A lifelong homeschooled kid may chafe at the very same program.

So the question that my mischievous little brain wants to ask is, is it ever a good idea to purposely choose a program or approach that we know might be unsuccessful, or at least not enjoyable, just to give our children a different frame of reference?

Most of the parents I know (myself included) tend to obsess over finding and using approaches that our children will like, as much as possible. When our children don't do well with the approach, we blame the method, thinking it is a bad fit for our child, and that we need to find something else.

An overwhelmingly common concern among parents is that they not crush their children's love of learning. In the face of this nurturing, and in the right context, many children flourish. But others become coddled, resistant to most effort and blind to the rewards of discipline.

This flies in the face of what most of us would call good educational technique - But maybe what we really need in some of these cases is an opportunity for a change in perspective.

(I guess that's a fancy, positive way to say "attitude adjustment".)

Distractions

Opportunities abound in this blink of an eye that we call the modern world. The sky is the limit, the world is our oyster. We can learn about anything, keep up with everything, be whatever we want to be.

In these exciting times I am constantly inspired to great and worthwhile pursuits. Opportunities that were once available to only a lucky few can now be done by anyone who will. Write a book, start a movement, teach others, share what you've learned, connect with people around the world, make art, design anything.

Possibilities are enchanting; potential enthralls.

If you think about it, however, you can predict the downside to all this bounty:

Somehow, someday, when I'm ready to actually bring even one of those possibilities into reality ...

I will probably have to focus,
to look all that limitless potential
right in the eye
and start slamming doors, pruning ruthlessly, eyes closed, fingers in ears, la-la-la-la, choosing over and over to ignore, pass by, forego.

Opportunities that were golden just moments ago, before the decision to Actually Do Something, are now nothing more than shiny traps and siren songs luring the unwary into the Bog of Distraction.

In case you haven't figured out, it's a problem for me. Just sayin'