October 2009 Archives

So, are you ready?

It's that time of year again! Yep, time to prepare for the seasonal celebration of death, honor those who have passed away, face our own immortality and dwell on the wonders of the afterlife. As usual, M&K have been planning a party for weeks & have nearly wrapped up their costume designs. (Which, if you know our family, should be easy to predict - as always, they're going as little Mum-mies.) Certainly, an annual, festive excitement pervades the whole country & has even spread across the world. So, please allow me be just one of many who will greet you this week with that dear, recurring chant from our childhoods: 

          "HAPPY HOWARD CARTER-KING TUT'S TOMB DISCOVERY DAY!" (Trick or treat?)
 
Except for a week or two of high school World History -- which was supposed to be a review, but was all new to me -- I could not recall a thing about Ancient Egypt. I'd always heard that this was one of those subjects, like dinosaurs or singing vegetables, that supposedly turned kids onto learning. But, based on my own experience, where teachers generally devoted 3-5 class periods per civilization before moving on to the next millennium, I was in a bit of a panic: How could I possibly fill 4 weeks of homeschool history on such a dull, uninspiring topic?
(Admittedly, a Nile-istic attitude.)

I went with my strength. There was one lesson about Ancient Egypt that I not only memorized as a kid, but - and I add this in all modesty here - that I still remembered perfectly as an adult. So, just like back in the day, I was willing to demonstrate my mastery of this subject matter if necessary & upon request (my own - for I am nothing, if not obliging). And now, thanks to youtube, I even had an accompanist: 

OK then, that got us through the first two days of the month! Our golden girls were delighted to learn the words & practice all those form-idable, op-pose-able palms moves... why, they continuously roamed the halls in head bobbing, stylized sync! [Well, until I told them they could stop. Sure, 72 hours of this is par for the Egyptian course, but homeschoolers tend to pick things up a little faster, so we were able to declare our proficiency after only 48 hours (not counting the snack and government-mandated napping breaks).]

I hesitate to share the next step in our exploration of Egyptology's merits & nuance, but might as well since perhaps it highlights the full extent of my desperation curriculum-creation powers: Again, I turned to youtube - aka, vestige of all that is educational and worthy of attention - & played The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian. Thank Ra, the girls much preferred "King Tut." (Can I get an Amen-Ra?)

Of course, this was all just as I planned it. M&K found my approach extremely motivating. And, the following week, completely took over the direction of our Egyptian studies.

Which meant a play. On words. In 8 scenes. Mikaela was the primary playwright, but they worked collaboratively to come up with ideas for action which "must combine tragic & comic elements" to meet the artistic criteria set by the demanding director (older sister). Mikaela also wrote new lyrics for a musical interlude. Although it was in the same tempo as Steve Martin's, she claimed her song was a much improved version since "It's more factually accurate." They then set about memorizing lines, making costumes & props, and rehearsing for hours. Well, there were several minutes of rehearsal, but add those to the hours of arguing, storming off and refusing to continue under such creative duress and you've got real, honest-to-goodness drama!
 
In addition, Katrianna composed a ballad to be sung by Amenhotep (Katrianna) to honor Cleopatra (isn't she a doll?) as the curtain (baby blanket) fell, a subtle signal to the dense audience (it was SRO - all chairs were taken by Thutmose, the scribes, Osiris, miscellaneous embalming equipment...) to begin shouting rounds of "Bravo!" & "Encore!" All of that happened right after Amenhotep weighed King Tut's heart on the scales of justice to find that "Sure nuff, it's light as a feather!" & we watched as the two buddies played a riveting game of Hungry Hippos in the afterlife waiting room. [For those of you keeping score for fantasy Hungry Hippos, Amenhotep won. Tut-tut! But only after first spotting Tutankhamun a 3 marbles lead, the fair way to proceed after one guy just got his brains pulled out through his nose in scene 7 (by a fancy silver plated 'S' shaped bookmark, a gift to Mikaela which kept slipping off the pages & made a lousy bookmark, but it was an excellent brain hook).]

Then there was a field trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Normally seeing their extensive Egyptian collection would have taken roughly 7 minutes, but on one of our visits (actually, this time it was to play with the Simple Machines exhibit), we happened onto a class of third graders being lectured to by a matronly docent. Katrianna kept straying over to their group gathered in the corner, huddled around a small cabinet of Egyptian artifact goodies that were brought out one at a time for prompt display once the woman paused to relock the treasury's door & securely deposit its key back into her pocket. Our daughter was mesmerized. She scooted in closer, sidling up between two girls who were paying great attention to smoothing the seams on their crisply pleated, navy blue skirts. Her hand shot up! And there it stayed as the flustered docent droned on. And on. And on. Wow, I thought, could this mean that she really wanted to be in school? Had she been unable to tell me that she yearned for this sort of social interaction? That she was so eager to seek out others whose expertise could teach her more than she was learning at home?

It was humbling, but I reminded myself that this was always her choice to make. However,  she'd managed to move up another row & the chaperones, if they ever noticed, might get unnerved at such a display of insolence. So, I tapped her on the shoulder. And tapped. And tapped some more until she finally acquiesced and disconsolately followed me over to the other side of the museum's basement. "So, you really liked that class, huh? The teacher was pretty interesting, wasn't she?" Clearly frustrated, Katrianna said nothing, so I answered for her. "Yeah, it might be fun to go to school like those kids. And get explanations to all your questions. What was it you wanted to ask her about just now?"  Katrianna stared at me, confirming my suspicions of teacher-mom inadequacy, and then replied, "I wanted to tell her that she was wrong. Khafre's pyramid looks taller, but Khufu's is really. And they're in Giza, not the Valley of the Kings. And after they did that CAT scan thing, no one thinks Tut was murdered anymore!" She sullenly walked over to pedal the stationary bike until its light bulb flickered on....

After we'd officially finished with our Egypt month of studies, we started Christmas vacation. It gave Mom a much needed break from the rigors of academia. And, amid holiday activities, carol singing, present making and Peanut's specials, it gave M&K a much needed chance to finally break into the rigors of academia they'd so desired. (Until then, they'd felt E-gypped.) "OK, Mom, that settles it," pronounced Katrianna, who was flat on the floor examining an 11x17 xerox copy of the Rosetta Stone. Laying her 3" diameter magnifying glass aside for a moment, she declared, "I'm going to have to learn Greek!" Her progression in deciphering hieroglyphs was unacceptably hampered by this linguistic deficiency and how else could she be certain that Jean-François Champollion had correctly translated all 3 scripts? Sure, she could engrave the hieroglyphs & demotic script with confidence onto her handmade model magic RS replica, but that was hardly satisfactory... And, despite the fact that when we went to Europe a year later & she was limited to one carry-on bag for packing all of her belongings, she insisted on taking along that same magnifying glass for the express purpose of using it in the British Museum to verify the Rosetta Stone's authenticity.

In January, we started back to school & other topics. But, for her New Year's resolution, Katrianna solemnly vowed, "I have to study every day if I want to be an Egyptologist. So that's what I'll do." With that, her Independent Studies began in earnest. On Easter, the Bunny (not without reservations due to his keen sensitivity to irony) delivered the request topping her wish list: The Book of the Dead, replete with be(plastic)jeweled cover & full page, color photos (just like the original). All that year & into the next, she read from her growing repository of meticulously detailed Egypt books, including the Cairo Museum's Collection Guide. Within a week, Katrianna memorized its floor plans & set the daily agenda for our family's impending(?) visit. She also drafted several letters to her hero Zahi Hawass, though they were never mailed because her uncooperative parents refused to finalize our (her) travel itinerary & "C'mon, can't you find a customer in Cairo, Dad?!" After all, how would it look if she sent a resume to the Secretary-General without specifying her dates of availability for meeting with him in person? Not an advantageous way to negotiate her responsibilities & membership on the Supreme Council of Antiquities, is it? But, alas, her best laid pyramid schemes have yet to result in a trip...  

So, no kidding, here's what the kids had to do to satisfy my original syllabus expectations:

Science
Explain 'What is archaeology?'
Experiment w/moving heavy loads w/'logs' (Lincoln logs) 
Geography
Draw, color & label Egypt map
Math
Use compass to make equiv sides & draw pyramids, cut out, fold & tape
Games: play Totally Tut; learn & play Senet
Mythology & Writing
Read & discuss Egypt's divine kingship chapter in big MYTH book & write summaries, responses or illustrate the following stories: The Wandering Eye; Preparing for Eternity; The Duat; Thoth & Horus' Eye; The Dream of Thutmose (make up Sphinx riddles)
Play Word-within-Egyptian Words game

Art
Make Egyptian mummy mask w/paints & "jewels"
History & Reading
Read pages about Egypt in History of the World (compare DK to B&N); read aloud A Little History of the World Egypt chapter; kids pick out & read a few library books
Identify famous pharaohs: King Tut, Ramses II and... umm, TBD
Hieroglyphs: become familiar with character script, learn to write name
 
And here's what they did to satisfy their own:

Science
Learn intricacies of mummification process, incl all technical aspects of brain removal & organ preservation; Watch NOVA The Mummy Who Would Be King video about Ramses I mummy found in Canada; Wrap a mummy, then take turn as the mummy to be wrapped; Understand & explain process of carbon dating; Practice archaeology digging & brushing techniques on 'You Dig It' Kit's clay-encased miniature pyramid, sarcophagus, skeleton & amulets (K's bday giftcard choice); Watch Ancient Egypt --kids archaeology video; K continues pursuit of archaeologist career in dirt, sand or snow mounds where she uncovers miscellaneous Mom-buried treasures (ancient, delicate ping pong balls); Watch PBS Newshour's Face of a Pharaoh about reconstructing Tut's face; K develops her own theories to explain the "unsolved mysteries" of various pharaohs' deaths; K researches native & endangered animals of Egpyt w/DK Animal, Safari & Geosafari cards; K makes Shrinky Dink pyramid puzzle (for our Chemistry states of matter unit); Build shaduf w/Tinker Toys & test (before we got it to work, we blithely addressed fellow lab mates as 'Hey, Shadoofus!')

Geography
Study 3 different Nat'l Geo Anc Egypt maps + "Great People of the Past"; Watch Touring Egypt video -- explains ancient & modern sites; Memorize regions where pharaohs are buried, ID on map 

Math
K draws pyramid blueprints, incl her detailed 'Secret Room' discovery plans; Play Math Pyramid game; Complete Egyptian numbers worksheet + make own probs; Figure volume of our paper pyramids w/Dad; Build various sized step pyramids w/Lego; K makes "fortune teller" with math probs & Egyptian pharaohs' names (spelling practice) on alternating flaps
 
Writing
M&K make up & perform Egypt play
M writes King Tut essay based on bk suggestion
M makes her own 7 pg version of The Egyptian News (part of it covers Elvis -- he's from Memphis)
K writes & types up in most ornate font "Cleopatra & King Tut: A Relationship of Time!" Her fly page promises "- A Dangerous Story! - And a Great One! - And You Will Love to Read It! - And a Love One!" Includes: moment of destiny when Cleopatra's crown is blown off & it is retrieved by "love at first sight" Tut, a palace in Giza, lots of dancing + praising Ra, followed by a wedding, the birth of Nefertiti (their daughter) w/examples of her 1 yo hieroglyphs & 3yo bday celebration, touring Sparta & purchasing a summer home there (in the nice neighborhood, not the one where "Spartans were still busy punching each other"), more action in "dark & creepy" woods, and the perils of repeatedly battling a "man-munching" cobra.

Art
Make amulets, scarab beetle & other symbols w/modeling clay
Make rings + necklaces patterned after Egyptian designs in Fun with Beads: Ancient Egypt kits (found in our Met MoA store at 80% off) 
 
History
K preps & teaches us Egyptology lessons, followed by true "pop" quizzes (administered during meals, while grocery shopping, in car...)
K memorizes ALL of the pharaohs' kingdoms & orders {though she skipped phyla in her classes? - still, a phar-aoh cry from what I'd planned...} Pride forces M to learn most.
Learn about gods & symbols: Ra sun; Horus falcon; Bastet cat; Scarab beetle; Ankh life; Anubis jackal
Hieroglyphs: Learn to write everyone's name; write secret messages/decode; include hieroglyphs in essays, stories & newspaper headlines

Related History

Watch documentary on Egypt's WWII involvement (M was studying WWII in the spring, but K's Egypt vid covered this. K also listens as M describes WWII facts & the novels she reads, so they both throw around WWII terminology and trivia, usually mixed in with Egyptian references and German culture, unaware that most people cannot talk about Cleopatra, Akhenaten, Napoleon and Hitler all in one sentence.)
K rereads Bible stories related to Egypt, ie Moses, pharaoh, plagues, Exodus; Watch The Prince of Egypt animated vid
Learn about pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, Chichen Itza, Mexico
See Night at the Museum in theater (kids' reviews: "Terribly unrealistic" & "Fun!")
 
Reading
Fiction & NF Books: Encyclopedia of Ancient World; Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt; Nat'l Geographic's Egypt (PBS show bk); Royal Diary series' Cleopatra - read book + watch video; Illustrated comic classic Cleopatra; How the Amazon Queen fought the Prince of Egypt; British Museum's Anc Egypt pop-up bk; Great Bk of Archaeology; Mummies, Pyramids & Pharaohs; Pyramids & Mummies; Ms Frizzle's Adventures in Anc Egypt; Tutankhamun's Gift; Hatshepsut; Cleopatra; DK Revealed: Ancient Egypt; The Egyptian News; Egypt in Cross-section; Letters Home from Egypt; The Curse of the Cheese Pyramid (Geronimo Stilton); Look what came from Egypt; Pharaoh's Egypt; The Egypt Game (Newbery award but M dislikes); Everyday Life in Anc Egypt; Inside the tomb of Tut; Akhenaton & Tut: the Religious Revolution; Tut: Mystery of the Boy King; Your Travel Guide to Anc Egypt; Going to War in Anc Egypt; Egyptian Cinderella; Magic Schoolbus Mummies in the Morning; Curse of the Pharaoh; Secrets of the Sphinx; Mystery of the Egyptian Mummy; Egypt diary: Journal of Nakht; Mystery of the 9 Scarabs - games, activities, bkground; variety of modern travel guides
 
And More Books (from K's Egyptology Ind Studies year #2): Ramses II, Egyptology, Book of the Dead, Ency of Anc Egypt, Atlas of Past Times, Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Scieszka's Tut tut, DK Pyramid, ZH's Tutankhamun: The Mystery of the Boy King, The World in the Time of Tutankhamun, 100 Things You Should Know about Anc Egypt, Mummies, Mummies Made in Egypt, plus follow news developments for discovery of new tombs, ZH's website, etc  

Websites & Computer Games
www.ancientegypt.co.uk - hieroglyphs + underworld game; guardians.net/egypt Brit Museum; www.rom.on.ca Canada museum; Aton Ra @ funschool.com; online Senet

Party
Plan Nov 4th Howard Carter anniversary activities (becomes annual event): serve Ancient Egyptian snacks; play Pin the Head on the Sphinx; make up & exchange new Sphinx riddles in the form of anagrams & word ladders; play all Egypt-related board games; K distributes her word find puzzles w/Egypt vocab as party favors

More blog posts about:
Torino Museo Egizio
Dorchester Museum
Vatican Museum
Cleopatra

"And," he added, turning to Katrianna, "it's nice to meet you, too."  Sidney held his hand out to her...

Oh no! She was suddenly shy-struck.

Here? Now? This, despite all of our exaggerated & exuberant "How do you do, And how do you do, And how do you do again" nursery rhyme handshaking sessions begun almost at birth, Richard Scarry's Polite Elephant reinforcement of the finer points of etiquette, and my own determination that our homeschooling kids would not be socially inept? And yet, at various times throughout their childhoods, Mikaela & Katrianna have alternately been overcome by silence. Or experienced urgent, rapt absorption with any stray object located on the ground. Or have inexplicably lost all sensation & mobility in their arms, hands and the cerebral cortex-common courtesy region (could it be an involuntary response of their fluctuating nervous systems?).  

"Well, okay then," Sidney said, "I'll just take a hug instead." And he did.

Though it happens with predictable regularity, the girls' rude-imentary lapses in social skills still take me by surprise every time. Their extroverted phases lull me right up until the sporadic moments that they re-intro-vert themselves. Now I know this cannot really be attributed to our homeschooling. I remember doing the very same thing when I was a kid, repeatedly bewildering my mom at the most inopportune or embarrassing times. When she tried to talk with me about it later & ask what had happened, I was unable to explain it, even to myself. Then, when I was a teacher, I watched freshmen high schoolers work through those first weeks of insecurity with about as much self-assurance & panache as the 18-month-old toddlers who'd so amused me when I'd taught preschool...

Still, there's nothing that adequately prepares a parent to handle those awkward moments that persistently arise in spite of one's conscientious efforts to prepare a child to conduct herself with civility & charm... and then watch as she completely blows it. Well, there was nothing, until Katrianna met Sidney.

We were introduced in person for the first time this past summer while Steel Pulse was on tour. Sidney Mills plays keyboards & is the band's musical arranger. That afternoon, Chris was meeting with lead singer & songwriter David Hinds, Selwyn Brown - also on keyboards, band manager Rich Nesin & Sidney to discuss marketing ideas & potential internet campaigns, especially those promoting charitable partnerships. The girls and I had come along because we were all going to attend their concert later that night. But, to be honest, it wasn't just Katrianna who felt a little self-conscious, so M&K & I quickly left Chris alone to impress the rest of the guys by himself & went off to do all kinds of important things while we waited (primarily reading Calvin & Hobbes comic books in the restaurant next door).
  
But, we'd known Sidney - even if he hadn't known us - for many years prior to that. Long before we had kids, Chris & I globe-cooled: we would travel anywhere in Texas to see Steel Pulse in concert. (Ok, so Texas isn't truly "global" & we weren't actually cool, but...) Theirs was our first date concert & a valid enough reason to skip work anytime to drive 800 miles for a Reggae SunSplash festival. [The most strange & memorable being a San Antonio concert happening in concert with the 1994 World Cup's opening day & the Houston Rockets' NBA Championship playoff game 5, watched on a tiny, borrowed, handheld tv while driving - amazingly, Hakeem stood .610" tall, yet still managed to dunk on Ewing! Then, part way through Steel Pulse's show, the big stage screens broke away from close-ups of David singing or Grizzly on drums to show a white Bronco in a slow-speed police chase? The music stopped & an announcer explained it was OJ Simpson. Everybody stared at the images & each other. The jamming resumed. The next morning, at our favorite, most popular, jam packed 'secret' bakery in San Antonio's Market Square, every single table had ordered not the usual coffee or tea which complement Mexican pastries, but glasses & whole carafes full of orange juice... It just doesn't take much subliminal messaging, does it?]
 
Over the years, I'd also consistently taken every single opportunity to play Steel Pulse's singles in my classroom (the long-play versions whenever possible). Sometimes, it even fit in with what we were studying! On the first day of school, students walked in to Grab Education. Certainly, that set the right tone in the kids' minds: this woman is so dorky she plays music about education - or - this woman is so cool she plays reggae music & calls it school. If it was a successful year, I kept 'em on the fence (or should I say on the ropes?) & guessing like that, unable to come to a definitive conclusion, until well past spring break (if ever).

When I'd first begun teaching, the headmaster chose to emulate the I'm-not-ratifying-it-hold-out-hero-senator John McCain & refused to honor Martin Luther King, Jr Day (although, acting under the auspices of a private school charter, they seemingly found it appropriate to take every other Monday off as some sort of patriotic holiday). So, I respectfully showed up for work anyway - to moderate debates about the validity of observing MLK's Day as a national holiday and play Steel Pulse's Taxi Driver, Sweet Honey in the Rock's Peace & Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday for my 9th graders. The juniors got to read Alice Walker's 1955 Elvis fable, then listen to Steel Pulse's Roller Skates & tie it all back into our studies of the relationship be'Twain Huck Finn & Jim... Within a couple of years, our school's board voted to take MLK day off after all. Accordingly, I switched my curriculum. Our MLK class celebration was moved to the preceding Friday so the kids (and their parents) could dwell on it all 3-day weekend long.


My American Lit scholars also learned that David Hinds & ee cummings have a lot in common: Wild Goose Chase & pity this busy monster, manunkind seemed a perfect pairing to write about Modern disillusionment. Yet, interestingly, Chant a Psalm hearkened back to Puritan era selections. And Throne of Gold might just have been the sequel to Anne Bradstreet's To My Dear & Loving Husband (I also put Your House with Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10, 1666, so they could prove to me how thematically unalike? they were). For Civil War literature studies & our related, subsequent discussions about apartheid in South Africa, we had an obvious State of Emergency. And, along with contemporary political & environmental poetry, Earth Crisis (matched with Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy Me & What's Going On) inspired some spirited exchanges, as well as good creative writing pieces.

Whoops, sorry about that, went off a little bit here --- we teachers get so bogged down in believing that what we do might actually matter to others. My bad. Now returning to this decade & the 21st century... Once again, let me hear ya put your hands together for the real, live                     STEEEEEEEL PULSSSSSSSSSSE!


From then on, each time we saw Sidney that evening, he'd offer his hand to Katrianna. As she added another scuff mark to the toe of her tennis shoe by way of response, her emerging smile grew increasingly visible. Sidney'd give her another gentle hug, along with an extra backstage pass, & continue with his equipment prep and pre-show routine. 



During the concert, we got to sit in the special "Friends of the Band" roped-off section, a privilege to which the girls were completely oblivious no matter how many times their impressed parents tried to convince them it proved Mom & Dad's ultimate, verifiable hipness. Frankly, Mikaela was too preoccupied with maintaining her tween 'rep,' regardless of the fact that no other tween, besides her sister, was anywhere in sight. Still, she kept busy looking nonchalant, taking some photos & bootleg videos, as well as alerting us with "Timber!" every time some Man No Sober guy was falling in our direction. And, despite the fact that once upon a time she rocked [asleep] to Rally Round the Flag, Reggae Fever & Brown-Eyed Girl as her most preferred lullabies, now she stood-fastly refused to dance. [Again, I tried to be as understanding as I could -- that is, while simultaneously jumping up & down in my signature, syncopated, reggae rhythmic, spastic style. For I'd acted the same way long, long ago when my mom took me to St. Stephen's Coffee House, a 1970s hippie version of an Episcopal church. Everyone sat in a big circle on the floor, a couple of guys played acoustic guitar & people joined hands to sing folksy, Cat Stevens-type tunes by candlelight. I never let on that I liked it, shrugging off encouraging participation nudges from Mom and all those other annoyingly warm, glowing faces. As we (I mean, they) crooned only slightly altered C'mon, baby, light my fire sanitized lyrics, all that was missing was a real bonfire - perhaps that would have brought me in? So hard to tell with a tween... Although, while we waited between Steel Pulse sets, I asked our friendly, frazzled usher if reggae or rock audiences were more difficult (well, after allowing for those notoriously riotous Christian rockers). No, she set me straight, it was the bluegrassers- they'd set fire to the seats & rope lines only weeks before. There, now we know who's really got it going on, don't we?]

However, 'bashful' Katrianna happily danced, bounced & sang alongside me until pure exhaustion made her smooth moves more of a hang-over-mom's-shoulders sway. Yet, once the concert was over & we went backstage again, she instantly revived by running up & down the ramps as the stage crew broke down the equipment. We joined the band in their "headliner" dressing room, standing around at the edges trying to be both unobtrusive & take in our first-ever, behind-the-scenes glimpse of the rockstars' world. Soon, Sidney took control again, sparing us from the overwhelming strain of trying to summon & then project our own auras of coolness (good thing, since I'd forgotten to bring mine... plus I couldn't even remember where I'd seen it last). He directed Katrianna to please take his seat, a primo, overstuffed, fully-featured deluxe chair. Ahhhh, so that's where her comfort zone had been hiding! Immediately, she turned to David, confidentially sharing - amid giggles from her Throne of Recliner - "When I was little, I used to think you were singing 'Sitting on a doughnut hole!'" Somehow, David managed to laugh as though that was funny, but Katrianna was so tickled with her own hilarity that she didn't really notice. Then Chris tried to help the joke along. By singing aloud a few bars from Throne of Gold directly to David. It worked, all right -- it was so embarrassing to everyone involved, the whole room's attention was promptly diverted completely away from us...

Which gave us more time to look around. And notice a fridge well-stocked with varieties of organic, soy & almond milks and tables laid out with abundant choices of fresh fruits, avocados, tomatoes, whole wheat breads, bottled waters & all-natural juices. Though David offered, Mikaela was much too shy to partake in any of it, but fully appreciated observing that his after-concert meal was "All vegetarian!" Her confidence now bolstered, without warning she blurted out, "So, David, have you finished Dreams from My Father yet?!" And, again, one of our daughters had managed to leave him slightly stunned. Not that it was a fair contest exactly, since previous to this moment David did not know he was embroiled in a competition. But, when Mikaela had overheard her father talking with him on the phone about Obama's autobiography, apparently that was the impetus she'd been looking for - she started reading it herself that very day (a unique approach to preparing for an upcoming reggae concert, no?). Valiantly, David rallied to her cause, teasing Mikaela about his additional incentive now that he'd finally learned of their fierce reading rivalry race. Mikaela was smug, content in the political coup she'd just pulled off - which, in her mind, was definitely equal to the bands' being invited to play for Bill Clinton's inauguration or their releasing an election-coinciding single entitled Vote Barack to encourage getting out the vote last year.   

When it was finally time to go, Katrianna forgot to shake hands with the members of the band. She was too distracted with giving high-fives & hugging Sidney to remember her manners. Darn it, we proved once again that homeschoolers lack all social graces, didn't we?

Seems another review of our Missed Manners is in order. OK, I'm putting it on the family 'To Do' list right after "Rehearse our barbershop quartet remix version of Handsworth Revolution." There's just so very much to do to get ready for our next Steel Pulse concert...
 

I was born to teach. I mean, I was born to a teacher. Wait, better make that, I've borne with teachers all my life. Hmmm, that didn't come out quite right either...

As far back as I know, there have been teachers in every generation of my family, often several per generation. Born into the upper classes (8th grade-level equivalency or higher), teaching is our "family business" - we're pre-school apprenticed, fated by an ancient caste-them-into-the-educational-dungeon system, forever destined to a life of demagoguery... oops, sorry, typo there - should've said pedagoguery, of course. So easy to confuse those two, isn't it? But the latter originally comes from the Latin word paedagogus, which means "slave who escorted children to school and generally supervised them." Yep, that's the one I meant.  

Coming from this long line of teachers (and figuring out how, after getting all the wiggles out, to stand still on it with tippy toes tucked together), I see the world through sophist-colored spectacles. Clearly, it has influenced my perspective, encouraged a yearnin' for learnin' and modeled the value -- dare I say the nobility? -- of academic professions. But, I would probably have to conclude that the most invaluable lesson of my upbringing was learning how to live happily on a teacher's salary.

Generally, people don't claim that aspiring to make a teacher salary is setting the bar too high. In fact, they might even go so far as to question the worthiness of one's ambition, if not intellect, for choosing teaching as a vocation. Others opt to express their dismissive disdain by simply quoting that educator-beloved proverb, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." But, as one accustomed to living on a teacher's wages from the perspective of a child, a grandchild, a teenager and an adult, I am also familiar with the possibilities that exist despite the relatively 'prohibitively low salary' - not only the validation that a scholarly life is one worth living, but one that affords huge payback in terms of time off and travel options. (Yes, there's time travel, too, but that's another entry...)

There was my great grandfather, a world-renowned physicist, who traded in the rights to his many inventions for university tenure & a nicely painted portrait that hangs for perpetuity in a dank & dusty lab hallway somewhere. That seemed patently fair...



There was my grandmother who, like a Willa Cather heroine, left Nebraska at 17 to attend college in the east and then crisscrossed the country by train for graduate school in California, presiding over a one room schoolhouse back home and teaching Latin at a prestigious boys' prep school in New England. She seemed to have lived everywhere, but always in very small quarters, tiny houses which appeared to have been plucked from miniature Christmas village scenes. Or, there were the photographs of her smiling from the deck of a 15' boat with its sleeping bag-sized cabin, her stay-afloat-home for a two year, now-you-sea-me, now-you-don't, tour of the Atlantic.


There was her sister who also became an educator, first in the US and then abroad in Germany and Japan. She taught 3rd graders on American military bases and saw the world on holiday. When she finally reunited with her sisters in Nebraska, well after they had all retired, each returning from whence they came, her shelves were filled with European trinkets, Japanese folk art, textiles and fantastical carvings. When I was little, each December had delightfully arrived with Christmas advent calendars she sent from Germany. Decades later, to her great grandnieces, she delivered in person the materials used long ago in her classrooms: books filled with legends of that just peachy Little One-Inch, LPs of traditional Japanese folk music & classical compositions like Peter and the Wolf, sets of world geography flashcards that served as the girls' first introduction to Cold War-era political borders, and a collection of black & white & yellowing How and Why Wonder-full science books. And, she was the one who always had the same answer any time I expressed doubts as to what we should do for & with our kids: "TRAVEL!"


Of course, not all of the influential teachers relative to me were required to be my relatives. There was Mr Martin's syrupy sweet, yet unflappable, Jack support of a teaching-traveling lifestyle, one he insisted came full stacked with fringe benefits which over easily offset the occasional, if pressing, prioritizing dilemma created by limited income: Would you like 2 sausages - or - 2 slices of bacon with that?

There was also another of my high school teachers whose roving nature proved instructive. Initially, she checked her restless spirit by taking library science courses on the side. Understandably burnt out on American literature after marking up one-too-many The GraDes of Wrath essays, she was no doubt desirous of making that lucrative, lateral, librarian career path leap (a sure sign she was a Libris?). But, eventually, bibliotheca thrills could no longer satisfy, as her untamable soul wandered among rows of travel guides and shelved discontentment. Sure, for a while she'd been appeased by a rebellious resistance to systematic Dewey Decimal classification, but that couldn't last forever -- things were stacked against her from the start. So, she took early retirement, bought a little RV & began solo trips, making larger and larger concentric circles until she'd finally escaped Texas' gravitational pull and experienced wait-less-ness.  

Later, there was a fellow English department faculty member, thirty years my senior, who every summer took her mother and rented the same quaint cottage in England. Thanks to a standing agreement with an elderly lady there, they'd upheld the tradition for nearly twenty years. It was easy to imagine my colleague & her mum sipping tea, nibbling scones and chatting with their landlady-turned-bonne amie about the noontime's light drizzle or teasing shows of sunshine... How very proper for one assigned by fate (and the scheduling committee) as a purveyor of British literature! An arrangement so thoroughly pleasing in its safety and simplicity, she returned each fall refreshed and at peace. Then, on spring breaks, she pursued her other fancy free pastime -- massive archaeology site digs. In her school marm sensible shoes, ankle-length heavy skirts and hair-pinned bun, she was the best disguised Indiana Jones I ever met. Would have given Harrison Ford a run for that crystal skull, too, I bet, if she wasn't so busy writing college recs.

And, like my grand aunt, there were a few college friends who also went the Japan route, most as English language tutors. One couple married just before embarking & thereby received the ultimate parting gift: a combination first job with international experience + a guaranteed, all-expenses-paid, year-long honeymoon an ocean away from the in-laws. Another guy, a journalism majoring single, kept renewing his annual contract because he'd become an overnight karaoke club sensation, playing sax & apparently looking just enough like Sting (requisite stringy blond hairdo) to get steady gigs. At last, vindication for marching band nerds can be found just one continent over!  [Thanks to opportunities available in the wide world of teaching. Actual results may vary.]

Although I'm no longer a paid teacher (not that I haven't tried to unionize, but it's so laborious and strikes me as futile somehow), I still set our family's budget parameters by teacher salary standards. With that comes a practical and well-known comfort level, passes down my inherited values system to our daughters, and is a relatively easy way to ensure that we can continue to homeschool & travel for as long as we'd like. We're far from financially savvy - it just doesn't take much finesse to work out a budget when you adopt a going light, less-is-more philosophy.       

"So, how do ya'll do it?" (This is the question we often hear, though the rhetorical subtlety of 'Well, la-di-da!' sometimes suffices.)  Actually, it started when we were settling down & had no travel plans. We married and bought a very modest house, one we could afford based solely on Chris' single income (which just barely exceeded first year teacher earnings at the time) and my graduate school contribution-leeching-liability status, as assessed by the bank's loan officer. Most significantly, the monthly payments were so low that we could still cover them if - irony forewarning here - Chris ever got fired from his job for refusing to travel for work, an often contentious point with a succession of bosses who always threatened to, but never actually did, let him go. Instead of focusing on moving up (in the corporate hierarchy or to a "better" neighborhood), we put time spent together, and then time spent with our kids, ahead of getting ahead. [Plus, it turned out that we loved our little, unpretentious neighborhood, one that included a friendly mix of people and interests, a preponderance of teachers & an active contingent of watchful retirees. It's the closest one could come to living in small town, Nebraska, in a city containing 5 million people: a forgotten, six-street, "No Outlet" corner of a sprawling, post-WWII tract housing subdivision. On summer evenings, husbands met on sidewalks for rousing games of washers, wives exchanged cuttings from flower gardens, and kids ran about displaying their most impressive collections of crawdads & Texas toads, extricated from blue jeans' pockets mercifully still alive and not croaking.]  

We didn't invest a lot in social standing and, likewise, we've always chosen a fairly low-key lifestyle in other ways: We drive one 10 year old car, never had cable tv, belong to only one country club (the whole country's club - we're proud, card-carrying National Parks' Pass members), don't own a boat or ATVs or jet skis, do not indulge in drinking, smoking or other egregious & costly personal habits (golfing), own few appliances & tech gadgets, don't pay private school tuition fees or purchase pre-packaged curriculum kits & courses, stopped buying furniture when our house was furnished, and don't have season tickets to sporting events, the theater, the ballet or the WWF. When we had kids, and again when the kids convinced us to become vegetarians, we also cut back on eating out and began cooking most meals at home. And, once we went to Europe and realized we could get by with carry-on-bag-sized wardrobes, we reevaluated there, too, simplifying our - and the washing machine's - clothing loads thereafter. Through it all, we discovered that remarkable inverse relationship: the more "stuff" you have, the less you can do. Fewer things = less maintenance, less cleaning, less dusting, less washing, less insurance and way less worry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating asceticism or living too far below one's means for effect (or 'for affect'), but what we value often does not correlate to $$ spent. We're not Zen, we're just not extravagant. Plus, it frees up a lot of energy and resources that can be put toward what we do desire: globeschooling.
 
We are lucky that Chris' business allows him, to a large extent, to set his own schedule and have flexibility in where he works. We're also lucky we can homeschool. However, both of these were decisions we made with consequences to risk if it didn't go well and pressures that are still there even when it does. It also took us more than a decade to find a successful way to work & be together, including one year when Chris got fed up with the corporate world and joined me as a high school geometry teacher, and another, Mikaela's first, when I worked and he stayed home with our baby and his entrepreneurial dreams (voluntarily reducing us to a one-teacher-income household again). Amazingly enough, he couldn't get his start-up business going between diaper changes, two-hour-long power lunches of mashed bananas and our infant's insistence on pulling all nighters every nighter. So, we switched. Chris returned to the corporate life, waiting to try again another 4 years later. 

The "jump" into globeschooling was equally daunting. Especially when it seemed that anyone doing something similar recommended a $150,000 per year minimum budget and/or had just purchased a 43' yacht - with more rooms & amenities than our house - to sail around the world in precisely 365 days. But, the idea that travel is only for the rich or privileged few is an antiquated notion (ok, maybe it was true in Antiquity, but Saint Augustine - who said "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page" - and Harley Davidson - who spoke in slightly less mufflered tones - changed all that). Yet, it's still a myth perpetuated by some in the travel industry & most of the rest of us, too: it's elusive, not for regular folks, esoteric, ethereal. Or, it's dicey, scary, dangerous, you'll definitely get lost. Certainly, you'll need a lot of help. And a chaperone. A translator. A valet. And an all-you-can-eat buffet. If you really think about it hard enough, surely you can find at least one valid reason NOT to go....

But, with Do-It-Yourself itinerary planning, you can not only get there more cheaply, you're almost guaranteed an infinitely richer experience because you thought about it, researched it, looked forward to it and invested the time - not necessarily the money or tour package "incidental costs" - to appreciate what you're gazing upon. Eventually, we figured out, there are hundreds of ways to Go West, Young Globeschoolers!  And east, north and south, too. We just had to begin by finding one that didn't make us too uncomfortable or stressed out & start there. After that, it got much easier.

Surprisingly, it was at William Randolph Hearst's 'La Cuesta Encantada' that we found the culmination & confirmation of our family's guiding philosophy 'Tis better to be independently minded than independently wealthy. The in-house movie "Building the Dream" detailed the passion & impetus for Hearst's constructing a 'Castle on the Hill.' And why? Because his mom took lil' William sightseeing in Europe when he was ten years old. So taken was he with the experience that, when he inherited his father's magnate status, he told architect Julia Morgan, "Miss Morgan, we are tired of camping out in the open at the ranch in San Simeon and I would like to build a little something..." That meant the Enchanted Hill: 165 rooms & 127 acres of manicured gardens, terraces, pools and walkways. Plus thousands of imported artifacts, tapestries, furnishings, fireplaces and even a complete, reassembled 15th century ceiling harvested from a Spanish  convent to grace the billiards room. All in order to fulfill his fantasy of replicating medieval feudal society right there in 1920s San Simeon, California... or Palatine Bust? Now, our own kids weren't moved to do the same when they got back home from their European vacation (although we did offer them two tubs full of Legos if they wanted to give it a try), but it did make us realize that...

Just like Hearst, we tripped around Europe, if not in the same grand style (in our case, it was great grandma's style), it was nearly the same in substance. No, we did not enjoy the voyage o'er the pond like William -- from first class cabins on a luxury cruise ship that sped to the Old World in three weeks. Instead, we found a discounted flight in coach which got us there in nine & a half hours (mere seconds behind those in business class, btw). No, we didn't leave good ol' dad behind to tend the store (and gold, silver, lead & quartz mines, as well as fret over the hopelessly unprofitable San Francisco Examiner money pit), but went all together to ensure that Chris got as little work done as possible. And, no, we weren't able to devote a year and a half to our journey, but we still saw 90% of what Hearst saw during our time there. Only without staying in a swanky villa the night before, hobnobbing with our entourage, heeding propriety's sake, arriving in a timely manner appropriate to our station & getting mention in the society pages (inexplicable, really, since I diligently sent out press releases) and without a chauffeur (well, 3 of us had a chauffeur. Went by the name of "Mom." And drove the pumpkin-converted-minivan 30,000 km in 3+ months.) Yet, sights are the same no matter who's looking at them. In fact, sometimes because we had a short kid with us, we actually were allowed to move up 'to the front row' for the primo view. And, if you get up early enough, you can feel just like a débutante & enjoy having even the most famous places all to yourselves. (Ok, that's not true - débutantes sleep in.)
  

We don't want to build our own castles in the air. Just visit them on occasion. [Well, in the interest of full disclosure, Mikaela did suffer a temporary bout of mansion-envy, cured only by seeing the gargantuan things up close. They lacked the warmth and charm with which her active imagination had lavishly furnished them, visions instantly dispelled by grand foyers filled with hunting trophies: glass-beady eyes peering down from decapitated heads onto a less than receptive Mikaela. Now her make-me-green wish is not livin' large, but livin' off the grid, the goal being cozy & extremely efficient square footage.] M&K do appreciate the magnificence of what they see, but it is tempered with the reality of what they know, such as: Marie Antoinette, the girl who grew up in Schönbrunn Palace, eventually lost her head in Versailles; Catherine de' Médici & Diane de Poitiers, who fought viciously over the questionable figure Henry II cut in his knobby-kneed tights, were left with only Château de Chenonceau's beautiful gardens to haggle over for their troubles; painter Vincent Van Gogh took as his subjects those lovely irises & olive groves primarily because they were located just outside the doorway of his sanatorium; and, Jack London's dream home mysteriously burned down upon its completion, leaving him to write & pass his two remaining years in the small shack's sleeping porch where he first started out at 'Beauty Ranch' ...

When I was growing up, we didn't travel much and I never watched Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. If you didn't want to be rich or famous, what was the point? But, maybe there was one, one that fits in with our belief system, after all. What Hearst's example revealed is that you can see & learn as much as "the elite," but perhaps more because their own lives also serve as examples to illustrate greatness' foibles, follies & flaws. In a moment much too clichéd to invent, we were talking with an elderly woman at the gas station in nearby Cambria after our tour. Her auburn hair faded to gray, she was wistfully reminiscing about pony rides she & the other servants' children had been allowed to take when she was a little girl. She told us about his exotic zoo animals & all the fine folks who came to visit... However, as we were saying goodbye, she felt compelled to add, "But we all hated Mr. Hearst. No one around here could stand the old man!" Too often, the most transparently obvious lesson is that money and material things are transitory and do not make people content anyway. Ironically, being witness to this simply reinforces an idealism of resisting the allure & false promise inherent in equating materialism with happiness. Overall, it was an excellent way to satisfactorily answer any lingering questions the girls might have had on our Home(school) Economics Final Exam.

Which finally leads me back to an alternative take on that teaching career postulate:   

Those who can, do teach. Those who can't teach, whatever do they do?