Priorities: Choose LOVE

Today is Valentine's Day, so I wish everyone to be filled with love in their lives and in their hearts.

Valentine's Day drawn by Tiger

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with another homeschooling Mum, Mrs. W, recently.  Mrs. W brought her son home from school after he had experienced multiple difficulties in school -- the usual challenges such as bullying, being academically stifled, educational needs not being met.  She has been homeschooling her nine-year-old son for two years despite oppositions from her extended family and her husband.  In her own words, it's really down to her and her son to prove to all the naysayers that homeschooling is the best thing for her son.

I can understand and relate to her having to face opposition from family, but I was surprised to learn that she did not have her husband's support.  When I asked her why her husband did not think homeschooling their son was a good idea, Mrs. W told me the reason is because her husband is a "traditionalist" who thinks that their son is not learning unless he is seen to be writing in workbooks.  I offered some words of encouragement and comfort, but I couldn't help thinking to myself the following:

1. some people's idea of learning is dangerously narrow
2. being schooled is NOT the same as being educated
3. "conformists" would be a more appropriate term to describe those who do not question the 'that's-how-it's-always-been-done' way of life, even if the-way-things-always-have-been isn't working for them anymore

As our conversation progressed, Mrs. W revealed that her husband said something along the lines of, "You only have one shot at this.  What if you get it wrong?  What if he doesn't learn anything or have any qualifications when he's 16 years old?  Then you'll have ruined his life."

Do you hear what's really going on behind these words?  It's fear.  Mr. W is clearly so overcome with fear of the what-ifs that he would rather put his son back into the drudgery of school (where he had suffered miserably before) than to support his courageous wife to seek a new and better educational solution for their son.  This fear of the unknown is so illogical yet especially crippling to the creative essence of anyone.

If working through workbooks were the only way to learn, as Mr. W thinks it is, then by this misguided and very narrow definition, Tiger hasn't been learning anything for a very long time.  Especially when it started snowing again this week, Tiger has spent most of his time outdoors playing in the snow.

He has not gone near anything that resembles a workbook.  Instead, he has spent many happy hours throwing snowballs,

building a snowman, only to dismantle it by sculpting and burrowing in it,

looking and identifying 'mysterious' tracks,

marvelling at how intricate the ice crystals look on the car window,

and generally living and experiencing the snow and frost.

Is this not worth more than filling out pages of workbooks?  A few years ago I might have felt slightly worried (fear again) that Tiger was not 'keeping up with the school children'.  Nowadays, I see much more value in choosing to project love rather than fear onto my child --a love for life, a love for learning, a love for real first-hand experiences, a love for nature, a love for wonder and freedom....

I hope Mr. W will find it in his heart to let go of the fear that is preventing him from seeing the tremendous opportunity that lies in front of his child.  Choose to be guided by love and it will turn us into the wind beneath our children's wings; fear will only make us become wing-clippers.  This article might just enlighten Mr. W a little bit.


This post is linked up to:
1) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter 
2) Hearts for Home Blog Hop #4
3) Homeschool Mother's Journal: February 15, 2013 
4) Hobbies and Handicrafts - Feb 15 
5) Collage Friday- The Literature Fair
6) TGIF Linky Party #63#
7) It's a Wrap
8) Weekly Wrap-Uup: The One with the Video
9) Share it Saturday
10) The Sunday Showcase - 2/16/13
11) Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/19/13

Chocolate on Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to eveyone!

I was presented with a big bar of chocolate this morning.  YUM!!

This year we did not do much crafts and baking for Valentine's Day since we have done lots of that in the previous years.  Nonetheless, we did not miss out on the learning opportunity presented by this day.  We attended a chocolate workshop:

The workshop was very interactive, and started by asking the children which country consumes the most amount of chocolate.  Are you surprised by the answer shown below?

We also learned about:

1) The relationship between the cocoa tree (Theobroma Cacao), the fruit of the tree (the cocoa pod), the seed of the tree (the cocoa bean) and then the cocoa nib (the inside of the bean and the source of all chocolate). The children were shown real cocoa pods and cocoa beans.  They even tasted the actual cocoa nib!

Cocoa pods.

Cocoa beans.

Cocoa butter.

2) The history and origins of chocolate from 1000 BC to date.

3) Sensory evaluation of chocolate i.e. using our 5 senses to understand (especially listening to the sound of the chocolate 'snap'), since chocolate is comprised of cocoa butter crystals and these need to be tempered first in order to produce 'stable' chocolate. 

4) The cocoa harvesting process - what happens on a cocoa tree plantation. We watched a short film of Ghanaian farmers harvesting cocoa.

5) The principles and practices of Fairtrade (chocolate).

6) The health aspects of chocolate, in terms of what Dark, Milk and White chocolate is made from.The children were asked to analyse the key differences in the recipes and explain what is good and not good about each.

7) How chocolate is made in a factory.

8) A practical chocolate making session where the children make moulded chocolates using a selection of ingredient.

Tiger named his chocolate creation "Chocolate Surprise".  According to him, the name has come about because he put so much different ingredients into his chocolate mix that whoever eats it will be surprised at what he/she will find.

"Chocolate Surprise"

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the Hands-on Homeschooling Blog Carnival - April 9th edition.