Saturday, February 27, 2010

Kindling the Flame of Motivation

"No, your left hand's too loud. Play finger 4!" We had piano lessons in a few hours, and I wanted Katie's piano teacher to hear a definite improvement in the way she played her newest piece, a Sonatina by Clementi. "Do it again!"

"I hate this piece!" Katie shouted.

"Why?"

"Because you always get mad at me when I play it."

At that point, I belatedly realized my mistake. In my anxious, not entirely misguided hope to impress piano teacher Margie with the results of our effort, I was squelching Katie's desire to learn. The parent's duty, according to Shinichi Suzuki, is to "create motivation in the child." Both last night and this morning I had barked out orders and created rebellion and frustration rather than a love for music and a desire to succeed.

In his book The Schools our Children Deserve, Alfie Kohn discusses the impossibility of directly motivating another person. He writes, "First, while you can often make someone else do something--in effect buying a behavior with a bribe or threat--you can never make him or her want to do something, which is that 'motivation' means. The best you can do is create the kind of setting and offer the kind of tasks that will tap and nourish people's own motivation" (Kohn 125). I think Suzuki understood this. Many of his statements appear to me somewhat cryptic because I have found wisdom in them as I have learned not too interpret them too literally. Parents may need to create motivation in their child, but this is done through creating the right environment and exerting the "right kind of effort," not through directly ordering our child to want to do something.

All children from birth had a natural motivation to learn. The inner drive to walk and talk persists no matter how many times they mispronounce their first words or stumble and fall as they take their first steps. Deborah Meier said, "a passion for learning . . . isn't something you have to inspire [kids] with; it's something you have to keep from extinguishing" (Kohn 125). If, as Plutarch wrote, "the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled," this week I have unfortunately been the fire extinguisher rather than the match.

The downside of this is that I've been doing the opposite of what I should be. Luckily for me, there is an upside. It is:
  1. I can change.
  2. I have not completely killed Katie's desire to play the piano, just subdued part of it.
  3. I know what I should be doing.
In my experience, skills that come less naturally to people than speaking and walking require more extensive efforts to kindle the flame of motivation into a blaze. Like playing an instrument, reading is not a developmental skill, one that people naturally learn as a part of growth into adulthood. The parent teacher can help by making the process interesting and rewarding even when it is at its most tedious.
This week, I have been successful at kindling the flame of reading in my 3-year-old son Luke even though I have smothered the flame of piano playing in Katie. He is at the earliest stage of learning to read, when it has little intrinsic reward. Reading lists of words, sounding them out slowly, without the fluency to enjoy a story or get useful information, is a difficult enterprise. I have discovered many ways to shelter and encourage these first sparks of reading.
I stuck with words that had the short "a" sound in our first reading lesson. They also all rhymed with "at." Luke knows his letter names and their sounds thoroughly, a necessary foundation to keep reading from being too challenging. We accompanied each word he read with an activity to add fun and variety. When he read "cat" we pretended to be cats; when he read "bat" he pretended to fly like a bat; when he read "fat" we talked about how Santa Claus is fat and pretended to be Santa; when we read "hat" he pretended to put a hat on his head. This made it into a game. Then I allowed him to reread the same words several times on different days before introducing new ones. Finally, after practicing these words, he read them for grandma, and a couple of days later, for his dad, giving him an opportunity to show off what he could do.
As I continue to help Katie practice the piano, I need to follow these same principles.
  1. Make sure she has a solid foundation in the basics of the piece before progressing to more difficult things. In this case, practice just the right hand and left hand a lot before playing the piece with both hands.
  2. Take baby steps as we move forward. We can take two notes, three notes or a measure at a time rather than trying to play the entire piece at once.
  3. Find a way to add fun, variety or make it a game. We agreed with her piano teacher to see how many times in a row she could play each of the ending cadences correctly on one of her pieces. Each day we will see if we can do more repetitions than the day before.
  4. Share our small successes with others. We need to celebrate our progress and share it with brothers and sisters, Dad and Grandma.
At times I have snuffed out my own motivation to work with my children because of the guilt I feel for my many mistakes. At these times, I remind myself of my successes so my failures don't overwhelm me. This week I can celebrate my progress with my niece. As I have taught her literature and writing, I have seen her motivation grow from a birthday candle to a bonfire. This week she asked, "Can you give us two writing assignments this week? I really like it when we get to do more than one."
Katie, please remember that I am human, I make more mistakes than I would like, but I love music and I love you. I hope to kindle your already fiery spirit into a greater enthusiasm for learning, not to douse it.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Why We Study Shakespeare

"Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct." Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Friday evening my Shakespeare students and their families had a party at my house. The students performed monologues and displayed projects and papers they completed, and then I announced the cast of our upcoming performance of As You Like It. As the evening drew to a close, I felt proud of all my students and what they achieved this semester.

After they left my daughter Karina and I had a discussion about some things she'd learned. In Shakespeare we finished up the semester by reading King Henry V, which deals with themes of war and power as King Henry engages in a successful war against France. Karina told me:

"I've never liked war. When I think of war, I think of the monologue I memorized from King Henry V. It says:
'Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the Port of Mars, and at his heels
(Leashed in, like hounds,) should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment.'
"War is like that. Famine, sword, and fire always follow it closely."

She understood that war, justifiable or not, always results in some tragedy. Hearing her say this crowned my evening with one perfect moment. I find happiness by acknowledging that most of life is mundane, punctuated by difficult moments I need to find the humor in and perfect moments I need to treasure. When I get discouraged, I can search through my trove of moments to find the one that will keep me motivated. Realizing that Karina has internalized some of the thoughts and beauties of Shakespeare makes homeschooling worthwhile.

Above all, this reminds me that I am not the teacher, which takes the pressure off of me. Suzuki used to tell his students that he was not really their teacher. As part of the method, Suzuki students listen to recordings of great performers playing the pieces they learn. According to him, these artists were their true teachers. When students read, memorize, and perform Shakespeare, he becomes their teacher. They develop a relationship with him and his work. "Education is the science of relations" was one of the 20 principles of the educator Charlotte Mason. She meant that education occurs as each of us discover the way we relate to the world, to other people, and to ideas. The educator merely facilitates the formation of these relationships.

My younger brother once said, "Homeschooling is easy. All you have to do is teach kids to read and then feed them books." As a mother I only have to feed my children living books, keep from interfering with their relationship with the truth and beauty they discover, and occasionally reap the reward of discussing ideas with them. I can't think of many better teachers than the Bard. That's why we study Shakespeare.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

English Sonnets

For our Shakespeare class this fall, I assigned my students to write sonnets. They needed to be English or Shakespearean sonnets, which basically means the following rules had to be met:
  1. The poem would consist of 14 lines.
  2. Each line would have 10 syllables, consisting of five repetitions of the stress pattern "da DUM." Another word for this is iambic pentameter, the iamb being a poetic foot that has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, pentameter meaning that each line contains five iambs, resulting in 10 syllables.
  3. The sonnet would have three quatrains (four lines) and a couplet (two lines).
  4. The rhyme scheme would be a-b-a-b c-d-c-d e-f-e-f g-g.
I completed the assignment as well and found it to be a challenge. Here it is:

My child that now in arms I do enfold,
With wavering steps and laughing eyes you flee,
For steadily you learn and grow more bold,
No more content to stay, be still, with me.
Like jam that glows of jewels in a jar,
The treasured fruit of harvest well-preserved,
I long to keep you always as you are,
My ruby, sapphire, child with love I serve.
The spring of childhood, buds upon a limb,
A promise of more harvests yet to reap,
Will not remain so tiny on the brim
Of growth, but is a fruit I cannot keep.
Yet in my mind I will retain the child,
The gleaming jam of youth from fruit once wild.

My niece wrote the following sonnet:

I hear the anger in my mother's voice.
There's piles of books of work I have not done.
My sisters fuss and make a lot of noise.
The day should not be gloomy, but be fun.
When e'er a day like this is come to pass,
I want to run away and just be free
And have some time to lay upon the grass.
I'll go some place that is only for me.
Beyond the meadow high upon a hill,
A cottage sits and waits only for me.
Upon my horse I ride, oh what a thrill,
What beauty lies within the flow'rs and trees.
Parting my fantasy is such sweet sorrow,
At least I get to come back here tomorrow.

Learning Together

When my mother stays at my house, I sometimes wake up to music while she practices the piano. During her last visit my son Tommy taught her how to add ornaments to Bach's "G Minor Minuet," a piece they both play. As a child Mom spent hours at the piano, eagerly wanting to learn. She never had the opportunity to have piano lessons as a child, though. In the early 1970's while she was living in Bogota, Columbia, a friend introduced her to the Suzuki Method. Suzuki believed that if parents first took lessons and practiced before their children, they would be better prepared to help and motivate their children to play. She began lessons, hoping to learn herself while giving her children the music instruction she had dreamed of as a child. She practiced her way through Suzuki Piano Book One, also practicing with my older brother Jason when he began lessons, until they moved to San Antonio, Texas, where there were no Suzuki Piano teachers.

Mom had five children and little time for practicing on her own after she finally found a new Suzuki teacher years later. We all began to take lessons and she practiced with my younger siblings but no longer took lessons herself.

Having children that play the piano did not completely satisfy my mother. Three years ago, when she began homeschooling my niece, they both began Suzuki piano lessons. I have watched her practice, struggle, and persist. Learning a new skill, never easy, becomes harder as we age, but she has committed to take lessons for ten years. Through her example, I learn a lot.

Too often we give children the impression that learning is childish, merely preparation for life. How can we show them that it is really a continual process that offers joy and fulfillment? By modeling our message.

My mother loves giving advice to parents who are helping their children learn to read. She begins by asking, "What is the most important thing you can do to help your child with reading?"

"Read to them" is the usual answer.

"Wrong!" she triumphantly answers, "You need to read yourself."

For our children to have enthusiasm for learning, they need more than the trappings of an enriching environment. They need to have a zeal for education genuinely exhibited and communicated by their parents. As Margaret McFarland said, "Attitudes aren't taught. They're caught." I want my children to catch a positive attitude about education. Here, as in other things, pretense and hypocrisy will fail. They will only reinforce the notion that learning is like an immunization--children need frequent shots, adults need an occasional booster, and no one likes it.

Learning, studying, and even doing assignments along with children benefits the entire family. Children become motivated and see examples of learning in progress, parents gain empathy and learn to see their children as teachers, and everyone has a shared educational experience.

Shinichi Suzuki said, "creating desire in your child's heart is the parent's duty." He said that we do this through the environment, of which the parent is a vital part. Young children naturally want to do the things they see their parents do. I see this in my 16-month-old daughter, Helena. Nearly every day of her life, she has seen me write in my planner and my journal. Now she wants both my favorite pen and my planner or journal every time I use them. No diversion seems to quench her enthusiasm, so I am constantly deciding whether I want to endure a tantrum or risk getting ink marks everywhere. Right now my desire for quiet is winning more often, so the pages of my journal, planner, and Helena's and my clothes are full of scribbles. I have been instrumental in creating this desire in her heart even though I wish I hadn't. As parents, we can capitalize on this natural motivation to help children catch a love of learning.

It seems obvious that the perfect parent setting the perfect example would create the perfect situation for children to learn. But it's false. I think the greatest example we can set for our children is to be imperfect but continually trying to improve. If they only see us doing things we are already capable of doing well, they may never understand that no one begins as an expert. Often, when I check my children's math, I don't use the answer key but work the problems myself. My kids love it when I make a mistake. I think it takes the pressure off of them to always perform perfectly. When I practice pieces on the piano, my children can see that I play wrong notes or poor rhythms, and sometimes I have to practice a spot repeatedly until it becomes easy, just like they do. In the writing class we have over the phone, my mom has been doing the papers, too. I have see the benefits and now do at least some of the writing assignments I give myself. When we read our papers to each other, I like to point out areas where I think I could improve. My daughters and nieces get ideas of how to improve their writing without feeling like their efforts are being criticized.

Sometimes when I practice piano with one of my children, I wonder why they can't just play the right notes the first time. Later that day, as I feel frustrated at my own inability to get my fingers to play the right chord even though I know which keys should be played, I regain the ability to empathize with them. Learning, while always rewarding, rarely comes easily. For the Shakespeare class I taught this fall, I asked all my students to write an original sonnet, a task I considered straightforward at the time. However, when I decided to compose one myself, I understood the effort required and gained appreciation for Shakespeare's genius when my results seemed rudimentary and awkward compared to his.

I have also learned to see my children as teacher, another commitment in Chick Moorman's The 10 Commitments. This blog entry is the result of a few weeks of effort, and I have relied on my daughter Karina's help to take it from a jumbled mess of words into a somewhat organized progression of thought. When I see myself as a fellow student, I find that the other students can teach me just as much as I can teach them.

More than anything else, though, the process of learning together makes education a shared experience. A few months ago my son Tommy prepared a report on John James Audubon for Grandma's history class. I found books at the library, and we all read them along with him. When I saw a book with selections from Audubon's Birds of America at Costco, I knew it was the perfect present. A few weeks later when we stumbled upon the small Audubon House and Art Gallery in Key West, Florida, our whole family was excited to find out more about our new interest. Because we all learn together, my family is creating a unique culture of education and interests.

When she began playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star Variations" on the piano almost 30 years ago, I think my mother wanted to give her children the opportunity to play music, something she also wanted for herself. Even though at this point her slow progress has driven her to the point of quitting several times, I hope she realizes that the music she creates in her mind motivates, teaches, and enriches her children and grandchildren, making our family culture vibrant, and the pieces her fingers haltingly play are masterpieces as a result.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Scrubbing Dishes to Music

Computer-generated music sounds flat compared to music performed by people. While free from error, it lacks the variation and interpretation that is the foundation of artistry. The capacity to make mistakes and the capacity for excellence are linked, in my opinion. Since I am grateful for one, I must also be grateful for the other.

Last night we didn't have dinner as a family. A salesperson came over right at dinner time, disrupting our normal routine. It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized we never did dishes last night. Right now my kitchen has dirty dishes from yesterday evening and this morning that I am going to wash as soon as I finish typing. While I feel inadequate and that I have failed on my habit-making resolution, I am glad of the reminder that I am human. My mistakes might be my road to excellence if I persist, stronger in my resolve as a result.

I will listen to music as I scrub, realizing that while life frequently seems far too full of the mundane, we can hear the sublime instead if we are listening.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Daffodils or Dirt?

"To be able to express love is, of course, an ability, and to expand this ability it is necessary to practice continuously," wrote Shinichi Suzuki in Ability Development from Age Zero.

No one has ever expressed love to Mary Lennox. As a result, she dislikes everyone, and her cross, pinched demeanor makes others dislike her as well. Mary is the main character in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, which my son Jack and I are reading for the literature class I teach at my homeschool co-op. The way the seasonal change from winter to spring reflects Mary's own change from a dour child into a girl with the ability to express love delights me every time I read the book. Up to this point in her life, Mary has acquired the ability to dislike, but as she discovers the gardens and a robin befriends her, she practices the ability to like and then to love. Slowly "she had begun to like the garden just as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother. She was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to like--when you were not used to liking." Spring can also transform us if we let it.

Living as I do in western Washington, with the long winter nights and overcast days that feel only halfway light, I eagerly search for any sign of spring. It always boosts my spirits. In the book, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff tells Mary, "It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens out there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin' out o' th' black earth after a bit." These green spikes will be crocuses and daffodils eventually. My children are the crocuses and daffodils in my life. As a mother, I hope that I can nurture my children's emerging spikes of potential by developing my own ability to express love.

All too frequently when I look at them, I tend to only notice the dirt they're growing in. By nature, I am a critic, not a positive person. Some days I dwell on all the things my children do wrong, don't know or can't do well until I feel that failure is the inevitable result of my efforts to rear and educate them. I usually try to keep these negative thoughts to myself, but I know they affect the atmosphere in my home. I want to break this cycle of negativity, and I have noticed that deliberately expressing my love for them and complimenting them on their strengths can change the pattern.

On Sunday, as I was reflecting about this, I decided to select one family member daily until Valentine's Day and write them a love note. In the notes, I'm trying to follow the advice on giving sincere compliments I found in Sheryl Eberly's 365 Manners Kids Should Know:

"Compliments and words of appreciation sound sincere if they start with and acknowledge specific actions: 'I loved the story you wrote. It made me laugh.' Gushing statements that start with you sound more like flattery ('You are so talented' or 'You're the best writer in the class'). People like to hear specific good things about themselves, not sweeping positive statements that they know aren't true all the time."

So I wrote to Tommy that I appreciated his good manners in holding the door open for me when I went into church.

I wrote to Katie that I loved listening to her teach her younger brother Luke how to sing "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus."

I wrote to Jack that I enjoyed helping him prepare a report on Samuel Morse and the telegraph for his history class with Grandma.

I wrote to Karina that I loved hearing her sing at adjudications on Saturday. Even more, I loved accompanying her on the piano.

And I wrote to my husband Eric that I really value the fact that he probably does more housework than I do.

Focusing on their strengths and expressing my love for them has made a difference. I am noticing the shoots and leaves unfolding in the children who will one day be daffodils. As the foggy gray days of winter become longer and brighter--today I actually saw the sun--I will continue to practice expressing love. After all, Suzuki wrote, "If humans would recognize respect in each other and exchange expressions of love more, the world would be a brighter place."