JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

You will soon discover it is you, not your children, who is being educated.

— Chris and Ellyn Davis, I Saw the Angel in the Marble page 75

I didn’t know that cockle shells have muscle scars. I didn’t know that woodchuck burrows have toilet chambers. I learn something new every day. One of the many reasons why I enjoy teaching my kids.

A week or two ago, we did an experiment involving salt and evaporation. The girls mixed salt and water together in a bowl and then placed the solution outside on a sunny day. After a few days, crystals covered the bowl.

However, when I tried to take a picture of the salt crystals, I learned something new.

Here’s the photo without flash.

But it seemed a bit fuzzy to me. I wanted something with more clarity.
So I tried using the flash.

In retrospect, I should have realized what would happen when bouncing a flash off of myriad crystals. Hey, I’m getting an education too….

Dear Mr. Tower:

I don’t know if you remember the first time we met, but I do. During the fall of my freshman year I had become friends with two cross-country runners and, inspired by their experiences, I was considering going out for the track team with them. So I stopped by your office to talk to you about running.

How afraid I felt. Me, out-of-shape freshman girl. You, larger-than-life-large legendary coach (and history teacher). Even your name Tower seemed intimidating to me.

You asked me how far I could run. I think you may have tossed in a suggestion of a pack of wild dogs running behind me. I said two miles. I was lying, or at least severely stretching the truth. I don’t think I had ever run a mile without stopping.

You asked me to touch my toes. I couldn’t. Flexibility has never beeen my forte. This was February, only a few weeks before the season would start.

Any rational evaluation of my potential ability based on these examinations would have stated that I was unfit. Unfit to try track.

Yet you encouraged me. You weren’t coaching track that year. But you were the only running coach on campus I could consult, and I was glad to be able to talk to you. I went out for the team. I learned to run a mile. That year, I learned to run.

A few months later in the cafeteria you spied me eating lunch, wearing a T-shirt I’d received at a recent road race. “Where’d you get that?” you teased me with a bit of surprise in your voice. Already, I was hooked on running – and you had helped me.

In the fall you were my coach for cross-country, and for the next two seasons after that one. I learned many things from you. You told a funny story from your own experience and taught me not to eat steak and eggs the morning of a race. You taught me that we could laugh and relax; we could have fun and run. I learned that people who seem scary can be sweet. From you I learned resilience. I think I heard “resilient” for the first time when you and Sally used it to describe me, at an end-of-the-year banquet. But I think it could be used to describe you as well.

Under your coaching and care, I learned the power of my own mental strength. I remember talking about “gremlins” on the hills at Woodlawn, and how we needed to squash them in our minds and with our bodies as we ran. To defeat the lies and doubts with discipline. You taught me to be strong in my body and in my mind. You encouraged me to go beyond comfort and what I thought I could do. To take pain in stride and push through it. And smile. (and the nurses wondered why I laughed when I was in labor. ..)

I’m not writing as someone who made the Olympic marathon team or saw NCAA action. As you know, I never burned up school records, made any all-time top 10, or even consistently made the varsity top 7, despite my desires. Since graduation, I’ve run one road race. I’m writing as an at-home mom of three young children, a wife and homeschool teacher. But running has stayed with me, even if at this stage of life it means jogging a couple loops around the neighborhood before the kids jump out of bed. And what you’ve taught me has stayed with me. I am passing it on to my children… by that I mean more than just the sit-ups we do on the sofa each morning 🙂

I looked through my photos to see if I could find one to send along with thiis letter. But what I found in the closet from my cross-country days was a roll of film taken under strange conditions, as if we were running through fog or mud or both. All that can be seen are the yellow singlets and looks of determination or agony on faces. Yet what I learned from you is not muddy or foggy but clear, these twenty years later.

If I close my eyes I can see the hill at Hamlin Park with its angle and intensity that had earned it the name “Suicide” – and I remember the way we practiced conquering it. I can see the mud, singlets and racing flats. I can see you cheering me in the sprint near the finish line at Woodlawn and smiling at us after the end of the race.

As I’m ending this letter, I’m remembering one thing you said that is not true. While commenting on my cookies once, you predicted that my husband would weigh 300 pounds. That is not true now and I hope it never is…if you met my husband you would especially understand this 🙂

I enjoyed getting to see you a few years ago when the team raced on the island and I was hoping to have the opportunity to see you again this fall out on a course. So, selfishly, I’m sad you are retiring, but I know you have given so much to so many through the years. I hope you enjoy many blessings as you leave the school.
If you’re ever on the island, please stop by!

With gratifude,
Julie

Last week I heard that my cross-country coach is retiring. I wanted to publish this letter to him out of my gratitude for all teachers and coaches. Thank you for all you’ve given to me! At this time of year, at graduation, and throughout the year, I remember …

My kids – especially Abigail with her documented affection for syndication – will like this blog, I’m sure. I’ve already let her try reading RSS is – it’s good material for vocabulary lessons and understanding Mommy and Daddy’s conversations….

At the rate these questions continue to come….

and certainly after I show them that blog…

Next, they’ll want an aggregator too…

As I’m writing this I’m realizing it’s starting to sound like a version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie*

…if you give a girl a blog then she’ll want an RSS feed. And if you give a girl an RSS feed, she’s going to ask for an aggregator….

Hmmmm, I’ve been thinking about writing a children’s book… maybe I should consider collaborating with Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond…could be cute!

Or perhaps you get the aggregator first and then want a blog…I’ll have to ask the proprietor of the newly-opened K’s Cafe to answer that one…;)

Thanks, Jay. I agree that my kids “rock”! 😉

Updated original post to add clarity and literary context below:

* I don’t own a copy of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but here’s a quote

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.

“Logical silliness”, as one Amazon.com review describes a Numeroff and Bond book, may also apply to this post…and maybe some of the comments too…;)

June strawberries!

I like to think I don’t need to read any more books like this one. Sure, I can recite the 543 reasons why someone should (or perhaps shouldn’t) homeschool. For years, before we had children, Ted and I read books, observed friends and discussed how we wanted to educate our family. I feel that homeschooling is individualized to each child and family: no one else has taught the children I have in my home. It’s also “caught” rather than “taught”, flexible to the situation, perpetually changing to the specific circumstances of life. What can I learn from reading another book?

But I’d heard from two separate sources about Elijah Company and after reading a few of their newsletters, I decided to buy their new book that is a compilation of their writings. And once again I was refreshed, reminded and challenged in my parenting: I remembered why I read homeschooling books.

My hunger to read Chris and Ellyn Davis’ book I Saw the Angel in the Marble was justified and satisfied. Since it was written in separate stand-alone pieces, it has a little redundancy. As in many homeschool books, there are chapters discussing the why and how of homeschooling.

Yet even these basic topics, I enjoyed. It’s a homeschooling book but it’s also about heart. What the Davises emphasize from their experiences raising their children is “Identity-Directed Homeschooling”. Just as Michelangelo looked at the marble to discover what sculpture was waiting to be revealed, so we parents have been given the joyful job of helping our children become who they were made to be, with their strengths and weaknesses, directions and gifts. This picture from Michelangelo is one that I had sensed myself in looking at my own children. After I had two, I could see with more clarity and contrast how different each girl is from the other. One likes to sit still and read books. The other is wiggly and giggly. I know already they have different learning styles…and almost certainly, different gifts and destinies. While I believe discipline has a place in education, I also want each girl to be able to pursue what she desires. I don’t want to confine them; I want to free them into whoever they are to become, whatever butterfly will emerge from this cocoon of childhood.

What the Davises wrote about community, family and suffering fit with my own desires and beliefs. After reading this book, I feel encouraged in my role as a homeschooling mom, and I also feel excited to go and discover whatever God has put into my daughters.

Here are a few quotes from the book:

Looking for Some Way Out from the Foreword by John Taylor Gatto

(From the biography on his website:He climaxed his teaching career as New York State Teacher of the Year after being named New York City Teacher of the Year on three occasions. He quit teaching on the OP ED page of the Wall Street Journal in 1991 while still New York State Teacher of the Year, claiming that he was no longer willing to hurt children.)

Put it simply, those students who liked and respected their parents – and it was never difficult to tell which ones they were – invariably did well for themselves at everything, displayed courage and resilience in the face of adversity, inspired others, including myself, and seemed to love the truth – while those who were indifferent to, or actually disliked their parents (always the majority of my classes, but dramatically increased as a proportion among the children of the prosperous), seemed to stagger from one small crisis to another. Even among the self-confident, they were visibly uncomfortable with themselves, always looking for some way out. Out of what, you might ask? Out of everything I would answer; they had no peace within their skins, no faith in anything but “winning”, no hope that dreariness could be avoided except through moments of high sensation: sex, drugs, high grades, violence, action, and, of course, winning – often at any cost.

10 Rules of Choosing Teaching Materials page 74

1. Invest in yourself first – “you are the glue that will hold this homeschooling endeavor together so you need to develop a strategy for staying sane and on top of it all…What will smooth your way mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually?”

9. God gave you your specific children because there is something in you that he wants imparted to them.

Margin page 87

Our culture encourages us to live beyond our means financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Many of us are under-rested and overwhelmed, feeling constant stress and time pressure. What we need is margin, a term used by author Richard Swenson to describe the space that should exist between where we are and our limits. Margin is having time, energy, and money to spare. It is having physical, emotional and spiritual reserves. Margin is living within our limits.

Identity Directed Homeschooling page 109

It takes both time and resources to be good at anything. Helping a child find his identity means money must be spent on resources and experiences. It means time must be spent paying attention to the child’s personality, abilities, likes and dislikes. It means emotional energy must be spent working through the inevitable relational problems that arise from trying to get to know children as people, not just as “kids”. It also means giving your children the large blocks of time they need to become good at whatever it is they need to master.

[…]

What was Michelangelo doing all those days he walked around the block of marble, looking intently at the stone? What he was doing was waiting until the marble told him what was inside.

What Failure Teaches page 160

Robert Kiyosaki says the most damaging beliefs the public school system teachers are (1) that mistakes are bad and (2) that there is only one right way to do something. These beliefs create a fear of failure, a fear of making mistakes, that thwart true learning. Kiyosaki further says that most true learning comes from making mistakes, from falling down and trying again like you do when you learn to walk or learn to ride a bicycle. So failure always has something to teach us, and often teaches us more than success does.

Community page 162

We would give nearly anything to be part of a community that was profoundly safe, where people never gave up on one another, where wisdom about how to live emerged from conversation, where what is most alive in each of us is touched…where we would feel safe enough to meaningfully explore with who we are with confidence so that the end point would be a joyful meeting with God.

When “Ground Zero” Happens page 169

“ground zero” defined as “when you’ve reached the end of your rope, when you can’t seem to find the inner resources to keep going for another day…”

Well, one point is that your “ground zero” experience may be the turning point in someone else’s life. Another point is that “ground zero” experiences will eventually enter the “This too shall pass” phase and life will move on. The third point is that there will always be someone else whose “ground zero” experiences make yours look like a piece of cake. The fourth point is that, after a “ground zero” experience, life’s everyday hassles don’t seem so hard to bear. And the final point is that these experiences can be “gifts” in disguise, gifts that bring you face to face with Who God really is.