Monday, August 31, 2009

We Begin

The first day of fifth grade, Simon carries the books I've put out on the table onto a day-bed in our spare room, arranges the pillows, and pulls a blanket over his legs. There is a horizontal element to homeschooling, at least in our house, at least for now, before Simon decides he is too old to cuddle with his mother and read.

“One question, Mom.” He holds up his index finger and stares at me, all serious.

“What's the one question?”

“You're gonna read to me, right? You HAVE to! This book is SO FAT.”

For a textbook I've chosen The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History by Jennifer Armstrong. I agree to read it out loud, knowing it has an eight's grade reading level, chock-full of figurative language. I know I will spend the year helping him tease apart the meaning of words, metaphors and similes.

I explain to Simon that if I do him the enormous favor of reading The American Story, then Simon must read to me about all the presidents.

“Stinkernoodle Simon--deal? You know, I'm not your ancilla,” I say—Simon knows ancilla means slave girl in Latin. “We have to share. Fair is fair.” “One president, one book a week—deal?”

I've secured an almost complete set of Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents by Mike Venezia from e-bay, library editions no less. They're all at the fifth grade reading level. They contain plenty of text but also pictures and cartoons.

Simon flips through the one on George Washington, stopping to read all the comics, slapping his cheeks intermittently, all absorbed, smiling wildly—he obviously thinks the comics are terrific. Then he gazes at the set of books on the shelf. Finally, he looks up at me.

“One a week—no problem.”

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Introduction--What This Blog Is About

A few years ago, we found ourselves returning to our home in Miami from a vacation in Venice. Hurricane Wilma had swept through Florida, so our usual apprehension about returning to our lives in America was sharpened by not knowing if the fence was down, or if our house was still up. Too tight to book other tickets out of Italy, we had stayed in Venice the extra day until our return flight--not sleeping. Gray and wan, we dragged ourselves down the sweltering long halls of the arrivals terminal--parts of the airport were still on generator--yelling after our son not to run ahead so fast.

The immigration agent, probably on his second shift, took our passports and asked us where we had been. Then he wanted to know where we were from.

“I'm from Miami,” Simon piped in, lifting his chin onto the counter. “I LOVE Florida and I LOVE palm trees and the ocean and Burger King and lizards and pools and alligators and my house. Do you know what? I'm gonna live in an apartment in South Beach when I grow up.”

“Good for you,” the immigration agent said flatly, not looking up. “Why did you go to Venice?” he asked, staring at George.

“We visit. We like it there,” George said.

“I don't,” said Simon. “They have pictures of Jesus Christ everywhere, with blood coming out of his hands. I like America—Florida.”

“Is that so,” mumbled the agent, handing back our papers without looking up, waving to the next people in line: “You! YOU, there! OVER HERE!”

Both George and I don't feel at home in this country, even though George's family has been here for almost two hundred years, and I know full well that nothing but good fortune has befallen me since arriving in America.

George is primarily disappointed. For all his love of Robert Frost, California wines and Southern barbeque, he thought that by now we would have free health-care and higher education for all.

And me? I'm often, very often, homesick--homesick for the faraway places I lived in decades ago, as well as the places my parents lived in over half a century ago, places that shaped who I am, places that no longer exist. There was a war. There was a move across an ocean. Then there was a revolution. Then we moved to another continent, and another.

For now, I live my life in Florida with George and Simon, putting fresh cut flowers on the table, cooking the same food my mother and grandmother made, shutting out much that is America, pretending often I'm somewhere else.

But for Simon, Florida is home, and America is his country.

* * *

It was some time after that loud declaration of love and patriotism at the airport that I began to toy with the idea of teaching Simon American history--not just the Mayflower, the Revolutionary War, and the handful of presidents that are usually covered in elementary school, but a sweeping, all-consuming journey through the morass and marvel of it all. At a minimum, we would read a textbook; we would master American history from Pocahontas to the Persian Gulf War; we would get to know all forty-four presidents. Simon loves history and is home-schooled--it was simply a matter of making the time and finding the right books.

But it wasn't just that scene at the airport that eventually shaped this year's curriculum. When Simon was in third grade, he read me Meet George Washington, a kid's book. Lying next to him on a day-bed, I broke down in tears. I didn't know about Valley Forge, about the Colonial army starving, freezing, barefoot in the depth of winter, waiting for supplies. I didn't know the soldiers' feet left blood on the snow.

That wasn't the only time I wept. “Mommy, why are you crying?” is a question Simon has asked, I'm ashamed to admit, more than a few time. How to explain to a seven-, eight-, nine-year-old that everything is OK, that you have a lump in your throat simply because of a story, a story you just heard for the very first time after decades and decades in this country? I know the faint outlines of many American stories; I know the details of few. And the details hit me hard.

I, who had not gone to school in this country, who for all my love of the English language and the American writers who can make English sing and soar, had never been interested in American history. Compared to European history and the Inca legends I had learned as a child at a German school in revolutionary Peru, American history seemed prosaic, tangential, even silly: a country begat by a clutch of religious misfits who crossed an ocean crammed and hungry in the hull of a small ship. You get the drift. I didn't--I don't--know the American story.

So on a stormy day in late summer, Simon and I begin to read and live the story of my son's country. Simon is ten and in fifth grade. It is thirty-two years since I, at age seventeen, came to America and began to try to make it my home.

Reading List

100 True Tales From American History by Jennifer Armstrong.

Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents by Mike Venezia. This is a series. Also check out all of Mike Venezia's other incredible books at his web-site.

Simon loves The Story of the World, Vol. I- IV, by Susan Wise Bauer. He listens to the audiobooks for many hours every day. They play in the background while he fiddles with Legos or does math.


www.theexaminedlife.org

Together with Toni Deveson, Claudia was one of the founding members of www.theexaminedlife.org , a net-based home-education support group for families teaching a secular curriculum in the Miami area. Claudia remains a very active participant. The group is inclusive, welcoming families of all faiths—or lack thereof, and all life-styles. The Examined Life runs a small enrichment co-op for children in grades 4-6. This year, the co-op is covering biology, art appreciation (nine painters), music appreciation (seven composers), history—the Renaissance and beyond, and Latin. All the portfolio-ready materials that Claudia and Toni have developed themselves are available for free at www.theexaminedlife.org , including a comprehensive 36-week enrichment curriculum for the above named topics, as well as the American history project covered in this blog. The website also has a bookstore that carries all the books necessary to teach the curriculum.