Eliminating Muda

I wasn’t expecting to find sage homeschooling advice when I read Natural Capitalism, a book written by folks who founded an environmental think tank.  There I was reading along about corporations interacting with the environment, when chapter 7 called out to me:  “Pay attention, homeschooling moms!”  That chapter is titled "Muda, Service and Flow.”  I don’t speak Japanese and couldn’t find “muda” in any online translators, so I’m taking the authors’ word for the translation and passing it on to you. 

They say that "muda" is a Japanese word for "waste," "futility," or "purposelessness."    Taiichi Ohno, "the father of the Toyota Production System," abhorred waste, and defined it as "any human activity which absorbs resources but creates no value."  Natural Capitalism discusses muda/waste/futility/ purposelessness in terms of business models. But the Ohno quote, about waste being "any human activity which absorbs resources but creates no value," struck me as an important idea for me as a homeschooling mom to consider.

The resources my family and I devote to home education include the obvious--money--plus time and energy.  Our homeschool lifestyle absorbs all three of those resources.  So the question is, are there some "human activities" using those resources, yet not really creating any value? Perhaps it would be wise to regularly make a list of all our homeschooling activities which consume resources, then evaluate each one to see if it is muda, or if it is truly worthwhile.  In making my list, I discovered some lessons:

1. Take a good look at old habits.

 Buying curriculum is a habitual thing for me.  I’m always alert to tools that might engage the kids intellectually.  But the first obvious bits of muda I saw in our home were shelves of curriculum we've never used.  It looked so helpful at the curriculum fair or in the Rainbow Resource catalog, yet it didn’t actually fit into our goals.  Another conspicuous waste was the curriculum we at least tried, but didn't enjoy or learn very much from—things I forced onto the kids simply because I spent money on them. Then I remembered classes and activities for the kids that took time, money, and energy--all three--yet didn't really offer much of value.

So sometimes I don't find out that something is muda until it is too late!  The commitment is already made, and the money already paid.   But at least as soon as I recognize a wasteful situation, I can look for the closest opportunity to reduce that waste, re-selling the curriculum or leaving a sports team at the end of the season.

2. Continual adjustment is needed.

An activity may be muda at one point in time, but when circumstances change, it might become more valuable. Or it could be the opposite, where the activity starts out with value then loses its significance.

An example:  for several years, we met weekly with two other homeschooling families.  We did an occasional organized activity, but most of the time, we just "got together." 

The kids simply played while we moms talked and talked and talked.  This weekly time offered a huge amount of value to our family:  the kids--and more surprisingly, the moms--became best friends.  Having close friends who shared our lifestyle was sanity-saving and it brought happiness and completion to our lives.

Then things began to change.  The kids got older, and two new families joined our little group, bringing new social dynamics to the gathering.  In addition, the kids in all the families developed disparate interests, causing some of them to grow apart.  When it was time for our weekly meeting, I had to practically drag our two youngest kids out of the house; they just didn't want to go.  The value of the activity had obviously decreased. 

Gradually and congenially, our group disbanded.  I do miss that regular therapy time with my friends, but the resources it took to meet every week (time and energy) didn't give us a big enough value anymore.  So the right choice, eliminating muda, was to stop doing that activity.

3. Expect the unexpected.

Sometimes activities surprise me by how valuable they are.  Pokemon League and Tae Kwon Do classes are things I would generally consider muda.  They consumed fair amounts of money, time, and energy.  But because these activities gave our two sons joint interests, giving them reasons to practice at home together, the classes turned out to be quite valuable.  The boys' togetherness for these activities deepened their friendship, which was something we parents had been hoping and praying for.

4. A little muda may be necessary.

Sadly, sometimes an activity has been muda, but because it was associated with church, we felt we needed to keep it anyway.  Hopefully this will turn out to be worth it in the end, if the kids learn lessons in being loyal to the church without expecting perfection from the church members.

5. Defining muda depends upon the family and on each individual.

Each family needs to consider its own ideas of value versus waste.  In our family, teaching everyone to play the piano is extremely valuable.  In most families, playing the piano is muda and not worth the trouble. 

As another example, a few years ago, two of my friends put together a wonderful class for homeschoolers on politics for an exciting election season.  This was a worthwhile learning opportunity for their kids.  But for our family, an elections class would be muda.  We discuss, analyze, and debate politics all the time as a normal part of life.  We don't need to spend time or energy going to an additional class each week about something we do naturally.

In addition, an activity might be muda for one person in the family, but very important for another person. 

So muda is subjective.  It's just one more example of how we as homeschooling parents have the terrific opportunity to choose what's best for our own families, and for each of our kids as individuals.  Aren't we lucky?

6.  Regularly ask, “What is going well in our homeschool?”

Certain types of activities have always been valuable for us:  some that quickly come to mind are family vacations, reading aloud, playing board games, making music, listening to music, family scripture reading, and spending time with each child individually before bedtime.  It’s so important for us to recognize these things and consciously choose to continue them so that items of lesser value don’t take over.

This theme of muda comes from a book about corporations.  But success in our families is surely more important than success in any moneymaking project. We even get support for the idea of eliminating muda in 2 Nephi 9: 51: “Do not spend money [or time or energy] for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy.”

Do we have muda to eliminate?  Have we invested in things of true value to replace that muda?  This is a topic I personally need to revisit on a regular basis. Yet I’ve already learned enough from the exercise to become sure of this:  it is definitely not muda to take time to evaluate where our family resources are going, and if those resources are being spent in truly beneficial ways.

Lessons of the Heart

In January my sister and her husband heard an ultrasound technician announce that they would soon be the parents of twins, a boy and a girl. Tragically, their joy soon turned to anxiety and fear as the ultrasound revealed that their little boy had a severe birth defect. A defect in his diaphragm had allowed all his abdominal organs to move into his chest cavity. The initial prognosis was bleak. Their family started doing everything they could to prepare for his coming, and the rest of us started to fast and pray. My youngest daughter, Aneya, is 6 years old. When we told her we would be having a family fast for her cousin, she said she wanted to join. Our family prayed for him every day and when fast Sunday came, all of our children fasted on his behalf. After four long months of fasting and prayer, Samuel and Clare were delivered at Children’s hospital. They were good size for twins and as healthy as they could be, except for Samuel’s life threating birth defect. He was rushed to the NICU where they were able to stabilize him and prepare him for his surgery five days later.

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Three weeks after his successful surgery, our children were able to visit him for the first time in the NICU. What really struck me during that visit was Aneya. She’s never been much for babies, maybe it’s being a youngest child, but they’ve never really interested her. Now she couldn’t get enough of her new cousins Clare and Samuel. She spent hours holding Clare and it was a tender moment as she gently stroked Samuel’s head and held his tiny hand in his incubator. As I reflected on the change in her attitude I realized the answer was simple - we love those we pray for.

I know that prayer is not an activity reserved for homeschoolers, but I truly feel that having the time to emphasize prayer and family is a great blessing that we often overlook. I’ve made the 5 hour trip to visit my sister and her babies three times in the last month, the freedom to end our school year a little early allowed me to do that. I have a friend who told me that the high school tried to fine her daughter for missing too many days of school when she went for a week to help her sister with a new baby. When we place more emphasis on academics than family, what are we teaching our children?

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The ills of our society, from low test scores, to crime and poverty are all rooted in the weakening of families. Our prophets have told us that. Until we take the time to be with our families, to pray for them and with them, aren’t we ignoring the heeding to strengthen the family? Home schooling gives us the time to teach more than just reading, writing and arithmetic, it allows us to teach our children the lessons of the heart.

A New Day is Calling for You

The wonderful and challenging journey that is homeschooling lends itself to lots of needs to change or do over; I’ve been at it a long time but as children age and mature, as I age and mature, and as new ideas and opportunities present themselves (as well as new children), some aspects of homeschooling are fluid.  The math curriculum that worked wonderfully well for the first four children may not be so helpful for the fifth child.  A new co-op or outside commitment, while wanted and needed, may throw tried and true routines into a tailspin. The easy part is recognizing that something just isn’t working. The hard part is knowing what to do about it and continuing on after a bad day, week, month, or even year, believing that lessons in what doesn’t work are just as valuable as the picture perfect days when everything goes well.

Each and every day is a new day calling for you.  Don’t get stuck in a rut and think you must wait to make a change. Don’t get discouraged and think that because something (or several things) didn’t work this year, you’re not fit to continue on.  Believe in yourself and in every breath you get to take.  The sunrise comes up just for you.

I hope you’ll enjoy the following video.  I made it to accompany the keynote address “Stay the Course” at the Cache Valley Homeschool Conference in February 2012. I’d like to thank Monica P., a lovely homeschooled young lady, who introduced me to “Sway Your Head” by We Shot the Moon.  She used the song for a project in a class I taught and it immediately gained a spot on my pep-talk-playlist.

Home Educating: The Teen Years

by Marjorie Meyher

Home educating during the “Teen Years” is, well, as the saying goes, “a horse of a different color.” By now, your child should know how to read, write, and do math. Having come this far, you may stop and catch your breath. OK, that’s all. Time’s up. Time to move on, farther, faster, and better equipped than ever before. You’ve taught your child to be an autodidact, of course. “A what?” you ask. Well, a child who is an autodidact is the answer to a busy mom’s plea for more time and energy. The meaning of the word “autodidact” is “one who is self- educated or self-taught.” Kind of similar to the saying that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime.

OK, so let’s say that you’ve reached the point that your precious (but growing) little darling can take some responsibility for his or her own education and learning processes. Now what? Well, the answer to that question varies as “the night, the day,” as Shakespeare said, and depends on many factors, such as the age of your child, his or her personal interests and abilities, the facilities and resources– including money–that you have available, your teen’s and your prioritization of the most important ideas, facts, and subjects to study in a limited amount of time, her inner motivation and desire to learn, his eventual goals, the number of hours in a day . . . wait, no, that last one was from the “can’t do anything about it” list.

Well, mom (or dad), take off that apron (face it, the strings are just about cut anyway), and roll up your sleeves, because it is time to really dig in, time’s a- wastin’. “The desire to learn,” writes Cyril O. Houle, “like every other human characteristic, is not shared equally by everyone. But in a world which sometimes seems to stress the pleasures of ignorance, some [do] seek the rewards of knowledge . . . The desire to learn seems, in fact, to pervade their existence. They approach life with an air of openness and an inquiring mind.” [The Inquiring Mind. University of Wisconsin Press, 1961].

Sounds like a description of the Ideal Homeschooling Teen (IHT) to me!

Let come what may, college or vocation, your homeschooled teen needs to be prepared to meet life head-on, with no regrets, no hesitation, and no looking back. “Look out world, here we come,” (they say), and strengthened and prepared from their hours and days “in the nest,” there is no need for the common “ready or not” problem. Your homeschooled teen can be ready to take up the responsibilities and opportunities that await her as an adult, and your heart will swell with pride and gratitude that you were able to celebrate life and learning with her as she developed during the crucial years leading to adulthood.

Being an autodidactic learner is essential for effective learning in the teen years. “Exploration of the full range of his possibilities is not something that the self-renewing man leaves to the chances of life,” wrote John Gardner. “It is something he pursues systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of his days.” [Self-Renewal. Harper & Row, 1963].

Homeschooling can be a lot of work, and some days can be harder than others. Let’s not kid ourselves: homeschooling requires sacrifice. It requires our hearts, might, mind, and will. Some days it seems that it requires more than we have to give. It is then that a kind Father in Heaven shows us a bright spark in the eye of a child as they understand something new, or allows us to see in our mind’s eye what the public school alternative would do to the spirit of our teen. He gives us one more fresh surge of energy when we are already filled to the brim with duties and obligations. Yes, he tenderly cares for us as we care for his children, in return. Let us never forget that we are about our Father’s business as we homeschool eternal spirits on their journeys toward eternal life. This is not just about academics. For some of us, our children’s spiritual lives are at stake, whether we know it or not. And that is the truth.

Abridged from “Homeschooling the Teen Years,” by Marjorie A. Meyer, originally published by School of Abraham. Used with permission. For the complete text of this article, please see http://www.schoolofabraham.com/teenyears.htm

About the Author

Marjorie Meyer is the founder of School of Abraham website and a former Board member of the National LDS Homeschool Association. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.S. degree in Psychology. As the mother of eight children, Marji is currently enrolled in Life’s University, where she finds the coursework to be the most challenging she has encountered. The key to successful family education, she believes, is “having a brain, a heart, and courage!” and understanding that ‘There’s no place like home.’

Sometimes you just need a KickStart!

For this week’s article I want to put in a shameless plug for my boys, Matt and Ben. You read about Matt in my article a few weeks ago... He and his brother Ben have started a production company to develop a youtube based variety show of clean, family-friendly entertainment. They hope this production company will grow to develop family entertainment in more venues than youtube, but for now, this is where they are starting.

They have started a Kickstarter.com campaign to raise the money they need to take their productions to the next level. For those who have never heard of Kickstarter.com, it calls itself a “funding platform for creative projects”. These projects include everything from art to theater and everything in between. It has been featured on NPR, CNN, BBC, and in Wired, Time, and The New York Times. Their goal is to help big and small creative independent projects get the funding they need to succeed. This is what NPR said about Kickstarter.com:

“We all know that dreaming is free, but converting fantasies into reality can be pretty expensive and that’s where a new website, kickstater.com can help”

How does kickstarter.com help? With Matt and Ben, they had to develop the idea of what they wanted to do and how they were going to do it. Then they had to decide how much they would need to get things off the ground. After that, they had to develop incentives for the people who pledged. If you pledge $1 what is the premium? How about $25? Or $100? I want the birthday premium- a birthday message from “Walker” from the “Band” skits! I love Walker! Their sister chose the Sharpie marker on the forehead premium. Nothings says sister love like Sharpie marker!

After deciding on the premiums, they had to do a promo video to let people know about their project. Once they had these ready, plus a written description of their project and who they are, they submitted the project to KickStarter.com for review. Once approved, their project went live.  Projects on Kickstarter.com have a limited time to reach their goal. If the goal isn’t met, then Ben and Matt don’t get any money (and you don't pay your pledge). They only get the money if they reach their goal by the set date.

They now have only 11 days to go and they are only at 12% of their goal. One reason, (besides the fact they are my boys!) that I am helping them promote this project is that Matt graciously helped me with the LDSHE Conference the week his campaign went live. He spent the week helping with all the AV and Audio needs at the conference and there were many. We couldn’t have done it without his help! So with that in mind, I am plugging his project.

I hope you will take the time to go to the links and watch their videos. If you have the means I hope you will help them out. We homeschoolers, as a family friendly people, need to be willing to support independent production companies if we want to have clean, family- friendly entertainment we can enjoy without worrying about the content. Please pass this on to others you think would be interested in helping.

Here’s to the success of ALL homeschoolers out there who want to make a difference in the world!

For the Love of It

One Sunday night as I tucked my seven year old son into his bed, I asked him, “Hyrum, what do you want to accomplish this week?”  He thought for a brief moment and then responded in what seemed to be a random response. “I hate my reading books.”  “Oh, what is it you don’t like about them?”  Hyrum gave it to me straight: “Well, they’re boring, and kind of stupid and just not very interesting or fun.”  I thought for a moment about his reading books.  They were grade appropriate, and would teach him all the right sounds and beginning words to build a foundation for his reading.   I thought they were cute.

Just for a brief moment, my head and my heart battled each other.  My mind held onto the idea that he needed to read these books so that he could become a good reader for his age and grade.  My heart and mentor’s intuition had another idea:  “Hyrum, I think you are ready to read chapter books.”  “Really, do you think so?”  His eyes were big; his voice showed obvious interest.  “Would you like to choose one right now?”  He shrugged his shoulders, “Okay.”  We went to the bookshelf in his bedroom and looked over the assortment of books.  He settled on Dinosaurs Before Dark, placed it by his bed, and contentedly went to sleep.

Early the next morning I found him awake and reading.  Suddenly I didn’t have to get him to read, he wanted to and he put in much more time than I expected of him.  By the end of the next day, he had finished his first chapter book and started his second.  He was drawn into the act of reading by his own interest and his own love.  At that point artificial, external motivations were no longer needed.  He loved it and this love caused him to spend time in it and naturally his ability increased.

Genius happens when people love what they do.  It is a love of the activity itself that draws a person to it and to spend time in it.  Then as the hours, weeks, and years accumulate talent or genius is developed and shared.  It isn’t the sheer will of discipline, but the love of something that ultimately makes the difference.  As parents and educators we often think it is the opposite—that the discipline will bring about the talent.  It is both, but when the love is there and alive the discipline follows and comes from a place of enjoyment instead of drudgery.

This principle is evident in learning to play an instrument.  Dorothy Delay was a famous violin teacher. She often encountered those who doubted the wisdom in allowing young, prodigy-type children to practice for so many hours in a day.  When asked about this, she said that these children love to play their instruments.  When they cannot play it is painful for them.  They spend the hours playing drawn to it from a love not from an external pushing by parents and teachers.  Genius comes from a place of loving the activity for its own sake so much so that much time is spent in it and simply spending this kind of time naturally grows genius.

Everybody Sing a Little Working Song

If you have seen the movie ‘Enchanted’ you will remember the part where the pretty little princess is cleaning the apartment and all her little animal friends are happily helping her scrub the dishes with their tails and mop the floor with sponges tied onto their cute little feet. She is merrily singing her ‘happy working song’ and all the while making the house sparkle and shine. Yeah, that is pretty much totally NOT the way it works at my house. I am afraid I most often resemble the wicked stepmother. You know, the one that declares, “You can go to the ball IF you have your work done and IF you have a dress to wear!” Definitely one of the most challenging elements of homeschooling for me is being able to stay on top of the house cleaning. I used to be the mom who vacuumed her floors every day, both directions, strategically leaving no footprints behind. I also cleaned out and washed down my fridge every week and stripped all the beds to wash and line dry the sheets. Now, five kids and nine school years later, I try to calculate whether the cereal that my baby is eating from underneath the kitchen table is old enough to warrant me trying to get it away from him, or if I should just let him graze. My fridge gets washed out only when something spills. And the sheets... well, last week, after my daughters made everyone breakfast in bed, I got out my dustbuster to get rid of the crumbs. Now, in a perfect fairytale world, perhaps I would be able to say that I just realized that some things were more important than a spotless house and I had decided to let it go and just think no more about it. And that would, indeed, be a fairytale. Instead, a cluttered house still really bothers me. And, if you were to poll those who live here, their response to the question “what does Mom say most often?” would no doubt be, “let’s clean up”. So, in my quest for cleanliness amidst the chaos, I have tried countless tricks and techniques, programs and charts. Some worked well and some did not. I thought I would share a few of the more successful ones, in case they might work for your household too.

I think most moms are always looking for creative ways to change up the way we assign our kids chores, and I am no different. Sometimes it is good to just mix things up a little. The method that I keep returning to is the one that works the best for us. The supplies needed are simple: a bag of jumbo craft sticks, a different marker color for each child in your family, and a little cup or bucket or something to put the craft sticks in. I write the morning chores for each child down the middle of individual craft sticks, color coded per kid. Then, on one end of the stick I draw a smiley face and on the other, the first initial of their first name. So Emily will have five chore sticks done in green writing with an E at the top of each one; brush teeth, put away laundry, make bed, practice dance, say prayers. These chores must be completed before breakfast. As each chore is done, the stick is placed back in the bucket with the smiley face up and the initial down. All mom has to do is walk past the bucket to see who is finished with their chores and what still needs to be done. Anyone who does not have their chore sticks done before breakfast doesn’t get any screen time that afternoon.

We have done something similar for the daily cleaning up of the house chores. The house is divided into zones and each zone is written on a craft stick kept in a little bucket. There are also a couple of blank craft sticks in the bucket. In the late afternoon, before it is time to start dinner, (and any other time that the clutter becomes too much for Mom to take) the bucket is brought out and everyone (including Mom) takes turns picking a stick from the bucket until all the sticks are gone. Then everyone needs to tidy up the zones that are written on their sticks. So a child may get ‘empty dishwasher’ and ‘living room’ and ‘shoe duty’ (picking up all the shoes from the designated shoe area and putting them away in closets). I have also written out on index cards what needs to be done in each zone for it to be complete. For example, the living room card says:

1. Pick up and put away all toys, books, blankets, etc.

2. Put throw pillows nicely on the couches (“But, Mom, they are called throw pillows!”)

3. Vacuum.

4. Make sure piano and entertainment center are closed.

Now, granted, all my children won’t be able to clean to the same level of cleanliness. Certainly none of them vacuum without leaving footprints. But, since we change responsibilities each day, pretty much everything stays clean. What the five year old misses one day will be caught by the 14 year old the next (we hope). Two factors make this method successful; first, Mom is picking her chore sticks and doing her part right along with the children. I am a firm believer that the best way to teach your children to work is to work alongside them. Secondly, remember the blank craft sticks? That is where the element of chance is employed. You see, these blanks are ‘free’ sticks. So if everyone pulls out three chore sticks but one of mine is a blank, I only have two chores. And that, my friends, works like magic at our house!

One more quick description of a cleaning tactic that I use on occasion is the chore auction. While I have addressed the ‘getting ready for the day chores’ and the cleaning up of the daily clutter, we haven’t talked about the deep cleaning that needs to happen in a home. What about scrubbing the toilets and cleaning out the chicken coop and mopping the kitchen? Most of the time, the majority of that stuff gets done by me. However, on a particularly busy (or maybe lazy) week, I employ the chore auction. This opportunity usually comes around on a Saturday. I write a list of the bigger, deep cleaning tasks that need to be done that are not usually the children’s responsibility and beside each task is a dollar amount that the task is worth. For example, cleaning out and washing the fridge is worth $2, cleaning out the chicken coop earns you $5. The monetary amounts are small but, hey, my kids don’t need a lot of money at their ages and small amounts are still motivating to them. The rules are that they can only sign up for one chore at a time. Once that chore is completed and passes inspection, they can sign up for another. But, they don’t have to sign up for anything. Saturday chore auctions are totally optional. A chance for the kids to earn some extra money and for Mom to earn some extra time to do something she likes. If I did this every week, I don’t think they would be as eager to participate. But since I only do it every once in a while, they usually can’t wait to sign up.

My house is not perfect and chaos still reigns on most days, but these tricks are helping our household to run more smoothly and teaching my children responsibility and the ethic of work. Now if I could just figure out how to spend less time in the kitchen… What methods do you use to keep your home clean and organized when everyone is always home?

Capture the Moment

We never know when a teaching moment will take us by surprise. I just know that you have to be ready to shoot from the hip when it happens!

This summer, while the grandkids were over for the afternoon, I started hearing all sorts of squeals coming from the back yard, and they weren't squeals of delight. I raced out the back door to hear the kids saying, “Snake! Snake!” I am thinking to myself, 'Snake? Here? What kind of snake could of gotten into the yard?' (Brief memories of my own encounter with a 9 ft diamond back rattler in the Arizona desert came to mind. But reason soon shook that thought aside as I didn't think a rattler had made it this far into town.) As I went through the patio door I saw a slither and had to hide my smile. I knew this was something I could manage. The kids were all nestled under the apple tree, still squealing, while grandma quietly overturned a little cat house we have in the back. Quickly surprising everyone, (including myself that I actually was fast enough) I caught the bewildered and fightened young snake.

Now I should probably mention, that many years ago I raised an older son who adored reptiles, especially the slithery, supposedly slimy, snake. I told myself that if he could love them enough to follow through and read evey book in the Cypress (CA.) library, including a hefty book on Zoology, I would master my dislike and fear of reptiles... and I did. Someone had to share his passion with him. So because of him I had touched rather large boas and I found out snakes aren't slimy. I had handled other unique reptiles, including my very favorite, and his, – a Sudan Plated Lizard. That experience is what now came into play and gave me the courage and know-how that I needed.  I was able to sweep up that fearless little snake and hold it so as not to get bit or cause it harm.

Then a light goes on.....Ahh....a teaching moment....

After some major coaxing I was finally able to get the kids to come over and take a closer look.

I started talking calmly to the kids and they settled right down. I then gave a quick lesson about snakes – safe ones, and those that are not, and I even got them to feel comfortable enough to pet it. My daughter got a few pictures, and in a few awesome teaching moments, the kids learned about snakes. They also learned that Grandma was way cool and they had a fun adventure to share with mom and dad when they came home. 

We released our new friend over by the canal where they watched it wiggle away and learned by 'seeing' how a snake moves. Then we all ran to the computer to learn more about snakes.

Nothing is more satisfying than to see your children (or grand-children) 'on fire' with learning. What better way to experience something exciting than to actually live it. This is what it is all about in teaching our kids; making the classroom come alive, making learning real and fun, and letting their imaginations soar and watching that precious “light come on”. I hope you all have lots of awesome teaching moments this summer.

The Next Six Months: Your “Conference Wall”

Abraham Lincoln used to drive his law partner crazy by reading the newspaper aloud in the office.  Lincoln explained, “When I read aloud two senses catch the idea; first I see what I read; second I hear it, and therefore I can remember it better.”[i]  As homeschooling parents we’ve all observed that the more senses we can get our children to use in the learning process, the more interest and retention there is.

As the last convention of general conference was about to get underway, I was searching for activities to keep minds active and hands busy during the sessions.  Like many of you, I find a quick internet search brings up a host of conference bingo cards and other activities for children.  I treat the weekend as a holiday in the sense of traditional treats and feasts that the family looks forward to.  While conference holds to an auditory presentation, we hope to all have the spiritual sensations related to the witness of the Holy Ghost, and the smells and tastes of foods often craved but rarely eaten bring additional senses into play in the anticipation of this special weekend.

In my conference preparations, I found a blog that is full of delights called "Being LDS" .  As I came across a page with the phrases “General Conference Book Club” and “General Conference Wall”  I made assumptions as to their gist, but was called away from my computer and didn’t get the details.

After conference, I went back to the blog posts and found that my vision of the “Conference Wall” differed from Jocelyn’s, the writer of the blog.  (This is terrific, actually, because now you’ll get TWO ideas!)  Jocelyn’s wall is an activity for children during conference.  My wall is a visual learning display and exercise in symbolism for the months afterconference as the messages are studied and put into practice.

So here’s the gist of “my” wall.  First, select a talk to read, study, and ponder.  You can allot as much time as you think necessary —a day, a week, or even a month.  For our first one, we took a week.  The first day I gave a presentation on some of the highlights of the talk for me personally.  I considered some particular areas where both the family collectively and I as an individual can apply the principles I emphasized, sharing specific real-life examples that have happened, as well as musing over hypothetical but possible situations family members might encounter in which the teachings of the talk need be applied.  I chose a hymn that I felt complemented the talk, a story from the scriptures that further illustrated the principles, and even a Mormonad that went along with it.  I then told everyone that they had a week to study the talk further on their own, including the scripture references listed at the end of the talk, and that we’d discuss everyone else’s thoughts, feelings, and impressions the next week.

Next, I created a visual display on a wall (that will now be our “Conference Wall”) that was a representation of our discussion.  As the kids share their ideas, I will add to it.  Obviously each talk we study will add to the collage that will be a reminder of those things we need to be working on.

Some suggestions for use for your own “Conference Wall” might be:

Quotes of key words or phrases

Complementary hymns or phrases from hymns

Pictures from the Gospel Art Picture Kit or Friend or Ensign

Photos of the general authorities who gave the talks

Mormonads

Pictures drawn by your children of them acting on the teachings

Quoted scriptures for memorization

Hand tracings with goals or personal commitments written on them

Photos of someone you know who is a good example of living the principle being taught

I have a testimony of studying the words of the prophets daily and incorporating their teachings into all we do in our homeschool.  Since a young woman I have always loved the quote, “Living the gospel is like brushing your teeth, you can’t just do it on Sunday.” My goal with our “Conference Wall” is to immerse my family in the timely teachings of the Lord’s servants in as many ways as possible, having faith that by sticking things to my walls, I’ll be sticking things in my family members’ hearts.

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[i] Ron L. Andersen, Abraham Lincoln:  God’s Humble Instrument, p.64

Potential Extermination

 

Last week I deep cleaned my family room.  My goal was to conquer the clutter.  On top of the bookshelves was a stringy, ungainly plant whose eight foot runners spread over the top of the shelves and tumbled down the sides.  Its leaves were small, some yellowed, many dried and brown.  It was ugly and it definitely looked like clutter to me.

I took it down tediously gathering in all its runners and placed it in a heap on my kitchen counter.  With my hands on my hips, I stared at the plant and heaved a deep sigh.  What to do with it?  I didn’t want it in my space anymore and my inclination was to throw it in the garbage.  A pang of guilt stabbed at my conscience as I remembered the sporadic care I had given this plant.  I was so busy with my large family that I only watered it when I noticed it was wilted. Given the neglect, how had it grown as much as it had?  What might it have become had I taken better care of it?  Oh well.  It was just one too many things needing my attention.  The garbage was an easy fix.  Just then, my son’s cello teacher came to teach her afternoon students.

“Hey! Do you know anything about plants?”  I asked her.  She said she did and so I showed her my plant in its sad state piled on my kitchen counter.

“Oh, you just cut them back,” she told me.  “Just take your scissors and cut the stems way back.  In fact, you can cut most of these off.”

It was worth a try so I started cutting, but I had no clue what I was doing.  I snipped and trimmed until there was a large heap of stems in the garbage can.  Then the plant and I regarded one another.  What a sorry looking thing it was.  Had I been kind or spiteful?  I placed the sheared plant on the table and watered it generously. Over the next two days, I observed it curiously to see what would happen.  It appeared shriveled and shrunken and I wondered if the plant’s destiny was still the dumpster.  But on the third day I was amazed to find a change.  The plant had somehow taken on a new look that was alive and vibrant.  In just three days it had regrouped, reshaped, and filled in.  Where its leaves had been small and yellowed before, they were now large and deep green.  Today, one week after the cutting back, my plant is a beautiful addition to my now uncluttered family room.  It has become my friend and my teacher and I delight in caring for it.  In fact, I’ve decided it needs a beautiful pot to replace the drab green plastic one it came in.  So caught up in the busy of my life, I had never noticed the pot it was living in.  A beautiful plant is worthy of a colorful pot.

Genius simply cannot grow when our energy and focus is scattered with so many scraggly and ill-fed runners. Rather than beauty, we create clutter when we spread ourselves thinly between countless activities.  The long and the short of it is simply this: our drive to be more and do more actually threatens to exterminate our God-given genius.  Who we are meant to be grows when we cut back, prune the over-extended runners from our lives, and live from our roots.  My plant taught me this.  I’m taking the scissors to my life now.  Cutting back is a principle that grows genius.