Tricotomania and more

We have just read the book by Katherine Paterson. I’m hoping Tigger will put a review up on her blog.

This was an excellent historical novel. It tells the story of the 1912 textile workers strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, from the perspective of two children. Rosa is an Italian-American girl who goes to school. She loves learning and is doing well. Her family clearly make sacrifices for her to continue her education (although she is only 12). Her living conditions are brought to life in considerable detail. Jake is an American boy of roughly the same age (maybe a bit older) who works in the mill. His father is a violent drunk and Jakes life is very difficult. We read the book together as a read-aloud and I enjoyed it thoroughly as did Tigger.

The story follows each of the children providing a plausible narrative of  both their lives and how they intertwine. The story has considerable emotional depth and I found it very believable. It is set in Lawrence for the first half and then moves to Barre, Vermont, where children of the strikers were hosted by local union members during the strike. The contrast between the living conditions in the two places is striking. Continuity is provided by having Rose and Jake hosted with an Italian-American family.

It is clear that considerable historical research was done and the fictional stories of these two children are woven into the factual narrative with great skill. A historical note is provided at the end of the book and the acknowledgments provide a list of books that the author consulted.  As such the book would make a good addition to studies of American history for topics such as labor history, immigration, industrialization, and child labor.

Rose’s faith is quite important to her and the story could also be used to open up discussion of faith and dealing with difficult times, charity, and forgiveness. The character of Mr. Gerbati would be particularly interesting on these latter topics as well as opening up discussion about whether socialism and Catholicism really are incompatible. (This is raised in the book in different ways.)

When I was looking for a link for the book for my earlier post, I found some other useful resources related specifically to this book. The teacher’s guide on the publisher’s website is very good. I like the questions and activities. They seem to get into some deep issues that could really spark interesting discussions. I also found an activity on the Sharing Understandings website. Scroll down to “Electronic Scrapbooking”. There is a link to a powerpoint with photos of the strike and some of the historic characters that appear in the novel. Too bad it doesn’t include the photo of the children outside of the Socialist Labor Hall in Barre, Vermont that the author said inspired her to research this story. They also link to other resources. History of the strike at Mass Moments and at Teaching Tolerance.

Picturing Modern America has some related resources on industrialization and child labor.

A while ago I posted about the fact that as an unschooler I try to support and enable my child in learning what she wants to learn. One of the most difficult bits of this has been religion. My daughter has a faith and wants to go to church and learn more and I am enabling that. My faith is not as strong but I have found a parish that I am comfortable with and am learning along with her, with the support of the clergy and others in the parish.

It is advent. So I picked up some advent resources at church and we’ve been using them. The christian education coordinator did say that there would be aspects of some of them that I wouldn’t be comfortable with but she thought that we could just discuss it and it would be fine. What I am about to write about has been dealt with between Tigger and I in that fashion and she was right.

But I still want to vent about it because it is one of those things that really makes me wonder what some Christians are thinking and what their motivation for their faith is. A few years ago I explored some resources like the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society and found their views excessively rational. But some things make me see why folks would dismiss religion as irrational superstition.

One resource we picked up was a an activity book called Prayers and Promises (from Creative Communication for the Parish though I can’t see it in their current catalogue). It has a poster with a story that you put stickers into every day and a little booklet with readings, puzzles, etc. It starts with the story of Adam and Eve, goes through Noah, Abraham, etc etc through to the birth of Jesus. Overall, it is kind of a nice approach.

But on the second and third days, where the Adam and Eve story is told, there is something really disturbing. In the first day where they tell about the garden we find this in a section where the child is asked to imagine themself in the garden ” … but no mosquitoes bite their noses, no bees sting their toes. A wolf and a lamb are having dinner together (not each other!), a lion and a deer are playing tag.” Even more worrying the next day, when we deal with the snake (who is explicitly stated to be the form Satan takes) we find “Now the lion roared at the lamb, and thorns and thistles suddenly appeared. The sun’s heat burnt their skin, and sickness and death became a part of life.”

What is going on here?! Lions and wolves are carnivores. To imagine a lion that does not eat the deer loses something essential to its lion-ness. When did mosquitoes, bees, thorns, and thistles become evil?! Do people seriously believe this?! Because it is patently absurd.

Interestingly, in the scripture passage at the beginning of this day 3 lesson, we find “Now the snake was the most cunning animal that the Lord God had made…” How does that get turned around to attribute all the stuff we don’t like to Satan in the explanatory passage below?! Seriously, the explanatory passage makes it sound like thistles, snakes, etc. are not part of God’s creation. Why is it so difficult to have a more complex understanding of God’s creation? And what damage are we doing by pretending to children that a world in which lions do not eat other animals is possible and even desirable. That really is irrational superstition.

I am reminded of a conversation Tigger and I had in Blockbuster one day. I suggested that we rent Two Brothers because I thought she’d like it. She noticed that it was rated PG and I pointed out that it said that was because of violence. I said that from the description it sounds like maybe that is mostly tiger violence and I thought it would be all right. She looked at me, incredulous, and said “But mommy, tiger violence isn’t real violence. Tigers can’t be vegetarians.” Maybe I shouldn’t have allowed my (then) vegetarian child to watch Big Cat Diary while eating her dinner when she was younger. 

Sometimes when reading critics of unschooling, one gets the impression that they think this is a lazy way of educating children. And in some sense, it is. I don’t plan a detailed curriculum with texts to read, exercises to do, assessment of learning, etc. I don’t struggle to get my child to sit and do the things that I have planned.

But looked at another way, unschooling is rather difficult. Observing my child to know where her interests are taking her and how best to meet her learning needs is not an easy task. Children cannot articulate their interests and needs clearly and part of my role is to help her discern these and help her find a language to communicate these.

Helping her find appropriate ways of folllowing and developing her interests is not that easy either. How much depth does she need or want at this time? What conceptual level is she capable of understanding? Sometimes knowledge of the average developmental abilities of children her age is useful (and thus things like ‘grade level’ or age level indicators will help), but the extent of variation around those averages means that my child may be capable of much higher or much lower levels than such information would suggest. Trial and error is often the only way to go.

But the most difficult thing I have been facing in the unschooling of Tigger is religion. I was raised in the Anglican Church, was baptized, confirmed, sang in the choir, was even an alter server. But I had what might be called a crisis of faith over 20 years ago and left the church. I did not believe in God. Or, perhaps, I did not believe in God as He was presented to me in those years in the church. (There are difficulties here with the tense of the verb which I’m going to overlook.) In any case, I walked away and lived as an atheist for over 20 years.

This was not difficult. For most of that time, I lived in England. I am politically on the left, feminist, queer. I rarely came across people who had religious convictions or who attended church regularly. In fact many of my friends have no experience of church attendance at all. My partner is an atheist and has attended church maybe 6 times in his life for things like funerals or weddings or compulsory school things (there is no secular schooling in England).

That said, my values and approach to life are probably very influenced by christianity. A Jewish woman acquantance (and wife of a conservative rabbi) once described me as a “secular christian”, which seemed like a reasonable descriptor despite the fact that most christians would vehemently argue that such a thing could not exist. When I was pregnant, I met and became friends with a christian mother and we have many discussions about religion. Her experience was the chronological reverse of mine, having been raised without religion but coming to the church in her late teens. I also had a colleague with whom I discussed religion on the bus on the way to work.

Last fall, Tigger said that she wanted to go to church. I have particular values that some churches would actively teach were evil (not just wrong, I’m pretty sure) so I had to give this some thought. She is well aware that her dad and I don’t believe in God. But had been saying for quite a while that she does (at one point, she said that she was not a christian but believed in God, for example). Luckily, a close friend of ours was looking for a new church at the time and we found an Anglican church that we all felt comfortable with (it is an affirming and inclusive parish, with a large number of gay and lesbian members, and very active on social justice issues especially around housing and refugees). Initially my friend took Tigger. But when she couldn’t go or wasn’t going, I sometimes took her. As of this spring, Tigger and I attend regularly and have officially joined this parish.

There is obviously another story here about my own journey but I want to focus for a bit on Tigger and on how, as an unschooling family, we deal with this question of religion which has come from her. Her father is struggling to be supportive and doing very well at being accepting and not being at all negative.

So last week, I went to see the curate to talk about things. Prior to this meeting I often tried to explain where Tigger’s belief in God and desire to attend church has come from. This makes Tigger uncomfortable but my explanations, or at least the desire for an explanation, seemed entirely reasonable to me. I wondered if it was partly influenced by the fact that her best friend is a Christian. I wondered if it had come from things she had learned in school in England. But the curate at our church helped me to see that she might just be a very spiritual child and that her belief in God does not come from external influence.

She lent me a book, “The Religious Potential of the Child” by Sofia Cavalletti, indicating that Cavalletti presents some evidence of innate religiosity in children and that I might find it interesting (if somewhat difficult in parts since Cavalletti is Roman Catholic). We also talked about things like prayer (which Tigger has asked for help with and I have no idea where to start, though she did decide to learn the Lord’s Prayer probably at the suggestion of Laura Ingall’s Wilder and Anne of Greene Gables) and bible readings (which Tigger was also requesting). She recommended a translation of the bible that I would feel comfortable with.

So I’ve started reading the Cavalletti. I might follow Willa’s lead and write about it here as I read it. I’m still thinking about that. I bought a new bible (it was on sale). I think Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon will provide a good starting point for a discussion of prayer and different experiences of God. I still feel a bit lost but have a bit of a foothold.

I do wonder sometimes how the more radical-libertarian unschoolers would respond to a child expressing this sort of interest.

Clearly, these thoughts are “to be continued . . . “