Outreach by Teaching a Foreign Language

Why take a foreign language? Can't we survive in the modern world by only knowing English?  The older I've become, the clearer it is to me WHY a foreign language is so useful and why it is important to teach whatever you know to your student.  Let's start with  fulfilling the great commission as demonstrated in Matthew 28:19-20  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

Start them young and hopefully I can record some of the practical ideas I have used as they have grown older. Or things you can use to help foreign language tutors that might be willing to help teach your students.  The suggestions I make, can be done in ANY language.  I’m just going to bring up Spanish, because that is the language I chose to teach my children, living in Southern California and 2 hours from the Mexican border and meaningful mission trips.

I have not only wanted to give my kids a heart for their neighbors, but to give them a heart for other people groups.  If that was the goal, then I needed to equip them to reach other people groups.

I actually became a Christian one October when I was 15 years old.  That Christmas, my church announced that they were going down to Mexicali during Spring break with Azusa Pacific University high school program and I decided to go.  Little did I know that that ONE week would change my life forever.  Not only for reaching people for Christ, but in how I dedicated myself to studying Spanish with a purpose in high school.  The frustrating part was that in high school they were teaching me vocabulary to go to Mexico on vacation, including concerts, where I needed to memorize a list of instruments.  Hello?  This wasn’t the Mexico I went to!  I needed to learn the vocabulary for “sin” and “pastor”, “king”, and “giant”.  

Yes, that is me in the middle of the group!  And yes, our sign says “El Bano or Burst”!  Here is a picture of our youth group in Mexico in 1978.  And another one my senior year in high school.

The hardest part about learning a foreign language isn’t the grammar or vocabulary.  The hardest part is getting over your own self-consciousness and being able to speak it!  After I had children, my goal became getting my children to speak and jump that hurdle of self-consciousness.

Let me emphasize a little bit more about how important that hurdle of self-consciousness is.  I received an email from one of my Spanish students, who went down to Mexico with her youth group over Easter break last Spring.  Emily, a sweet, redheaded 3rd year Spanish student went down on a build project. 

They built quite the house.  Her first couple of years in Spanish class she was a timid student, and then all of a sudden something clicked.  I think it was the fact that she knew she might be that much more useful if she was going down to Mexico!  This was in the email I received, “I really saw what a tool learning Spanish (and practicing!) was! And I'm not "just saying" that because you are my Spanish teacher ;-) I really saw how useful learning the language was, and how fun it was to reach out to people with it.  I don't think I told you this, but I was able to speak to a young man from the church there. Even though it was difficult trying to get Spanish to come out of my mouth, it was great to hear him speak about his family and what his life was like, and in turn tell him (in very broken Spanish haha) about my family and a bit of my testimony. What a blessing!

 To be honest, this past trip was wonderful academically because I saw my strengths and weaknesses in my Spanish. I could understand nearly everything that was said in Spanish, whether it was a local talking or one of my friends translating, but I had trouble getting it out. Plus, my vocab is super strong, I knew the word for "Shepherd" when no one else did (yay for being taught from a Christian curriculum!). I felt pretty smart lol. On the flipside, I really need to practice my verb conjugation!”

Over my next few blog posts, I'll talk about different things that we have done to get them over the hump of self-consciousness.  But not today. I've got to prepare for Spanish class tomorrow!

Answering the Questions about Schooling When You Have Toddlers and Infants

One of the biggest questions I get from young families as the new school year starts is, “What do I do with my little ones?”  Well, I only had five, which may not seem like a lot to some of you, but it felt like plenty to me.  For 12 years I taught older students (Basically all of my eldest ‘s school years) while I had at least one preschooler.  For many years I had an infant and a preschooler, while homeschooling.  The funny thing is that I started that way (David was in Kindergarten when Priscilla was 2 and ½ and Stephen was an infant), so I didn’t realize that it could be any other way.

Let me give you my overall philosophy.  Your little guys are going to take your time, no matter what you do, so you might as well give them your time up front.  Plan for it.  Schedule for it.  Make it a part of the routine.  It will be a lot less frustrating.

I had lots of ways of coping.  Some years required different tools.  I’ll list some of the different things I did to accomplish the formal part of education.  If I think of other things that I did (the things that didn’t work for me, I blocked out!) I’ll edit this post.

1.       Divided up the toys – I had 5 Rubber Maid containers, and I divided the toys into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  The Legos were left out all week, along with the Thomas the Tank train track (along with pictures of previously made tracks to be copied), and the dress up box.  We’d only open one container each day.  Then, at the end of the day, we put the toys back in the same container and they wouldn’t see them until the next week.  Yes, I had enough toys to fill more than 5 Rubber Maid containers!

2.      Flip school hours -  One year our routine looked like this:  breakfast, dishes, throw laundry in, do Bible, head to the park with the math books and a timer.  Let the kids play for 15 minutes, when the timer went off, David was designated to run over and do a page of math.  I chose math for him because he had great understanding and there were no needs for additional tools.  When he was done, he’d run back and play and Priscilla would run over and do a page of grammar.  I’d try to do 2 subjects with each of them.  Finally, we’d head back home, ready for lunch and naps.  I’d feed everybody lunch, throw the clothes in the dryer, and then do some read aloud history (we used Beautiful Feet http://bfbooks.com/ and did literature based history).  Now the little guys were ready for naps.  Then, I’d finish the subjects with David and Priscilla before the little guys woke up.

3.      Do a subject that can cover multiple grade levels -   For me this meant Bible and History.  Some of my most precious memories of homeschooling my kids is nursing a baby, a toddler sitting on big brother’s lap sitting next to me, the other little brother sitting next to me, with the girl curled up like a cat on the back of the sofa, looking over my shoulder.  We did a lot of read out loud books.  And with Beautiful Feet, they also had recommendations for tapes (before the CD era), so we’d all sit there together and listen.  This was a good segue to nap time also.  After the little guys were down, I’d work on the writing and research with the older ones.

4.      When you have many that need to be schooled intensely, use a timer! -  I would set my timer for 15 minutes, and I would play with the little guys.  Maybe we’d build a train track.  Start a puzzle.  Line up all of the trucks.  Read a picture book.  By the time the 15 minutes were over, my goal would be to have them involved in an activity that they could complete/play on their own.  When the timer went off, they understood that that was the signal for me to work with the older kids.  I’d set the timer for 45 minutes with the older kids.  When the timer went off, I might have more than one little one at my side, knowing it was their 15 minute time segment.  If I was intensely teaching something, like writing or research, I’d ask David and Priscilla to take a turn and play with their siblings for a 45 minute stretch, while I worked with the other.  David almost always took them outside, and Priscilla almost always read books to them.

Again, the little guys need and deserve your time.  You might as well just give it to them up front!  

Adventures through U.S. History

I am teaching U.S. History, once again. When I teach U.S. History, I like to hit it on all fronts: audio, visual, along with the required history book, which can or cannot be considered “dry”. We read a lot of historical fiction and biographies. We read different American authors. We watch movies. Tonight was “movie night”. I used to have a box of videos and CDs, but somehow and somewhere I have misplaced it. Yes, a “bankers” sized box. Full. So I did the next best thing: I co-opted our Netflix account.

Now mind you, we rarely use our Netflix account. In fact, we started getting two DVDs at a time and a couple of years ago we went to one DVD at a time. However, when I take it over and we watch “educational” films, I mostly get groaning and complaints.

I decided to do it differently this time. Instead of getting documentaries, and narrations from Discovery or the History Channel, I spent hours and hours and hours searching for titles that were good movies with good historical facts, that we could enjoy together and I would not hear the groaning. Now, I cannot vouch for the facts of these movies, but here is the list I made:

The Crucible (1996) – PG13– The Salem Witch Trials. Review: It was rated PG-13. Since I have an almost 14 year old son and a 16 year old son, I was thinking this was "safe". In the first 10 minutes there was partial female nudity, rear and front that took us by surprise! It was too late to fast forward. When they get to the scene of the girls dancing wildly in the woods, and the Pastor comes upon them, quick, fast forward. The rest of the movie was OK. I'm trying to remember if there were even mild cuss words, because they were all speaking with early American accents and the Puritan speak that we would expect. I don't remember any. But, in any event, because of the 2 seconds of nudity, I think this movie should have been rated R. This movie captured the hysteria, the deceit, the people trying to save themselves by confessing, and those standing in their innocence until their death. Because of the affair of one of the men accused of witch craft, I wouldn't recommend this to students younger than Junior High. It will make me do a thorough search on the Salem Witch Trials tonight to see what was inconsistent, so that tomorrow, when I talk with my boys, I can talk about what different historical perspectives said really happened, along with I Samuel 28. One of the inconsistencies that I found was that Abigail Williams, played by Winona Ryder, in the movie, had an affair with John Proctor, which caused her to accuse John's wife of witchcraft. According to a textbook that I read, Abigail Williams was 11 years old. And evidently, there was a family feud between the Putnams and the Porters, so that they charged each other with witchcraft. To sort through all of the names from all of the different sources, I'd have to draw a family tree. Since I'm ready to move on in history, I'm not inclined to do that. If someone else does, please let me know!

The Last of the Mohicans (1991) – The French and Indian War
Review: We originally decided not to do the R rated 1991 version, and we rented the 1971 Masterpiece Theater version. That version had 2 discs, and each disc held 3 shows. Well, two teenage boys raised with Hollywood versions and the DVD playing amidst the laughter, I hurriedly checked a website that would detail the vulgarities. The authors rated it extremely violent, with only a prolonged kiss that was done fully clothed, with moderate cursing. They mentioned someone was scalped, someone had their heart cut out, and someone committed suicide, along with showing lots of dead bodies. With two teenage boys at home, and one at a university in the Corp of Cadets, I figured they could handle the violence. After the first show on the first disc ended of the Masterpiece theater production of The Last of the Mohicans, we streamed the 1991 version, starring Daniel Day-Lewis (who coincidentally was hanged as a witch last week in The Crucible). The reviews were true. It was extremely violent, but I've seen National Geographic documentaries worse. At least we knew it was all acting. The plot stayed true to the story that I remember reading 25+ years ago. And it was a good reminder to our sons that war is violent, even way back during the French and Indian wars, and they sure had strange rules of engagement!

Johnny Tremain (Disney 1956) – New England Colonies - bummed. It's showing as "Saved" on my queue!

John Adams - the miniseries 2008 - We purchased this set and would watch it on and off, when a movie was short, or we had a spare evening home.  We really enjoyed this and got caught up in the history of John Adams.  This became one of our favorites throughout the year.

1776 (1976) – The Summer of 1776 in Philadelphia - Review: although a musical, we did enjoy it and the boys hung through it all. It did show the agony of the different delegates and their lack of unity. And then even after Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration, there were still compromises that needed to be made, including slavery, to get the Southern States to sign on. And although the sequences between John Adams and Abigail Adams seemed fanciful, it seemed that their "conversations" were really the letters that went back and forth.

April Morning (1988) - made for Hallmark. Rated G. A young man, who is barely of age to "bare arms", signs himself up for the militia, somewhere between Lexington and Concord. After the "shot heard around the world", he realizes that he doesn't have it in him to actually shoot and kill someone, and spends the rest of the movie reconciling his actions with his true beliefs. We should have seen this BEFORE 1776.

The Crossing (2000) – George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on Christmas Day

Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor (2003) – Battle of Saratoga win to traitor to the United States

The Patriot (2000) – Revolutionary War - I watched this the first time.  I can't stomach the violence, but I let my teenage boys watch it.

Davy Crockett: King of the wild Frontier (Disney 1954) – Early Indian wars to the Alamo - my boys thought this was "lame".  I thought it was "wholesome".

The Alamo (1960 - John Wayne) – 1835 Texas Revolution

Amistad (1997) – American Slavery in the 1830’s

Amazing Grace (2006) – Abolition of Slavery in England (I know it isn’t U.S. History, but I thought it might be a good follow-up on Amistad.

Lincoln (2012) - Accurate portrayal of Lincoln according to the history books.

12 Years a Slave (2013) - The autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was abducted from New York state and sold into slavery in the mid-1800's.

Dead Man’s Walk (1999) – The 1840’s Texas Rangers!

The Comancheros (1961 – John Wayne) – again the Texas Rangers of the 1840’s.

The Santa Fe Trail (1940) – the life of J.E.B. Stuart. We’ve spent a lot of time in Harper’s Ferry, so I think the boys will like it.

Gangs of New York (2002) – covers the immigration of the 1840’s to the 1860’s and the slums of New York, all while the Civil War was beginning. Don't do it!  It didn't seem like it was worth it for all of the sexuality and nudity.

Gone with theWind (1939) – I’ve never seen it before, so I guess now is the time.  Never got around to seeing, but we added a bunch of other movies!

Far and Away (1992) - Irish Immigrants and the land grabs in Oklahoma in the 1890's.

Gods and Generals - Stonewall Jackson - We ended up watching this as we saw on IMDB that it was the "prequel" to Gettysburg.  We enjoyed it.  I actually got tired of war movies about this time.

Gettysburg -

World War I, American Legacy

Andrew Carnegie, the Age of Steel - documentary - about this time I realized that I needed to switch back and forth between movies and documentaries!

Geronimo and the Apache Resistance

Charlie Brown - THESE were a lot of fun!
     -The Birth of the Constitution
     -The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
     -This is America, Charlie Brown!
     -You're not elected, Charlie Brown!
     -The Mayflower Voyagers

The Lost Battalion (2001) - A drama about an American battalion of over 500 men that gets trapped behind enemy lines in October 1918, during the closing weeks of World War 1.

The Doughboys, Heroes of WW1

Dear Home, Letters from World War 1

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - The Great Depression Era

Saving Private Ryan (1998) - As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, Ranger John Miller and seven others are ordered to find a brother, who has already lost 3 brothers in the war.  Some movies you don't have to wait until American History to watch!

Band of Brothers (2001) - The story of Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborn division and their mission through V-J Day. Again, why wait until you teach American History?

The Longest Day (1962) - D-Day.  I think my guys watch this every D-Day!

A Motion Picture History of the Korean War

The Red Baron

Underground Railroad hosted by Alfre Woodard

The Last Stand at Little Big Horn

Thirteen Days (2000) - JFK and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

I thought that I’d document these movies, so that if anyone else is teaching U.S. History, they can benefit from my research. As I go along, I’ll try to give a review from the point of view of a conservative, homeschool mom.

I have 20 more weeks to cover, but I’m thinking that at some point I’ll find that box of videos. In the meantime, I am open to suggestions.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Yesterday, we took a field trip down to San Diego to view the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Natural History Museum. My first thought was that I need to raise the standards on my boys' penmanship!

We strolled the hallways, listening to pre-recorded messages, looking at the artifacts at each station. Some stations had extra information, which generally included Scripture. My overall impressions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, are that they were not what I had expected! I guess I had envisioned them to be massive scrolls with lots of information, with little signs of aging. Instead, what I saw, were these itty-bitty puzzle pieces, with many more pieces missing than accounted for!

I marveled at God's providential timing of them being found. First, and foremost, they were found before our current preservationist standards. Because men were unafraid to use their bare hands and Scotch tape, they actually got a lot more study/work done on them, before they discovered that they might be compromising the life span of the artifacts. I think that if they were found now, that preservation would be first, and only after the years of properly preserving them, would the study of them had been started and under very strict standards.

I also enjoyed learning about Qum'ran, the location near the Dead Sea, about 13 miles outside of Jerusalem, where over 700 manuscripts have been found. It is a place I would like to visit, but I think I would have really liked to have visited it 2000 years ago.

I let Andrew, Philip and Stephen wander at their own pace, with their own ear pieces. I only tried to stay within seeing distance of Andrew. I figured I could get their download at the end of the tour.

At the end of the tour, I asked Andrew, "What did you like the most?" He answered the pictures of the story of David and Goliath, but that he didn't like the museums interpretation of Goliath. Before I could ask any further questions, he let loose on a diatribe, that had really bugged me, but I had looked beyond it. "Mommy, why do the scientist people have to change it from BC to BCE and from AD to CE?" It was a rhetorical question, as they had explained it in one of the first stations. "That is really a dumb idea!"

Philip, the 12 year old, answers, "Well, it is really dumb because they don't want to be religious, but what are the Dead Sea Scrolls? They're religious!"

Stephen then attacked the logic of the whole dating, because they haven't even changed the start year, which is all based on Christianity. Don explained to them that the Jewish people continue to keep a Jewish calendar that dates us into the thousands, however, in order to trade and function in the rest of the world, they needed to adapt to the calendar based on Christ.

Today, Andrew was reading his Bible and he says to me, "Mom, this was written in 70 AD, (and then in a mocking voice) but if scientists had written it, it would be 70 CE." I laughed, and I said, "Remember Andrew, only SECULAR scientists would have written it that way."
It occurred to me that Andrew, all 10 years of him, is still indignant about this "atrocity" to the naming of our dates. Am I that indignant? No. Should I be? I wonder. Maybe I'm not because I've had this information before (Sadly, only because I taught World History to David and Priscilla). Or maybe because I'm used to the secularism. Or maybe I've lost my zeal to fight battles that seem too big to take on. Or maybe I needed my 10 year old to remind me that I still need to be zealous in my faith, and I need to keep walking the Walk and talking the Talk, so that I can be "salt" that preserves what needs to be preserved in this world.