I should have already known that life with lots of children doesn't go as planned. Soon, instead of having detailed rigorous days, we were missing more days of school than we were having. Then I was pregnant and tired, and I wasn't finding as much joy in our school days. There was always an excuse of why I couldn't sit down and do a three or four hour block of school, so I'd often just give up on it all together, or we'd do devotional and then drift aimlessly after that.
My kids are enrolled in many great classes, and our home environment is packed with educational resources, so it wasn't that they weren't learning. But the basics weren't getting covered, and I wasn't enjoying "doing school" with them like I used to. I think I was in an overwhelmed slump.
Bob came to our rescue. He decided one night that he would plan a fun monthly family activity that anyone who had done their basic lessons would get to participate in. He would have each child report to him daily about what lessons they had completed. He decided that the subjects he would ask them about were the "3 R's" (Reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic), and another "R": Religion (personal gospel study). He told the kids that if they did these four subjects at least 4 days a week for the entire month, they could come with us on our fun activity.
I must admit that I was not too happy about this at first. For one thing, I kind of felt like he was taking over because I hadn't been doing well enough. For another, I knew that my checklist for their daily education was for a lot more subjects than just these four. I thought it would make them do less school than they should. I protested: "what about spelling, journals, history, science, p.e., etc? etc?" But Bob explained that he had put thought and prayer into this and he wanted to do it. I was kind of hesitant about having him check on us every day, but we went ahead.
My kids started doing more school than they'd done in months. It took our oldest children a little longer than the younger ones, but soon everyone started to be very self-disciplined about making sure their basic lessons were done every day. Looking forward to the monthly activity was motivating, but the bigger motivation really was the "reporting" to Dad that happened every evening. Soon, even our 3 year old was saying "Mom! I need to do my arithmetic!"
And then miraculous things happened. I started enjoying teaching them again. I realized that we can fit in their academic studies even during a busy day. Knowing that I have to watch my little ones report at night made me determined to help them give a good report. And they weren't just doing those four subjects - they were learning a lot. Older children were helping younger children with their lessons. We were discussing the books they were assigned to read, and we were learning about all sorts of things. I was thinking up fun math activities for my five year old and three year old. We were writing thank you notes and letters to relatives for writing assignments. Each of the children were finding quiet time to study the gospel on their own. The older children weren't resisting me when I reminded them to do their lessons - instead, they were thankful for the reminder.
We were in love with learning again. And we were all starting to remember that it really takes a short time to do these basic subjects. If something came up in the morning, we didn't just give up on school, instead we took time in the afternoon to do our "homework". Even during my miscarriage and recovery, school was getting done.
I think I had been hung up on the "ideal" school schedule in a way that made me just give up on doing school when I was tired or our days got busy (which they almost always do).
We went bowling for our family activity in January. Two of our children had missed a week of doing at least one of the subjects. They did come with us, but they didn't get to bowl. They were a little grumpy about it at first, but everyone learned a lesson from them. No one has missed doing all their subjects so far this month.
Bob and I are even doing this ourselves, adapting the subjects to our responsibilities ("'rithmetic" for Bob is working on his business, "reading" for me is making sure I read aloud to each of our children, etc.).
Bob has added one more subject for each of the older kids. He wanted them still to be "R's", so he had to be creative: "rhythm" (for those children who need to practice piano, violin, cello, or recorder), "reconnoitering" (scout requirements for our boy scouts), "retiring" (for himself and our daughter who has a hard time getting to bed early), and "recreation" (daily exercise for me).
I've pondered a lot on how good it has been for us to do these basic things. Simplifying and reporting have helped us to accomplish so much more than we were before. Here is a quote by Elder David Bednar from this article that describes what we've been learning:
"In order to better understand this principle, please consider Aesop’s fable “The Hare and the Tortoise.” After being taunted repeatedly for being slow, the Tortoise challenged the Hare to a race. As the race began, the two started off together. However, the Hare ran rapidly towards the goal and, seeing that he could easily win, lay down and fell asleep a short distance in front of the finish line. The Tortoise maintained a slow but steady and consistent pace toward the finish line. When the Hare awoke from his nap, he started running as fast as he could, only to find that the Tortoise had won the race.
The Tortoise is a classic illustration of steadiness and persistence. The Hare, on the other hand, is an example of a “spurter”—one who is given to short bursts of spectacular effort followed by frequent and lengthy periods of rest.
A spurt may appear to be impressive in the short run, but steadiness over time is far more effective, far less dangerous, and produces far better results.
Consecutive days of fasting, ultimately, may not be as spiritually edifying as successive months of appropriate fasting and worship on the designated fast Sunday. An attempt to pray one time for several hours likely will not produce the same spiritual results as meaningful morning and evening prayer offered consistently over several weeks. And a single scripture-reading marathon cannot produce the spiritual growth of steady scripture study across many months."
