Losing Another Generation?

From a RealHaus post this past December…

A recent status update on my Facebook page talks about how much I love homeschooling, partly because of the gentleness of living, the joy in learning rather than fear and stress and pressure over exams and presentations and grades. The point was made that exams are a part of life, with the implication that it should be taught to everyone. Another point made was that the Church can’t afford to lose another generation of kids like we lost the last one.

Which leaves me pondering: Where is the happy place between teaching our children to question authority and not bend to every whim and blindly jump through every hoop they are told to, and learning the skills and ability to adapt to the “real world” (as though they don’t already live in the real world if they school at home, but I digress)?

Put in more practical terms: I want to teach Rosie how to take tests and be able to be assessed for what she knows, but without constantly clamping her in a vise just for practice. I want her to have a realistic view of the hoops she may be asked to jump through in life, but I also want her to have the strength and courage to tell the hoop-holders to take a hike when the situation warrants it. I want her aware, but not scared, diplomatic but not so eager to please that she doesn’t stand against senseless demands on her time and energies.

I’m not even sure if any of this makes any sense at all.

Hindsight

I grew up wanting to be a teacher. I could feel it in my bones–I was born to teach. I taught my younger friend Robin everything I knew about playing Barbies. I taught the kids in the trailer park how to jump clay hills on their bikes and how not to try crossing a deep ditch on the aforementioned bikes by way of a thin bridge built with two rotting one-by-two boards. I preached from atop our doghouse to congregations of three dirty-faced neighborhood kids, beseeching them to be nice and to forgive and to share their candy. I performed concerts to audiences I had roused from the neighborhood by riding my bike around and around the park yelling that my music would change their lives. It must have seemed a pretty comical notion to most, considering I was all of ten.

I did not go to college after high school to become a teacher, partly because music took over my soul and changed my career path, but more specifically because I got pregnant at 16 and married my fiance earlier than we had planned. I did finish high school, and even walked at graduation with my class when I normally would have, with my mom and my husband looking proudly on and our three-month-old son on my hip in his tiny red tux and my royal blue mortarboard hanging lopsided from silky brown hair and big blue eyes peering from underneath. I had even graduated with a high enough GPA to earn a full scholarship to junior college, but there was to be no college for me with a new baby in my arms and a young husband working long hours and little enough time together even without me trying to take classes.

Motherhood came quickly, but fit like a glove. It seemed as natural as breathing to teach our bright little boy everything he was eager to learn, so it came as no surprise when he was operating his own stereo system at two, and reading children’s books at three and the sports page at four. He went to school for kindergarten and first grade, and then his teacher let us in on a concern she had: she didn’t know what they were going to do with him the following year, because he had finished all of his 1st-grade curriculum during the first semester and had spent the second half tutoring other students. Wow. It would’ve been nice had she let us in on that information a bit earlier on, especially since we were at the school every day dropping him off at his classroom door and picking him up in the same spot.

And so our homeschooling journey began. Twenty-three years and five kids later, I look back over our homeschooling adventure with a perplexing mix of thoughts.

Gratitude
I am grateful beyond words for the blessing it has been to teach our children in our home and in the car and at the museum and the grocery store and everywhere we ever were. I am grateful for the bonds homeschooling created among our family members, siblings who don’t fight but who look out for and fiercely protect one another, a mom and dad who adore each other and provide the foundational relationship for this big amazing family to rest upon. I am grateful for everything homeschooling has taught me–about God, about my children, about myself, about life.

Sadness
It’s been a long, tough, challenging road, but I’m going to deeply miss homeschooling when it’s all over. I can’t even imagine it, really. I’ve been doing this half my life.

Relief
As much as I cringe at the thought of being finished with homeschooling within the next couple of years, I will say there will be some measure of relief, of being able to relax and think about my husband and me, of having time to consider what makes me laugh and what passions I possess outside of my family. Just the notion that there is anything of me “outside” of family really doesn’t even make sense to me. I’m honestly not even sure how to approach the idea, but like it or not I will have time to try.

Uncertainty
Even with all the thankfulness, there is still uncertainty. Did I fail them in any way? Did I focus enough on each of their specific learning styles? Did I meet their individual needs? Did I prepare them well enough? Will they regret homeschooling? Will they resent me one day for things they didn’t get to do? Is there a chance they might have loved our homeschooling life enough to want to homeschool their own?

Resolve
There is a duality that exists within my psyche that I navigate with some effort. In some situations I do not like structure or outline or even closure, but prefer openness and freedom to explore. Such is the case with many of my creative writing endeavors. Looking back over the past 23 years, though, I see that I need some way to quantify, some way to measure what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished–where we were then and where we are now because of our choice to homeschool. I think I need some tangible proof that I–that we–did the right thing by our children and by our family as a whole.

Looking back, I feel a million things at once. But what I feel most is joy. I have loved our learning life together as a family more than any words could begin to capture. It has brought me a deep, permeating joy that I will carry with me always. My sincerest prayer is that our children will carry it, too.

Talks

My daughter and I have been talking a lot lately. Not that it’s anything unusual for us to talk, but it’s been a little bit easier now that I’m not so crazy busy all the time. This is actually what I envisioned (hoped for) when I backed off my other commitments to turn my focus more directly on her and her brother and less on people outside our family.

So in our talking she has been saying she doesn’t really want to go to public school; it was more that she was just wanting more of a social outlet to round out homeschooling. Apparently she needs more than being with her dance team three or four evenings a week and going to sports events at local schools and to the movies and the mall and…well, yeah.


Anyway, I’m just glad to hear that she isn’t keen on the whole idea of public school. Heard about another shooting today. I think that’s the third one this week that I’ve heard or read about. One of the incidents was pretty close by, maybe half an hour away from where we live. A kid took a loaded gun to school in his backpack and when he plopped it into a chair, it discharged and shot two students, both of whom were in pretty serious condition at last report.
 
I’ve been posting a lot less on Facebook lately. Seems every status update riles someone or makes people jump to the conclusion that I’m talking about them and then they start defending themselves while I shake my head and wonder why I even bother with it any more. After shaving 456 people off my “friends” list, I’m already streamlining the group of people I regularly interact with. I guess backing off even further won’t hurt me any. I’m spending much more time reading, writing, and blogging lately anyway.

Back to the talks with my daughter. I’ve come to look forward to our near-daily chats about everything from education to careers to internet stalkers (we have people who seem to be obsessed with our family and can’t seem to leave her alone on one of the lesser-known social networking sites) to cooking and learning skills for living on her own to college degrees and how necessary they really are in various career fields. Basically we just chat about whatever comes to mind, and I’m having a lot of fun. I think she is, too.

Looking back a few years

I found this on an old education blog I had completely forgotten about. Thought it was worth sharing. There may be more to come from this blog, depending on what I find.

RECENT RAMBLINGS ON LEARNING (June 18, 2005)

(Excerpted from my personal weblog)

It should probably serve as fair warning that I am reading Guerrilla Learning.  It wouldn't take much discussion of this book for me to raise some hackles on the topic of education, I'm thinking.  My suggestion to anyone who gets annoyed? Read the book, then decide for yourself.  After all, that is the whole premise of the book.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about education lately.  I couldn't understand why I was experiencing burnout; even after 17 years of homeschooling, I don't understand how I could feel overwhelmed by something I love so much and can't imagine no longer doing.  I was talking to a friend the other day about Rosie mentioning that she might like to try public school.  My friend Laura told her she's been watching too much TV.  Shows like "That's So Raven" and "Boy Meets World" and "Recess" and "Lizzie McGuire", while they are awesome shows (IMO), tend to glamorize public schools in very unrealistic ways.  Not to say there aren't any Mr. Feeney's (I've known some personally), no situations like those in the shows; they do exist occasionally in some places.  The problem is that they are the exception rather than the rule.

There were things I loved and things I hated about public school.  While I understand that life is like that, I also understand that while I attended school for all those years, I gained a tiny amount of true education and a lot of junk.

• I loved kindergarten. Ms. Scott was an angel who loved me and cried when I was kidnapped. I learned to make my 4's forward instead of backward, and I learned to cross the monkey bars all by myself. Tammy Craddock and Dena Ciccarello were among my best friends.  My mother drove the pickup/dropoff route, and she pulled everyone's teeth because they wouldn't let anyone but her do it.
• I loved first grade and my beautiful "Miss Honey" teacher, Ms. MacBrayer.  She spent time with me, and scolded me gently that I would choke (which I did) if I held water in my mouth too long, and didn't get mad at me for throwing up in the middle of reading group because I was nervous to read out loud.  Johnny somebody liked me, but Donald Pearman was my true love, and his sister Angela was one of my best friends.
• I got moved into second grade midway through first, and I was devastated.  My sweet Miss Honey turned into Mean Ms. Daniels, who seemed to hate me from the start.  I was tiny and smart and scared to death of her and all my classmates, who were significantly bigger than me.  I don't remember having a best friend in my class.
• Third grade was a drink of cool water in the desert with Ms. Glover.  She loved kids and it showed.  She gave everyone birthday spankings on their birthdays (which made us feel totally special), and she drew stair-steps on the board to teach us multiplication facts.  She screamed out "Hallelujah!" and hugged me tightly in front of everybody when I made a 100 on a test.  Robin Barfield Sumner was my best friend, and I was envious of her beautiful blue eyes and long, black lashes.
• I got beat up nearly every day in fourth grade by Linda Lawrence, but I loved sweet Ms. Mills and our Bible class.  I also loved my best friend, Leigh French, who picked me up and brushed the dirt off my face every time I got knocked down.
• Fifth grade was a challenge, mostly due to family prejudice against my teacher's race, but there were some memorably lovely moments...one being "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", a five-page story I wrote for a writing contest that won me First Place and the treat of standing with the teacher at recess and drinking an ice cold Coke in front of everybody. I think that is when I truly fell in love with writing. Cindy Denny was my best friend, but Annah Young was my inspiration.
• Sixth was certainly memorable, but much more due to boys and social dealings than with education.  I liked Michael Dean, Steve Langdale, and Jeffrey Roach.  Jeffrey teeter-tottered with me (which was like being married), then left me in the playground dust the moment that lovely new girl, Jasmine came to our school.  Patty Smith was my bud, and she hugged me when I cried over boys or whatever.  Jason and I wrote a play about Paul Revere, and I was placed in an independent learning program for the gifted (although some of my classmates said ILP stood for Ignorant Little Punk).  Two friends and I dressed up as hobos and sang "I Ain't Got a Barrel o' Money" and made Ms. Smith laugh.
• Seventh grade was made a little scary with daily torturing from Demaris Lawhorn.  I liked Jeff Miles (several times) and took up playing the trumpet.  I was poor as dirt, and was reminded of it pretty often by others, but I met a wonderful girl named Laura Varnadoe and our friendship made life pretty happy. 
• Eighth grade was clouded over by my father's death, and I can't remember what I learned that year, save for how to lock people out of my heart so they wouldn't see how much I was hurting or how angry I was inside.
• Can't remember much educationally about ninth, other than Mr. Brown's antics in civics class and typing love-notes to a boy named Mike in typing class instead of doing my assignments (the only 'D' I ever received in school).  I mostly remember skating and moving to Minnesota (and meeting my dear Karrie) and then moving back here and liking Mike and winning the Outstanding Bandsman award. 
• In tenth, what stands out is that Mike and I broke up and I ended up dating (much too young) a guy who took more from me than my heart.  As for education, it was purely music; it was all my young cluttered mind could absorb that year.  I think Mr. Acosta probably saved my life, although he never knew it.
• Just before my junior year, I met my sweet Steve.  He was all I could think about (some things never change...hee hee), so academics were pretty far down on my priority list.  The exceptions are MamaNich's AP English class (where my love for writing was cemented), Ms. Fales' American history class, and of course my music classes.
• The summer before my senior year I found out I was pregnant.  Steve and I got married in July and I started my senior year a mommy-to-be.  Plans got changed rather abruptly. I resigned as Band Captain, left my beloved music classes, and decided to take advantage of the fact that I had enough credits to finish school in January.  My last class was Jan. 14 and our son was born three weeks later.  I walked the stage with my class in June to receive my diploma, then posed for pictures with "Jeffy" wearing my graduation cap.  Academics?  Oh, yeah, those. I remember getting good grades, but not much about how or what I learned.  The one class I remember is Child Development, which I pretty much taught while the teacher looked on with interest as she sat there spaced out on some kind of little white pills.

Overall, what I learned academically at school by and large didn't make much of an impression on me.  Like I said, there were moments.  Ms. Glover's method for teaching multiplication facts stayed with me, so much so that I have used it with my own children.  Mr. Brown's presentation of the US presidents was phenomenal, and I've used that, too.  Ms. Nichols' prodding, challenging, delightful encouragement will never leave me.  I carry her with me through every word I write.  As for what I learned other than academics, I bear scars I can't begin to word from some of it. 

I'm not necessarily Anti-Public School across the board.  I will say, however, that what public school has become has less to do with real education than with crowd control, unrealistic (and barely beneficial, at best) standards, and kids growing up way too fast in ways they were never meant to.  I know how true this was when I was in school, and (as my kids love to remind me) that was a LONG time ago.  Something tells me things haven't improved much, if at all, and that the reality is likely a lot worse than most of us can even surmise.

(Yes, I'm ready for the flaming comment arrows.)

Talking with Laura about some of the concerns she has about her daughter's school, as well as talking with Kelly about things her kids have gone through in school this year and in years past, I am only made more certain that homeschooling is the best possible educational option for our children.  I won't speak for anyone other than us (or at least I will try not to), but I do believe we are doing what God would have us do in our family.

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Some interesting quotes I came across:
"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience." -- Anne Sullivan

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"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."

-- George Bernard Shaw

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In his acceptance speech for the New York City Teacher of the Year award, John Gatto said, "Schools were designed by Horace Mann. . .and others to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population." In the interests of managing each generation of children, the public school curriculum has become a hopelessly flawed attempt to define education and to find a way of delivering that definition to vast numbers of children.

The traditional curriculum is based on the assumption that children must be pursued by knowledge because they will never pursue it themselves. It was no doubt noticed that, when given a choice, most children prefer not to do school work. Since, in a school, knowledge is defined as schoolwork, it is easy for educators to conclude that children don't like to acquire knowledge. Thus schooling came to be a method of controlling children and forcing them to do whatever educators decided was beneficial for them. Most children don't like textbooks, workbooks, quizzes, rote memorization, subject schedules, and lengthy periods of physical inactivity. One can discover this - even with polite and cooperative children - by asking them if they would like to add more time to their daily schedule. I feel certain that most will decline the offer.

The work of a schoolteacher is not the same as that of a homeschooling parent. In most schools, a teacher is hired to deliver a ready-made, standardized, year-long curriculum to 25 or more age-segregated children who are confined in a building all day. The teacher must use a standard curriculum - not because it is the best approach for encouraging an individual child to learn the things that need to be known - but because it is a convenient way to handle and track large numbers of children. The school curriculum is understandable only in the context of bringing administrative order out of daily chaos, of giving direction to frustrated children and unpredictable teachers. It is a system that staggers ever onward but never upward, and every morning we read about the results in our newspapers.

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6/14/05
School planning is going well.  Everything seems to be coming together, and I am doing a lot of great reading on teaching approaches. You'd think I'd know and have tried them all by now, which I probably actually have, but it's really interesting to explore them all every so often.  I'm also reading up on learning styles to make sure I am meeting each of the children's needs to the utmost. They deserve nothing but the most devoted attention.  I love my kids.
I bought some chalkboard paint yesterday and painted a chalkboard surface onto the front of the wardrobe in the school room.  Then on a whim I asked the boys if they'd like one in their room.  They were enthusiastic, so I painted the door of the upright freezer, which is in the laundry room but faces inward toward their bedroom.  Now they have this huge chalkboard there instead of just "the freezer".  Today I plan to paint the inside of Rosie's bedroom door with it so she can doodle chalk art in various colors all over the back of her door.  Just another way to bring art into our home, plus it's downright functional. Just might paint the back of the school room door, too. Hm. Wonder if there are any other unsuspecting surfaces around...
 

6/15/05

The more I read on the topic of educational approaches, the more I lean toward unschooling.  This is a bit surprising to me.  This isn't the first I've read on the subject, and I've actually implemented many of the related concepts through our homeschooling years (which would be best described as relaxed to slightly structured).  I remember reading on a website once that unschoolers are adamant about not being lumped in with relaxed homeschoolers, and I remember thinking, "Well, what's eating them?"  I'm beginning to understand, though, that the philosophy is very specific.  It isn't the absence of education (at all!); it's more the undoing, the stripping away, of the "schooling" mentality that sits at the core of the public school system's foundational purposes.  In reality, it is education in its truest form.  I invite anyone whose eyebrows raise at that notion to read some of John Holt and John Taylor Gatto's books--just so you'll be able to draw your own informed conclusions.

Maybe I just wasn't ready to comprehend it before, but suddenly it's making a lot of sense.  Right now I'm trying to understand my reticence to fully embrace it when everything in me is nudging me toward it.  The only thing I can think of is that this is bumping against everything I have ever been taught about education.  The sad thing is that my own school experience only proves out the point of writers like John Holt and John Taylor Gatto...so why is it so hard for me to believe it?  The only thing to do is to put it to the test, to try it on for size.  And it is looking very much like that is what we will be doing.  I'm a little nervous and a lot excited--for the kids and for us.  [I'd also be interested to see comments from any experienced unschoolers out there.]

NOTE: If you're looking for an unschooling blogring, check out LifelongLearning.  It's new, but it'll grow!

I'm almost finished with Guerrilla Learning (spectacular book), so I'm off to read.

6/18/05

I ordered a few more learning-related books from Amazon.  Just more great stuff for our home library.  I really should start purging books and streamlining our collection, come to think of it.  There's no telling how many books we have that we could easily pitch or donate. Right now we have...let's see...nine bookcases in the house (if I counted right), only four of which are actually in the library. 

The chalkboard in the library is working fabulously.  We're all having fun with it.  I'm having trouble finding colored chalk in the skinny form, though; I can only find it in the sidewalk chalk size, which is huge and unwieldy.  And I need a better eraser than the one I bought at Wal-Mart.  Our old dining table (along with the two remaining green dining room chairs) is now in the library, which takes up a lot of room, but it works for now.  I spread colorful informational placemats all over it (U.S. presidents, U.S. states and capitals, multiplication facts, world map, cursive writing model, etc.), which has already captured the interest of Matt in particular.  I have to say I am excited about watching our kids' natural love for learning reappear.

 

Just Mama

I've been thinking back lately to a time several years ago. It was Teacher Appreciation Sunday at our church, and I hadn't really talked to my family much about it personally but the announcements had gone out about all the children inviting their teachers to church that day and having them recognized and appreciated. It was a packed house that day as many of the local school teachers came at the invitation of their students and were called to the front to have student-written notes about them read aloud by the students, and to receive applause and certificates and recognition as teachers.

I remember sitting in my chair feeling small and insignificant and meaningless. My name was not mentioned. No notes read aloud or magical moment for me to stand on the stage and be recognized as a teacher. I sat there in my chair just me. Just a mom.

Now, years later, I think about the whole picture, this whole 22+ years of homeschooling picture, and I ponder that term: Just a mom.

I wonder if maybe I was too eager to be labeled a teacher. I mean, have I ever been disappointed that I wasn't labeled a nurse? A chauffeur? An event planner? A chef? Why the deep sense of loss and emptiness at not being labeled a teacher, when it was simply one of my roles as "just a mom"? Could it be because teaching our children is supposed to be as natural as caring for their health, and taking them places, and planning their birthday parties, and cooking their meals?

I have often encouraged women who didn't feel equipped to homeschool by reminding them that teaching their children is simply part of mothering them. Once again, I learn the lesson that listening when I talk is a good practice for me.

Thankfully, that woeful Sunday has not been relived over and over in my head, pounding down my self-worth day after day and year after year. I believe the reason it hasn't tormented me is simple: I know deep down that my children have always loved and appreciated me for mothering them, and for all the forms that mothering has taken. They didn't put my name on the teacher list because to them, I am their mother. I hadn't changed hats from mom to teacher any more than I had donned a nurse's cap when I'd applied vitamin E oil to a scrape, or a chef's hat when I'd sprinkled herbs into the stew. I was just me--the same me as always throughout their lives.

Today I am feeling pretty good just being Mama.

Visualizing the End of an Era

Earlier today a friend posted on her Facebook "I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!" and the dam broke. I responded with, "What do you do when your child no longer loves it?" The comments that followed were very kind and helpful, and I truly appreciate those lovely moms reaching out and trying to help me struggle through this. I'm quoting below what I wrote in response to their advice (because I just plain don't want to type it all out again).

I do want to say that our parenting style is pretty much exactly what was described above, and I know that is a big reason why our kids (all five, from nearly 30 down to 15) are the amazing people they are. Our daughter is a strong and wise but also very respectful and obedient. I have every reason to believe that if I just told her, "Honey, we just can't do it. It isn't in your best interest, period." she would swallow hard, nod, probably cry a bit, and then she would go on with life without being sullen or resentful (it truly isn't in her personality to act that way, thank the Lord).

My biggest concern is that she will turn 18 and look back over the past few years and (even if she doesn't say it out loud) think to herself, "Wow. I really wanted to experience that, and now that time in my life is gone and I can't get it back, ever." and feel a sense of emptiness and loss because we refused to budge in this area. Our family is and has always been about relationship. Everything hinges on that--with God, and with one another and with others. Every attitude, word, and action happens with relationship in mind. I honestly believe that is why our family is so close-knit, and I have to say I believe that is why we stand out from the norm. Out of all the people we know personally, we know ONE family whose relationships are like ours.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm talking in circles. I'm honestly just trying to flesh this all out from all angles. Just for background, my husband is absolutely against her going to public school but he also doesn't want her resenting him and having it affect their relationship. If it was something cut and dried like her wanting to try smoking or drugs, or hitch-hike to California, we would have no problem saying definitively, "Um...no. Ain't happening." This isn't quite so simple.

Another thing is that she isn't even totally sure she wants to go to public school. Actually I think a small Christian school would make her happiest on all counts. It isn't even really that she wants to be with her friends, since 1. all her dance friends here are spread out among several different local schools, and 2. we are moving to another area in July so none of her friends would be there. She is a social butterfly, so the idea of being a new girl and making new friends jazzes her rather than making her nervous. Then again, she has never had to deal with environments like I'm pretty sure she would find in ANY of our local schools.

Anyway, I'm rambling now but I wanted to give a bit more information and share a bit more about our thinking. I think I might even be lazy and paste some of this into my blog since I had planned on blogging about it. Thank you sweet ladies for being my sounding board. See? Us veterans don't have it all together even after doing this for 22 years. Don't ever feel badly because you haven't been doing it long enough to know everything; it will always be a learning process. After all, as we homeschoolers know, learning is lifelong.

I'm still thinking, still praying, still talking to Steve. It's a process, and I'm working hard.

Okay, Maybe Not a Yo-Yo, but More Like a Roller Coaster

I love roller coasters. The climbs, the falls, the twists and turns...the thrill, the anticipation, even the scary parts. Everything comes together to create three or four minutes of fun. I think the older I get, the more like a roller coaster life seems. It reminds me of the scene in the movie "Parenthood" where Steve Martin's character realizes that life being a roller coaster isn't necessarily such a bad thing. Everything comes together to make life what it is, and our outlook on the whole thing decides whether it's a fright show or an adventure movie.

Our family educational adventure could be viewed as a microcosm of life in many ways. Actually, after having homeschooled my children for 22 years, it has been much of my life. To be honest, I can't even imagine what life will be like in three years when I have no more children left at home to teach. At that point, I will have homeschooled for exactly half my life.

We heard last week that there is still a good chance Matt will soon be hired at the museum. We picked up his khakis over the weekend, and he is eager to get started.

It is looking more and more like we will be moving back to the Brandon area this summer. It's no easy task trying to word how bittersweet that will be. The dance studio up here has been nothing short of a miracle in Rosie's life. In all our lives. The Sells and all of the amazing girls she dances with have breathed new life and passion for dance into her that I wasn't sure would ever be possible. Her work ethic has responded to their instruction and encouragement, pushing her years forward in ability and love for the dance arts. We won't ever forget that, and we won't ever allow time or distance to steal the friendships she has forged here. We will always make time for her to continue those relationships.

Whether or not Rosie decides to dual enroll at the community college or simply pursue direct career training as a nanny, I know God will open the right doors for her. We are looking into a particular dance studio in Brandon, and I trust He will show us if it is right for her. She and I were talking about it all last night, and she said something I consider rather profound. She said she doesn't think she would be the person she is today if not for the adversity she has faced during the more negative parts of what we have come to call our pilgrimage time over the past few years. She is right. None of us would be.

So we continue to grow and adapt and look for God's hand in every situation, in every moment. He never lets us down.