Cutting Loose After VBS

This week has been fodder for a lot of pondering for me. It's this Vacation Bible School thing. I've been grappling all week with whether to think of it as a good thing with some difficulties associated with it, or a stupid thing with some up sides to it. Ultimately I think it just is what it is, or that is it was what it was. I spent some time chatting with my son about his experience of it as well, and chats with him are always insightful for me.

See, first it is just a bit weird as someone who doesn't do the school thing to have a different cultural exposure. Didn't I just write a post about why I'm an unschooler? Indeed I did. Boy did this verify for me the truths of what I wrote about there. Let me just go into a little vent here: Why would anyone get the idea that putting a whole bunch of age mates together is the best way to get them to focus on absorbing new information? They want to socialize! They want to get to know each other, run around, and do fun things. (Especially if they are my outgoing son.) Kids absorb things when they are in relationship with people they care about and their minds are being tickled to open up from the inside. They are not in absorption mode when being told constantly to sit down, be quiet, and pay attention! My son's main observation about this year's VBS as opposed to last year's was that "the teachers weren't as nice." We traced this rather easily to the children's behavior (not to mention his) being more unruly because what they were presented with was less interesting/more dull. However, he definitively stated "the teachers don't know what we need." I suggested to the DRE in my "I-can-get-away-with-this-because-I have-a-dry-sense-of-humor" sort of way that next year we have Vacation Karate School instead. Honestly, since we don't really have the outreach into the "unchurched" -of-the-neighborhood focus that the Protestant churches normally do with VBS, let's get the church kids together to enjoy each other, build relationships with each other and with mentors, and do something that brings them joy.

OK, that was a pretty far-ranging rant. Here's a few bullet points:

• Getting up and out "early" every morning made me revert to a way of life that was mine when I worked 9-5. I really hate getting up and out early because the tone for my entire day becomes getting on this must-meet-expectations-of-others treadmill that I cannot break off of. Things like eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, the ability to think, the ability to relate civilly -- they all get chucked out the window and I go through my days like an automaton. I absolutely despise it. This kind of scheduling just kills me, or more like numbs me.
• I've started reading Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards, which really merits its own post. But in the opening pages he describes behaviorism as proposed by B. F. Skinner. It is really, really frightening to think about. Skinner essentially did not believe that human beings had a "self," that freedom was an illusion, and that we differ from earthworms only in the complexity of our make up. Pop behaviorism, Kohn points out, is a bit toned down when it comes to views of what human beings essentially are, but so much of what Americans do with children comes from or is comparable to Skinner's work with rats. And I saw this repeatedly being implemented during VBS. Bribes, threats, coercion, rewards, all communicating that people -- children -- are to be controlled by adults and made reliant on goodies dispensed for desired behavior. I'm not saying that I am the stellar parent or adult-with-children (let's just not use the word teacher). But it shocked me to see this playing out on such a large scale AND to see how drawn I became to bribery. This is just complete horse-pucky if one's goal is educating children towards freedom.
• I wrote my very first letter of intent to homeschool to our Superintendent of public schools today. Amen, yea verily, so shall it be.

But one thing I experienced today over-arched even all of these swirling thoughts. I have had such a hard time being functional this week. Tonight we had the closing Mass. The Old Testament lesson for today was this gruesome thing about the Queen mother slaughtering all the potential heirs to the throne -- real great for a Mass with kids, I thought! Our priest, who is leaving our parish in a few days for a medical leave of absence, made it a rather quick Mass (in pain as he is). And yet, as he preached and as we prayed, I was struck with the beauty of even this stark liturgy. And then, as I went forward to receive Jesus, I had the most profound "aha!" moment, or perhaps I should say "duh!" moment: because of the treadmill type of mentality I had gotten into, and because of the need for my children and me to eat food, we had skipped Mass since Monday morning. It had been 3.5 days since I had received Jesus! I could feel something physical, like a melting or glowing or .... something, when I knelt afterwards. Daily Mass has been impressed upon me as part of my special needs package since nearly the first day I knew I was called to become a Catholic. And so, for the most part of the last 15 years I have gone daily, give or take. So the awareness that I was actually missing something these last several days was really a pretty new experience. Duh!

I love my life, and I want it back. I'm not in any way sorry that I volunteered to work at this, because I know that all this swirling stuff has been good for me to see. And it will make next week richer, different, than if I'd just gone on doing the regular. My "regular" isn't really regular at all. It is where the Lord meets me each day.

A friend of mine told me tonight after the little post-Mass singing time that she was so impressed with how I did the music, and that I was so good with the kids, etc. She said "You could be a music teacher!" I gave her a completely non-mock scream! But see, I know that in the midst of my "regular," my sweet Lord could pull something like calling me to something that makes me scream today. It would all be good. As long as I have Him, I can go anywhere!