Our 30 Seconds of Fame

Tonight my daughters and I appeared on the local television station, WAAYTV, in a story about local homeschoolers.

The reporter, Rebecca Shlien, is an acquaintance of ours from the Jewish community. We were both attending Shabbat dinner at the home of a mutual friend when the host announced "If anyone has any story ideas for Rebecca, let he know! She has to come up with two a day."

While I did take that opportunity to suggest a story about area homeschoolers, I can't claim credit for the story being aired. Apparently a few days after that evening, Ms. Shlien actually received this story as an assignment from her supervisor. Homeschooling is fairly popular in Huntsville, so it doesn't surprise me that the local television station would, at some point, want to run a human interest story on the local education trend. The timing, however, proved quite serendipitous.

We were delighted when Ms. Shlien contacted us and asked if we would allow her to come into our home and film some homeschooling activities and interview us. I felt this was a great opportunity for my kids, to see how a story is filmed, edited, and aired first hand. I also took the opportunity to coach my oldest in interviewing skills and etiquette. Make eye contact. Speak clearly. Anticipate possible questions you might be asked ahead of time and think of what you might say. She presented herself beautifully, and although the footage of her "interview" was not used in the final piece, it was a great educational experience all around.

And I must confess I was relieved to find that when the piece was aired, that not only did I appear to be a normal and articulate mother with civilized children, but Ms. Shlien presented homeschooling in a fair and favorable light.

Learning Through Experience

You've no doubt heard it said that learning is a multi-sensory experience. The educational philosopher John Dewey often wrote of the importance of connecting concepts with real-world experiences.

In our latest installment of American Girl books, my 2nd grader read of Josefina, a girl living with her father and sisters on a rancho in New Mexico prior to the Mexican American War. In the books, a severe storm devastates the family's flock of sheep, and Josefina's savvy aunt comes up with a plan to weave the rancho's wool stores into blankets that can be in term sold for money to replace the lost sheep.

Everyone, including 9-year-old Josefina, is instrumental in the plan, from gathering plants for dyes, dying the wool, spinning it into yarn, and weaving it into blankets to be sold. It is one of the many reminders in the series that children lived their lives very differently in history.

It might seem implausible to a child that such a young girl would be capable of doing such labors - until you make that child do it herself! Granted, a small plastic loom and cotton craft loops are a far cry from the work of a girl living on a New Mexico ranch in the early 19th century, but a struggling to get a few stubborn cotton strands woven properly provides an opportunity for understanding that cannot be gleaned from reading alone.

To quote a Chinese proverb:

     "Tell me, and I will forget.
     Show me, and I may remember.
     Involve me, and I will understand."