Léo's Insights
A place where issues related to the Christian walk and its application to home education is discussed.
Topics are meant to challenge you to think differently, to make a difference in this world, starting with the children you have been blessed with.
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Our Favourite Story
While our favourite story is not so much a story, it must be told because it represents the single most important observation we have had the privilege of making in our thirty plus years as facilitators. This “story” is about our own family.
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Restart
My family is a bit strange. I suppose most people think the same thing about their family and likely it is true, but in different ways. Most families have a go-to person who seems to have a bit more intuition regarding computers and phones than the rest. Normally, it is not a parent who is the techie in the family, but rather one of the children. Not so in mine. I have always been the computer, phone and tablet fixer.
The Knife Story (Part 2)
Last time, I left you hanging regarding what transpired with the student I had busted when his backpack fell over revealing his dad’s hunting knife. I had given him the option of telling his dad or I would. After dealing with me, he announced his imminent death as he went home to tell his father about the incident.
The next day, he came to my class very early, only to hear my exaggerated, “I thought you were dead!” This was to show him that perhaps he had been a bit melodramatic. He then shared the interesting way this saga went.
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The Knife Story (Part 1)
The classroom was very quiet as the students focused on an exam I was administering. I was walking around, keeping an eye on things, when I was suddenly shocked into emergency mode. As I was walking past a particular student, his backpack fell over and out came an 8-inch hunting knife. Not wanting to cause a stir, I kicked the knife back into the bag and absconded the backpack.
I am not sure the student actually understood what had happened. Fortunately, he did not make a fuss but rather waited to retrieve the backpack at the end of the day. By then all the other students had left so I was able to reach into the backpack and pull out the knife with a “what’s this” query. The student’s eyes grew big as he instantly panicked. I told him to settle down and just tell me what it was about. A few minutes later I had his explanation for why he had the concealed weapon.
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From Start to Finish
I thought this particular fellow was aiming to win the couch-potato-of-the-year award. Both he and his sister were children of an older couple who had married late and seemed lost with teenage kids. While his sister was a hyper-motivated academic powerhouse, the brother was not. We tried to encourage the boy to do at least some school work, but the inertia was too great. As this young man reached sixteen, we were wondering what would become of him. Then a miracle happened.
Now old enough to get his driver’s license, this young man quickly found work in the local mill. Within a year he had graduated to foreman and eventually became a manager within the company. We could never have predicted this would happen with this young man.
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The House Was Not Home
While we are thankful for having had very few failures regarding our ability to visit our families, there are quite a few stories we can tell about family missteps and memory lapses. Setting aside emergency situations such as children breaking bones, there have actually been so few instances of being “stood up” or surprising families at our entry that we remember the funniest ones.
There have been a few instances where the mom completely forgot we were coming. We were always entertained by the various looks of horror on the mom’s face or a child asking, “What are you doing here?” when answering the doorbell. It was especially impressive to watch the moms who had forgotten they had invited us to a meal magically create excellent fare in short order!
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Super Happy About Supper
We have been blessed with good travel experiences. In the thirty years we have been facilitating, we have had very few travel issues other than the occasional speeding ticket. We have been marooned in snowdrifts only three times, stuck in mud twice, twice we have been partly in a ditch with our truck and camper, and very rarely we’ve had some kind of vehicle breakdown. I believe we have only had to cancel a very few days of visits as a consequence of road, weather or other issues, and thankfully we have never had to do so due to either my wife or me being sick.
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Dear Mr. Gaumont
I have never been a fan of standardized testing or evaluations, as I simply refuse to believe there is such a thing as a standard or average person. I was a successful teacher, well liked by most students, respected by my colleagues and despised by my enemies. I took professional and personal development very seriously, as I do today. I was completely in favour of having my students evaluate me and my teaching, but I found the standard evaluation form my school had all but totally useless. So, I came up with an alternative idea that my colleagues refused to follow.
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Mom Learns English
Many years ago, as we were just getting started with Education Unlimited, Faye and I were asked to visit the sister of one of our home educating moms, as she was experiencing some grief regarding her son’s school experience. We arranged to visit the folks that evening.
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Question Period
Of all the techniques, methodologies and other pedagogical effects I employed in my teaching career, nothing beats this one. I called it Question Period, ostensibly named after the same in our Federal House of Commons. I love learning things and am not at all threatened when someone knows more than I do. In fact, the only reason I could have this exercise was because I was able to say the most dreaded words of my profession: “I don’t know.” My students begged other teachers to do Question Period as well, but no one other than me could stomach the idea of not being able to answer a question so they avoided doing what I was doing like the plague.