Contemplation &Connections& Hearts

I loved Cindy at Dominion Family's recent posts on homeschooling:

Why I Believe Homeschooling is the Best Option part 1
Why I Believe Homeschooling is the Best Option part 2

Among other things, she says (emphasis mine):

It occurs to me that one of the main arguments for starting community schools is that they are efficient. Why have 20 moms teaching Latin when one teacher will do? I personally believe the efficiency argument will not hold up because if we are going to argue for efficiency we will have to start arguing against the classical model altogether. Many classical educators espouse agrarianism because it speaks their language. Efficiency is the destructive god of our day not the key to the hearts and minds of students in the classical model. This very efficiency is what makes the school setting unyielding. Contemplation is lost among the wheels of efficiency.

This is a wonderful way of putting it. It is close to some of the things John Senior says in his very thought-provoking Restoration of Christian Culture. She mentions agrarianism and I could think of several more examples:

• Cooking just for one family is inefficient, when restaurants (MacDonald's, anyone?) can feed a multitude.
• A mom caring for her own preschoolers is inefficient, when a childcare facility could care for several children at the same time.
• Small businesses are inefficient, compared to big corporations which can produce a reliable product at little expensive.
• Breastfeeding is inefficient in terms of expended time and energy when compared with professionally formulated and prepared formula and accessories.
  
• A handmade product is inefficient because one person is spending all that time working when a factory could turn out lots of more standardized things in less time.
• Christ's public ministry in a small obscure section of the Roman Empire was inefficient, compared to a televangelist who can reach millions.

The point is that an argument of efficiency as the standard rests on an equivocation of efficiency with effectiveness, which are two very different things and can in fact work at cross-purposes.

When Aidan was in the NICU, nurses told me time and time again how a baby who was discharged, once the medical crisis was past, would just flourish at home, even though home was more casual and, well, messy and amateurish. This was true even with kids who went home needing nursing-level care. The nurses could give careful, thorough, efficient medical and human care and keep a baby alive but they couldn't provide the conditions that made a baby thrive and flourish and become his own unique self. They didn't make the mistake of thinking that efficiency was anything but a strategic necessity in certain circumstances, most often a second-best necessity.

Cindy linked to a blog which links to all the articles which came up in the course of the conversation (and it was nice of Cindy to mention my blogs too : )).
Among other things, the post says:

It also seems to me that it is rarely if ever pointed out that what is efficient for the teachers and administrators is terribly inefficient -- for the student.

I think this is so true. To use another healthcare example -- one dark moment in Paddy's 3 week NICU stay was when a nurse told me she was going to give Paddy an OG feeding (threading a feeding tube into his mouth into his stomach and then letting the formula drip into him). She was busy and didn't want to have to go to the trouble of rearranging his tubes and disposing him so that I could bottlefeed him, even though I was right there. (The subsequent details have faded from my mind but I do believe I ended up feeding him and I am absolutely certain that this was the last time this nurse was assigned to my son. Also, I will add that this was an isolated negative experience and most of my nurse experiences were much more along the line of professionals trying to do the best they could to support the baby and the baby's family).

Charlotte Mason says that "much teaching hinders learning" and so while I do think there is lots of room for a homeschool to grow and develop, I don't think the model to follow is "efficiency".

I don't think schools are always bad. I'm reading David Copperfield right now and there is a nice contrast between a really poor school and a very decent and effective school. But there, I think that the key is not efficiency, but as this article says, something more like subsidiarity -- where the schools are a support and furtherance of the parents' educational goals, not a substitute or sort of dilution of them in the name of efficiency.

Speaking (however indirectly) of what homeschooling is about and about connecting to hearts and minds, I liked this post at The Common Room: Connections. I've been waiting for a chance to pull it in somewhere:

One day about three years ago we went for a long walk
through our woods. On our walk my then 7 and 5 year olds were sharing the connections they were making, and also showing me that studies do serve for delight, and that education is the science of relations.=) Our five year old told me that the woods made him think of Little House in the Big Woods. We found a large tree fallen over a stream outlet, and the top was hollowed out, making a space large enough for two small children to play in. They told me they were Vikings like Harald, only nicer. We found a pile of red fur and one of them wondered if it belonged to Reddy Fox (from one of Thornton Burgess' books). They played Pooh sticks at the bridge. Our five year old found a hollow in the base of the tree and explained to us that this was one of the animal homes with a place for a door in it for animal visitors to knock on (ala Beatrix Potter)

This is very close to the heart of what I want for my children, though most days are an approximation and sometimes I don't see the evidence of the connections till much later. It takes time -- leisure -- and thought and imagination. It is not systematically efficient, it can't be written out tidily in a lesson plan, but it's real and it works (like these heart cookies, which I can't resist linking to since I hope to make them tomorrow, uh, today, actually)