Mrs Hannigan's Home for Girls

I really love it when I realize I’m failing at something because it gives me a clear and present opportunity to improve. Seriously.

So a friend of mine, who is enrolled in a political science class, emails me to send me a quote from a Supreme court judge who is dealing with a case where a high school student was suing for a 1st amendment violation. The quote is:

when States developed public education systems in the early 1800’s, no one doubted the government’s ability to educate and discipline children as private schools did. Like their private counterparts, early public schools were not places for freewheeling debates or exploration of competing ideas. Rather, teachers instilled “a core of common values” in students and taught them self-control. Reese 23; A. Potter & G. Emerson, The School and the Schoolmaster: A Man-ual 125 (1843) (“By its discipline it contributes, insensibly, to generate a spirit of subordination to lawful authority, a power of self-control, and a habit of postponing present indulgence to a greater future good . . .”

By that measure, apparently, schools really are succeeding. They’re reaching their initial goal, as planned, to raise generations of Americans who don’t debate or ask questions, blindly trusting their leadership. So there it is.

Me being me, however, I kept replaying the words in my mind throughout the day, emphasizing each syllable differently, to see if the meaning could possibly be anything else, more innocent, more sinister, ANYTHING.

I’m moving through my “tasks-I-do-when-the-kids-are-very-involved-in-something” like hanging the laundry and doing the dishes. The kids were making miniature books upstairs, measuring, cutting, planning, designing… I overhear a fight between the girls and I listen long enough to get the gist of it and then I head upstairs to “say something.”

I swear, I should just keep my mouth shut. Why am I homeschooling when words of wisdom like this can extinguish any debate and communication that my kids DESERVE to engage in. Here’s what I said:

“I am sure that when she called it her room she wasn’t trying to minimize the fact that it’s your room, too. Stop picking apart every word that she says and trying to make it into a fight. So she said it was her room. Big deal. it’s your room, too. And just because she says “my room” that doesn’t make it any less “your room”

Then I went downstairs. Surely in my wake they were filed with peacefulness at having the situation resolved, right? Fat chance.

So in one bossy-mom-sick-of-hearing-the-arguing-incident, I managed to squash one of my favorite personal traits, and that is the picking-apart-of-language-to-get-the-deeper-meaning and also, standing up for oneself, defending property and debating semantics…. all of it, out the window, just because my sensitive ears were bothered.

Debate is so very important for civilized society. I hate conflict, my sister and I fought a lot as kids. Is there a link? We always got in trouble for fighting. Does that matter? As a mom I am always wanting to protect my kids (even from one another), but when I look back at my childhood, I don’t remember very much fighting. I don’t think I was as much influenced by the fights as I was by the feeling that “fighting is bad.”

I am so sick, today, of examining every thought I have in order to determine whether or not it’s worth keeping or tossing. The inclination to squash their fights and sort things out for them definitely needs to go. Sibling rivalry is totally a healthy way to learn about communication. Animal siblings do it and humans should, too.

Had their fight continued, they both might have come away with a deeper understanding of the need to communicate precisely. They might have physically hurt one another. They might have come away bitter about the distinction between mine and yours. they might have revisited the argument months later when the other sister made the dire mistake of saying “my room” instead of “our room” or perhaps the room-claimer would have been able to explain her way out of it, or apologize. Either way. I shouldn’t have stepped in. Kids have the right to communicate their feelings with one another honestly and openly. The best thing I can probably do for them is to model communication skills. Eventually, they’ll copy. I see this every day, they copy my good and my bad “behavior.”

This is their journey, not mine. If they feel the need to say hurtful things to one another, they deserve to see the honest result of that decision, not ME standing there, passing judgment upon their character, criticizing their instinctive communication, evaluating their worth, or predicting a life of misery.

I reserve the right, though, to call it like I see it. Instead of “seeing” a fight that needs resolved, I could have chosen to see “kids that could use some apple juice” and shouted upstairs to see who wants some.

While I probably won’t be marching upstairs to force peace upon them anymore (especially if I get an ipod for Xmas) I can totally discuss conflict resolution methods with them during peaceful times. In fact, we do that all the time.

This is where media comes in. Books, television and movies are filled with conflict and almost always, the viewers can think of different ways that the main character could have handled the situation.

The Thomas Jefferson method of homeschooling, which, along with the trivium, is the backbone for all classical education curricula, is highly dependent upon discussion. That’s right, talking. Our house sounds like a hen house sometimes with all of the girls involved in lengthy debates over the books they’re reading or the movies they’ve seen.

(Hey- another reason I need an ipod, my older girls & I can listen to audio books)

Anyway- the literature and books you read, discuss and debate become part of you. Some families use this as an excuse for limiting the books they allow their children to read fall in love with learn from. A lady in our local homeschool group wouldn’t let her son read Harry Potter because of this. I’m so NOT into censorship, and I believe that there’s good to be found in everything. We loved Harry Potter, and saw every movie the minute it opened, waited in line at midnight for the books to be released (in costume, no less) Our debates and discussions about the HP series were fantastic, and none of us came away with thoughts of malice. How could we?

So if anyone can name a book or movie where the characters debate everything based upon the meanings of the words, something that my 9 and 6-yr-olds would appreciate, then please let me know. Because this is the depth of how far I feel comfortable intervening. I can’t wait to look back & say “remember when you girls used to fight about every single word.” Hopefully the end result will be a deep and full understanding of the workings of language and increased, tried-and-tested communication skills.

If deep thoughts like this rock your world, then please enter your email address:

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