Narrative of Fredrick Douglass and slavery through a “Spark Station letter”

by Mary Ann on October 29, 2010

Spark Station letters are a perfect way for grandparents, other relatives or parents who are away from home to connect with those children they love in a meaningful way.

Spark Station letters can have a real impact on children. You can pass on your beliefs and values. You can share your likes and concerns and inspire them to know about new things. You can serve your children and grandchildren. In the next few blogs I will be giving you some samples of what a Spark Station letter might look like.

Dear Aubrey,

Hi. How is everything going? I hope that you love school and that you are very happy being back in Grand Junction with your dad and mom.

slave woman with child picture

slave woman with child

Kate had to read a book for school about a slave girl in America. So I read it too. It was a very sad book and I realized just how bad slavery was. It is a terrible thing when families are broken up and when people have their agency taken away. Sometimes I forget what a gift from Heavenly Father that it is to be able to choose where to live, what to do for work, where to travel and whether to get married and have a family. Slaves couldn’t do any of those things If people didn’t like you and wanted to treat you badly they could and you couldn’t do anything about it. One of the worst things was that you couldn’t even take care of your children. If the master wanted to sell your babies away the could and most of the time they did.

This girl that I read about hid in a crawl space for over 7 years to just be free. There was no heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer and she could never stand up. Wow, she really wanted to be free. Being free is a very great gift and we shouldn’t ever take it for granted.

That is why it is so important to vote. Last Tuesday was Caucus night. That is when everyone in voting election pictureneighborhoods all over the United States can get together and choose who will be on the ballot  for governor, president, mayor etc. I had never gone to a caucus before but I went this year. They have them every two years. Four years ago Jodie went and told me about it. Two years ago she was the person in charge of her area and it was at her house. Now it is different and they have all the neighborhoods come to the school.

The people that were in my group said that this year they saw more people there than they had seen for many years. I think that a lot more people are worried about their freedoms. Sometimes government and the people in charge of it  make some pretty bad choices that put our freedoms in jeopardy.  So many people are very worried and want to be more involved and want to vote. I want you to remember how important it is to vote. When you are old enough be sure and register and then never miss an election. It is one of the freedoms that you have because so many people have been willing to fight and die for it.

Fredrick Douglass pictures

Fredrick Douglass

Do you know who Fredrick Douglass is? Well, I have been thinking about him because of the book on slaves that I read. He was black and a great abolitionist. That is a person who helped other slaves escape and who tried to convince people that slavery was wrong. He was an eloquent speaker and writer and he lived before the Civil War. He is best known for his role in bringing the harsh realities of slavery to the attention of white Americans, at the same time being a living example of the fallacy of claims that black Americans were intellectually inferior to whites. Back then, in slavery times, people believed that blacks weren’t as smart as whites but Fredrick Douglass was very smart. He really believed in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.” In other words, it doesn’t matter who it is, I will help them if they are doing what is right and I don’t care who it is, I won’t help them if they are doing wrong.

Fredrick douglass picture

Young Fredrick douglass

He was born a slave and was taken away from his mother when he was a baby. Later his mother died and he was able to live with his grandmother. When he was seven he was sold away to a plantation. When he was 12 his master’s wife began to teach him to read. It was against the law for her to do it as black people weren’t allowed to read and write. It is easy to keep a man down if he can’t read and write. That is why it is so important to have a good education – it is one of the safe guards of freedom.

Because he was teaching other slaves to read and write Fredrick was sold to a ‘slave-breaker’, a man who beat him regularly. When he was 16 he fought back and his owner never beat him again. Fredrick was lucky because his owner could have killed him because he fought back. He tried to escape two times and the third time he was successful. I really believe that Heavenly Father helped him so that black people could have a voice. When he got to New York, a free state, he said, ” I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement…I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.”

It is good to live in America now and to have freedom for other people who live here. I look forward to voting in the fall. Oh yes, I just read a wonderful book that is perfect for you. It is called NIGHTJOHN, about a black slave who taught other slaves to read. It is a book that you will be able to read yourself. I am sure that you can find it at the library. Let me know what you think about it.

Well, I will miss you all. I love you very much and hope that you are happy and well.

LOVE,

Grandma

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How to utilize The Spark Station to suit your home schooling needs

by Mary Ann on October 27, 2010

Martineau Family picture

One of the things that I stress in every class is that The Spark Station is a tool. It isn’t school, it isn’t structured time; it is a tool, which when coupled with correct principles can create a magical space where your children will love to learn.

Within the parameters of the correct principles and the five rules of engagementeverything goes. Parents can take this tool and really ponder it and see how it can work best for them. I give many possibilities and a few guidelines, but then you as the parent have to determine how you can best use the tool.

One of my students did just that. She really spent some time pondering where, what and how she was going to use this amazing and magical tool. “The class ended two weeks ago, and I’ve spent those last two weeks thinking about what I wanted in it, how I was going to use it for my family, and how I was going to actually make time to get this all done.” Andee M.

How Andee chose to use the tool is wonderful. “… basically I’m going to use it in the afternoon…We’ll have already completed our ‘normal’ school stuff, and will use it during our afternoon ‘Structured Learning Time.’ It will help us change gears, be 100% present with each other, learn a little more about something that interests us, do a project we’ve been putting off, play a game together, or do whatever else we find in the magical Spark Station.”

The Spark Staion is a tool for inspiration to help children LOVE learning. The Five Rules of Engagement are principles to help families be more successful. After an eight hour course Andee has focused in on what matters most to her in relationship to the Closet, as a tool. “I took an online class all about The Closet, which is a tool that everyone from a Grandma to a mom of small children can use to help create meaningful time with their family.” Andee Martineau

home schooling kids picture

Because of her attention to thinking about what her families needs are and her understanding of the Five Rules of Engagement she has started out with a BANG! The maiden flight of their Spark Station was a stellar success and I will bet that it just keeps right on working.

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Three famous home schoolers

by Mary Ann on October 25, 2010

Alexander_Graham_Bell pictures

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor

“Teachers teach and students educate. Students are the only true educators…Education occurs when students get excited about learning and follow through….” A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille

As a young child Alexander Graham Bell and his brothers were educated at home by their father. Later he attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh, Scotland. However he left school at age fifteen. He was disinterested and exhibited lackluster grades and many missed days. His love lay with the sciences, especially biology, a love that he acquired while being taught at home.

After leaving school Alexander went to London to live with his grandfather. It was during this year that his love for learning was born. It was born during long hours spent in serious discussion and study with his grandfather. At age 16 Alexander became a teacher while also a student in Greek and Latin at Weston House Academy in Scotland.

Alexander Graham Bell became an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

Often when the subject of homeschooling comes up someone questions whether these children can and will learn as well as if they were in a more formal schooling setting. I found a wonderful quote that addresses just that topic. “Irrespective of circumstances, background, race, poverty, wealth, skin color, tradition, culture, religion, by choice or not by choice, home-education produces literate people.”

That has certainly been my experience and the experience of many others. However, it is instructive and inspiring to hear the stories of successful men and women who were educated at home. Let’s enjoy the stories of a few more home and self educated people.

Leonardo da Vinci images

Leonardo da Vinci, painter and sculptor

There is very little known about Leonardo da Vinci. He spent the first five years of his life in a small hamlet with his mother. Then he went to live with his father and grandfather. There Leonardo received an informal or home education in Latin, geometry, and mathematics. It is instructive to know that in these early core and love of learning years he did not show any particular signs of aptitude.

His love for learning was really born when he became an apprentice to the artist Andrea di Cione. In this workshop he was exposed to theoretical training as well as a vast range of technical skills including painting, drawing, sculpting, drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry.

By the time that he was twenty this self educated youth had qualified as a master in the Guild of St. Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine.

thomas-jonathan_stonewall_jackson pictures

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, general in the Civil War

Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson had a difficult childhood. His father died leaving his 28 year old wife and three children in much debt. Her second husband did not like his step children. Thomas’s mother died of complications in childbirth.

While their mother’s health was failing and because of the animosity of the stepfather Thomas and his sister lived with their uncle who owned a grist mill. When their mother was dying they went home to be with her. At her death Stonewall was sent to live with an aunt. Her husband treated Stonewall as an outsider and heaped him with verbal abuse. After a year he left. He walked 18 miles through mountain wilderness to Jackson’s Mill, where he was welcomed by his uncles and he remained there for the following seven years.

Cummins Jackson was strict with Thomas, who looked up to Cummins as a school teacher. Jackson helped around the farm tending sheep, driving teams of oxen and helping harvest wheat and corn. Formal education was not easily obtained, but he attended school when and where he could. Much of Jackson’s education was self-taught. He once made a deal with one of his uncle’s slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons; Thomas would stay up at night reading borrowed books by the light of those burning pine knots. Virginia law forbade teaching a slave. Nevertheless, Jackson secretly taught the slave to write, as he had promised. In his later years at Jackson’s Mill, Thomas was a school teacher.

When Thomas was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, he had difficulty with the entrance examinations because of the lack of opportunity and materials for study in his youth. He began his studies at the bottom of his class. As a student, he had to work harder than most cadets to absorb lessons. Displaying a dogged determination he became one of the hardest working cadets in the academy, and moved steadily up the academic rankings. Jackson graduated 17th out of 59 students in the Class of 1846. It was said by his peers that if he had stayed there another year, he would have graduated first.

Thomas became a Confederate general during the American Civil War and is probably the most well-known Confederate commander after General Robert E. Lee.

When we consider those who were educated at home or were self educated one thing is clear, children want to learn, can learn and will learn when given the opportunity to pursue their interests.
If you want to meet more home schooled people, here is a home schooled president and other successful home schoolers

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Relationship most important job for parents

by Mary Ann on October 22, 2010


Celestia Shumway and daughter

“Thank you, thank you! I feel some inspiration and motivation to be better at structured family learning time this year. Your webinar has been just the thing to help me. I’ve been homeschooling for 12 years now and sometimes at the beginning of the school year it’s so easy to feel like, oh, another year, am I really ready for this.

The Shumways

With two children in scholar phase, one transition, one love of learning, and three in core, things get very hectic around here! Your words of encouragement remind me that it’s not really the materials that I provide for my children, but the focused attention, caring, and engagement that I can dedicate to them during this time.

When I use the five rules of engagement I feel like I am the Mary Poppins of our homeschool.”  Celestia Shumway.

I wanted to share this letter for a couple of reasons. First, homeschooling is a long term commitment and not every day is great. It is what it is and it is OK.

Second, I loved Celestia’s last line, “Your words of encouragement remind me that it’s not really the materials that I provide for my children, but the focused attention, caring, and engagement that I can dedicate to them during this time.”

Relationship is Job 1 for parents. Being present, caring, focusing on children’s needs, and engaging with them as they do the job of learning is what is most important. I encourage everyone to listen to the FREE class at leadershipeducationfamilybuilder.com – Relationship Job 1. You’ll be glad you did!

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