Sometimes I sit up at night asking myself all kinds of questions related to our homeschool experience. There might be someone reading this who can relate. Perhaps you have wondered how you could build a stronger connection with a particular child. Or maybe you’ve asked yourself how you could better “see” a more invisible, quieter child.
Perhaps you’ve reflected on what really interests or excites each child or what materials fire their creative power and ignite passion. Or maybe you’ve questioned whether you’re making too much of a child’s disinterest in the learning experiences that you present.
You might have deeply considered how to support a child who is really struggling. Maybe you’ve deliberated about whether it’s enough that a child happily complies with whatever work you ask of them. You’ve wondered about the “what next” and considered whether or not there is more.
Did you ever imagine that these questions could be answered not by answering them directly (stay with me here), but by trying to understand the complexities that encompass all of what each child is, and is becoming? Sometimes, we need to take a step back from a situation in which we’re heavily involved or deeply invested, so that we can see it with fresh eyes. We need to look from a new perspective that is devoid of judgement and interpretation through a tainted filter.
It’s not a filter that’s maliciously tainted. We all have a filter created by our own values, experiences, and beliefs, through which we pass all of life’s details. However when we make an attempt to describe what we observe with rich examples and illustrations, rather than immediately interpret it, we allow time and space for new, important information to emerge.
As a school teacher, our staff routinely conducted what we called Descriptive Reviews (processes developed by Patricia Carini and The Prospect Center). The Reviews of the Child were meant to allow the description of the child in different areas to inform ideas about a focusing question – questions very much like the ones I was describing above.
Julie Bogart, in a section of her book The Brave Learner, where she was encouraging homeschoolers to write narrative sketches to track academic progress, included a blurb about the practice of narrative report writing in colleges. She wrote that,
“Written and oral narratives require the instructor to pay close attention to the student, not just the student’s output…. Attention to the whole student is what makes these evaluations so valuable.” (page 180)
In the homeschool, she goes on to explain how writing monthly narrative sketches can remind you that learning is not static or linear, but rather dynamic and always occurring. Its descriptive, story-like format is also a peek without judgment into a moment in time.
I love the practice of writing narrative sketches. It’s a way of recording and tracking learning that comes very naturally to me and much of my note-taking is in a narrative style. There is something about the description involved that resonates with me and all that I hold dear about Descriptive Reviews. I would like to go a step further and encourage you to carve out time to also periodically “descriptively review” your child.
Monthly might be too big of an undertaking, but perhaps every few months or even once or twice a year? At the very least, it is quite a transformative experience to even think descriptively before trying to solve a “problem” you perceive in learning. The practice is so powerful – the act of doing it as well as the information gained.
So here are the categories to consider while creating what I’ll call your Descriptive Diary* There are questions under each category that are meant to help organize your thoughts. They are not an exhaustive list of all that can be considered. There are some questions that might not even relate, and that’s okay. As you go through them, it is important to try to ground your description in lots of narrative examples.
I’ve only given the questions for one category as an example of the thinking involved. If you are interested in learning more, or would like some guidance for the other categories, please reach out to me!
Physicality
Disposition
Relational Connections
Deep Interests
Learning Style
Disposition
What is your child’s temperament? What is their typical attitude toward the day-to-day going-ons of life? What are the range of emotions your child might experience in a day? What happens when circumstances change? What kinds of emotions are they comfortable displaying? What kind of emotion makes them uncomfortable? What stirs deep feelings for your child? What are their deep commitments and personal loyalties? What happens when those loyalties are threatened? What goes against their sense of honor? What is their idea of justice? How do they express it?
May we always remember this:
“It is always easy to criticize and find fault with children (or other adults), to point out what they can’t do and how problematic they are. It takes more time and patience to paint a fuller picture in which the person is understood to be not the sum of unchanging traits but in process, in the making. Understood as active and open-ended, each of us is at any moment in our lives, and in all taken together, a complex blend of failings and virtues, of strengths and vulnerabilities.” Patricia Carini
Let’s paint a picture of our children that appreciates their individuality while at the same time recognizes their dynamic change and layered learning. Let’s see them through a lens that is open wide to descriptive details and that filters out judgement. Let’s really “see them” before we try to fix them.
* Derived from The Prospect Center for Education and Research, Descriptive Review of the Child
