Some Real Learning- Gone With the Wind

There has been discussion here and there lately about real-ness. Real learning.
How much do we guide, when do we step back. How do we separate our needs (to plan, see, do) with our dc?

It has caused me to be more attentive. To see where I am leading and where I am standing back. How to make the decision. In that moment.

It reminds me of a topic in my faith group about connecting with the Holy Spirit in the midst of our day. How do we keep from shutting down and going on automatic? In my interior life it would mean going by my will and not opening myself up to prompting by the Holy Spirit. With my homeschooling my dc it means to stop listening and perceiving and letting my preconceptions and insecurities take over. Not well-said. I will have to think about how to articulate this more.

But, as usual, I find the best way to get my arms around this is to observe. So, I am trying to do that more.

Ok... here is an example from last night.

My 13yos got totally hooked on the Ken Burns DVD documentary The Civil War last month. Did he seek it out? Get online at the library and check it out? lol Like no way! I did my research and my strewing and after it sat for a couple of weeks, I watched it and loved it. Then I told him how awesome it was for a few days. Then I suggested (strongly) he take a look at just one DVD. He did and soon after he was taking the laptop to bed with him to get to the other 10 disks. :)

Guess that is what you call heavy-duty strewing. :)

So, I know I want my boys to be literate in history. I want them to make connections. So, when I see a REALLY good resource, I am going to push it. I know also from experience, that if they pick it up, on their accord and it is their idea, they will connect more readily. This is human nature. I am the same way! Of course they are, too.

I also have found from experience that when it does not work I best let it go. My older son and I just wrote up his credit for English Lit. I had him rank the items by those he liked best. The ones at the bottom he said he barely remembered. They were 100% the assigned reading I gave him. And not only as singed but things I didn't tailor to him or even think were particularly good myself. But things I "thought he should read". And he made such little connection, he could not even remember the plot. Hum. Still learning here.

Ok, back to my son and the Civil War. My hand guided him gently to the DVDs. He trusts me now. For the past couple of years I have been careful to give him strongly suggest the really good stuff. A few errors along the way -when I read book lists and start trying to implement someone else's plan.. (see above paragraph).. but for the most part he knows when Mom suggests something, it will be good. Living. Quality. The cream. Why go for anything else?

So, now that he is primed on the Civil War, I have all these thought of things we can add. Wow, what a study this could be. I have ordered up a bunch. I will read it myself. Listen to the CDs. Watch the DVDs. I previewed a Biography show on Lincoln and it was mediocre. I will tell B about it, but not put in on the 'gotta try it' list. I will review the other items the same way and see which make the cut.

Across Five Aprils made the cut last spring and both the boys loved it.

Last night was a good example of the guiding hand, and the real learning I saw.
I got Gone With The Wind from the library. What a great follow up to the Ken Burns DVD! Now, my son does not watch a lot of movies. He does not care for the old ones, which I love. He LOVES Star Wars and LOTR. He is into movie making, studies techniques employed by Peter Jackson and George Lucas and probably would say a movie is just not a movie without special effects.

So, do I push GWTW, made in 1939 with hokey music and lots of pretty dresses? The only special effect I know was how Mammy got Scarlett into that corset with her 21 inch waist. lol


I 'strongly' suggested he try it. I bribed him with popcorn. Just watch it for one bowl's worth. (it was a big bowl) I also realized that family dynamics play a great part here. My 16yo does not like to try new movies. He will often try to pull his younger brother away to go to things with him. But my 16yos is out of town... so I have the young one all to myself. One must be aware of these things!

We had a great time. We only stopped watching because the durn library CD was scratched and quit shortly after Atlanta burned.

So, that was a time when the art of guiding and suggesting worked well. Now, about the learning.

As we watched some text scroll we learned that Gettysburg was a disaster for the south. Ashly came home on leave and talked about his barefoot soldiers and how the south was ended as we know it. Rhett was running blockade. We saw the THOUSANDS of rebel solders laid out in the train yard of Atlanta wriggling in pain as Scarlett searched for the doctor to deliver Melanie's baby.

B said to me- "Gosh this movie would not be nearly so good if we had not seen the documentary first."

I was thinking the same thing. Every scene, bit of new from the front, mention of a city or general took me back to the documentary. I told him when I watched this movie years ago, I just kind of let the history part wash over me because I had no clue about the war. Now, dear reader, understand that I got an A in American History in High School! How can this be? I learned more about the Civil War in the Ken Burns' DVD than I ever knew before.

The movie brought images to what we had learned about the war. We talked about if it was realistic. B asked me if the union had a right to try and keep the south as part of the nation, assuming slavery had not been an issue.

I would not have known to even ask that question at age 13. I remember memorizing the 'reasons for the war' for a test. Yes, slavery was a big one... right?

So, I cannot capture all the learning that happened last night on paper. But I will put some down in my journal. This is real learning, and I have to enjoy these moments when they come. It is not linear, but organic. This is like a major history learning concentration and I can see that. But I think that is how all of learning works.

Well, that confounded disc is still not working. So today I ordered us our own copy. I splurged and got the one that has all the production notes, how the colorized it,interviews with the cast and director, shooting locations, movie studio history, special effects and director's notes.. etc for my movie-making boys. How interesting to compare and contrast movie making from almost 60 years ago.

More learning... :)