Of Math, Martin Luther and Doing HARD THINGS
Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 5:00AM 
My new motto this year is "Do HARD Things".
Life is way too short to skate through only doing what comes "naturally" or "easily". Sure, there's a time and place to relax and take it easy, but for the most part I believe success only comes when we push ourselves beyond our comfort zone.
A good friend of mine shared this article about doing things that have never been done. {Trust me, you will be touched and inspired by this article. Take a few minutes to click over to the Blog of Impossible Things and read.)
It made me examine my own life and I'm wondering if I'm just doing easy things, or am I spending time doing things that truly STRETCH me... homeschooling in and of itself is a hard activity, but even after awhile that, too, can become easier.
Then, I was having a conversation with some middle school boys earlier this week. Maybe I'm in denial about what this age is all about, but it seemed like the theme of the conversation was just how lazy could one be, how little effort could be put into homework and how great the girls were. I've taught in middle school and I went to middle school. I know what the prevailing attitude is.
I was a bit depressed after this encounter. It made me realize that there is an attitude among young people that doing the least amount to get by is "cool"... and that being smart and hard working definitely "isn't cool." I refuse to believe that we will mostly likely lose our children in the middle grades years to this kind of thinking! This is a large part of the reason we homeschool. We do not want our thinking to be of this world.
So, between the article, the conversation with the boys, and then some pretty intense whining over math word problems, I was DONE.
I had a bit of a breakdown with my kids.
It went something like this:
Child: "I hate math."
Me: "No, I don't think you really mean that."
Child: "Yes, I just hate it, hate it , HATE IT!"
Me: "I think what you really hate is forcing your brain to think really HARD. Word problems sometimes force you to do that."
Child: "No, I just hate math."
Me: "I still think you just hate thinking."
Child: "Leave me alone. I'm doing my math."
A Ha. I think I struck a nerve.
Then I wondered: Am I really expecting my children to do HARD things, or do I sometimes let them take the easy way out to pad their self esteem? Do I seriously CHALLENGE them on a daily basis, or am I content with mediocrity?
"Be strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak and slack, for your work shall be rewarded." 2 Chronicles 15:7
Our course of study for this year is much more challenging that it was the past few years... incorporating more and more elements of a classical education is working very well. I love the mental stamina necessary for our day to day learning.
I love how God places events directly in our paths to get our attention. This week have been studying Martin Luther (talk about someone who did HARD THINGS). What a perfect man to learn about while contemplating doing hard things. I'm so glad our current read aloud is Martin Luther: The Great Reformer.
This particular biography is published by Christian Liberty Press. The ideals presented in these biographies are just beautiful. Consider this passage:
It is easy to imagine Luther had two burning ambitions - one to become wise and the other to become good - because the later became both, and he could hardly have become so without such ambitions. If a young man would find the greatest blessing in the world, let him go in search of righteousness; if he would find the next greatest blessing in the world, let his search be for knowledge.
We also have been studying the Tudors. One of the activities we had was filling in the Tudor Family Tree. I was so proud of my youngest --- he filled in this tree all by himself after I read a chapter in the Story of The World. He did a HARD THING and I told him I was so proud of him.
We're focusing on doing HARD THINGS in our homeschool this year. It's not because I want my kids to be super smart or because I'm prepping them for an Ivy League school. It is because I want them to know the feeling of achieving difficult things, and the feeling of using their God given talents and abilities.
So, I'm putting the question to you: What types of HARD THINGS do you expect your children to do?
I know that I'm expecting a lot more from mine this year!
I'm linking with Hope is The Word today for Read Aloud Thursday.
Reader Comments (7)
That is a great question......hard things. This year Grace is taking an AP History class. I received the texts and they are HARD. I am going to have to help her keep up with the required reading but I think she has the writing skills to work through the class. This will be the harder class she has ever attended and I hope she finds that she is capable of so much.
Lilah is going to persevere with math this year. LIke you, I am done with fighting the math battles on a daily basis. I ordered the first book of Life of Fred and my goal is for her to finish all six this year. She too is capable but she has learned that to say "I hate it" then create drama around it, only pushes my buttons, which gets me frustrated and usually she gets out of doing math. The cycle ends this year. She will be doing some hard things and learning some hard lessons along the way.
I loved this post Mary!
I completely agree! This year is going to be challenging for all of us, but I'm doing my kids a disservice if they are never challenged. They are quite capable of doing many things and I also think it's important for our kids to see their parents challenging themselves!
Mary, I loved this. Thanks for the reminder that life isn't always supposed to be easy!
You KNOW I love this! If it ain't at least a little bit hard, then why do it? ;-)
Meant to share this earlier, but it fits perfectly today.
"Everything is hard before it is easy." -Italian proverb
Isn't that the truth?!
Mary,
As a mom who is working out the other side of high school....believe me, it gets really HARD. I am not talking necessarily about the courses but the attitudes about everything. I pray for the wisdom every day to make the right decisions when it comes to how hard to push my kids and how to make them feel like they are smart and accomplished. It is a hard balance.
But, after watching them do really hard things like apply for jobs and get turned down, realize that things cost lots of money and they need to work hard to get them, and how hard it is to keep to your Christian morals and goals....it is worth the effort.
Hang in there, rely on the power of prayer, and look at every day as an opportunity to shape who your children will be on the inside in the future. Great post and I may just pick up the topic this week in my Friday post.....thanks for the inspiration.
I agree with you entirely. We had our daughter in parochial school for many reasons. One great benefit was that the Lutheran schools here are significantly "harder" than the public schools. They expect more out of the children and the parents. When we brought Amber home for school in the middle of 4th grade we decided to continue that level of education.
This year Amber has skipped Saxon Math 6/5 and is working on 7/6 in 5th grade. She has always coasted through math class. So this year we are challenging her a little bit. Making her work for it. We've also really upped the work in Language Arts. Her last school dropped the ball with writing. Grammar was represented well, but there was very little attention given to writing. Amber is doing grammar, creative writing and Literature this year. We've already finished Tom Sawyer; reading and discussions at set points throughout the book.
We've also added art appreciation to hands-on art classes, and are continuing her Latin lessons too.
It's a full schedule, but we try to make it fun days of learning.