My Attitude

I was fairly convicted this morning by this quote by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”

Good words for a homeschool mom this morning. Good words for anyone actually!

gaps

This spring I plan to have our kids take a standardized test, partly to see how they are doing, and partly for them to have the experience of taking a timed test. I decided it might be a good idea to have them try some practice tests online. Yes, that was a very good idea! Despite having a math curriculum I really like, it appears that there are huge gaps in their education like, oh say, the entire subject of geometry? Honestly, I couldn't tell them what a vertex was either so I wasn't much help.

So as I generally do, I hopped online to look for resources. I found this great website www.ixl.com which has practice "tests" for subjects I have a hard time believing are really being covered in public schools in America. It's leveled by grade and gives the kids rewards for practice time, questions answered, and subjects mastered. Of course this isn't free, but they like it so much and are so motivated to do it that it's absolutely worth the money.

Yay for finding new resources to fill in gaps!