The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when one ceased and the other began. But it is just insofar as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
We have just moved our eldest daughter into her new college home, and I have been feeling quite scattered in the wake. Launching young adult children into the world is a bit like a second childbirth—the exhilaration and fatigue exists in every part of your body, mind, and heart. A well-nourished childhood has done its work, and the time has arrived to see who and how they will become in the world. It is the most glorious and luminous ache, another tender reminder of the brevity of life and our important work in it. Therefore, take courage today, friends. Your time and effort matter more than you know.
In the month of August, I am focusing on the particulars of beginnings, especially as it pertains to the homeschool. Today’s thoughts are an extension of what I have written in Tending the Atmosphere of Your Home and Humanizing Rhythms. If you haven’t yet read (or listened to) those, you may want to begin there. Each Friday this month, I hope to share a little something from our own home as you establish your own for the year ahead. I am a day late this week in light of family events, which also unexpectedly leads me to today’s idea: make haste, slowly.
Sometimes we wrestle with our ideas and plans the way Jacob wrestled with God; we refuse to let go until we get what we desire. This can happen in our heads as much as in our hearts, but it also occurs in our dynamic with our children. Geared with our scope for the year and our lists of books and ideas neatly laid out before us, we can become more connected to the task than the humans it serves. As mother teachers, we feel the regular tension between who we hope for our children to become and the necessary tasks to help move them there.
In the ancient world, the Romans had a phrase for this tension of time and effort, festina lente, or make haste, slowly. This phrase, originally coined by Caesar Augustus, was exhibited in the Roman army’s diligent daily practice and in the quality of Roman architecture and infrastructure. The slow, daily effort and attention to quality work, helped make larger military and civic movements occur more quickly.
Although we are not growing an army or a work force, we are practicing the same paradoxical work as homeschooling mothers. We desire our children to flourish as they grow, and yet we also often want to arrive there quickly. We want to allow our child to meander in wonder, and yet we also want to reach the end result. We or they may question the minutia, wondering does this or that detail of the lesson matter? Why do they need to know this? Do we need to practice this again?
Amid the cultural clatter of instant and now, we can be swept into a frenzy of hard efforts only to lose interest when we fail to see the desired outcome. We wear out in the repetition of phonics and pre-reading. Our child doesn’t understand a math concept we’ve explained in 17 possible ways. We sing the same song for the hundredth time. We become preoccupied and stop checking our older student’s work. Our sense of vision wanes, or worse, we become distracted by some other promise for instant and now. I need a new curriculum! We need a new co-op! None of us is impervious to it. We all want to experience and see the fruit of our work. And so do our children.
Homeschooling requires a great deal of patience, diligence, and humility. We make mistakes. We sometimes equate progress with speed, but perhaps it’s the small habits that make up our days that matter more in the long run.
As in the words from Lewis, our child cannot always see or appreciate the goodness a small habit can produce. And honestly, the same can be said for us. We will not all cultivate the same exact habits in our home, but we all must acknowledge that the habits we build (or neglect) will hurry us toward a particular end. As James Clear wrote, "The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time."1 Part of our work as mothers is the seed planting of good habits and uprooting the sprouts of bad ones. This work requires attention and patience.
At the start of the year, you may be forming new habits of learning, whether it is through formal studies or in the more pragmatic ways to care for your body, home, or a friend. As you’re reading this, you may notice a heap of bad habits that need to be uprooted, or you may have an equally long list of good habits to reinforce and nurture.
Below, I have included a few questions and ideas that I am asking myself right now about habit formation in our home. I also share a few good habits we’re seeking to grow and one I’m attentively trying to uproot.
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