Over the holiday break, I was watching Night at the Museum, and M walked by it. She is getting old enough to watch those, but still prefers animated movies, in general. She asked if it was an adult movie, and I said she could watch it, but watching from the beginning would be better.
She had a hard time tearing herself away, but we agree to watch it from the beginning later, after some father-daughter wrestling time, which is extremely silly & completely cherished.
We made the movie a family affair, and she had a lot of fun watching the animals, which I could have predicted. However, there were reactions that I did not anticipate from her.
Theodore Roosevelt explains who he was as president, and she seemed impassive. Sacajawea, I thought would get her attention. She was completely unaware of Lewis & Clark as well as Sacajawea. I paused the movie and explained briefly.
This made me realize that while our sequential approach to history will help her have a better grasp of the overall timeline & progressions, it leads to her being unaware of the United States quite a bit longer. After all, in the scheme of human history, it is quite a young nation.
The miniatures scene got M very excited. "Octavius?! As in, Emperor Octavius? I'm so excited to see real Romans fighting!" This caught me a bit off guard. Yes, I knew she loved the Roman history, but I was still surprised at her reaction to the laughable and entertaining character in the movie.
As I was processing that, she burst out with, "Attila the Hun?! YES!!!!!!!!!" jumping up and down. Her father & I were shooting private looks at each other, realizing just how confusing it was to learn history jumping around, and marveling at how different her experience is from the typical school child's.
We are continuing the sequential history approach of Biblioplan curriculum, and still believe in its efficacy for M, at least. I wish I had learned that way. She is learning about so many facets of life in the different times, as well as how the changes affected various groups. We are using novels set in those times, as well, so she really immerses herself in that time, and she is writing essays and letters as if she were living through the experiences. She likes it, and so she soaks it up. Fun makes effective learning, after all.
In the meantime, the standardized tests will continue to indicate that she has very little political science understanding for her age. I laugh and disagree. She may be unaware of the parts they are teaching her same-aged counterparts in the schools, but I maintain that her understanding is stronger, and that she knows a great deal about political science. In fact, she can carry on an intelligent conversation with a teacher who specializes Medieval and Middle Ages history and point out facts that I was not aware of until those conversations occurs. To further stretch my abilities to parent, her observation in that particular conversation has political, military & theological significance. Yikes! I am not pushing her. I am getting dragged along behind her, while trying to maintain my footing!
What is my point? Well, we were reminded that we are not mainstream. I am okay with that.
No. I am more than okay with that. I am excited that M is learning deeply and having fun simultaneously. I am glad she is learning history sequentially and knows that the US is a very small part of the timeline. I am glad that she doesn't learn history from a self-importance slant, as I believe most countries teach it in their schools, including the US.
I cannot help but smile as I watch her in her different ways. Neither can her father. We are not mainstream. We are happy. I wonder if mainstream people are generally happy . . . I delight in things different . . . Happy New Year. As Amy Adams as Amelia says at the end of Battle of the Smithsonian (the sequel to Night at the Museum), "Have fun."
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