Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Six - Part One

It's official!  I have now had more ear infections as an adult as I did prior to age 4!   Honestly, I didn't have many ear infections as a child - but I am apparently the oddball adult who has one Eustachian tube that doesn't drain well when my allergies act up and about twice a decade I manage to get a real-honest-to-goodness middle ear infection with the resultant fever, crabbiness and ear/tooth/side of head pain.   

The funniest bit is that the well-meaning nurse practitioner, resident. or physician's assistant always starts by explaining that adults don't get ear infections....they just get fluid buildup without infection which can hurt a lot.  I nod understandingly - because that's generally true - and then have them look at my ears followed by "Oh...yeah.  That's infected.  Huh." 

Thankfully, my husband was working from home studying for an insurance licence so he could watch our son while I slept most of the day.  Also - thank God for those prescription ear-drops that end pain. 

Anyways, Steven and Teri Maxwell's "Making Great Conversationalists" includes two example conversations at the beginning of Chapter Six.   The starting example is the "bad" conversation - which doesn't seem that bad to me: 

After praying for their evening meal, Dad says, "Tell us about your day, kids."

"It was fine," sixteen-year-old Morgan begins.

"Mine too," fourteen-year-old Hunter adds.

"What did you do?" Dad works towards getting more conversation from the children.

"Oh, not much," Hunter answers.

"Hmm, I don't know," Morgan says.

Dad gives up on the conversation with his children and focus on finishing his dinner so he can get to his computer to answer some pressing emails. (pg. 93-94)

I find the fact that Dad is "praying for their evening meal" rip-roaringly funny.  "God, we...really need food for dinner.  Oh, wait.  Here it is!  Thank you!"  That's why the standard preposition used is "before" as in "After praying before their evening meal....".  An equally acceptable phrase would be "saying grace".

Dad is not good at soliciting conversation from his kids and the Maxwells never point out that he's doing worse at getting them to talk as they are at responding.   He essentially commands his teenagers to entertain him with stories from their day without providing them with a conversation point.  His original request has nothing for the kids to grab onto and respond to.  Because of that broad, bland request, most people will blank out and have little or no sensible response.   Simply bounding the request with a time frame and an emotional reference like "Tell me your favorite event from this morning, kids" is much easier to respond to.   This is supposed to be a family, though, so Dad should be able to fit the question to his kids.   I went to a traditional high school and my parents knew which classes I was taking and what extracurricular activities I was in.  Homeschooling is supposed to make parents more informed about their kids' lives - so what went wrong in this family?

Dad's not demonstrating persistence or determination for his kids to model at all.  He tries to talk to his kids for 30 seconds.  When the kids don't give him the response he wants, he shovels down dinner and returns to work.  That's underwhelming for an adult.

There's a minor issue in play between the two kids.  Morgan sounded like she had more to say after "It was fine" - but she was cut off by Hunter.   For quieter kids, once someone shuts them down, they might not get back into the conversation so the family should work at teaching Hunter to wait his turn - even if he is a boy in a very patriarchal culture.

The second response from each of the kids seems odd in a homeschooling family.  If I was Hunter's mom-teacher and I heard that he didn't do much today in school, we would be having a serious conversation about if he wanted to have his assignments picked by me in detail every day.   Similarly, Morgan's response that she can't remember what she did in school - at all - should set off warning bells.  I was taking 7 subjects a day in high school.  I might have some difficulty remembering exactly what we did in a class that was easy for me like history or religion- but I could generally discuss what I was doing in math, science and Spanish which were very challenging for me.  Is Morgan not being challenged?  Is she in classes that are completely overwhelming her?  Does she have memory issues? 

And now I present the "good" conversation.  It makes me laugh so hard that I kept causing my transcription software to freeze up.  I have broken the conversation into small chunks because I can't make it any further before I have to bring up some issues.

After praying for their meal, Dad says, " Tell us about your day, kids."

"It was a normal school day for me," Hunter response. "I have been struggling with equations in my algebra. Mom has been encouraging me to pray and ask the Lord to help me. Today I finally felt like I was making some progress. It felt so good." (pg. 94)

Steven Maxwell needs to guard against getting whacked-upside the head by an elderly Dominican nun in a short habit.   I went to a Catholic high school and was taught AP Calculus by Sister Robert Anne.  She was probably the last remaining of the old school religious math teachers.  She didn't hit anyone with a ruler in my class....but we were never entirely sure that she wouldn't hit us if she thought it would teach us math.    SRA was didn't pull any punches - but she wouldn't let anyone mess with her students - and she showed up at most athletic and artistic events regardless of weather, distance or skill of the performers.    We always had a few students who enjoyed messing with her - and she messed right back.   She appreciated hard work and spunky students.    I can't imagine the spunkiest student telling her that they've been praying for God to teach them Algebra.   I'm sure she'd reply tartly that prayer can't replace studying and getting help when you need it.....or maybe that the student should simply jump to invoking St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.  After all, she was crystal clear that attending monthly Mass as a high school cut into her teaching time and that if students really wanted to attend Mass they should get up earlier and go to 6:00 am daily Mass at St. Isadore or St. Adelbert.    So, yeah, Maxwell should look out for an angry nun who is going to whack him for the good of all those homeschooled kids.

Just out of curiosity: has Hunter made some progress in praying for help or in learning algebra?  Both are possible based on his response.....

" You know, son, math was hard for me, too, but there was a great a sense of accomplishment when I understood something. I didn't know the Lord when I was a teen so I didn't have His help like you do," Dad encourages. " What about you, Morgan?"

"School was fine, but what I was really excited about was starting to work on an apron I am making. I had washed and dried the fabric yesterday. Today I was able to cut out the whole thing so tomorrow afternoon I will be ready to begin sewing." (pg.94)

Dad's first sentence was great!  His second sentence....well, let's say that I doubt anyone can find a correlation let alone causation between skills in Algebra and salvation status.  I hate to think that there are kids and teens out there that believe that being saved makes you better at skills you struggle at. 

Now...Morgan.  The Maxwells are reinforcing the worst excesses of CP/QF homeschooling for daughters in a few sentences. In the first conversation, she had no memory of anything she did in school.  In the second conversation, nothing she did in school is as fascinating as discussing the symbol of domestic femininity that she's making as a budding young woman.  I have the bona fides of an accomplished homemaker; I can make clothing, grow a garden, preserve the produce, raise a baby, and build kitchen organizers from scratch.   My parents taught me how to keep a home - and they would have been horrified at the implication that the only way to learn housekeeping skills is to cut back on academic accomplishments. 

Ironically, Teri Maxwell should have been allowed to write Morgan's dialogue.  She would have realized that even a detailed farmhouse apron doesn't take that long to cut out - and that the most time-consuming part of preparing fabric is ironing the laundered fabric.

Once the kids have entertained their dad for a few minutes, the family can launch into the only subject left:

Then Hunter introduces another topic for discussion: " Dad and Mom, I'd like to tell you what the Lord has been teaching me through my Bible time in the morning. I'm reading in Jeremiah, and it is so convicting. I wonder if there aren't a lot of similarities between today and Bible-time Israel."

"Son," Dad responds. " I have felt the same thing as when I read Jeremiah. Whenever I read that book, I come away so amazed at God's patience with Israel and then with the world today."

Morgan chimes in: "Dad, do you think God could be running out of patience with mankind?"

"He certainly would be justified if he is. It is amazing how little interest people have in the Lord Jesus or anything that has to do with the Bible.." (pg. 94-95)

This goes on for another full page.  The important thing is that the kids - or the mom who finally speaks up - ask questions of Dad that let him expound on his views of how modern America sucks and how God's gonna smite everyone God dislikes. 

Maxwell never brings up an example where a kid comes to a very different conclusion from their personal Bible reading time than the parents do.  He's probably never experienced that since his kids have been carefully protected from any dissenting Bible views - but I'm curious how families are supposed to respond to that.

Of course, neither of the Maxwell parents, any of their children who read the book or the proofreader that they swear that they use found it strange that a 14-year-old used the term "Bible-time Israel"  rather than "Biblical Israel" or "Biblical times" or...well, there's a lot of options other than "Bible-time Israel".    In fact, "Bible-Time Israel" sounds like an attraction at Ned Flanders' Praiseland on the Simpsons or a Little People toy set marketed to Christian families.