October 15, 2007, Monday
American Samoa
Anchored safely in the harbor of Pago Pago, Tutuila Island, American Samoa on Thursday, October 11, 2007. About six cruising boats and a dozen derelict boats sit comfortable in the green lagoon. It is a busy harbor. Frequent shipping traffic, including a cruise ship visiting the harbor last week, on one side of the lagoon and the Starkist and Imperial Tuna factory (read occasional essence of tuna aroma) and the island’s turbine Power Plant on the other (read 24/7 white noise for us). The terrain reminds us of Fatu Hiva, tall majestic lush green volcanic mountains. Rain graces our water tanks every day and often in the night, when we must scurry to close all the port lights and hatches. The tanks are being filled and the use of the watermaker put on standby.
Our first week here has been filled with getting organized and getting started. John’s two-page list of boat projects keeps growing. Everything from sail repairs, to Bear Throne repairs. Luckily, we shouldn’t need to have any parts shipped into American Samoa. We anticipate only 3 weeks stay here, so we need to work quickly to accomplish all we want to do.
The girls started 8th and Freshman High School. Judy is took the opportunity of having this last year of home school be the “best in the west” and so, she decided to reshape the curriculum for both girls. We are using some of the CALVERT program for the 8th grade, but we are also team learning with Sami and Gaby sharing Language Arts (essay content & structure, grammar, usage and mechanics, and daily journal entries), Literature, Latin course materials and Advance Geography curriculum.
We’ve added two new courses to take advantage of the special interests of each student and the special knowledge of the teachers. John and I are teaching Art and Design 101- an opportunity for Sami to learn how to freehand draw and design. She will learn how to use the Rhino Software –computer aided design. She hasn’t decided if her final project will be building a home, boat or utopia. She is interested in all of these design projects. I want her to design the perfect salt shaker/grinder for the Tropics, but she feigns little interest in this.
Gaby is working with Judy on the curriculum for Home Economics 101, which has started, with Food (everything from food research, science, finance, nutrition, and cooking (read-starters to dessert)) to Health Science (everything from sex education to care of our body (read spa treatments)) to care of our Stuff (everything from textiles to cleaning). She has already mastered a “killer” artichoke dip recipe. Very yummy.
Literature will be an assortment of classic novels, biographies, and science fiction. They’ll continue their studies in vocabulary enhancement and foreign language studies (Gaby-Dutch, Sami-Spanish). In addition, on Saturdays (yes, school is on Saturday), they’ll have a chance to study: Advance Geography, Civics, Music and Film Appreciation (read watching movies). And least I forget, there is weekly dose of course material and practice in Math,/Algebra and Science/Biology 101. Gaby has Western Civilization; too…her love of history persists.
In anticipation of their future entrance into public school, they have daily class periods and school starts and goes from 8-3 or 4 PM. And as mentioned earlier, they do go to school on Saturday. Sunday is a day of rest for all of us, even the teachers.
So, you see, we’ve been very busy testing this reconfigured school curriculum. We’ve been working together to add, delete, and adjust. We’ve learned after five years of home school, that flexibility is one of the key elements of a successful home school endeavor. I can’t say that they would say they are having “fun”, but I know that the “ho hum” has been taken out of the curriculum with Mom and Dad more engaged in the daily production and the addition of their special electives. Days are full to the brim, and nights are typically filled with pleasurable activities to balance the structure of the day. Still, there is no homework that will be a rude awakening for them in 2008.