On Sunday it’ll be the fourteenth — 3.14 — which is, for those who (like me) don’t closely follow fabricated celebratory dates, otherwise known as Pi Day, and because pi has to do with circles and sounds like “pie,” we’re all supposed to make pie that day. Or at least eat it. Or, if one isn’t much into food (weirdo), read Life Of Pi instead. (I made that last one up, but it’s a good book so you totally should.)
I don’t generally do anything for Pi Day — at least not intentionally — but since I now work in a bakery and am in charge of pies and we have customers who want to buy lots of pie, Pi Day is kinda A Thing. Except at the bakery we’re making it a Pi Weekend, all the better to sell you more pies, my dear!
red raspberry
Anyway. I’ve been meaning to share a bakery update, which, because my tasks revolve around pies is actually is more of a pie update and since it’s Pi Weekend, I figured now is the right time.
bourbon for the chocolate pies
Lie. Truth: I’m only just now getting around to it.
Anway. PIES.
Tourtière, or French-Canadian Pork Pie
This whole year has been a huge learning curve. First, it was the bakery itself — learning how to make the pastries and breads and run the cash register (still learning) and to remember to clock in, etc. Then I shifted to pies and had to learn to bake them in our huge ovens and tweak recipes and source ingredients and please customers. Now, ever since the new year, I’ve been working to craft a pie-making system that works for our customers and our shift schedules and the diner and our teeny-tiny bakery space. This means a lot of trial and error, a bit (okay, okay, sometimes a ton) of chaos, frustration, excitement, and lots of creativity and deliciousness.
Dutch apple
Dutch apple mini
I won’t bore you with the details — and stuff is always in flux as we grow and adapt to demand — but here’s how things stand now. Thursday afternoon I come into the bakery with an assistant (which up until now has been my younger daughter) to prep. I sheet out the crusts and parbake everything. We cook the pie fillings and juice lemons and mix crumble toppings and chop fruit, etc.
roasted butternut, caramelized onion, and goat cheese galette
triple citrus
Friday morning I bake up all the pies that have been preordered, as well as a bunch of extras, including test recipes and whatever. Customers pick up their orders in the afternoon, and we sell the extras out the door.
fresh pineapple galette
mini peanut butter creams
Monday mornings, I bake the pies for the diner (and/or prep the components for another baker to bake off some pies mid-week) and do my planning for the next week.
while pies bake: beer and paperwork
A few other pie-related implementations:
For the customers… *A flyer with our monthly pie schedule. Customers can grab one to stick on their fridge, and when we package pies, we slip one into each pie box. *A weekly pie-news email for those who’ve signed up. *Regular social media posts. *The monthly pie schedule on the diner website.
For the bakery team… *A weekly pie-related email with what’s available to sell, special instructions, notes, etc. *A pie folder with ingredient lists and instructions. *A pie pricing sheet, which is constantly being amended and updated.
It doesn’t sound like much, but each little thing takes planning, execution, and follow-up — (I’m in awe of people who run large-scale operations; there’s so much to think about!) — and everything at the bakery is such a team effort. In the case of the pies, other bakers make the dough, pick up groceries, keep the egg wash stocked, make certain pie fillings, craft the social media posts, pull stuff from the freezers in preparation for my shift, etc. Like I said, it’s team work.
whole lemon tart
As I grow comfortable with the recipes — and as customers learn to know what to expect — I become more relaxed and confident. And I gain freedeom, because with established systems, it’s easier to teach and share responsibilities which, in turn, gives me more time to branch out.
test: macademia tart
test: blueberries and cream
test: blackberry
And that, to me, is the most exciting part of baking: the creativity. And creativity plus baking, I think, is pretty much the cat’s meow.
(And yes, I did actually wear this to work. It was a cat-loving coworker’s birthday and we were all supposed to wear something cat-related to celebrate, and because my mom just happened to have a cat suit [because she’s awesome like that], I went all out. My older daughter was delighted, my older son horrified. My husband just shook his head and moaned. Meow.)
When Sarah and her family lived in our area (they moved to Florida a couple years ago, and then to Ohio), she was our homeschool evaluator. Each spring she’d come to our house and listen to me prattle on about my kids, and then she’d go home and write up a professional-looking statement certifying that they were, indeed, learning. I never felt like I had to prove myself to her. Her trust — of me and of my children, and of the learning process as a whole — allowed me to relax, trust myself, and, most importantly, try to do a better job of trusting my kids.
Hello, Sarah! Tell us about your family! We’re a family of four: Ben (43), Sarah (42), Sam (11), and Asher (3). We live in Northwest Ohio. Ben works in the information technology department of a local home store, and I’m home doing the gardening, cooking, and kid-watching.
Why did you decide to homeschool? I was unschooled (though it wasn’t called that back then) 1st-12th grade, and it was a great experience for me. Ben was homeschooled as well. So it was always sort of our default option. When Sam was five we visited a kindergarten open house, and after looking over their objectives and talking with some of the teachers we concluded that there wasn’t much for Sam there, academically or socially. We’ve always kind of taken it year by year. I’ve looked at some various options along the way, but none have been as good a fit as unschooling. Sam has never wanted to go to school, either.
What do you mean by “there wasn’t much for Sam there, academically or socially”? The kindergarten teachers gave us a list of objectives for the year that they would be teaching: things like learning letter sounds and a few sight words, counting to 100, following two step directions, etc. Sam was already reading on his own and doing multiplication. I think I found two things on the list that he didn’t already know: recite the Pledge of Allegiance and listen without interrupting during conversations.
Sam’s piano teacher that year was also an assistant in the preschool class at the elementary school. When she heard we were considering sending Sam there to kindergarten she told me that the incoming class she was working with was the absolute most challenging she had ever had—disruptive and needy to the point that she couldn’t recommend that we send Sam. Given all that and the fact that we had another option, we decided to give it a pass.
What does homeschooling actually look like for your family? We identify as unschoolers or life learners, which means Sam is largely in charge of his learning. He has some chores and responsibilities around the house, but other than that his days are his own. Before the pandemic he took part in a number of outside activities: choir, summer camps, homeschool classes at co-ops and homeschool centers, library activities, church stuff, and so on. Now all of that is on hold for us, just like everyone else.
I’m at home with him and Asher, so he does things with us or on his own: lots of reading, playing with Legos, programming things in Python, composing and playing music, playing outside, chatting online with friends, cooking things, etc. He also writes a weekly newspaper, a completely self-chosen activity that he’s maintained for a year and a half. He cleans up breakfast every weekday, makes supper on Tuesdays, and does other chores when I ask (usually without too much grumping!)
Tell us more about Sam’s newspaper! Sam writes about weekly happenings in our household. Some of the stories are about real-world events and some take place in one of his many fantasy worlds — he’ll write about his stuffed toys or similar. He takes photos, makes ads, thinks up jokes, and sometime interviews family members. He usually doesn’t seem to enjoy the actual writing very much, but he does it every week, nevertheless. Once in a while he’ll ask me to type while he dictates or give him advice on some part, but usually he does it on his own. It’s been interesting to me to see not only how his writing has developed, but how he’s handled having a weekly deadline. Sometimes he’ll spread out the work and do a few pages each day and sometimes he’ll put it all off until the end of the week and spend several hours working on it on Friday or Saturday. If he knows we’re going on vacation or something he’ll work ahead. Every once in a while the paper is very short, but there’s been one every week for about 18 months.
Has your homeschooling changed as the boys have gotten older? The truth is that with unschooling nothing really changes when your kid turns five or is ready for first grade or middle school or whatever. I get wound up when people talk about “homeschooling” their preschool age kids (I imagine kids in high chairs with worksheets in front of them), so most of this is focused on Sam, but Asher’s learning all day too: playing with toy vehicles, riding his bike, listening to books, singing songs, alternately playing with and fighting with Sam…all you’d expect from someone who is three.
Does it every drive you crazy, being at home with the kids all the time? It’s gotten easier as they’ve gotten older. I’ve been very fortunate in a lot of ways: the first child was the one who most intensely needed my presence when he was little, and that was okay because he was the only child for eight years. I’m also fortunate to not need to have a job, and to find watching people learn fascinating. So usually we’re pretty content at home together.
But how do you ever get anything done? The kids play outside while I garden and hang out with me while I cook. I write while Asher naps. I try to enjoy or at least respect their interests and chosen activities (I’ve learned more about trains and cars since I’ve been a parent than I ever wanted to know). Now that we’re out of the baby stage I get grouchy if one of them needs me after 8:30PM or so when I want to be “off duty” for the night, but Ben is usually very kind about being the active parent at that point.
What’s most challenging about homeschooling? The most challenging things I can think of aren’t specific to homeschooling: the screamy times; so many interruptions to what I want to do; no childcare because it’s the pandemic. I think all parents are dealing with those things.
What have you learned through homeschooling your children? I’m often surprised by the things my kids know that I’m sure I never taught them. Sam identified iambic pentameter the other day, which, while I had heard of, would have no idea how to identify. When Asher was two he started spelling his last name and reciting my phone number, no prompting or coaching. (I finally caught on that it was from listening to me talk on the phone!)
I’m learning and re-learning how to model what I want to see. That’s a never-ending process. I love watching the different ways my two kids learn: Sam likes lists, explanations, and wants to know the right way; Asher likes to practice on his own, again and again. I’ve seen, especially from Sam (since he’s been around longer) how learning isn’t necessarily a linear process. He’ll work on something—music, math—intensely for several weeks, and then largely ignore it for months or even years. When he comes back to it he’s ready for the next level.
Do you ever get worried that Sam might ignore something for too long and then have trouble later? Not too often — having been unschooled myself I’ve experienced a lot of “learning it when I need it.” I did very little formal writing or math until I applied to college, and that was fine — when I decided I wanted to go to college I was extremely motivated to do whatever I needed to do to go.
Every year or so I’ll check grade-level objectives to see what Sam would be doing if he were in school, partly out of curiosity and partly to make sure he’d have the option to join if he wanted to. If there are things that I don’t think Sam knows already I’ll show him the list and ask him about it. Often that’s sparked an interest for him in learning about whatever it is. But generally if he doesn’t know the principal rivers of the US or what system of government was used in ancient China I’m not too concerned about it. He’s always been interested in learning pretty much everything and I can’t imagine that that will ever change.
There have been, and continue to be, certain social and self-care skills that I insist he learn, because I have to live with him and he’ll be interacting with people all his life. Everyone needs to know how to handle their anger and clean the bathroom!
You’ve moved a lot recently. How have you managed to get the support you need (assuming you’re getting it, of course)? I have a few friends with homeschooled kids who are older than mine. It’s always inspiring to see what that next stage might look like, especially on those days when I feel a little mired. Often I’m inspired just by observing what my kids are doing and learning. I have some favorite authors I turn to when I need words for what I’m seeing or feel like I need a course correction; Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting and Peter Gray’s Free to Learn are two favorites.
Do you have a homeschool philosophy? I sometimes describe my unschooling method as what you’d do with a toddler or preschooler: Let them participate in your activities, don’t disturb them if they’re happily occupied, answer their questions, and show them things you think are cool. The rest is just (“just,” hah!) parenting. If you can teach your child things like washing their hands and table manners and treating other people decently, academics will likely be the easy part.
I used to be a lot more of the opinion “Just leave them alone and they’ll learn.” There’s still a lot of that in my philosophy, but I’ve grown to place a lot more emphasis on relationships. Kids don’t need someone to tell them what to do, but they certainly need people in deep relationships with them, setting healthy boundaries, modeling respect, and reflecting together.
Any advice for someone who’s considering homeschooling? Know yourself and know your kids. Be flexible. Be okay with trying something and making a change if it’s not working. Let your relationship with your kids take top priority. Do some reading on how people learn — you might be surprised at how little it matches what happens in school.
