About Me

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Joyce Swann has been a Christian since childhood and a prayer warrior for over forty years. She became nationally-known in the 1990’s because of her work homeschooling her ten children from the first grade through masters’ degrees before their seventeenth birthdays. She has been featured on Paul Harvey’s weekly radio program, CBN, and the 1990’s CBS series, “How’d They Do That?” She has been interviewed by “Woman’s World”, “The National Enquirer”, and numerous regional newspapers. The story of the Swann family has also been featured in the “National Review” and several books about homeschooling success stories. Joyce is the author or co-author of five novels, including “The Fourth Kingdom”, which was selected as a finalist in the Christianity Today 2011 fiction of the year awards and “The Warrior” which, since its release in 2012, has had over 50,000 Kindle downloads and hundreds of glowing reviews. She was a popular columnist for “Practical Homeschooling” for nearly decade and she has retold her own story of homeschooling her ten children in “Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother”. “The Warrior” is her first solo novel.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

When Less is More

I do not believe that when we give to others God always returns the gift to us in equal or greater measure. I do, however, know from experience that when we are certain that God is directing us to give, it is important to be obedient—even when we least want to do so.
In the fall of 2001 my daughter Alexandra needed to take a class to earn the necessary CE credits to have her insurance license renewed. The required class was not currently available in El Paso, but it was available in Lubbock. Since the trip from El Paso to Lubbock entails driving about three hundred miles across long stretches of uninhabited desert, Alexandra asked me if I would go with her so that she would not have to make the drive alone.
The class schedule included one full day and a two-hour wrap-up the following morning. We planned to leave for our return trip to El Paso as soon as the wrap-up ended, so Alexandra and I looked forward to spending our one evening in Lubbock enjoying a mini “vacation.” Our business was new, and we were struggling financially; I had a five-dollar bill in my wallet and nothing else. I had no credit cards and no other money.
Alexandra was also struggling financially, but she was paying for the hotel room (which we shared) and our dinner with her credit card. We went to the coffee shop, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, and settled in for what we believed would be a pleasant evening talking in the nearly deserted restaurant.
Our waitress was in her early twenties and very smiley. Although only one or two other tables were occupied, she gave extremely poor service. Alexandra and I are both very low-maintenance so that was not a real problem for us, but the waitress decided that we were her new best friends. She insisted on standing by our table smiling and complaining about her bosses, her co-workers, and her customers. I was sure that after she had vented sufficiently, she would leave us alone to enjoy our dinner, but, no, that did not happen. She stood at our table talking the entire time that our meal was being prepared. The other customers had left by that time and I hoped that when she served our food she would leave to clear their tables or do something in the kitchen, but, no, that did not happen. She stood smiling and complaining the entire time that we were eating. She did not refill our glasses or do any of the things that a waitperson ordinarily does to make her customers’ meals enjoyable.
When our meal was almost over, I felt the Lord tell me to give her the five dollars as a tip. I was not happy about that. She had given us the worst service I have ever encountered and then monopolized our time by refusing to leave our table. Neither Alexandra nor I had asked her to do anything for us, and we had forced ourselves to be friendly, but surely this was the last straw: God wanted me to give my last five dollars to this young woman.
I wrestled with myself for a few minutes, but then I reached into my purse and took the five dollars from my wallet. When we rose from our table to leave the restaurant, I smiled and handed her the money. I promised myself that I was not going to think about it again.
The next morning I told Alexandra to leave her keys with me. She checked out of the hotel on her way into the meeting, and I picked up our suitcases and headed for her car to put them in the trunk. When I opened the front door of the hotel, I saw something lying on the sidewalk. I stooped to pick it up and discovered that it was a ten-dollar bill.
I have no doubt that if I had kept my five dollars, I would not have found the ten dollars on the sidewalk. Other people were going in and out of the lobby as I passed through the door, and none of them had even noticed the money lying on the sidewalk.
I believe that God put that ten-dollar bill there to bless me, but I also believe that He wanted to teach me a lesson. He is the one who decides who needs our help, and sometimes it is the person who is annoying us the most.  Sacrificial giving is easy when we are giving to those we love; it is not so easy when we are giving to someone whom we hope will go away and leave us alone. The thing that we need to remember is this: God never makes a mistake, and when He directs us to do something we need to trust Him. He created everything that exists out of nothing. He is well able to intervene our behalf and turn less into more.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker.  Her story of teaching her own ten children from the first grade through master's degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother.  For  more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

When Learning to Read is a Challenge--Part III

Dyslexic children tend to be "misunderestimated" by nearly everyone with whom they come in contact. Nevertheless, history provides an impressive list of dyslexic people whose accomplishments have significantly impacted society: Agatha Christie, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Hans Christian Andersen, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, and General George Patton are only a few of the notables who battled dyslexia. The problem is that those who suffer from dyslexia are not appreciated until long after they have found ways to overcome their differences, and many dyslexic children never receive the help they need to compete with their “normal” peers.
When George W. Bush was running for President, someone wrote an article saying that they could tell from observing him that he is dyslexic. When a reporter asked him about this, Bush responded by saying that he was glad that he had “finally been diagnosed.” I, of course, have no way of knowing whether our former president is dyslexic, but I do know that he displays many of the characteristics of a dyslexic person; interestingly, it is those same characteristics that endeared him to his supporters.
Dyslexic people tend to make up their own words, and often those words are so descriptive that they work better than their “correct” counterparts. For instance, when George W. Bush coined the word “misunderestimated,” he became the object of a lot of teasing. However, that word was so descriptive of the way the media perceived him that it became the title of several books written about him, including one authored by Bill Sammon that was published in 2005.
Not being an eloquent speaker is certainly not a reflection of one’s intelligence; yet, in this age of electronic media, anyone who is not able to ramble endlessly when the microphone is on is frequently dismissed as “dumb.” Conversely, some very stupid people who are able to speak easily have been mistakenly labeled as “smart.” Dyslexic people are excellent communicators, but they communicate less through speech than they do in other ways.
When George W. Bush was in the White House, he became known for his common “folksy” approach to people. This is typical behavior of people dealing with dyslexia. My ninth child stands close to anyone with whom he is speaking and almost always puts his arm around their shoulder. He studies a person’s body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. He is at least as interested in how someone says something as he is in what they say. As a result, he is a better judge of whether someone is lying than most of his siblings. When he talks, which he does incessantly, he relies on body language and facial expressions to “tell the story” nearly as much as he does spoken language.
My ninth child will never be able to spell very well (thank goodness for spell check), and he will never excel at standing before a microphone making a dry speech. However, he has the ability to take the most mundane situation and make it outrageously funny. He also communicates a warmth and personal interest in those around them that draws people to him.
Fortunately for my ninth child and for the dyslexic overachievers that I listed at the beginning of this blog, they each had someone who helped them get past the very real problems that are part of living with dyslexia. That is the key; dyslexic children need someone who loves them enough to spend the many hours that are necessary to help them overcome their inability to see the world through the eyes of their “normal’ peers. It is wonderful when the story of a dyslexic child has a happy ending, but those happy endings are always the result of hard work and perseverance on the part of the child and their teacher.
This is the final blog in my three-part series. If you have a child who struggles to learn to read, I hope that these blogs have helped you understand better what your child is experiencing as well as to better understand what you can do to help him. If you have questions or comments, I will respond to them and give you my best advice based on my years of experience dealing with this very sensitive subject.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker.  Her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother, recounts her experiences teaching her own ten children from the first grade through master's degrees before their seventeenth birthdays.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Lost

On Sunday evening 20/20 aired an episode about the Kim family who left San Francisco on November 17, 2006, to make a road trip to spend Thanksgiving in Seattle with family and friends. After spending a pleasant holiday weekend with loved ones, the Kims began their trip home. James Kim had his heart set on staying at the Tu Tu Tun Inn at Gold Beach in Oregon. Although it was already late and their two daughters, Penelope, age four years, and Sabine, age seven months, were asleep in the back seat, the Kims decided to make the five-hour drive to Gold Beach. Kati Kim called ahead for reservations.
After a quick meal at Denny’s, the Kims headed down I-5 to Gold Beach, but they soon made a wrong turn. Before long, they realized that they were on the wrong road, but they agreed that they had gone too far to turn back. Kati consulted the map and found what she thought was a short cut to Gold Beach. As a result, the Kims made another wrong turn. Satisfied that they would arrive at Gold Beach in record time, Kati went to sleep, and while she slumbered, James made yet another wrong turn that took them up Bear Camp Road—a road that should have been blocked by a gate to prevent motorists from entering during the fall and winter months.
Kati awoke to find that they were hopelessly lost on a precipitous mountain road that led to nowhere. Snow was falling, and black bear were patrolling the forest. Terrified, James and Kati agreed to spend the night in the clearing where James had parked the car. They tried to call 911 but were unable to find cell phone service in the forest.
When daylight arrived, the Kims decided to stay where they were and wait to be rescued. They remained in their car for three days, huddled together for warmth, with the engine idling and the heater running, until they finally ran out of gas. In a desperate attempt to save his family, James then took the tires off their car and burned them in the hopes that someone would see the smoke and rescue them.
On day seven James left the car to try to find help. He began walking down the road on which they had come, but, once again, left the road to take a “short cut” through the woods.
On day nine, Kati and the two girls were rescued and taken to the hospital where they recovered.
James eventually died of hypothermia, and on day eleven rescuers found his body in Big Windy Creek lying on its back in a foot of icy water.
This horribly tragic story provides a good parallel for how people so often handle their spiritual lives. Our lives progress through a series of choices. Hardly anyone makes one choice that destroys his life; usually, a failed life is due to a series of “wrong turns.” The problem is that each wrong turn takes us further down a dangerous road.
When my children were young, I told them that everyone makes some bad choices, but when we realize that we are on the wrong path we must stop and immediately start making better choices. We may not be able to undo whatever damage is already done, but in most cases, if we stop as soon as we know that we are on the wrong road, the damage will be minimal.
If James Kim had turned around when he and his wife first realized that they had made a wrong turn, they would have, at worst, lost an hour or so of driving time. By returning to the point where they had gone wrong and getting back on the proper highway, the family would have been spared days of trauma, and James would not have lost his life.
As in driving, in spiritual matters it often seems more expedient to continue on a road to nowhere than it is to turn around. Even when we can no longer delude ourselves that our current road will get us where we want to go, we try to compensate by simply taking another wrong turn. If we take enough wrong turns, we will find ourselves so lost that it will be nearly impossible to find our way back to the highway.
There is one straight, narrow road that leads to heaven, and when we find ourselves on any other path, we must stop, turn around, and go back to that safe highway. The Bible assures us that Jesus loves us and died for us while we were yet sinners so that we could be forgiven and reunited with Him, but we must be willing to leave the path of sin and destruction so that He can deliver us from all those wrong turns.

Joyce Swann is the author of Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother which recounts how she taught her ten children at home from the first grade through graduate work. For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Monday, September 19, 2011

When Learning to Read is a Challenge--Part II

In Part I of "When Learning to Read is a Challenge", I discussed some of the differences in the way my ninth child processed images and written language compared to his non-dyslexic siblings. I wish that I had known early on just how differently he perceived the world. What I did realize early on was that he was unable to master reading in that almost effortless way that his siblings did.
Before I began teaching my oldest child, I created my own phonics program to teach her to read. I used this program for all of my children, and it worked beautifully. My method was simple. I took 3 x 5 cards and wrote one letter of the alphabet on each. I then wrote common combinations such as sh, ch, tr, etc. on other cards. First, I taught my students the name of each consonant and the sound it makes. I then taught them the name of each vowel and the long and short sound for each. After that I taught them the various common combinations. When they had mastered all of the cards, I showed them how these various sounds combine to make words.  I then introduced Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop as their first reader because it utilized many of the combinations that they had learned. Within six weeks after the day I first sat down and began teaching them using this method, they were reading.
Perhaps I should say that within six weeks after the day I first sat down and began teaching them using this method, nine out of ten of them were reading. For my ninth child, reading did not come easily. He had a great deal more difficulty recognizing the cards than his siblings did. It was not that he was not trying; he exerted enormous effort, and whenever he was able to complete an exercise correctly, I really heaped on the praise. Both of us wanted him succeed, but it was a slow process.
Years later one of my daughters told me that he had confided in her that he wished so much that he could read because “it would make Mom so happy.” When she told me that, I nearly cried because I was always aware of how difficult reading was for him. However, not learning to read was not an option. I knew that we both needed help, and I prayed continually about what I should do. After a while I developed a theory that I put into practice, and eventually it paid off.
I thought that a dyslexic child must lack the pathways to the brain that allow non-dyslexic children to learn to read easily. I reasoned that victims of stroke and brain injuries often have to re-learn to talk, read, and even walk by developing new pathways to allow the proper impulses to travel to the brain. Although my theory was strictly my own non-scientific opinion, I believed that this was the only way that I was going to be able to teach my ninth child to read. I would work with him utilizing hours of repetition until we were able to develop pathways that would allow him to process written language.
Because I began teaching all of my children to read shortly before their fifth birthdays, I continued to go over my phonics flash cards with them once each school day for about six months. For my ninth child, I went through the flash cards with him every school day for several years. He made progress, but reading was slow and laborious.
To make things easier I sat with him during his reading assignments.  I would read one page aloud to him while he followed along in the book and, then, he would read one page aloud to me. This kept the assignments from being too tedious. It also gave him the advantage of reinforcing his reading by hearing himself read.
Today I am more convinced than ever that the only way that he could ever have learned to read was by reading, reading, and more reading. I am reminded of the Olympic athletes who became gold medalists because they had disabilities that they had to work hard to overcome. They did not set out to become outstanding athletes—they were just trying to overcome problems that were not problems for “normal” people.
Scott Hamilton developed a mysterious disease at the age of two that caused him to stop growing. He began to skate as a therapy to help him overcome what was originally thought to be a condition that was terminal. Not only did he get well, he ended up becoming one of the greatest male figure skaters of all time.
Likewise, Michael Phelps was diagnosed as ADHD and got involved in swimming partially to help him burn off some of the energy that kept him from being able to sit still for extended periods of time. Consequently, in the 2008 Summer Olympics he won six gold and two bronze medals.  
As I mentioned in Part I of this blog, my ninth child did learn to read. He made excellent grades and received his master’s degree soon after his seventeenth birthday. The methods that I used to help him overcome his difficulties learning to read were simple, but they were not easy. It took love, patience and hard work on both our parts to overcome a situation that often seemed as if it were insurmountable. 
Next week:  When Learning to Read is a Challenge Part III

For more by Joyce Swann, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Friday, September 16, 2011

When Life Hands You Lemons...Make a Pie

For the first five years of my life I was what one would call a “model child.” I was obedient, compliant, quiet, and well-mannered. Then, at age six, something snapped, and I made a deliberate decision to take a walk on the wild side and rebel against parental authority. Although six decades have passed since that fateful day, I remember every detail as if it were yesterday.
Although it was early on a Saturday morning, I had already eaten my breakfast and was lying fully clothed on my bed. The small room that served as a bedroom for my brother, sister, and me lay directly next to the kitchen and did not even have a door for privacy. While this arrangement sometimes presented a problem, it also allowed us to hear everything that was going on in the tiny kitchen and living room.
On this particular day I was listening to the sounds of my mother clanking dishes in the kitchen and waiting for the call that I knew was sure to come at any moment, “Joyce, come here.” Whenever that call came, I had always responded quickly and joined my mother at the sink to dry the dishes that she had washed. On this day, however, I had made up my mind ahead of time that when she called, I would refuse to obey.
When I heard her call my name, I responded, “I don’t want to dry the dishes!”
“Joyce, come here.”
“I don’t want to dry the dishes!” I yelled louder.
We continued this way for quite some time with my mother calling for me to join her in the kitchen and me responding in ever louder tones, “I DON’T WANT TO DRY THE DISHES!”
After a while the clanking of dishes ceased, and I felt that it would be safe to enter the kitchen. Since rebellion was new to me, I felt a little guilty, yet oddly exhilarated by my refusal to comply with my mother’s instructions. I smiled sweetly as I turned the corner into the kitchen and said to my mother, “I just didn’t want to dry the dishes.”
She did not smile in return. She just looked at me and said, “I wasn’t calling you to dry the dishes. I made a lemon pie, and I thought that you would want to stir the filling.”
I was crestfallen! My favorite thing to do in the whole world was to stir the lemon filling as it bubbled on the stove, and my mother knew it. She had saved that part of the pie making for me to enjoy, but through my disobedience, I had lost the opportunity.
Then Mother said something to me that I have never forgotten, “When I call you, it doesn’t always mean that I have something unpleasant for you to do.  Sometimes I have something special for you, but you will never know unless you come when I call.”
Whenever I remember my day of rebellion, I think about the times when God calls us to do something that we assume will be unpleasant, or difficult, or unrewarding, and we respond by crying out from a distance, “I don’t want to!”
By refusing to respond to His call, we, no doubt, escape some unpleasant tasks, but we also escape the wonderful rewards that He has reserved for us.  Serving Jesus Christ is not always easy, and we sometimes feel that we are tired of drying the dishes while our siblings are allowed to play. But, if we are willing to respond to His call every time we hear His voice, we will discover that sometimes He has prepared something special for us just because He knew that it would bring us joy. The catch is: You have to respond to every call, because you never know when there is a pot of bubbling lemon pie filling on the stove.
For books by Joyce visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.com

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

When Learning to Read is a Challenge Part I

Since reading is the foundation for all learning, when homeschooling parents are faced with a child who struggles with reading, we often are at a loss as to how to proceed. Among my ten children I had nine who learned to read almost effortlessly and one who struggled painfully. From that experience I learned a lot about how to work with a Dyslexic child.
A few months ago Donna commented on one of my posts and asked whether any of my children had struggled with reading. Her question sparked a flood of memories. I was reminded of how truly painful learning to read was for my ninth child, and how truly painful teaching him to read was for me. Because this is a problem that touches so many homeschoolers, I have decided to devote several blogs to this subject. In this first I will discuss some of the things that it took me years to discover about my child’s view of the world and how it differs from those of us who see the world “normally.” In future blogs I will discuss the reading theory that I developed and the method that I used to teach him to read.
By the time my ninth child was “ready” to learn to read, I was confident that teaching him would be a quick and easy process. After all, the other eight had learned to read in six weeks using the reading method that I had devised myself (more about this in a future blog). I was, therefore, completely unprepared for the years of hard work that lay ahead for both of us to accomplish something so “simple” as learning to read.
My child was never diagnosed as dyslexic, but I did not need a medical diagnosis to pinpoint the problem. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines dyslexic as follows: “A variable often familial learning disability involving difficulties in acquiring and processing language that is typically manifested by a lack of proficiency in reading, spelling, and writing.”
As we both struggled through those early years, I had no idea how my child saw the world. Since then I have read a little about how dyslexic children perceive written language, but what is written about dyslexia is written by people who are not dyslexic. I have discovered that most of their explanations do not even come close to the reality of how these people process both language and symbols.
My first genuine insights came when I accompanied my two youngest children to take their on-campus seminars to earn their bachelor’s degrees. During those seminars they met the professors with whom they had worked through their home study. They listened to lectures, completed seminar assignments, and were tested in every subject. They were completely on their own without the benefit of having Mom by their sides.
By this time my ninth child was fifteen and preparing to graduate from the university. He and his brother, who was ten months younger than he, were taking their seminars together, and when they came back to our apartment each evening, they completed the assignments that were due the following day.
One evening both boys were working on an art assignment that called for them to create a design that would look the same viewed from any angle. Within a few minutes my ninth child had drawn a very intricate design that looked exactly the same viewed from any angle while his non-dyslexic brother struggled for quite a while before drawing a very simple design that barely met the criteria.
I was impressed and asked number nine how he had managed to do such a complicated drawing in such a short time. He said that it was “easy.” He then began to show me other skills that I did not know he possessed. He picked up a pen and began to write very rapidly. When he was finished he handed me the sentence, which was written entirely backwards. He told me that if I would hold it up to a mirror that I could read it; he was right.
After further discussion, he told me that he had always been able to write backwards; the key was that he could not stop to think about it. If he would just let himself “go with it,” he would always write backwards. It was the “normal” writing that was a challenge.
I had always known that my ninth child was very creative, but as he entered his teens this creativity became increasingly evident. He was, and is, a talented artist. He is a wonderful story-teller and in his mid-twenties wrote several screen plays. He entered his first screen play in a global contest with fifty-thousand entries and, he placed in the top fifty entries.
Now twenty-eight years old, my ninth child reads and writes like a “normal” person, but he is not “normal.” The same things that kept him from processing language like everyone else have also given him the ability to see all of life through a prism that brings humor and creativity into just about every situation. He is interested in many subjects and is something of a political junkie. He also designs all of the covers for our books for our publishing company and has created some of the art work for them.
Yet, I know that the years of struggling to overcome his inability to read well presented challenges for him on a number of levels. That is why I have chosen to tackle this subject.
What I learned, I learned from experience. In subsequent blogs I will share with readers those things that worked for us so that you may apply them to your little students who are having difficulty learning to read. My hope is that these insights will make life easier for both you and them.

For books and updates by Joyce Swann, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

When your Life is a Mess

Do you ever feel as if your life is a chaotic mess? Sometimes it is hard to believe that we can ever get our lives straightened out. Relationships gone bad, jobs terminated, opportunities lost—all lead us to doubt that we will ever find the peace and joy that we so desperately desire.
The Genesis account of creation says that when God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was “a shapeless, chaotic mass with the Spirit of God brooding over the dark vapors” (Genesis 1:1-5). Even then, however, God was there, ready to make the mass—or the mess—into His amazing, perfect creation.
 It is interesting that God’s first creation was light. When the light appeared, He separated it from the darkness and then continued to create the sky, the oceans, the dry earth, and all that they contain. Yet, all of this came about only after He separated the light from the darkness.
The shapeless, chaotic mass described in Genesis is a good picture of the unsaved man or woman. Until we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, our lives lack form, direction, and purpose; yet, even at those times when we feel most hopeless, God is always there, ready to make something beautiful from the chaos.
Even the person who has never heard the Gospel and who knows nothing about Jesus Christ has some light in his life. Helen Keller, who became deaf and blind at age eighteen months, experienced Christ long before she heard about Him. She lived in a silent, black world, unable to speak and unable to communicate until Anne Sullivan came into her life and began to teach her. When Helen had finally learned enough so that she could be told about God, she responded, “I always knew Him; I just didn’t know His name.”
It is not enough, however, to believe that there is a God. Only when we are willing to rid our lives of the sin and darkness that separate us from the light of Christ can we find true meaning and purpose, and only then can He begin to create in us those things that bring us into relationship with Him. Then our lives will take on form and substance and beauty. The light will overcome the darkness, and we will find that we truly are a new creation in Him.
For books by Joyce Swann, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/