I haven’t posted here for quite a long time. But I wanted to mentally bookmark the new site Growing Without Schooling. On there, you can find complete back issues of the wonderful GWS newsletter, and other things as well. I have to stop here because my 8 year old needs the computer to look something up.
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.
Today I drove Sean down to school. It adds an hour to his sleep time, not having to catch the bus, and I like the drive. A twenty minutes swoop down and then back up the side of our mountain, often passing through clouds, with the whole central valley below — it’s the closest I usually get to flying. It’s so peaceful — the four-lane highway is usually almost empty.
After today, Sean only has seven more days and then home!
I can’t wait! But at the same time I feel these twinges of sadness. Partings are hard, even when the relationship wasn’t the best. Even when the future outlook is good, you can’t help glancing wistfully over your shoulder. Or at least I can’t help it. I think I am grieving more than he is, even though he is the one leaving his buddies and some hopes there. I guess when you are 17 you look forward, not backward. At almost 50, you look both ways, and so you end up tripping.
When I got home we had our morning reading time for the first time in several days. We have been going through Our Island Story and I am looking for something else to read now that we have finished The King of the Golden River. It’s hard to start something new when you know it’s only another week or so before we are on Christmas break.
Homeschooling has been getting increasingly casual. It doesn’t help that it’s birthday season. First there was Thanksgiving, then Paddy’s birthday was last weekend, then Christmas break is just around the corner, then Kieron’s birthday comes close after New Year’s. Then Sean’s birthday and then Kevin’s! Somehow the liveliness of all this makes careful focus very difficult.
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France
The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing—
Too present to imagine.
Today was a home day. I spent it for the most part parallel to my kids rather than present for them, for which I feel guilty. But I also think maybe I should examine that. What exactly was the difference? Is it really expected in homeschooling to be intertwined with one’s children for every waking moment?
I got up at 7 in order to get Kevin, Brendan and Sean off to grocery shopping, college and high school respectively. That meant making breakfast for Sean while he took a shower, and packing lunches for both Brendan and Sean. Then making a fire (Aidan helped) and then making sugar shape cookies with Aidan. So far, lots of interaction.
Then when Aidan had eaten breakfast and the older ones were off, I went to the laptop and wrote. For a long time. Probably two hours. I think that is where I feel like I get disconnected from my children’ s lives. Writing, whether fictional or not, is absorbing. Everything in real life becomes shadowy while you are writing. It’s like one of those transitions in a movie to a flashback, where the screen starts blurring and the voices become distant. So even though I was aware of them around me, I wasn’t really in homeschooling mom mode. Physically present, psychically only half there.
They are ages 8 to 14 and perfectly capable of getting up, getting breakfast and getting their work started, which is what they did.
Then I worked with them. We did the required homeschooling things, but I think I cut corners when my mind is still partly not there. Less heart goes into it, and if there’s an easy way or a more creative and complete way to do things, I go for the easy way. Again, that’s not horrible…. if it’s not a pattern. But it does make me feel like I’m not quite doing what I should. And forget about keeping the house tidy. That takes observation and supervision.
Paddy and I did have some interactive time doing a prolonged math lesson — and then playing some drill games together.
Kieron was having a migraine so I made math into review practice for him.
Then Kevin and Brendan came home and we unloaded groceries.
Then the kids finished their work, and I helped.
Then they got their play time on the computer, and I wrote some more.
So on the surface of things, it probably wasn’t too much different from a day when I wasn’t preoccupied. But I think it was different. I think that on the good days I share reality with my children. Which schoolwork isn’t always. And there were a few moments of that, when I was making cookies with Aidan, and roughhousing with Paddy at the computer to dispel the tense boredom of a spelling lesson. But for the most part the reality was in writing, and they were not part of that.
December is almost always like this for some reason. Maybe because shopping and lights and decoration and all that are so over-stimulating. But I’m actually not sure why.
Peace on the whirring marts,
Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams,
Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace, in all our homes,
And peace in all our hearts!
Today we had to go into town to bring Aidan to labs and neurology clinic. Going into town takes several hours from the day, since it’s 60 miles away. So we didn’t get home till after noon. This meant a lighter day of homeschool – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a quicker day of homeschool. We do most of the same things, but at supersonic speed.
Kieron is in his first year of high school. In our house, 9th grade is usually still fairly relaxed. I start stepping up the reading level and working towards getting them talking about literature and history and science at a more college-prep level, but I work with the kid’s strengths and interests. Recently things are even more low-key because it’s only two weeks until Christmas vacation and there is so much else to think about. He reads from several books, does either Geometry (Jacob’s) or SAT prep, and also listens to a couple of lessons from Homeschool Connections, which I hope is getting him used to the audio-lecture format. I am trying to provide him with multi-sensory modes of learning because he benefits from a mixture of inputs. He is a very smart, calm person – he benefits from variety and creative presentation and needs help getting engaged in something before he is motivated to do the work. So for me, this year is about trying all different sorts of things to see what engages his mental gears and motors the best. And because ownership is part of the process, it’s helping him gain insight into how he thinks and works. This kind of thing can’t be done in a rush, so that’s why the academics stay fairly relaxed.
Paddy is in grade 2 in the California Virtual Academy charter which uses K12. This is an effective, well-designed program and since this is our second year we have hit our stride and can tailor the work pretty well to the day. So for example, some days he may get through his lessons very quickly, like we did today — other days we spend a long time on one subject using all the different options. Since there is lots of review, if we end up not covering an idea or skill very completely, it crops up again and we can go back and remediate quickly.
Before we enrolled in K12 we used Ambleside and we still do, only we “browse” through it and don’t usually do narrations very formally, since K12 has lots of narrating and discussion in its program. I read the AO books to all three of the boys in the morning and it gives Kieron a chance to keep in touch with beautiful tales and poems that most people stop reading when they are children, but that are worthwhile for any age.
Aidan didn’t do any formal school today since his day was quite busy but he did get some practice chatting with the health care professionals (good for his social/pragmatic skills) and he also wrote a story on my Treo on the way home in the car.
It’s foggy and cold-looking outside. I just shoveled the last of the old snow off the deck a few minutes ago. It gets stuck on the alleys of our metal roof and then comes down with an almighty crash in the middle of the night, sometimes scaring me half to death.
I should really be starting dinner, but Sunday I get so used to going in slow time that it’s hard to get myself going. So I’ll quickly try to write out the day, since I want to try to start writing at least something here most days.
As far as electronic screens go, the day was pretty much devoted to football and Mario tennis (depending upon whether you are an older boy or a younger boy in this house) and to internet reading and catching up on desk stuff (if you are a parent in this house). We are all about electronic screens in this house, and we have about ten of them, I think.
The parents did go out for a walk and conversation. The air was “soft” as the Irish say — warmer than it has been up here, and sprinkling a tiny bit. Not bad, but tomorrow it’s supposed to get colder, and snow is possible later in the week.
The 14 year old kept trying to get me to make eggs and bacon, first for breakfast, then for lunch. He finally gave up about 2 pm and started to campaign for tacos for dinner.
Once outside our house, my husband and I saw a mother Steller Jay. She was flying up into a tree and two adolescents, almost bigger than her but fluffier and more babyish in profile, were following her and squawking loudly. They were trying to get her to feed them. And she was pushing at them, trying to let them know they were big enough to get their own food. I think she finally gave up and gave them a bit of her food.
In bird-land this stage lasts for maybe two weeks? In people-land, it seems to last for a decade. I know that some people have trained their kids so that by the time they are 8 or 9 they are running the house. And actually, in my house the 8-13 year olds are usually fine with running the house. They love being able to do grown-up things and being trusted. But a year or two later a different dynamic sets in, or so it seems. I am not sure why. But I have observed it, even without understanding it.
The house across from ours has all its Christmas decorations up. My kids keep coming over to mention it to me.
While we were walking (pushing Aidan’s purple cross-country wheelchair) my husband and I were talking about how Sean only has two more weeks of school. Then he is going to be in the charter, which will still be pretty structured but he will be HOME. I hope he can focus during those last couple of weeks attending the building school. I know I am having trouble focusing. I have a hard time getting up at 6 am 5 days a week and making his breakfast and lunch knowing that there are only 11-10-9-8 -n days left. The shorter the time gets, the longer it seems.
I had one of those wrenching mom-decisions this morning. Sean had stayed home from school yesterday (Wednesday) after getting sick Tuesday afternoon. This morning, he still looked and felt sick – had some abdominal pains. No fever, no real exterior symptoms. So I sent him off on the bus.
I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for 10 am. The doctor’s going to refer him to a GI specialist (actually, Aidan’s very GI doctor, so that’s nice). She prescribed a muscle relaxant for the pain.
Kevin and I dropped Sean back off at school. Sean obviously didn’t want to go.
I went to the Post Office and when I came back I got a call from the school office, from a lady I know who goes to our church and is a friend. She said Sean was in the nurse’s office sleeping. He had left Geometry complaining of dizziness and stomach pain. She asked if I wanted her to put him on the early school bus but I said I’d pick him up and save him the 50 minutes of lurching and loudness.
So Kevin and I picked up our sleepy, slow moving teenage son in the van. Meanwhile, Aidan, who was in the car, was heating up with a temperature. He seems to have the cold that Sean had last week.
I don’t know — I told our friend at the school that I hated making those judgment calls. You just don’t have to do that as a homeschooler. You can let the kid have a day off. I remember that was one of my reasons for starting homeschooling. Should I support Liam’s teacher when I thought she was wrong? (for example, when she kept him in at recess because he had been too slow at finishing his class work?) Should I spend two hours in the evening with him helping him to complete homework that was essentially busywork, or should I just slough it off in order to have a bit of family time and thus send the message that homework wasn’t important?
Well, I did ask the doctor what to do when Sean got these episodes — they seem to hit about monthly — and she validated my instinct to keep him at home. I abrogated that instinct today and look what happened. But then, I don’t always want to be the one encouraging him to take it easy, either. Sigh.
I think if he has to stay home tomorrow though, the school staff won’t be surprised.
I feel discontented. … everything seems to have a layer of dust on top of it, including my psyche. Probably it means I have been on the computer too much, but I think there’s more to it than that. Incipient spring, perhaps? Anyway, since it’s April maybe a good time for a poem by Richard Wilbur, hat tip to Laudator Temporis Acti:
The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In the dull pasture where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream,
There was a subtle flood of steam
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter’s giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.
It seems that every April I start thinking of blogging the days on here again. Anyway, here, right on schedule. .. literally, to the day. Let’s see if I can do this with Aidan sitting on my lap saying “Let’s head out the door!” My husband Kevin and I have revived our old habit of going for daily walks pushing Aidan in his purple wheelchair, and it only takes Aidan two days to solidify a pleasing custom into a habit. (He’s also trying to read bits of this post which is a nice anniversary indication of progress, since last year he wasn’t reading at all). But here are some things that are the same:
Let me write out a typical day now as a souvenir for next April.
I’ve been waking up at 5:30 am recently, which is frustrating because my alarm is set to go off at 6 am. It always feels too cold to get up right away but half an hour isn’t really long enough to go back to sleep. I usually do anyway, though. Then I have to drag myself up at 6:15.
Then I have a routine which thankfully is almost completely automatic. I get dressed, say morning prayers, make coffee, fill Sean’s water bottle, feed the dog, empty the dishwasher, start a fire, make a protein drink, wake up Sean to drink it, start some laundry and sometimes, if Aidan’s awake, get breakfast for him.
Then I drive Sean to the bus stop. But after this Easter break he will be walking — the drive was because of all the snow behind our house. I can’t justify it when he only has to walk 1/10th of a mile down a pleasant hill in the spring. However, it will be a little sad because you know, those interventions are “collecting rituals“ Sometimes the few minutes in the warm car were the times when he’d mention something about his essentially mysterious days that he wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise.
After that I WAS riding the exercycle and reading a book for 30 minutes. I got derailed a couple of weeks ago and haven’t started it up again. Now I usually hang out on the computer with my coffee while Aidan watches a video, usually Veggie Tales, but recently Toy Story (we borrowed it from the library and he loves it).
Then I make breakfast and we start the day reading — I read to Kieron in history and religion in front of the fire. The little ones flow in and out among this, mostly in. He narrates. I give him something for language arts — either copywork, or Latin, or grammar. This takes a little over an hour usually. Then he has a break. Fairly often he takes the little ones outside to sled for a couple of hours. I usually catch up a bit around the house, talk to Kevin or one of the older kids, or whatever.
At lunch I usually read to Paddy. Kieron is supposed to read some more on his own and do math after lunch. He usually does the math, but has had trouble getting around to the reading. He reads plenty on his own but the schoolbooks are more challenging to him, I think, not as intrinsically interesting.
Then usually I rest a bit and go for a walk with Kevin, and make another pot of coffee, then start dinner in time for when Sean comes home. He has been doing track so he is not home till 6:30 these days, then he takes a shower and does his homework, then reads or talks to his siblings or watches a movie until bedtime.
I read some more to Paddy and then am usually out myself close to ten. I really need more than 8 hours of sleep.
I suppose there are a lot of little incidentals that don’t come up in that sketch of a typical day. Recently I’ve been decluttering and organizing so that takes up some time. And sometimes there are errands to run.
Sean said the other day that “school wasn’t so bad if he didn’t have to get up so early.” I was surprised by that since usually he says how much he dislikes school. Hopefully that’s not a bad sign. Anyway, summer vacation is coming up fast and then we’ll be into football season, which is definitely the main reason he is putting himself through all those early mornings.
When you think your car is locking and refusing to start, make sure you are using the right key to start it with.
I’m sure there are some homeschooling parallels!
I drafted two posts on here — on therapy, and on pharmacies — that turned out to belong to my other blog at Sierra Highlands. Now I have to get off the computer so I don’t spoil the momentum of my whole day. But I am trying to think of a way to bring more little details of homeschooling life over here. I do this blog-juggling a lot. Partly it is because when I am writing, I am usually writing a LOT, too much for one blog to cope with. But then there’s times when I can’t think of anything to say. Then I wonder why I have so many blogs at all when I can’t even keep ONE active. Odd balancing act, but I’m learning to go with my intuition and just hope it isn’t too disruptive to people who might actually be trying to follow one or more of my blogs.
I am TRYING to keep the posts short on this blog, so when a post gets really long I usually move it over. So that’s one distinction.
