I Am This Woman

(31 of 50)

My son has been alternatively-schooled and unschooled 11 years, and in public school for not quite one year. He was in a non-traditional daycare and kindergarten (Waldorf-inspired and Waldorf-proper) for the first six years, then in a charter school for five years that emphasized community responsibility, consensus building, theme-driven multi-year curriculum and individual responsibility.

The one lead teacher he had for the last three years of the charter school was, as it turned out, NOT a good fit for him in that last year, though I didn’t see it at the time (so much other stuff going on). I know better now. My son is what he is, and needs the kind of learning environment that he needs, and a teacher who does not make reasonable accommodations IN A SMALL CHARTER SCHOOL is a bad thing.

We unschooled for six months, exploring together what he wanted to learn, but mostly decompressing from that bad teacher. Last October, I enrolled him in a public school in a move that startled me but seemed to be the right thing at the time. The decision was twofold: as his main educator, I was failing him. I couldn’t find the right combination of approach, topic, method or structure that suited him (including NONE), motivated him. Some dedicated home educators said that I didn’t give him enough time. But the need for change was immediate. And thus as his parent also, I was failing him.

However, when I thought about more and more and more structure, I realized that I did NOT want to replicate school at home. I had a job to attend to, and as flexible as working from home is, it does require one to actually work. The much-ballyhooed “working alongside each other” was not working for us, and having me as the teacher and parent was confusing and stressful for the lad.

Unschooling was not working (at least not fast enough for my son’s well-being); I did not want to do “school-at-home” (even brief attempts at workbooks and lesson plans were met with tears and anxiety). So, why not share the responsibility with others to be the teachers? Oh, hey, there is a system for that. It’s called “school.”

I wanted to see how he would respond in addition to seeing how he would do when pitted against the mainstream school of thought, standardized testing and all that rot. Sixth grade was an ideal place for that to happen because, in reality, sixth grade is pivotal developmentally but not academically. It was a great learning lab for all sorts of reasons. If it didn’t work out, then we could also go back to Plan A, or move on to Plan C, D, E, F…

Sixth grade worked out just fine. Not great, not awful. Just fine. As it should be. He got the full experience of social mores (public school really is a funny sort of island tribe!), teacher nonsense and teacher wonderfulness (esp. librarian wonderfulness!). He learned cool stuff in math and science, and has emerged as bright and skilled in most subjects (completely “meh” in mainstream art-teacher art). He has learned the game of homework completion and the consequences of not doing it and not caring about it. And because of the ungraded foundation he had in the non-traditional schools, he is not a little trick monkey working for The Grades. The numbers on his papers were like weather reports to him, and me, and we dressed and reacted accordingly.

And now we are moving on to seventh grade, and I’m going to take the same attitude: it will be a learning lab. We’ll see what works, and what doesn’t, and if it doesn’t work on a catastrophic level, then we have Plan C, D, E …

So anyone who says, “oh, I can’t imagine homeschooling,” “homeschooling is too hard,” “I bet you got sick of it” or “kids need to socialize with other kids” will get a polite smile from me. Ditto the folks (much more rarely) who say, “public school is evil,” “I would never do that to my child,” or “You’re caught up in the establishment, man!” They really have no clue what we were and are doing, and I don’t have time to fill them in. Join us in the journey and conversation, see all the shades and colors of learning, be a supporter and a partner. But heckling, however well-meaning, will be ignored.

(30 of 50)

First of all, unless I do three entries a day, I am not going to get to 50 by next Sunday, which IS MAH BIRFDAY!!!! yay! yay! I’m not mad enough to try that, or think that it would be worth reading. But I may continue with daily entries until I indeed do have 50.

Secondly, I haven’t exactly been delving into the Deep Stuff. This birthday so far hasn’t seemed to be as momentous as 40 was. 30 was pleasant and rather sad. I was desperately unhappy at 30, and the day was made worse by an unwelcome celebration at work, if I remember correctly. In fact, it is rather funny (both in a ha-ha way and in a peculiar way) that other people assign so much meaning to one’s birthday even when you don’t. 50 is a number. When you are not yet fifty, it seems impossibly OLD. But days from 50, I feel like I’m truly in the middle of something. Not old. In the middle. Busy. Occupied. Booked up.

My creativity has been dampened this week. I’ve felt it sort of lying there in a wet little puddle in the corner, occasionally whimpering and sighing, “Oh please, let’s do something with paint. Or fabric. Yes, with fabric.” And then it slumps down again, just wistful and Edwardian and all want and no have.

I know that by directing some energy over toward that corner, that things will start to flow again. I know that ideas and experiments will be there when I am ready. During our recent trip to see the Prince Caspian movie in the Narnia Chronicles, I found myself drifting off the storyline (some would argue, “what storyline?”) and noticing the clothes. I wanted to remember how the clothes were constructed so I could make myself some cool period clothes, and my son a puffy shirt that looks very masculine and royal. I also have decided to make a mask like the helmets that the Telmarines wore (think Spaniard conquistadors).

The flow is there, when I want to release it. For writing, it’s much much easier, both because the medium is so simple (word processor, blog, keyboard - just start putting words down) and because it’s my preferred and oldest practice. But I also know that when I open some Sculpey, sit down with scissors and cloth, or pick up knitting, the same process is there. With some variations, but it’s there for me when I seek it. That’s one very very nice thing about 50. My creative process is a known quantity, an ever-evolving entity that I’m smack in the middle of.

For you, gentle reader, think today of ebb and flow. How would you map your process? Start in the middle with a work in progress. If you unravel time, where was the inspiration for that item? where were the ebbs and where is the flow? Did you find a flow, or was there something in the way?

It’s Sunday, and for me, I hope it rains because that will be loads of quiet “boring” time inside with books, fabric, yarn and ideas. (The border collie disagrees with me. She must go RUN!)