You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2011.
::
When we first made the decision to homeschool the kids, I felt pretty solid. I’d done a lot of reading and knew the ins, the outs, the pros, the cons. If you had sat at playgroup and asked me why we would choose to homeschool, I would have answered, mindful of injunctions not too come across as inadvertently judgmental, “Oh, the beauty of homeschooling is that you can learn at each child’s pace.”
And if it was you at playgroup, I apologize. Because what I really meant at some level was, “Oh, the beauty of homeschooling is that my kids will be so much ahead of your kids.”
I learned to read at 4. I skipped Gr 7. I was top of my class in university. Clearly my children were amazing darlings whose genius would reveal itself in time, particularly in the fertile soil of my awesome parenting.
I don’t know how to describe what happened over the next few years without words like ‘comeuppance’ or ‘smack-down’ or ‘insert soft weeping here’. Let’s just say that with their vision difficulties, my kids needed to learn to read over a period of half a decade, not a few weeks. And while Sandra is now on track and at grade level in every subject, Matthias is not. He’s behind. He’s behind in large part because of who he is. He’s been…unteachable. Stubborn. Hates to be shown or told. Impatient. A bit too fond of lazing about.
Things are shifting. Something is percolating about inside him, because these past 12 months have slowly pulled back the curtain on a boy who’s a little better at following, at believing in himself.
In some sense, I’ve been waiting for him in a good way. Knowing that you can’t force readiness. In some ways, though, I have been waiting in a negative way – waiting for something broken to be fixed. When I’m feeling defensive, inadequate, or impatient it’s easy to see the problems. It’s difficult to see him as an individual instead of a boy the age for Gr 7 but behind in reading, writing, and arithmetic. I need to shake myself again and again to remember that he’s an on-schedule Matthias, not a broken Grade 7.
The thing is that there’s no such thing as behind. I know that. I’ve written (hopefully) inspiring pieces about that. You’re only behind if you’re on a schedule that requires you to learn a certain amount at a steady pace. We’re people, not Model T Fords. And people are messy, zany, odd creatures. Why do I persist in believing there’s basically one way to be a kid/student, when it’s so clear that there are about 4.5 billion ways to be an adult?
Go somewhere public and look around. Adults are a staggeringly different bunch of humans. There are far more jobs than the firefighter, businessman, teacher, shopkeeper, and writer population that peopled my childhood understanding of my career options. And then there are the personalities within the career choices: the serious and the silly, the reliable and the sketchy, the bold and the reserved, the tattooed and the mousy.
When my kids were little, I think I believed that I knew what kind of adults they would be: smart, clever, classically educated, non-conformists, probably bookish. If they hadn’t had all these troubles – if they hadn’t been behind – would I have learned these lessons about paying attention, about there being so many paths? I’m sure I would have said, “Of course!” but if I’m honest, I think that if I had had compliant children with no learning issues I would have had more of a head-knowledge of it and less heart-knowledge of it.
Watching my children struggle – or worse, get stuck – is hard. It’s too easy to see it as a problem, and problems beg for solutions. “What should I be doing?”; “Let’s fix this.” Sometimes, though, it’s really important to ask whether or not what is happening is actually a problem. Is this a learning issue, or a maturity issue? Is it something to fix, or just a different way of approaching reality?
I don’t have An Answer.
But I’ve been learning to remind myself to ask a lot of questions.
And I’ve been learning that there’s a lot I don’t control. Like other people. Like these two people.
::
::
“Wherever you go, there you are.”
…lying about?
It may look restful, but I’ve been busy with a fair bit of planning.
I found a shady spot in all this heat and wind. Tea to my right, a lap full of books to sort through. How much of my summer has been thinking through the upcoming school-year? A good deal. The kids are in Grade 9 and Grade 7. Whoa. It’s not counting pretzels and rhyming games while walking to the park any more.
|:|
“Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish. The time will pass anyway.”
H. Jackson Brown
|:|
It’s more than midway into 2011. How are your goals coming along?
At long last.
If you like books and are Canadian, particularly if you are homeschooling, you’ll be happy. A Guide to Canadian Children’s Books is what we’ve been looking for. The Americans have all sorts of lovely book lists of great books placed in chronological order. Sonlight. The Well-Trained Mind. But Canadians have been left asking each other on email groups and piecing together a rough guide.
I’ve been looking for this type of resource since Sandra was 5. Strangely, that is a year after this book was published. This spring I even phoned the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. I live with a librarian.* Somehow, this is a secret, a treasure.
Less about my predicament, more about the resource. The book is divided into sections – picture books, non-fiction, books for beginning readers, novels 12 and up, etc. Each book is given that most glorious treatment: a paragraph or two that outlines the plot and leaves you eager to hunt it down. Short yet enticing isn’t easy. Yet my favourite part is the ample index at the back: by location; by historical time period; by genre; by topic.
Need a book set in Manitoba? Need a book on trucks?
Hope it makes you as happy as it makes me this week. It appears that Google Books has it. But I think you’ll want to flip through it in your hands, so mosey on down to your library.
* He was the one who found it for me this summer, though.
5194 meters of yarn knit up between May 27th and August 15th. 18 projects total.
A big boost to focus on finding time to be anchored by creative habits. A big boost to get Christmas knitting done.
What a wonderful and playful way to get lots of work done.
1. Karl the Urban Monster, 2. blanket squares, 3. Squillion, 4. reversible cabled hat, 5. navy, 6. Daphne and Delilah, 7. Drifting cardigan, 8. It’s Raining Babies, 9. Very Warm Hat #6, 10. Very Warm Hat #7, 11. Presley Cash, 12. simple black socks, 13. Very Warm Hat #4, 14. Very Warm Hat #3, 15. Very Warm Hat #2, 16. Very Warm Hat #1, 17. Very Warm Hat #4, 18. Stripes for Spring
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
:: Change the world. ::
:: Knit a Squillion Squares ::
:: AIDS orphans shouldn’t be cold. ::
7 of 60 done.
60 is my goal before the end of July. That’s 5 per month, which sounds pretty reasonable when I say it like that. If I designate Friday night Square Night, say, while we watch a movie. That would be 4 without any trouble.
I’m using a modified version of the Grandma’s Favourite Dishcloth pattern for these. I kfb and k2tog so that there are no holes.
This is my favourite of the batch.
I simply joined the red colour with an extra long tail. Once I was done knitting, I sewed the yarn in the back along the stripe until halfway. Then I came up on the right side and began the heart in chain stitch. To get the bottom to point a bit better, I actually secured the loop there as though I was done sewing, then came up in that loop and carried on with the second side.
Holiday? How is it a holiday when I seem to be doing more than I normally would? Reorganizing the house. Sorting books. Laundry, laundry, laundry. Appointments. Soccer. Training for the marathon.
Next year we’re going to have to homeschool all year just to recover.
::
::
Pair 9 of 12 for the year. Simple navy socks for Rainer.
Not getting a lot of knitting time in.
I’m looking at the looming deadline for the Stash Dash 5k and wondering if I’ll make 5 kilometers of yarn by August 15th. I’ve got a chance. It would help if the holiday would be more restful.
