when I love homeschool

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that I get to find out who my children are. As people, as individuals, and as learners.

I get to hang out with them every day. Discover what they are interested in. What they think. How they think and why. How they invent. What they invent. How they learn. These discoveries make me feel closer to them, more connected. And that connection makes me buzz.

I love homeschool the most when I open myself up completely to who my children are, unconditionally. When I accept and embrace the ways my children learn, even when it goes against my own learning style or the ways I thought education had to happen.

When I do that, our Homeschool Land becomes the best place in the world.

This has been a big challenge for me, with my girl. It has taken me over a year of homeschooling to begin to see and embrace the unique learner that she is, and to recognize that who my daughter is, is inextricably linked to the learner that she is.

my daughter, the artist

I recognised my daughter as an artist years ago, but I only recently began to understand how this part of her is connected to everything she does. She sees the world from the perspective of the artist, constantly. It's beautiful and inspiring. And it is how she learns.

She makes things all the time, every day, all day, well into the night sometimes. She uses her hands to create, draw, build, play, constantly.

She makes paper animals and cloth animals and makes them toys to play with. Yesterday she spent hours finishing up a house for her toy cats, constructing rooms, beds, sinks, showers, a spa for the pet fish.

Last week, she created an intricately-designed cardboard lizard with opening jaws—she thought to have straps inside the mouth so her hand could open and shut it with ease. I would never have thought of that.

When she writes a story, she has to draw pictures on every page. She draws all the time.

She loves books, but especially loves the ones with visual images included—nature books, younger kids' picture books, chapter books.

She adores animals, and inhales information books about them—she pores over the pictures as much as the words. And when she's committed a detail to memory, it pops up just like that in a drawing of a leopard, a deer, an elephant. Tiny details that I would have missed show up in her art. She misses nothing.

my daughter, the maths student

I have known my daughter is an artist for years. But it has taken watching my daughter learn (or try to learn) maths for me to really see how the artist is connected—like skin, or breathing—to the learner.

I assumed my daughter would learn from a maths workbook, just like her brother. Workbooks are simple; you buy one, you work through it, get help for the tricky bits, move on. Because I never liked or felt confident about maths, I thought it was something you just got over with, like medicine, or vegetables you don't like, to get to the more fun stuff like writing stories, drawing, painting, and music.

I think we've always had a difficult relationship with maths in our Homeschool Land. It's our sticky patch, the one area that really doesn't embrace my ideal of "Life Learning."

Because while I have never been a huge fan of traditional maths, I've felt like it had to be done, regardless of what my children would prefer to do. And we've done it in the way I've always done it, because in my head, if the kids asked for help, that's how I'd be able to "teach" it. I think a lot of people who are entering the world of natural learning/life learning/unschooling have felt this way about maths too. It's a tough one (and deserves its own post, I think!).

Sometimes traditional learning works, if your kids can learn that way and fit that mold. But it's really tough if you have a girl whose learning style is so different from the way you learned that in the tricky times, when you can't explain in a way your girl understands, and she gets stuck, you both panic.

That's when I feel terrible.

Sadness, fear and complaints make me aware that I'm asking the kids to do something they don't like, or in a way they don't like. It makes me feel guilty, anxious, angry with myself, and frustrated that the kids don't want to swallow their maths medicine fast, and just get on with it.

So maths time in our house has had a lot of tears, especially for my daughter. That sucks, because in my image of Homeschool Land, at least the image I hold dear, no-one cries when learning. No-one gets frustrated, resentful, or resists. It is supposed to be a sweet place where learning equals joy.

Maths doesn't equal joy for my girl. At least, traditional, scheduled, book-learned, get-it-over-with maths rarely does.

But when her hands and her artist heart are allowed to be the learners, it does. It brings joy and then some.

my daughter, the learner

When she plays Timez Attack and launches numbers at a door to learn her times tables, maths equals joy. When she gets to another level and has to jump over rotating 3-dimensional grids to get to the next question, it equals joy.

When she does her time4learning maths and gets to put a yellow five with a blue 2 and make a green seven, it equals joy.

When I pull out the Cuisenaire rods to learn addition and subtraction and she uses them to create an amazing multi-coloured owl, and says, "Look at my owl!" and then makes Cuisenaire cats, cats, cats. Joy.

When she sits to write number sentences and says, "I love those little plus and equals signs."

When she writes numbers and realises they can be turned into animals, the fives into birds and puppies, the sixes into pigs, and a cat with a zero for a face.

When she is given free rein to draw a page of number animals, and fills the page with them, even a trio of number critters standing on a dais having won some race.

When she then draws an intricate map of where the number pets live, including a key to show bridges, roundabouts, cows.

When she builds, constructs, designs, creates—all of which take so many maths smarts you'd need a page to list them all.

This is when maths equals joy.

When the artist and the learner meet.

When they are allowed to meet.

When the learning being asked of my daughter can be translated into a language that is hers.

When no pressure is placed and freedom is given.

When she can be the learner she is and the person she is and this is celebrated without condition.

When I don't crowd her with expectation and fear (all ingrained, all my own shackles).

When she is.

And that's when I love homeschool.

time of the flying fox

Today is the First Day of Spring.

but did you know…?

It is actually, and also, and around about, the season of

Ngoonungi - Murrai'yunggory

or,

the Time of the Flying Fox

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It is:

"The time of the gathering of the flying foxes. A magical time of the year when the flying foxes gather in the darkening skies over D'harawal Lands. They come in from the north-east, the north, the north-west and the west, and swirl over the Sydney area in a wonderful, sky-dancing display just after sunset, before setting off for the night-time feeding grounds to the south. But it is also a very important ceremonial time for the D'harawals, which begins with the appearance of the splashes of the bright red Miwa Gawaian (Telopea speciosissima) in the bushland."

(Aust Govt: Indigenous Weather Knowledge)

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It is "Ngoonungi, Time of the Flying Fox: [when]… The waratah and many other flowers bloom and flying foxes gather. [It is the] mating season of many smaller marsupials. Shellfish form a large part of the diet. As the whales migrate down the coast with their calves, important ceremonies are held to wish them well."

from Chookie's Backyard

And it is: "the…time when ‘the buds of the waratah swell and redden’. [Note that] The D’harawal annual cycle is not set rigidly in time, but responds to triggers in the environment."

from an interview by Kelly Royds with Frances Bodkin, author/compiler of D'harawal Seasons and Climate Cycles

Frances Bodkin is a "botanical author, teacher and traditional storyteller at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens. Bodkin is a traditional D'harawal Aboriginal descendant and one of the last people in Sydney to inherit tens of thousands of years of weather wisdom." She has written an important book; it looks fascinating and I'm going to find it and read it. For more reading, here's an article about Bodkin, and on Indigenous Seasons.

Anyway!

Just thought I'd commemorate this First day with a bit of thinking and exploring and discovering.

Hello September :)

•••

Today was also the beginning of feeling hopeful.

Today I made an appointment with a new counsellor, seeing as mine has gone overseas. (What, I don't see her for a year and a half, and she goes away without telling me??).

This new woman said the soonest she could see me was in two weeks time (which seemed, at that moment, to be a Very. Long. Time). Two hours later, she rang back to say, actually, she could fit me in tomorrow.

Today, I heard a frog ribbiting in our back yard today, beside our fishpond.

Today, I didn't need to wear a dozen layers to walk the dog with the kids.

The dog rolled blissfully in a pool of dust then shook it off like he'd just had a bath.

Today, the sun shone.

I made a risotto for dinner that rocked even more than the last risotto I made.

I took my herbs from my naturopath and began reading a book about finding happiness.

And my sister called.

Today, the kids told Dad that we did English, Maths, walked the dog and even did Science.

And then my daughter said:

"And Mum was happy."

on getting things wrong!

Stop the presses.

I made a mistake.

It's happened before and will one day happen again, I am sure. Maybe, like, over and over again.

I'm not a big fan of making mistakes; I'm a lot like my kids—we are perfectionists and it really bums us out when we try really hard and don't get something right.

But what I try and teach the kids is: "Don't be afraid of getting something wrong." I say, "It's when you take a risk and try something you might not get right, that you are really learning. You practice [insert whatever skill you're trying to attain—maths, piano, squirrel juggling, cooking for a party of 35] and then you get better. Don't be afraid."

All good words and important lessons to learn, blah etc blah, until they actually pertain to you. Until you write something and find you got your facts wrong.

Then the kid in me goes, "Oh. How embarrassing. Wow. How'd I get that wrong? Why didn't I check? Why'd I put myself out there? Everyone will think I'm stupid."

And then the adult in me says, "Well. At least fess up. Then you've got your head held high."

And then the kid in me says, "What if I don't fess up? Maybe no-one will notice. I mean, the only people who really know it's wrong are me and my husband. And he can be bought off."

And then the adult in me says, "It's obvious, dude. Anyone could Google what you wrote in an instant and find out you're wrong."

And the kid in me says, "Who's going to Google? They'll just think, Huh, I suppose she's right. She's the writer after all, and writers are never wrong!"

And the adult in me says, "Now, that's silly."

And the kid in me says, "No it's not."

And the adult in me says, "Yeah, it is."

And the kid in me says, "No, it's not."

And the adult in me says—

[Editor's note: sections of this blog post have been omitted because they stopped making sense]

Anyway. I will fess up, because anyone who knows anything about anything would have seen in my last post that I was wrong.

And I'm not one to run away from admitting my mistake. It can't be that hard. I see politicians doing it all the time.

So here goes:

My husband DID, in fact, write the limerick I referred to in my last post.

He made it up himself. It is his limerick!

And it goes like this:

There was a young man from Ork

Who came to earth on a cork,

He landed in pie

And now he will die

Cause he just got stabbed with a fork.

A great limerick. So great, in fact, and recited so many times by him over the years, that it had entered my memory bank in the section, "Old and Famous Limericks that Everyone knows so you don't even have to quote the whole thing in your post."

Now for the next admission:

I didn't even quote it properly to my kids yesterday. I thought he came from Cork. I thought he came on the fork. I forgot about the stabbing entirely! (Which is the pacifist in me coming out)

I got it all wrong.

All wrong!!

I am sorry, and I will never do it again. *cough*

Anyway. The Lesson Learned is this:

Don't make mistakes.

No. That's not quite right.

Risk making a mistake, but run all references to limericks by husband before I post.

After all, every writer needs a reliable fact checker.

So, husband, you're hired. I will pay you with pie.

discovered

I've discovered I don't much like winter in an tragically-underheated house. It seems to make me gloomy, all this being cold and not being warm. So I figure I have three options: 1. Move to a tropical climate; 2. Move to a house with major central heating, or 3. Get better heating for my house. With our finances, No.3 is the definite front runner, but none of it is the insta-fix I'm after. I want to blink and be warm, constantly warm, like I have my own sun patrolling my bones.

I've discovered I don't need to ask my son every school holidays if he'd rather go back to school. I've been checking in every holidays…um, and whenever he talks about his old school friends… and other times too. I think I have worried, sometimes, that he might prefer to be at school but didn't know how to tell me. I have thought, perhaps, that he mightn't be completely happy to be here.

Today I said, “If you want to go back, you can tell me. Please don't worry that you'll hurt my feelings.”

He said, “Mum, that never occurred to me until you brought it up. You don't ever need to ask me that again. If I ever want to go back, I'll tell you.” (And he's only ten, my little old man.)

“But do you want to?”

“No.”

Turns out he is, in fact, happy. Happy to homeschool, happy to be here, wanting absolutely to be here. Pretty uncomplicated.

My daughter I don't ever need to ask. She has said repeatedly, “I will never ever go back to school. Never. Ever.”

Again, uncomplicated.

I've discovered the beauty of sitting at the computer listening to long forgotten music that my husband has just loaded into iTunes. I remember I used to always write to music. I'd get a stack of cds ready for a writing session, then just fall into the sound. What I listened to would inform my words. It felt like my own personal cloud. It feels like that right now.

I've discovered I'm writing again, regularly creating. The kids pick up on that. They write when I write, draw when I draw, and when I leave off to make a meal or clean something, they keep at it. My son finds the piano and improvises. My daughter does page after page of cartoon cats.

When I'm feeling low they feel it, when I am fired up and creating, they feel it. They are formed by osmosis and by their sweet hearts.

Today my daughter was sad in bed, finding it hard to sleep and weeping over a worry. She thought I might be cross, to be called back to her room for the third time tonight. But I said, “No. I'm not cross. I actually have to tell you a secret.”

“What, Mummy?”

“Well, I've been feeling sad too, today, and I'm not sure why. I was wondering if you could look after me, this time. I wonder if you could tell me it's all going to be okay.”

She smiled. “It's all going to be okay, Mummy.”

“How do you know?” (This being the question she always asks me)

“I just do.”

She wrapped me up in a hug. And I discovered, in that moment, that I was finally, actually, warm. All the way through to my unpatrolled bones.

moo

Today my son, my daughter, and I decided we would try being vegetarians. We've talked about it before, and we've tried it before—especially my son and I—but we always end up back in Meat Land, undone by a need for ham and cheese pizza or a mad craving for steak.

But recently, we've been talking about it more and more, and today we drove past some cows. Cows happily munching on grass, kiddie cows hanging out, and one sweet cow scratching its chin on a fence post.

“Ah,” I said. “I think I want to be vegetarian.”

Instantly my son said, “Me too!”

And my daughter said, “Me too!”

Right. It was decided—we would be vegetarians. But we'd start slowly and keep eating tuna, partly because today I'd packed tuna sandwiches for our day out, not realising we'd be making a Momentous Decision on the drive.

“And I'll still have bacon,” said my son.

“That's a pig,” I said. “Did you know their brains are almost as big as ours? They're really smart.”

(Because I don't try to influence my kids at all.)

“Ah,” said my son. “Okay. No bacon. No ham.”

“We can eat cheese pizza!” declared my daughter.

Now we got into the nitty gritty, because my son said, “But we're going to J's house for dinner on Saturday. We'll have to tell them we're vegetarian now.” (As of exactly 3 minutes ago.)

“That might be rude,” I said, “Seeing as we're going there in two days. Perhaps we can just eat what's given us, this time round.”

“Like the Buddhists!” said my son, delighted.

Now this was funny and fascinating, seeing as it was some time ago I told my son not all Buddhists were vegetarian. I had discovered that Buddhist monks “of old” used to beg for alms by the side of a road, holding out a bowl and eating whatever they received. So if they were given meat, they ate meat. The idea, then, for certain Buddhists (and please forgive me if I am over-simplifying, and/or getting this wrong) is that as long as you do not harm an animal yourself, you can eat a no-longer-alive animal—especially if the meal is a gift. How interesting, I thought, and told my son.

I don't remember when I told him. It might have been 6 months ago or longer. I certainly never “taught” him the information. Somewhere he'd stored it, kept it in his noggin for when it had some relationship to his own life, and now here it was: flashing bright and beautiful from the cozy confines of his mind. Cool.

Anyway, here begins our vegetarian adventure! I don't know how long we'll last, but I hope we do. We have the intentions, which are good. We have the desire, which is great. We have the motivation, which is for each one of us complicated and personal. And we have our tummies, which are fickle. I wonder when the first steak craving will hit. I hope I'll be strong.