Jul. 17, 2006 - Learning in the Mist

My head contains a mist of ideas, theories and dreams when it comes to homeschooling.  But over everything looms the reality-shadow that my children will be slipping back into a classroom environment in a few months time when our stint in Singapore is over. 

So I curb the high schemes and reign them in, sadly, to a level I feel will not pull them too far from the learning style of school.  It must sound like I am crazy considering putting them back into mainstream education, especially in New Zealand, where the public schooling sometimes falls quite short of expectations.  Quite possibly I am completely crazy.  But I have a very social daughter whose friendships are dear to her, in a way I sometimes struggle to empathise with as it is not the way I grew up (guess who was homeschooled on an isolated farm in Africa?).  She is loyal and thrives on human contact, teamwork and exercising her fledging gift of leadership.  I am completely inadequate at providing what she needs at this stage in her life in this department and so right now the school seems to feel right for her.  This is however under constant evaluation, especially when I tend to rely on my own strength as a mother and not trust God that He will protect her wherever she is.   But she has had amazing teachers so far and I am able to 'sit on my hands' for this season.

But for now....now I have the reins for a few more short weeks.  I have attempted grandiose methods, with sticker charts, workbooks and exercises guarantueed to put even a librarian to sleep.  But it was like making water run uphill and I have (ungraciously) backed down and let the children trickle off into what interests them and watch where there are flickers of attention and let those areas take flight. 

It is scary.  Some of the things that have caught their minds are nice and friendly and within my mental grasp.  Some things are not.  Some things challenge the way I was made to think, challenge my intelligence and challenge my selfish heart!

Daily I am becoming more of an un-schooling mother, an ex-pat mom encased in a shiny apartment who lets her daughters lie in bed reading dragon tales, make intricate artworks on the lounge floor, shun workbooks unless they are about science, and follow the mathmatical concepts of the soccer world-cup series.  Nobody wants to write stories, emails or journal entries, learn spellings, recite times tables or sit still.  I am good at enforcing these activities, however, unfortunately for me, their creativity wells dry up at the speed of light and glazed eyes stare back at me uncomprehendingly.  Instead I marvel at the sparkle I glimpse when we are reading DragonSpell (a christian fantasy book that challenged my probably overworked religious upbringing) or fashioning sculptures from straws and boxes (limited crafts here as we are in limbo), or designing fashion outfits for Barbies out of paper, listening to Hillsong kids songs and watching them create dance steps together. 

I quit.  I quit the striving and planning for their maximised education in this 4 month window of living in Asia.  The realisation has come that it is only because I want to be thought well of by my eldest's teacher that I even care about silly things like handwriting and comprehension.  My daughter wants not to practice meaningless lines of sloping letters, but wants to practice calligraphy (done beautifully) as an expression of her art.  And she does not want to do comprehension on boring articles I chop out of the paper, she wants to delve into thick chapter books, well beyond her reading years, and talk about their allegory properties with me. 

Every day I resolve not to meddle with the world that God has provided for us to all learn from, but each day I find myself doing it anyway.  Thus I am reminded afresh of the desperate value in surrendering my flesh and allowing the voice of the King to penetrate the mists and dreams each new day with His inspiration for life.