We've hit the big 8!
Yes the wee one is now an 8 year old. This particular birthday seems to mark a dramatic change in her maturity levels and interest in the world. It is really quite astonishing. Luckily this coincides with us having bought a car (which did arrive in time for the camping holiday) and so having a way to get to all the things she wants to do. Moods have been up and down, but the 2 weeks since her birthday have got me smiling all the time. And yawning.
One thing that buying a car has meant is that we have rejoined the National Trust. The wee one loves it. Little Moreton Hall, Dunham Massey and Quarry Bank Mill have already been visited and are set to become regulars, as they were with the older kids.
I am feeling inspired and re-invigorated in our home ed. It is a lot different from the way things were with the older kids but I think I am over the grieving for what we had and am getting into the swing of things. It has only taken 8 years.
A few things have happened to remind me why I so passionately believe that schools are damaging places for children. One of the Boy's grown up friends asked to meet to talk about home ed. (The Boy being 21 now.) They have a small child and are thinking about it. Of course, she couldn't shut me up once I got started. And not just because we met in a bar and I was drinking a very large cocktail. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Paula Rothermel, Alice Miller, Ivan Illych, Alfie Kohn, Jessica Mwanzia, autonomous education, child-learning, peer dependency, personal independence, all those things I used to talk about with my friends and fellow home educators came again to the fore and I am rejuvenated!
And so is she it seems. Her dad and I had a talk about the necessity of doing more 'stuff' i.e. learning type worthy stuff with her. She has been watching a lot of screens lately and it was the voice of DanTDM that made me want to throw every fucking device in the house out of the fucking window! But I did think to myself that if I am not offering a better alternative than to watch somebody else play a game on Youtube then that was down to me.
So rather than just tell her to turn it off ( although I do that as well) I made a list. A list of other fun things to do. And it is working. Today, big brother and I have spent a good 3-4 hours just playing games with her. This book is one of many that has come off the shelf again to remind us of fun games. We have dice game books and card game books and parlour game books as well as too many games to fit on the games shelves so it shouldn't be hard really should it?
Mostly we are just enjoying each other's company, and having conversations, and playing games and talking about life. Which to me, constitutes real education.
We had a chat the other day about why when she does painting and drawing we call it painting a drawing and not practising but when she gets her violin out we call is "practising" and not playing. We decided to call it playing from now on.
And the same logic applies to living life. Education should not just be "preparation" for the adult world where you learn about how to live a life in an abstract sense and you can begin living when you reach a certain age. As macabre as this may sound, I do remember when we were first deciding to home ed thinking that if any of my kids were to die young, I wanted them to have enjoyed the years they had. If they weren't going to make to the magic ages of 16 or 18 or 21, then I wanted the years they did have to be enjoyable, and not wasted in an institution waiting to grow up.
Education in a larger sense is about living a full life. Learning is a natural part of life and shouldn't have arbitrary boundaries which lump life into learning years, or weeks or ages. So we are all doing a good job of learning and living at the moment.
One thing that buying a car has meant is that we have rejoined the National Trust. The wee one loves it. Little Moreton Hall, Dunham Massey and Quarry Bank Mill have already been visited and are set to become regulars, as they were with the older kids.
I am feeling inspired and re-invigorated in our home ed. It is a lot different from the way things were with the older kids but I think I am over the grieving for what we had and am getting into the swing of things. It has only taken 8 years.
A few things have happened to remind me why I so passionately believe that schools are damaging places for children. One of the Boy's grown up friends asked to meet to talk about home ed. (The Boy being 21 now.) They have a small child and are thinking about it. Of course, she couldn't shut me up once I got started. And not just because we met in a bar and I was drinking a very large cocktail. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, Paula Rothermel, Alice Miller, Ivan Illych, Alfie Kohn, Jessica Mwanzia, autonomous education, child-learning, peer dependency, personal independence, all those things I used to talk about with my friends and fellow home educators came again to the fore and I am rejuvenated!
And so is she it seems. Her dad and I had a talk about the necessity of doing more 'stuff' i.e. learning type worthy stuff with her. She has been watching a lot of screens lately and it was the voice of DanTDM that made me want to throw every fucking device in the house out of the fucking window! But I did think to myself that if I am not offering a better alternative than to watch somebody else play a game on Youtube then that was down to me.
So rather than just tell her to turn it off ( although I do that as well) I made a list. A list of other fun things to do. And it is working. Today, big brother and I have spent a good 3-4 hours just playing games with her. This book is one of many that has come off the shelf again to remind us of fun games. We have dice game books and card game books and parlour game books as well as too many games to fit on the games shelves so it shouldn't be hard really should it?
Mostly we are just enjoying each other's company, and having conversations, and playing games and talking about life. Which to me, constitutes real education.
We had a chat the other day about why when she does painting and drawing we call it painting a drawing and not practising but when she gets her violin out we call is "practising" and not playing. We decided to call it playing from now on.
And the same logic applies to living life. Education should not just be "preparation" for the adult world where you learn about how to live a life in an abstract sense and you can begin living when you reach a certain age. As macabre as this may sound, I do remember when we were first deciding to home ed thinking that if any of my kids were to die young, I wanted them to have enjoyed the years they had. If they weren't going to make to the magic ages of 16 or 18 or 21, then I wanted the years they did have to be enjoyable, and not wasted in an institution waiting to grow up.
Education in a larger sense is about living a full life. Learning is a natural part of life and shouldn't have arbitrary boundaries which lump life into learning years, or weeks or ages. So we are all doing a good job of learning and living at the moment.
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