I didn’t blog yesterday because yesterday was hard. And although I had high hopes this morning when we woke up to a beautiful day, made pumpkin muffins, and played outside longer than usual, today has been hard, too.
Some of you may not know this, but Chase is not my biological son. Although I have been his mother figure since he was 18 months old and have been a more constant daily presence in his life than even Chip has, I am not his biological mother and that one fact causes more upsets in our homeschool (and home life) than any book or worksheet ever will.
I first expressed my desire to homeschool Chase before I even knew that I was pregnant with Eliza. I have always desired to treat him in every way as my child, the same as my biological children. I want the best things for him. I try to do my very best for him. But we have unique struggles (or maybe not so unique, if you have experienced a step-child/parent relationship yourself) due to the nature of our relationship. Chase idolizes his mother, who has largely been (and continues to be) an absent and unreliable presence in his life. He was three the first time he told me “you aren’t my mother” not as a statement of fact (for I am not, and have never pretended to be) but as a cry of resentment, of rebellion, of disregard. It hurt, and it still hurts 5.5 years later, especially because now he has many more words to put with those first four.
This relationship and resentment color our homeschool experience. When Chase has trouble reading a book, he lashes out at me. When he is tired, or bored, or having an off day, he lashes out at me. The older he gets, the harder it is for me to hold my tongue and my patience during these outbursts. Yesterday was bad. Today was worse. Today I went back to what I told Chip two months ago when we were struggling hard with Chase’s behavior – I want to put him in public school.
Today was hard. Did I mention that yet? And yesterday was hard, too. It is really, really easy to think, when days are hard, that sending your child away to school all day will make everything better. I was angry. So angry. Chase said things to me today that made me seethe, especially when added to all the things he has said in the past. Especially when we had such a good morning and his behavior started the very moment we sat down to read together. Especially when his upsets cause the babies to yell at me and try to hit me because they think I am being mean to their brother.
I sent Chase to his room. I made the babies lunch and settled them down with a cartoon. Then I vented to Chip on the phone and by text message. I vented to my closest friends in a group on social media. I paced. I tried eating lunch – it didn’t help, I was still angry and hopeless. I tried working in the garden – the sun had come out and it was hot, and I was still angry and hopeless. So I stalked to my room, plopped down at my desk, and began scrolling facebook.
And I came upon the *exact* thing that I needed to read today.
The exact thing.
Isn’t it neat when the universe works like that?
My friend April, who I met in graduate school, who introduced me to the idea of unschooling, and who has been an inspiration to me over the years, shared this quote from an article titled “On the Wildness of Children” by Carol Black.
“When we first take children from the world and put them in an institution, they cry. It used to be on the first day of kindergarten, but now it’s at an ever earlier age, sometimes when they are only a few weeks old. “Don’t worry,” the nice teacher says sweetly, “As soon as you’re gone she’ll be fine. It won’t take more than a few days. She’ll adjust.” And she does. She adjusts to an indoor world of cinderblock and plastic, of fluorescent light and half-closed blinds (never mind that studiesshow that children don’t grow as well in fluorescent light as they do in sunlight; did we really need to be told that?) Some children grieve longer than others, gazing through the slats of the blinds at the bright world outside; some resist longer than others, tuning out the nice teacher, thwarting her when they can, refusing to sit still when she tells them to (this resistance, we are told, is a “disorder.”) But gradually, over the many years of confinement, they adjust. The cinderblock world becomes their world. They don’t know the names of the trees outside the classroom window. They don’t know the names of the birds in the trees. They don’t know if the moon is waxing or waning, if that berry is edible or poisonous, if that song is for mating or warning.”
I stopped in my tracks. I felt all of the anger and hopelessness, and, yes, resentment drain from my body, and I felt the universe speaking to me.
Let me give you some more back story. Many years ago, before I had children, before Chase came into my life, before I even met Chip, I was introduced to the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Maybe more than any other one thing, this book shaped how I viewed my roll as a mother and how I wanted to raise my children. In this book Louv writes, “Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” As someone who has had a very strong spiritual connection to nature, especially nature untouched by man, since she was very young, this book spoke to me on a very deep level.
The book has stayed with me over the years. It made me seek out blogs such as Soulemama and Our Ash Grove. In many ways, Richard Louv’s book sparked my desire to homeschool my children.
And today, when I was deep in a familiar struggle with Chase, April shared an article about the wildness of children – and the history of institutionalizing children to remove their wild nature.
In the article, Black writes,
“In many rural land-based societies, learning is not coerced; children are expected to voluntarily observe, absorb, practice, and master the knowledge and skills they will need as adults –– and they do. In these societies –– which exist on every inhabited continent –– even very young children are free to choose their own actions, to play, to explore, to participate, to take on meaningful responsibility. “Learning” is not conceived as a special activity at all, but as a natural by-product of being alive in the world.
Researchers are finding that children in these settings spend most of their time in a completely different attentional state from children in modern schools, a state psychology researcher Suzanne Gaskins calls “open attention.” Open attention is widely focused, relaxed, alert; Gaskins suggests it may have much in common with the Buddhist concept of “mindfulness.” If something moves in the broad field of perception, the child will notice it. If something interesting happens, he can watch for hours. A child in this state seems to absorb her culture by osmosis, by imperceptible degrees picking up what the adults talk about, what they do, how they think, what they know. “
The rhythm that we have been following this month, and plan to follow for the duration of this school year, is an experiment. And today reminded me of something very, very important that I need not forget – reading and writing and math are all very important skills to have. Our rhythm is obviously successful because Chase’s reading skills alone have improved dramatically over the last month. But there is more to learning than what is taught in the classroom, and it would benefit all of us if I would remember that sooner when our homeschool days are not going well. When we have a bad day I need to scrap the rhythm and fall back on unschooling – let the kids go and observe and learn on their own. If nothing else it will remove a great deal of stress and upset from our lives. It will not completely heal mine and Chase’s relationship – only time will do that – but it will give us each space to breathe without a teacher/child relationship compounding our problems.
Tomorrow we will pack a picnic. We will drive to an island and eat under the Yaupon trees. We will watch waves and birds and insects and people. We will go to the aquarium and observe the fish and catch any classes they happen to be offering. We will go to the butterfly exhibit before it closes for the season. We will take our time. We will learn as a family, without a classroom, without a workbook, in nature, my favorite classroom, where we need to remember to spend more time.
*Please do not think that I am putting down public school in any way. I know that for many families public school is the only choice. For others it is the right choice for their families and for their children. I am not saying that public school is bad, but as a parent I do believe that reading about the history of public school as outlined in this article is very informative. Even if your children attend public school, this knowledge can inform and guide your activities outside of school time.*
The Sudderth School for the Education of Free Thinking and Spirited Children 