Local Authority inspection tomorrow...

Our Local Authority inspector is coming tomorrow morning! I had promised myself I would be calm - I feel we have done so much with him, we have written work to prove it and a big felt board for planning hanging in the bedroom, I really do not think there will be any problems. Yet somehow... It seems just impossible to have everything in place with two kids and births to attend to, and a hope for "life" beyond that, be it only as modest form of "life" as talking to my grandma on the phone once in a while.
So, the stress is there. I threw a fit already, and have to call in my rudimentary Zen practice to calm down...

All in all, our obligations towards the Local Authority are rudimentary. I have to show them that some education is taking place, that the child has learning supplies, and I suppose that want to find out whether the child is happy with this arrangement or not. No doubts here. He has been telling me regularly how glad he is he does not have to be at school. However, if the inspector asks him "where are your paints and brushes?" I bet he will not know, and if asked "What did you do yesterday?", he is likely to answer: "Well, I went to the park and then I watched this movie..." and start retelling the minutia of some cartoon I let him watch after he had done his "homework".

I am also worried because most of his notebooks have stained and creased covers (blee... - a collaboration of the two brothers AND a result of doing work whenever, wherever - on a bus, at lunch... while mummy is making dinner etc etc). It just looks so bad. Yet he does not care nearly as much as I do - a typical boy? All my schoolbooks were neat when I was little, and I took pride in making my own covers for them and decorating the title pages.

Oh well, let me do another Zen breath and hope I shall manage with the basic improvements before tomorrow. Wish us luck!

"School kills creativity": English gentleman calling for edu reform

"School kills creativity": in the words of an older white male, an academic professor and a British "Sir" on top of that, Sir Ken Robinson - unmissable.;)

My wonderful sister Marianka has sent me a link to this video. I find it funny and inspiring, though it left me with a tinge of darkish reflections (which have been in me for a while, Ken Robinson's speech just gave them an occasion to sprout), for instance, how I myself have been affected by the educational system.


Some of my favourite quotes from the speech:

Education takes us into the future we cannot grasp. The kids being educated now will retire in 2067.

Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

Kids are not afraid to be wrong. If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with something original. And by the time they are being adults, most kids have lost that capacity.

(University professors) look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads! 
(Ningasuitok and Marianka - what do say to this one?:) :) ) 

THE LINK:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Please have a look and share some thoughts - do you think school has to be this way? Do you feel your creativity has sufferred? Your children's? Aren't there some small adjustments a teacher could make?
 Btw, POLISH subtitles are available on this video, look closely at the options below the little video screen.

Enjoy!

A breakfast scene

We are having breakfast... I leave to go to the kitchen, to fetch some tea. When I come back, Cooldude is sitting on the sofa, with a very sullen face.

- Voro threw me out of my place! - he complains.

- Well - i say calmly, glancing at Voro, who is serenely  picking bran flakes out of his brother's bowl. -  You are big, so much bigger, don't let him do it. Pick him up and put him on the floor.

I turn to Voro and say to him loud enough for everybody to hear:

- This was your brother's chair. You should not throw your brother out of his place.

Cooldude is sitting motionless. I hold my hand out to him: Come, I will give you a hand, we will reclaim your place together. But he does not grab a hold of my hand, he does not react. This seemed so easy to fix, looking at it from the perspective a mature emotionality. Yet there is no dialogue, no attempt to fix the problem, with my help or alone, on his part. 

He just sulks there on the sofa, looking at me with the eyes of a hurt animal.

WHAT would YOU do??

( I believe in the end he was sitting on my lap... but I do not remember how we got there.)

"I hate school!"

Firstly, thanks for the wonderful support I received from many friends and acquaintances since the announcement of our homeschooling decision. It is much appreciated. I also got asked many questions, so here is the background to my homeschooling decision (some of it, anyways) - a typical morning from earlier this month:

Cooldude woke up well, that is without any problems nor moaning. Then at breakfast he says: 
- Mamo, dam ci zagadlke (I will give you a quizz question)
and he starts tapping on the table. 
- Is that morse code? 
- Yes. 
I read: S... O... „SOS”. I'd rather not read too much into it, but my heart feels his seriousness. I hug him. 
- Do you need help, darling? 
He nods, and then flings his head back, yelling theatrically: “I don't want to go to schoooool!”. It is half tongue in cheek, but only half so; controlled, but nevertheless a scream from his heart.

He has no problems at school. He does well academically, has friends, and there are no bullying problems involved. And this year, he even has an excellent teacher. Yet despite all that there hasn't been one single day in all of his education (now 3^rd yr at primary, that is in the British system, Year 2) when Cooldude would go to school enthusiastically.

What gets ingrained in a child who repeatedly does not want to go to school? A child otherwise smart, willing to learn, but only according to his or her own plan?

Over the years, it may well become something along these lines:

• I have no power over reality, I am helpless. I HAVE to adjust.
• Life is hard and is gonna be this way.
• My plans? They do not matter. My ideas? They do not matter.
• I have no power to follow what I am really interested in.

My 7 yr old complaining: “Oh, I would like to have a week free. A year free. A free life!”

He does not want to grow up, because grown up life is so hard.

I have my own small enterprise and love working part-time, so the idea of him being at home every day is overwhelming. Yet one day I also had to think: how will I face him when, as a teenager or a young man, he learns that there WAS an option for him not to go to school, but his parents never gave it to him?

And slowly the realization was dawning, that if I do not try homeschooling, I may always regret it.

Cooldude is a child with a vision. He loves to learn, but in his own time and – on his own terms. We had trouble having to plough through so many „boring” school assignments, when then, at bedtime, he would pick up an atlas or an encyclopedia and not want to put it down.

To me, the decision about homeschooling is not so much about giving him a better education (we were relatively pleased with his school, despite the usual little glitches). It is about shaping my son's view of the world – how he relates to the world around him, what responsibility he is allowed to take.

We have decided to homeschool!

Welcome to all who venture here,

This week, we have taken one of the Big and Scary and Life-changing decisions: our older son is going to be homeschooled, probably for a few years.

I wanted to have a blog on parenting issues and raising boys for ages now, and it seems that the advent of homeschooling is a wonderful occasion to actually make it happen. I hope to share any "tricks of trade" here with other parents, or childless but otherwise enlightened souls :)

I will post pictures here for all, and especially friends, to enjoy, but I decided against using our son's real names (why make them forever google-searchable?). So, the younger one will feature as Voro, which is in fact a well accepted family nickname. The older one, who just turned 7 this week, is however outgrowing his nickname of Bambor, and since he announced yesterday (proudly carrying his skateboard, his hood covering half of his thin face): "Mum, I don't want to be a star wars guy any more, I want to be a cool dude!" I think it is most fitting. Henceforth, he shall be known here as CoolDude.

This is it for my first post (yay, I made it!), I shall update the next sleepless night on the begginning of our homeschooling voyage... and thereafter other issues as well.