work dance

so I have this ongoing conversation with my 8 year old. apparently we have different views on what is the right way to homeschool. I've been doing this for over 10 years at this point, so I feel like I kind of have the weight of experience on my side, but to her that is blissfully irrelevant. her truth is her truth, you know?

so in the interest of full disclosure, I am not by any stretch one of these super-organized, hyper-accomplished homeschool mamas. I let the kids figure out for the most part how they would like to fill their time, but once a kid turns 6 or so, I generally get involved by starting a little (maybe 20 minutes) skill work daily. I personally like to do it in the mornings, kind of knock it out of the way, and then spend the rest of the day playing, doing outings, hanging out with the kids and doing whatever random things they might feel like, or just doing my own thing while they do theirs.

i find that somehow, strangely, in the long run, they learn everything they need to learn this way, and life is pretty chill. i'm lucky to have the proof in my 15 yr old who started school at 13 and was immediately placed in all honors classes, and is doing just dandy to this very day. I would actually say that, more than doing dandy, she knows exactly who she is in an environment that aims to make everyone pretty much the same, but that would be a subject for another moment.

anyway, I know all this probably sounds like utter insanity to the vast majority of people, but I've seen this basic truth in action (that children have an innate drive to learn, if we just get out of their way) so infinitely many times, it's second nature. but, I digress.

so, as far as a schedule, pretty loose. a casual observer might say so. however this child of mine sees a whole different picture.  apparently, i'm some kind of homeschool jail warden, heaping untold quantities of cruel and unjust work on her head. running with mark twain's definition of work (work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do) she kind of has a point. and i stand by the fact that i want her to have basic math and hebrew skills (her english skills are through the roof - she reads books written for adults happily and expresses herself with a frighteningly adult vocabulary.)

the part that gets tricky is that she inherited a certain tendency of mine to argue and turn situations upside down even when she doesn't fully believe what she is saying. she literally has a counter argument for every word out of my mouth when she is in one of these anti-work moods. "why do i need hebrew and math if i'm not going to be a rabbi OR a cashier??" "if you get to tell me to do work, i should get to tell you to do work, and not fun work, boring work like learning a language you don't want to know" "when you make me do work, it uses up all my work and learning energy, and i never get a chance to learn the things i actually want to learn, like about volcanoes and mushrooms! you are making me hate learning!" (this last one on the point of tears, lip quivering with ultimate sorrow.) that one especially hitting a nerve, as this is kind of the ultimate fear of any homeschooler. (the whole knowing exactly where you are vulnerable, she inherited, like her sister before her, but that's also a subject for another time.)

so this is where we stand, she and i, kind of doing this dance every few days. i'm not ready to make the leap into fully unschooling - though she claims she will for sure only unschool her children, because she will respect them! not like she is disrespected! i do hear some of her points; there is a fundamental truth about how she feels, and i get it.

but i also see her when she does her hebrew or math work - she is mostly doing beautifully and engaging (at least on good days) with the material, and honestly, it doesn't seem like quite the extreme form of torture she'd have you think it (though she'd say she is a really good pretender.) and i see many hours of her day, wide open and unplanned, and maybe i can help her find a way to fit volcanoes and mushrooms into those.

i don't know. maybe i'm a little bit kidding myself - its not just her energy for "work" that wanes, but mine - if i excitedly brought her a volcano experiment or whatever, i think she'd do both.

i guess we'll see where this goes - truth is, one of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is the fact that there are just these vast swaths of time in which these kinds of dialogues and dances can unfold. we don't have to have an answer this moment. and I'm willing to bet vast swaths of cash that my 8 yr old will not let this issue peter out any time soon.