The Merciful Edit

Well, we've been back to lessons for almost two weeks now, and it feels like we never stopped.  The boys and I fell right back into our groove, and I have to keep reminding myself that no one else we know is in the midst of their school year.  I actually assigned the boys watching CNN student news on our first day, and we were all briefly confused when the newest video on the website was from early June.  Then, "Oh, yeah-!  There's no student news when all the students are on summer break!"  I hope we'll remember to pick back up on that resource when the 'school year' begins for everyone else.  Although Sweet Hubby is a bit of a news hound, I tend not to follow current events very closely (too cynical, I don't believe much of anything that's reported), and as a consequence my boys are growing up a bit ignorant of the world around them.

I guess I still have to get around to writing a post about History Odyssey and why I love it so much.  I'll add to that my newfound affection for Microscope Adventure!, a unit study on the use and history of the microscope (this is going to comprise much of Radish's science curriculum for 4th grade, and Primo will do it along with his Holt Life Science textbook, to round things out for his 7th grade science).  What's on my mind today, though, is a tiny moment in our homeschool related to History Odyssey, and the quality of mercy.

A window into my methods as a homeschooling mama: when Primo was small, I used to write out his lessons daily, the night before.  After a year or two of this, I realized that I found it stressful to have to do this each day, and I sometimes had a hard time making the work over the course of the week add up to a satisfying whole.  At some point, I came around to a better way-- I sit down every Sunday and write out lessons for the week, in a little yellow notebook:



I make a section on the page for each day, and divide that into 'Radish', 'Both', and 'Primo'.  Then I list their work, using the textbooks and curricula that they're working from, and figuring out which lesson they need to work next, and also trying to make my best guesses about how much work they can reasonably complete in one day.  That's where the finesse comes in.  It's not unusual for me to under-plan, and have both boys turn up 'finished' after just an hour or two of work.  This is especially frustrating at those times when we've had a bunch of days in a row in which we have had to spend a lot of time out of the house, and then we finally have a good, solid day 'in'.  If the boys finish all their assigned work for the day, they get understandably salty when I say, "Huh, it looks like I didn't give you enough work.  Let's look in the yellow notebook and have you do some lessons listed under tomorrow."

So, sometimes I go too far the other way and load up my planning book with lessons, to make sure they'll have enough to do.  I was starting to do that this past Sunday, I had actually written in my planning book three separate History Odyssey lessons for Primo (we do three days of history each week), when I happened to look closely at the lessons I was assigning.  I noticed that the second one was pretty involved, and included a particular piece (a Record of War or Conflict) that Primo has had a hard time with in the past.  I thought about it for a moment, considering leaving things the way they were, and just letting him stretch things out during the week if he really needed to.  I even called him over to the table and pointed out to him that I was giving him a lot of history work, but that we could cut it down later.  He just said, "Ok," and wandered off to go back to whatever he had been doing.  Then, I chose mercy.  On him, and on myself-- I crossed that third history lesson out.  Drew a pen line right through it.  And breathed.  Nothing broken, just a little extra space in our week.

This is one of the things I continually struggle with in homeschooling my boys.  With my tiny class of one seventh grader, one fourth grader, it can be hard to figure out exactly how much each boy is capable of doing.  I have no basis of comparison, I just have to make it up as I go along, and pay attention to each boy to see if he is bored or stressed by the amount and level of work that I give him.  It can be really difficult to see, though, because neither boy will complain about too much work, nor will they ever ask for more challenge in their lessons.  I used to think that at some point I would notice that the boys needed more, and we would start grade skipping and then they might even outgrow homeschooling early and move on to college work.  Instead, I think that we adjust as we go along, so what I call '4th grade' might not look like '4th grade' level work in school.

I just read a somewhat ridiculous book called The Brainy Bunch, a memoir written by a homeschooling mom and dad who have sent each of their children to college at around the age of 11 or 12.  They have 10 kids, and I can empathize a little with wanting to hurry the older ones out of the nest, with so many coming up behind.  What struck me, though, was that these weren't really success stories, nor did it sound like these were kids who needed more of a challenge.  Instead, the parents had embarked upon a program of rushing their average IQ kids through boxed curricula, and then having them take college entrance exams and start community college when they had reached some minimum level of competence.  One of the oldest daughters had always wanted to be a doctor, but after graduating college at the age of 17 or so, was unable to pass her MCATs to get into medical school.  Instead she ended up pursuing a D.O. degree, and entering the navy as a medical trainee.  Her parents were pleased and proud as could be, but I was left wondering, "what if?"  What if she had been allowed to stay home through her high school years, pursuing biology and doing some kind of medical internship or job?  What if she had entered college, maybe even a four year college, at 17 or 18 and graduated with other kids her own age?  Might she have done better on her MCATs, been able to go to medical school the way she wanted?  How do these kids feel, knowing that their parents expect them to be 'done' with homeschooling at the age when their peers are in middle school?

I was glad this book came to my attention now, as my oldest is just beginning what I think of as the 'transcript years', when he's old enough to conceivably do things that might be interesting or high-level enough to show up on a transcript for college entrance.  Reading what these parents had done, and the results, gave me a push in the other direction.  I don't need my guys to enter college early in order to give my homeschooling legitimacy.  They can take their time and be 'ordinary', I can refuse to step on the crazy train of college expectations that so often is a part of modern parenting.  I want to help my kids find opportunities to do neat things, especially the kinds of things they wouldn't have the time for if they were in school and bogged down with homework.  But the last thing I need them to be, for my sake, is impressive.