School?

We haven't done "school" in months. Occasionally I attempt a pathetic little lesson but mostly the kids have been wild heathen children while mama dutifully churns out her thesis. Normally, I'm more organized then this...and it's not like I'm always working. Mostly, it's that doing school with the kids involve a kind of energy that I just don't have while working on the thesis. This concerns me when I think about working on my Ph.D but then I also think that it's possible to be more organized about the whole thesis thing...and maybe, just maybe my kids will be reading independently? I'm become invested in figuring out how to make homeschooling work.

Why? I'm not sure. When H and I realized that we were not going to Ph.D programs in the fall, we wavered between both of us working and me staying home. I didn't want to go back to teaching public school. I did it for three years, and knew it would not be a good year for me. I also felt sick at putting the kids in school, especially Umberto. But we would be making fairly decent money for the first time in our lives if we both worked. H has been wonderful understanding and kept assuring me it would be alright I stayed home. I decided to take a very part time job teaching a class at UNCC, but really just dedicating myself to homeschooling for a year. I think that if I can a system going next year that we might be able to pull this off.

And it has become important. I like homeschooling, and while I'm not judgemental about anyone who does choice the school route, I really am antischool. I don't get the system or how it works. I hate how learning becomes soiled in such a system. I am not naive enough to think that learning is always joyful. It's not. I am not finding my thesis work to be joyful. But I do love what I do, and even with all the drudgery there are those moments of clarity that make the drudgery worth it. And I am trying to install that idea in my children. Yeah work sucks, and sometimes it's not fun but there are times when the end is this beautiful creation that almost makes it worth it. And I see that happening with them. I don't want to lose that to the system.

Of course there is also the time issue as I call it. H and I are so not schedule orientated. How we make it to anything on time is beyond me (we usually don't' to be honest). But that's us, and homeschooling gives us a bit more flexibility in that area. I love being able to sleep in with my babies, and to stay up late. I enjoy starting school at 11 instead of having to drag them to school at 8. I like being able to switch our plans to the park when we have an unexpected beautiful day. We can leave for Mexico as soon as H and I are done instead of having to wait for Umberto to get done with school. We can take school to Mexico.

I'm hoping that next year I can keep up with this blog a bit more as we hammer out these details.