Full Swing (Mostly)

Well, it's been a long fortnight of ups and downs and Shrodinger's Cars in shops! But we've made it to mid-September! No more nasty little summer. Meteorological Fall is about to be backed up by the Autumnal Equinox. 

Let's do this!

After a gradual ramp up, we've arrived: School is pretty much back in session!

How's it going? Well, busy! Sometimes. It's all relative. 

Mondays this year are a bit extra!

It begins bright and early at the public school with an art class. This is the first of two public school art classes, because you can never have enough. Being the first class of the school schedule, we actually have to get up and get out of the house before the sun, which is a bit of an adjustment given the waking time has been creeping back to compensate for the creeping back bedtime.  

After art class, there's some time at home to be surly and ornery and insist we're "just not feeling math" today. No really, we're just not in the mood for multiplication. Addition is meh. Naw to the fractions. Pshaw decimals. Exponents? Don't make me puke out a hyperbola!

After some protracted struggle/strikes/minor riots, summoning of the Pinkerton Boys, and the occasional appearance of the National Guard, a dabble of math is finished under registered protest with the UN and the Hague. After this, we both retreat to our corners for a brief while until homeschool co-op time!

Co-op this semester starts with an ornithology class. Technically it's for kids aged 6-10 but it's birds and therefore non-negotiable. As Allan happily announced to the entire class within minutes of the first class, I lied about her birthday (only by a couple weeks) to register her. I know... Shame on me. But I'd do it again. It's a bit entertaining that I did this because she really ought to be in the chemistry class that I've been campaigning for ever since she did the earlier chemistry class last year and insisted it was THE BEST class ever!! But... birds. 

Anyways, the teacher actually does know her stuff, both about birds and about navigating eager young learners' enthusiastic caterwauls. And while it isn't as rigorous or detailed as Allan's outschool class (the one with the teenagers with equivalent levels of neurodivergence and expertise), it seems fun and informational. Also, next week they will be building a giant bower in the style of Bert the Bower Bird. So, kudos. 

Allan gets along with most of the kids anyways, so it works out. They are all feral as fuck, both being younger and homeschoolers, so the class is pretty wild. And in the future, I will be bringing ear plugs. 

**

After an hour or so of bird related nonsense, the class lets out and Allan goes on to an art club. The art club is mostly attended by younger kids that Allan knows and gets on with. 

Last year, I spent most of Allan's classes out reading in a hallway, but eventually I was delicately encouraged to attend the classes as well. I think the older kid-groups are usually pretty mellow, but the younger age groups tend to benefit from as many parent helpers as can be borrowed, so I started the day with ornithology and continued on to the art club as well.

 This time, the club also had a teenager - fifteen-year-old, so that level of TEEN - show up and skulk about the edges of the room, occasionally grumbling in that particular voice that quirky teenage boys have. The flashbacks. I have had "this kid" in almost every flipping arts group and class of my high school years. I can't believe they still make them like this!

The very class went something like this: 

Kiddo (Teacher's son and Allan's friend): raise your hands if you play Roblox.

(Other kids raise their hands)

Awkward teen (speaking from a corner with an irate projection one expects from amatuer theater Shakespeare): I hate Roblox!!!

Kiddo : I play Roblox too. You would think I'm too small for it wouldn't you? I'm six. I bet you think I'm too young for it. But I play Roblox. What do you like in Robox?

Awkward kid (deeply vexed ... KIDS THESE DAYS off-my-lawn energy): How about you read some Dickens, kid?!?!?

Kiddo: is that a Roblox game? 

Aside: Dickens?? I mean, Dickens is fun enough for some melodrama and your average run on sentence, but I don't usually think of him as the edgy literary snob teen's lit du jour! I dunno, how about we suggest the six-year-old read Baudelaire? Rimbaud? Sartre? Kafka? We should save the Nietzsche for 17 but... I have a list of things I read as a pretentious fifteen-year-old. Happy to lend it.

Naturally, Allan (or was it me?) was absolutely chomping at the bit to let everyone know that Charles Dickens owned a raven named Grip who is featured in the novel Barnaby Rudge which she has never read and never ever intends to read, but isn't it interesting about the raven?

Shortly after, the awkward teen gave a rather impassioned speech in response to the ice breaker question, "what is art to you?"

He did so while pacing dramatically like a makeshift Macbeth seeing the woods approaching.

Particularly that art is anything that makes you feel (as he gestures to the sky), but also there's something that distinguishes bad art (unicorn throw up graffiti on a trashcan, I believe was considered art but uninspired) from good art (I have no memory of what he thought this included because I was not paying much attention).

Honestly, I'm sure he's a good kid, but I feel like boys like this absolutely monopolized enough of my theater groups and general undiagnosed neurodivergent youth circles and I'm done indulging them with my even feigned attention.

I stick with Allan's answer, which started with something like "Art is fun". Sure, we could get all Philosophy of Aesthetics about it like we all absolutely needed to in college, and, sure, not all art is intended to be "fun"I guess... but life is short. Let art be fun when it's fun and I'll leave off to my generalized shrug about a platonic definition of the form, because philosophy is for the twenty-year olds. The rest of us have got lives and things to do.

The rest of the kids stayed at the table and decorated paper however they felt, until the teen came back in the room with a chess board and asked who wanted to play him.

Kiddo, the six-year-old, was game. His mom warned Teen that Kiddo had never played chess, so he explained the rules rather intensely and relentlessly to six-year-old Kiddo, who was largely staring off into space and heard none of it. The other kids gathered round to watch. Teen trounced Kiddo with exceptional chagrin. Seems he has yet to meet a nemesis worthy of his chess skillz. At least in the art class dominated by 6-year-olds.

Aaaaanyways.. Ornitholgy, then art and then...

After art club, of course it's playground time, which tends to range from an hour to "ohmigod I'm exhausted, I forgot to eat lunch and I have a backache AND a headache, can we leave already????" But the kids have fun running around screaming and throwing pinecones at each other until somebody starts crying. Usually, it's the third or fourth major injury that triggers the mass exodus.

They seemed to have a blast, despite a wide array of screaming and a smattering of the child equivalent of cursing (although I swear like a grandiloquent sailor, Allan has only ever cursed once and was immediately embarrassed by her slip up - she is thoroughly buying into my strategy wherein she rebels against me by never swearing at all)

So.... that's Monday. Yep. Monday. Everything else seems pretty speedy from there.

Tuesday is actually quite mellow, as Allan only has one Outschool class. Well, this week she had to go to the doctor and get a handful of vaccines, but usually. Of course, Monday was an absolute bear, so Tuesday is perhaps not the most productive of all days. We survive. We wade through some material. We rest.

Wednesday is a bit more involved, but luckily the return to the public school isn't until nine, which makes a world of difference. Allan also has a writing class shortly after. It's a somewhat fun class (I asked Allan if she liked it and she said, "Mmmmm I dunno!" which is better than hating it), and I like the work with organization. But I swear, this teacher is trying to teach them to write like AI. All those catchy hooks and little catch-phrases. 

Anyways, we're sticking it out for a little while and then we'll see where we land. Later, we actually happily do our American History and quite unhappily do our math. And eventually work in another Outschool class. 

Thursday is our visit to the horses, meaning we do almost no other topics, except listen to an ornithology podcast in the car, read a few magazines and do some "Math review," which is just a form of color-by-number for various math equations and facts. Allan still protests but far less vehemently. She's admitted this is actually quite fun, and the protest is more symbolic. 

Friday is art class again! Or will be! Followed by her online ornithology class. And hopefully the other subjects. Eventually. The ornithology class gets elaborate notes that then must be reviewed, illustrated, and color coded and this can take actual hours. And by that times, well, TGIF, nobody is getting any more work done! So... we get to what we get to. 

I constantly swing between feeling like I'm worrying to much about formalities and that we're doing way too little. 

It is wild to me how much time is devoted to each subject in public school. Two hours on ELA, 90 minutes on math.... 45 minutes on Social Studies and another 45 on Science. I don't know what I thought they did in public school, but it never felt like that much when I was there. 

I mostly remember recess, gym, art and chorus, as well as whatever school plays I did. I have almost no memory of ELA or math, which might correlate to how I also have very limited recollection of how it felt to give birth other than not being able to pee in a cup and being concerned to hear that the nurse couldn't find the cervix (literally the panic was "oh no, it's gone missing?? How will I give birth without a cervix??? Oh, wait...").

 But I guess at least they claim they are doing a fairly rigorous schedule. 

Which also confuses me. Everyone is chagrined at how poorly students are doing recently, while also bemoaning the decline of recess and the academicization of kindergarten (which is developmentally a bit dubious, I really have to say). 

Are we just making school harder and harder while student outsource more and more of it? I'm not sure I understand the disconnect. I know, I hear that everything is getting dumbed down and the use of tech in school hasn't been hugely successful. But still. It baffles me a bit.  

Whenever I go through the fairly amorphous Washington state standards for fifth grade classes, it feels like unless my child is writing small PhDs on a weekly basis. I must be doing something wrong! Even though apparently college students can't do basic math, write a sentence or speak in coherent sentences according to a remarkable number of chagrined professors writing long essays online. 

As you might have inferred, we mostly have fallen into a lax structure with a lot of unschooling influences. Unschooling makes me nervous, but also, attention is a tenuous thing, burn out is a real issue and focus only lasts in bursts. 

I do, however, acknowledge that Allan reads on her own most evenings. I acknowledge that she journals of her own volition. I also acknowledge that I read several books to her that are typically science or history related (usually from two or three different ones each day at various points). I further acknowledge we listen to educational podcasts and that she chooses a lot of educational Youtube content. I even futher acknowledge that Allan plays with word puzzles for fun and has subscriptions to several magazines. That she sporadically journals. And that might change how much formal education offers benefits over benign neglect. 

But still! Girl hasn't written a single 50 page PhD yet! 

Ah well. Somehow, we will survive. I take comfort that maybe the schools aren't sure how to do it either. And somehow, we all still seem to be 

Aaaaanyways. Enough of this school nonsense! The weekend is here and it's time to feel super aimless and wander around wondering what I'm supposed to do, despite there being about fifty chores I typically schedule for these two weekend days. 

Hizzah!