Vision versus Reality

You know, I've blogged before about the disconnect between what I want my home school to look like and what it actually does look like. But since we've started a new school year, I think I need to refresh my memory and reaffirm that it's okay for home school to look completely different than my vision. Because, really, home school is not all about me and what I want and what I need. The children's needs and wants have to factor in, also. Otherwise, we'll all go crazy and I'll end up chaining them to the dining room table and slashing at the air above their heads with a yardstick, my denim jumper wet with sweat from my fervent exertions. (Please note I have nothing against denim jumpers. I just associate them with crazed militant home schoolers. This association is not real or accurate, it is simply one that lodges in my mind and comes forth whenever the control freak side of me threatens to take over. It's a mental checks-and-balances system that keeps me from losing my grasp of reality.)

I want my home school to be neat, organized, run on a tight schedule that ticks away the time in fifteen minute increments that we always meet and check off on a chart on the wall. I want to know what we're doing, what we've done, and where we're going, at all times. I do not like bugs and mud and sheets strung around my kitchen and all the bed pillows piled up in the hall because guess what, Mama, it's a spaceship! However, my children thrive on all the above inconveniences and so I must compromise a bit. They have to compromise, too, and do their boring old stupid old why do I have to do this old math. And I compromise by waiting at the back door with towels to bustle them off to the tub after a delightful muddy afternoon.

Decoupage. I'm down with this craft. It's in our syllabus, we can relate it to the Colonial Americans, and it is something tangible that I can point to and tie in with what we are learning. The big girls were happy doing it, I was happy, the home school world was balanced. But then a few days later, it rained and....

....they went outside and collected bugs in a small drawer that was designated for school supplies but co-opted to be a bug habitat, complete with wild onions and decayed leaves. I clearly was the loser here, because I did not want them to do this. It was messy, not related to our home school science curriculum, and it was messy. Obviously, I did not stop them from making Chez Bug. I smiled and said, "Wow! Looks great! Nice job!" And took pictures. That's what home school moms do.

The baby enjoyed the mud that day. Muchly. 

MOS also partook of the mud and found it much to his liking. 

GG2 made bestest friends in the whole wide world with Buggy, a doodlebug. And isn't he cute, Mama? He can come and live in my room! and I will make him a house and feed him....what do doodlebugs eat, Mama? And I will sing to him and tell him a bedtime story and.... 

You do not want to know what the bathtub looked like after Superman here cleaned off. Love his unibrow.

All that to say, perhaps you are struggling a bit in your home school right now, too. Maybe it doesn't look like your vision. Maybe it's messy and unstructured and a bit chaotic and dirty and filled with creepy crawlies when clearly it is time for math, not bugs. Take comfort in the fact that I am in the midst of it, too. But my children are still so young and I think, no, I know, that time for bugs and mud is every bit as important as subtraction and copy-work and spelling. In fact, I think that for little ones, bugs and mud far surpass many other school subjects in importance. Not that I neglect those other areas, but perhaps we might do a few extra pages of math on a rainy day so that as soon as the sun peeps out enough to bring the bugs out of the ground, a backyard full of delight is waiting. Good luck and I hope you don't let your kids brings all those bugs inside (shudder). You'll be happy to know that Buggy was released from whence he came, free to live and enjoy the mud and to be captured another day.