Some Days

Yesterday, I had a pity party. It was triggered by mundane experience, and I’m still not sure why discouragement hit with such force. Maybe it’s been building for awhile.

In history, Younger Daughter listened to Story of the World on the Thirty Years War, then couldn’t answer many questions about it. So I made her reread the chapter. But she still didn’t absorb much. Then she produced a narration, dictated to me and then copied — sloppily. So I made her rewrite it. Meanwhile, Older Daughter was fighting distractions trying to produce an outline of the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia spread on the Thirty Years War. So I helped her sort through the wearying, complicated strands, not terribly interested in it all myself.

When I had kids, I figured they would go to school like “everyone else.” I never thought I’d be home educating. I don’t have a file of alternative approaches when someone struggles. Lectures on excellence, and “Do it again,” seem to be what I have to offer. I’ve enjoyed teaching in group settings, but one-on-one, though it’s a highly efficient method of instruction, has none of the synergy of a large group. It’s me, the child, and a book.

My daughters are learning the way I did in the very last stage of my doctoral degree, when I was preparing for qualifying exams and then writing my dissertation. Most days, for many hours, it was me and some books. Books, not entertaining lecturers, were the sources of knowledge.

That has an up-side. There is, after all, a study being touted today because it contains the wonderful news that a majority of the facebook generation actually read “a book” last year. Rah. We’re in good shape with books. But I wish for more for my daughters — I wish they could have dynamic human teachers who translate the material in entertaining and inspiring ways. I’m an intermediary between the girls and the books, but not a particularly dynamic one.

We went out to a park after everyone reached the finish line. Older Daughter played with a boat she had painstakingly designed and built with her grandfather.

Younger Daughter threw rocks, weeds, leaves, mudballs, and anything else that could be detached and thrown, for the dog, who proceeded to get wetter and dirtier than Harry the Dirty Dog.

Giant sycamore leaves sailed to the ground, plopping into the water and rustling into weeds.

A huge cloud of blackbirds chattered in the treetops, moving around in synchronized fashion like the fish in Finding Nemo.

I read up to page 50 (out of 700+) in an Elizabeth Goudge novel, reading aloud some of the descriptions because the girls kept wondering what I was chuckling about.

I felt better after that. My pity party was over, though none of the problems I’d been so down about before had been solved — just forgotten for awhile.

The freedom to be outdoors, the knowledge the girls had of their environment there, the handmade boat, the simplicity of my daughters’ requirements for fun — all these are beneficial results of this path we’re on. So was the discussion in the car about Gulliver, and the Robinson Crusoe audiobook, and the dinner table discussion about the Battle of Gettysburg. So was the silent reading time, in their beds last night and this morning, that both girls love. Older Daughter’s passions for birds, rocks, and ship building lately are things we have time to indulge. Even the lectures about excellence I’ve been giving lately, lectures that depend heavily on literary examples like Anne of Green Gables and Laura Ingalls, are given because we have a level of awareness of the character and academic issues we have to deal with.

I have not a moment’s doubt that there would be great blessings to other educational approaches too, but I needed to see these ones after the small and deadly discouragements of yesterday. Something about the trip to the park restored my ability to see some things I love about these days.

I’m thankful for the privilege of being able to do this. It’s not a natural strength. But it’s a calling.