Saturday, August 10, 2013

School

To begin with, let's have full disclosure.

This blog is my own opinion/reflection on life. It may be poorly worded or ill-received. You may be insulted. It will certainly be ragingly liberal and totally socialist. There will be accidental Buddhism, and drive-by political commentary. It won't always be logical. I am not trying to insult you, but if you take it personally, well, I apologize in advance. Unless you have issues and are mean. Then too bad for you.

I was getting ready to write that my opinions have nothing to do with my school, but the truth is that there is no way to separate the things I care deeply about from the school that I built from scratch. So although all kinds of students are welcome (and have enrolled), I am an aching, bleeding-heart liberal, a card-carrying Democrat, and proud of it.

That's done.

The subject of this particular blog post is, in fact, school. The start of school to be precise. Since HoneyFern is not enrolling students this fall (except for La), people continually ask me what I am doing with her, where she will go to school.

For the record, she is enrolled in HoneyFern, taking a high school French class with the Georgia Virtual School, studying for the PSAT (her choice), blogging daily (we hope), traveling for the next five weeks (and over the winter holidays), starting a Big History class (my choice), reading (currently on The Giver series after finishing The Great Gatsby), and finishing the tiny house. Oh, and she is also speaking at a tiny house conference in April, so she will be preparing a presentation (with audio/visual and handouts. For adults. #LikeABoss).

In addition to the above academic fare, we get to see things like this on our travels:

 (dancing pickle outside of The Cannery in Intercourse, PA. I was going to get a shirt that said "I <heart> Intercourse" but was, in the end, too cheap to spend $20 on a novelty)
 
And try on hats at Victorian stores in Amish country:
 


And then school starts for everyone else, and it makes me very sad. There are Youtube videos like this one, and a general understanding that parents are thrilled to see their kids go back to school, while kids are sad. My friend's kid told me a couple days ago that she doesn't like school because she doesn't get to spend any time with her parents, and there is too much work (don't get me going about the ineffectiveness of homework, especially for elementary kids). This kid is six.

I love spending time with La; she is an awesome traveler, smart and funny and flexible and ready for most anything. Yes, sometimes she is a total PITA (she is 13, after all), but so am I. We have spent the better part of the last three years together, all day, every day. The idea that I would send her some place that she so clearly hates, in the name of a substandard education, makes me sad.

I am here to focus on what's good with us, not what's bad for the rest of the world, but it is hard to ignore all of the messages of dread emanating from all media about school. I feel so lucky that I am able to do this with and for my kid and me, and I wish that people could see what is really going on behind the curtain of traditional schooling.

Up tomorrow: yoga, picking raspberries and a blues concert at a local winery.

What I'm watching:

Mind = BLOWN

No comments:

Post a Comment