Last week was a productive one at Stratford Grammar School. Dagfari wrote his first college paper, for the 200-level art history class he's taking at WFU, and he also mastered (more or less) the 3 times table.
The former was his idea: he's auditing the class, so he doesn't have to do the papers or exams, but he insisted on it. The latter was accomplished with considerable coercion from me. He supposedly learned the multiplication tables in 3rd grade, his last year of non-home schooling. But they never really stuck, and it's frustrating to do more advanced math when you have to multiply using your fingers. So we're back at it. My latest strategy, suggested by another homeschool mom, is to do one fact per day. It seems to be working better than anything else we've tried.
Dagfari still resists math in all forms, mostly because it takes time away from things he really wants to study-- such as Luxury Arts of the Middle Ages, his art history class which he's absolutely loving. I worried a bit that D would get bored by a systematic study of art history, but he's taken to it like a duck to water. And his paper isn't bad.
So it's been a good week. And I'm reminded of the moment that sealed our homeschooling fate when D was 8 years old: the educational psychologist looking at his test results admitted that there was no appropriate school placement for him in our city. I guess it's not too suprising that there's no school for an 11-year-old who's working at maybe a 5th grade level in math, college level in art history, and somewhere in between for all his other subjects. Homeschool, on the other hand, is a perfect fit.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Living the Complicated Life
I have to admit, I love those simplify-your-life, organize-your-house magazine articles. All those pictures of rooms with wide open expanses of floor and clean horizontal surfaces. Stuff stashed neatly in shelves, cubbies, and bins. I should know better than to think I could achieve anything like this at my house, but once in a while I try.
Last weekend it was time to tackle Dagfari's room, which in its natural state looks like a hurricane just went through (those of you who have seen it know that I'm not exaggerating). ProfDad got a spiffy new label maker from Costco, so I categorized D's art supplies-- which he was storing in a heap on the floor-- and put them into a bunch of neatly labeled plastic bins. It looked quite good, if I do say so myself.
And was Dagfari happy about this? Um, no. He was incensed. Why? Because "No one will take me seriously as an artist if I keep my supplies in labeled bins! Can you imagine Jackson Pollock with his paints in labeled bins?!!"
No, but I can imagine Jackson Pollock's mother despairing of ever again having a clean house.
At any rate, Art Boy can rest easy for the foreseeable future, since there won't be time for any big organizing projects. Our semester is in full swing, plus we have this year's BookMarks Festival coming up in less than two weeks. I'm serving as acting head of my department, probably for most of the academic year, and ProfDad is teaching four classes and serving on the University Committee from Heck. Oh, and we're still trying to arrange for the deconstruction and reconstruction of half of our house. Somewhere in there we also have to educate the boy. It doesn't appear that I'm going to be simplifying my life anytime soon.
Dagfari is loving the art history class he's auditing at WFU. It's exactly what he needs right now-- an introduction to the methodology and context of art history from someone who knows what he's talking about. So I'm bringing him with me on campus three mornings per week and hoping to recruit a student to hang out with him for a couple of hours before class. ProfDad has him on Thursdays, his Albanian Grandma takes Tuesdays. We're working on scheduling a couple more classes and companions to round out the week. Everything else has to get done between 5:30 p.m. and whenever we fall asleep. This will probably start to feel more manageable when we don't have BookMarks meetings once or more per week.
My friends with brick-and-mortar schooled kids are talking about early bedtimes and clean, quiet houses this week. I can't say this doesn't sound appealing. When we undertook this homeschooling with two full-time jobs experiment, we knew it would complicate our lives, and it has. But we never even considered sending D off to middle school this year. And I'd likely be even more stressed out if we had; it's become quite apparent that there's no way for D to fit comfortably in the traditional classroom. So for now we're living the complicated life, and yes, it's worth it.
Last weekend it was time to tackle Dagfari's room, which in its natural state looks like a hurricane just went through (those of you who have seen it know that I'm not exaggerating). ProfDad got a spiffy new label maker from Costco, so I categorized D's art supplies-- which he was storing in a heap on the floor-- and put them into a bunch of neatly labeled plastic bins. It looked quite good, if I do say so myself.
And was Dagfari happy about this? Um, no. He was incensed. Why? Because "No one will take me seriously as an artist if I keep my supplies in labeled bins! Can you imagine Jackson Pollock with his paints in labeled bins?!!"
No, but I can imagine Jackson Pollock's mother despairing of ever again having a clean house.
At any rate, Art Boy can rest easy for the foreseeable future, since there won't be time for any big organizing projects. Our semester is in full swing, plus we have this year's BookMarks Festival coming up in less than two weeks. I'm serving as acting head of my department, probably for most of the academic year, and ProfDad is teaching four classes and serving on the University Committee from Heck. Oh, and we're still trying to arrange for the deconstruction and reconstruction of half of our house. Somewhere in there we also have to educate the boy. It doesn't appear that I'm going to be simplifying my life anytime soon.
Dagfari is loving the art history class he's auditing at WFU. It's exactly what he needs right now-- an introduction to the methodology and context of art history from someone who knows what he's talking about. So I'm bringing him with me on campus three mornings per week and hoping to recruit a student to hang out with him for a couple of hours before class. ProfDad has him on Thursdays, his Albanian Grandma takes Tuesdays. We're working on scheduling a couple more classes and companions to round out the week. Everything else has to get done between 5:30 p.m. and whenever we fall asleep. This will probably start to feel more manageable when we don't have BookMarks meetings once or more per week.
My friends with brick-and-mortar schooled kids are talking about early bedtimes and clean, quiet houses this week. I can't say this doesn't sound appealing. When we undertook this homeschooling with two full-time jobs experiment, we knew it would complicate our lives, and it has. But we never even considered sending D off to middle school this year. And I'd likely be even more stressed out if we had; it's become quite apparent that there's no way for D to fit comfortably in the traditional classroom. So for now we're living the complicated life, and yes, it's worth it.
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