blairmacg | Entries tagged with homeschooling

When I pulled Dev out of his Montessori school halfway through his third-grade year, I had no idea we'd still be homeschooling through high school.

Now, he's wrapping up his final classes: chemistry, Italian, composition, media literacy, and entrepreneurship. (His senior class schedule was way more impressive than mine: English, humanities, drama, teacher's aide, and study hall.)

I'm putting together the last of his high school transcript for his official graduation in July. His final school project will be a portfolio giving an overview of the academic and experiential learning he completed for each subject. As we discussed it tonight, he kept saying, "This is all I have left, really?" and "Wow, we did do all that!"

This is the joyful part of homeschooling. Helping my son look back on the last four years--the years without his father, coincidentally--to assess what he has done as a primarily self-directed learner, and be proud of what he has accomplished. He will have completed the core diploma requirements, of course, and can add to that coursework and experience in business and retail management as well as archeology and anthropology. He has even earned credit for costume design and construction (aka cosplay)!

We've decided to do an open-house type of celebration for his graduation, and it'll likely come sometime in June even though we won't quite finish before July. Unbeknownst to him, I bought him the cap and gown, so we will be all official. :) Also unbeknownst, I'll be having a conversation with our karate "family" about holding a celebration at karate camp.

And in the middle of it all, while trying to juggle everything else amidst seeing him through the final months, I sometimes just have to take a breath and realize that yes, indeed, we made it through to the end.

On this snowy day, I'm taking a break from Sand of Bone revisions. My darlings, I know the revision process has gone on far too long--so long that it feels quite irresponsible to take a break of any sort. But, well... Here we are.

I've been reading and muchly enjoying Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy. I could go on and on about how much I enjoy the characters and their interactions, or how tickled I am to see the insides of a revolution amidst a realistically convoluted world. But one of the other things Elliott has done beautifully is measure her characters against the immutability of core morality—but never confuses morality with affiliation. With our own current political climate utterly polarized by affiliation, it's refreshing to watch characters find their allies, question their choices, and make externally-conflicting-but-internally-consistent decisions that are adjusted based upon new information. I haven't finished the trilogy yet, and so look forward to reading the last third of the third that I find myself purposefully slowing my reading so I don't reach the end so quickly.

Not too long ago, I finished Pen Pal by Francesca Forrest, recommend by Sherwood Smith. This, too, deals with revolutions and revolutionaries. One central character finds the strength she needs to endure and succeed by holding more and more tightly to narrowing set of goals. The other central character finds her strength though asking tough questions and adjusting her goals and perspectives. Neither is more right or wrong that the other. The challenges the characters face, and the settings in which they face them, require wildly different approaches even though their goals are essentially the same.

Between those two novels, I've tried repeatedly to sink into Ancillary Justice. It isn't that I haven't liked it—I've really been taken by the concepts, in fact—but I haven't found it as compelling in terms of story. I'll likely return to it after I finish Elliott's trilogy in the hope the story will catch me.

On the nonfiction side, I've been reading The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back. It's as long and detailed as an epic novel, and I've been very pleased with the data used to back up the claims and proposals, but is too much for me to read and process all in one fell swoop. Even so, I'm repeatedly struck by how we continuously make programs and policies bigger and more complicated in an attempt to make life simpler and easier. It's essentially investing millions to teach people to do more with less, rather than investing thousands to ensure there is more to do more with. Forex, when I was living on a thousand dollars a month, I didn't need an expensive training program to help me land a new job. I needed six hundred dollars for new tires so I could drive to the job I was already trained to do. Alas, I qualified for a training program, but there wasn't even a "buy new tires" program to which I could apply.

Next up on nonfiction is How Can You Defend Those People? recommended by Nancy Jane Moore over at Book View Cafe. The work of criminal defense attorneys fascinates me. (In fact, when I looked into law school, it was with the goal of working as a defense attorney.)

And now, for a few links:

Hackschooling Makes Me Happy is a TEDx talk from teenager Logan LaPlante. I love what this kid is saying, and adore the "structure" of his education. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have homeschooled more fully along those lines. Really, it wasn't until this year that I completely let go of the curriculum-driven mindset. Would that I had dumped it two years ago!

Fit and Feminist on the neurosis that has permeated The Biggest Loser. I can't tell you how many folks I've seen who are so obsessed with the notion of "healthy weight" that they're driving themselves into illness to get it. An extra ten or twenty pounds is not nearly as unhealthy for a person as a sedentary life or a diet devoid of essential nutrients. And people look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that, if they eat stuff like "healthy" granola and yogurts, they might as well chow down on a candy bar.

Over at Books by Women is an article on coming to writing with a theater background. I love and can relate to her discussion of using the tools of compelling theater to write compelling fiction. There is cool stuff there that made me think more about how I use my own theater background.

Lastly, there is The Destructive Power of Publishing. I've never been one to completely and utterly dismiss all that Big House publishing is and can be, but I think I've made it clear why Big House publishing is not for me. For more on that, check out Judith Tarr's series on Escaping Stockholm. This article speaks to those reasons.

I like getting my validation directly from readers. Every sale is an acceptance letter!

Picture a white board hanging on a wall very, very close to a merry-go-round. Picture me sitting on a lovely carved steed on that merry-go-round, black marker in hand, leaning from the saddle to write my story on that white board.

Now picture what happens when the merry-go-round starts up.

That's been my writing brain for the last couple of days—quite determined to make progress, yet spinning around and around after only a few sentences of progress.

Yes, I'm distracted and excited about the training conference I'm attending next week and the possibilities it sets out. It's a big enough deal that I keep putting a clamp on my own excitement before it runs away from me—a reaction my mother considers so dysfunctional, she's decided I need daily talks about positive thinking and believing in one's self. (Personally, I'd say I have an overinflated sense of my own ability to succeed, but what do I know about my own perspective, right?)

No, Mom simply doesn't understand that high excitement short-circuits my ability to actually work. Excitement turns my brain into a motivational speaker: rich in inspiration, lacking in concrete progress. I've learned to stop my own excitement, at times resorting to seemingly worst-case scenario thoughts, before it overwhelms me. Alas, sometimes it appears to others that I simply don't get excited about anything. The truth is I get excited way too easily, about way too much.

But the real distraction at the moment isn't the excitement. Rather, there's a sense of crossing a boundary in time, one of those Stages of Life transitions. Accepting the new training position and its potential benefits puts an end to the phase in which I cobbled together whatever I could to get by so I could be the mother I wanted to be. In order to be home most of the day and continue homeschooling Dev, I gave up the potential income, benefits, and status of a stable and lucrative job. I am very proud of the fact I've run a dojo, written books, taught seminars, and worked with clients all at the same time. On the other hand, none of those pieces have enabled me to move beyond "just getting by" because, as I learned this last year, I couldn't focus on any one of them without giving up much of the others.

But now, Dev is not only closing in on finishing high school, he doesn't need my daily help to get there. And he certainly doesn't need me "taking care" of him any longer. Thus I no longer need to turn down opportunities. I no longer need to let things pass me by.

The other indication of that transition: Dev will be staying home on his own for the six days I'll be gone. He's done a couple days on his own before, but this time, he'll be doing it with a car, and for much longer. He is seventeen, after all, and only three months younger than I was when I completely moved out of my parents' home. My anxiety, as always, isn't over what he might do wrong, but what might happen that's beyond our control. But since I don't think that'll change no matter how old he gets, I'd best just buck up now. :)

Put all that together, and it says my time as a single homeschooling mother is coming to an end. Key pieces of my identity will no longer be necessary.

There is no empty-nest mourning, but no confetti-and-puppies celebration, either. Instead, what sits in my mind is the weighty awareness of transition. Moving ahead and moving onward as my son does the same in a direction of his own choosing.

So... yeah. My mind keeps wandering around those thoughts, peering at them from all angles, and the most profound reaction it comes up with is, "Whoa. Huh. Wow." It's rather distracting.

Today the 30-day blog challenge is to describe a typical day from my life.

I do not have typical days.

The best and the worst thing about being self-employed in three different fields--karate, wellness, writing--while also homeschooling a teenager is that no two consecutive days will be alike. Toss in a sister who works as a flight attendant while parenting my little nephews, parents who love to spend time with extended family, and two crazy-sweet dogs, and it is guaranteed days will be interesting in the ancient proverb sense.

Let's take today, for instance.

Up at eight in the morn (because I suck at early rising) to get laundry rolling and hoe the garden before it gets to muggy. By nine, the garden has been weeded, laundry is well underway, breakfast has been eaten by human and canine residents, and I've settled in to answer wellness emails while Dev works through his assignments in algebra and economics. We talk about Doctor Who somewhere in there. At a few minutes after eleven, Dev and I head out the door, with Dev driving. (We're trying to figure out how to get the time for his driving test in before the end of the month.)

Dev sees his econ/algebra teacher for two hours. In that time, I run to the printing shop to pick up karate-related stuff, then see a karate student at his own factory to provide a private lesson on kata and kicks. We finish ten minutes late, which means I barely make it back to the teacher's office in time. But the teacher is also running late, so all's good. I return phone calls while I wait: a client looking for info on digestive enzymes, the mechanic trying to schedule what might be an all-day job for my car, someone seeking information on karate classes.

By the time we return home, it's a little after two. The dogs dance on their back legs as if we've been gone forever and threatened to never return. Fortunately, the Lab didn't find any unattended food items to devour, and the Bull-Boxer-Rotty didn't tear up anything in his crate, so their greetings were well-received. We indulge in many minutes of playing with the dogs because it makes the entire day better for all involved.

Then came the midday ninety minutes with Dev, when we make something quick and easy for lunch before sitting down to watch one of the nighttime shows we record to watch together. Today was the most recent episode of Falling Skies. I ate a Sloppy Joe and salad. Dev had the Moo Shu left over from last night and a banana.

After the show, we chatted for a bit before Dev had to start his government assignment and I had to be out the door. I reached the dojo just five minutes ahead of both my instructor and my sparring partner. Fifteen minutes of kata work and forty-five minutes of sparring followed. Less than five minutes after the end of practice, I bowed beginning students on the mat for the first class of the evening. Four hours later, around nine, I bowed my last students off the mat. In between, I taught some students a new kata, others a new throw, then worked as both teacher and uki for an hour of multiple-attacker self-defense.

Upon arriving home, a shower--quick and cold--was the second order of business. The first was to hug Dev. Since Dev is working on a Minecraft something or other video and chatting with his international friends, I am left to my own devices: more answering of email, petting the crazy sweet dogs, and writing this post. By eleven, I'll be settled enough to get some fiction in before my eyes begin to cross. By midnight, I'll curl up in bed with my yet-nameless Kindle, and read until I fall asleep somewhere around one in the morn.

And that's about as typical as it gets around here. Tomorrow I'll teach karate again in the evening, and Dev and I will still spend our midday time together, but everything else will be different.

That midday time is most precious to me. Because Dev and I often work evenings, we can't have dinner together very often. Instead, lunch is our time.

Just a general round-up:

1. Dev and I are both so very relieved and happy to "take back" our homeschooling plans. Schooling through Indiana University seemed like a good idea, and probably would have been great about five years ago. Alas, their class work and degree requirements shifted toward "Common Core" at the same time the university cut its staff. We were left with extremely limited class options (no more ability to take dual credit courses, no more flexibility for degree completion, a mere handful of electives) while paying way too much for what had become, essentially, lessons I had to mostly teach anyway. Besides, most of the classes were simply classroom-based methods jammed onto the internet. Online classes must be structured differently to be effective!

After a great deal of research--and confiming of said research with outside sources--I decided to quit fretting over "accredidation" and focus on, y'know, the learning. An increasing number of colleges and universities are standardizing the process of evaluating homeschooled students for admissions, and we have guidelines now on how to prepare and present a homeschool transcript and portfolio. We already have our reading lists, textbooks on every subject but biology and chemistry, an excellent math tutor who can't wait to see how far Dev can go, free courses available online through awesome colleges and universities, and a variety of community professionals who have agreed to show Dev different parts of their career and business. And in August, we begin the homeschool version of Rosetta Stone's Italian.

2. Dev is heading to aviation ground school for high schoolers this summer. My father has taught at this program for years, and Dev would have attended last were it not for a conflict with karate camp. (Last year was his tenth year ata karate camp, and he wasn't about to miss that!). Dev is thrilled, and so am I. For five whole days, I will have nothing to worry about except my own appointments and classes. Woohoo!

3. I'm still coming around, mentally, from the loss of Patricia. Just a few months ago, when it seemed the cancer had been fought back yet again, she and I were discussing moving in together again in about a year and a half. I suppose both of us should have known better than to hope for such time, but neither one of mentioned a second thought. Maybe we both simply needed to believe it.

4. Related to all of the above, everything related to writing is taking far longer than it should. It isn't a matter of inspiration or willingness. It is time. Effing time. One of the things I'm doing to address that is cutting my garden size in half. This is not the year I can spend oodles of time out there during the growing season, or many hours processing the bounty of a large garden at harvest time.

5. Should the universie be willing and Dev be on his game, he will have his driver's license sometime in the next thirty days. We'll do the road test likely in the last week of May, and the written test the second week of June. Dev wants more car than he can afford right now, so we'll likely share a vehicle for awhile. This won't be an issue over the summer--when he plans to stack up a bunch of hours--though I can't see us going much beyond November without a second vehicle.

6. And the dojo? Still humming along. I'm averaging between five and six new students a month, though that will likely drop to one or two over summer months. We're now gearing up for summer camp, less than two months away. Part of me does wish I could attend as a mere student again. Since I'm running the dojo, running Dev's schooling, running my own publishing, and running my new (in development) wellness project, I'm getting tired of being in charge of something all the time!

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Entries tagged with homeschooling

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