We started out this school year using a couple of textbooks I picked up for a song and a dance. They should have been just fine as they were cast-offs from the public system and they were, drum roll please, Canadian! Jonam buzzed through his text in one-third of the time I had laid out for him to do it and so he started on the grade eight one. What a let-down. The grade eight text was so full of ridiculous propaganda and not necessary, almost adult themes, that both of us were bored to painful tears. Evan took a break from Emma Serl's Intermediate Language Lessons (he was choosing the blank stare into space option far too frequently) to whip through the text Jonam had had such an easy time with.
Then I started thinking ... the way I write curriculum guides is nothing like the ones I inevitably purchase. That is not at all to say that I don't believe there is anything of value in the things I buy; on the contrary, they are full of insight and wisdom and good, old fashioned learnin ... BUT ... if I look deep down into the convictions and desires of my soul, I find myself wanting to experiment with an un-schooling approach to more and more subjects. Why not start with the one I know I have a firm grasp on, and the kids are actually excited about? Why not teach without regrets?
SO, yesterday I took off in the afternoon to go across the river, to the States. I was looking for Sarah but never did run into her or JenIg. They were probably being far more appropriate about their children's education than I was. Or maybe I need to brush up a whole lot more on my geography (Michigan isn't exactly just a stone's throw away from Tennessee). While I was out, my boys made yet another movie on the webcam a friend gave us. Only this one? All in Latin, with sub-titles. I have never taught my boys more than the initial Latin root words type of stuff, and that happened simply because it was a component in the curriculum I was using at the time (A World of Adventure).
The movie is great, even if they used my homemade strawberry jam to cover the tip of their roman spear with (and I heard that Evan used his unwashed finger to scoop it out). I find it especially fantastic when the butter knife drops to our ceramic tile floor and makes a delicate tinkle rather than a menacing crash. Sound effects will be added for sure.
Last night, Neal and I were having dinner with most of his office co-workers, when the host told us very excitedly (is that word allowed?) that he had unearthed some bones while digging for a job earlier that day. As he dug further, he found a horse shoe and determined it was not a very large human skeleton as he had previously thought. He could barely contain his excitement in the re-telling.
Now, I don't know what anyone at Neal's office really thinks of our homeschooling adventure at all, but I was thrilled that this man could think of no one else BUT our boys while the bones were being revealed. The only thought in his mind was "if I were still a boy, this is exactly the kind of thing I would want someone to give to me" and so he put them in a garbage bag and gave them to us. Talk about amazing! I can only imagine what sort of adventures this long dead horse could have been on, but I know two very intelligent, homeschooled boys who will fill me in on the details.
... and I am positive that I did the right thing when I dumped language.
