It's Tuesday lunchtime. It's two and a half weeks since I started feeling unwell (I'm never ill for more than a couple of days normally!) and it's a week and a day since pneumonia diagnosis. I'm finally breathing a bit more easily and I've made it til lunchtime withough feeling the need to go back to bed. Progress.
I have been absolutely astonished by how my children's education has continued. We've had some bizarre moments when I've been lying coughing my guts up and Florence has come up to me excitedly 'Mammy! 40 x2 is 80!' or 'Mammy! I can count in sixes!'. Isaiah came in on my very worst day waving the atlas which he'd found who knows where 'Mammy! I can find Manchester and Hull, where are we?!' and Martha yesterday 'What's an Inuit?' The games cupboard has been regularly emptied and made good use of before I've dragged my carcass through in the mornings, the maths blocks have been put in groups of three and six, various cards urging my swift recovery have been fashioned with all sorts of materials, little notes covered in the words of Mamma Mia songs litter the place, in Isaiah's case fiction books have been read and strewn around, the girls have been getting old photos and scrapbooking ...and baby dolls have been taught in 'school' in the bedroom :-)
The whole experience has put me in mind of Terri Dowty's wonderful book and the chapter she wrote in it 'Lesson's from the leg break fairy' about how when she started home ed the first thing that happened was she broke her leg and was laid up for a term, and she was amazed by how her boys got on with it and educated themselves. In my case that would be the pneumonia fairy then I suppse :-)))
I have lots to mull over in terms of structure, or lack of it, and how it relates to education, or whether letting my children channel themselves is a better approach ... they've really thoroughly dug into everything they've chosen for themselves this last couple of weeks rather than dash it off in two minutes and move on to the next thing 'right done can we play now?!' but would I dare be comepltely autonomous, and would it be a good idea for my children to do exactly what they wanted all day every day? (wouldn't happen anyway with four of them to take into account).
I suspect the answer for us is somewhere in the middle. watch this space, I'll bet we gradually swing from autonomous to regulated and back again several times over the years depending on what's happening and with who - things are never static around here.
Off to make that lunch then I desperately need to hit the horizontal!
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2 comments:
I hope you ar efeeling a bit better. We swing between autonomous and structured to semi structured and back again - have done all the 8 years we have been HE lol. It makes life interesting anyway:)
Do hope you are feeling heeps better since you wrote this post.
In the 3 1/2 years we've been HEing, I've pondered so many times about autonomous learning. Like you, I find subjects that my two decide they need to find out more about, they actually do take the time to really learn about it. Other stuff, just gets done as quickly as possible. What's the point of that!? I find it such a big step to completely go autonomous, but deep down I feel that my two would probably do well this way.
Good luck with your decision. I'll look forward to reading more about your HE life.
Elaine
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