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Tenacity


We’ve reached a new stage of homeschooling, one in which I am seeing my little self growing up all over again.  Maybe this time I’ll get it right.

What I mean is this: I remember getting angry and frustrated in math.  What I mostly remember is in high school, but somehow I don’t doubt that I got frustrated in elementary school as well.  I remember sitting on the sofa with my dad, him looking at the book and trying to help me with a problem.  But by that point I was already so closed to the process that I could not open up again to get help.  I would sit there and stew and think, “This is so stupid.  Who cares about this.  I hate this . . .” 


Now if only Elisabeth could know that about me, as I sit at the kitchen table and try to help her with long division.  On the one hand, I’m quite excited that she’s gotten to this point.  We are finally to something that is so different from what she’s done.  Related, yes, but new.  And I get to see how she reacts.

She throws her pencil.

Lots of grumbling and sniffles, but then the next day she gets it in a snap and is her cheerful self again.

But in the meantime I see myself, and it is not just my high school math struggling self.  It’s the current me.  

I hate encountering hard things.  A sewing machine bobbin that keeps tangling the thread.  A bread machine that makes bread that doesn’t rise.  A waffle iron that is stuck shut.  A computer issue or a plumbing problem or a complicated bill.  Oh they make me so mad.  I’d like to throw my pencil.

So as I talk to Elisabeth and tell her that I’m glad she’s being challenged and that I know she will figure this out, I hear myself talking to me, and I would like to respond the way Elisabeth is responding: head buried in my arms, elbowing the book onto the floor.

Lately when people ask me about how I enjoy homeschooling, I tell them that I really get a kick out of learning along with my children.  Usually this applies to the history that we’re learning.  I guess it applies to the problem solving skills as well.

Today after a rough start to the morning Elisabeth pulled through and figured out her long division (by the way, the method I’m teaching her is slightly different from how I learned, so there is a bit of a challenge there as well.  But it keeps me humble) . . . we were eating lunch outside.  Highs were in the 60s today, breezy and sunny.  Elisabeth said, “It would be great if we could go fly kites today.”  I thought to myself, “I don’t like flying kites.  I never could really figure it out.  The wind is too gusty today and we have to go to the grocery store and the dry cleaners, and we have a sewing project to start.”  

But then I listened a little better to myself, and noticed my desire to pull away from something hard.  I thought, “Well, it really is a beautiful day.  And this is kite flying season in Germany.”

So I said, “Let’s do it.  Let’s go!”  We got our things together, grocery list and dry cleaning, bags and sunglasses and kites and headed out to Town Green.

And it was fun.  Not perfect, but what do any of us know about perfect kite flying?  We were all running around and clapping, and happy to get the kite up for a little bit longer each time.

We still got the groceries, and got the sewing project started (but the bobbin thread is still jamming, so we’re taking a little break).

This is why I love homeschooling: we all have so much to learn.
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Natalie said…
Good for you for not being bound by your schedule and your list! I'm a box-checker myself. Trying to reform, though.
10:12 PM
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