Stickability, Wobbles and Deep Breaths

We were all really looking forward to craft club this morning as we knew we were going to be having a go at decoupage - and cutting and sticking is always fun!  However, after Youngest had cut just a few things out and stuck them on, he completely ran out of interest, choosing instead to run around & explore.  I managed to cut a couple more bits and persuaded him to help me stick them on (he loves the messy stuff), but he really had had enough and I found myself doing it on my own in the end!  Eldest also needed lots of coaching along.  He didn't want to add a coat of PVA on top of the pictures, no matter how much I tried to persuade him that the finished product would look better.  I think once he'd stuck the biggest pictures on that he wanted, and saw Youngest running around he decided he wanted to be doing the same.  Middle (as usual) held his focus for the longest - he knew what he wanted to do, and he carried on until it was done.  He didn't want to do the final coat either though, so all three boxes still need finishing off really, although as long as the boys like them, I guess that's all that matters - not whether or not they look like my vision of what could have been achieved! 

 

  

The 'running around' that followed was encouraging from a 'socialising' point of view - they were totally relaxed and playing really nicely with the other children there.  However, the experience kind of reiterated my concerns of the last few days really - feeling frustrated by the shortness of the boys' attention spans, or their inability to stick to a task they have started - and my not having a clue about how to tackle it in a helpful and meaningful way.  The things is, it's not like being in school would help them - they just used to get bored by having to complete seemingly pointless goals, and would either daydream or get destructive - so I'm not thinking Home Ed is wrong for them, I'm just wondering how to try to deal with it... or if I should even bother.  As another Home Edder on Facebook commented, "the ability to stop when you are no longer interested in something is also important", and she's right, of course - I just think a few minutes (the average time that my lot seem to spend on anything new) isn't really enough to decide if something is worth doing... is it?  So I'm having a bit of a wobble. 

I do know that we are still in the "deschooling period", so there is no pressure *takes relaxing deep breath* - and I'm also aware that this 'wobbling' has been provoked by the responses to an article I posted a link to the other day: Seven Lessons I Teach.  I still think this is a really helpful article, but not all of the responses to it were so appreciative.  Admittedly only one of the negative ones (from an American professor) spoke from personal experience - the others seemed to be speaking from uninformed prejudice against HE, using personal attacks and insults.  However, it made me think more (not a bad thing) - it's the first time I've felt the need to justify Home Ed as a philosophy (I know, that's a rare thing, and I do appreciate how blessed I am to have the support of everyone around us).  The only argument that I felt had any validity was the afore-mentioned American professor who said that from his experience, home-schooled students "are very rarely competent or well-trained scholars... not infrequently have a wayward approach to study... and usually do not know how to deal with their peers when it comes to debate and group learning".  I have to admit that the thought of this proving true for my boys does bother me... but why?  After all, academia is not an end in itself.  Surely academic success is a means to an end: a qualification is lovely if it is useful, but what's the point of it otherwise?  Just to prove that you have brains?   I think it's the "rarely a competent scholar" bit that bothers me (the "wayward approach to study" - well, who cares how they study as long as it works for them?  My own approach was pretty wayward, and I went through the state system)... but I wonder what he means by competent scholar.  My immediate assumption is one who is disciplined in their approach to research and who can study until understanding is attained - but is that because it's at the front of my mind at the moment?  If I go back to my thoughts from this past weekend, I just need to remind myself that the point of Home Education is we learn as we go along.  Where my boys are at now is not where they'll be in five-to-ten years time.  As other more experienced Home Edders have reassured me, a reluctant learner can and will turn into an enthusiastic learner (or dare I say, 'competent scholar'?) when faced with something that interests them (and if it doesn't interest them - why bother?) *takes another deep breath*. The main thing is to find out what interests them, by presenting them with a whole raft of potentially interesting things, and then equip them with everything they need to pursue those interests.

So back to this morning... the fact is, the boys did stick with their sticking this morning - for as long as they wanted to - and just because it wasn't as long as I wanted them to, why is that wrong?  Well - it isn't.  Just because the venue is booked for two hours, it doesn't mean they have to fill that two hours with one designated activity, just to satisfy some strange sense of obligation.   In fact, having taken photos of their boxes to post here, I think they look really great!  If I insist that what they have done isn't finished when they think it is, I risk instilling a sort of disappointed perfectionism in them - a sense of it 'never being good enough' which can lead to 'what's the point of trying?'  And that is so far from what I want for them - boy, do I ever just need to relax!  So,*blows raspberry* at American professor with his academic point and *rolls eyes* at my own fretting.  Not only are we deschooling, we're also learning all the time - and we're doing just fine!

PS Having just posted this, I found a blog that could have been written especially for me today, by one of my favourite Home Ed writers, so I'm sharing it here: Imagine (Ross Mountney)