I still haven’t taken my annual Back to School pictures. After our less than strong start, I found myself overcome with a desire to simply move on. So I did. But I really don’t want this to be the one year missing from some potential montage of “school through the years,” decades down the road. Will such a montage ever exist? Likely not. But if it did, and 2021 was missing, well… mom guilt. So yeah, I’ll line them up this week and get the shot.
The lack of a formal, posed photo hasn’t hindered actual work. We’re rolling right along and I have to say, it looks like a good year, all things considered. I say it every fall, but this is a transition year. When is it not a transition year? I don’t know. I suspect large families live in a perpetual parade of transition years. Or maybe that’s every family? I can’t tell, but I know what my own personal family has been living since oh, 2014. And it’s been one shift after another.
This year’s New Things are homeschooling with a baby, John Mark in Challenge A, Jack living at home again, my not tutoring, and easing Phineas into a more skills-based form of home learning. Everyone seems to be finding their groove, but as usual, we’ve all had to pivot and show lots of grace. A new tool that’s been helping has been my making a weekly schedule for each homeschooler, complete with time blocks. I am not a fan of such rigid set-ups, but sometimes we have to relent and accept that there’s a time and place even for those things which feel unnatural.
And having an hourly schedule is unnatural. In a homeschooling family, it’s the lifestyle of learning that is the most organic and successful model, in my opinion. Except sometimes, despite our best efforts, we need to re-train the people. We need to remind them that they can move seamlessly from one thing to another without falling into the distraction of Legos, or painting your fingernails, or just simply reading for three hours instead of confronting the dragon that is multiplying fractions. Or better yet— pestering a sibling who is valiantly attempting to stay on target in their own lessons. And oh yes, we need to assure that Momma is available for focused time for specific things with specific children… and not around those delicate pre-nap moments, either.
I’m hoping that we can move away from a set schedule in a few weeks, when we’ve stepped back into our rhythm and can feel that it’s midmorning and we’ve just finished music practice, therefore we should all be moving to gather for poetry and art studies. I suspect it will happen. I hope it will happen.
Because I really do miss the gentle segues and ebb and flow of life-based learning that has been the hallmark of our homeschooling for over two decades. I don’t think it’s over… just waiting in the wings. Once we ride out this latest transition, it will return. And then, of course, we’ll transition again.