Who'schooling: Mae

The following was contributed by Mae (11), when asked what she'd like to share about staying home.
 
I'm here to talk about stuff, and life, and my yard, and stuff that has happened, and is about to happen.

Zelda has become calmer, since my visits to her have become more frequent. Seeing Zelda pawing at the gate makes me want to stick my hand through the fence.

And I want to be on the other side of it because she just licks my hand, and then my hand is sticky. So, I open the gate and I hang out with Zelda and sit next to Janie. Zelda tries to get in on the fun by running up to me, and disrupting the peace that is me sitting next to Janie.
 It's sort of adorable because Zelda licks Janie's eye?

My mom gave me a tiny little patch of garden, and I plan to grow tea leaves in it. Yeah!
I just received the stevia seeds. I'm still waiting on the chamomile. It's like having control over a tiny little forest, and you decide what's in that forest.

So serene, because the garden plot is next to the fence, next to which is a pretty bush that is hanging over my garden plot.

 The forest that is not yet a forest.

Okay, next is the barrel. We used to roll on the barrels all the time when we were younger, except for me, because I was 4? 3? Recently, George and I have been playing lots of games outside with Thomas. One day, Thomas said that he wanted to roll on the barrel like we did when we were younger.

It can be pretty difficult. For one, when I first started, I wore flip flops. Now, with shoes, it's much easier. Still, you're walking backwards, while the giant blue cylinder is going forward. Keep your back straight and keep glances at your feet to a minimum!

 I climb the tree much more often now that George and I have been playing more games outside. I've made myself a new throne. It's very high up, and super comfortable.

This photo is the view that I get to see every time I climb up and sit in my throne.

Throne System: There are not many throne opportunities in the tulip tree. If there is a comfortable place in the tree that you can sit in without getting scared, and it is safe, then you can claim it. UNLESS, someone else has already claimed it. Claiming it means you basically have control over that certain area of branch. So, if you're putting on your shoes when someone else goes outside to climb the tree, you can say, "Please, don't sit in my throne."

This is my closing: Good-bye. This was Mae Laszlo. Have a nice day. Wash your hands. Good-bye. Have a nice day.

Who'schooling: George

The following was contributed by George (14), when asked about what he's learned, and what it has been like to stay in our house all the time.
  
What I learned is a bunch of new stuff about math. How to translate, on a graph. And also how to dilate and how to reflect.

That was so easy!

I love this painting, and I'm happy it's hanging in the hallway now. So, I can get a better view of it.  It's so beautiful!

(by local artist, Eric Sappington)

You don't need to paint a picture to make a painting. You only need to paint what you think of.

This took me forever to make. It took me forever to draw. There were so many small details.

I am planning to make a stop-motion animation with it. I imagined it and thought it would be a fun thing to do.

Because, 

making stuff

 is fun!

Who'schooling: Thomas hi

The following was contributed by Thomas (17), when I asked him about what's it's like to live through a historically significant event, what he's learning, and how he's managing. 

There's no way to tell how it's going to feel later, right now. Because right now, we're in the middle of the pandemic.When the future arrives, then I'll know, that's what it will have felt like like to have lived through that.
I mean, during the Dust Bowl, there wasn't really time or need for thinking about the future or the history books, just trying to do your best until the dust hits. Obviously the two time periods are nearly incomparable; but it is important to be here now so you have an experience to reminisce later in life.

There's a different perspective there, obviously. And hopefully that's what I'll be around for.

Overall, the effect of the virus has definitely subtracted a lot of structure from my life. So that's been something I've had to face myself. And that's the whole theme of the virus. I mean, it doesn't really have a theme, but its significance to us poses many obstacles. Rather than a 100m dash or something you can anticipate and train for specifically, there's more of a versatility aspect to the overcoming of these obstacles.

The whole thing is kind of a reality check. But an ongoing one: Now is a time for self discipline and versatility

Before, anytime that we weren't doing school work, or some sort of work, we felt like we should. That we don't really deserve rest, like a cloud is always hanging over you casting a shadow you can't ignore. It felt like the only time we took a rest, was to do more work.

But now everything is blending into each other, because all the walls that held everything in compartments are now gone. Everything is kind of one flavor now, so it's hard to navigate and distinguish aspects of your life.

School work has kept it together, but the school work is not that engaging, I have to say. I still make an effort to talk to the teachers and pretend that what they're doing is helpful. It is a very nice thing they're doing, and it's extremely selfless of them to put up together these classes, and adapt so quickly to the confusing in and outs of the interwebs. And that's what I respect about them, and that's why I make an effort. Because I feel like I'd be squandering that if I didn't. But, it doesn't really change the fact that it's not that engaging.

 Mae has been going after those radishes, like a beast.

Who'schooling: Mom

Once upon a time, I tried so hard. With the books, and the papers, and the pencils, and the assignments, and the sighing, and stomping, and flopping with exasperation, and the crying baby, or the morningsick me, or needing to spend the morning mowing a lawn rather than battle my son's ironclad apathy about completing worksheets at the kitchen table. I did try.

Gears ground hotly in my head as my careful plans were, at best, rejected. At worst? Done badly, barely. My integrated and exciting activities were reduced to mere hoops through which an obligatory jump was half-heartedly executed. 

And I didn't even have packets.

 I was packetless. 

I'll back up. See, homeschooling wasn't my original plan when having kids. I loved school, and couldn't wait to enroll my own li'l learners, while simultaneously getting all up in the PTC/boosters/fundraisers/whathaveyou. 

Plot twist: The oldest two did not feel like playing along with my grand delusions of someday owning one of those My Kid SuperLoves School bumper stickers. They never even liked school, showing and saying so in a number of ways. I tried to talk them out of it, volunteered at the schools, backed off, pushed in, celebrated victories, tried to appear nonchalant about victories, ignored defeats, and nearly sounded like I was threatening them when their unhappiness stubbornly flared and I'd bring up The Homeschool Option.

I never expected them to take me up on it.

But they did, and we've got the blog to prove it. No need to say much more. Messy, fun, brilliant, frustrating years followed, as we learned and lived in the same sticky spot. A spot we find ourselves in, once again. 

With packets. 

And Zoom meetings, calls with specialists, and weekly online quizzes.

Across the world, millions of parents are currently realizing what I struggled to hold in my head without shame all those years: School at home, kind of sucks. It feels like a tremendous buck with very little bang, running in several different academic directions every day, while juggling a home and raising siblings/pets/corn. 

Reading friends' Facebook memes these days gives me no satisfaction. That thing I found so difficult? Really is difficult.

We are doing that difficult thing as well as we can right now, to stay ready for the fall, whatever it brings. But, these days have me reminiscing about a time when, instead of playing school at home, we did everything else, everyday, in the space created by bowing out of civil conventions.

Staying home can be the start of something valuable, something that might not have happened otherwise. That's how we rolled, for years, literally.

It is this belief that compelled me to have a talk with the homestudents,Thomas, George, and Mae, about contributing something here, soon. This blog could use some new voices, saying stuff about things.

This week, the BU crew has an unofficial assignment of the home variety: I have asked them to fill this space with their own original posts, photos, thoughts, antics, and exploits. What they're up to, what we're up against, and what it's all about.  I'll do what I do best: set the stage, rake up the aftermath, and call the authorities if necessary. See you all between things, just doing what I do best: trying to keep up.