that school experiment

Turned out to be pretty shitty. Isaac had SUCH high hopes. He really did. I mean what home ed. child has not driven past a bouncy playground in full sun and not wanted to pop in for a play? Sometimes school does look enticing in that regard, especially if one is a particularly social child. Isaac is one of those. He chats to everyone, requires after their well being and recent activities, is polite and friendly and everyone oohhs and ahhhs over his good nature. Even I am astonished sometimes. He can't possibly get this from me, I am as surly as the day is long sometimes, I can be anxious in company and chat in overdrive, not much confident in myself... so it's a pleasant mystery and I try my best to model myself on him :) Even his casual swagger is appealing (but precisely because he has no awareness of self I think).



Anyway, back to point. His eagerness and willingness and openness immediately made him a target for ridicule in school. Naturally, painfully so. It was pretty shocking for him. But his bouncy and optimistic spirit confidently repeated that he wanted to keep going, that it would soon be different. Only it wasn't, not really. There was a general air of meanness abound in the dailyness of school life that I could tell confounded him and which he wasn't able to articulate his discomfort at to me fully. But he was unhappy about it.



Examples? Far too many.... A few: pushing, shoving and hurting for fun, erasing his work when he asked for help, being made to crawl and pick up pencils for others, playing in the sand pit and having someone smash his game up just because, missing him out in a game of ball over and over just because they could see he wanted to play, pushing him over everyday and pretending (while snickering) that it was an accident, not letting him take part in group work..... I could go on and one but won't. You can get the gist. His teacher was a fake smiley- nicey nice person who brushed and glossed over everything and just smiled my questions away and never intervened on Isaac's part despite his discomfort. Many times. So much mouth play and words about not tolerating bullying but finding that it was all just talk, actually. So many hours spent in over heated classrooms with synthetic fibred uniforms (ok, so he had organic underclothes and cotton trousers but his sweater was school regulation polyester) made him tell me he felt uncomfortable and bored and hot. He was tested but because his hand cannot yet transform his thoughts at school-spreed/neatness he was streamed into low groups and thus bored to tears. Literally. The testing failed him big time and made him frustrated. At home he was tired, grumpy, fought with his brother and was mean to us all. We all squabbled in the mornings, I shouted, I rushed I hustled everyone in and out of the car and house at breakneck speed to make it to the school on time every morning then spent the next few hours winding down. Frazzled, really. We had no time (or energy) for formerly enjoyed evening things - chess club, Beavers, Cubs, friends.... I couldn't take Felix to home ed. meet ups because I had to be available every day at 3.15pm. Every night was a rush to get food made, meal time over with, see dh quick quick, PJ's, bed because we didn't want to be tired again the next day. Then it would start, wearily, all over again.

Anyone fancy it?

Secretly I think I'd always wondered if he really might be missing out on something by not being at school (a stimulating engaging education, wonderfuly friends, great social experiences...). Now I know he's not.

Give me Home Educating ANYDAY. Any frickin day. Headaches, arguments, nagging, mess and late nights. Any day. Because there is a beauty to being at home that if you have not done it simply can't appreciate. A timeless aspect that once immersed is hard to articulate to others. An eating because it's hunger (not a bell), playing until the game drifts off into something else (not because it's a labelled slot of 'play'), crafting and art because it's an exciting in the moment passion that has to be played out. A walk because the leaves are whipping up in a frenzy and it looks so enticing. A float down the stream on a pallet of wood because the water is high and it looks so inviting. Making a cake, just because you fancy one. Writing a postcard to a loved one and posting it because you love them. Counting your pennies, getting excited and buying crazily priced foolish football cards (hey, that's just my opinion), and dong so with joy and because your money was earned and thus valued (caring for the chooks). Ten Pin bowling at discount price during the day with friends, swimming with your dad in the local pool on a quiet evening..... lying on the floor in front of the fire and doing nothing, thinking, dreaming and staring at the flames. Having TIME. We all have time this way. To be ourselves. To do what we like with our lives and be who we want to be without needing to 'harden up' because life's tough, we better get used to it now in the playground, bullying's every where. Well I don't believe that. And I don't believe we get to be stronger, kinder people by being ridiculed and put down and belittled and bored out of our minds, day after day. How does a person learn kindness, compassion, love, friendship if he doesn't experience it? Will he ever cope 'in the real world' if he isn't exposed to horror now, isn't toughened up, hardened, deadened to this? Won't it be so much harder for him 'out there' later if I don't force him to put up with school now?





Is this how human nature must be formed? The hard-knock-life theory doesn't sit well with me. It grates and constrains and makes me feel angry. Love breeds love. That's all there is to it. Kindness breeds kindness. Shall we all learn to be mean, or turn a blind eye to meanness because then we can get by in life, not be hurt? Not let ourselves be hurt because we'll be so busy hurting others. I read this article about a man being beaten and attacked in London in daylight and people just walked by. They just walked by, it was on CCTV. People looked, but no one helped. Does anyone remember that sick feeling at school - you see someone being bullied but you sort of turn away inside, seal yourself off because if you pipe up then the fear is it'll turn on you. So we walk on by. We learn to walk on by. Early on we learn not to draw attention to ourselves. Survival at such an unhappy personal cost. Or what about that story about the person bleeding on the sidewalk and all those people standing around, shocked, anxious, worried. No one called an ambulance because everyone assumed someone else was. And that person dies right there overlooked by so many. Am I being ridiculous here? Is it just me seeing this sick way of looking at human nature and not finding much good about learning to conform and fit in? Because I don't. It's taken me nearly 30 years to know now that I don't want to perpetuate this way of being. The only way I can start a reversal is by living a different life. By living a different sort of life with my family, by us all choosing to do things differently. A friend once said when someone remarked that her daughter looked like the one wearing the trousers in her family that they were an autonomous collective. That little phrase stuck with me these long years. I must let my children make their choices - such as Isaac wanting to try out school, but I must also remember that we operate as a family, as a collective. His decision to school, was one that schooled us all. It changed all of our lives.



Now we are re shaping it again to something new, something that won't be as before, something we can carry on from and learn by as we live. No choice is forever, we can all be as supple as the willow branch in the wind (remembering too that trees need firm root structures if they are able to grow and move). Living this way we are allowed to be as supple as the willow branch in the wind. That's the point.