A little schooling is a dangerous thing.

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. ~Attributed to Harry S. Truman

My beautiful Ditz is not madly keen on anything school despite my best efforts. Mind you I did dyslexics ~ 3 of them with varying degrees of dyslexia ~ so if nothing else the girl reads well. No way, no how, was anyone leaving my house unable to read & write. We won't go into the math.

What Ditz does well is aplomb! And attitude; Ditz does a great attitude. Which is why I was dreading the start of the school year & the dreaded, 'But what do I need this for?' Basically I don't want to go to jail, dear, so smile & pretend you like it. Capiche?

We do not have the Home Beautiful homeschool family with a neat & organized mum supervising neat, enthusiastic & brilliant children. Heck, Ditz rolls out of bed looking like a bomb victim & doesn't function till after lunch these days. We should be unschoolers ~ only we'd do nothing but read fantasy & watch movies in between singing & painting ~ which does not make for a well rounded education. Not that Ditz would mind only it would be a little hard to explain to our umbrella school & they already do a great job covering us because Ditz likes math so much she is several grades behind but several ahead in English/history & she only really likes art & music but hates exams. Try juggling that in practical terms. It works like this: On Saturday we visit Sian who gives Ditz a two hour piano/singing lesson while discussing theology with me; On Wednesdays we travel for an hour each way so Ditz can do a two hour singing lesson & travel 1/2 an hour each way so Ditz can have a flute lesson. On one other day we have 1 1/2 hours of violin. That's 6 hours of music lessons a week. Add in practice ~ an hour per instrument each day [no, Ditz doesn't often actually do all that but that's the general idea] & you begin to see there's not a lot of hours left for other things ~ like math.

Now being a sneaky mama I figured out I could make some subjects more palatable by tying them in to art &/ or music ~ which is why we do so well in English & history & manage science & do not do so well with theoretical math. I have my eye on getting my hands on a very practical hands on everyday math program ~ if such a thing even exists; you know, how to balance your cheque book, budget for a family of 5, measure up a set of windows for curtains, convert strange American recipes into understandable metric, work out how much petrol you need at what cost to travel from Brisbane to Noosa, negotiate a rental agreement & make sure your record company isn't fleecing you dry ~ especially that last. Do you know how many musicians have been fleeced by their managers? Nor do I but I bet it's a lot!

Unfortunately for me Ditz has outgrown the *make it look pretty* aspect of her school work. Her art has improved. Her art, like her music, is brilliantly impressive but drawing amazing dragons with glinty eyes & toothy smiles is not the sort of decoration required on maps of Ancient Rome ~ but it is glinty eyed dragons Ditz is into drawing at present. So I opened the test papers required at the beginning of every school year with some trepidation.

"Do I have to?' Ditz whined. 'Why do I have to?' There is no good answer to that question except that the school requires it so they can keep the government of their backs & keep their funding which means they can keep the government off our backs ~ none of which is an adequate reason in Ditz's book. Ditz blitzed the reading/comprehension. I don't think she got an answer wrong. Her writing was adequate & it was about something she learned while she was on holidays so double bonus. Besides she used paragraphing. This is impressive from a child who believes in making up her own grammar rules as she goes. Which left the math paper & the math paper was all Algebra. Ditz managed one sum, the one that wasn't an Algebra question. I am so over worrying about my kids' education. Experience has taught me my kids are really good at learning what they really need to know when they need it; that is, they know how to learn & that's the important thing.

I bundled the tests up before I could start fretting & shoved them in the mail & got home to find an e~mail from our supervisor , who is lovely beyond words & appreciates Ditz [although being a math teacher she doesn't appreciate trying to teach Ditz math] saying not to worry about the math, just stick a note on it saying we're not at that level yet, which is what I'd already done.

I love this lady. Ditz basically took a fortnight's academic leave of absence last year for the QPAC concert & she didn't even blink an eye, just said to make a note of it so it was included in Ditz's assessment. Ditto the whole flute thing with Ditz in full meltdown so that her exam results arrived too late for inclusion but because she'd heard Ditz on a home visit she just included it *pending results*. The Lord has truly blessed us with this wonderful lady & trust me, we suffered some shockers in the State Distance system with their *one size fits all* thinking.

Today began our first real school day of the year. It will take a little bit to get our rhythm back. I don't schedule well & while I love the literature rich programme we use for History & English I get lost pretty easily. I just need to make sure Ditz has all the books she needs marked & basically she reads her way down the list until I'm ready to work with her. Yeah, there's a reason the kid reads well!

I'm still waiting on her music history & bible curriculum but having the workbook we've still been able to do most of the first music lesson & get the workbook set up. History picks up where we left off moving into my favourite period before heading into Medieval Europe. Ditz fusses but actually has a pretty good grasp of this subject in her own inimitable way. Ditto English & while it is like bleeding stones to get her to write an English paper she has notebooks full of her stories & I've noticed a marked improvement in the quality of her writing just from all the reading she does. Science got a little messy last year. We were using 2 very different curriculum as the Apologia, which I like, proved far too academic for Ditz & I had to compensate heavily. By the end of the week I really hope we will be up & running properly, ready to add all the extras next week.

Oh, & if you're the praying sort send a little prayer up for Ditz tomorrow. Tomorrow she auditions again for her ensemble & while I have no doubts she will be accepted it is still a fraught making process & I do have to live with the child while not actually braining her. She will sing a Capella, which means she has to pitch herself & stay on pitch without any help. Rather her than me. Seriously, regular academics looks a cinch by comparison.