Homeschooling is weird you know ~ especially when you get up there in the rarefied stratospheres of higher education. Take learning styles. You'd think they'd get a little more flexible the older a child got but no. At least not in Star's case. Star is set in steele. She is still the ADD kid who learns as she bounces off the walls & never seems to be paying attention to anything & swears black & blue education is for the piskies & no~one needs an education after grade 5. She has a point ~ but let's face it, most educational facilities are glorified babysitting clubs & what is everyone else supposed to do with their kids?
Anyway, I've heard it all from this kid & I've decided she just likes lighting my fuse to watch me spark. We started back on Monday ~ which Star later discovered was a public holiday which meant, in Star's universe, she shouldn't have been working & she was! And I am most unpopular because I decided without consultation Star might as well use her brain to wrestle with Beowulf & Anglo~Saxon England this term. It's pretty bloodthirsty all round which should have appealed but naturally doesn't.
Now Star deserves the Oscar for iconic whining. How that child can go on & on about the dullness of her academic schedule because it doesn't matter what we choose invariably it is incredibly boring. And having whinged ~ & whined ~ & moaned & groaned; having sighed & sobbed & produced every dramatic trick in her not inconsiderable repertoire this is what Star ordered for her light reading this term: I believe I've already mentioned The Lord of the Flies. To that add: Wuthering Heights, Emma, & Don Quixote. If I had actually requested she read any one of these books I should have heard all about the torture of her poor innocent mind & my cruelty to children but because she chose to read this...well, that's a whole 'nother matter, ain't it! She also ordered everything the library has on Alfred & Anglo~Saxon England & Debussy's Clare d'Lune.
And there you have it folks! The end result of years of homeschooling. Despite herself my Star knows how to educate herself. What I am rather interested to see is how she does with the German text I found on my shelves ~ which is all in German with no translation. [that's what Google is for!] because I really don't want to have to buy a text. So far she seems to be managing. I told you she had brains. She just likes sitting on them. Six terms to go! Oh, my!
9 comments:
well i must be really mean i started little miss back last week after only 1 week break though we did take monday off lol. 6 is good its dingle digits. I think I scared my teacher with my lack of mathematical ability during our home visit but so far so good, you may just be missing out on a pretty good guy.
LLL: So I'm told ~ but, you know, 6 terms to go & counting down. I just want to navigate these waters with the lest drama possible when I have a drama queen extraordinaire! lol
Interesting choices Star has made in light reading. :D
I am seeing more and more of that self-education coming out in my daughter. I used to question the idea of radical unschooling, but I now can at least appreciate that how it can work, although my daughter would probably not pursue learning any more math on her own. I think I have found a comfortable mixture for us both...at least for now.
a truly great choice of books there!....well done!!
Seeking: I'm not brave enough for radical unschooling but more & more elements of unschooling have come in because they work for my child. I think she's learnt nothing & I joke about her education but the other side of that reality is how clued in she is to all sorts of stuff because she watches, listens & participates in the world around her.
Gerry: lol I haven't read some of what is on my daughter's list ~ & my degree is in this stuff. ☺
What a magnificent year of reading you have in store...you are going to join her, aren't you? We're reading Playing Beatie Bow, Kidnapped, Black Beauty and Pollyanna. Lovin' it.
Oh Jeanne! Will I go down in your estimation if I admit I don't like one single book on this list? Lord of the Flies is just grubby. Truly one of the most awful books I've ever read. Want to discuss the moral & ethical results of individual choices then I'd vote for A Clockwork Orange ~ which is absolutely brilliant & difficult & asks the hard questions. Two are essentially romances. I don't read Romance. Ugh! And then there's Don Quixote, whom I tried & didn't get very far with.
The same would be true for your list. Hated Beatie Bow, Black Beauty & Kidnapped. Loved Pollyanna. What people love or hate is very subjective but I suspect I really dislike the Victorians & their ilk with their long meandering sentences that wander aimlessly & end...anywhere. lol Yet I loved Catch 22 I considered trying Star with that...Moment of passing insanity.
I read Beowulf for pleasure before I was out of high school & only wish I could read it in the original with its alliteration & thumping rhymes whereas poor old Star wants to know why she's got to read it at all & tells me I'm the weirdest person on the face of the earth. Hardly that, methinks. I'll read Donne or Eliot all day but Dante leaves me cold & I'm ho~hum about some of Shakespheare. All different but a nodding aquaintance with all of it will never go astray.
Interesting minds. Thine and hers both. This is a rich and fertile context for learning. Education can't help but happen in that context. Blessings on your new term. And yes, I think you owe her a day off in lieu of that public holiday! And maybe you deserve one too ;) xxx
Ember: Thank thee! ☺ Educating this child exhausts me & we get plenty of time of as a result. I believe she has math coming...:(
As for the other...I insist on talking. lol Poor Star. She tries to block me out but I can be very hard to ignore when my dramatic streak kicks in. Heehee.
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