45. Reading list
This blog is about words not pictures. Yet I am tempted to add a photo of my son's bedside table.
My dream come true.
As a return to school was:
a) only on voluntary basis (think of that!)
b) only if you go by the strict sanitary measures
Considering that my son is:
a) not a fan of this type of institution (useless, daft, lame, pointless, teachers are boring at best and I let you imagine what at worst)
b) incapable of abiding by strict rules (unless he fully appreciates their usefulness i. e. on a rugby pitch when the ball is given to his team after a shocking fault form the opposite side)
We, parents of the aforementioned child, took the highly responsible decision to tick the 'No, my child will not return to school' box.
We were quite convinced that 8 hours of class was not worth the hassle we would get if he did not, for example, follow the arrows and started, as he would, arguing about the logic behind it. I would then have to prove to him that it all made sense.
I called our son. He agreed right away that it didn't make much sense to go back for 8 hours of class in a month.
I smiled broadly. My husband left the room.
'OK. But you have to keep the homeschooling going.' Pause for effect.
'No way! That's stupid (he loves that word)! Everyone, the teachers, the head, the minister of education says it's cool you can stay at home. And my mum, who, of course, knows better than everyone else, my mum, says I need to work twice as hard. Can you believe this! I mean, mum, come on. I'd rather go to school anytime. Sign me up please.'
'Sorry, too late. You did say no. So you stay at home. With mum.'
Broad smile (from mum).
'Great.' (Eyes roll up to the ceiling.)
'Indeed.'
He left the room in a major huff. I turned to Google (thank you lockdown for making me so tech-savvy) and typed in 'curriculum for year 12 French'.
Oh my! Even I had a shock!
12 books! Crikey! And no Thomas the Tank Engine, no Tom Gates!
I felt a pang of compassion/distress/sorrow for him which I quickly brushed aside. Maybe I could reinstate the bedtime reading routine. After all, he was only 16.
This was: Victor Hugo's Les Contemplations (the word contemplation and my son just plainly clashed, with a loud metallic bang), Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir (I had loved that book and read it twice back to back when I was ... OMG! His age!) I sighed heavily. This was not going to be easy!
I felt faced with an impossible task. I continued scanning down the list and saw Guillaume Apollinaire's Alcools! That cheered me up a bit and I was back on action mode. I sent the list to his older sisters who would dig out whatever they could from their bookshelves and I would move from Google to Amazon ... My heart sank a bit at the idea of wasting so much money ...
Now I have, not just a pile but a tower of books on his bedside table. I am going to leave it there for a few days, to get him used to the idea of reading.
A bit like when he was a small kid and I repeatedly placed spinach on his plate. He would not touch it but I kept serving it to him (I had read about this parenting skill in our own bedside table 'Guide to raising your kids properly, Volume 1 : The Young Child') until one day: the spinach was gone! My son had eaten spinach! Oh, the joy I felt! The book said that once they had eaten it, that was it, the child would be accustomed for life to the food previously considered 'weird' and 'yucky'. I remember praising him and telling him how grown up he was now, eating his greens.
A few days later, as I was looking for something I thought the kids might have hidden I opened the never-used tiny drawer of the dining table. And found something black and dried up, it puzzled me greatly and I looked closer: dearie me! The spinach!
What on earth was he going to do with my books now that he was 16!
My dream come true.
As a return to school was:
a) only on voluntary basis (think of that!)
b) only if you go by the strict sanitary measures
Considering that my son is:
a) not a fan of this type of institution (useless, daft, lame, pointless, teachers are boring at best and I let you imagine what at worst)
b) incapable of abiding by strict rules (unless he fully appreciates their usefulness i. e. on a rugby pitch when the ball is given to his team after a shocking fault form the opposite side)
We, parents of the aforementioned child, took the highly responsible decision to tick the 'No, my child will not return to school' box.
We were quite convinced that 8 hours of class was not worth the hassle we would get if he did not, for example, follow the arrows and started, as he would, arguing about the logic behind it. I would then have to prove to him that it all made sense.
I called our son. He agreed right away that it didn't make much sense to go back for 8 hours of class in a month.
I smiled broadly. My husband left the room.
'OK. But you have to keep the homeschooling going.' Pause for effect.
'No way! That's stupid (he loves that word)! Everyone, the teachers, the head, the minister of education says it's cool you can stay at home. And my mum, who, of course, knows better than everyone else, my mum, says I need to work twice as hard. Can you believe this! I mean, mum, come on. I'd rather go to school anytime. Sign me up please.'
'Sorry, too late. You did say no. So you stay at home. With mum.'
Broad smile (from mum).
'Great.' (Eyes roll up to the ceiling.)
'Indeed.'
He left the room in a major huff. I turned to Google (thank you lockdown for making me so tech-savvy) and typed in 'curriculum for year 12 French'.
Oh my! Even I had a shock!
12 books! Crikey! And no Thomas the Tank Engine, no Tom Gates!
I felt a pang of compassion/distress/sorrow for him which I quickly brushed aside. Maybe I could reinstate the bedtime reading routine. After all, he was only 16.
This was: Victor Hugo's Les Contemplations (the word contemplation and my son just plainly clashed, with a loud metallic bang), Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir (I had loved that book and read it twice back to back when I was ... OMG! His age!) I sighed heavily. This was not going to be easy!
I felt faced with an impossible task. I continued scanning down the list and saw Guillaume Apollinaire's Alcools! That cheered me up a bit and I was back on action mode. I sent the list to his older sisters who would dig out whatever they could from their bookshelves and I would move from Google to Amazon ... My heart sank a bit at the idea of wasting so much money ...
Now I have, not just a pile but a tower of books on his bedside table. I am going to leave it there for a few days, to get him used to the idea of reading.
A bit like when he was a small kid and I repeatedly placed spinach on his plate. He would not touch it but I kept serving it to him (I had read about this parenting skill in our own bedside table 'Guide to raising your kids properly, Volume 1 : The Young Child') until one day: the spinach was gone! My son had eaten spinach! Oh, the joy I felt! The book said that once they had eaten it, that was it, the child would be accustomed for life to the food previously considered 'weird' and 'yucky'. I remember praising him and telling him how grown up he was now, eating his greens.
A few days later, as I was looking for something I thought the kids might have hidden I opened the never-used tiny drawer of the dining table. And found something black and dried up, it puzzled me greatly and I looked closer: dearie me! The spinach!
What on earth was he going to do with my books now that he was 16!
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