62. Home-schooling

    

Home-schooling had been a dream of mine, or if not a dream at least something which was on my to-do-with-the-kids list. So when the opportunity came, my husband said it was time to give it a go. And so I did. I had done lots of reading, lots of research and I had plenty of ideas. I was ready. I like experiments and so the experiment would be to compare with the 'traditional' way of educating children and, of course, the result would be that home-schooled by me, my children would thrive like no other in all domains.

I had particularly looked forward to art lessons with my 5 year-old son.

'All right. Here is some paper. That's right, you can turn it anyway you want. And here are some markers. Only 5, yes, that's enough.'

This little talk here is already full of hidden messages and clever tricks from the educator (me). The child handles the paper rather awkwardly but you tell him that it is ok. He is be free to do what he wants, which makes him curious and so he tries out different ways and then it triggers his imagination. The limiting the child to 5 pens: you limit his choices and he has to use his imagination to overcome the hurdle. 

Clever, isn't it?

I repeated this bit of clever pedagogy but my son who did not look at me, did not say a word. He did not even bother to choose a marker. He grabbed the blue biro that was on the desk and started to furiously scribble all over the page. Two seconds flat and we were done.

I waited. And I waited some more. Nothing.

'That's great what you're doing there! Well done! Keep going.'

The home-school expert was now quoting words from How To Raise Your Child, Chapter 78, page 143, paragraph on Be positive and encourage your child's creativity.

'You know, I think it shows ... you know ... (I was struggling here, the author of the guide book had obviously never come across a piece of 'art' from my son) ... It is like ... a storm, yes! A storm on the sea and (I was getting carried away now, so happy to have something meaningful and positive to say). And that's a little boat just like the one we went on the other day. ... Isn't it? Are the people on the boat scared?'

He put his pen down and made to leave his desk.

'No. There's no boat here, mummy. It's just 'gribouillage'. 

As usual, he made me feel stupid and out of synch. How did this tiny boy manage that? I should write to the author of that useless guide.

'Well, yes, but we'll call them scribbles. (Because I had also read books about raising a child bilingual and they all said you should never ever mix the two languages.) 

To keep him at his desk a little longer, I added quickly:

'And you know, you've got lots of markers in bright colours so why don't you use them?'

I had noticed he did not enjoy picking and using different colours like the other kids did. He would always go for the plain blue or black biro. Again there was nothing in my guide book about this.

'It's not scribbles! It's gribouillage.' I said. I thought I was being patient and encouraging.

'Right.'

Do not stifle his creativity. Just be a guide. Let his creativity flourish and blossom. 

'But you know, here, it does look like waves. Are they waves?'

'No. No waves. It's a machine.'

'A machine?' 

Oh no! Now I was getting really worried. Every time he drew something, well, every time he scribbled, it was a machine, or a wall. Sure enough, here he did it again.

'And this is a wall.' And he stressed the word 'a' and paused and shouted the word 'wall'. I jumped out of my skin. And of course that got me angry as I was sitting right next to him and my eardrum got hurt.

'I have had enough now. Why do we bother doing art? Why won't you make an effort? Draw something nice! A house, a flower!'

And I was thinking, they don't even look like walls! It's ok to be positive but this was taking it a bit far. And on top of that he was staring at me as if I was the one drawing walls with a blue biro!

'Can I go and play now I've done a good machine for you?'

Come on, breathe, count to three, get the coffee on. Don't give up on your child! A mother should be guiding, encouraging, positive! 

'No, you can't. We need to finish art. Just 10 minutes to go.'

'Art is really boring. And I don't want to be an artist anyway so why should I do art? ... Can I go now?'

I decided -wisely I thought - not to answer that just yet.

'You can go soon. We need to finish and this and you need to tell me what this is about. What it is you are trying to show me.'

He grabbed hold of the blue pen again and just went all over the piece of paper at full speed, even tearing the paper in places.

'See Mummy? I can draw a machine ... and it goes vroom ... vroom ... vroom ... vroom ...'

He was now spitting all over his 'work' and he was starting to hurt my eardrums again.

'All right. I get it. It's really good. We'll put it up somewhere. You can go.'

He got up from his chair and started running around the room cheering and shouting as if there were an other 15 boys racing him. I sighed, thinking that the only part of home-schooling he was taking seriously was playtime. 

I grabbed the piece of paper thinking it was a waste of money buying proper drawing paper and fancy markers for him.

I stuck it on the fridge. Wrote the date on it. I pinned the thing on the cork board with a post-it saying: please do not bin.