Life has a way of moving on and at the age of six, Tristan started kindergarten at the local Waldorf School in 2012. The months leading up to that September I can tell you, were raw horrible feelings of this can't be happening-ness. The child that had never left my side would be leaving my side. I cried rivers. I cried like someone had died. I cried and cried and cried. My heart would race, my whole body felt sad and stressed. There appeared no further way to postpone this seemingly inevitable right of passage. I was inconsolable. I couldn't breathe. And while I knew he needed friends, and socialization, and someone other than myself as his playmate, I grieved our magical bond that would now be broken. I wish I had thought I was capable of home schooling him then. If I have only one regret, and I loathe regrets, it would be my lack of confidence in thinking that I couldn't home school Tristan. In the end, it wasn't such a bad thing for him to attend half day kindergarten. Yes, only half days Monday through Friday. I was coming unglued over 4 hours a day. A morning from 8 to 12. I know. I know.
Then life really picked up the pace and five years went by. We thought it was important to provide Tristan with roots and stability. We thought he needed grounding and friends. Turns out he was all set with that and he has just as much gypsy blood running thickly through his veins as we do. He wants to get back to Europe and see everything there is to see that he didn't see the first time around. As we work towards this goal I will be homeschooling using the Waldorf 5th grade curriculum. Tristan has been begging me to home school him since the end of first grade. I paid him absolutely no heed. I thought it was just a passing phase. By the beginning of fourth grade I had to pay attention, but in the same breath denied that I would ever be capable of actually teaching him. I thought perhaps he might have grand ideas of not having to go to school that included hanging out with his chickens and fishing all day with very little learning involved. Perhaps he thought I would be "easy". He hounded me endlessly. I kept telling him there was no way I was home schooling him. That did not deter him. He would not give up. I expressed my concerns, especially the one where he wouldn't see the fine lines between teacher, mother, and friend. By the middle of fourth grade he had worn me down like a piece of course sandpaper to the point I had agreed to "think about it".
One day I came across this quote and it changed everything for me. It snapped me out of the coma I had been in and woke me from my delusional thoughts of being incapable, unqualified, and filled with self-doubt. Suddenly, homeschooling seemed perfect for us, a switch had been flipped, and I couldn't dream of sending him back to school. Suddenly all of my trepidation and "I can't do this" mentality boldly morphed into "Of course I can do this!"
"Don't question your ability to teach your child. Question putting your child into the same system that left you feeling incapable of teaching your child."
www.unschoolingmommaandpoppy.com
Being the wise old soul that he is, I think he knew not only that I could in fact "do it", but that in the end, it was what would work best for all of us. He didn't find his tribe at that particular school, so he was unhappy. I didn't find my tribe here in New Hampshire, and I was unhappy. We all just wanted to march to the beat of our own drums. And just like in the book Chocolat when Vianne senses the change in the winds and knows that it is time to move on, we too can tell that the air is changing and that it is here to sweep us away. It is the quintessential New England August breeze that often gets confused with September. It is a gentle rustle that forces me to lift my face to meet it. The leaves have causally started to drop here and there fairly unnoticed. But I see them. I know these winds carry the autumn that is just around the corner. The apples, pumpkins, crimson colors, crunching leaves, the first wisps of smoke coming out the chimneys, they will all be here soon. As we greet this shift head on we look ahead with courage and excitement, mixed with nervous laughter and bewilderment.
With months of preparation behind me, I am confident (for the most part!) that Tristan and I have a fun and interesting year ahead of us. I am actually looking forward to it. It will be an adventure we embark on together before he hits puberty and everything starts to change. And guess what. I will cry and cry and cry. But it won't be because I regret not home schooling him.
Dear Tristan,
You and I have been hand in hand for 11 years. I don't know how I will manage the pain in my heart the day you decide you are too old to hold my hand any longer. The weeks and months leading up to your first day of school were filled with sadness. I didn't want anyone else to be your teacher, to tell you what to do, when to eat, how to sit, how to learn. I wanted to home school you, but everyone worried about your socialization. Truth be told, you had more social skills in your little pinkie finger than all the other kindergartners combined. You had recently just spent two years in Europe. At just three years old you could order a croissant in three different languages and carry a conversation with adults of various cultures. Why then did I think we needed to "socialize" you?
You had fun for a while in kindergarten, but when the novelty wore off you wanted to come back home with me. By the end of first grade you were begging me to home school you. I thought I would be inadequate and that your requests would fade over time. There was reading and math to learn. But then again, don't I know how to read and do math? Hadn't I taught you to recognize over two dozen plants by age four? Not many children can even say "rhododendron" or "forsythia" let alone point one out. By age two you were raising chickens, by three you had your first garden. You have cooked along side me since you could stand. You can identify any herb in my herb garden by sight and smell and you know what dishes each herb is best suited for. When you were little I wrote about how it was of the utmost importance to me that you experience life first hand and not just from a book while you made better sense of history, art, literature, and language. You have stood inside castles where kings have lived and you have felt the massive cool stones with your hands. I want to study Norse mythology and the vikings in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark with you. I want to study Ancient Greece and Greek mythology in Greece with you. I want to study Ancient Rome and the Renaissance in Italy with you. We should take a croissant making class in Paris. There are a million and one reasons to home school and world school, but none are so important as my precious time with you.
People will call us crazy, but all the really great thinkers were always called crazy. Please hold my hand on this wild adventure, and as your daddy and I always say to each other, "You jump, I jump!".
Dear Tristan,
You and I have been hand in hand for 11 years. I don't know how I will manage the pain in my heart the day you decide you are too old to hold my hand any longer. The weeks and months leading up to your first day of school were filled with sadness. I didn't want anyone else to be your teacher, to tell you what to do, when to eat, how to sit, how to learn. I wanted to home school you, but everyone worried about your socialization. Truth be told, you had more social skills in your little pinkie finger than all the other kindergartners combined. You had recently just spent two years in Europe. At just three years old you could order a croissant in three different languages and carry a conversation with adults of various cultures. Why then did I think we needed to "socialize" you?
You had fun for a while in kindergarten, but when the novelty wore off you wanted to come back home with me. By the end of first grade you were begging me to home school you. I thought I would be inadequate and that your requests would fade over time. There was reading and math to learn. But then again, don't I know how to read and do math? Hadn't I taught you to recognize over two dozen plants by age four? Not many children can even say "rhododendron" or "forsythia" let alone point one out. By age two you were raising chickens, by three you had your first garden. You have cooked along side me since you could stand. You can identify any herb in my herb garden by sight and smell and you know what dishes each herb is best suited for. When you were little I wrote about how it was of the utmost importance to me that you experience life first hand and not just from a book while you made better sense of history, art, literature, and language. You have stood inside castles where kings have lived and you have felt the massive cool stones with your hands. I want to study Norse mythology and the vikings in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark with you. I want to study Ancient Greece and Greek mythology in Greece with you. I want to study Ancient Rome and the Renaissance in Italy with you. We should take a croissant making class in Paris. There are a million and one reasons to home school and world school, but none are so important as my precious time with you.
People will call us crazy, but all the really great thinkers were always called crazy. Please hold my hand on this wild adventure, and as your daddy and I always say to each other, "You jump, I jump!".
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