I Thought I Was a Tough Homeschooler

I thought I was a tough homeschooler. That was until I spoke with the parent of one my writing students and discovered that she is sending her son to a week-long Boy Scout summer camp with a week’s worth of homeschooling assignments to be completed before he returns home. She decided that two hour’s worth of work each day was good. Wow. This kid has had to work hard fund raising for a year to get the money for a week-long trip to the Rocky Mountains and he’ll spend a portion of that time calculating Pi. I’d rather be eating pie. I shared this information with the General and could see that he suddenly appreciated me more than he ever has in the past. I’m not sending him to space camp in Hutchinson, Kansas, with homeschooling work to complete each evening.

The General is quite the day-dreamer. I just caught him staring out the window with a math test in front of him. The pullets were pecking at the back door. I’m certain they captured his attention. After a few minutes of watching him stare into the back yard, I gently suggested that he stop daydreaming.

“I’m thinking!” he told me, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

I know he’s thinking. The problem is that he isn’t thinking about math!

Our homeschool year has taken a bit of a turn during the last week. General Mayhem has tabled most of his subjects for reading. He has to remain current on his math assignments, but we’ve decided to shelve everything else while he reads the Percy Jackson series of novels. He can finish reading one book in a day. We borrowed book #3 from the library yesterday. We are returning it today for books #4 & #5. It isn’t worth fighting him on this issue. He will be so distracted by his imagination that trying to get him to complete his other subjects with any degree of accuracy before reading each day is an exercise in futility. Once he completes the series he’ll be able to focus on his school work. I like the fact that we have the freedom and flexibility to make these temporary changes. One benefit to his reading is that it has rekindled his interest in writing. He’s been working on an original short story when he isn’t completing his daily math assignment or following Percy’s adventures.

The Boss and I are watching this young man grow into his feet. This is the year that we will buy him three or four new pairs of shoes as he skyrockets towards the six-foot tall mark. The boy spends all of his non-academic time roaming the house in search of something else to eat. It’s really quite frightening. I may need to get a part-time job just to feed him.  But he's a good kid.  I think we'll keep him.