Last time, we left off with a hell of a question:
“Do you want to learn, buddy?”
I didn’t pose that question lightly. It wasn’t a leading question; I had no intention of tricking him. I genuinely needed to know where he was at. I hoped I knew the answer, but I knew it was a risk.
Sometimes our children surprise us. This time, it wasn’t so much his answer that surprised me, but his tenacity. You see, for the next 48 hours my son didn’t have an answer. He fought with the question, he wrestled with it while he was awake, and he turned it over in his sleep. I could see it in those almond brown eyes, the hard set chin, and in the slow, deliberate movements. I knew it by his silence. For those 48 hours, he didn’t talk to me. Not a word. He was going to come to this himself.
And then Saturday morning, a silent shadow slowly snuck into my office. At first I didn’t see anything, only heard the shuffling of small feet. Then I wasn’t sure if anyone was really there, so sullen was he as he sunk into my chair. Finally, a shy voice spoke:
“I want to learn.”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I heard. It was almost a whisper — an apparition. I turned to look him in the eyes, and asked him what he said.
“I want to learn, Dad.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I want to learn. But what you’re teaching isn’t fun.”
You’ve got to admire his honesty.
Not even six months ago I was desperate for him to take some interest in his own education. Here he was, not mincing words, and letting me know that he was taking interest, and he didn’t like what he experienced. My ego may have just taken a beating, but when I stepped back, I was kind of proud of the kid.
I was also at a loss. If he didn’t want what we were doing, what should we do?
The first thing to do was recognize what had just happened. This was part of the healing process. Schools had tormented him for years; he needed more than six months of home education to heal. Getting angry would only stunt that.
I needed to preserve the relationship. I needed to keep my cool.
Then I had to remember what I really wanted. Underneath all my lofty but ill-advised goals for this year were admirable desires:
agency
personal standards of excellence
intellectual interest
joy in learning
the foundation of a life filled with meaning and purpose
Nothing about those goals had to look like a classical education, or an unschooling based education, or any other ideological education. My son is not an ideology. He’s a human being.
Without another plan, I asked him what he wanted to do.
His answer was beautiful. It was the kind of answer I would have wanted for myself, if only I’d had the guts to demand it. He wanted to:
Study science, like robotics and chemistry and stuff that blows up and fights
Build stuff, do engineering, and play with tools
Read stories with action and adventure and heroes. Mythology over history; adventure over facts.
Spend time doing art: painting, modeling, sculpting, drawing.
Greek, but more than twice per week
Maybe math, but only if it’s not boring.
Grammar, specifically Beowulf’s Grammar
Play with animals, see big ones in the wild and learn about pets.
Travel to cool places, see things, touch things, try things.
It’s a pretty good list. I asked him if we could add Latin and a monthly memorization project, which he said yes to. Like that, we had ourselves this year’s curriculum.
Now we still needed a methodology.
I have this idea for what the perfect learning experience would be.