Bigger Classrooms

He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though--and loathed him.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I am so happy school is almost done for the year. And NO its is not simply because I homeschool my children and am looking forward to a nice long break, although that IS as good a reason as any I've ever heard. The reason I am so glad, is because I find it really difficult when there are ‘two’ classrooms both needing students to fill them. Let me explain. We start school in August which is a little early, but kind of necessary after lots of time off. We push really hard to hit our goals all year long. By Christmas it becomes sheer will power that keeps the process running, but then thankfully the ride is downhill and we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Once the weather starts to shape up, kids as you all know, get antsy. Well alright,  I can deal with that. It’s never that challenging to redirect a mind or adapt a few lessons to keep everyone focused for a couple of days. But there is a turning point. There is one day (it happened here last week) when the children rise early from their beds and see beautiful weather and they naturally just head outside. They are not being mischievous or naughty, it’s actually calling to them. We forget how close children get to the earth when they play outdoors. They lay on the grass, they pick flowers, they find frogs, and they sluice through creeks. They seem on those days to belong much more to God than to me, and I am humbled by it. I see them really communing with the environment and just loving every minute. I spend 9 months trying to call them up out of the earth to explain to them ‘higher things’ but I am reminded each year on that wonderful spring-is-here-and-there-is-no-turning-back-day, that there is a different teacher and a different classroom right outside my back door.

When that teacher calls the classes to order, my children know it instinctively and head outside. In that classroom, they learn that bees are dangerous sometimes, (Matthew pointed out to me today it is usually during or after breeding season when they are in protection mode they are most likely to sting). They learn how to engineer dams quite skillfully, they watch tadpoles turn into frogs, they catch crawfish and find out that claws can grow back 
( the one in our bucket today had one much smaller right claw than left), they discern different kinds of earth (  clay makes better shapes and figures and is much less rocky). The world opens up to them and a new kind of learning is at hand. Summer is not an end to the learning process, it is a beginning.

Too often as parents we put an equal sign between learning and books. Lots of learning does happen that way, but thankfully, not all.  So while I wish dearly that my little girls and boys would keep their shoes on when they go out, I am so happy that they  know what the ground feels like beneath their feet, (even if it messes up my kitchen floor). And while I wish I didn’t have to scold Sarah for drinking from the stream again, I am thrilled she can navigate those gentle waters and feel the sun on her face as she does so; as I am sure there may be more difficult ones ahead. We have three more weeks of ‘forced learning’ to complete our school year, the last one consisting of testing-what torture! And then they will graduate to the bigger classroom with a better teacher than I, where they won’t even know they are learning and will beg to stay after every day. I will call them in for lunch or dinner and they will hardly ever come without a fight. At night they will sleep blissfully, thoroughly worn out from all their lessons. There is much to be learned from simply letting children be children on those days. Isn't that grand?