My 9-year-old confessed to me the other day: “You know what, Mom? I feel so much smarter here than I did at school” [my Mom heart sank a bit and my eyes froze on her expressive face with her little dyslexic mind deep in thought].
“…At school it seemed like I spent all of my time just not being able to read while everyone else could, but here at home I learn about black holes and supernovas and invent stuff and write poetry. And I’m really good at those things [Exhale. There’s the confident mini-woman I know and love].
This kid. She braved through one year of IEPs the year before last like a champ, and while unlike her it often left me in tears (and few things do), the contrast of it all helped us both realize how much she loves learning. In ways a system (as supportive as it truly was), could never have brought forth.
At school, her remedial reading handed her nothing to wonder and dwell on, while at home she can ask me to read her cosmology, theology, and Longfellow to her heart’s content.
…I was hanging up some clothes in her closet and discovered her sweet impromptu solar system☝️
She informed me that she’s decided to be an astrophysicist. Because: “I think it would probably be a more stable job than a poet”😆
It’s a fascinating thing to go about our days together as I slowly figure out how her mind and soul work and what they were made for.
She will eventually learn how to properly read all the words and ideas she’s grown to love, she will eventually learn how to properly spell all the poetry and stories that pour out of her, and I will eventually learn how to properly channel the beautiful, quirky intensity of this kid I was given. …The one who can’t decide if she’s gonna be an Einstein or an Anne of Green Gables, but I have a feeling she’s going to figure it out.
(I share this because I know many are having homeschooling thrust upon them in ways none of us envisioned. But I can say with confidence that along with its high and lows, which there are, there’s an unmatched freedom to it that allows some minds and souls to become far more themself than they ever could have otherwise).
Her first tourtière🏆 (everything tastes better when cooked in an apron and snakeskin boots)
“Doing Modern Art” when she was supposed to be doing math🙄
Black Holes and distant galaxies🌌
Fiddling in the meadow💕
