I’m feeling a bit better today, still very sneezy and cold but definitely not in need of lemsip or cocaine enhanced cold and flu tablets, so that’s good.
It’s been one of those perfect crisp clear cold days here today so I got loads more washing done (and oh, what a joy it is to get socks and pants dry with my cherished airer – thanks again, it makes all the difference and I think of you every time I hang my pants on it 😉 xx) and as we had no bread and I was in the mood for the theraputic benefits of both the actual baking and the consumption of said baking afterwards I hung out in the kitchen and made cheese scones and flapjacks. Granny arrived and was let in and greeted by the children which meant I just carried on in the kitchen, hung washing out and so on and finally went through with cups of tea after she’d been here nearly half an hour :). Davies and Scarlett had brought Davies’ collection of Micromachines down from his bedroom and were playing with those. He has a London themed one which folds up into a London bus and is complete with all sorts of London landmarks such as Big Ben and Parliament, London Eye, St Pauls, Westminster Abbey etc and the cars are black cabs, red buses and minis so she was talking to them about that and they were telling her about Guy Fawkes plot to blow up parliament and pointing out the various places in London they’ve been to. 🙂
We had a chat about Home Ed, frustrating as usual. She asked about NicCamps and the age range and I explained we had all ages from 1 year olds right up to 11 year olds and she asked me twice if I ‘found them intelligent’ as though the children were some sort of lab rats. I ignored it the first time and went on about how HE kids are so very different to schooled kids in their interaction with adults, mixing in groups and blah (you could all write the script for me I’m sure) and so she asked me again. Then she asked if I was happy with my decision to HE and then said ‘well I suppose you wish you could afford private school really?’ which is a bit of a no brainer as I explained to her as if I wasn’t at home HEing the children I could easily be out working earning sufficient to put two children through private school?! I then explained, at great length, precisely why I am anti schools, exactly what I felt the benefits of a non academic focussed, non measured, tested and compared to others education was and how I felt it to be a holistic approach to raising children into adults equipt to make it in the real world as happy, contented individuals and how I consider personal happiness and the freedom to do and be who they want to be as far and away more important that any other single thing and that I think that the focus taught in schools of material goods, worship of salary and benefits above job satisfaction etc. is all wrong and not what I want for them. I talked about how NC and SATs have destroyed the idea of teaching as a vocation, the yearning to be inspiring, to pass on your passion for your given subject and to share with your students the joy of learning about what it is you want to impart to them has long since given way to being a ‘career’ that is low paid, exhaustively tested and well, again I guess most of you could write that script for me too. She then asked about what I thought Davies and Scarlett might want to do as careers, to which I laughed and reminded her that they are still just 7 and 4 and that Scarlett would only have actually started school 6 weeks ago so I think career direction is a little premature just yet, but reeled off some things that they have been allowed to concentrate and spend time on and enjoy.
We looked at some pictures of camp and of the Roman Day at Fishbourne which she only really wanted to gauge educational value of rather than enjoyment of and wanted to know if either of them could still remember how to write their names in Latin. FFS! She’d brought them a colouring book each with Christmas pictures so they were colouring in those and she was making them colour really hard so no white showed through, all the while checking with me to make sure she was ‘saying the right thing Nics?’ which of course she isn’t – they don’t need their simple pleasure at colouring watched over and judged otherwise it becomes a chore or a test rather than something they do for the sake of it, but I let her carry on with it because neither was it likely to do any lasting damage to their lust for arty stuff really. Davies did appear to be concentrating on colouring in so no white was showing but midway through my sermon on education he turned round and joined in with a couple of bits about why learning like he does is the right way, how he loves being able to just ask questions as they occur to him and either getting the answer from me (or whichever other relevant adult is around) or coming along for the journey of finding out. While she was here we’d been talking about teeth and how the front teeth are serated and thin for biting and the back ones are flatter with bigger surface areas for chewing and grinding, we’d likened the different sorts of teeth to different tools which do similar jobs and talked a bit about the ‘best’ time to lose teeth before he’d continued with his Micromachines and I tried to use that as a live, action, on the scene example of how ‘it’ works for us, but I don’t think she really got it. I don’t know if anyone really gets it unless they are doing it to be honest, but it’s nice to realise that Davies and Scarlett seem to get it and I guess in the end they’re the only ones who really matter when it comes to judging whether it works or not. She’d also brought them a lined exercise book each ‘for writing’ which thankfully she didn’t seem to expect them to sit at tables and do there and then, but I guess she may come armed with a red pen for marking them next time we see her :lol:.
As arranged Lucy and The Rs arrived at around midday for lunch and a play. We all ate together and then Granny left. They children, particularly Davies and Scarlett spent quite a while outside playing before coming in and getting stuck into a variety of games including some time in Scarlett’s bedroom for her and Rebecca and a group game of Doctor Who. I managed to finally organise the shelves in the playroom so all the stuff I want to be accessible now is and all the stuff I really don’t want to be accessible finally isn’t. I also pretty much cleared the table (gasp) and sorted out the craft drawers (again!) so I’ve managed to get most of my things I wanted to achieve this week done. I have one last heap of ebaying stuff to get listed and then everything inside the house is attended to – next to start on the garage.
Tomorrow is work all day and a friend coming over for dinner which will be nice as we’ve not seen him for ages in real life so I’m looking forward to that.
I’m glad the airer is enhancing your life 😆
Argh to your Granny! I was moaning to C about how his parents don’t ever mention the children’s education, but I guess having them asking stupid questions all the time would be more annoying.
yeah, even my parents never really ‘got’ it, despite being supportive! Steve’s were just about getting it by the time they went back to school. I think you’re doing well by bothering to try and explain it, Some people are just never going to get it, however hard you try. Does sound as though she means well though, and at least she brought colouring books not Christmas Workbooks of some sort!!
None of our get it either, and I shudder to think how my mum presents it to other people – I suspect along the lines of not wanting her exposed to the “riff raff in schools” 🙄 I try not to think about it. They really aren’t interested in her education, other than wondering how “intelligent” she seems. It’s a shame, as Hannah was really keen to do a family history project, and I thought it was the kind of thing grandparents might be interested in doing, but though she mentioned it a few times, none of them picked her up on it.
at least she didn’t tell you that you’re fat.
my nan is in denial about home ed. she tells people that he is doing well in school, i’m not allowed to tell people that she knows that we are home educating. my grandad doesnt even know, when they came to stay for a week she told him andrew was having a few days off school to spend time with them. but then she can also not admit to anyone that i’m a single parent and tells people that i’m engaged to andrews dad. and i also get the fat comments, she likes to get out my skinny photos and moan about how much nicer i looked back then. 🙄
gawd i must be such an embarrassment to her 😆
hugs. my nan leaves her criticisms fr my mum and aunt, i am golden girl not as golden as golden boy though!!
don’t think any of my family get HE though, and i’m nt so sure that we are doing it particularly brilliantly all the time
I’ve just had a very awkward moment trying to explain a bit to an old friend who has turned up at work as a PGCE student. I’m sure I gave her the impression we were just vague and lazy. It is so hard to explain. Sounds like you gave it a good try. I had a good conversation with my dad about it yesterday, which I’ll bolog at some point.