Friday, February 1, 2008

The Blues

One week of high school down. (Highschool starts in grade 8 in Queensland; we don't have middleschools. ) Four years & nine months to go. Believe me, Ditz is counting. On the whole it's been a pretty good week ~ so why do I feel so defeated?

We've done days & weeks & months on end where Ditz has literally been begging me to put her in school. Given Ditz's personality the mere thought is enough to give me nightmares. She doesn't like her academics any better but finally she's counting the blessings that come from homeschooling.

I feel like the dripping tap ~ on & on, repeating the same admonishments I was 2 years ago, & fours years ago. I know Ditz knows; she just can't be bothered, rushing through her work as if the schooless tomorrows would somehow arrive faster. It's so frustrating when I watch her totally absorbed in her art, taking endless care & patience to produce really beautiful work, silent as the grave, when her tongue can't stop wagging through her lessons & when I checked her dictation it didn't even make sense 'cause she'd left half the sentence out! How did she manage to do that? I repeated it enough times.

She's not even my hardest one to school. Theo was really difficult ~ tactile, kinesthetic, completely dyslexic & still in school but not reading at the end of grade 2. He was 8 & turning a book round in circles because he couldn't even work out which way was up & his teacher still insisted he didn't have a reading problem! ??? He loved to be read to so I knew it wasn't because he disliked books. Poor kid. I made my own program & he got drilled morning & evening but he now reads for pleasure & that's not something many dyslexics do.

Liddy was hard. She came home in grade nine but completely kinesthetic learner with a visual teacher; we just didn't speak the same language. Interesting about sums it up.

Bottom line with Ditz: she knows she knows how to find out. Asking mummy's always a good bet but she's watched me research forever, worked out how to use the net early & knows if she actually really wants to know something she can find it out without too much trouble so what exactly is the point of lessons?

It keeps you off the streets, dear.

1 comment:

Diane Shiffer said...

I hear ya....

All of my kids have been completely different types of learners. My youngest is now 9 and is barely reading:-( mainly because he despises sitting still and doing something so sedentary. But he is doing better everyday, and he is extremely bright, so I know he will be a capable reader at some point. If he were in school I think he would have learned to despise reading (instead of just the sitting still), so I think we are way ahead.

Ahhh... this homeschooling! even when you know it is the best thing for your kid, you still can see areas where you wish you could do so much better.

((hugs)) to ya hon:-)