Epilogue

My son

One of my hobbies is still writing fiction. I always have a hard time figuring out when to end a story. I get so involved in my characters, I want to know what happens to them later on. It has been since 2014 that I blogged and today it seems fitting to end this story. It's a happy ending. Today, my son left on his first study abroad trip. This is him at 0-dark thirty this morning, up and ready. According to the flight status, he's just flown over Alaska and will be landing in Japan in a few hours. He's not going for long, two weeks, but he's going. Last week he finished his first year of college, final grades won't even be out until later this week.

Yesterday, I read some of my old blog posts. I talked about his hopes for the future, his plans, his desire to study Japanese. They were only hopes then and the longings of a mother that someday he would get to live that dream. This is just the beginning.

It's not that I didn't believe dreams belonged to people like us, but that real life sometimes smacks hard and these last few years have not been easy. Last year my father died. He had been stationed in Japan during his draft days. Z and his grandfather talked with excitement about the possibility of this trip. He passed away before we knew sure Z was going.

My father 

This blog has been the story of our homeschooling journey. While the homeschooling part is over, the journey is still happening. I realized when I took Z to the airport today that I had worked there when I was his age, 18. Z looked so grown up today. When we started this log, he was but a boy, now he is young man I am proud to call my son. 

I feel this is a fitting epilogue to our blog, not just because Z is having his first international adventure, but because I know someone reading this is wondering how to support the goals of their children without the faintest idea of how they will come to pass. Someone is trying to provide a decent homeschooling education to child while dealing with the trials of real life, maybe trying to balance school and home, wondering how your child will handle college or real life if they won't finish their math homework - because it's always math, isn't it. Somehow we made it through the homeschooling years and you can too. 

I will leave you with my favorite passage from The Iliad: 

"As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning. So one generation of men will grow while another dies." book 6: 146-150 (Lattimore)

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Let's see, it's been over a year since I blogged. The above is me moving forward, through the best and worst of it. The long break was for several reasons, one being it's high school and there is a level of privacy I want to afford to Z that didn't feel necessary before. The other is that my personal life has been chaotic and it was time to pull back and regroup. Some of you know, some of you don't know, but I am in the midst of a divorce. It's a long complicated story that for everyone involved, I'd prefer to keep private. Suffice it to say, I am still here, I am still homeschooling, and this year Z starts his junior year.

Another change last year was my becoming a college student. Last year I took online courses, this semester I'm on campus part of the time. Last week was my first week. I felt those nerves rise up, like every other first day of my school in my life. Instead of seeing a teenager staring back in the mirror, I saw this person who should feel more confident about the whole thing.

Truth is, I'm tired a lot. I'm exhausted right now. But we move on. Z is a great kid, I'm not sure I can refer to him as a kid now, he's growing up, maturing, being the voice of reason in the household on some days. He's growing into this awesome individual that I am proud to call my son.

Since this is a homeschooling blog, I'll be posting more about actual homeschooling. We have a intense schedule this year, with college planning in the works. For now, I'm going to crawl into bed and kick up my feet. If you're reading again, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome. It's dusty and needs updating, but Wakefield Academy's blog is still here.

Tempus Fugit

We have three weeks before school starts again. It seems we just stopped. A lot has been happening, things I will announce in upcoming posts. One is that I moved the classroom around. I'll post new photos once I tidy up a bit.

This summer has been about blooming and replanting and weathering the storms. The picture is flowers that are just off my front porch. They're not so pretty now, but they've bloomed.

School is planned for the fall. We've implemented a few new administrative type things (so precise a word, I know). I even broke down and bought an e-reader, only because it was on clearance for 20.00. I've used it a bit, but I'm still not sold on ereading. I like to flip pages too much. I like real books.

Since I rearranged the classroom and bedroom I now have several wall mounted book shelves in my bedroom. In the midst of insomnia the other night, I counted the books in my bedroom. Including the stack on the nightstand, there were 198. I found that thought comforting. Some are dear and treasured books, so are waiting to be discussed. There is even a row of Classic Club Great Books.

On the admin side for school, I've done a few things:

We do school 6 weeks on, 1 week off. I'd added a nice form for modifications and assessments of where we are at each break. We tend to tweak something every year, so I'm leaving room for the modifications.

We're also going to study an artist or composer each term, nothing formal just exposure, appreciation, and some facts.

Fall Term will be Beethoven
Winter term will be Hokusai
Spring Term will be Van Gogh

I'm looking forward to this year. Z is growing up so quickly. He fixed the lawnmower yesterday. He should learn to drive this year, although he's in no rush. Okay, not sure I want to think about that yet.

Tis the season for school. I can't wait.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Actual Plans for 2013-2014

What in the world are you doing now? 

On some days, I'm not sure. Since March our lives have changed a little. Stress levels have been high, and we've had to modify some of our plans for next year. Now that we've actually decided, I feel pretty good about the choices. I've purchased most of the material and am in the planning phase.

Our new lineup includes the following subjects: 

• English 10 - with a focus on grammar, argumentation, and "Language and Literature"
• Geometry - with Holt Geometry
• Algebra II - with Lial's Intermediate Algebra
• Japanese II - continuing with a combination of Irasshai and Beginning Japanese
• Astronomy/Astrophysics - using a mix of classes and books for a custom-designed course
• History of Time and Language - a custom designed course
• Ethics - a half credit class using Aristotle's Ethics and an open course class
• Philosophy & Science of Modern Science Fiction - This was going to be our Star Trek class, but we recently got hooked on Doctor Who, so we're modifying to include it. This is by far my favored class for next year. 

I'll explain each class in subsequent posts. Our school year officially ended last Friday. We have two classes we'll be finishing up over the summer, but we're mostly done. I have so many thoughts on this year. I'm proud of Z and the growth he has shown, I'm excited to see where this summer and beyond takes us. He's also grown in other areas, he almost has a beard. It's not a full one, but it's there. It's strange to see this man-child sitting across from me to study, more a man than child in many ways. I'd write more, but I'm starting to get sappy, and it's the middle of the night. I'll leave you with this Doctor Who quote instead. 

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and ...bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant." - The Doctor ("Vincent and the Doctor")

More Tentative Planning for 2013-2014: History

Best laid plans sometimes end up getting eaten by the dog. I knew as soon as I posted our plans, something would change. It did, not drastically, but changes on path for the remaining years. This time it's history. We're going to spend three semesters on U.S. history. It will end up more like U.S. through a world history view.

Why three semesters? 

Z has been interested in studying the WWII era for a long time. He used to watch the military channel for hours. We have a lot of books on WWII, a lot of areas he wants to study. A lot of movies I remember studying in high school.

So we're going to spend our time in this fashion:

• semester 1: Civil War up to WWI
• semester 2: WWI through WWII
• semester 3: post WWII to modern day

I'm actually looking forward to this course and I have a loose outline of how it's going to work. I started pulling resources off my shelf, and realized I have most of what I need already. Amazing how plans fall into place like that. 

But what about the Romans? 

Because Z wants to study about "wars with guns", we are going to modify a few of our history plans for this year and add a study on the Romans and Middle Ages into the last few months. Again, I have enough resources on my shelf to make it work. While we'll do a quick tour of history, we will touch on more topics from the era down the road. Some of the Romans will come up in our  ethics class next year. We'll spend time pondering the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. We'll also touch on the Middle Ages in a later philosophy class. I'm pondering how to frame it all, but I have a lecture series on philosophy of the Middle Ages. Z also wants to read Dante's entire commedia, which we won't attempt without a nice study guide. I also have this fascinating book called The History of Hell, those three resources would make a nice class. I can already imagine the discussions. 

On the Education of the Non-Morning Person

These propositions do hereby contain the lamentations and corrections of educating a person not conceived with a morning nature. 

Proposition 1: 

When thou dost rise later than thy peers assembled in publicly funded education, thou shalt be concluding thy studies of the daily rotation later than thy peers.

Proposition 2: 

Should thy not consume nutrients prior to the commencement of the current educational rotation, do you expect thy teacher to transfer her duties back to the mistress of the kitchen to accommodate thy inability to eat within the proper hour.

Proposition 3: 

Should thy proper, God-given, and blessed name and the correct date in this rotation of the heavenly bodies not appear on every assignment required, the assignment shall be sternly returned and rectified.

Proposition 4: 

Should thy hand be illegible on any assignment, said document will be sternly returned and written again in a legible hand post haste.

Proposition 5: 

Thy eyes, heart, and mind should be focused always upon they work. Idle hands should not be cajoling with the canine or feline residents of thy domicile.

Proposition 6: 

The requirement of output for each and every subject is not a device of Satan. Thou shalt place trust into the facilitator of your education, and understand the requirements to consider you an educated member of said household, community, and society in general.

Proposition 7: 

Thou shalt not argue with the facilitator of your education unless you are in the midst of an argumentation lesson.

Tentative Course of Study for 2013-2014

Z and I had a few great discussions this week, those kind that make you proud to have such a neat human being in your life. Among those discussions, we came to a tentative agreement about classes for next year, year 10. Year 10, a decade of learning. Whoa.

Anyway, here's the list. Even if the subjects don't change, I know that I'll modify contents a bit before we start, if previous planning years are any indication.

• English II (literature & composition)
• World History II (Roman - Middle Ages)
• Modern Physics (Physics in the 21st Century)
• Geometry 
• Algebra II - he wants to double up on math this year so he can do calculus his senior year.*
• Japanese II
• Star Trek and Its Influence**
• Ethics (.5 credit)

* I'll cautiously schedule two credits of math. If it becomes too much we have a few options: 1. Rotate the maths each week and take two years to complete them both. 2. Scale back to Geometry only, saving Algebra II for later. 

**This class is one I am most excited about creating. Since we school in six week segments, we will study a different aspect of Star Trek for each six weeks. My current options include philosophy, technology & science, cultures & religions, film/tv study, and a section on Star Fleet Academy. We may also delve into the Ethics of Star Trek in our Ethics class. 

My current plan is to approach some of these subjects through the lens of philosophy and linguistics, two of Z's major interests.