Have you ever asked your child to do homework in the middle of the holidays? Schooled children are used to working during school hours and doing homework straight after school, but generally, the longer away from school hours, the more proportionally resistant children are to doing what is perceived as school work.
My daughter has been schooled from PK3 until 3rd grade. We are barely a week into our trip and the beginning of Worldschooling and I feel like a monster because I'm asking her to do work that we had discussed and agreed on prior to setting off! The problem is, my daughter is having a hard time focusing on educational tasks outside the 4 walls of the classroom or our home. The open schedule, the open setting (at a cafe, or the beach...) is what is throwing her. So she drags her feet, pouts, grumbles, and gives me dirty looks.
Today it came to head. She was simply not trying to do the task (write an article for her blog), so I lost all patience and threatened to take her iPad away (the only thing she seems to want to do all day, every day!). Tears were shed. Then came the pleading. She begged for me to take it back and give her another chance. Knowing that the price would be her iPad if she didn't do her work, she was reformed. I felt horrible, but know I'm not asking all that much from her - a few blog posts on special topics here and there, some pages of math every couple of days, reading every day, and watching documentary videos that I've put on her YouTube playlist about the places we're going or other documentaries. I'm not interested in unschooling her. I have a curriculum for this year - a purpose for taking her out of school - and I want us to get the most of it!
Fortunately, after I got her to cool down and explained that the price she had to pay for being out of school was to do her work or else lose her iPad, she was very receptive and finished her work in just a few minutes. In no time she was smiling and we had moved past the ugly confrontation. But I fear that it will not be the last time. I hope that, as time goes by, she will get learn to work outside the classroom, and will do a lot of it of her own accord. It's one of my goals for her to take her learning into her own hands and be more independent. But I feel like she's still unlearning some habits of being in a classroom (cram & forget!) and learning how I expect to Worldschool. Fair enough. I'm sure my fellow Worldschool community has a fair number of participants who can relate.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Friday, July 1, 2016
Day 2 - The Importance of Landmarks
Have you ever been somewhere a long time and felt at home there, left for a prolonged period, then returned again? While you're away, in your head you're feeling like you know the place. You have memories there, you know your way around, you spent TIME there...
In Western Europe and much of the United States there is some dissonance between what you remember and the current situation when you return. Some new shops have opened. Some have closed down. A new apartment building here, an old house torn down there. But by and large, it's the way you left it. However, in Asia the changes are so very fast and drastic that when you return the memories and the changes cause your brain whiplash! And if you're gone years, there can be so many changes that there is so little the same to cling to that you feel like you're a stranger in a new place... But then those very subtle unchanged things - a street, a lone shop you remember, a bridge - feel like a dream. An anchor. Proof of your past. You have shared history. All of a sudden that building is like a lifeline to your past.
And what about the buildings that are gone? They may just be buildings, but for the homes and schools I've lost over the years, they may as well have been treasured friends. I've grieved for them. And for the schools in particular, THOUSANDS of children lost a part of their history. I will never be able to show my daughter those parts of my history as my Swiss mother was able to show me her family home and school (which still stand now, even after she's gone). I feel saddened by this loss.
I realize this is not how everyone feels. Not everyone feels sentimental about their old haunts. But I would say most of us do feel some grief when a special building is lost. I remember how Santa Cruz locals mourned the loss of the Cooper House when it collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. And I know my fellow school mates were saddened when our school was demolished...
Time marches on, I get that, but we all need landmarks to relate to. It's jarring and discombobulating to not be able to relate to your own city. Cities I've lived in such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Calcutta, and Manila are vastly unrecognizable to their residents 20 years ago (I'd guess that most Chinese cities fall under this description).
This makes me think of the older residents. An old person in those cities probably can't find their way around because of the huge changes. Of course, the elderly in those cities probably stay within a short distance of their home so as not to get lost. But for anyone venturing around their city, I'd think it'd cause quite a bit of psychological trauma to constantly be confused about getting around your own city. After all, small changes can be fluster an elderly person, imagine not being able to find your way around the only city you've lived!
So, I hope the huge construction going on in Asia eventually slows, and instead of building cheap, shoddy buildings that need to be replaced in 20 or 30 years, they build more to last and really take care of their landmarks, for the sake of its residents. So that people don't feel like strangers in their own cities or adopted cities. So that we build something lasting for our future.
In Western Europe and much of the United States there is some dissonance between what you remember and the current situation when you return. Some new shops have opened. Some have closed down. A new apartment building here, an old house torn down there. But by and large, it's the way you left it. However, in Asia the changes are so very fast and drastic that when you return the memories and the changes cause your brain whiplash! And if you're gone years, there can be so many changes that there is so little the same to cling to that you feel like you're a stranger in a new place... But then those very subtle unchanged things - a street, a lone shop you remember, a bridge - feel like a dream. An anchor. Proof of your past. You have shared history. All of a sudden that building is like a lifeline to your past.
And what about the buildings that are gone? They may just be buildings, but for the homes and schools I've lost over the years, they may as well have been treasured friends. I've grieved for them. And for the schools in particular, THOUSANDS of children lost a part of their history. I will never be able to show my daughter those parts of my history as my Swiss mother was able to show me her family home and school (which still stand now, even after she's gone). I feel saddened by this loss.
I realize this is not how everyone feels. Not everyone feels sentimental about their old haunts. But I would say most of us do feel some grief when a special building is lost. I remember how Santa Cruz locals mourned the loss of the Cooper House when it collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. And I know my fellow school mates were saddened when our school was demolished...
Time marches on, I get that, but we all need landmarks to relate to. It's jarring and discombobulating to not be able to relate to your own city. Cities I've lived in such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Calcutta, and Manila are vastly unrecognizable to their residents 20 years ago (I'd guess that most Chinese cities fall under this description).
This makes me think of the older residents. An old person in those cities probably can't find their way around because of the huge changes. Of course, the elderly in those cities probably stay within a short distance of their home so as not to get lost. But for anyone venturing around their city, I'd think it'd cause quite a bit of psychological trauma to constantly be confused about getting around your own city. After all, small changes can be fluster an elderly person, imagine not being able to find your way around the only city you've lived!
So, I hope the huge construction going on in Asia eventually slows, and instead of building cheap, shoddy buildings that need to be replaced in 20 or 30 years, they build more to last and really take care of their landmarks, for the sake of its residents. So that people don't feel like strangers in their own cities or adopted cities. So that we build something lasting for our future.
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