It is June and my thoughts and energies turn to planning a new school year. It is time to think about the year ahead and what it will hold for our homeschool. I turn forty this year and while that may not seem to have anything to do with our household rhythm, stay with me for a moment. As I count down my last months of being in my thirties, I realize that turning forty has many things to recommend it. For one thing, I am more confident in my own body. Not in the physical sense so much as in the mental sense. I feel that I have reached a place that I can move ahead without as much second guessing myself. I have struggled to find a philosophy of education that I could embrace and that meshed with my beliefs and values. We have been very eclectic in our approach. I think this is a good thing. It has made the journey interesting and instructive, both in what works for us, and what definitely does not.
Thus, I embrace the Waldorf philosophy of rhythm instead of routine. Rhythm breathes and has a gentle boundary line. Routine is more strict and has less warmth to it. If rhythm is playdough, then routine is wooden blocks that must be stacked just so. My children are not babies anymore, they have crossed the rainbow bridge into true childhood and are poised at adolescence. Does rhythm still have a place in our home?
Last year we had a "breathing out" kind of pace. We attended a weekly cooperative with academic classes, participated in community theatre, and generally found ourselves out and about. It was fun and it was educational and it was tiring. Even though the children are now 13 and 9, they both agree with my husband and myself that it is time for a "breathing in" year.
I prepare for our new school year by first seeking out a new rhythm. I will no longer have access to a washer and dryer this year (starting this week), so laundry day will become more interesting. I must scout out the best laundry facility in the area for our weekly sojourn. With all of the food allergies here (gluten, sesame and other seeds, peanuts, tree nuts, and dairy), we need to find more time to bake and prepare things that will make life easier. The children and I all love to sew, so that could also be a place we need to schedule time. I am also tossing around the main lesson ideas, the Montessori materials, the math and Old Testament stories and the extra lessons in reading that I need to organize for my third grade son. My daughter, who is in middle school, is going to plan her own course this year. She is going to study Physical Science and Pre-Algebra. She is working on making up her own literature list, planning to research starting a small business and an Etsy site, and is also working on writing a novel. We have met a couple of times already and I am excited about her ideas for volunteering, community involvement, and the special projects she is planning. I have really put in the blood, sweat, and tears on how we should do the upper middle and high years. There seems to be so much pressure locally to move into a more traditional and/or classical approach in these years. But, I see her blossoming and unfolding into such an amazing person. She has asked us for more unstructured time and for our blessing to seek out some of her own dreams this year instead of being busy in weekly out of the home classes - and isn't that what homeschool is all about? So we move forward and feel our way into the teenage years, but even so, there is rhythm.
I envision our week including a baking/cooking day, a laundry day, a sewing and mending day, a painting and/or art project day, an errand day, and a day of rest and contemplation. This leaves one day free. We will either make that a free day (so the other days can breath a bit), make it a visiting day, an extra study day, or a day of poetry and verse (complete with a poet's tea and poems read aloud). Of course, at least five of these days will also function as school days. This is our weekly rhythm, but our daily rhythm will be a bit more specific. I hope to journal here how we shape our daily rhythm and how it all comes together.
Happy Summertime,
Laura
