Well, I should have known better than to wax poetically about our fluffy and wonderful togetherness on the boat- so much of today was a DOOzy. There were definite perks, to be sure, but our long sun-filled days have apparently stacked up on us and worn everyone down in ways that ooze out sideways, upward, outboard and everywhere.
School is never my favorite part of the day, I’m the first to admit. I know that teaching young children was not a calling of mine that I missed, especially in a ‘classroom’ setting, and I definitely understand that teaching one’s own children can make that even harder. (Teachers, I’ll emphasize again: you are incredible and I will be forever in your debt. Full time homeschool moms: I’m not even sure how to explain my feelings about you, especially to you, and especially today.) All that said, school with the girls is generally just one of my tasks- logistically tricky in guiding a kindergartener and a fourth grader at the same time, and though I may have to curl my toes to exercise patience I don’t have in coercing kids to write journal entries, it’s still time that passes without much ado. Queue today: much ado. About math. The simple kind of math that is usually done in a blink right off the bat so that we can haggle over journal entries afterward. Upon reflection, Andy and I should have just recognized that Lily was exhausted and simply having a bad day. We should have let her take a break, read a book, anything, but in the absence of hindsight, and in response to her firmly set jaw and increasingly bad attitude, we didn’t give her an option other than to complete her pages. Silent, gigantic tears were shed, whining commenced in a set-in way that was more Violet’s style and therefore more jarring to see Lily using, and I felt trapped. In the end, she did the work begrudgingly, once the option of missing out on a snorkeling expedition was given, but not before we all turned sour.
Our day was ultimately a great one, don’t get me wrong or let me whine too much (Waaaaaa, problems. In purging my annoyance of today the irony of my frustrations while living in veritable paradise is not lost on me, I promise.), but obvious exhaustion took its toll. Two decent spills below within minutes tonight resulting in wet, sugary blankets and pillows (this is why we don’t give our kids juice more often!), a meltdown on the swim platform from V who didn’t want to dip off of the ladder to get the sand out of her hair before showering (this from a kid who was puckered and pruned from being in the water for 6 hours straight), Uno disagreements and holy smokes, bed time tonight was wonderful.
The UPsides to today were pretty great too, however. All four of us snorkeled for the first time this year, with fearless V charging ahead ready for action. Lily was apprehensive, as she was last year, (especially after seeing an eagle ray through our view-finder bucket from the dinghy, despite our attempts to remind her of their disinterest in 9 year olds), but she came along despite, and quickly realized that it was worth the nerve-y fuss. The swells were too large to keep us out too long, but what we did get to see was a great start, and we’re looking forward to stopping at Sandy Cay either tomorrow or Sunday, seas-dependent.
Our next stop was Pete’s Pub here on the harbor, and after a tasty lunch we lounged, visited and read on the beach while the kids played for hours in the sand and in their kayaks. That part: not so hard.
Dinghying in we were gifted with the afternoon play session of a few dolphins, who swam and jumped in the harbor in and around the boats for quite a while. Quite a few turtle sightings today as well; add those to the eagle ray and the rainbow parrotfish we saw on the reef (a personal favorite) and our day’s fauna count was a good one!
Violet has decided that her stuffy owl (Owlie) and dog (Snowbutter) will be getting married tomorrow, so we spent the early evening in the cockpit designing wedding dresses and making crowns for Owlie. I offered my needle and thread (I was sewing a tie onto our bimini to hold a light up for the cockpit at night), but with scotch tape, scraps of fabric from our wedding tablecloths, and a lot of Yankee ingenuity she crafted quite the gown, complete with train. She said as she wrapped up: “Boy, do I have a lot of prep to do tomorrow for this thing!”. And then her giant container of markers and colored pencils spilled.
On that note, I should call it a day before I spill something onto my keyboard.
Teaching at this stage is more about fostering a love of reading/learning. Barring no learning disabilities, what we think of as schoolwork…reading (decoding, phonics), basic number operations (including times tables (very important in my mind), can be picked up in months…as opposed to years in a traditional school. Writing is a craft that is a life-long learning endeavor…just make it fun or important at this point. You should definitely hook-up with Ashley and Louise Cadwell…their whole thing is linking art with traditional learning, and they’re having great success. They (Cadwell Collaborative) have a newsletter that might give you a sense of what they do. For me, developing a curiosity that drives scientific inquiry is REALLY big. Like experiments that replicate the ‘acidification’ of the oceans and the collapse of coral reefs and the integrity of shells, ie, oysters, clams, etc. What does it mean that arctic ice is melting and exposing more open water (one of more than 50 ‘feedback loops’…ice reflecting light and heat, ocean water absorbing both, thus quickening the disappearance of the Arctic ice at faster and faster rates…with ??? consequences…like increased release of methane from the warming depths of the arctic…and on and on. You get the picture. As you said, #1, patience!…and #2, fun!!!
Thank you so much for your insight, Tom; it feels comforting to have so many experienced teachers in our corner offering support. The boat life/fun/every last thing-we-seem-to-do-as-a-teaching moment components are the easy ones. The bullet list from our Southwest Harbor classroom? Harder. I know how lucky we are to have such a supportive district for our kids; we’ve certainly met other families who don’t have such a framework. I know also that our girls are bright and self-motivated and sponge-like in their interests and capabilities, and that if we tossed all of their ‘official’ work overboard it wouldn’t be to their long-term detriment. That aside, I’m a rule-follower and man, do I like to check things off of lists and have proof that we’re doing our best to follow along with the class. It’s become a fine balance of my own anal retentive needs and recognizing what’s really important here. Patience and fun, patience and fun!