Week 39

This week my son had a Karate Camp and this involved traveling to a slightly remote place. I took my kids and my mother-in-law to a nearby higher flat area for stargazing and her comment stuck with me "This is not new, we used to see far more stars in our village growing up". I think my grandchildren are going to say the same about driving cars or watching 2D movies in a theatre. They are going to be in awe that such simple things can also bring a lot of joy to a lot of people.
If we can get our kids to retain a sense of curiosity and wonder throughout their lives, hopefully, it will help them become happier too.

Week 38

When you go looking for something, you tend to just see that or similar things only = selective attention, I guess. For me, that is homeschooling :-). There were 2 pieces of news that really helped strengthen my belief - 1) a group of boys from an elite school discussing ways to rate and torture their girl classmates before being found out and acted upon, and 2) the experiences of a young girl who has moved countries and has not been accepted at school, bullied and hurt by her classmates, whose parents have not intervened even after being implored.
Our kids need resilience in the face of an "aggressive" society, and part of my decision to slow them down is also to help them enjoy life in the longer run and not become adrenaline-junkies. Homeschooling has helped quite a bit in that, even though the pressure on all the adults around is immense. Routine questioning around "impact on their future" cannot be answered with confidence that does not sound like bravado in large parts.

Week 37

With his grandmother at home, my son's learning has picked up some pace. She instills a certain discipline and forces him to sit and study in the afternoon. He has now been reading Hindi, writing translations in English, studying science and social science. However, I am still struggling to give her the belief that she is the best teacher he can get. She feels she has studied nearly half-a-century ago and so cannot be teaching him correctly. I keep telling her that the basics do not change... and if something has survived for 50 years, then only it is worthy of teaching.
I came across an interesting book called Ultralearning by Scott H Young. The book gives out some helpful tips in order to increase the speed of learning new and difficult things. I hope to be able to use it some time with him to help him learn better.

Week 36

It has been a hectic week for me as I was traveling for work. And then my cousin came over. It meant the load of teaching him fell entirely on my wife (not that I do anything anyways ;-) ) and she did mathematics with him primarily. Meanwhile, something that has really attracted him is news. A friend had started an initiative to make the kids in the complex more aware about current affairs, and he seems to be loving it. He loves to know more about random things, mostly superficial but he seems to be very keen on knowing more about cricket and the Indian space programme. We will wait to see how much of an interest he retains in these 2 domains.

Week 35

This week was fun spent in a remote beach location with very little connectivity. Lots of fun trying board surfing, building sand castles, fishing and playing video games including virtual golf. The benefit of leaving for a holiday at will finally realised!

Week 34

The highlight of the week was a birthday party. I met someone who tore into me because I was homeschooling my kids and without provocation, explained to me that I was where I was in life because of my conventional education and I should be thankful for it rather than trying to change the conventions. On my argument that the world has changed in the last 30 years, it was met by the argument that the sun/moon are the same and we were far ahead of our parents, so our kids would be ahead of us as well - that is no change. I was overwhelmed by the vehemence and was left wondering what provoked it especially when I had not even tried to justify our choices.

Week 33

This week passed by too quickly. My son went for woodworking class and my wife wanted him to make a cupboard. He and his guide obviously did not think that was a smart thing to do and that caused some consternation with her. They want him to develop some new skills with some other tools and she thinks that the class should be useful in some way for her too - after all she is the one taking the trouble to take him around. I agree with both sides - it is important for him to learn and I appreciate the fact that she wants him to make useful things!! I highlight this because this tussle is at the heart of our homeschooling vs regular schooling too. We want him to learn things that are directly helpful but sometimes it is important to do things that build skills too.. what is the right balance for both these things? More importantly, is there one? Will find out only afterwards.