Love in a Time of Homeschooling (22 page)

When compared with Julia's
Crispin
sentences, these paragraphs were a model of eloquence. They contained more color and detail than her previous work, with none of the awkward stiffness. Here, after briefly getting mired in the word
call
, she had experimented with her verbs, and had used more dependent clauses to make the sentences flow. Admittedly, the content was mere plot summary; analysis would have to follow. But Julia's writing had made a clear step forward.

Flipping through more pages, I saw that her research had also improved. Over the past few months I had required Julia to complete several author studies, just as her fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Gonzalez, had recommended. As a book lover, Julia had welcomed the reading. In the fall she had devoured all six volumes of
The Chronicles of Narnia
, in anticipation of Disney's November release of
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
. Together we had watched the movie
Shadowlands
, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, to learn about C. S. Lewis's life. Julia found that film tedious, but she did enjoy reading Susan Cooper's
The Dark Is Rising
trilogy, as well as two books by Natalie Babbitt, three by Avi, several
Redwall
installments, and Christopher Paolini's five-hundred-page sequel to
Eragon
, titled
Eldest
. With Lewis, Cooper, Avi, and Paolini, Julia had researched each author on the Internet (“Find three sources,” I said, “and don't just rely on Wikipedia!”), and she had composed essays on each writer, with a biographical paragraph or two, a few sentences on each book she read, and occasional attempts at introductory and concluding paragraphs, which sometimes amounted to introductory and concluding sentences.

When it came to doing research, her early efforts were shaky. With Lewis, she had displayed a child's fixation on death:

Three months later, when she researched Christopher Paolini, Julia was handling an author who was eighteen and brilliantly alive, so she found more to say:

The fact that Paolini was homeschooled seemed to inspire Julia. She marveled that a home-educated sixteen-year-old could make a million dollars writing about dragons. Paolini was leading her dream life, and Julia set about writing in her journal with added vigor.

Reading Julia's portfolio was like perusing the before and after shots that fill so many women's magazines and television shows. Look at the amazing transformation! Before and after a trendy diet, before and after a professional makeover, before and after a stint on
What Not to Wear
. Julia's writing was now sleeker, more stylish, more beautiful. Admittedly, one reason for the improvement was purely cosmetic; her later essays were typed, while the earlier work was handwritten. Our computer was now checking her spelling and grammar, and computer screens tend to inspire more verbosity than mere pencil and paper. Still, the bare fact that Julia had learned to type represented yet another significant achievement.

The previous year, Waddell's gifted program coordinator had recommended typing for Julia's homeschooling curriculum. Typing, she explained, was a valuable talent in middle school. These days many ten-year-olds have already honed their typing skills through years of computer access, but I had steered Julia
away from keyboards for much of elementary school, believing that children should be immersed in books before they are immersed in technology. At the start of our homeschooling year, Julia was still pecking at the keys with one finger.

Now, as I thought back over the weeks in which Julia learned to type, the process seemed analogous to our entire experience of homeschooling. It had been a matter of me planning and insisting, Julia complaining and resisting, all leading up to the crucial question: When was it time to quit?

Back in August, I had tried to buy a fun typing game for Julia, not realizing that plenty of free games are available on the Internet. The Webkinz site—sacred oracle to so many grade-school girls, including my Kathryn—includes a typing game. But as a novice homeschooler, I didn't know about these options, so I thought to purchase something online. A basketball game—where children could shoot virtual hoops while positioning their fingers at ASDF JKL;—had garnered the most enthusiastic reviews. Alas, my primitive PC didn't have the Windows operating system necessary to run that program. Instead, I settled for SpongeBob SquarePants, with his Bikini Bottom typing tournament, filled with maritime games. (Imagine a motorboat accelerating down an underwater raceway, speeded by a child's typing, with slops of seaweed splattered on the windshield at every error.)

Julia hated it. After a few tries in early September she grew weary of SpongeBob's high-pitched nasal words of encouragement: “One key at a time, baby, one key at a time…. Don't get sand in your britches!…Just think how hard this would be if you were a clam!” The only game she appreciated was Do Ray Mi, where the computer played one musical note for each typed letter, plunking through some sailorish tune, à la “The Irish Washerwoman's Song.” Anyone who has heard “The Irish
Washerwoman's Song” knows that there is only one rule for performance: the faster the better. Julia had a musical incentive to increase her typing tempo.

Nevertheless, she complained. “Do I have to use this stupid program?”

“You have to learn how to type,” I replied, “and this program is all we've got.”

Over the next few weeks, Julia's lamentations combined with SpongeBob's nasal cheerleading to produce an intolerable duet.

“Okay,” I relented. “You don't have to practice typing as part of your regular curriculum, but each time you misspell one of the words in your spelling journal, you'll owe me five minutes of SpongeBob.”

That was a mistake. Learning a new skill can be a joy or a duty, but it should never be presented to a child as a form of punishment. Julia complained as much as ever, until, after a few more weeks, she wore me down.

“I'll make a deal with you,” I said. (My homeschooling often resembled a domestic version of
Let's Make a Deal
.) “If you can complete the level-ten quiz at twenty words per minute, you can quit SpongeBob.”

Level ten was not very high; I could have insisted that she go much further. But it was high enough to give Julia a solid foundation in typing, while not being so distant that she would despair. That light at the end of the tunnel inspired her to type with added determination, and within a few weeks she had met her goal.

Letting Julia quit taught me one rather obvious lesson about the value of quitting. Freed from the obligation to type, Julia sometimes revisited the program voluntarily. In moments of boredom, or when fooling around on other computer programs, she would occasionally stray back to Bikini Bottom, and tinny,
computerized strains of “The Irish Washerwoman's Song” would float past my ears as I wiped the kitchen counters.

All of which brings us back to mid-February, as I assessed the typed and handwritten contents of Julia's portfolio. Flipping through the pages, I remembered my feelings from the previous afternoon: the impulse to quit, to say, “Enough. Move on.”

But if Julia was making good progress, why not push forward? Wasn't her portfolio proof that my method was working?

Far from it. Although Julia's writing had clearly improved, the cost of that improvement had been too great. Over the next few days, whenever a friend would ask about our homeschooling, my answer would be blunt: “It's been an academic success, but a maternal failure.” Sure, Julia could produce excellent work if I behaved like a harpy and held her feet to the fire. But how long should a mother dangle her child's toes above the flames?

I thought of my friend Todd, the history professor who had homeschooled his son for six weeks. He, too, had seen clear academic benefits from homeschooling, but the tensions had almost destroyed their relationship, and it seemed that my methods were on the verge of being equally destructive.

The essays that rested in my hands had not been written with the same joy apparent in Julia's journal. All of this eloquence and creativity had been produced begrudgingly, every paragraph accompanied by another protest. Admittedly, “joy” might be an unreasonable expectation; few children embrace essay-writing with unfettered glee. Still, part of my goal in homeschooling had been to reduce Julia's misery, and it seemed that over the past few months I had only managed to give her misery a new name. I had granted her a break from traditional schooling, but not a respite from oppressive expectations. Maybe it was time to give her a break from me.

But what would it mean to “quit” in mid-February, when
three and a half months of the school year remained? We certainly couldn't quit math—math required daily practice, and our carefully mapped out curriculum filled nine months. Ratios, probability, and variables all lay before us. Besides, I had an English major's intimidated reverence for math; math was serious business and must progress full speed ahead.

In other areas we had more leeway. Take the violin, our primary source of conflict. Julia was scheduled to play in a mid-May recital—nothing fancy, just twenty parents gathering in a college music classroom to hear fewer than a dozen children perform one piece each. In preparation, she had started to learn the first movement of a concerto, and reneging on her obligation would set a bad precedent.

The post-recital months were a different story. The summer offered a lesson-free hiatus, and come September, Julia would be so busy with her new middle-school routine, with its homework and tennis team practice and afterschool clubs that I couldn't guarantee she would practice five times a week. The prodding required on my part might once again transform me into a maternal version of the Incredible Hulk, a roaring, button-popping, discolored vessel of rage.

Maybe, come summer, it would be time to try the John Brodie approach to music education. Require nothing of the child, and let her take the initiative. I could offer to play duets with Julia, and encourage her to join the local orchestra, but the weekly pressure to prepare for a lesson could be lifted.

And what should happen with our other homeschooling subjects? What pressures could I eliminate on that score? I remained at the table for another half hour, imagining all the ways Julia and I could stop what we were doing, or at least change course.

Our winter had been tainted with too much stress and guilt. We needed a new direction, one that would allow me to express
more love and appreciation for Julia, and maybe even feel a little better about myself. We needed time to heal our mother-daughter wounds.

 

When Julia eventually came downstairs, shuffling and groggy, she folded her arms on the kitchen table and rested her face on them sideways.

“What time is it?” she murmured.

“Nine forty-five.”

“Why didn't you wake me?”

“I wanted to let you sleep.”

“No math this morning?”

I nodded. “No math today.”

Math was our early-morning subject, tackled first each day to make sure that it didn't fall by the wayside as the afternoon advanced. Even that scheduling decision was probably one of my homeschooling mistakes, for although I am a morning lark, my mind sharpest before noon, Julia is a night owl, drowsy and ill-tempered in early daylight. Maybe that explained why her math facts remained blurry in her mind.

“No violin today, either,” I said. No out-of-tune scraping. No ugly head-swatting scenes.

“I want to apologize again for yesterday. I shouldn't have yelled at you and hit you on the head. There's no excuse.”

Julia shrugged. Apologies were useless without some form of action, and in the coming year, she would explain that she didn't even care about the head-swatting. She only cared about being called a dumbass.

“I want to make a deal with you,” I continued, sliding into my Monty Hall routine. (Let's show Julia what's behind Door Number One!) “In the future, if I ever lose my temper or even raise
my voice, we can stop homeschooling for that day. You won't have to do any more schoolwork. Which doesn't mean that you can watch TV or play computer games, but you can read whatever you like for the rest of the day. How does that sound?”

Julia sighed. “Good, I guess.”

(But wait! There's more! Show Julia what's behind Door Number Two!)

“There's something else,” I began. “I've decided that you don't have to write any more essays for the rest of the year. You're done with writing nonfiction. All the writing you'll do will be your own stories and poems, and your own chapters of novels. Whatever you like.”

“No more author studies?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“And no social studies or science essays?”

“That's right.”

“What will we do, if we aren't writing?”

Good question. I had never given Julia a science or social studies test. Although I had verbally quizzed her on names and dates and scientific facts, in our schooling, written tests were reserved for spelling and math. When it came to science and social studies, her only assignments had been to make posters and write essays focused on atoms and molecules, astronomy and prehistoric life. Now we'd be putting an end to all that.