When I first started telling people I was planning on homeschooling the girls, one of the first questions everyone asked was, "do you feel comfortable teaching that math?" That math is the rather challenging math program our township uses that frequently has parents pulling their hair out all over town between the hours of 5 and 8pm on any given night.
Yes. I was a bit concerned about teaching math to the girls. I like math, but it has never been my passion.
My passion, obvious to anyone who knows me, is creativity. Art and creative writing were the areas where I excelled as a kid. I don't know if I have any particular gift, I just know I love it. I feel alive when I am painting, drawing, designing or writing. I thought teaching this to my girls would be a slam dunk. No problem. Easy as pie. A cinch. A no-brainer. You can see where this is going...
It turns out, math has been a pleasure to teach. The material is straight-forward and objective. There is a clear beginning and an end. There is only one right answer. Everybody knows what is expected of them.
Creative writing and art? So subjective. So many right answers. And when the writing or the drawing is wrong somehow, it's often hard to explain why. There is no formula to follow to make the correction.
Still, some of our most spectacular moments over the past few weeks have involved riding our bikes to the lake and setting up easels. Even though I have struggled to explain "vanishing point" and "perspective" in a way they can understand, it is still an uncommon pleasure to
lean over your daughter's shoulder, paint brush in hand, and show her how to poke a puffy little cloud into her landscape in a way that looks more realistic, and less like the cartoons she is used to drawing. With the sun shining and the dog at our ankles, it ceases to matter if we "get it right." Thankfully, there is no formula for spending time with your kids...
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