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Spring is here. Hang what the calendar says: the trees are budding, some are blooming like white cotton puffs. Daffodils are everywhere in shades from butter to gold and there are purple punctuations trailing not far behind. Birds are singing, grass is bright green, and at least for today, the sky is bright blue. With the hills it sometimes looks like Candyland.

I didn’t think my allergies would be much a problem. After all, we’ve had a good year with few colds which went against what most transplants here said would be the case. Monday morning I noticed it hurt to swallow. My first thought was, “cold”, not “allergies”. Yesterday I had to make an afternoon cup of coffee just to stay awake. I happily planned an early evening run between David’s homecoming and dinner with absolutely no consideration to sinus pressure.

Should’ve thought twice. For the first half of my run things went pretty well. I’m still getting  used to running when there are other real runners out; still awkwardly wonder as we jog towards each other if I should make eye contact or not. Still wonder if they look at me and think “amature”. I am, but I’ve been running pretty much since high school, with breaks off for babies, and I think I’ve been at it enough to know it’s not a passing whim. I just wished I looked more the part.

Anyway, I noticed something didn’t feel right halfway through the run, just after my first sprint. I could feel my pulse in my teeth. I slowed for my interval walk and I felt my head spin a bit. My side stitch kicked in and I felt really flush. My heart rate wanted to keep jogging so continued at a pretty slow pace.  I was trying to match my breathing to a 3:2 pattern but that seemed fast. My eyeballs started to feel like they were bulging. Then…..I thought my head was trying to sneeze out through my molars.

Not pleasant. Hot teeth, intense pressure. It took a long time for it to go away and once I finally figured out that it was just sinus pressure I quit imagining I was having some kind of traveling clot through my head like what they show on House. Like I needed one more obstacle to actually get out there and run, but I will definately watch out for high pollen days in the future lest my fillings spontaneously combust.

I love running though because it gives me tons of time to think. Something about the rhymic pounding of my feet and my patterned breathing and that zone helps drop my thoughts into organized files when previously they were just thown in piles on the desk of my mind.

Foremost on my mind yesterday were the current waves and ripples in the world of homeschooling. I’m always a bit discouraged when I hear of mom’s who throw in the towel. Sometimes using a school system, whether it’s public or private, is a valuable tool. Regardless of how we do it, parents are the ones responsible for how thier kids are taught and no one lives in a vacuum. I get that. But often, in sharing thier change of decision or method, they will share the why that came behind it, and that’s where my heart strains.

Homeschooling and the very different education it can offer is part of a big picture. When all is said and done I hope my children are better equiped to think, to reason, to learn for life, than I was. It’s a comparison of the end product. I understand why governement systems want to evaluate along the way for “progress” but apples and oranges couldn’t be plainer. Why would my children test well on a scale formulated for children using not only different materials, but a different basic philosophy in general? Except in the case of  co-incidence and overlap, they wouldn’t. But the process creates a monster of comparison nonetheless.

The big picture, the end result, the out-of-the-box product is getting lost. Pressure to conform, to fit into someone else’s dress, eats moms up. “We didn’t get to everything today so we’ll have to make it up tomorrow.”  Tomorrow comes and the work load is burdensome. Everyone is crabby, everyone miserable. Mom shouts and yells. Kids take a passive aggressive stance. She starts to realize she can’t remember when she was “just thier mom”, reading to them, baking cookies, and smiling. Things start to feel claustrophic.
But wait. Where did that “we didn’t get to everything” come from? Who imposed the everything? Who’s system was it? Who set the calendar we live by and what the reason behind that date system? I don’t see even the weather cooperating with our little calendar system. Take it away for a moment and imagine….

Children are eternal. There is a lifetime to learn what needs to be learned. It doesn’t have to happen by next May. What is May? Well, it’s the month they released farm kids to go help with the busy time of year with thier families. Is there really any reason I need to stress myself out to fit into a time schedule that has zip to do with my life, my philosophy, my end goal?

Who said “x and y” had to be part of the everything I’m breaking myself to accomplish? Does that person know my kid? Does that curriculum creator or government overseer care about my intentions and motivations? Did they consider that when they dictated what a school day should look like?

Who said homeschooling had to mean we were together 24/7? If mom needs a break (and dad needs to get more involved) should it wreck the time line and impose more pressure on her to finish if she takes some time off? I hear it all the time. “I really need a break but that will just make us more behind”. BEHIND WHAT?!? BEHIND WHO??! Really, I”m ready to get my sword out and get swacking at these little voices that discourage and drive us into the ground, making us doubt our real convictions.

I supose it helps a bit that I’ve always been an “outside the box” thinker. I won’t let the government put me in a box and I won’t let a curriculum seller or home educatation writer do so either. But I do fall prey to the same traps. Check lists of things to do are convenient. No one wants thier kids to be “behind” in anything and our world is rather unaccustomed to watching people learn and live on different continuums. We are fond of uniformity; it helps validate our own actions and desires.

All these pressures feed into a “grass is greener on the other side” kind of desperation. It’s not really. I sometimes say, “I know the other side has problems but at least they are different ones than these I have now, which I am so tired of!” That’s true. I just hope that in changes and choices in different tools, we don’t loose sight of the big picture. That we let our kids really learn and not rely on a “fake it till you make it” abilty to blend in. It might take longer than the charts and standarized tests say. Or, the topic may not really be worthwhile in the first place. At the least, it may not be worth sacrificing human hearts and relationships over. God lets us start fresh every day, homeschoolers included.

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