Deschooling

My eldest son has been working well these last few days. I've been producing worksheets for maths, english, history and geography with a Christmas theme, which he has found interesting. He is also following a daily advent project which he is enjoying. One of his favourite subjects when he was at school was religious studies.

However, my middle son is still struggling. He was very badly bullied in school and it has had a huge impact on his self esteem. He is a bright boy, above average in all his grading tests, however he thinks he is "dumb" thanks to the verbal taunts of his former class mates. He appears to be borderline Aspergers and it seems that those traits were the ones that his contempories picked on.

Anything that reminds him of school - such as sitting him at a table with a pen and paper - still has the power to provoke an emotional outburst five months after leaving school.

Its not that he isn't learning, but it does get frustrating not being able to get him to settle. I feel that the discipline of doing something in a more formal way is a lesson in itself for life, which is why they aim to do at least 1 piece of "table work" a day. Everything else is verbal, auditory, or kinesthetic learning (which matches their styles).

Still, I have to draw comfort from the progress we have made, and see this week as perhaps just a setback partly due to the excitement of Christmas.

This afternoon we have a group presentation about the subject of water from an employee of a local water company so it's time to clear the kitchen out again! I really must book that hall!