Homeschool 101

School in the top of the Goodnow firetower

Today is the first day of school in our district, but my son is happily sleeping in. We started our homeschool experiment three weeks ago and we are settling into a routine. He'll get out of bed soon and join me for a few yoga poses, write in his journal while I take a shower, then we'll have breakfast. During the week, when dad's at work and I have morning yoga classes, he'll bring his books to the yoga studio. He'll read for hours flopped on pillows in the meditation room and he's been quiet as a mouse.

At home, he's working on the fourth grade curriculum from Time4Learning. The lessons are all online and look like a computer game, which appeals to the geek genes he inherited from his programmer/network administrator father. To keep him from going completely over to the dark side, we're supplementing with Kamana for Kids, a home-study naturalist course for children from the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State. And lots of hiking and just being outside, of course.

Music was my son's least favorite class in school, so I figured we try something different than the typical music curriculum. Luckily we have a very talented singer/songwriter in town and he agreed to give my son guitar lessons. I hope they all go as well as the first one. Rather than jumping in with lots of things to practice, they started the lesson by changing the strings on the kid-sized guitar. This involved lots of holding the strings and using tools and my son was very happy. When they started to play, my son was given permission to make any noises he wanted with the guitar, as long as he agreed to learn the basic stuff too. They're planning to listen to lots of music together, from classical to jazz and rock. This morning my son asked to play Guitar Hero on the Wii, so I think music might have moved up a notch or two.

All in all, my son is doing well with the new routine. I wish I could say the same for me. I'm still adjusting to my daughter being at college and I catch myself taking an extra plate out of the cabinet when I set the table. I can't seem to get to bed at a decent hour and it's throwing off my mornings. Transitions are never easy and I try to remember to be gentle with myself. Change, while scary, is often good, and compared to some changes in my life, this is nothing.

Brave enough to try

Witherbee's Carriage House, a local restaurant with a bar upstairs, hosts a number of local bands on weekend nights. On Thursdays they have open mic night. A Schroon Lake singer/songwriter runs it, making sure everyone gets a turn at the mic.

This evening, my niece, who just finished her freshman year in high school, brought her electric guitar to open mic night, got herself plugged in, and played and sang three songs. She did really well. No, it was not perfect, but there are some things we need to take into account. First, she has never had a guitar lesson. She is completely self-taught. Second, before tonight, she never sang into a microphone. Third, she is FIFTEEN YEARS OLD, and she was brave enough to get up in front of a room full of much older and very experienced musicians, many of whom have been paid to sing into a microphone.

One thing I can say for our local musicians is that they are very supportive. They love to have new people join the Schroon Lake music scene. My niece was welcomed and encouraged. Perhaps they remember their first times.

I cannot count the times in my life when I missed out on chances to try things for the first time because I wasn't brave enough to risk not being perfect the first time. I've missed opportunities to talk to someone famous because I didn't think I would have anything to say. I have three lifetimes worth of bucket list items because I didn't just do things when I had the chance.

Yes, I have taken a few risks in my time. Every now and then I try something new. But more often I don't, and I wonder sometimes who I might have been as an adult if I had been braver when I was younger. Or who I would be today if I had been braver last month.

My niece and I were talking about a song I like. It has a drum intro, played on the bongos. I said I'd like to learn to drum so I could play that intro. She said she'd learn the guitar part so we could play together. I said we could work on it over the winter. She gave me three weeks.

I don't know if I can learn to play the bongos in three weeks. I don't even own bongos, yet. But maybe I can be brave enough to try.