The Child With No Ideas

The wonderful SecularHomeSchool forum of which I am now a member (yeah, I know, I am neither strictly speaking secular or strictly speaking home-schooling, they are clearly as tolerant as I am scatty) recommended me a book about literacy through art. At bedtime I started reading, and then I couldn't sleep because it made me too excited. So today I was overtired and nervous that these great ideas wouldn't work. A bundle of nervous tension. Not great.
I love creative writing, can't get enough of it. My son is the opposite. He can't stand writing of any kind. He'll do it, under suffrance, at school, like most boys. He will write the minimum he can get away with. In fact, he rarely meets that benchmark. His teacher suggested I use his time off school to work on his writing. I have been hesitant, because I applaud the aim but had no idea how to work on it: I mean, I can insist he sits and writes for twenty minutes but he complains he has no ideas, even if I show him a photograph and say "Describe what you can see."
Clearly something more was going on. Today I took the scribble-drawings he'd produced last week with his brother and reminded him gently of the story he had suggested. He was reluctant and grumpy - I am learning that for the first five minutes of any activity he will be surly and unco-operative, and it will take a couple of reminders that I DO actually need him to do some work now before interest and enthusiasm kick in. The reminders were delivered, which usually does the trick.
But this morning there was no rush of enjoyment The more I showed him my plan, the more anxious and wound-up he got. I explained that we were going to list some of the features of the picture in a chart - "Clouds" "Trees" etc - and that then we would think of words to describe them for our writing.
At the word "writing," he shot out of his seat. "No Mummy I am NOT GOOD AT WRITING! It is boring!"
I thought of the breathless tone of the book about literacy and art. A chart like this was supposed to unlock a child's creativity instantly, turn them into a combination of Shakespeare and Rembrandt. Clearly book had some missing steps. Or, clearly, my son had some massive issues about writing. I fought back the urge to tell him to shut up and do what he was told.
"Well, you see," I said feebly, feeling like a maiden aunt confronting an armed burglar, "the thing is, this is the exercise, we have done these lovely pictures and now we are going to write the story to accompany them." He looked at me as if I was the armed burglar.
"But Mum," he exploded, "I am the illustrator."
 Of course he was. It made perfect sense. Writers  and illustrators do different jobs. The bloody book didn't include a way to get around this. But at least it was conversation rather than refusal. I clutched at the straw that whistled past me in the wind.
"OK, yes, you are the illustrator. And I am the writer." I gave up all expectations of written work for this lesson. "But an illustrator needs to help the writer understand his pictures."
We looked at the picture together. "But I need to draw trees."
"OK," I said, thinking how badly this was going. You are not SUPPOSED to still be drawing, son, we are SUPPOSED to be on the literacy part of the lesson now. He drew some more trees. They looked weird, clunky and odd. Then he said casually "Can you put on that chart that the trees are people-like?"
I held my breath. "Yes, I can do that." Should I be casual or tell him that that was amazing?
I chose the latter, which seemed to please him. He drew a few more details, and we worked on the list. Then he told me the opening of his story, which I wrote down as he asked me. The words are entirely his, I just prompted him occasionally by reminding him what he'd put on the chart. He chose a title. We just worked on the opening page, which we agreed should be atmospheric, before the story proper started.

The Little Patterned House

Long ago there was a little patterned house. And next to the house was an archery contest at the palace fair, and also a forest of people-like trees and grass standing still as statues because the wind can't reach them in the forest.
Smoke poisoned the air from the chimney of the little patterned house. But the wind blew it far away. Each colour of the rainbow shone brighter than the sun and did fancy loop-the-loops and other fancy tricks, when the wind blew. The clouds did loops and loops and blocked some of the rainbow, and the sun made the rainbow bright. The wind howled at night like a wolf howling to the moon.

Not bad for a child with no ideas.

Oddly, as I look back on the morning I am more interested in the moment of resistance, and in the changing tack that had to happen, in order to accomplish the goal. That's so important for a kid with "ishoos" and so impossible for a teacher, whose job is to herd thirty children in the same direction at once. I think this is the one advantage of educating at home. You don't have the degree in pedagogy or the institutional framework or the resources or the classroom support or the teaching experience. You are sailing a very small boat across a very large ocean, whilst everyone else is on an ocean-liner. Their voyage is far steadier and more luxuriously equipped than yours. Your only advantage is that you can react quickly, move away from danger fast. And, of course, you can keep close tabs on your passengers. It's all too easy to lose someone overboard from a shipping liner and simply sail on.

Do I want to sail across the Atlantic single-handed? I'm not sure. One of the more irritating aspects of the home-school "culture" is the single-minded insistence that YOU CAN DO IT, yes, YOU, yes random parent who is surfing the internet wondering about his or her child's wellbeing. It's a bit like the Kitchener posters in World War One, insisting that the Hun will only be defeated if you personally, Sam Jones in Warwickshire, lay down your plough and hurry off to the front. It brings out my inner rebel. I feel like writing back to these enthusiasts: "wow really? You're sure I can homeschool? That's amazing, I am so glad of your encouragement, you see I thought my crack habit and sideline in prostitution might be a stumbling-block." Just because you CAN do something, isn't necessarily a reason that you should. I feel a bit like Sam Jones in Warwickshire. It's all very well being noble and laying down my life to educate my children singlehandedly, but actually there's quite a few fields that need ploughing, the boys have developmental and medical needs aplenty, and will that be neglected if I run off to the front of home-schooling?
It's a toughie though, because I am realising that I am actually OK at this. From the last couple of months' experience, I am now pretty sure that yes, if push came to shove, I could homeschool adequately. With the gym and me-time a vague but alluring memory, I am still hoping it won't be necessary to give up my entire life for my child: but today's lesson taught me very clearly quite how much could be accomplished with intensive one-to-one tailormade tuition, that just can't be done in a school. I guess if I could wave a magic wand right now it would involve my children being whisked off to a fabulous school (exactly like the one they currently attend, in fact) where they would spend just enough time there doing reading writing and sums to make me feel that I didn't have to worry about the basics. Then I would have them at home the rest of the week, providing tailormade tuition for their strengths and weaknesses and enjoying their company.
My fantasy also involves a fairy godmother who takes care of the washing cooking and cleaning so that I can spend my time preparing lessons. (And possibly a male masseur, who presumably comes with a magic wand of his own).
I can't tell what will actually happen, be desirable and/or possible. But I know I am excited about my children's learning - and about being involved in it - in a way I have never felt before. I have a sense of fun about it all, a feeling that we are all embarking on a tremendous adventure. I am not quite sure what the route is, but that will emerge.

Because at the end of the day I just want this child who is so regularly crippled by pain to have the sense of rainbows looping the loop in his childhood, colours shining brighter than the sun. At the moment he thinks that the little patterned house might have a family rather like ours in it. Let's hope we can keep the poison smoke of pain blowing away in the wind. I want him to be filled with the magic of people-like trees, to hear in his imagination the sounds of wolves and winds howling to the moon. The more of that, the less time spent begging for painkiller. So whatever makes that happen is the right choice, whether it be at school or at home.