Probabilities. We have been covering that at home. Not much, not in a structured way. But I noticed my eldest son cursing that he could not get that right on his Mathletics game, and wandered over to help. (I also hyperventilated a little, because I am nervous of maths like you are nervous of poisonous snakes under your pillow).
My standards have been set extremely low for maths. I have checked the national standards that he should be meeting at the end of this year. Every time I showed him a problem from the list, he was able to solve it instantaneously. Oh, OK, I thought; I don't have to worry.
But I do, it turns out, because he now hates maths. Not, it seems, the maths we have done at home. We've taught him the probabilities he was struggling with. It took about five seconds. Then in another five seconds we explained that that was the childish way to do probabilities, and that there was a mathematical language for this kind of thing. And that you can use percentages, and that you can develop the idea of probabilities to a higher level, probably, than he would encounter for a few years at school. All this took an hour or so, not because my husband and I are incredible teachers but because he is a bright kid and there is a natural progression there. So far, so good.
But institutional maths is a different story. He's fed up with it. On one of his infrequent visits to school he discovered that there is a kid in the class who has done more worksheets than he has this year. In vain do I point out that this kid has not spent vast tracts of time sick at home,or in hospital. He gets that, he agrees, but he then tells me that he just doesn't want to do maths the school way, he doesn't like the worksheets any more. Right. Sigh. I start to regret having invited him to open up to me with his true feelings about school. He also hates writing. Well, I knew that already. I thought I had the solution for now. I explained to him about how he would need to write in exams when he was older, and he didn't need to be beautifully tidy but it needed to be fast and legible. I point out that when he came out from England he was already doing nice joined-up writing, so why is he now insisting on capitals? "But the other kids make fun of me when I do joined up writing, they say stop doing your fancy writing," he complains. And he insists on doing his dictation in capitals. I let him. The point of now is to work out what's going on, not try to fix everything overnight. But it's tempting to shout, and tell him to pull himself together.
Probabilities. The probability was that it was a lack of confidence, that he wasn't a very neat writer. But it turns out to be the opposite: it is that his friends at school thought he was too good at it, and as kids do decided to bring him down to their level. The perennial high-achievers' problem. I am relieved, in a way, because this problem sounds as if it might be easier to fix. But I am irritated, too: is there anything about his education that is actually going well, where he is working to his own satisfaction? No, it turns out, not really. He's a bundle of nerves, an eight-year-old worry ball. He thinks about probabilities, all the time, in a muddled sort of way: if I do well at this people may laugh at me, so let's play it safe and do it badly. I am not the best in the class at this anymore, am I the worst? He could use some probability-type thinking about his pain, too: to think about what may or may not may not happen.
So I bit the bullet, the way I have been desperately trying to avoid for the last couple of months, and said casually to my husband that I thought we ought to homeschool both boys for six months, until one was toilet-trained and the other in less pain.
I waited for the obligatory family argument (you know the one about money, and mollycoddling the boys,and not teaching them about the real world, and weird homeschooled kids).But fortunately my husband is a sensible man, and none of that happened.
After three days of thinking it over he said to me that he didn't think homeschooling for six months was actively dangerous. I took that as wholehearted approval. (Like I said, I have low standards).
Then we got a mysterious phonecall from the paediatric department of the hospital. A paediatrician who had never met our son had decided that she would like to sign a form admitting him to correspondence (hospital) school. Since we'd been trying to arrange this for months, this was good. I go to talk to school and we agree that this is a good solution - he can study their curriculum at home, I can supervise but it will give me a bit of time to focus on the huge educational problem that is my middle son. Who is clearly missing large tracts of what is said to him, and is clearly struggling with aural/auditory processing problems: who is slow to answer direct questions but who always knows the answers if you give him space and time. (I rather suspect this is behind many of his apparent social problems). Who is delightfully compliant, unless he feels under pressure, when he will refuse to comply or give the wrong answer on purpose. Who is doing well at reading and sums - because they are visual - but is struggling at the more abstract level of classroom language understanding, to the extent that he currently thinks his class is going on a trip to Antarctica. Yes, this boy needs some time and space and intensive engagement. It isn't just about the toilet training. He guesses the answer to a lot of verbal questions, relying on his understanding of probabilities to surmount that he can't understand. Sometimes his guesses are obviously, comically wrong - like Antarctica. Or the time when we went to the planetarium and he genuinely believed he had been in space. More often, I suspect, he guesses well enough that he gets by. But he won't for long. I have no idea what I am going to do about all this, but I know I can't leave him vaguely misunderstanding and floundering in the classroom.
So it is correspondence school for my eldest, and homemade curriculum for his brother. In which I guess I shall talk extremely slowly and clearly and spend lots of time waiting for his replies. I hope this is going to work out. I can already see a few problems ahead. The equivalent for my eldest son of finding those sneaky pillow-dwelling snakes. For one, the probability is extremely high that correspondence school will insist on seeing some writing, and will also be teaching maths by supplying him with a set of worksheets.
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