It was the conversation I never dreamed we’d have:
“I don’t think we’re doing enough. School has gotten really easy.”
“Yeah, you said we’d be doing more this year, but we aren’t. Can’t we learn some more things?”
It was the kind of complaining that’s music to a mama’s ears. Both kids lamenting that they’re not learning enough? Both kids actually asking to do more school?
After I picked myself up off the floor, I asked some clarifying questions, to understand what exactly they were wanting. At twelve and ten-years-old, they are mostly independent in their studies, and over the past couple years I’ve slowly decluttered our curriculum, simmering it down to the basic essentials.
I saw so much good coming from having more space, I was hesitant to add anything back in.
But now they were begging me for more. Wasn’t this exactly what I’d hoped for? Wasn’t this the whole point? Don’t they say that cultivating (or recovering) a love of learning was the whole point of these middle-years?
This was it. My confirmation that a love of learning was growing, and that now, now that they were asking for it, I could effectively add more work into their days.
I sat down with paper and asked them each in turn:
Ok, you’re already doing the basics, so what subjects would you like to add? What do you want to learn?