…..continued

So where does Idleness come in?

Well during this busy busy year there have been a number of points when we have realised that change had to happen. that leading this busy life is not what we want for our family and not what we enjoy and not sustainable for us for any length of time with out some sort of implosion. There have been a number of times when various family members have had meltdown moments this year and while I think they are occasionally unavoidable I believe they can be reduced.

The trouble with busyness is that it creeps up on you. You start with a life you are coping with and then something else comes along that you want to do, or feel obliged to do or just have to do. So you add it into your life and you time gets squeezed a little but it’s okay because next month it’ll quieten down. Then one or two more things creep in and suddenly you are not really coping, things get missed, you keep smiling but under the surface the cracks begin to show. You keep doing things but not so well and don’t give them enough time and the important things (not the urgent ones) start to disappear – playing games with the kids (you’re too tired), reading stories (can’t one of the older children do it), having a conversation with hubby (no lets watch House instead) – and you start to resent doing even the things you previously enjoyed and wanted to do. Irritability levels rise, budgeting gets worse (no time for planning so we just rush to the local shop and buy something more expensive to eat), relationships suffer.

So in the midst of busyness we have had some revelations about our lives .

The first was about Sundays we changed them and honestly I think if we hadn’t we would never have got through this year as well as we have. If we don’t manage to get a proper Sunday now we really miss it and feel the difference – what with festival and camping etc we haven’t had a proper Sunday for a few weeks, I’m really really really looking forward to the one coming up. All we have planned is to go to church and then go for a walk with a long leisurely lunch in between but I am really looking forward to it. I find that because we don’t do any work (including housework etc.) I don’t worry about anything much and I really relax.

Holidays are the next thing that has impacted our lives. Our trip on the Norfolk Broads which I haven’t blogged properly but you can have a taster here and an insight into how even a holiday isn’t straight forward for us here. Was wonderful. We really did very little for a whole week. Having said that we walked, birdwatched, cooked, played games, discussed issues, read, shopped in little villages, learned about using the boat, read maps , took photographs etc. But the pace was slow and gentle and the activities ones we wanted to do at the time.

It reminded me of how our home education used to be. We all learned lots from each other (Ruth was our bird expert having done some bird zoology this year) but in a completely relaxed and informal way. Martin and I knew we needed a restful holiday rather than an experience style holiday what I hadn’t realised was how much Rebekah needed it too. She loved doing nothing and as it was only a couple of weeks before her RS exam she really appreciated the break.

This time of rest told us that we had really been far to busy and that we needed to incorporate more rest into our lives! Shortly after arriving home we booked another holiday on the Broads for October – so we can look forward to more complete rest then!

We also knew we had to stop rushing about so against our money-saving principles which say we have to get our money’s worth out of every mainland trip we decided that our trip to Greenbelt in August would be just that rather than going on to zigzag across the country going visiting every friend we have ever made. While at some points in our lives that would be the right and good thing to do just now we need to rest some more and do less.

Camping has had a bit of an impact too. We went to Corf camp with the LZ a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t want to go, I had to go to work twice in the week, Martin needed to get three days work in. It was going to be bitty and unsettled and I just didn’t want to go. The children did though, so off we went (if 4 days after the start). Arriving we found we were sharing our camping area with 3 good family friends and a lovely new family. I felt immediately relaxed and chilled out. Martin took a little longer but spending a whole day chatting with Dave only moving to follow the shade around the gazebo. The simplicity of being at the campsite – no email, not worries about what I needed to wear, no washing to do (OK we were storing that up but never mind). Nothing to worry about but whether the milk was still cold and had the kids had enough to drink. That break was also much needed, it seemed to be that everyone I was with needed it. I had taken the How To Be Idle book with me and was enjoying doing nothing – although I also made my first proper friendship bracelet and went for my first kayak – Martin was enjoying sitting around chatting to Dave – another bookLiving Simply by Fiona Castle was being passed around the group like the chocolate gets passed around in the twilight. So there seemed to be a bit of a theme going on. We loved the relaxing simplicity of it even if we had to come backwards and forwards for work.

The other thing that has come up is one of the Cafe Church topics. we watched the Nooma video Shells. It’s well worth watching whatever your religious persuasions. Our theme was Too Busy Too…. Which was ironic really, talking from our experience rather than talking from a position of having got it sorted. Watching this Nooma really made me stop and think (well they all do but this one was timely). I know that just because something is a good thing to do it doesn’t make it the best thing to do for me and my family and the life we want to live. Applying that is more difficult though.

Reading How To Be Idle is just confirming much of what I have been thinking. Naps are not bad. Stopping now and then through the day for 20 mins to have tea with martin and sit in the garden is a refreshing and renewing thing to do. Spending time laughing and enjoying friends is a good way to live. Rushing about doing more and more may not actually get more things of import done. Not rocket science but nicely confirming.

So where are we now – we are heading towards the summer and a break from regular activities. We’ve called a three line whip against doing any regular activities through the summer, maths is an exception I’m afraid as it won’t get completed by November otherwise and church is because that’s integral to who we are and how we lead our lives. But nothing else regular. We want to spend the time just resting and getting ourselves back together. Also having had a break we hope we will find it easier to decided which things we want to take up again (or anew) in September with clearer heads and more idea about our whole life and also how much time we want to be able to have to rest and relax in and just live in.

Just don’t ask me about how busy the next two weeks are though!

This has been a ridiculously busy year even by our standards.

We have gone from being the sort of automomous home educators who do pretty much what we want aside from on Saturdays (music centre and drama), Sundays (church) an odd after-school activity (maybe gym, maybe GB, maybe scouts) and quite a few (mostly one off) Learning Zone activities, interspersed with the odd play, art exhibition, lots of seeing friends and work.

That sounds like lots but really we had quite a few days to just do what we feel like. This was our plan when we were just starting out on official home education (i.e. when Rebekah hit 5). Having looked at lots of ways of doing things and reading lots we decided that Rebekah was learning loads as we just went about our everyday lives. We saw no reason why on her 5th birthday this should change. So we decided to just carry on like this until it stopped working and she stopped learning. this didn’t happen so now she is nearly 14 we are still educating autonomously.

However rather than spending days waking up and seeing whether we feel like making playdough, going to the beach, creating volcanoes, making sculptures, writing newsletters, listening to story tapes, cooking or playing games, our lives seem to have many more planned activities in them which have to happen at set times.

What things have added to our busyness?

Education:

As I said we’ve been used to doing mostly our own thing, pretty informal and without much structure. Last year Rebekah(age 12) thought she might like to do A levels at the college which requires 5 GCSE equivalents. So we started to look at how this might be achieved (while still , of course, doing everything we previously did). A plan was hatched and the following qualifications studied for this year.

Modular maths GCSE (starting Sept 09 ending Nov10) (Ruth is doing this too).

RS O level (starting <ahem> February(ish) 2010 ending May 2010).

ECDL (a level 2 computer course starting sometime 2010 when Martin could fit it in and ending July 2010).

That gets three out of the way and only two more to do over the next two years (of course now we’ve started down this track she has changed her mind and wants to the the Countryside and Management BTEC which with 5 GCSEs she can do at level 3 but she could have started with nothing at level 1 <grrrr>)

So this is (educationally – although that is a bit broad when you are autonomous and most of the stuff in other categories counts as educational too iyswim) what we have tried to fit in this year (this is only Rebekah’s list but most of the stuff Ruth has been doing too)

• Maths sessions – 3 hours a week with 4 teenagers (well Ruth is a nearly teenager) plus extra maths ourselves.
• RS revision
• 12 week course working with the rangers
• ECDL classes taken by Martin and with a couple of friends
• Expedition club
• Circus skills
• Band practice
• Music centre
• Singing lessons
• Drama (although partway through the year Rebekah decided to give this up as she had too much on)
• Trip to Germany with LZ
• LZ play
• Walk round the island
• Walk across the Island
• Walk from one ferry-port on the mainland to another
• Youth night
• Catalyst

And that’s without the ongoing one off activities – science sessions, nature walks, rocket science, trips to the mainland etc.etc.

This may not sound like a lot to some of you but there is still all the other important things to do in our lives -spending time with friends gives good informal learning opportunities (she learns more guitar skills from Levi Dawson and at some point she teaches them to someone else – perhaps Caleb Dawson!!!) as well as being essential for our overall well being, time spent reading (one of Rebekah’s great pleasures since she was tiny), time spent doing things just because we feel like them right now (fimo, felting, walking, playing Carcasonne) all these things are very important to us and our way of life. You may wonder if this is still autonomous, we believe it is, even though the days are more planned and structured it’s at the children’s request so that for us makes it autonomous still.

So that’s broadly education, what else has been going on in our lives making it so busy?

Politics:

Well there was a little bit of political activity going on in the home education field this year, you may have heard about it. I’m not going to go into it now but we seem to have 3 pages of blog posts that are tagged Badman so if you are interested you can have a look. So this year we have spent lots of time reading government documents, discussing the issues online, discussing the issues with local HErs, going to local protests, going to protests in London, writing to our MP, writing to other MPs, writing to Lords, meeting our MP, watching Parliament TV, explaining issues to the children etc.etc.etc. This took up quite a bit of our time and lots and lots of our emotional energy. We were fighting for our way of life that we had found to be so rich and varied and enjoyable and wouldn’t want to change. We’re out of the woods for a little while thanks to a change of government. There were a few surprising side effects. Rebekah watched hours and hours of parliament TV, even I couldn’t force myself to do this and waited for edited highlights to be delivered to me from Martin, Rebekah or internet friends. There were laughs about it all courtesy of this wonderful blog. Our MP actually listened to what we said and spoke up for us rather well in the House of Commons.

Work:

Well between us we’ve had about 7 p/t or self employed jobs this year (cafe church, webmaster, numeracy tutor, project manager, ECDL tutor, Street Pastor something or other (structural and technological and fundraising stuff), funding bid applier). Martin’s main work has ebbed and flowed and eventually they’ve merged with another organisation. So I think that’s quite a lot of balls to juggle, not to mention childcare and car use to juggle with as well. ‘Nuff said really.

Mainland Trips:

Now to those of you who don’t live on “The Island” this may seem a strange category.

Aside – We had mainland friends visit us a while ago who thought it was really funny how the locals called the Isle of Wight “The Island” we assured them that we were fully integrated here and also referred to as this and that anything visit off the island from Portsmouth to Aberdeen could all be dismissed a a visit to “The Mainland”. Conversation goes like this “I haven’t seen you around recently have you been away?” “Yes I’ve been visiting relatives in Liverpool” “ah, the mainland”.

Anyway for an Islander, or even an overner like me, getting off the island is an exhausting (not to mention expensive) business. Some years we only manage to get away once or twice. By the time we get to September this year I think we’ll have clocked up at least 12 trips, this all eats into our time as well. Being the Scrooges that we are we generally try to fit in lots of things to every mainland visit because once you’ve paid the extortionate ferry costs you may as well make the most of it. This tends to lead to trips to the mainland being a stressful affair as you have to time everything right and fit in with the people you want to visit and make sure you manage to get back in time for the ferry you have paid for. So even a holiday can turn into a stressful round of fitting things that don’t quite fit together.

So these have been the main areas of busyness in our lives – there are also church events and duties, Learning Zone activities (to attend or to organise or to open up for). These are mostly hugely enjoyable but when you are trying to cram them into a too busy life even the things you want to do can become a burden.

continued….