Birthdays

We had a combined birthday party for Middle Sister and Little Sister today. It was lots of fun.

At the end of the day, I was chatting with Middle Sister and she said, “You know, age doesn’t really matter. If no one invented birthdays, we would just go along growing and no one would know how old we are and it would all be okay.” Just like a homeschooler to come up with such an idea.

Which brings me to this lovely video of a part of a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. While his focus is on changing the educational systems in the west, he makes the case for homeschooling over and over (whether or not he intends to do so). Tailor-made education. Relevance and real life experience over intense focus on the abstractions of academia. Not putting kids together based solely on their ages – like their “date of manufacture” is their most important characteristic. Worth a watch and listen whether you homeschool or not.

One Thing I Love About Homeschooling

Today we went to a birthday party. There were kids from ages 4 to 11 playing a game together that involved pretending to be cats, dogs, and various characters. V, at 17 months, was the littlest person in the house. And she desperately wanted to go play with the other kids, pointing and carrying on about it.

I told some kids, "She would like to play."

A nine year-old smiled and said, "Okay." Then she looked to V and said, "Do you want to be a cat or a dog?"