When I was growing up on a farm in Michigan, I treasured every weekend and public school vacation. I avoided camps and other organized activities, eager to get on with my own rich agenda of creative and scientific projects. Two of my favorites were documenting all the native wildflowers in pen&ink sketches, and experimenting with natural plant dyes. In early adulthood I was given a book, The Complete Illustrated Holistic Herbal: a Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies, by David Hoffmann, which waited, like a dormant seed, on my book shelf until this summer. When I finally got around to paying it closer attention, flipping through the color photos, I realized that many of the plants were either growing in my garden or as weeds around the edges! Now, as you can see above, I've begun the satisfying project of clipping, drying, jarring, and labeling these free local medicinals. There is so much lemon balm I've been giving it away in bunches!
As a homeschooling parent, it has been interesting to observe my children follow their own interests. Some interests last months or years–-my son's obsession with the Titanic, for example. Other interests blossom for only a week or a day, and if not explored right then and there, the blossom of interest may close.
My children's interests aren't necessarily mine. Nor is homeschooling all about letting my children follow their every whim and never telling them what do do. There are many activities I've made them do for the medicinal value because I felt it was going to be worth the effort: cursive writing and touch typing, for example. (Some day I should get around to the latter myself! I admire how fast my daughter types now, without looking at the keys, while I still fake it with two fingers on each hand.)
In the beginning of homeschooling I dedicated much time to sitting down and making my daughter do a lot of academic work, partly because I was fresh out of being employed as a full time teacher so the urge to set agendas was still flowing through my veins. The first year of homeschooling my son was a little less stringent, and this year is even less. This year I am giving more time to my own home-based work and play, such as this medicinal plant project.
I think it is important for homeschooling parents, especially if they are new to the role, to follow their own curiosity and interests as learners. It doesn't matter so much if their children develop the same interests. Demonstrating the activity of being engaged, motivated by authentic curiosity, matters more. When you can feel that, and compare it with the dull deadening sensation of just going through the motions doing someone else's agenda, it gives you a touch point to honor your children's native curiosity and authentic interests as learners.
Last year my son showed an interest in the medicinal properties of crystals. In our community there was a person who knew a lot about this special topic and who was willing visit once a week for a while to be a mentor. We called it "Potions Class." It was a subject I knew nothing about. I wasn't even sure how much I believed in it, but I was tickled to hear that he was "a natural, very sensitive and accurate" in his perception of the properties of the crystals he was shown!
Given his success in Potions Class, I thought he might be interested to learn about medicinal plants, but so far I'm the only student in that class. But he did tell me, as I was making a topical wound healing tincture with calendula and vodka, that it would become more potent if I set it out in the light of the full moon. Couldn't hurt! So I did. Teaching and learning go both ways in our school.
No comments:
Post a Comment