A generous education…

We finished up our school year just under a week ago. We’ll be taking the rest of the month off and a teensy bit of August, and then we’ll jump back in. I wasn’t exactly intending to become year round schoolers, but given our wacky and often unpredictable schedule, it fits just right. Looking back over these pictures just from the last month or two, my heart is so full. This year was so, so, rough, but I look back over these and I just see all the fun and joy we were having in the midst of it all; how much learning was going on even when I couldn’t be intentional about it. I look at these pictures and see my small intention and God’s mighty increase, filling us up. This year was full of so much overflowing grace. I can’t begin to express how much happier and more joyful this year of homeschooling has felt compared to our past homeschooling years prior to public school. It is like night and day.

And my goodness, did the test scores show it. To me, testing is for the birds and a ridiculous anachronism of our industrial schooling model, and a rather odious one. I was so stinkin’ nervous about the stupid things. Our state requires them by law, and given all we endured this year, I was a ball of knots going into it, especially given some of the learning challenges we face. I should have known better after trusting the words of wise counselors. Everything I learned from Andrew Kern and Matt Bianco, Sarah Mackenzie, Christopher Perrin– about mastery, about scholé- and put into practice- showed in those tests.

The proof is in the pudding, dear readers. I’m a restful teaching, classical learning, read aloud lifer after this. 😉  It’s not that these arbitrary numbers matter, but it gets the state off my back, and I, for one, am super grateful. Y’all, I cried some happy tears getting those results back. It was so encouraging to see. I had nothing to do with it. This was all them, all God. He is faithful. 

This is a post in the continuing series, Wonder and Inquiry.