Special Guest Edition: How we homeschooled today by Dixie Dillon Lane
Many of you will already be familiar with
’s Substack, The Hollow. I only asked Dixie yesterday if she’d consider writing me a guest post, stressing that there was no rush and no deadline, and I woke up this morning to find she’d already sent it. And it’s so good that I wanted to get it out to you all asap.From her own bio, Dixie is an American historian, teacher, and essayist who believes in integrating education, work, friendship, and family. She is a wife, a homeschooling mother, and a Roman Catholic.
Dixie’s children are 12, 9, 6, and 3. You can also find her on Hearth and Field, and the Arena.
If you’re new here, there’s a list of previous Special Guest Editions at the bottom, and you can find the full list in the ‘Special Guest Editions’ tab on the How We Homeschool homepage. If you’d like to be my next special guest, please get in touch! All shapes and styles of home education welcome.
Enjoy!
Last year, I wrote about how I homeschool on a good, healthy day.
But today is not a good, healthy day. Today is a sick day.
Still, sick or not, I must mother my children, and there’s still homeschooling and other work to do, too. Sometimes I am so sick that I can’t work or homeschool, of course, but today I made it through.
So, this is how I homeschooled on this sick day:
6 a.m.: I wake up. I’ve been feeling awful for a few days now, but I feel a little better this morning. Still, I lie in bed a little longer, listening to my son make about-to-walk-the-dog noises in the kitchen.
By 7:30, I’ve showered and made coffee, and I’m trying to assess how everyone is this morning. My husband is getting ready for work; he makes one or two awful “dad jokes,” so I can tell that he’s feeling all right.
Child #1 hasn’t emerged from her room yet, and so I presume she is still sick. No formal schoolwork or chores for #1 today, I decide.
Child #2 is back from walking the dog. He is feeling well and is getting ready to go on a job this morning: an older family friend is hiring him to help clear out a garage. There will be little formal schoolwork for #2 today – but he will practice many skills and virtues this morning, instead.
Child #3 has disappeared to listen to an “Adventures in Odyssey” CD and build with Legos. He will definitely be doing some formal schoolwork today.
Child #4 is obviously sick, her little voice hoarse from coughing. Her schoolwork is always entirely optional, as she is only four. She actually really loves practicing writing and learning letter sounds, but I won’t even mention schoolwork to her today.
I soon sit down to sort through e-mails while the kids have breakfast. I am a historian of education, a writer, and an editor, and usually there are plenty of e-mails awaiting my attention! Just as I am wrapping up, my friend arrives to pick up #2, and I tell her in front of my son that he “is my best worker. He’s the man for this job, for sure. He is always the first to help me.” I see his chest swell a little, and I tell him I love him and watch the care drive away.
#4 has joined me outside and is now walking along the curb, balance-beam style. I start walking behind her. We walk the full length of the block, twice. This may appear silly to some, but I know that balance and large-motor movement are extremely important activities for a young child. A child cannot learn to write without first developing core strength, balance, and the ability to use the large muscles to support the body while the hand makes its finely-coordinated writing motions. I wish more schools would recognize this.
When we go back inside, I notice that #1 has emerged and is teaching #3 how to play a board game that she (#1) has made up. #4 is anxious to join in, and sits down beside her brother and sister. #1 made the game board last night and has written up detailed rules. This is the third board game she has created this semester.
I recognize that the younger children are learning about strategy and negotiation and the older one is practicing teaching, organization, and flexibility. So of course, I leave them alone.
I go upstairs and think over the next problem at hand: yesterday, because I was unwell, I had the grocery store deliver groceries, but the delivery-person forgot to deliver the meat. So I must go to the store today, but #1 and #4 are too sick to go, and I am starting to feel pretty icky, myself. I realize I must go now, before the headache really hits, or we’ll be having toast for supper. #4 cries over my leaving, and I hold her and feel like crying, too; but I can see that #1 (who is in middle school and is a certified babysitter) is well enough to supervise her for half an hour, so I promise to bring home ice cream, and away I go.
Nota bene: this is a far cry from what would have happened even a couple of years ago, when I would have had to pack all my kids all into the car and take them with me, making us all sicker in the process. Moms of only littles: this part gets easier, I promise. So does getting all the housework done – having a couple of older kids makes an enormous difference.
I notice at the store that I am worsening quickly. I take the opportunity to buy myself chicken salad, because I know that without something already-prepared, I will eat poorly and will not have the energy to be patient with my children.
When I return home, things are relatively calm, and I set the kids up to watch a movie and eat ice cream and rest for a while. I sit down to write; I’ve just wrapped up a number of essays on tight deadlines and am now trying to set a new to-do list. But first, I fire off an e-mail to an editor-in-chief friend about something really interesting that we’ve been discussing, something that may or may not lead to an essay from one or the other of us in time.
Having friends and colleagues to talk with about ideas is just the best.
I also take a few minutes to begin drafting a portrait of my day today for a homeschooling series, thinking to myself that, sure, I could write about a perfect or even just typical homeschooling day for the series, but how often do we get to see inside somebody else’s imperfect, compromised homeschooling day? It’s no good for us to always be comparing our own imperfect lives to other people’s shined-up days.
At lunchtime, I eat some chicken salad and pull out storebought muffins for the kids; #2 comes back from his job tired, proud, and several dollars richer. I read aloud from Mrs. Piggle Wiggle while the kids eat. Normally, I would read this aloud in the morning while they did their copywork, but this is a better way to fit it in on a sick day. #1 reads her own current literature book for school, Hannah Fowler, after she eats.
Now it is on to math; #1 is excused, but #2 and #3 pull out their Beast Academy books and have at it. #2 is filling out times tables with the help of the comic-book-style instructions given by the beast-like characters (friendly little monsters) in his book. Meanwhile, the beasts are currently teaching #3 about polyominoes; but #3 looks kind of peaky and I realize that he is beginning to feel sick. No more math for today.
Rest time comes next. The kids have CD players in their bedrooms, and they listen to history or fiction while they rest or play quietly for a while. I sit on my bed and stare at the wall in a fog. But then I open up an essay draft from a scholar I much admire and find that my energy comes surging back as soon as I begin reading. Before long, I’ve made enough preliminary line-edits and comments to feel like stopping for a while.
The kids emerge from rest time after about an hour, some of them whacking each other for no apparent reason. (Yes, there is just as much of this sort of thing at my house as at yours.) I yell at them in a kind of mean way. Maybe I need to eat some more chicken salad. When I don’t eat enough, I end up yelling at the kids.
At this point, formal school is over for the day. On an ordinary day, we would have done more morning work: history, biology, typing, French, etc. Perhaps I will read aloud from our history book after dinner tonight. Perhaps I will not. It’s okay.
It is now 2:27, and I am feeling pretty tired and a little sad.
My husband usually comes home a little early on Thursdays so that I can go to a standing medical appointment, but I’m too sick today to go and #4 really needs me close by today, anyways. I text my provider and apologize. I start to feel a familiar little tug of self-reproach for not being superhuman, but I push back: I’m not a flake, I’m not pathetic, and I’m not a liar. I am a mature woman who gets to make decisions like this for her own self and her own family.
My husband still comes home early, bless him, and takes #2 to a birthday party at the park. The rest of us hunker down under the blankets and snuggle and talk and eat crackers and almonds. A little later, I put on yet another show – what, don’t you put on tons of shows for your kids on sick days? If you don’t, I highly recommend trying it next time – and #1 goes back to bed and works there on making jewelry to sell at our church’s Christmas craft fair, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. She and her brother and some friends share two tables each year at this fair.
Now that there is meat in the house, I rouse myself and brown some ground beef and a diced onion for chili. I ask #1 if she’s well enough to make coleslaw, and she is, so she does that and pops it into the fridge to marinate. The chili simmers. When my husband and #2 come home, he takes over and I go lie down.
When the food is done, I self-pityingly fill the bowls that no one else has yet filled and then we gather and say the blessing together. The chili and slaw are really warming and I calm down and realize the we are doing all right. After we eat, I try to go lie down by myself for a while, but two little worried faces appear at my door. I invite them in and they snuggle down under the blankets. We just lie there for a while. Why not? How often do we just lie there? There’s something to this just lying there together.
Later, the kids talk about how they are too sick to clean up their Legos. My husband locks up the chickens for the night and then we both trudge wearily around the house, taking care of little end-of-the-day tasks like switching laundry, feeding the pets, getting the little one’s bath started, and making sure everyone brushes their teeth. I half-watch part of a documentary about Audrey Hepburn. Holy smokes, not even Audrey Hepburn was spared the ordinary tragedies of life!
It’s bedtime for the younger kids, and we give them medicine and tuck them in. The older kids stay up for another hour, and #1 and I discuss the nature of Hannah Fowler’s strengths. Later, after all four children are asleep, my husband and I discuss his work and mine. Hungry, I discover that the peanut butter jar is empty, but I have a secret stash of mint chocolate that I can turn to instead. It is almost time for bed. I sit quietly and think of my children and the ways they each bring me joy.
Our days, you see, like our homeschooling in general, are characterized by imperfection. On many days, a lot of formal schoolwork gets done, and on many other days, especially on sick days, it does not. But when I look back on a day like today, I see many works of mercy happening, and a great deal of growth. I see patience, forebearance, forgiveness, wisdom, kindness, self-sacrifice, security, humor, problem-solving, cretivity, and a stretching expansion of love.
And a little bit of math and reading did get done, too.
So in fact, today was a very good day. There will be time and energy tomorrow for science, history, and French, I imagine. But the days when we get all that done are not the only days that are important in home education. No, there is much more to it than that, including learning how to love and care for each other when we are sick.
Indeed, a diversity of types of days and types of lessons is one of the greatest gifts and strengths of homeschooling. To quote Robert Louis Stevenson, “The world is so full of a number of things/I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
If you’re new here, you might like to take a look at previous special guest editions:
Eloise Rickman, on putting children’s rights at the heart of home education.
Ruth Gaskovski on building community.
Katherine Seat getting out of the house on a noisy day in Cambodia.
Renee’s account of a homeschool day with her son, who has autism.
Mary-Ann Horley’s account of home education at home and on holiday.
Allyse Hopkins’ very relatable day with her family of four in New Zealand.
Susie Wales’ life with her three boys in Florida.
Rachael Ringenberg’s thoughtful glimpse into her life with four girls in Vermont.
Joel Bowman’s ‘away schooling’, travelling around the classical world with an eight year old.
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What a beautifully written piece about the variety of homeschool days we experience. I appreciate your honesty about the ways that days can ebb and flow and I love the way you found richness in your day despite its difficulties.
Also, teaching kids how to use their time wisely and have a decent, rather than addictive, relationship with "hot" media is all part of the lessons kids need to learn about the world.