School year so far...

One skill C.Z. has picked up this year: How to read on a moving train.

So far this has been the school year of logistics. Honestly, I'd rather be doing something cozier, and I still think we can get there. But a mother's job is also to provide her children with the skills they'll need as adults, and right now I'm trying to help C.Z. to budget her time wisely, so as to open up those (very important!) opportunities for adventure, serendipity, and yes, even coziness.

During the past two or three weeks, I'd noticed that C.Z. is having to spend the whole of Sunday afternoon catching up with assignments instead of family. So yesterday I added up her workload for each day, and consistently came up with over seven hours per day, including the music school day. I hadn't realized this before because she had been doing her own schedule on iCal, but I made my own spreadsheet so that I could see it better. Our first job was to get a true picture of the situation, so we could figure out what to do about it.

Now, I know that some people would say that the typical high school student is supposed to study more than seven hours each day, that of course they study on Sunday, and that we need to be realistic. But (respectfully) our family is not going for the typical Manhattan-style achiever described in The Organization Kid. We are realistically admitting that we can't do everything well. And that since the default direction of our culture is towards over-scheduling, it takes active planning to avoid it. So here are my first draft thoughts (feel free to add to them):

A lot (even most) of C.Z.'s current busyness is violin-related (even injury-related), but a good bit is also related to outside academic classes. And some of our busyness was quite unpredictable, as busyness often is. I'm so glad we said no to some perfectly good classes and activities that we were considering! Even so, I have identified one class that we could possibly drop if necessary. Also, there are some very creative books and activities that I'd love to add to the mix for depth, but I know from experience that adding them now would just compound the logistical emphasis, which would defeat the point.

Also, despite the fact that this fall's schedule is not my ideal one, there are some decidedly good things that are coming out of it. They are, in fact, just the kinds of things I was hoping for when we allowed more outside classes, and more formal classes, this year. Here are a few:

• C.Z. has found that she can write, and even likes to write. She has a kind, but firm, and really intelligent literature teacher, who "velocitizes" the kids, as my husband would say. Each essay gets just a little longer, until they're writing full length expository papers with confidence.

• She's learned to read on the subway. For years, C.Z. said she couldn't concentrate well-enough to read on the train, but I think necessity was the mother of a new skill, and now she enjoys it. Last week she even read Great Expectations while "surfing," because the train was so crowded she couldn't find a bar to hold on to! This is a good development, because we've been spending a lot of time on trains lately.

• She seems to find textbook biology easy. I was somewhat surprised, as I didn't ever think we were doing what I'd call "enough" science. It was mostly an informal hobby of ours, and mostly hands on. I'd expected her to know, say, bird species already, but not polysaccharide chains. Where did that come from?

• After a long hiatus, C.Z. is taking music composition again! (Even though she has very little time to work on composition. But she can take things she's already done for critique, which is a good start.) I like to see her taking composition, because I think it's such a strong interest, and it's not always easy to find opportunities for it.

• Generally, C.Z. seems up to the challenge of this year, even though the work is taking a lot of time. It helps, no doubt, that she chose the classes. And it shows me that informal education in the early years can lead to success in formal work once a child is old enough to want to.

I'm still looking for a bit of cozy learning this year, but we'll find it somehow. Ideally, what I'd like to see is that C.Z. realizes she can work hard, sees the wonderful opportunity for leisure (in the true sense) that the next four or so years hold, and goes beyond the presently necessary emphasis on logistics into the realm of very real, connected, and deep learning.