Learning in the Sunshine State

Those are just some of the emotions I felt prior to Discovery’s landing this morning. They were not unlike the feelings I had once before when Discovery launched. That would be the first post-Challenger launch. I was a high school teacher at the time of the Challenger accident, and there was a high school teacher on board. The school where I taught is on the river right across from Kennedy Space Center. That horrible accident unfolded before me, as I stood in the school parking lot with my students, other teachers, and their students. It’s where we always stood to watch launches during school hours. We thought this would just be like all the others. We’d watch the launch, then back to class.

When we returned to flight, I was still at that school, but Discovery launched during my planning period. A group of teachers and students stood at the school gate, watching across the river, holding hands and breath. We did not exhale until the infamous “Go at throttle up” was safely uttered.

This morning my life is so different than it was back then. Then I was single. Now I’m married to someone who works in the space industry. Then I was teaching other people’s kids. Now I homeschool my only child. I woke up at 5:30 am, vaguely aware that I didn’t hear the sonic booms. After turning on the tv, and finding out they were sending Discovery to California, I went back to sleep for a few hours.

Watching Discovery land, I could not help but reflect on the changes since the last time that bird was the first post-disaster flight. Yet with all the changes in our world, our country, and my life, my feelings were so much like that day nearly 17 years ago.

*This post imported from my old blogger account.

We’re homeschoolers, who practice an eclectic mix of homeschooling methods. Among them is something known as unschooling, a method which has different meanings for different people. For us, it means allowing our son time to follow his interests.

The best thing about unschool days, is that no two are ever the same. On a recent day:

My son woke up and found me at the computer playing a word game called Babble, and wanted to try his hand at it. At eight years old, he’s not too familiar with the keyboard layout.He also finds a lot of 3-letter words, which aren’t accepted — the minimum is 4-letter. So, I went digging and found our Boggle game in the closet. He didn’t want to play the actual game, just wanted to look for words, and soon asked for a sheet of paper. He spent about an hour shaking and re-shaking the dice, then finding and writing down words. Occasionally, he’d ask if something was really a word, or how a word is spelled. I had to stop him so he could have breakfast, otherwise he probably would have gone on longer.

I had some papers to sort through, but he wanted me to read a book to him about dinosaurs. It was actually one of those Step Into Reading books, which he’s supposed to read on his own. I told him I was busy, and that he could either read it himself, or wait until later for me to read it. He picked it up and began to read it. Most times that mom-psychology thing backfires on me, but this time it actually worked.

Just before lunch, we went outside to check on our Monarch caterpillars. Their saga needs its own blog entry, but let’s just say the local predators are winning. We saw a few small ones, and one larger one, and expressed our hope that all would make it to butterflyhood. We didn’t stay out long, because this time of year, even a few minutes outside has you sweating profusely.

After lunch I let him turn on the tv. It was already tuned to The Science Channel, so he left it there. We watched the end of a Junkyard Wars episode, then 2 episodes of How It’s Made. We learned how they make kayaks, safety boots, cereal and cereal bars, and “grown up drinks”.

After turning off the tv, he went to play with Legos. He has only a few Lego sets. Mostly he just has a bunch of Lego bricks with which he makes what he calls creations. He often has an elaborate explaination of what his creation is and how it works. He was only at it a few minutes, when his friend from across the street knocked on the door.
So ended our day of leisurely learning.

*This post imported from my old blogger account.