How are plants and Stonehenge connected?

Matt has not been well the last few days, with a very sore throat, so we have not been studying. Yesterday he had improved so we made a start back. We are currently reading an extremely powerful and useful book - The Money Bible, by Stuart Wilde. Today in Chapter 6 we learnt about the Ego, and how it drives mankind, and how it can stop us from having what we want. Most importantly, and it was a message that hit home to me personally, is that life must not be taken too seriously. When we take life too seriously we lose the childlike part of ourselves, and thus our creativity, and ability to solve problems and get what we want. Too much concentration and focus and obsession about what we haven't got - doesn't get us what we want. It's almost as if we have to 'let go'. I described to Matt how it's like some couples who are told they cannot have children, and they try for years through IVF etc, and nothing happens, and it's the moment when they 'let go', and accept that they must move on and focus on something else in their lives, that they suddenly find themselves expecting a baby!

As well as the above, we concentrated on some more maths principles that I found Matt had not grasped at school - long multiplication and long division. Home educating means that I can mark his work with him, and he can correct his mistakes and learn from them. We were finding that at school the teacher would write in his books that he must complete his classwork, or correct his work, yet he wouldn't do so. But the teacher never followed up on this, so work was left incomplete and mistakes uncorrected - and thus any weaknesses remain!

We examined/dissected a large sunflower head that I'd taken from the garden, and discussed plants, what they need, and the process of photosynthesis. To illustrate how subjects are all connected, we discussed the necessity for sunlight for plants, and how people in history have worshipped the sun, because without the sun they realised that there would be absolutely no life on earth. This drew us on to look up Stonehenge on the internet, look at and discuss the photos and the possible reasons why it was built. Matt had not heard about Stonehenge.

It's been a good day, and I learnt quite a lot myself too!

Leaflets, Stock Market & Spelling

These last few days have been filled with a mixture of activities. I promote my husband's IT business by putting leaflets in doors, and my son has helped me recently. He gets a commission on any work my husband gets as a result. Matthew has learnt that the more effort he puts into leafleting, ie. the more leaflets we deliver, the more the chance of making money. He has had a couple of commissions as a result, which is positive - shows him there is a reward for effort - a big lesson for life.

I trade the stock market when I get the time, and Matthew was able to be there when some financial news about the Bank of England base rate came out, and the chart showed a massive move in price (+60 points) in less than two minutes! Fortunately I had bought five minutes earlier, so we were elated (thankfully it wasn't the other way!) Matthew was intrigued by this, and wrote about it in his Personal Journal.

I am gradually discovering holes in Matthew's maths skills, so we've been working on long multiplication and long division. He hates doing this, and would rather be outside, going out. I reinforce the message that a good base in maths and english is useful whatever you do in life. And personally, I hate seeing bad spelling - something that seems to abound this planet - grown people, who even write signs for pubs and shops and restaurants - unable to spell! Crikey, what's the world coming to? A sign of poor schooling?

Home Schooling

A lot has happened since I last added a post to this blog, so much so that I have decided to turn the blog into my experiences home educating my son. He is 15. He was attending High School, and half way through his GCSEs. His predicted grades for GCSEs were D, E and F. For him, he could not see the point in going to school. He did not want to be there, although he had lots of friends, always been popular and easy to get a long with. All through his time at school he has not found the academic side easy or rewarding in any way. His difficulty lies in his inability to record thoughts and information in his brain to a piece of paper. If you find this hard, then you'll struggle at school. No matter what they say about support and strategies to help kids with this, they don't exist, and if they do, they are ineffectual. Classes are too big to manage properly, and kids who need extra help get overlooked - that's a fact.

My son Matthew started truanting, the odd day here and there. Then it was every day. As parents we co-operated with the school in getting him there, and trying to encourage him, but when I was bothering to physically take him to the school gate, watching him walk through the front door only to later get a phone call to say he wasn't there - then I started questioning the point of making the effort, and all the pressure and family upset and arguments that were ensuing as a result. It was also worrying that all day, whilst not at school, we had no idea where he was or what he was doing.

We have been home educating him for several months so far, and my son Matthew has been very happy. His general attitude at home has changed, because he feels he is not being pushed into something he doesn't want to do, and because we don't focus on academic attainment.

Our first and foremost aim is that he regains his confidence by releasing the academic pressure, and allowing him to relax and regain his awareness of the world about him, to find and develop his interests, and find a direction in whatever way it may be he wishes to go.

Amongst many things we did today, I took him to see a very old lady (she is 97) who I visit through a charity. I visit her once or twice every week to give her company as she has no family. She is an extremely positive lady, despite being confined to bed and chair and living in one room. She has a love of life and a sparkle in her eye, despite being very frail. She and Matthew spoke for some time, and he shared his interests with her, which she enlarged upon and encouraged him in. What an education for him. He later remarked upon her interest in life and her amazing knowledge about everything. He learnt that elderly people are a great source of knowledge, and that they don't all moan, and that they are to be respected.

A job well done for today.