Since the creation of School Matters, I have put very few school thoughts on this blog. Doug and I don’t see eye to eye on cross posting. He believes that since not everyone reads every blog, it’s alright to have the same post on multiple sites. When I like a blogger, I usually subscribe to all their sites. Reading the exact same thing in two, three and four different feeds is no fun. We’ll just agree to disagree on this one. I have an unformed thought bouncing around in my head that I just can’t make coherent enough to post on School Matters. I’m going to try and figure it out on this blog. Maybe you have thoughts to add.

Amy started kindergarten this year. She bounces out of the house eager and excited about school every single day. When we pick her up at 1 pm, she ALWAYS has something to say about her day. She has started reading to ME at bedtime instead of the other way around. We can actually see her learning and growing daily. Middle schooler Noah drags out of the house on auto-pilot. When I ask him about his day I get shrugs. With the exception of band, he doesn’t seem to enjoy anything at school. Nothing about learning is exciting or fun to him. I don’t even know if he is learning. Sarah claims that she isn’t learning anything. Except for last year’s extraordinary Zoology class, Tommy is just doing what he has to do to get through school. He doesn’t enjoy school. Tommy and Noah can describe things they’ve seen on Mythbusters or the History Channel with animated details. They laugh when they talk about the learning experiences they’ve had outside of school. All of my children are very bright, even if I am a little bit biased about their intelligence (the jury is still out on Evan). When did they stop enjoying school? Did the fun get sucked out of learning? Did the children give up on school or did school give up on them? Is this the way it has to be?