Neighborly Chat

Next week is the start of school for students in our part of the world. My boys and I had just been talking about how, instead of starting school next week, we were going to go to the beach and stay in a "beach condo" for a couple of days to celebrate our new unschooled life.

Later on our boys were chatting with their friend ("J") - a 7 year old boy who lives next door. I heard them talking about his starting school next week and I just had to eavesdrop:

D: "So you are going to start school next week?"
J: "Yes"
R: "We're not, we're going to the beach condo!!"
J: "Are you still going to homeschool? What will that be like?"
R: "We'll play, and build with legos, and stuff."
J: "You won't learn anything?"
R: "No, I'm already smart."

I was taken by the statement, "You won't learn anything?" as if you couldn't learn anything unless you were in school. How conditioned we all are to believe that!

What I was even more amazed at was that neither of my boys got nervous about or felt uneasy with that statement - just a simple response ("I'm already smart") from our youngest and that was that.

I find that I am a little nervous as the "deadline" draws near, but I try to stop and remember what brought us to this point.

But I am glad we will be celebrating together without distractions. We'll look for those weird little Coquina shells and crabs, and we'll fish and catch who knows what in the net. We'll enjoy a beautiful sunset and watch for the "green flash", and maybe watch some equally beautiful thunderstorms with their huge anvils and awesome lightning. We'll build sand castles and dig holes until they fill with water below sea level.

We better be careful. We might learn something.....