The Separation of Home and School

Everybody knows about the separation of Church and State.  But do you know about the separation of Home and School?

Today the kids picked up their textbooks from school.  Helena only has two!  However, one of them is a college level art history textbook for her AP Art History class.  If you have ever seen one of those, you will know that it is a gargantuan sized beast of a book!  It is probably over 5" thick.  And, it looks a whole lot like one that I already own.  Different author, though.

You see, I took Art History in college.

When she got the book home, she spent some time leafing through it and made some comments of interest about some of the pictures in it.  I made the mistake of pointing out what I knew about the pictures or the history connected to them.  Right away she told me to knock it off and proclaimed that she was not going to tell me a thing about the class because she didn't want my two cents about any of it.

And here is the interesting thought (at least, to me)... I have never been able to teach my kids anything.  Kind of ironic, since I am a teacher!  I have some skills in the realm of visual art and there is A LOT I could teach them... if they would let me.  Actually, I am licensed and qualified to teach every subject matter from first grade through eighth grade, but when the kids were younger, they always told me that I was 'doing it wrong' when I tried to help them with homework.  When Helena started taking French, I wanted to help her, but she pushed me away.  If either of my kids are struggling with any subject in school, they would rather keep struggling than let me help them.

And why is that?

I remember sitting at the dinner table when I was in elementary school, struggling with my math homework.  My dad sat down to try to help me with it, but he had a different method of solving it than the teacher had taught us.  Or maybe just a different thought process and way of explaining.  I was sitting there desperately trying to remember what my teacher had said, and Dad was just confusing me!  I didn't want his help because it wasn't helping me at the time.  I wasn't willing to let him be the teacher.  I wasn't willing to open my mind to a new way of thinking about the concept.  And, I didn't want to spend the time learning a different approach, I just wanted to quickly get the homework done so I could be free from it!

I also remember my mom hiring another woman from our church congregation to teach me to sew.  My mom is a master seamstress and just didn't have the patience or inclination to deal with a raw and clumsy beginner.  I never did gain any more than the most rudimentary skills in sewing.  I didn't really want to.  My mom was just so good at it that it was HER thing.  I didn't want any sorry thing I had built to be compared to the masterful heirloom pieces my mom was producing.  So I didn't even try.  I think Mom was disappointed that none of her daughters shared her passion.

So, I DO understand why my kids push me away when it comes to homework, and why neither of them expresses an interest in learning visual art skills despite having the latent talent lying fallow and uncultivated within them.

It's the separation of Home and School.

I am the Mom.  Not the Teacher.