"The creative adult is the child who survived."

Day 68:

One thing that I have loved about this lockdown period is the projects, tackling those little jobs that I'd either been putting off or just didn't seem to be able to make time for. Last year when Opeie was deep into his beetle project I decided to up-cycle a bureau for him, beetle style. A place for a Coleoptera enthusiast to keep his entomology books, research material and beetle hunting items. Typical individual homeschool kid never used it and kept all his bits in various sections of the house, so today I thought I'd reclaim it for myself and use it for all my painting and sketching things. Opeie helped me repaint it, the feet had been waiting to be done since I painted it and we found all the creative bits we needed to really make a fun space for me to create. It was the perfect little project to start pulling me out of my funk and it was great getting my sidekick helping too.

一期一会

A few months back I had a message from the mom of Opeie's penpal asking if we would be interested in being interviewed by a Japanese newspaper who were writing a piece on education and had been let down by a home ed group. The whole thing sounded really interesting and I thought it would be a great experience for Opeie and something fun to add into us documenting his home ed journey.  To make the visit even more exciting too, Opeie would get to meet his penpal Caelan as his mom Melissa was driving the journalist over to our home.

On the morning they arrived I was a little apprehensive, mainly because our house isn't a classic style home and although everyone that has visited here seems to love the way that we live, I wasn't sure that would translate well to the journalist (I'm pretty sure eventually someone will think we are idiots). It turns out there was no need to worry, when Melissa, Caelan and Saori arrived they all seemed pretty excited by the madness and as we talked I think it was clear why I chose to have our home this way.

The boys hit it off straight away and disappeared to play LEGO while I chatted with Melissa and Saori. It was really lovely having someone so interested in our home ed journey and despite being filmed (which is really out of my comfort zone) the morning was very relaxing. I feel like we have been home-schooling forever, it's the norm for us now and has been such an exciting adventure for the both of us. Being asked all about the reasoning behind home ed and my feelings on the education system in this country reinforced my passion for why we took the step.

Another thing that really reinforced this was Opeie's confidence talking to Saori and feeling completely comfortable with her observing him and how we are together as a family. He happily played his drums, discussed his beetle project and explained how much he loved having his work on display around the house. I'm pretty sure that Opeie comes across as a very content child to everyone he meets and this one to one education along side our happy home life is definitely responsible for this. I genuinely don't think that he would be the same child being dragged through the education system. 

The article was published last week and it was really interesting seeing the both of us in a Japanese newspaper. It definitely wasn't the way that we were expecting to be starting our first week of home ed this year but every September we have done something special to make sure that we realise how lucky we are to be on this education path for Opeie, and our presence in The Asahi Shimbun Globe is definitely this years bit of magic.  

"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism."

I love getting out and about adventuring with the boys and we've found some pretty great hidden things to do in Shropshire. Ive recently started running again and last week while i was running through a woodland area I spotted a huge piece of tarpaulin that looked high up in the trees well off the footpath. My sense of intrigue quickly kicked in and I found myself climbing over branches and walking through wet mud to find out what was going on. When I arrived I wasn't disappointed and I knew that I had to show Opeie what I had stumbled across, the find was going to be perfect for some Home ed fun.

What I had found was what looked like a landslide that had unearthed a huge tree and the tree had fallen across the other side of a mini valley with the off shoot of a stream below. Above, someone had built large decking supported by the tree with a tarpaulin roof, pretty amazing. Below, further down the tree was what looked like a cliff tent hanging from the tree like a cocoon, so we're not sure if someone is living there. There was no one about when we arrived so me and my little side kick made the most of the very cool structure.

We had a great conversation about how the decking was being supported and then we started an afternoon of painting, home education at is best. At the start of the summer holiday, after Opeie had been making mini dinosaur footprints in his Play-Doh me and the boys had drawn dinosaur feet, cut them out of cardboard and my good friend Steve had very kindly cut them out of wood for us. We are planning on making dinosaur feet to attach to our shoes for stomping in the mud but first we needed to paint them and the towering structure in the woods was the perfect spot for creating.

I love painting with Opeie but sitting in silent woodland was really relaxing and really added to the experience. We talked about all sorts while we were using our creative flair. Its this sort of thing that really pushed us towards home education, Opeie not being confined to a classroom and instead, sitting outdoors with fresh air taking in the beautiful surroundings.

We spent a good couple of hours on the new woodland base and painted one side of our dinosaur feet. The plan is to visit again this week and paint the remaining side. Opeie had had his fill of painting and wanted to move on to something different...

... a game he simply called dinosaurs in the mud. We got to run around pretending to be different kinds of dinosaurs while Opeie told me lots of facts about his favourite topic at the moment. When we were both shattered and sweaty we lay on the leaf covered ground and played with his dinosaur toys and counted the flowers, awesome. 

All that was left to do after all our forest fun was head home to go and wash our hands. It pays to investigate, get out there! there may be all kinds of fun on your doorstep too.

“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”

As we were approaching the end of the summer holidays I started to worry a little about how things were going to pan out after deciding to home educate Opeie. I wasn't concerned about learning, not knowing what to do of even the 'social side' of things (despite the amount of times I've had that thrown at me by other parents). There was a slight anxiety though about stepping in to the unknown, and I did loosely question our decision a few times, but I think most people would feel the same in our situation. 

The first week of the 'official school term' though seemed to be a continuous run of events that made me realise that there was no doubt in my mind that we were doing the right thing. The change in Seth's mood and attitude being back at school was one and seeing all the other children struggling with their grim morning routine made me feel happy and excited about Opeie's new journey, sure I still have the school routine with Seth but sadly that is out of my hands, I'd love to home educate him too and i think he would really benefit from it emotionally but unfortunately this time i cant intervene.

I watched a child around 7 run out of the school gates after the children had gone inside one morning. He ran up the road hysterically crying and searching for his mom, with no teacher following him which was a little concerning but again just added to all the other reasons why we didn't want Opeie to start school. I NEVER wanted to be that guy that shoves his child in to school upset and frightened with a 'they'll settle eventually' attitude and if I can help it I never want to be that parent that lets his children fall in to the regimented routine that state education has to offer. I guess I'm a bit of a rebel at heart but me and Mrs M have strong views about whats best for our boys and we're not scared to make big decisions for them.

One of the other big things from week one was this...

While children cried for their parents that morning and walked in to a building uncertain about what was going to happen (which i personally think is a lot to deal with at 4), Opeie was running along a beach with a huge smile on his face having some one to one learning fun. On the drive down we talked about weather, what an estuary was and about all the things we saw along the way. when we arrived we took in everything that was around us, wrote our letters in the sand and had a really interesting talk about an old cemetery that runs along side the beach.

 We learned how to build strong stable structures using bricks made of sand and how to support a structure when you are digging underneath it. We crammed so many activities in to our afternoon and with the sun adding to our relaxing fun day it was effortless learning with a child who is eager to learn. This is all we ever wanted for Opeie and being able to put all the things that myself and Mrs M have talked about over the years in to action is really exciting.

There is a slight downside to this story though, nothing major, just something we are going to have to deal with as time goes by. It was a big day for Mrs M's career and I spent a lot of the afternoon anxious about the huge changes happening in her work life. As always she was fine and receiving the credit she deserves for the hard work she puts in. What I found though while me and Opeie were having an awesome day was the underlying feeling of guilt. Ive felt it many times since we decided I would be the stay at home parent and Mrs M would pursue her career, but for some reason that day was a mix of emotions and I found myself feeling really guilty about the fun we were having without Mrs M and Seth. It sometimes feels like we have our life and they have there's which has made me realise that i need to make a real effort to include them in the things that we do.

I'm yet to find out how Seth feels about us being at home and Ive always hoped that it wont be an issue as he knows that under different circumstances he could have been outside of the school routine with us. I'm fully aware that its going to take time to iron out all the creases and for us to get in to our own way of doing things but I'm sure that Opeie will continue to develop the way he is and we will never look back. Home ed isn't for everyone but I can already tell that this educational adventure is going to be an amazing one and I look forward to learning many things myself with my best buddy.

"Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

Going down the home education path with Opeie has so many benefits but the one biggy for me is those rare occasions where Mrs M is working away or late, and there's no school pick up for Seth. On days like this we are off adventuring and have the flexability of going further out. I've always loved the idea of Opeie not being confined to a classroom, I didn't enjoy school myself, it never motivated me and I don't want that for Opeie. 

Having the freedom to do our own thing and learn through experience is so much more interesting. We decided one morning that we were going to go to the beach, we had nowhere to be in the afternoon so it was the perfect day for seaside adventuring. Our plan was to head to shell island as we love it there but on route we made a stop off in Welshpool. We've driven through there so many times and it's a lovely looking place and we had noticed there were lots of charity shops so we stopped for some book hunting for reading on the beach. It turned out to be a great idea and we managed a great book haul with lots of great books containing a certain bear that Opeie has fallen in love with.

After Welshpool we continued our journey but before we went to Shell island Opeie wanted to go book hunting in Barmouth first. We had packed a lunch but the smell of chips on the sea front drew us in so with wooden forks in hand we marched to the beach with the sweet smell of chips trailing behind us.

The sky started to go a little gloomy but we were not going to let some dark clouds spoil our day so we ran along the beach talking about the tide while collecting shells and pretty rocks. 

The weather was desperate to ruin our fun though and when the rain started thrashing down, as lovely as it was watching it on the beach, we headed back to the car. Luckily our four wheeled escape pod was full of snacks and plenty of new books to read, which we took full advantage of as the rain pelted off the windows.

At that point shell island didn't seem like a great idea, so as the rain showed no sign of dying down we decided to head home and play the look out for brown attraction signs that we love to play hoping to find somewhere new to investigate. On the journey back we spotted a sign for Lake Vyrnwy, it was only 10 miles out from our route home and even though the weather was still bleak we made a joint decision to go for it and I'm so glad we did.

As we pulled on to the lake we drove across a huge dam gushing out water and Opeie's little eyes lit up. The area is absolutely beautiful and despite the grotty weather we were having an awesome time. First we headed over to the information centre and met a lovely chap who's name i cant for the life of me remember (even though i thought i had written it in my phone). He filled us in on all the things we could see while there and gave us loads of information about the lake/dam along with a activity book for Opeie. It's days like this that make me realise even more that the home ed path was a great choice.

After our chat we braved the downpour and went investigating, heading first toward the sculpture park. Opeie loved the Giant mermaid and all the other pieces on display. It also gave us a great chance to be right at the bottom of the dam which was really interesting and spurred on A LOT of questions from Opeie.

At this point the weather really started giving it its all and I think Opeie was getting a little fed up of being wet so we headed back to the car. It was such a great place to find and we can't wait to go back and drive the full 10.5 miles of the lake as there are lots of things to do and see along the way including a waterfall.

It turned out to be the perfect day of adventuring and the sort of education that you don't get everyday being confined to a desk. I wonder where our next adventure will be?