Thomas III’s Unusual Brain & Gabo’s Unusual Tongue
Thomas will be attending an In-Residence Educational Institute this summer at Amherst College in Massachusetts, which we are affectionately terming “camp”.
In the process of choosing the classes he will take – he became slightly indignant about the prospect of classes filling up and having to select a second choice. As usual, he had a million questions – and as in all things Thomas, the questions came out slowly and over time … like drops out of a leaky faucet … as he continued to mull it over and process all the variables.
“Don’t worry,” said dad. “You’re not going to be forced into Doll-Making in the 18th Century.”
To which he replied: “I get to go back to the 18th century to learn that?”
It took us a minute but we realized the thought that he had missed a class with a time machine in the curriculum guide was good enough for him — even if he had to make dolls. Come to think of it, he probably would like that too, what with the amount of fiddling he does with anything that makes it near his hands!
Over the years, he continues to amaze me with his thoughtful observations and sensitivity to life details that nobody else seems to notice. He is also so calm and wise. Traits I simply do not share. One of his favorite things is finding mistakes in our educational materials. I now have a file to keep all the editors’ letters that thank him for catching those errors.
In math alone, he has found 3 mistakes in only 60 lessons. For some reason, he always catches me by surprise and before listening to his point, my Latin temper takes over and I try to shut him down. He just calmly waits for me to be done telling him all the reasons why the “Teachers Guide” answer is right for the third time, and then he once again tries to get his point across. And he is usually right.
I have now learned to just listen if he is insistent. I think the fact that Gabo argues every single bit of work I give him – purely out of sport – has conditioned me to be very sensitive to any “back talk” in class.
Gabo has a comment about everything. I think sometimes he just does it to hone his debate skills, or just to amuse himself. He is always respectful, and sometimes genuinely interested in clarifications. This has to be the single hardest thing about homeschooling smart kids. Trying to determine when they are arguing because they just don’t want to do it … as opposed to being in a funk, and just not open to learning at the moment.
With Gabo, we have always treaded a delicate balance to not squash his spirit while instilling strong discipline. It appears that all the qualities and talents that will make him a very successful adult – persistence, perseverance, righteousness, speed, strength, endless energy, challenging assumptions and rules, socratic methods to challenge those assumptions and rules to get what he wants … these are all the character traits that make children very hard to manage. Especially for peri-menopausic, short-fused Latin mothers.
Unfortunately, Gabo has combined his natural traits with some of my bad habits. Tom says he’s a 45-year old woman trapped in a 9-year old boy. He has picked up some of my OCD and is pretty obsessed about his environment. Everything needs to be a certain way before he can focus and even then he fidgets and has to be doing something else.
When he was little and I read to him, he always wanted to be looking at another book while listening and looking at the book I was reading to him. He bothered me for months but he was so persistent that I let him.
As he learned to read, he was actually reading another book simultaneously while I read to him. That, I really did not like, but he insisted so I finally allowed him.
I began to understand that in most cases, he can absorb the two tracts of information simultaneously. I tested my theory many times. As I turned a page, he would ask me to wait until he could look at the illustrations that I had just read about. I quizzed him and he could recount details from either book with perfect clarity.
Of course, he got a big kick out of answering my questions, as if he thoroughly enjoyed disproving my assumptions about his attention. He still loves trying to find ways in which I may be wrong about things.
One of Tom’s many sayings to all of us is: “It’s better to be kind, than right.” It is what Tom lives by, and over the years I have learned he is right, and have tried to practice that little bit of advice.
However, Gabo is another story. He is so focused on winning, on being right, on getting the best of everything for him first, that our biggest challenge is always “pounding” empathy, compassion, and a giving heart into him, every step of the way, every day.
At the moment, Thomas’s biggest challenge is that he needs to learn how to do his own laundry. He is very excited about camp albeit anxious in anticipation of the new life skills it will require from him.
He will learn how to manage his own time, and his own money. They have to finish meals within a certain time frame, walk to their classes, be responsible for their own work, manage his own closet, pick his clothes, wash his clothes … find his clothes! There will be no: “Mom, I don’t have any underwear again!” or my personal favorite: “I can’t find the one pair of socks I like.”
“Can I pay someone to do the laundry?” he asked. “Absolutely not,” said dad. “You have to learn how to do it yourself.” Thomas ponders … “Then if I learn to do it, can I get paid to do it for other people?”
When people find out we homeschool, there only question is always: “What about socialization?” Of course they mean the ability to interact with other kids in a group. I am increasingly realizing it is the right question, but not for the reasons they think.
I had this vision of my industrious little homeschooler happily skipping class to finish everybody’s laundry for a few quarters. In our desire to make him respect the value of an earned quarter, they are constantly dreaming up ways to obtain coin. I think we’ll have to get him an ATM card!