My nine-year-old is unusual.
He does get up to things. He has a force field when he needs one. Look right at you and betrays no emotion if he feels like it. He goes and finds things. He makes things and I don’t know how he did it. I ask him how he did it, and … oops — force field. He’ll offer explanations of very complex behaviors as things like,”I just thought of it in my mind.” Oh.
I’m trying to work all the time, and so he is mostly like an asteroid that whizzes by. He’s my Van Allen Belt and suspenders. I hear his beeping, Dopplering past me. When I capture him and question him closely about anything, it’s always worth the effort.
There was music coming out of the dining room this morning. It’s the only warm room in the house in a shoulder season morning. He sits at a little desk and constructs universes with Minecraft and eats a muffin his mom made him. He’s fashioned a little soundtrack for himself that plays along in the background. I think it’s Spotify, but what the hell do I know? I found it amusing to hear Dave Brubeck come out of there, then The Mayor of Simpleton, of all things. Then something funky and greazy and infectious and sophisticated and adult and borderline decadent came percolating out of there. Jayzuz, son, what are you up to in there?
-What is that music you’re listening to?
-It’s the Italian Secret Service.
-Who told you about the Italian Secret Service?
-I was just looking around and it sounded kinda snazzy, so I saved it.
-Did you just say it sounded “snazzy”?
-Yes. Do you want to watch the fireworks display I put in my Minecraft build?
-No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, sure. Where did you learn the word “snazzy?”
-I was just looking around…
7 Responses
I love him..and it isn't just the hat.
Home-schooling is, for the student, like being given an speedboat and the keys and a full tank of gas and a map of all the cool places to explore. Public schooling, for most of the students involved, is like riding on the Titanic. Keep giving him the speedboat keys, and he will bring back even more amazing and "snazzy" goodies.
ISS is "snazzy" because the drum is very crisp and very high up in the mix. One of those tunes where the drums really pop.
Gosh, I love imaginative children.
Thanks for sharing.
BTW: As a public school teacher for thirty three years, I worked hard not to make my classroom a place where students drowned. I like to think we were riding in a speed boat and wondering why all of the rest of those people were gaping at us from the dock.
But maybe that was just my experience.
Even though I attended public school for all of my early education, my parents home schooled. They set the foundation, and the teachers filled in the gaps.
That's one of the places where public school education went wrong — when the parents turned it all over to the classroom teacher. Yes. That. When parents took the responsibility of their own children and placed it somewhere else, yes, we went wrong, and we went wrong fast.
I believe in home schooling — all kinds. I love reading about the way your children thrive —
Sorry, I kind of "ouch-ed!" on drdave's comment.
🙂
It's all good.
I told you before: that boy's a caution.
'You can observe a lot just by looking'. Yogi Berra
Or, just by poking around on the interwebs.
Keep him occupied and interested in something. (Sounds like he's doing OK by himself!) Long-term boredom in a kid like that can be dangerous.
Trust me. I know that one.
Snazzzzy.
Such a boss word.