checklists & good intentions

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It was 5:30am. I can always tell without looking at my phone, because the sky holds a faint shimmer and a single car chugs past my window, lone and sleepy. I woke up thinking (almost reflexively, since education is my current hyperfocus, as happens at the close of every summer) about all that is to be accomplished, and forgetting my downfall: high expectations, holding myself to neurotypical standards (not healthy for me OR my son), forgetting the patterns and habits that I've found work best for me, personally, though they may not make sense to our hectic, hustle-obsessed society.

I was reminded of something my friend Meghan shared recently. She said after completing daily work with her children (math, language arts) she makes a "menu" of options for the rest of the school day - things she's prepared that they can complete (or not) based on what life brings. She said she used to make a checklist, but that she "doesn't like reducing our atmosphere of education to a checklist. I want to leave room for enchantment."

Why, yes! How could I forget? Yesterday I spent time planning the week, not only with checklists but with specific chapters and the page absolutely brimming with tasks (why do four spelling lessons a week when I can do five?). Here I am, going against my nature and desires for what I want our culture of education to look like, planning details and planting the very seeds of "failure" before we've even started.

I use "failure" facetiously. I know I'm not failing my children. But by writing a checklist with 25 tasks and inevitably only getting to a fraction of them, I would feel like a failure. And thus would begin the cycle of over-planning > analysis paralysis > emotional exhaustion > not doing anything > guilt > over-compensating by over-planning

So I sit here in my dining room, the lamplight low, quiet and shimmering with the possibilities of the day, tearing out the pages of my notebook with all its time-blind, good intentions. I will not reduce myself to a list of things I cannot accomplish. I'll continue to see that education in our house is scaffolded not by lists, but by wonder.s

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