home schooling – Aspirational Adventures

Renly relaxing on Boxing Day after a big hike. Photographed by myself December 2024

Ok yes I know dogs get trained to sit, stay, wait, and random things like roll over, etc but I don’t think dogs see everything that goes on in their world as a lesson but too often I hear it from people.

I read an interesting article and when I commented on it the author of the article said he’d been waiting to share as he couldn’t work out what the lesson was. My reply to his reply was “did there have to be a lesson?”

I think too often we humans think every thing that goes on is meant to teach us something and I’m sure some things are, but really is everything?

In 2012-2013 we went through a series of untimely deaths and other random changes in our lives. Was that a lesson? If so I’m not sure what it. Or was it just “things happen and sometimes they happen at the same time”?

The more I’ve seen and done and prayed and pondered the more I think that even though not everything is a lesson per se – because God isn’t some great big teacher wanting us to pass tests all the time – I do think that I have learned things from them and have changed as a person.

It might sound like splitting hairs but I think there is a big difference between learning things and things being a lesson. I think that we can choose to learn things but if something is a lesson there is a specific “thing” to be gained from that.

Also I think if we are open to learning things then yes “every day is a school day” but also it doesn’t mean that we are waiting for a specific something to happen to learn something.

It also means that we have no fear of what the “teacher” is going to say or if we miss the point being made. There is no worrying about what that lesson was.

I home schooled my children up till they were fifteen and people used to often ask what “lessons” we did and how we worked in school holidays. Well because every moment of every day was a chance to learn something all of us, myself included, were always open to what was going on around us, always curious, always expecting something to show up. Not every moment was a lesson that came with outcomes and things that I could tell the home schooling inspector but, on the whole, we learned and changed and grew and explored things on a regular basis.

So I don’t think God is up there with a lesson plan for us but I do think they want us to be open and aware of what is going on around us. They want us to become more who we are called to be, to know and love ourselves, those around us and of course them more and more.

So not everything is a lesson but everything is an opportunity to be open to learning and growing.

Is Everything Broken?

From a walk above our house over the Christmas holidays taken by myself – Dec 2022

This post comes about because my friend’s funeral is going to be 32 days after she died. It is a 25 min slot in the local crematorium and there were only 2 spaces left on that day. Yes I know we’ve had covid – more the restrictions than the extra deaths. But surely having to wait over a month to bury someone is wrong. Someone I know said she was told that a month wait is normal. That’s not normal at all. What had gone wrong?

It led to me doing some more pondering about these strikes we’re having in the UK and what is going on there. As I mentioned in Strikes Take Planning a couple of weeks ago it is more than money. It is about conditions, about not feeling respected and more.

Then today I heard from two people who feel they are not valued where they are. One even gets paid a substantial amount of money but felt like no one really cares about people. Again that whole thing about respect.

I do understand that much has changed since covid and the UK has also had Brexit to deal with but I felt with both these things that there was more to it. Many people I know in both education and the health service say that the problems lie in the area of having to have outcomes and statistics, that is about profit and money. The management are looking at statistics, result charts, comparing with others, rather than caring for others.

My big bug bear always comes from schools because I suppose that is my thing. I work there. I went to one when I was a child, Actually to several. I chose to home school my children. What I see now is a lot of stress, a lot of not knowing what to do with some of these kids. School has lost its vision.

Schools were originally started when the Factories Acts said that children under a certain age could no longer work in factories, in mines, as chimney sweeps, etc, etc. This meant there were a lot of children on the streets with nothing to do. So they were corralled into schools. It was then realised that this was a good place to mold a workforce for the work place. So subjects were then added, made to fit the outcome of what was needed, and so forth. But now I think that vision has gone. Now it seems to be good grades, good behaviour, improving, but what is real need in the workforce now? I think it is more complicated that it was 150+ years ago because we no longer have the factories, the heavy industry, etc.

Where there is no vision, the people perish
proverbs 29:18 {a}

And I do think it is that lack of vision and the need for tangible outcomes, and making money, that have become the issues in too many places – whether education and health service or the company my friend was moaning about, or even the funeral service. People are no longer the centre. That is not to say that there are not loads of people out there who don’t care. These professions and work places are filled with people who care, but it is harder and harder to care if what you do does not make a profit for shareholders, show something good on the league tables, show some outcome.

And again I will say this leads to lack of respect for the majority of the workforce, but also because those in higher management are being pressurised by something/someone higher than them.

A thought to finish with – I came across a post on a friend’s Facebook page. I think it is true that said that so much of what we do is controlled by other people, by money and by our past. And we need to refind the vision as to the what and why of the country we are blessed to live in.