Day 9 - School of Ben

I was frustrated with Ben this morning. I needed to leave for a few minutes (at the time our day would normally start) so I quickly reviewed the plan for the week then left him with a number of tasks that he could complete in my absence. When I returned I found that he had not worked on any of them. He did not have his homework binder so I asked him to go and get it. He could not find it. The fact that he did not know where it was clearly indicated that he had not done the homework that I had asked him to complete this weekend (and reminded him about yesterday and this morning).

I have planned on starting a writing assignment today that we would tie into the election but instead asked him to write on, “What do you want the School of Dad to be?”

His performance is an indication that he is not feeling much enthusiasm for what we are doing. Clearly school cannot always be fun, but in a situation like ours it must provide a higher level of engagement or it has no purpose.

I gave him an hour to write, not expecting him to finish (or produce a revelatory product). After the hour we spoke for a moment about my concerns and then moved on to some other things.

During out post lunch walk I told Ben that I wanted him to take any ideas in this morning writing and begin again with the first line, “Welcome to the School of Ben.” Later, I morphed the idea further by asking him to produce a brochure for the “School of Ben”. I made a few suggestions for sections: Our School Day, Our Philosophy, How We Are Different. It will be interesting to see what he produces.