October 6, 2003

In response to Yule's blogs and other related links and blogs on homeschooling, I am trying to deptermine what I'm up against. My daughter's 4 and attends scuola materna, which is a kind of semi-obligatory preschool in Italy. My daughter complains that they laugh at her when she draws, because they say she scribbles. When she's at home I have huge pieces of white butcher paper that cover the whole floor and we just draw whatever we want together- it's rarely representational but there's lots of colour and form. A product of the odd art class myself, I want her to just feel big and free and colourful, have a loose arm. One day, when she feels like drawing a cat or person, maybe it will be free and colourful. But it looks like I'm about to be shot out of the water by the Italian school system. She doesn't want to go because they laugh at her. We won't go into the fact that there was an impromptu strike by the teachers today, or that they have no supplies and do their drawing on the backs of municipal documents, or that their building would crumble like a house of cards in the next earthquake. I have to get to the root of all of this but I'm also up against a very conformist society. Here, individuality is frowned on. I haven't taught my daughter the alphabet or how to read because she wouldn't sit still for it and because I thought I'd leave that to them. Now I'm worried. 8:05:00 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Betsy Burke. Last update: 29/10/2003; 1:15:58 PM.