I hate the beginning of every term. This term beginning seems especially bad. I do feel somewhat excited when I think of all the possibilities, I make the usual hopeful promises but I constantly don’t live up to them. For instance I haven’t been writing this blog much recently despite several termly resolutions as I just haven’t felt like it. Maybe H’s learning is more nuanced, perhaps more difficult to document and writing has felt like work with a capital W. So I have decided to pretend like I am at school or work and make myself. How does this work? I won’t get told off, my Dad won’t pass judgment/remove privileges, I won’t fail some external qualification- I would of course fail my self and it does upset me feeling like I am failing… I never failed at school, I usually did as well as I wanted to without sticking my head over the parapet.

Weirdly H was right into thinking about what she wanted to do this term. She even actually wants to achieve many of these things. I suggested we look through the New Zealand curriculum (I don’t have a problem with the NZ curriculum as it has always seemed reasonablish) and make sure we were covering all our bases (H thinks this is reasonable) hence the colours and a couple of additions, social science always seems to be missed – sorry my very intense and particular social science lecturer from 2004.

Unlike school I will not tell her off for not doing these things. I will provide her with spelling sheets every Wednesday. I will remind of her lofty goals, interestingly she said breaking them into smaller bits made her feel like they might actually happen. Only the boat science has any deadline, and it’s if she still wants to do a science fair thing with it. It also has others involved. I will not tell her off if one day she finds some new passion she feels that she must do and right now… I will not grumble much if she spends rather a lot of time reading. I will get her look at this list at the end of term though. Will she be disappointed? Is this inherent in unschooling?

It is interesting to look at one’s life and think about motivation. I am sure that lots of people like work as it is a bit like school in that there is someone telling you what you have to achieve, giving you deadlines and checking your accountability. Or do we become reliant on this comfortable abdication of motivation at school? There are the other aspects of life that force more personal (or societal??) motivation like mortgages, affording a particular lifestyle, other external mark’s of status… etc. I just see this as a trap that I have avoided like the plague?

I have the greatest of admiration for my friends who run their own businesses, especially as these are not with the biggest goal being making money. I suspect that some of their motivation is now in the form of obligation to staff, and somewhat to mortgage etc. Where did the original motivation come from? I have so many ideas but there is a gap between idea and the something that sets the idea in motion. Was I taught to sit back and wait for others to push me? Will my child be able to motivate herself in the face of opposition (like a good book and what we call a quality sit)? I am using this post as motivation/accountability to make myself write – public shame and all that.

Maybe motivation is more of an existential worry? What is the point?