Summertime Slowdown

Mentally, Adele, Steve and I checked out of Adele's sixth-grade year about two weeks before it ended. From August to May, tests and projects came at a fast pace. Because Adele learns best verbally, we supported her workload by reading aloud and reviewing material orally nearly every night. Social studies and science were particularly grueling, requiring several nights of intense study before each test. The first of fifty items on one social studies review guide read, "Be able to identify on a map all the countries, major cities and landforms of Africa." Talk about daunting.

Sometimes Adele became outraged by the academic demands on her. After a late night spent studying plot elements for a quiz on the structure of the short story, she came home from school the next day and slammed down her backpack, ranting, "Since when do quizzes have essay questions!?" That seemed a fair question.

Other times, I felt indignant about her unnecessarily heavy workload. I thought back to my own sixth-grade year, when we spent many slow weeks learning how to organize various levels of information into outlines. This was accomplished entirely during the school day, and it has proven useful my entire life.


A simple question Adele asked me one winter afternoon crystallized my experience of her sixth-grade year. Around three o'clock on a Sunday, she paused from playing with her neighbor friend to come into the kitchen and ask, "How long do you think it would take a person to write ten typed pages?"

I looked at her suspiciously. "Who needs to write ten typed pages?"

"Um, we have ten typed pages of imaginary journal entries due tomorrow," she said.

I tried to remain calm in front of her friend. "Okay, then," I said in an unusually high-pitched voice. "You need to say goodbye now."

To my surprise, Adele was able to sit at her laptop all that afternoon until bedtime crafting ten typed pages about an imaginary two-week trip to Europe, complete with real references and points of interest she'd researched on the internet. In the end, it was a fantastic assignment requiring her to focus, synthesize and create at a level that stretched and stimulated her.


Before social studies and science tests, Steve was a great help, genuinely enjoying the subject matter and oral reviews. But then there'd come an evening, after he'd weathered a long day teaching, when his response to the mention of a test the next day was to shut his eyes, drop his chin to his chest and say, "I can't." He'd look up at me across the dinner table, pleading, "You've got to do this one."

Then Adele would collect her messy reams of handouts, and we'd sit on the couch going over in detail the makeup of the planets in the inner solar system versus the makeup of the planets in the outer solar system, until we could stand it not longer. A perfectionist by nature, I sometimes found myself saying, "Let's just go to bed. You don't have to get an A. Go for a B."


When May arrived, we all felt like the hard work should be behind us, and it was difficult to muster up our drive much longer. Steve and I pooped out, silently rationalizing that Adele needed to finish up the school year on her own. But she also pooped out, forgetting to bring home her textbooks and instead devising her own fashion magazines and videos, planning slumber parties, baking and decorating cakes and playing out on the sidewalk until dark. We let her.

Adele's brain was stuffed full of information over the course of the school year. For the most part, this souped-up learning was energizing. She may forget the names of the presidents of the African countries, but she is sure to benefit from the lasting glimpses into distant worlds. She came to know that the things we can learn about and explore are limitless.


The beauty of the way Adele learns is that we often end up learning along with her--about continents, countries, landforms, politics and economics; about space, planets, stars, religions, world views, short stories, laws of motion, prepositions, sentence fragments, comma use, the colonization of Africa and the deforestation of Brazil. All the pockets of fascinating information that we delved into inspire me to learn more and to stay open to the richness of our world.


But still, I'm glad summer is here. Adele has both an artistic and entrepreneurial spirit, and I want her to have this unstructured time to allow the unplanned to take shape. Her school year was packed with learning. That knowledge needs to settle so that one day she can transform it, applying it in some personal, meaningful way.

Into what beautiful mosaic will she piece together the elements of her mind, spirit and imagination? A process of alchemy needs to occur. I'm eager to see over time just what exquisite creations she will be able to bring into life.