We never imagined we’d be homeschool parents. I mean, never.

When Karen first floated the idea to me in the middle of the summer, I laughed out loud. I truly thought she was joking. The look on her face told me she wasn’t… and that I should stop laughing.

Still, I dismissed it out of hand. It was the nuclear option, the hail-mary “if all else fails” backup. Back in the summer it didn’t seem necessary. With our schedules and commitments, it didn’t seem possible. We’d have to be really desperate.

But the reality of our world right now has backed so many of us into all kinds of corners, hasn’t it?

This fall, our dining room became a classroom. It looks mostly the same except, instead of dishes, the hutch against the wall holds workbooks and science projects in various states of progress. The table and the floor are almost always littered with little pieces of paper, the detritus of the day’s serious work with scissors and glue-sticks. On the sideboard sits our cuddly mascot. We’re the Benoit Badgers.

It’s gone… fine?

Honestly, there have been a lot of tears. A lot.

Most of those tears have been when one of them doesn’t get everything right on the first go-round, and we’ve come to recognize how strongly the instinct for perfection already is in them. When they get something wrong, when they need to go back and make corrections, when they need to take another look to more fully understand the ideas they’ve missed, the result is impatience, frustration, and tears. All this crying has actually made us grateful that we’re clumsily inserting ourselves into our kids’ education right at this moment. Almost everyday we have a conversation about what it means to learn.

Hon, learning is about exploring all the things we don’t know yet, and as you explore all those unknown things we expect you to make mistakes, miss things, and need to go back and retrace some of your steps. That process is how you get to know the things you didn’t used to know.

Good words, right? Unfortunately, logic does nothing to stem the crying. Believe me.

I was in a conversation yesterday where someone shared these words from Aristotle:

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.

It’s painful to even hear, isn’t it? I feel it. My kids aren’t alone in this painful process of learning. Right this moment I’m on a path I’ve never walked before, one that’s full of things I don’t know yet. And I want so badly to get it right, and by right I mean perfect. I don’t want to make any mistakes. I don’t want to have to retrace my steps. I don’t want to take any risks that won’t pay off. And I want more than anything to avoid pain.

But I can hear the Spirit whispering most of my words back to me.

Nick, this wilderness is about exploring all the things you don’t know yet, and as you explore all this unfamiliar terrain I expect you to make mistakes, miss things, and need to go back and retrace some of your steps. That process is how you’re going to get to know the things about me you didn’t used to know.

Good words. I expect there will still be tears. But maybe the kindness of the Spirit takes a little sting out of these lessons.

Maybe.

I guess I’ll let you know.