It Almost Had Me...

Curriculum is a sneaky, evil beast. Wise are those who forsake it, for to use it means inviting a treacherous presence into your life that will pretend obedience. But the moment it senses a weakness or doubt it will leap at you with claws bared in an attempt to wrest all control from you.

The progymnasmata almost had me last week. I was trying to plan out this week's exercises when I thought I'd like to try a poem instead of a fable. More then that, I'd like to try the activity I'd come up with this summer with the One Ring poem from Lord of the Rings that Catherine loved. A bit of a break. A chance for me to revisit some progymnasmata resources and read some new stuff I'd found on writing.

But I wavered. I thought, I'll mess up the routine. I began to wonder if straying from the cycle is a safe idea. If I might somehow jeopardize Catherine's writing...Endanger her learning...

Then I kicked myself in the ass and drop-kicked the nasty little critter that was whispering those things in my ear.

I will control it. It will not control me. We are free to make our own way in our learning and the curriculum will be a tool, not a master.

Of course, wasn't that what everyone thought about the One Ring?

*sigh*

Unschooling. I should have stuck with the unschooling.

PS - We did do a fable after all. I consulted Catherine and she said she would love to do the poem exercise with a Unicorn poem but I couldn't find one in time that wasn't absolutely awful so instead she picked out her own fable, The Woman and the Hen. She picked it because it was a clever and funny little fable...And because it only had four sentences.