Life with Nin

Fallow Time

A good farmer, intent on the of long haul of farming, plans for each of his fields to lie fallow or dormant for a growing season.  During this time, no crops are sown, no yield is expected.  Following this fallow time the field generally is very productive and ready to be involved in the usual crop rotations for the next several seasons until once again the cycle is repeated.

Fallow times happen during homeschooling.  I believe that dormant times are part of the seasons of life for all of us regardless of our age.  Nevertheless, these are some of the hardest times in the life of the homeschooling parent.  All the concerns that others have raised about homeschooling hit home.

Just as preschool children tend to fall apart right before making developmental leaps, so too our older children may need a quiet time before a new understanding emerges or shortly after one occurs.  In fact, during the teenage years it sometimes feels as though the reality is all fallow time with brief snatches of insight, endless times when it looks to an outside observer as though nothing is happening.

How do you recognize a fallow time?  Depending on your child’s normal way of being it can take many forms.  Endlessly playing computer games, watching “junk” TV, talking or e-mailing friends are some ways.  Immersing himself in music while staring into space is another.  Losing himself in novels or physical activity is yet another.

If you are just starting out on the homeschooling course when your children are already teens and have spent time in institutional schools, it is extremely important to plan and expect a long fallow time.  Sometimes this time is called “deschooling,” as you and your child “get the system out of your system” so to speak.  Regardless of whether the decision to homeschool was made as a positive choice to seek a better way or as a last resort to avoid insurmountable problems, time is needed for healing, for finding again the joy of learning which each infant brings to this life, for reclaiming the responsibility for one’s own education.  The rigid schedules, punctuated by bells and demands to move to a different area – physically and intellectually – have taken their toll.  Teens especially seem to need a long time, months to years, to begin to reclaim time for themselves.  Yes, I did say months to years.  The oft quoted rule of thumb here is at least one month for every year they have spent in school.  If their experience was traumatic in any way, however, that may be an underestimation of the time they need.  Hurrying through this time may feel a bit more comfortable, at least for the adults involved, but ultimately prolongs the process.

How do you honor the need for dormant time and still manage to maintain your sanity?  Having a sense of humor is a big help.  Not criticizing the apparent lack of ambition helps.  Having survived a previous fallow time and seeing the gains which followed it provides the confidence to wait and watch this time.  Learning to see what is really going on, there beneath of surface where “nothing” seems to be happening.  One of the things that is really happening is the making of connections.  People use these quiescent periods to pull together the many different pieces of the puzzle that is life and make them into a whole.  It is a time of synthesis.  Finding, making, planning for opportunities for real discussions, not just housekeeping conversations also helps a parent see what is really happening.  Some families find driving time or playing games together or even instituting or re-instituting a family read aloud time sets the stage for these discussion.  Not subscribing to the media’s expectations that teens are lazy and thinking laziness is what it happening.  Trust your child to be doing what he needs to be doing.

Our job as homeschooling parents is to provide the nutrients to enable our children to flourish.  Like food and water, our children need space and air in which to grow.  Recognizing and honoring their need to vegetate, to lie fallow, is one way of providing that space and air.  The farmer knows the importance of that period of rest for his field.  We need to do the same for our children.

©2000 Carol E. Burris

This article was first published in the September/October 2000 issue of HELM.  HELM, 4200 AL Hwy 157, Danville, AL 35619 is no longer published.