Decision

I decided to do it.  Chen is understandably trepidacious (it is a word) about doing anything for 1.5 hours a day.  Kal V'chomer something that is reportedly "grueling."  But she agreed to try it, mainly because of the seductive possibility that she'll be able to read without rereading 4-7 times, and the possibility that she won't be mentally exhausted from reading, and that maybe she might actually be able to go to college full time.

They agreed that I don't have to commit to the full six months, since they themselves are not sure she is a candidate.  The program manager sounded pretty excited and seems to think she is a good candidate, and is extremely interested to see if the program will help.

So here we go. 

I was thinking how homeschooling (and unschooling especially) tells parents to pay close attention to kids' cues and to adjust the learning to the child.  All these years that Chen has been refusing to read have not been stubbornness, was not a personality thing.  It's neurological. 

Chen wants to start in a couple of days.  Today, when the program manager called to speak to us, Chen was at Dance.  I arranged for her to call back later.  When Chen came home and I told her, Chen was upset because she wanted to take her medication immediately and have two solid hours to work on trigonometry. 

Can you believe that?  My unschooled child, who dropped math in 2009 or so and later told me not to get involved in high school math--she's handling it herself.  Everyone always thinks: If I unschool, they'll just play video games all day.  Even kids themselves think: If I unschool, I would watch youtube and play video games all day.

And yet that is not the case.  Chen, age 17, is raring to go and is so jealously guarding her math time that she was reluctant to interrupt it with a five minute conversation.  (Instead of waiting for the call, she called the program manager right then, and was pleased with the conversation.)

I never cease to be astonished at the magic that is unschooling.