What homeschoolers can learn from Abba Moses
If you follow a traditional-ish school calendar, starting sometime in the fall and ending when it’s too nice out to stay inside anymore, you may have noticed that sometime after Christmas things start to feel a little stale.
The beginning-of-the-year determination and momentum has, after the excitement of of the holiday season, given way to a rather ho-hum kind of energy where hitting the books every day just isn’t quite as exciting as it was back in September. The kids feel it too. They may not articulate it in so many words, but they communicate it in the boiling over of frustrations that have been simmering under the surface during lessons, or in the listless roaming of the house punctuated by variations on the theme of, “I’m bored!”
It’s tempting to blame it all on ill-fitting curriculum or on other externals — and sometimes those externals are actual problems that need to be addressed! — but it’s also worth considering that hunkering down and bracing ourselves through discipline to weather the storm of acedia can be a legitimate response to the January doldrums.
A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him, “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”1
Simple? Quite. Easy? Not at all.
Stay the course, friends. Be honest with yourself and change the things that truly need to be changed. Work on the habits that require attention, and also cultivate the discipline to do what must be done, even when it’s difficult.
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers