How's This for Real?

A friend dropped by to pick up some stuff and drop off a lovely gift, and stayed for tea.  At some point during a delightful conversation, she asked, "So, what are your kids learning?"

My mind went completely blank.  Up until that moment, I had forgotten that she's the Latin teacher at our local Classical Curriculum school.

All I could think of was, "Oh, you know....stuff."  Which I elegantly refrained from saying (barely)!

I came up with something like, "Uh, Biology.... and everyone is doing Math..."

Doh!  I'm totally blaming this on pregnancy brain.

Eventually, I also came up with the facts that Mxyl and Klenda had just written a book, Zorg that day had finished the last Pre-Algebra lesson, and we had recently finished the world's longest study of US History.

I should have brought up all the art, horseback lessons, ancient history, Spanish, fossil hunting, computer animation, and gardening that we've been doing lately!

Actually, I think it was just a polite question, and for all that I think of myself as "not particularly caring what people think," I processed it as "Are your children actually learning anything?".  The phrasing "what are they learning" threw me for a loop. I know a great deal about what I'm teaching.  What they are learning is inherently more mysterious, particularly since much of what they are learning has little to do with me!

 If I were able to do it over I would just say, "Why don't you ask them?"

The picture of the cute baby groundhogs are a complete ruse.  We found them under a barn while Marching Through Time - there were four, but I only got a picture of two.