A year ago, I mourned the loss of summer to enrichment, tutoring and daycamps in my Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog. Dual forces converged to create this situation–the academic pressure to always be ahead of the pack and the economic necessity of parents working longer hours in less flexible jobs. You know, to pay for all the enrichment, lessons and tutoring (I tease).

But the pressure to always be working is hard to resist, even when it comes to my kid. And the fact that my kid tends to forget stuff that doesn’t engage him… well, maybe I should prepare a few summer lesson plans, just in case.

On the other hand, perhaps I should declare an unschooling summer, more impressive-sounding than “we’re not doing anything this summer.” Because really, that’s what my kid wants–a few months to do nothing. In reality, that means skateboarding, tracking weather, building stuff from random wood scraps. The kind of activities that produce new knowledge and great summer memories, but whose benefits aren’t measured by standardized tests.

How’s your summer shaping up?