Levi's Language

A friend inspired me to at least start thinking about next year's homeschool curriculum. I paged through a catalog, found the usual (math, science, social studies, etc.), then found the section of "electives." This section has the strange effect on me of stoking my imagination: could my kids become fluent in Latin? could they learn the names of all the countries in the world by listening to songs? what about sign language?

I decided to talk to Levi about sign language. He's usually not the first one to come to mind when I start Future of My Children Dreaming but he happened to be in the car.

"Hey Levi. Do you think you'd like to learn sign language?"

"Ummmm. What's that?"

"It's where you use your hands to talk to deaf people."

"Your hands talk?"

"No, they make signs that deaf people can understand."

"DEATH PEOPLE???!! MY HANDS COULD TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DEAD????"

"no."

At this point, the momentum that had been building as Levi contemplated Talking to the Dead, suddenly ceased. He now understood that whatever explanation was going to come next would most certainly be a disappointment. I did lamely explain the population for whom sign language is extremely important but gone was my initial enthusiasm. Levi's transcript would no longer stand out with Talking to the Dead fulfilling the language requirement.

I haven't brought it up again. For now, we'll just work on finishing this year.