`Ok, we know the Mesolithic people were hunter-gatherers and lived in tents. So what about the Neolithic people? " Andy sits there, eyes glazed, toying with a Zippo lighter. I take it from his hands.
"The Neolithic people, Andy. They didn't move around. So what did they have?"
"They had beer bellies."
Since Andy is fascinated by buildings, I had hoped to lead him into history via passage tombs. But it isn't working. My plans to cover the first nine chapters of his history book in one night are coming apart faster than an animal skin tepee. While parents all over Ireland scramble to get to grips with homework, kids like Andy regard us with a calm indulgent eye.
Andy's plan is to take what he definitely knows, divide it by the questions he is most likely to be asked in a test, multiply it by 10 minutes of quick checking before the test and come up with a figure of 50 per cent - a pass. He does not see why he should know stuff for the sake of knowing it.
After a short lifetime of getting pretty well everything he wants for the persistent asking, he does not relate effort to reward. Or only insofar as you get rewarded for persistent asking.
This is, of course, my fault. Early on in their education I fell for the notion that kids learn a lot more if you make a game of it. But what they learnt most quickly was how to spot a genuine game and what had cunningly concealed lessons in it. For example, we would sing "de-oxy-ribo nucleic acid" to the tune of Cliff Richard's Congratulations in the car. But they quickly changed the lyrics to "Mum-is-a-pain-in the nucleic acid", and another opportunity was lost.
My kids will have nothing to do with the rote learning that served my generation so well. Thanks to Sister Annunciata, I can still beat the kids on their calculators in multiplying 7x9x3, to their rage and consternation.
Sister Annunciata sat and thumped her desk with a butterbat like the galley slave master drumming the oarsmen on in Ben Hur, while the 40 or so seven-year-olds before her sang out the multiplication tables in unison, hour after hour. There was a kind of hypnotic rhythm to it that sent us into a swaying stupor so that the tables sank into some automatic response area of our brains.
But today's kids are conscientious objectors to repetition. So now I try to encourage them through understanding and discussion. This too backfires. Andy can lead any discourse away from the point with the practised ease of a politician on Morning Ireland. "Mum, how did Lord Nelson eat on a ship, with only one arm?" "Did they build round towers so that the Vikings couldn't hide round corners?"
Lobbing decoys faster than Lara Croft on her way through Level 5, Andy sees to it that we don't even cover one chapter properly. So I await school reports with some trepidation, while my own little Mesolithics sit in beer-belly comfort watching Neanderthal on TV.
"Wow, kick ass!" says Andy. "Those Cro-Magnons are cool!" And not for the first time I see that my study methods are history. On screen is where the future of education is playing out.