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Quick homeschool post

Mar 30, 2007 Homeschooling

Since a couple of people mentioned that they hadn’t realized Noah is homeschooled, I thought I’d give a quick rundown about it. (I always forget that readership changes — in a few years people will write in saying, “Wait a second — Madison’s adopted?”)

This is my homeschool journey. (Brett’s homeschool journey was easier because it was more or less like this, “I’m kinda into this whole homeschool thing but since the bulk of the responsibility will be on the at-home parent, I’ll leave the decision to you.”)

• Noah is born. I am entranced. I can’t imagine leaving him for a millisecond let alone sending him far, far away to a whole different building! I am determined to homeschool — also being heavily influenced by Mothering magazine and my own miserable school years.
• Noah becomes a toddler and I am as adamant about homeschooling as only a mother with absolutely no experience parenting an actual schoolage child can be. Truthfully, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I lecture bored audiences at length about the death of the American school system. I am insufferable.
• Noah becomes preschool-aged and goes to actual preschool. His natural introvert tendencies (not shy, just introverted) become more and more clear. He loves preschool but is absolutely wrung out by being around so many kids for a whopping 2.5 hours a day three days a week. Meanwhile, I begin trying to conceive another child, visions of crunchy maternity in my head. I will homeschool. I will nurse this next child for decades. I will bake bread.
• Second baby doesn’t show up. I start thinking about getting my masters degree. Or a job. Or running away to Vegas. I start thinking about kindergarten. I began to feel oppressed by my adamant homeschool friends. I quit reading Mothering.
• Kindergarten readiness meeting makes clear Noah is not kindergarten ready. His teachers feel that it’s not the academics — it’s the stress of classroom socializing. I begin to feel trapped. I feel doomed to spend the rest of my life around women with slings and no fertility issues. I start to explore my options.
• Options: Send Noah to full-day kindergarten at the magnet school of choice even though I’m sure it means certain disaster; look at private schools we can’t afford and become deeply depressed; settle for our then-neighborhood school, which was absolutely unmitigated crap; try homeschooling for a year and then reassess. We go for the latter.
• Turns out we love homeschooling once we realize (and embrace) Noah’s need to unschool. Go back to my “down with public school” roots and begin to pontificate again. Hang joyfully with other homeschoolers. Feel I have found the secret to happy parenting. Pity everyone else.
• One by one the most adamant homeschoolers I know drop into school. Their children do not seem to be destroyed by evil school system and standardized tests. Noah still blossoming. Begin to modify stance — homeschooling rocks for us and school rocks for other people. All is good. Dawn begins to lighten up. (About homeschooling — continues her rigidity in other areas of her life much to her mother’s dismay.)

That’s kinda where we are now. I love homeschooling — it works really well for Noah. It’s been hard on our family in some ways — loss of income being the biggie — but as long as I’m home with a toddler-now-preschooler, I may as well be home with the enormous 10-year old. Plus the enormous 10-year old is useful to keep toddler-now-preschooler out of my hair. Noah’s homeschooling makes the little things — like showering — possible, god bless him!

We plan on trying a virtual school next year. We use a math curriculum now (Math-U-See, which out of the three we’ve tried — Miquon and Singapore being the other two — seems to work best for Noah) but otherwise, he is on his own. From what I can tell looking at his friends’ skills/abilities, he’s on track. (I did test him for reading and he tests way ahead of his grade level.) We’re thinking about the virtual school for a couple of reasons: One, that we think he’d like it because he really likes having “homework” in math and Hebrew; two, if he does want to go to school in high school, we’d like him to have an idea of what that means. (If he gets out there. He has absolutely no interest in ever going to school EVER.)

There’s a huge homeschooling community in Columbus and Noah takes several regular classes and then some extras here and there. Most of his friends aren’t homeschooled so most of his pure socialization happens outside the homeschool community. He does a weekly book discussion group, which he loves. And a gym class and a self-defense class (on hiatus right now). He does occasional camps and things but he doesn’t like being out and about much — takes after his mother that way.

Will Madison homeschool? I hope so. If you read in the archives, you can see me write passionately about why I hope this but I also know that I haven’t met school-age Madison yet and I don’t know what will work for her. Part of me thinks she will be an awesome homeschooler because she’s so passionate and excited. But she’s also much more social than Noah is and she may really want to go to school. (I think we’d be able to meet her social needs at home but I don’t know if we’ll be able to meet her social wants.)

And that’s my quick and dirty homeschool entry.

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