Homeschooling

Napping homeschool girl

Aug 252010

Every once in awhile Madison just CRASHES. I knew today would be one of those days because she woke up whiny and it just got worse as the day wore on. It culminated with her in tears on the couch because of something she said to someone when she was four that she doesn’t remember but she knows was mean and the guilt — after two years — was finally overwhelming. So first I told her that even the nicest people do mean things sometimes and that she IS one of the nicest people I know and then I tucked her into bed and lay down with her for a few minutes. It’s been an hour and a half and she’s still sleeping.

Today would be her first day of school if she was going to our neighborhood school across the way. Or maybe yesterday would have been, I don’t know because the schools in our district got to choose which of those two days to start and I didn’t bother to get the details. We get a little foot traffic from kids in backpacks in front of our house and sometimes minivans park there if there’s an assembly of some kind.

We hear the school “bell” (it’s really a buzzer) go off, too, and all the kids romping on the playground. It makes for a nice nieghborhood-y feel.

Tomorrow I start school and I was thinking about how a lot of the moms on Facebook/Twitter have been counting down the days/hours/minutes until their kids go and I thought it’d be funny if Noah was doing the same thing about me but no one would get it since pretty much all his friends on Facebook are either kids or homeschooling parents of his friends. I feel like that was a potentially hilarious piece of satire that will never get to be.

Every year I ask the kids if they feel left out when they know other people are going to school and every year they say no. They say no while sitting in their jammies knowing their schooled peers are already at their desks so it’s likely not a fair context for the question. I did ask Noah once on the last day of school when there was a huge fair out on the playground field with bouncy houses and a DJ and he said, “But see how happy they are that they get to LEAVE?”

Listen, there are downsides to homeschooling mainly for me but the kids are awfully happy about it.

When people ask me if they should homeschool

Homeschooling 1 Response »

May 272010

I am not a hard core homeschool activist and I don’t strongly identify as a homeschooler. We homeschool and it defines our experience but it does not define my identity. (The kids, on the other hand, might say something different.) I also think homeschooling brings a whole lot of problems with it and if you don’t 100% (or at least 95%) believe in what you’re doing, those problems aren’t worth it.

Now we love homeschooling here. We’ve been very happy with out experiences so far. We’re also very one-day-at-a-time about it and as Noah heads into what will be eighth grade, I have no idea if he’ll homeschool for high school or not. (I know he wants to go to college and so next year we’ll be working on identifying his options to help him figure out how to do that.)

Here are the problems I’ve had with homeschooling (this is a very personal list and in no way assumes anyone else has or will have these particular problems):

Finances. We really need to be a two-income family and homeschooling limits our ability to do that. Fortunately I have a fairly portable career so this issue isn’t as daunting as it might be otherwise.
Time. Because we need to be a two-income family, I am constantly, constantly stretched. Honestly I think grad school would be a vacation.
Support. I have wonderful homeschooling support. I have wonderful working support. I have wonderful writing support. These three support systems rarely meet and for an introvert, juggling several support systems (not to mention adoption support, transracial support, Jewish support, etc.) is challenging. If I was less introverted or needed less support, this wouldn’t be an issue. But I am and I do so it is. There are days when I don’t fit in anywhere and then I’m lonely and self-pitying. Don’t worry — I get over it but I do have those very very bad days.

Like I said, I love homeschooling and I don’t regret our decision for a minute but it’s not for everyone. Usually I tell people who ask if they should homeschool that they should do whatever they want. Because if they WANT to do it, likely their kids will be fine. I think happy, loving parents tend to make for happy kids, generally speaking, and no one ought to be a martyr. The other thing I tell them is that school is there if they want it; homeschool is there if they want it. None of us has to make a definitive decision and I know many parents and kids who have gone back and forth depending on what makes the most sense right then. So it’s not as do or die as it sometimes seems.

Anyway. These past couple of weeks have been a lot more juggling than usual and when an already very busy parent asked me if she should homeschool the other day I said, “Well, probably not.” And I wanted to refine my answer a little bit. More like, “Who the hell knows. Give it a shot, what the heck. Or not. It’s all good.”

Dear Ohio Democratic Party

Feminism/Politics, Homeschooling 11 Responses »

Apr 212010

Listen, I know your volunteers are young. I know most of them are college students because I used to volunteer when I was a college student and I remember looking around the table and seeing a lot of other passionate young folks with occasional retirees. What I didn’t see much at those volunteer trainings were people my age — middle-aged-ish. You know, people with jobs and kids.

And so I understand that your phone bank workers don’t get me and that when they call me to volunteer they are unlikely to appreciate the reality of my life even when I tell it to them. So they may not believe me when I say, “I am extremely busy because I have two homeschooled children and freelance work and volunteer work for another outfit BUT if you have any one-off jobs I can do with my kids, I can do them. Because I’d be happy to give my kids a chance to be involved and I would like to help.”

So this means no data entry. Like I said, I want to do something WITH my kids and I’m pretty sure that the young man on the phone has never tried to do data entry with kids running around like small lunatics or he wouldn’t suggest it. And if data entry is at your office, then it’s even less likely. (I did a night of data entry for the Obama campaign and that was at their offices.)

See, having kids makes things harder. It doesn’t mean we don’t care (so please, could you put away your heavy sighs and guilt-attempting annoyance?), it means we are freaking busy. You want parents — especially working parents — to help you get out the vote? Find a way to involve us with our kids. Let me tell you, a lot of families would love to have their kids lend a hand. Why not have a family night envelope stuffing party? I remember doing this for some Oregon Women’s Fund organization way back when in Portland — they got us pizzas and we stuffed the hell out of their capital campaign envelopes. Kids over a certain age could totally do that and many of them are more than happy to work for pizza. This is your chance to grow your future activists! Teach them about the political process and give their parents a chance to be involved! Because I can do data entry if you can find something for my kids to do while I do it.

Unfortunately, even though I had time to come up with this great pizza party idea and the time to type it here, I don’t have time to organize it. But you, dearest college student likely without a job with the adorable apologetic and awkward phone manner who called me last night, you do. I know this because I had time when I was a college student even when I was working full-time. Because you know what is a bigger time suck than exam week? Every dang week with kids. I am not even kidding. You can’t believe it now but I am telling you that it is true. So don’t question me about if I’m sure I can’t do this or that, don’t offer me jobs I can’t do with my kids when I told you that my kids are part of my volunteer deal — come up with something! Talk to your supervisor! Say, “There is this untapped source of energy and it is called PARENTS WITH CHILDREN!”

Otherwise, sure, keep me on your list. Call me closer to the election. Like I said, I’ll hang door signs because I can bring my kids but you can keep that data entry to your own self.

(We told the library this, too, when Abby was mounting her nonfiction re-shelving advocacy effort and they said re-shelving would be hard on their staff and we said we had library-loving kids who would help. I tell nonprofits all the time that they should look to the homeschooling community because most of us are passionate about whatever advocacy is floating our boat — being people who act on our strong feelings as evidenced by our pulling our kids out of school or never even sending them even though Good Morning America and our far-flung relatives and random people at the grocery store think we’re nuts — and we have free labor in the guise of kids who are willing to work for the pure love of learning something.)

Comparisons

Homeschooling 4 Responses »

Apr 192010

We went to a bar mitzvah on Saturday, (which was lovely) and I thought again about how religious school is really the only activity my kids have done on a regular basis where they’re so age segregated. Most of the classes and workshops they’ve taken (especially Noah who has taken away more than Madison being seven years older) are more loosely grouped by age (for kids, say, 7 to 10) or are grouped by ability. In homeschooling, kids tend to play across age groups a lot more.

I think this is great. I think it makes more sense for kids to be grouped by ability or general development because then it’s easier not to see someone as behind or as ahead. Everyone just is what they are. Noah has had friends who are way ahead in some things and way behind on other things and from what he tells me, they tend to see each other’s gifts and appreciate them while making way for their challenges. So he has one friend who is an amazingly skilled artist and craft person, who can glance at a shirt and design a pattern for it and create it from scratch, but who doesn’t read well. The kids all admire and acknowledge her fantastic creations and they help her with the games they play that might be harder for her. They don’t think of her as ahead or as behind; they think of her in terms of her abilities first and foremost. I hope that makes sense, what I’m saying here.

But that’s not the part I’m talking about. The part I’m talking about is that I can’t make comparisons between my kids and their same-aged peers because I don’t have a large group of same-aged peers to compare them, too. Which is a little weird. Nice, but weird. It’s only when I see them in religious school or in sports activities (where ages are more regimented) that I see them as part of a “grade.” Like Madison in kindergarten and Noah in seventh grade. In the sports, it’s not really an issue but I definitely notice the absence of understanding them this way when I see them at religious school.

Not that I can make comparisons then either because religious school isn’t much like school. I mean, I know that Noah does well on his tests and I guess I could find out how the other kids did on theirs (if I cared) but it still wouldn’t be a comparison because all the other kids are doing religious school on top of regular school and homework and extracurricular activities so if Noah is doing better than them, it might say more about his wide-open schedule. So I take his performance (and Madison’s performance) as a measure of this 2.5 hours every week that they have religious school and that’s it. It’s just so isolated.

Sometimes I wish I could compare them because I am still too caught up in arbitrary measures of “good” and “bad” and “better.” And then I’m glad that I can’t. Sometimes I would like to know if Madison is busier than her peers (I think she is) but really all I need to know is if Madison is successful in her own sphere and she is and that ought to be enough.

It’s hard to explain how much unschooling means unlatching yourself from prescribed expectations. For example, what if Madison is busier than her peers? What does this mean for her right now? If she were in school, I’m sure it would be an issue. She can keep herself still and focused and careful for 2.5 hours in religious school but I know if she were in school full-time that she’d be getting busted for chattering and wriggling and wanting to see what her neighbor is doing. And that would be a real issue and we would need to deal with it. But if you take her out of school, there is no issue. So even though I wonder if she’s busier than her peers, it also doesn’t matter. It only matters that her busyness doesn’t preclude her happy functioning here in her unschooling home.

Anyway, not being able to compare my kids to other kids but only to themselves and their own developmental timetable is a plus for me but I’ll admit that when we get their report cards* from religious school, I eat up the teacher comments.

* Noah was appalled that Madison got a report card. He said, “But it’s KINDERGARTEN!” He thought they should have a free year or two. And for the record, the report cards always say that my kids are bright and enthusiastic. Noah’s usually say that he’s funny and Madison’s said that she was very compassionate. They also both get kudos for class participation, which is no surprise with Madison but surprised us with Noah because for his first couple of years, he was a wallflower.

Homeschool take two

Homeschooling 16 Responses »

Apr 162010

I was just writing this on our local homeschool support list (well, unschool support list) — it’s a whole new world unschooling Madison.

Noah was and is an extremely independent unschooler. The surest way to ruin anything for him was to try to lead him — he is a kid who wants to find his own way and will let us know if he needs our help. Even casually offering help might be enough to make him shut down and in some ways this has made him easy to homeschool because he just wanted us to let him be and so we let him be. When Brett has wanted him to do something more structured, they work it out by making sure Noah has the bulk of the responsibility. So with math, which is the one piece where Brett doesn’t feel good about letting go (I’m more laid back than he is about it — we make a nice team), he gives Noah a loose set of goals and then leaves it to Noah to meet them.

Madison is different. Madison LOVES input. She loves being led. She loves activity. This makes her easier to homeschool in a totally different way because anything you come up with, she will get excited about. I tell you, it’s a nice change to share a project idea and not be met with a stony glare. But I’m grateful that Madison didn’t come first because if she had, I would have pushed her because she is pushable. She is trainable. She is all about parental approval and we could have turned her into a little achievement monster pretty darn easily.

But Noah came first and cemented my theories that were just theories. Like I SAID I didn’t want to raise over-achievers but then why was I pushing Noah academically when he was a preschooler? I’ll tell you why — because I was just SAYING that; I didn’t mean it. As a formerly gifted child whose self worth was wrapped up in having adults make a fuss over me, I had a lot of deschooling to do myself. When I first thought about homeschooling, I had visions of those wacky homeschoolers who prove all the schooled kids wrong by achieving all the the traditional goals untraditionally. (See this book here.) I really needed to have a kid who would say NO to me. I needed a kid who refused to buy into the nonsense I was still buying into and who would remind me that children are not trained monkeys.

Noah rejected all the tricks of the theoretically not schooling homeschoolers. He didn’t want to trace alphabet letters on sandpaper or make letter collages. He did not want me to point to each word as I read out loud to him (he’d shove my hand off the page). He was uninterested in all the Ruth Beechick activities and so I gave up — not on him, mind you. I gave up on making him do things my way. I thought long and I thought hard and I thought either I had to walk my pontificating talk or I may as well send the kid to school.

Noah, so far, is thriving. He’s smart (ask anyone), he’s confident and he’s happy. He’s at the top of his religious school class and he reads a book a day. And he does this in spite of having a mother who still cares way too much out the outcome of the IQ test she took when she was 10.

I’ll admit that I have to TELL myself not to push Madison because like I said, she is pushable. I could probably turn her into a trick pony with very little effort because she has an amazing memory and some serious smarts but with Noah as my proof, I’m trusting in a continued course of benign neglect.

I’ll admit though, it is awfully nice to have a kid who will let you pull out a book about gardening after you’ve been digging in the garden together. (Even that much interference was an anathema to my boy.) And having a children who clearly learn differently is going to keep things interesting, that’s for sure!