I know this might shock you what with my over-thinking, love of showtunes and awkward introversion but I was a bit of a geek. I know! Quelle surprise! I knew you might have trouble believing it so I uploaded a picture of myself at 13 –  a year older than Noah is now.

Please note the prescription glasses that turn dark outside, the braces and the not at all ironic t-shirt that was dated the minute someone thought of putting that on a t-shirt (it was 1983, by the way). The hair was good. You really can’t beat the center-parted, feather-on-the-sides look softly touched with Sun-In. That was eighth grade. No wonder no one ever asked me to dance in middle school.

Anyway. Noah springs from geekhood on only one side of the family because Brett was not a geek. Oh he dabbled in it what with the comic books and all but he just never really embraced it like I did. It was my nerd history that convinced me that Noah — despite the breakdancing and the cool hat collection and the baggy, saggy hoodies — would really like role playing games. I figured a kid with his love of narrative would love finding a way to tell stories with his friends in real time even if it did mean he’d have to get off the computer to do it. So I put together a role playing game club with a few of his friends — homeschooled and not — who might similarly be swayed.

My friend Robert (who trumps both my former and current geekiness because he was the head of the Ohio Dr. Who fan club at the ripe old age of — I think — 14 and now among other things writes role playing games AND has a blog about the ones that are based on Star Trek) helped set us up. (Yes, we dated in our illustrious youth. Yes, we we were still geeks although by then we’d figured out that if we wore an abundance of black that we could hide it a little bit better.) He did some research and recommended that we use Swords & Wizardry (quick start) and then further blessed us by sending a little velvet bag full of the very special dice that are familiar to every RPG fan and those who love them.

(When I dumped the bundle of dice out onto the table, all the children gasped and that’s when I knew I had them!)

Our group met for the first time yesterday. Dice were rolled, characters were created (oddly, all elves — I told Robert that I blame Legolas!) and kettle corn was eaten. I believe a good time was had by all — at least there was a lot of giggling. We will start our adventure in earnest next week along with some new kids who couldn’t make it this last time. Meanwhile I set up a blog for the players (Noah is the only one who’s updated. Please excuse his confusion about their/there. I don’t know who his teacher is but clearly the kid needs better direction.) and I hope they’ll use it to keep friends & family in the loop.

I hope to hand the DM role off to one of the kids at some point but right now no one is interested because they all want to play! We also hope that Robert might make it out someday to show us what an actual gamer/game author looks like out in the real world and I wish that my brother would fly in from Oregon to stop by for a game. It’s kinda up his alley, too, although like Brett he managed to avoid true geekdom through sheer good looks and magnetism.

Maryanne (in the comment to the post previous) said:

In reading a little about homeschooling, I’ve gotten the (probably skewed) impression that most homeschoolers are Christian Fundamentalists, which you are not. Do you have to deal with these people and materials in the homeschooling world or are you totally on your own and make up your curriculum? You say your kids are “wild animals”. What if you had a kid who was not interested in books or learning at all?

Yes, lots of homeschoolers are fundamentalist Christians and there is indeed a large fundamentalist community here in Columbus. I don’t really have to deal with their beliefs although my kids are sometimes in classes or activities with children who are being homeschooled for religious reasons because those activities aren’t centered around religion. But Noah’s had some fundamentalist Christian friends and acquaintances and I just see that as a good opportunity to talk about belief systems.

It’s easy to avoid the resources created for families with a Christian worldview because there is so much out there for secular homeschoolers. I hear this is more difficult for folks in other communities but here in Central Ohio, our homeschool peers tend to reflect our values and those whose values are different, they still tend to complement ours (i.e., there aren’t a ton of Reform Jews but we get along nicely with our UU friends).

Also, we don’t use a curriculum other than math.

I don’t know what I’d do if I had a kid who wasn’t interested in “books or learning at all” because it looks like I don’t have one of those kids. I still can’t tell if Madison will be a reader with the passion (and insatiable hunger) that Noah has but she does like books and she’s got a wide-ranging, questioning mind. I’ve heard tell of kids who don’t want to learn but I have yet to meet one although I do know that there are kids in our group who drift in and out of concentrated academic-type work.

We tend to be moderate in our kid-control. We’re more strict than other unschoolers who don’t limit screen time or much of anything else but we’re a far cry from school-at-home folks, too, who replicate the classroom experience. Meeting my kids’ emotional and educational needs is an on-going process of checking in, making plans, backing off and checking in again. What they need one month isn’t what they need another and what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other.

Als0, if I had a kid who wasn’t interested in reading (because every kid is interested in learning although what they want to learn might not be what’s on someone else’s list), it’d be an even bigger reason not to send him/her to school and instead keep them home to find other ways to teach them. At least for me. Because I’m a homeschooler.

Julia said:

I have spoken to many homeschoolers…and not all are like you – the ones who think that it’s all about what is right for a family…kind of like the breastfeeding and work at home/stay at home war. Why is that?

My take? People can be jerks and those jerky people include homeschoolers. I’ve certainly been confronted by random folks in the grocery store, at the synagogue, on my kids’ sports team, etc. who want to weigh in on my educational choices ‘cuz jerkiness abounds however we choose to educate our kids. Although it’s been my experience (and this is a gross generalization and your mileage may vary, etc. etc.) that the most evangelical people tend to be either 1) the least secure (and so the most defensive) or 2) the most close-minded and who wants to hang with THAT anyway however they’re schooling?

Amy asked me some more about our homeschooling decision and I’m not gonna get into it too much (the short rundown is here) but her comment did make me think about one of my concerns about homeschooling pre-homeschool. I know that it’s not a great idea to remove the parents who are passionate about education from the public system. When we decide to leave the neighborhood school to head to homeschooling, we’re taking our resources with us. Not our taxes, mind you (homeschoolers still pay taxes) but our time and energy and one might assume that someone with the time and energy to homeschool would probably be a kick-ass volunteer and education advocate if their kids were in school.

So I thought about that and I thought about whether I was being selfish when I chose homeschooling instead of heading into my neighborhood elementary school and working to create positive change. And I do think it’s selfish kinda like I think it’s theoretically selfish to stay home just with your own kids and not open your doors to help take care of everyone’s kids, which is an argument some parenting advocates make. (Penelope Leach, for example, in her otherwise terrific Children First book.)

But the other thing is that institutional (i.e., group) schooling isn’t what I want for my kids at this point and no amount of education advocacy is going to change that. I think that if I were parenting kids who were in school that I’d be less likely to volunteer because I think the whole thing would make me so damn crazy that I’d have to get some distance. I know that my ideas wouldn’t fly in school as it is today. The reality is: homework, standardized tests, timed recess, timed lunches, etc. That’s what you have when you have a large group of kids who all have needs and that’s what you have when you’ve got grades and stuff. And for most people, that’s ok or at the very least it’s worth the rest of it (an education). Which is to say that perhaps the kind of help I’d be offering if my kids were in school is maybe not the kind of help they’d be looking for.

I’m not writing this to argue about standardized testing; in fact, it’s just the opposite. My point is to say that there are fundamentals of public school that I want to avoid and rather than get in there and try to convince all the school parents to come along with me and rip up the blue books, I think it’s better for us all if I just find an alternative, which in our case is homeschooling. I don’t WANT to try to tell people that what’s working for them is all wrong because I’m not naive enough to believe that my way is the only way. Just because I don’t want my kids to have to raise their hands to go to the bathroom doesn’t mean that I think raising one’s hand to ask to pee is going to kill kids. I mean, really, I have some perspective on this. But I do want something different for my kids and so that’s why I took my resources (time and energy) and ran to homeschooling.

(Remember, I’m an unschooler. My kids run around all day like wild animals. Wild animals with video games and lots of books. I’d venture to say that most people at the very nice, very well run elementary school across the way from me don’t want me to go in there and start arguing that their children should run around like wild animals, too. I’d say the PTA is glad I’m not there fighting for their students’ right to blow off homework just because the students think the assignment is lame, which is the kind of thing I’d have a hard time not advocating.)

I’m not anti-public school in any way shape or form anyway because I think public school is one of the blessed things about our country. Of course it could be better but that it exists at all is nothing but a good thing in my mind. I always vote for the school levies and I think teachers rock the house and ought to make way more money than professional football players. I just don’t want my kids to go to school. At least not right now and not for as long as is working for me and mine.

Now if an affordable Sudbury Valley type school shows up here? All bets are off. But meanwhile, my kids are staying free-range.

You all know that I love homeschooling — that it jives with my values and it (so far) meets my kids’ needs. But I’ve been thinking on how much privilege it takes to be a homeschooler and thinking about how I need to acknowledge that. Because we homeschoolers can get a tad self congratulatory around back-to-school time (I always feel like I’m gleefully getting away with something) and this year it’s kinda rubbing me the wrong way even though I am firmly in the homeschooling camp.

Thing is, I started imagining how it would sound if we were doing all of this back-patting about some tony private school. You know, like saying, “I’m sure glad my kid doesn’t have to go to that public school!” And it made our glee sound a tad less gleeful and a touch more, well, gross.

Homeschooling is a sacrifice, no doubt. It (usually) means the loss of someone’s income and even if you’re living very close to the bone — as many homeschoolers do — to be able to kiss one whole income good-bye is a pretty enormous privilege. I mean, even though I’m still earning a full-time paycheck, I could be earning more if I didn’t have the restriction that I need to work from home. (I turned down a job that made twice as much because it would have meant putting the kids in school.) It’s a big sacrifice and we’ll be paying for it into retirement (because we won’t have any). Still, being able to get by anyway speaks to an awful lot of privilege.

It’s not that everyone who could would homeschool if only (it’s way more than budget that plays into it) but figure that if someone is homeschooling instead of working a 40-hour minimum wage job 52 weeks a year, they’re losing $15,000 (and here let us stop and contemplate THAT ridiculousness and wonder why we can’t at least have health care reform but WHATEVER), which is about what some of those fancy-schmancy private schools cost.

Now many homeschoolers disdain private school because we’re all punk rock like that with the homeschooling and the unschooling and the sticking it to the institutional man and stuff but I think we need to recognize that homeschooling is a privilege. Definitely. Any kind of school choice is a privilege. But the financial and time sacrifices to live homeschooling has privilege that runs deep and long, practically and culturally.

I am lucky to do this, I know. I’d do well to remember that. (Especially because right now I’m feeling overwhelmed by my to-do list and the job/homeschool juggling and want to lay myself down and sob softly deep into the night and I need to remember that I chose this, I chose this for many reasons and I am LUCKY to have that choice and to get to exercise it.)

Like the rest of the United States, my mind is heading to back to school even though no one who lives in my house is going back to school this fall. Thing is, even if you homeschool it’s impossible not to hearken back to your own schooling memories or get caught up in the back-to-school supply sales. (I love me some new school/office supplies!) Plus even though school isn’t starting for us, all the school season activities are including Madison’s soccer and both the kids’ religious classes.

I’ll be interested to see how Madison does in religious school since she’s not a child all that great at sitting still. Two and a half hours on a Sunday with singing, snack and crayons seems like a nice start though and she may do better than we think.

She is very happy to be homeschooled kindergarten this year and while she’s interested that some of her friends are headed to brick and mortar school she doesn’t feel much inclined to join them.

As a general rule, I don’t even think of doing anything formal with a kid this young (ok I THINK but I don’t DO) because I have this theory that kids don’t need any formal academic instruction until at least eight. And then it’s just math, really. It worked for Noah, who used that free time from 5 to 8/9 to become a hard-core reader and I’m sure it’ll work for Madison, too, although I have no idea what she’ll do with it. Likely more art since that’s her consuming passion right now. And I do mean consuming because that child goes through paper like there’s no tomorrow. (Which reminds me that I need to grab some out of the recycling bin here so she can keep busy with her drawings.)

Both my kids were very into drawing at this age but both draw similarly, which is that it’s not about the drawing so much as the story they’re telling. You can really see this when you compare their art work to my sister’s kids (remember my sister is an artist) and you can see much more attention to composition and color and detail in her kids’ work. I don’t know if this is inherent in our kids or if this is about growing up with a writer in one house and an artist in the other but it’s interesting. Madison does do a lot of other kinds of art and there her attention seems more about process and less about product (age appropriately) so I don’t know if she will continue to be focused on art or if art is a means to another end that she’s too young to have discovered for herself. Meanwhile, we enjoy having the fruits of her labor all over the house, most especially the kitchen where she’s done a nice job of dressing up our drab paneling by the refrigerator.

Noah won’t be going to virtual school this year since the hard-core emphasis on testing last year dismayed us both. He’ll go back to doing a math curriculum and we’ll leave the rest up to him. Brett wants him to think about a subject he’d like to explore in depth and since he needs to do a service project for his bar mitzvah anyway, we’ll likely let that stand only have him do it with more attention than he might otherwise. (He hasn’t picked one yet but needs to get on it.) The biggest change I’ve seen in him over the past few years is much more confidence in what he’s doing and in the value of his interests. He’s more prone to assert himself and happily, to share his interests with us. Although he’s heading into that extreme privacy age, I notice he’s actually less guarded in talking to us about what’s going on in his head around the books he reads, etc. and I wonder if this has to do with that confidence he’s developed. Maybe what he cares about doesn’t seem as fragile and so he’s able to open himself up to our thoughts and opinions? In any case, despite the burgeoning adolescent that can get a little mouthy, he’s a pleasure to have around and is happy to take on more responsibility these days. (Housework has gotten a lot easier recently thanks to Noah’s attention to it.)

I do love homeschooling. Sometimes I think having schooled kids looks like fun, too, but so far it’s all going well so why mess with it?