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WHERE THE HECK IS THE STUFF ABOUT
HOME-SCHOOLING????
Enter child number three, born to a different (half of it anyway) set of
parents, in a different state, and at a different time of life for these
parents.
This child was born at home, with a midwife, in a 100-plus-year-old house
at the edge of a tiny town in Texas. I had a part time job, meaning
that Alec had to go to daycare several days a week and we found a
wonderful one run by a wonderful woman - home cooked meals, lots of
outside playtime, lots of hands on activities rather than
sit-still-and-listen activities. Delia has an after-school-pickup
section of her daycare, and in the spring before her little charges turn
kindergarten age, they take a field trip to the school to get them
familiar with where they will be going in the fall.
We had already toyed with the idea of home-schooling since, by this time,
my employment offered me the freedom to take my child with me to work if I
wanted to, and with him being all of almost five, he could be taken
without CONSTANT supervision, allowing me to actually, you know, WORK at
work.
We went on the field trip to the school. Out of 12 families, only 2
parents attended, and I thought it was odd that I was one of them, since
we were thinking of NOT enrolling our child in this school. One
would think that one would be interested in checking out one’s child’s
school... Our local school is considered very good; it gets wonderful
ratings by the Texas Education Association, and indeed, when we walked
through the front doors, we were met with a cacophony of colors and sounds
all touting the Fun of Learning, and our son was clearly psyched about it.
Hyperactively so. His excitement was contagious, and I was tempted
to be swept into it all along with him
Until....
I looked up and saw The Banner.
Over the entry to the main corridor was a banner proclaiming this school
one of Texas’ Finest, signed (supposedly) by the President of the United
States of America, and boldly (even aggressively) stating
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
I know that this phrase is supposed to be uplifting, comforting and
encouraging, and in my former, younger, newer life as a parent, it
probably would have been.
Since I am twenty years older, have been around life’s block a few times,
and have now seen our government and society at work, it struck me like a
slap across the face as being creepy and menacing.
And I knew at that moment, for sure and for certain, that THIS child would
NOT be attending public school.
Chapter Two - The "Why" of Home-schooling
Each family has their own personal reasons to home-school, but whether
those reasons are religious, political, or having to do with the child’s
needs not being met by the public school system, the gist of the matter is
basically the same as why we homestead - we want to KNOW what’s going into
our children's heads is as pure and true as what we are so careful to put
into their tummies and their lungs.
I feel compelled to add here that my initial thoughts about home-schooling
were completely and absolutely self-serving. Ward goes to work at
8:30 AM. I go to work after lunch. The local school starts
promptly (a word I have trouble with on the BEST of days) at 7:45 AM.
I had a difficult time justifying hauling our 5-year-old to "work" well
before the adults in the family had to be at theirs. Then, on the
other end of it, Ward and I both get out of work at 6:00 PM - well AFTER
the school lets out at 2:45. Of course there’s Delia’s after-school
care, but for a young child to spend eleven hours out of every day in the
care of adults who are not their parents seems more than a little
unnatural to us.
I understand and sympathize with parents who have no other choice than the
above scenario - I spent several years as a single-working-mother myself.
We do the best we can with the options at our disposal. Depending on
your employment, sometimes home-schooling can still be accomplished - if
you are able to work "odd" shifts, child care can sometimes be arranged
for when you are working, and you will be with your child(ren) during the
day to school them.
The fact that a large part of our society considers it normal and healthy
to deposit their young into the care of "others" for a huge part of their
waking hours, and from the time they are 6 weeks old, is, to our
way of thinking, certainly a sign of the not-wellness of our culture.
At the present time, we are fortunate enough to have the freedom to both
home-school AND be gainfully employed, so we started looking at the
all-children-should-go-to-public-school idea very closely.
And just like a platypus, the more closely we looked at public school, the
odder it started looking.
Figures provided by the schools themselves admit that a mere 2 hours is
spent in actual school-learnin’ for the average elementary-schooler each
day. The rest of the 8 hours or so is spent taking turns, waiting in
line, recess, lunch, bathroom breaks, etc.
I called our local school to find out the average class size for
kindergarten.
Thirty.
They have thirty 5-year-olds vs. ONE teacher.
I asked how many teacher's aides were in each class and was laughed at.
I asked if they took advantage of room-mothers to come in and provide
extra hands, eyes and hearts to this mass of young humanity and was told
"that’s NOT allowed."
Wait a minute....
"NOT ALLOWED"???? *I’M* not allowed into my own child’s classroom during
the day???
Apparently not.
Home-school was looking better and better.
In fairness, the next school system over has a kindergartener-teacher
ratio of 15-1, which would have been perfectly acceptable to me.
Then there’s the question of homework. Our neighbor’s boy is the
same age as ours. He spends all day in public school and comes home
with at least an hour’s worth of homework. In SECOND GRADE. What in
the world is there for a second-grader to learn that cannot be
accomplished in 8 hours at school???
One of my best friends is an elementary school principal, and she was a
teacher for years and years before that. She was understandably
skeptical about our interest in home-schooling (since she’s known me for
almost 30 years, I’m sure she saw right past all my "for public
consumption" reasons and saw my inherent slothfulness shining through).
From watching Cathy over the years, I know that the majority of teachers
teach because they love their students. I know that they spend
literally thousands of their own dollars purchasing materials for their
kids to make up for the shortcomings of the materials they are given with
which to teach. I know that they are frustrated by the fact that
they must take a large portion of every school-year "teaching to the test"
- preparing their students for the standardized testing that will
determine what their schools receive in the way of funding.
Our final analysis of public schools is that the public school system is
aimed at educating the Average Student. Anyone who’s known even one
child knows that not a single one is average, all are uniquely gifted and
learn at different rates and in different ways.
To take all the knowledge that needs to be learned by all the children in
the country and force it into a single mold is like asking a federal
committee to construct a duck.
You get a platypus.
While agreeing with me in concept, Cathy challenged me, asking exactly HOW
I was planning on carrying out something as important as my child’s
education all by my lonesome, without any formal training.
It was an excellent question.
Continued...
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