Rambling Thoughts

It's summer break here. I wish I were a year round homeschooler. I would love it if my kids didn't think of learning as happening only between the months of August and May. I would love it if I were the kind of mom who felt inspired to plan fun learning activities all year, to teach grammar in July, to plan fun field trips over the summer, but that's not reality for us.  Right now, I have one kiddo in the pool with her friends and the other three kiddos are rotting their brains playing League of Legends together, and I haven't done one productive thing today, unless you count getting a pedicure as productive. We are slackers from late May to mid-August and we like it that way.

We have been part of the public school system in one way or another for 16 years. The younger two have been homeschooled for the past four years, but we have always worked with the older boys' public school calendar. Summer weather signals a break...a big chunk of unscheduled time with few obligations. We love summer break. We need it. That's never going to change.

In the fall, we will start our fifth year of Otherwise Educating. I can't believe it. This whole thing kind of started out as an experiment. I had no plans for how long I would continue doing it. I truly take it year by year and figure I'll do something different when this doesn't feel right anymore. Right now, it still feels right.

As the kids get older, people get more uncomfortable with me not having my children in "proper" school. When we first started homeschooling, many people thought I was crazy, but I've always been a little unconventional, so most just chalked it up to another odd thing I chose to do like cloth diapering, baby food making and breastfeeding for longer than most people consider "normal".  As time has marched on and my older homeschooled son approaches high school, people are starting to get uncomfortable and have started asking what I'm going to "do" with him. I mean, clearly I can't homeschool him once he reaches high school, can I?  Sometimes I pretend like I've put a lot of thought into it and lay out my "plan", but most of the time I shrug and say, "I'm not sure", because that's the truth.

I am conflicted, because when I look back over my older boys' public school experiences, there are some cool things they did/experienced/learned that I'd hate for my younger kids to miss out on. I also see that they wasted an enormous amount of time and they both tell me that they would have been much better served doing things differently. They don't learn the way public school teaches. Much of the time they were bored, frustrated and sadly apathetic. While I can't give my younger two identical opportunities my older boys had available to them in public school, I think the different experiences and opportunities we have because we homeschool will more than make up for it.

I make no promises about our future plans. My second son just graduated from public high school, so we are definitely going to enjoy one year of not being tied to the public school calendar in any way. After that, we will reevaluate.

Happy summer!

Finding the passion again

When I started this crazy experiment, I was beyond excited about learning at home with my children. I researched curriculum options until I couldn't see straight. I read more books and blogs on homeschooling than I can count. I blogged every sad science experiment we did. We field tripped, co-oped, crafted and nature walked our little hearts out those first two years. It was wonderful and we loved it. When I look back on those years, I just feel all warm inside. I wouldn't trade that time for all the money in the world. As time has gone on, we've fallen into a rut. We are bored. I hate to admit it, but homeschooling just isn't fun anymore. It used to be a way of life. It has turned into something we check off so we can move on with our day.

One by one, our homeschooling friends are going back to school. I admit that I'm tempted. Wouldn't it be nice to "just" be the mom? No more answering "What do we have to do for school today?" No more  Sunday night list making. No more worrying and stressing about whether or not I'm teaching them everything they need to know. More coffee with girl friends. More time to clean and organize my house. Maybe I could finally get to that four year old to-do list.

Whenever I am trying to make a big decision, my wise younger sister always advises me to envision my day to day life as it will be if a make the change. When I envision my life with my kiddos back in school, I don't like what I see. I see rushed mornings. I see kids coming home exhausted after spending  all day at school yet still facing two to three hours of homework at night. I see me opening up a lunch box and finding a lunch that wasn't eaten because my child was being teased at the lunch table and couldn't "stomach" eating. (Ugh... I still get teary when I remember that event.) I see busy work, stress over state tests, drug dogs... I could go on and on. I see these things because I have seen them. I've done this before. It's less than 70 days until my second son graduates from public school (not that I'm counting). Having had two children go to public school from K-12, I know of what I speak.  As I have said over and over and over, my kids have had some fantastic teachers and experiences in public school. They have also had some not-so-great experiences. I'm just not ready to travel that road again... yet.

I'm not saying my children will never go back to school.  I don't know what tomorrow holds. When people ask how long I'm going to do this, I often respond, "At least until next week." What I do know is that I really like my life right now the way it is. I love learning with my children. I love not feeling rushed. I love walking into the family room and seeing them bundled up by the fireplace reading or working on math. The flexibility is priceless. It's wonderful to be able to drop the books and go spend time in nature on a beautiful day.  I like being able to allow them to follow their interests instead of having to follow someone's idea of what they should be learning at this point in time. When I focus on the the good things, I realize that there is a lot that I would miss.

So... I have started reading John Holt again. I'm reading homeschool blogs and books.  I watched Sir Ken's Ted Talk for the umpteenth time. I have committed to making new connections with other homeschoolers. I am going back through the pictures of our first two years of homeschooling and re-reading my blogs from those days. I'm even considering going to a local homeschool convention, which will be new for me. I am reminding myself of why I started this journey in the first place and it gives me renewed passion to continue. Thanks for following along.

"What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out." ~ John Holt

Socialization

When I dropped my daughter off at dance class today, she and another little girl who is homeschooled starting talking about their homeschool experience. A third girl who was listening piped up and said, "Homeschooling isn't good for you." My daughter said, "Why not?" She said, "Because you don't learn to play with other kids." I said, "Oh, that's not true. Who told you that?" Of course, I knew who told her that. I don't know why I asked. I stood there like a fool, listing all the ways my children get social interaction in spite of (actually, because of) their educational experience. Yes, I was arguing the socialization issue with a 7 year old...defending myself and my children as if I were on trial for child abuse. It was ridiculous but I couldn't help myself.

Can I just say how sick to death I am of hearing that "concern"? Why is "socialization" (or lack thereof) the one thing so many homeschool opponents choose to focus on? I suppose it is because people can't really pick on any other aspect of homeschooling. "Hmm, overall, homeschooled children excel in every academic area, so we can't say the kids aren't learning. I know, let's say they weird and unsocialized."

Do people think we sit at home all day, just the three of us, never interacting with the outside world? Do they think my children stand, noses pressed against the glass storm door, watching longingly as the children on the street play together? Do they think we drive past the park and just wave at the children playing there?

Why do people think that spending time in traditional school is the only appropriate way for children to socialize with other children?

Why is sitting in a crowded, noisy lunch room at a table with 25 other children who are trying to eat their lunches in 20 minutes while the lunch lady yells at them better for children than a group of 12 homeschooled children eating a leisurely lunch at a picnic table outside?

Why is being teased on the playground at school better socially than a multi-aged group of children playing a game of football after our science class?

Why is my child looking at pictures of a naked woman on another child's cell phone in the hall at school (yes, my child saw this) preferable to him taking a trip to the art museum with a couple of other homeschooled children?

Never in a million years would I go up to a parent of a traditionally schooled child and ask, "Don't you worry how all the negative stuff that happens at public school will affect your child's self-esteem?" Yet so many non-homeschooling parents feel free to question and criticize what I'm doing and talk about how it will negatively affect my children. (By the way, as a parent of two children who attend public school, I do worry about all the negative things they experience there.)

Here's the real story. I find the "socialization" issue to be a challenge, but it's not in the way you would think. We have so many opportunities to socialize with other children that I have to carefully choose what we do or we would never be home to do our schoolwork.

We have been on more field trips than I can count. We have had play dates at the park. We "school" with a group of 10 other children every Monday. We go to the gym and play with other kiddos. We meet with our co-op for Culture Club. My children take lessons, go to church, play outside with the dozen or so other kids who live on our block. I think they'll be fine.

Really, the horse is dead. Let's stop beating it.