Secrets of the Old Schoolhouse

I think it's important to start at the beginning. My kids did attend school initially. My son did two years of preschool, then kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and half of 3rd grade. My daughter did two years of preschool, then kindergarten, and half of 1st grade. It was from these experiences that we made the decision to homeschool. There was not any one incident that left us running from the school system, but rather a culmination of my observations as a parent volunteer at the school, and my conversations with their teachers (including two years in a row of my relevant questions making the teachers cry during parent-teacher conferences!) The only other contributing factor towards our decision to homeschool may have been my undergraduate education in the teaching of English, but I feel strongly that homeschooling parents do not need a teaching degree to be successful with their own children. However, in my case, my education probably gave me the confidence I needed to actually pull them out of school.

Besides the usual stuff I always heard in our parent-teacher conferences, "Your kids are very smart, very quiet, and very well-behaved," I found the parent-teacher conferences to be a real window into what was going on there. Prior to the parent-teacher conference, there is back-to-school night where your child basically finds out what the teacher looks like and what side of the room he/she will be sitting on. Then there is the generic information sent home about rules and homework policies. But the parent-teacher conference is the first time we get to sit down with the individual who is going to have an enormous impact on our child's life, and really discuss how and what our child is doing in school. I prepared for my parent-teacher conference by providing a short reading list for the teacher (LOL) and including a copy of "Twenty Tips for Teachers" from the book The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine N. Aron, PhD. Apparently, teachers do not take warmly towards suggestions from parents on how to better handle their children. In my current field, this is called continuing education. Also in my current field, I strive to create an individual plan of care for each patient's unique health problem. Yet throughout my kids' time in the school system, I was continually reminded that my children would not be learning anything unique to their needs, but instead what the rest of the class needed or what was mandated by the school district.

When my daughter started kindergarten she was already reading. Despite this fact, her daily homework centered around learning the sounds of the alphabet starting with the letter A the first week, and continuing each week through the letter Z. On the first night of the week she would need to write the letter A a few zillion times. The next night she would have to find items around the house that started with the letter A. The following night she would have to glue items around the letter A, and so on through the week. I began to ask Rebecca if her teacher knew that she could already read. Her reply: "I don't know Mommy, there isn't anything to read. She reads to us." I suggested to Rebecca that since she was shy with her teacher, that she make it her goal to get the teacher to notice that she could already read so that possibly she could *practice* that skill at school. The phonics homework continued and still no reading work. When I had my first parent-teacher conference I asked her teacher if she knew that Rebecca could already read. She said she knew this fact, but since there were only three readers in her class, she needed to concentrate on getting the other kids reading by the end of the year. The teacher felt that Rebecca really only needed to work on getting over her shyness this year because, of course, shyness is something one can simply just choose to stop doing! By the way, she is still pretty shy and so am I, at times, and I'm nearing 40!

My son had these same issues during his time in school. In 1st grade Patrick was (and still is) nuts about science. At the first parent-teacher conference I asked why the class did not do any science activities. His teacher told me that she wanted to do science, but that in 1st grade the science standards were so minimal compared to all the language and math standards that science would be limited. She then asked me if I would volunteer to help in the classroom one afternoon per week when she got started on science. My thoughts were, "Oh, this is probably going to get real messy, and she wants another body to help contain the mess and clean up afterwards." When I arrived the first time I was surprised to find that the kids were doing "science" worksheets where they identified people who use science in their jobs. I was the "scientist" as a nurse so I got to talk about what types of science I use in my job. The kids had a million questions about bones, blood, skin, you name it! Eventually the teacher had to cut me off from the barrage of questions, but I felt like I was getting cut off from my Oscar acceptance speech. Clearly, I was the most interesting thing that had happened in this class all year. The next week I arrived with my skeleton model, clay to make muscles, and my anatomy coloring book, but once we got going with looking at the skeleton, naming the bones, and pointing to our own bones, I was cut off again for another "science" worksheet, this one asking, "What does a bone do? Supports the body. What do teeth do? Chew. What is skin for? Protection." Good night. Seriously, that was the whole content of the worksheet, the rest was graphics of big-headed, cartoon-style children that they could color. Six year old kids want to do stuff, not fill in worksheets. Once again I felt like we were stopping before they might learn too much. I wanted to take a few of them aside and say, "Meet me in the hall after class, and I'll show you some more cool bones!"

One of my favorite memories from our school days, and the one that probably had the most impact on me, occurred when I had the daughter of Rebecca's teacher in my girl scout troop. Her teacher and her daughter carpooled with me on a troop trip to volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul homeless center. They were really impressed with all the troop trips we took to museums, multicultural activities we did, and desire to help with different problems in our community. We got to discussing the challenges of trying to teach school in a state where there is still a large percentage of second-language learners, yet an "English-only" policy, the struggles of the "No Child Left Behind" Act and how it concentrated its efforts on getting the lower performing students up to par, but did nothing to assist the upper performing students. Her teacher told me that when she reached 3rd grade she could test for the gifted program (which I have strong feelings against anyway), but that the gifted program met after school. So they sit all day bored in a classroom, and then go to an enrichment program during the time that they would normally have extracurricular activities such as sports, scouts, or a social life. By this time I had already toured both private schools and charter schools, and came to the realization that if we were to switch schools, then we would be spending all our time on the highway shuttling back and forth. I explained to her that I wanted my children to have an education that continually nurtured a lifelong interest in learning, rather than just the basics. Then her teacher said to me, "Kathy, the school is always going to cater to the lowest common denominator. If you want your children to have an education beyond the state standards, then you're going to have to supplement them at home." Wow. That really hit me. So I had to keep them home so they could get an education! What a concept!

I knew people that homeschooled. I thought they were crazy. I felt the kids must be missing out on so much. Then I observed some of their time with their friends at school. You know, that fifteen minutes of recess they get after they eat lunch in a crammed cafeteria. Everyone should watch this show at some point. The kids run around like lunatics. The quiet ones wandering around searching for a familiar face. This is the important "socialization" that my children would be missing if I were to pull them out of school. When I volunteered in Patrick's 3rd grade class, I walked around helping the kids with their work, while the teacher wrote names on the board for talking. We were a tag team, she and I, but why was I doing the teaching part? What about the technology available at the school, like the computers. Rebecca went an entire year without a working computer login. When I asked what she did during computer time, I was told she could work on "worksheets." Yippee!

And so we began our homeschooling journey at winter break in December 2006. Three years have gone by now, and we have a lot to say about the subject! More later . . .