Postscript

Plot twist. Four years ago when we signed off after writing 51 articles about homeschooling, after spending ten years homeschooling, after graduating two kids from Ohm Academy, both of whom are now out on their own – one is an urban planner and works for the government, and the other is in medical school studying out of state, suddenly, after all that flack we took, everyone is homeschooling!

I get it. You didn’t plan on homeschooling. Actually, neither did I, but yours was predicated by a pandemic. You’re scrambling. I’m watching people move through every Stage of Grief described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and even some that are cycling back through the different stages, too. I see you ugly-cry.

Return that empathy. Imagine how it is for me and others that chose the homeschooling path. Nearly every news story, every poll, every debate, every social media post is framing this pursuit as a negative experience that one must endure. If you’re reading this right now, know that I am not singling you out; a whole lot of parents are complaining about homeschooling right now. You do know that some people chose to do this, right?

Calm down. I have to ask this gentle question: is this the first time you tried to teach your kid something? Really?? I’m guessing no. And if they didn’t/don’t learn it, then what? Does the sky come crashing down? All of these kids are going to be in the same boat. Just like all of these nurses I’m teaching online will be graduating without ever touching a patient in a clinical setting. And they will get jobs. And the world will go on. And your kid is resilient.

Love them. Your kid is watching everything you do. You are their hero, and they will respond to challenges the way they see you respond to them. The best thing you can do for them is to give them a positive outlook on learning. My best advice is to abandon all of the mindless worksheets and online drivel, and just follow with what they want to learn. However, if you feel you cannot do that, I would ask yourself why you feel you can’t. What is the imaginary norm that you are striving for?

Take note. For most of you, what you are doing is not really homeschooling – this is online school with parents as behavioral managers. You still have a teacher, a district, a curriculum, and a support system outside the home. Most homeschoolers, including Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Sandra Day O’Connor, Florence Nightingale, and George Washington (there are many more) did not have that level of support.

You can do this.

Signing Off

On Wednesday night after work, Mike and I went to see a free Roy Orbsion documentary with a talk afterwards by the writer/director/producer of the film who works for the BBC music journalism department. Then on Thursday night we went to another Arizona Republic sponsored storytelling night, Estamos Aqui/We Are Here. It was so fabulous, and I was so bummed that the kids couldn’t come with us, but they both had classes. As we were walking out, Mike asked me how I hear about all of these cool events, and I gave him my typical answer that I’m on every mailing list in town. I realized then that I am essentially homeschooling Mike now.

So, here’s my point – homeschooling is such a messed up term. If I never had to utter that word again it would be too soon. Yet here I am again writing about it! Today I’m trying to condense our lifestyle for the last 10 years into a one-page “high school transcript” GODDAMIT. I’ve been digging in my heels trying to avoid this bullshit document even though I’ve saved every piece of everything my kids have ever done. In a few weeks Patrick will be graduating with his Associate’s degree from community college, and he will transfer in to ASU as a junior, not having to complete anymore lower division G.E. and already powering out much of what he needs for his major, Urban Planning. Rebecca, despite having taken 50 million music and French classes, will finish her Associate’s and AGEC  in one more year, so I’m going to go ahead and graduate her too, and give her the Ohm Academy diploma as well, as I spent good money at OfficeMax buying the high-quality paper with gold seals. Ohm = OurHomeschoolMystery or the measure of electrical resistance, which we clearly have much of (naming our school was one of the fun days we had here.)

My standard answers are still the same. Yes, anyone can homeschool. No, we did not homeschool for religious reasons (although we’re also not anti-religion either and some of our best friends are both devoutly religious and atheists.) No, we are not unschoolers (although if you truly look at our day-to-day it might look that way.) No, I have nothing against schools, schoolkids, or teachers. Yes, my kids have friends and social lives (we have met some of the most amazing people since starting this journey.) Yes, my kids partook in most, if not all, of the major milestones that school kids do – proms (three of them), plays (countless), band, sports, clubs, etc. (see our blog in its entirety.) Yes, I worked as a registered nurse the entire 10 years that we homeschooled. Yes, my husband also works full-time. Yes, he is one of the homeschool teachers, too. No, we are not crazy (relative term.)

Since I started homeschooling my kids, I have now moved on to doing nurse case management, which largely consists of matching patients with services they need for wellness. I liken this role very much to what I did when I pulled my kids out of school and what I went on to do throughout their homeschooling, which is continually ask the question, “What does my kid need for educational success and how can I get that?” I have been relentless in advocating for my kids, and at this point, my proudest moment is that I see evidence that they can now advocate for themselves. This is how I know that it’s time for me to wrap things up, write the transcript, seal the diploma, and say goodbye to homeschooling in its formal sense, and let it be the lifestyle choice and state of mind that I already know it really is.

Holy Sh!t, Our School Is Closing

Rarely these days do I feel compelled to write anything in the ole "Our Homeschool Mystery" blog so here is a short update on life... I drove Rebecca, who is now 15, home from her English 101 class this morning, while Patrick, who is now 17, has a slightly longer college geography class on Thursdays where he is predicting weather and doing research on the "urban heat island" phenomenon. They are excited to be going to a dance with their homeschool friends tomorrow night, as they get together on most Fridays with homeschooled teens. They are still involved with the homeschool theatre group. They still volunteer three hours per week at the natural history museum. Patrick still does homeschool fencing classes, and he now also has a paying job at the library 19 hours per week. Rebecca still plays horn in the youth symphony. The only big difference schooling-wise is that I have now farmed out the rest of their homeschool education to the local community college so they can be taught by people above my level and receive college credit, as well. They are both taking a full load of classes there and enjoying themselves, and I have gone back to work full-time; although, it is self-scheduling so I am mostly able to set my work schedule around their homeschool needs.

As Rebecca and I came closer to our neighborhood this morning, we drove by her old school from many years ago. You may remember my very first "Our Homeschool Mystery" blogpost where I gave a little description of our short time at the school in "Secrets of the Old Schoolhouse" (linkable post.) Over the years, we have driven by the school, often to fun field trips and other activities during school hours, and felt pity for the kids stuck in this lifeless building. I am not trying to be mean, but I started with a barren slate of dirt in my backyard and the kids' great-grandmother's furniture, and over the last 17 years, the kids and I have planted gardens and trees, acquired books and musical instruments, and our house now looks like any other homeschooler's does with projects and curriculum overflowing everywhere you look. Meanwhile, 17 years later, our neighborhood school still looks like this:

On Tuesday night, the school district voted to close this school at the end of this school year. In our local election last fall, the district was unable to get a budget override passed that would have helped with the $2.7 million budget shortfall so our elementary school will be closed, and the 584 school-less students will be bussed to the three remaining elementary schools in the district, ranging from 3 to 11 miles away. Besides the additional wear-and-tear on our environment from bussing, the kids will be on the road more with less time for extra-curriculars, and on top of that, the school district also elected to go to a 4-day school week, making for longer school days during the remaining four days of instruction. But wait, there's more!!! The district also approved an increase in class size to absorb all of these extra kids. So your child's kindergarten class may now have up to 31 students in there, and your teenager may be in a class with up to 40 students!!!!!! Because we all know that larger class size IMPROVES the quality of education! (Yes, that's sarcasm!)

I've gone through a range of emotions upon hearing this news. Some guilt for having pulled my kids out instead of staying to fix the problems. Some dread about worrying about my decreasing property value now that I won't have a nearby school. Some sadness because my school has a great SPEER program and all those special-ed preschoolers and elementary-schoolers will no longer have a home with a dedicated group of teachers and nurses. But mostly, my emotion is one of complete and utter DISGUST in my fellow humans. If one more person tells me that they don't vote because they feel they "can't change anything," I swear that I'm going to punch them in the face. The election last fall that decided the school's fate, the budget override, actually had an increase in the number of eligible voters that voted. Want to know that percentage?? 43% !! Less than half of all eligible voters bothered to come out (or mail-in) their ballot that would decide the fate of an entire elementary school. You non-voters are pathetic and are victims of this crappy education system that somehow managed to graduate you without teaching you the basics of civic education and responsibility to your community. And for those of you whining in comments sections of articles about this decision, saying that the school board should have "balanced the budget," you need to go back to school and retake math because you aren't getting it -- there's not enough money going to schools! Get it? NOT ENOUGH MONEY FOR EDUCATION. You get what you pay for in life, and if you don't want to invest in our future generation, then don't expect them to solve these problems for you.

Let's Talk About Risk

Don't you hate it when you meet someone who is anti-homeschooling? It's so tiring. You can provide mountains of evidence that your child is well-adjusted:

• Socialized. Check - child is frequently photographed hanging on large group of friends, constantly texting and going to parties.
• Intelligent. Check - child is 16 and has finished all lower division general ed at community college with a 3.8 GPA.
• Community-oriented. Check - child has held down two volunteer jobs for the last 3 years.
• Polite. Check - child greets people with handshake, makes eye contact, and can hold down a conversation.
• Egalitarian. Check - child has witnessed both mom and dad working during their childhood.
• Diverse. Check - child has participated in scouts, theatre, soccer, teeball, basketball, fencing, chess team, hiking club, dance classes, art classes, foreign language classes, band, symphony, museum guild, etc., etc...

But still . . . "I just don't believe in homeschooling." 

Ugh. 

Do you want college acceptance rates for homeschoolers? Nah. How about standardized test scores for homeschoolers? Nah. How about convicted felon rates among homeschoolers? Nah.

This is exactly what it's like when you meet someone who is anti-vaccination. 

Do you want CDC, NIH, or AMA recommendations? Nah. Do you want peer-reviewed PubMed articles on vaccination safety and effectiveness? Nah. Do you want the advice of a trusted friend who is also a registered nurse? Nah.

The difference here is that when my kids were little, I would come home from homeschool park days and study microbiology textbooks and take exams. Hard exams. All while I was homeschooling with you. On my shelf right now, I am looking at "Microbiology," "Pathophysiology," "Pharmacology," "Essentials of Pediatric Nursing," "Critical Care Nursing," and the "NCLEX-RN Study Guide" which I practically memorized to take my State Board Exam so I could get a license to practice my "voodoo witchcraft" that advocates vaccinations for the health of your child and states that I am a Registered Nurse with Multi-State Privileges. 

And I homeschooled right along side you all of the way. I breastfed with you. I shared granola with you. But I can no longer stay silent about this anti-vaccination madness. 

You have been getting away with not vaccinating because other people have been vaccinating. They have been vaccinating for YEARS now; it is not new. You have forgotten what a sick kid looks like. You need to take a PALS (Pediatric Advance Life Support) class with me and watch videos of toddlers in respiratory distress from Hib. You need to see kids in the Third World with deformed limbs from polio. You need to WAKE UP. Eradicating disease requires a collective. You have to be willing to say, "I will accept this vaccination, even if I don't understand the science behind it, because I want what's best for the greatest number of people." I'm telling you: I understand the science, and it's safe. I'm risking my license, my career, and my friendship with you to tell you that vaccines are safe.

So let's talk about risk. This morning (after getting mad at ignorance on the internet) I was thinking about all of the risks that we take as humans. There are so many things. Being alive is even a risk. For some reason, I was thinking about a time when I was sixteen and on a flight with my dad who has now passed away, and I miss him. We were flying from our home in Germany to Bucharest, and I was positively terrorized. There are some mountains, the Transylvanian Alps, I believe, that are actually part of the Carpathians, and you descend down over them on your way into Bucharest. Those mountains made for the bumpiest flight I have ever been on. It was absolutely horrible, and I still cite that flight as one of the worst I have ever taken. After landing, I was completely determined that I was not going home on a plane. We were visiting friends at the embassy there, and my poor parents had to endure their weird teenage daughter looking up train schedules and talking about plane crashes the whole week that we were there. Since they weren't budging on the train idea, I started planning my life there in Romania; I would meet a nice Romanian boy, get married, have a family, and hopefully my friends would come visit me there since I wasn't ever leaving. 

After many ultimatums, my parents were able to get me on my death flight home. My dad, who was an aerospace engineer, sat next to me and explained EVERY little thing going on with the plane. Every little noise. Every little part, right down to the hydraulics. I was particularly afraid of the hydraulics -- God knows what they did, but they seemed to be implicated in more than one plane crash. I didn't understand anything he was telling me. To this day, I don't really understand all of the science involved in our modern-day jets, but I accept and respect the people that dedicate their lives to studying aerospace safety, and I realize that I don't have that expertise. Sure, I can read all about plane crashes on the internet, but when I actually crunch the numbers I can see that flying is safe. 

Risk is all around us. It is a risk to fly. It is a risk to drive. It is a risk to turn your back on the predominant educational system in our country and do it yourself. And it is a risk to get a vaccine that you think is injecting "toxins" into your body when it is actually a simple way to expose antigens of a pathogen to produce antibodies that keep you well. Please, if you are a homeschooler that vaccinates, can you please stand up and be counted? I fear that there are so few of us in our community that we need to be more vocal. And to all of my "friends" that think they know more about vaccines than I do: maybe we're not really friends if you don't respect that I am BOTH a homeschooling parent and a nurse that has studied this subject extensively and cares deeply about your health.

End of Our One Year Blog Project

Wow! We started this blog back in January 2010 as a way to enlighten folks about our homeschooling. It's fun to go back and read what we have all written, back to back, chronologically. I think we've done the best possible job we can at giving a window into our atypical world. I hope we've answered your burning homeschooling questions! When we first started out, we didn't have a way to see if anyone was reading the blog; however, since then, Blogger has added a "Stats" tab, and we now know that our little homeschooling blog has received over 5000 page views from 10 different countries. We've done very little to advertise, but I think more and more people are searching out information about homeschooling. I hope we have given a realistic and positive light on the subject. I have never looked at our homeschooling as anything other than, "Okay, we'll give this a try and see how it goes," and here we are nearly 5 years later still homeschooling. I don't know what the future holds: Patrick says he would like to give high school a try, and Rebecca thinks she wants to just go straight to community college as soon as they'll let her in. I will support whatever decision they make. I'll try to keep Our Homeschool Mystery updated from time to time, but the posts won't appear as frequently, as we move on to other interests. After being asked over and over again about the how and where of our hikes, I am in the process of launching a new blog, Our Hiking Mystery. Stay tuned for all our hiking secrets revealed! Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

"Changing Education Paradigms"

 Just thinking about some of our homeschool plans for this week which include building gingerbread houses and baking cookies! We aren't getting much "school" (in the traditional sense) done during the holidays, but we are tapping into our creative sides. So this morning I am considering the value of creativity in all aspects of life, and how I can continue to nurture that in my children. I was reminded of a great video by Sir Ken Robinson where he states that creativity is, "Original ideas that have value," and "Divergent thinking isn't a synonym but is an essential capacity for creativity." Here is the video with help from RSA Animate and YouTube. I'm also including him in our blog's "Links We Like" section. His website has the rest of the hour-long talk on the subject.

Disspelling the Doubts of Homeschooling

This month, I decided to google search for some topics for a post. One of the most popular topics I found was about how bad homeschooling is. So, I thought I'd dispel some of these doubts about homeschooling.

1) The first anti-homeschool result I found was from http://www.ehow.com/list_6603210_reasons-against-home-schooling.html. It said, "It is difficult to understand how a parent or parents can provide their children with the same level of academic opportunity as an entire staff of trained professionals. They must depend upon a self-planned curriculum or those they have found elsewhere. Each curriculum varies widely in efficacy and can lead to different levels of learning. A school setting offers specialists in each field, including music, art and speech. As bright and dedicated as a home educator might be, he/she simply cannot fill all of those roles." You don't need a curriculum to teach. We actually only have two curriculum we use, one of which we use rarely. The rest is just things like writing blog posts, or taking music lessons. No one person is filling in all the roles. Many people are filling in all the roles.

2) Another search result took me to a site called http://teacherrevised.org/2009/05/30/the-case-against-homeschooling/ Number seven on the list said, "God hates homeschooling. From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord." Theoretically Jesus was homeschooled. At the time Rome didn't have free schools, and you can't say a guy who was born in a hay trough was rich. So who schooled him? Exactly, his parents.

3) The next site I found was a site called http://www.educateexpert.com/argumentsagainsthomeschooling.html. My favorite argument from this site is the third argument. It says, "You need to think about when it comes to the arguments against home schooling is the distraction factor. If a child is schooled at home, the result can be that the child does not take their studies seriously, especially when a parent is their teacher. This behavior could thus result in poor grades." True they could be distracted, but that doesn't mean they'll get bad grades. Even as I write this post, Rebecca's computer is playing the annoying, almost jazzy music that comes with her Kitty Care video game. I think that's distraction enough. Yet I still write this blog post, and the last thing I'm thinking about is watching her play her game. It is still possible to work at home without distraction, you just need to know how to avoid being distracted. Don't adults get distracted at their jobs, too, and have to learn how to deal with it?

4) The next anti-homeschooling thing I found was the third or fourth comment on http://www.pjnet.com.my/ftopict-3660-.html. It said, "I personally dislike homeschooling because it deprives the children from interacting with other kids their age. This does limit their social skills." I think people against homeschooling take the term to literally. They think that we only school at home. However, I honestly think we school more away from home than we do at home. With the many field trips and events between our two homeschool groups we really only homeschool at home on Thursdays, some Fridays, and Saturdays. That's four out of seven days that we are interacting with other homeschoolers. So, socialization isn't a problem.

If this blog post didn't dispel some of the doubts about homeschooling I don't know what will.