Let's do this thing

Before you read about our big decision, please know that we absolutely understand that homeschooling isn't for everyone. In no way are we disparaging our friends and family who have spent decades working in public or private education. We know there are heroic teachers and administrators doing the best they can within what many describe as a broken system.

So...

At Miles' kindergarten open house, we realized, "Wow. We know we are different kinds of parents, but we are REALLY different." What struck us that night was the beginning of irrefutable evidence that yes, we should homeschool. Here's why:


We aren't comfortable with the dumbing-down of classwork in a typical school. Miles was not being challenged, told us he was bored, and seemed to have been sentenced to at least a few years of watching his classmates learn their alphabet and learn to read while he would just have to review those areas. These first six weeks of class have focused on the letter "A" (yep, just that one letter). He knew his alphabet before he turned two. He could read before he turned three. His teacher said that he would be challenged; we're six weeks in and he's gotten an extra packet of homework, that's it.


We don't appreciate the way creativity is stifled in a typical classroom. On his homework packet Miles had to write his name on every page. By the 10th page he was tired of writing it in the usual way, so he wrote with lots of squigglies at the ends of the letters:

We thought that was awesome. So creative! "Miles, that looks like a Greek key design." "What's that?" "Hey, let's look at a map and find Greece, then we can look up typical designs that came from there ..." "Ooooo yeah! Let's go!"
His teacher said "Miles, that's neat but please don't write like that again."
We'd like to introduce her to Sir Ken Robinson.


Our priorities for his education are different than typical school priorities. The first week of school, Miles took home a flyer about the importance of reading books and of going to the library. He brought his own library card to school to earn a bookmark. Then his class got into the library and ... they weren't allowed to check out books. "Too young. They'd rip them up." The next week they went back and were allowed to bring a book back to their classroom cubbies. Ok, progress. The next week they went to the library and ... watched an Arthur video. Shelves upon shelves of age-appropriate books and they make the kids watch Arthur?

They sent home a flyer about the importance of eating healthy food, yet they serve food-like substances in the cafeteria and the teachers give candy as prizes for good behavior. They brag that they got a grant to serve a fresh vegetable or fruit TWICE a week. One serving of fresh produce twice a week is commendable?

It's been two months and the two computers in his classroom haven't been turned on yet. A five year old in 2012 is pretty much born with the ability to navigate computers or programs on phones, but they've yet to touch technology in school.


Speaking of technology, let's discover how the Industrial Revolution led to the brand of American institutionalized education we have today. Again, Sir Ken.


Last winter and spring, with kindergarten rapidly approaching, we began a research binge on homeschooling and all its permutations. Montessori & Reggio methods, Unschooling, you name it. We learned that homeschooling is no longer just for religious fanatics or control freaks. It made a lot of sense to us and it felt like the right thing to do. Then reality kicked in. Miles might benefit from homeschooling, but at what cost? Mary's sanity? How do you homeschool your 5 year old with 3 year old twins at home acting like 3 year old twins? What about (cue dramatic timpani: duhn duhn duhhhhh!) SOCIALIZATION?! Ok, let's try kindergarten. Everyone says a child's education is 25% school and 75% parents. It'll be fine.


It's not fine. We want to live out our values, not just talk about them. We want to explore a subject until we exhaust all connections between as many disciplines as possible. We want Miles to sit down when he wants to sit down and dance when he wants to dance. We want him to take a quiet break for Legos if he needs to, or run to the computer to figure out how to say "Do you need a Bandaid?" in Spanish if he wants to know.


We do not want him to hear that whatever he's interested in learning should wait until later, until everyone else in the class is ready to study it. We don't want him to hear and see that "teachers are girls" and "astronauts are boys". We don't want him to have to say the pledge of allegiance without understanding what it means. We don't want him to mindlessly recite the school's motto, a rambling pile of "success"-this and "achieve"-that when the kids don't know what it is, exactly, that they're supposed to have success in. ISAT's?


We could be in Naperville and would feel the same way that we do here in our low-income, underserved school district. We know that No Child Left Behind and its ridiculous teach-to-the-test standards are finally going by the wayside, replaced with Common Core. Common Core is supposed to allow for more creativity and interdisciplinary work. I know that there's no reason to doubt the intentions of a government agency tasked with devising a standard curriculum, but it's likely a one-size-fits all approach to learning the same basic things that schools have taught for a couple generations. He's still never going to get to that last Oceania chapter in the social studies book. I don't think a single American school kid ever has.


We don't intend to raise our children in a bubble. He's not going to be any more socially awkward than a traditionally-schooled kid his age. (Consider it: who is the most socially awkward person you know? Were they homeschooled?) Homeschooling has become a reasonable alternative to institutionalized education, and there are plenty of resources and networks out there, not just online. A secular homeschool network meets in Matteson twice a month. Our neighbor right next door homeschools her 10 year old son and 13 year old daughter. We bought our house from homeschoolers.


Instead of being asked "what do you want to be [BE!? You already ARE!] when you grow up?" we want our kids to be able to explore what their passions are now. Instead of putting a time limit on learning (learn for 9 months of the year until you're about 22 years old) we want to encourage our kids to be lifelong learners. We know this isn't going to be easy, but it will be worth the tremendous effort required. We will be a better family for it.