HISTOREAD! Challenge
The Great Canadian Homeschool Reading Challenge!

We’re primed and ready here…

Who Stole Homeschooling? A great essay, chronicling the homeschooling movement and the growth (or decline if you will) of the Support Group. Much food for thought.

Recently, someone on a homeschool mailing list asked me the following, so I thought after I answered, that you all may want to know too. Besides, saves thinking up something else to write about.

>What made you decide to put your oldest in public school?
>Was it his decision?
>Has there been adjustment for either of you?
>Did your public school make you jump through any hoops?

We take our schooling one year at a time. When we started, Addison was part way thru grade one. I always said I didn’t want to do it forever, just until they had a hold of the “basics”. The local school taught whole-language reading with no phonic work at all. I’m a real phonics believer, and wanted the kids to learn that way.

It was a family decision, and there were some adjustments for all of us. Partly, he was at an age where it was getting difficult to teach him at home for various reasons. One was a personality conflict with his father (since resolved). No, no big huge fights or anything, but it was frustrating. Whenever my hubby would explain something to him, he acted like he was “in trouble” and it became a lecture that he would tune out. When asked a question, he would try and answer what he thought we wanted to hear, instead of thinking for himself, which was what we were trying to do.
Addison had gone to a private Christian school for the first year and a half, and they were very high-pressure at that time. I think he was really caught up in the “have to get 100%” attitude, and really has a hard time, even to this day, if he gets a lower mark than he wants. And he’s a really smart kid.

When we enrolled him, we didn’t have to jump thru any hoops at all. Actually I went to the school at the end of the previous year, and they were at a loss as to what to do. It was too early to enroll him for the fall, send him up the first day of school, they said. And that was it. No tests, no nothing. The school board in these here parts are pretty much at a loss with what to do with homeschoolers.

The biggest adjustment for him was learning to get along with bullies, unfortunately (being teased and picked on). Not that he didn’t have to deal with people he didn’t want to at home, but those contacts were easily minimized, and more closely monitored. Part of what he (and I) had to learn was Mommy and Daddy can’t fix everything for you, either. There is a certain amount of stuff you have to put up with from others, unfortunately, and you have to learn how to handle it without someone fixing it for you all the time. We did have a couple of serious incidents, and my hubby marched right up to the school and gave them an earful. This year is so much better.

Addison is in a split 7/8 class, whch means he gets a lot of 8th grade work. They also have a new program for gifted kids (called the autonomous learners – the program had a lot of self-directed learning and developing critical thinking skills. sounded like homeschooling to me!) which he has one day a week with other students in the middle school level, all in one class. His teachers are constantly giving him extra work because he finishes homework in class. They have also used him as a role-model for other kids in the class, which didn’t go over well with those kids who are the regular teasers/bullies, but he can deal with them now. Yeah, he’s a little geeky.

In a couple of years, he will go to the high school in town, a thirty minute drive away, which is longer on the bus, with much bigger kids. There were a few incidences there of bomb threats, death threats on bathroom walls, etc, but they turned out to be hoaxes. Even still, we are aprehensive of sending him there. He says he wants to go, so we will probably give it a semester when it gets here and see how it goes. He knows he can come home anytime.

Some people ask which did he like better. He always says the same thing. “I like them both, one is not better than the other. They’re just different.”

So if you’ve read this far, and are new to me and all, a big HI, and thanks to pamie for letting us all post our journal links.
Not that I needed any more to read…..