It's Official...I'm a Homeschool Mom.

First, I'd like to dispel one myth about homeschool moms...I do not wear "mom jeans" nor do I own any sort of romper-esque piece of clothing. I wear make-up, I like hip clothes (though I'm currently too fat for most what I like), and I LOVE shoes and getting my hair done. I listen to good music (no CCM crap in my abode), and I watch good movies and HBO shows whether they are R rated or not.

Now that that's out of the way...

As most of my friends and family know, we have agonized over so many options for schooling for our kids. Having had a HORRIBLE experience in the Tennessee public school system, I knew before I had kids that I wanted to do something different with my kids. So, one of the many points of stress when we had children before we were ready was figuring out how we would pay for this "something different" because anything outside the public school system involves money. Homeschooling is something I always had a passion for - a passion that began when I was 13 and babysat for the only healthy, well-functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) family I had ever encountered. The mom homeschooled and had the sweetest and smartest kids I had ever seen and she was one of the happiest people I had ever met. So, that was always in the back of my mind as the thing I would do, but when you have kids when you can't afford to shelter and feed them on one salary, then, Mommy has to go to work, and that's the boat we were in.

First Holloway went to a private school that we were fortunate enough to have mostly paid for - first because the school picked Holloway's kinder year to experiment with giving 100% tuition assistance, and we qualified, so that was that. Sadly they had to ax that program because it killed their budget, but he still got to attend 1st grade due to a miracle gift from an anonymous donor. Then, we decided to give public school a try since I still had to work, and we just had no other option. We sold our house in Pflugerville just to move into one of the best school districts in Texas, and rented a house right across the street from one of the best schools in this district. We are coming the end of Holloway's first year there, 2nd grade, and it has been a sad and disappointing experience. I went in expecting to deal with ridiculous bureaucracy, humanist/secular brainwashing that we would have to fix at home, and of course, larger classrooms and just more chaos in general. I knew that would be part of the deal. What I didn't expect is how much the change in curriculum and teaching methods would adversely affect Holloway.

He began his education with the classical curriculum taught at HCCSA, and he did really well. I won't go into what exactly a classical curriculum involves and how it is different from what public schools do (you can google it), but I'll just say that it is a great approach to learning that is based on how people have been learning for the hundreds of years before the 1990's when the powers that be decided that creativity and being happy are not only the most important factors in educating a child, but can only be attained through a chaotic mess of random information and rewards for hollow non-accomplishments.

As we come to the close of 2nd grade, his first year in a non-classical setting in our local public school, Holloway doesn't enjoy school anymore for many reasons. One is that he's totally bored and unchallenged - for example, his spelling words at the end of 1st grade included integrity and exposition...last week, here at the end of second grade, his spelling words were: great, tell, men, say, and small. He has actually regressed in his critical thinking skills, and as an added bonus, feels horrible about himself because he's been criticized all year for not being "creative and original" enough. He now believes that since he can't draw very well, then he's not smart. Seriously people, this kid read the first Harry Potter book during the summer before 2nd grade, yet he has a B in 2nd grade reading because his illustrations aren't "creative and original" enough for the public school demi-gods. Yes, they literally list "creative and original" as a criteria for grading on their rubric for all reading and writing assignments. So, a 2nd grade boy is expected to read something, then draw a picture of what he read, AND include "original" details that would "add" to the story. So, if he's not "creative" enough in his drawing and can't come up with a way to draw something that actually adds something that wasn't in the story, then his grade is lowered. Just writing this out is making me fume. The majority of 2nd grade brains (especially boys' brains) aren't capable of this!!! Yes, I know there are exceptions, but most kids shouldn't be expected to do this - if they can do it, great, if they can't, they shouldn't be penalized for it.

In the classical model, there are 3 stages in a child's learning experience...the school of grammar, the school of logic, and the school of rhetoric. The grammar stage is K-4. I'm reading this wonderful book called The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, and it's about how to do a classical curriculum at home. They describe the grammar stage child as a sponge who is taking in information - soaking it up - that's why memorization of facts is really easy for kids this age and they find it really fun to memorize a bunch of stuff and then spout it off. Processing and using what they've memorized comes in stages. And if they've filled their little spongy selves with all kinds of facts and information, then when their brains are ready for being creative and original, they will be highly creative and original. However, if you try to force a young child to be creative and original before they have a knowledge base of information and experience to draw from, it's like trying to get water out of a dry sponge. Here's a passage I just read the other day from this book on the topic of forcing kids to be creative during the grammar stage:

"Although you should encourage any creative impulses, we don't think you should require the child to be creative during the grammar stage of education. He's still absorbing and taking in. If he's naturally creative, fine. If not, demanding creativity will only be counterproductive."

So, we've decided that the public school educational system is not for us. And we can't afford private school. And I'm now home, and I'm only caring for 2 babies in addition to my own 2 kids, so it's just like I have a bigger family. (I know home school families with 5 or 6 kids - more than mine plus the ones I'm caring for). I've been doing school with Bren regularly, and it's been great...not stressful at all and all of the kids enjoy our school time. So, naturally, homeschooling has surfaced as the best option for us. And I'm really excited about it. I've found some great materials to use and I'm so lucky to already have friends who home school whom I can get advice from. Most of all, I'm really looking forward to seeing Holloway thrive again...to become reacquainted with the love of learning that he used to have.