I recently joined a large homeschooling group based out of Cape May and Atlantic counties. It's called Crossway Community homeschoolers and it has over 100 families in it. I was so excited to find it, because they have the coolest activities. Once a month is free rollerskating,once a month is bowling, and once a month is park day. There are also other activities put together by individuals. You join Crossway through a yahoo group, and then you can view the calendar and get email reminders of the upcoming activities.
This past Wednesday was Park Day. I was so excited, and also nervous, because I haven't met anyone yet. But I thought it would be a great way to start the school year off. So that morning I made sure I was up,showered, and did my devotions before the kids got up, which isn't easy, since Caleb like to get up around 6 am. But I was successful. I did my hair, which was looking good for once, and was all ready with breakfast when the kids got up. It was a good day.
So from there I got the house reasonably straightened up and the kids ready. Diaper bag packed. Plenty of cold water. Stroller ready. We had lunch and were ready to go. On the drive over I wondered how I would meet everyone. I assumed I would see a large group of moms together, talking as if they knew each other, and I would walk over and ask them if they were with Crossway. They would say yes, and I would introduce myself, and from there on out we would be BFF. What was the worst that could happen? I would ask a group if they were homeschoolers, they would say no, and I would say thanks and walk away? No, what would be worse is if they were the homeschoolers, I introduced myself, and they ignored me, talked to each other about stuff I wasn't part of, and I stood by awkwardly. Whatever, I thought, it is what it is.
So we got to the park, which actually has two playgrounds, one for small kids, and a bigger one up the road. I thought they would all be at the bigger one, but when we drove by the smaller one, Gracie and Caleb saw a train set AND dinosaurs to climb on. They were so excited. There were two moms there, one with a small toddler and another with two young boys. Probably not the homeschoolers. But I let the kids get out and play, and they were having a blast. Gracie was pretending to be a velociraptor, walking on her tiptoes with big strides and her hands pulled up like little claws by her chest. She kept roaring and falling on the ground, kicking her legs in the air like she was stuck. Then she kept repeating, "where's those eggs I buried? I wanna suck them up!" I decided that even if we met homeschoolers, they wouldn't want to hang out with us.
I let them play for a while, then I told them we were driving around to the other playground to see if we could meet people. But, there were only three people at that one too, and again, it didn't see like they were together. We went for a short walk down one of the nature trails, came back, and played a while longer. After that we packed up and went home.
While we were there though, I was sitting on the bench with Luke, and my butt started burning, then itching. I came home a saw a huge red welt. I obviously sat on something, and it stung me. I had a green stain on my shorts so I think it was a caterpillar. And that night, I found a tick on Luke's stomach. A teeny, tiny, microscopic tick. He stayed in his stroller, so I knew it must have come off me. I checked, and sure enough I hit a nest. I must have had 20 microscopic ticks on me! You know Ron Howard's little brother in the movie "Ticks"? "I'm infesthted!!!" ? That was me.
So now my butt itches, 20 little tick bites itch, and we didn't meet anyone. But I can't say the day was wasted, because my kids had a great time playing together. They got some fresh air and exercise, and I found the only playground I know of that I can let them play without shadowing Caleb. The equipment was small enough for him to climb on, and the ground was covered with about a foot of the rubber tire mulch. And besides, there's always Park Day next month. But this time, I'm wearing bug spray.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Journey
I never wanted to homeschool my children. If you had asked me when my oldest was born if in 6 years I would be homeschooling, I would have answered very emphatically, "NO WAY".Homeschoolers were weird. Their parents were weird. They were socially awkward, and they sat home all day and had no friends. Being a Christian, I was acquainted with quite a few homeschoolers over the years, and they were weird. There were always two kinds, too: the poor, thrift-shop styled, top-ramen eating variety, and the preacher's/missionaries' kids, who were often snooty and uptight, and always played multiple musical instruments. The girls always had long dresses, often homemade, and even longer hair.The boys wore pants that looked like they were trying to swallow them whole, with giant belts, and giant white sneakers. Both varieties thought they were morally superior to us conventionally schooled kids, with our Nickelodeon habit and (gasp!) secular music!
On top of that, I had my own nerdy little secret: I was homeschooled for 8th and 9th grades. And it was torture. My mother sent me to my grandmother, who graduated teacher's college in 1941. I was to be seen and not heard, to keep my nose in the books, and never, under any circumstance have fun. For any reason. Not that I could have, with her breathing down my neck. And there were the Abeka videos, which were a virtual insult to my 13 year old intelligence. I was seriously supposed to sit here while kids answered questions on video and pretend I was in a classroom? My grandmother is a wonderful person, and she tried her best. But that experience drove the nail in the homeschool coffin for me.
But God is good, and God is funny. I became a mom in 2004. We lived in a beautiful small town, less than a mile from one of the last walking schools in the country. Its students consistently earned some of the best test scores in the state. My husband went there, and had great memories, and many of his teachers still worked there. It was a no-brainer, Gracie was going there.
But a year before kindergarten, God started laying it on my heart to homeschool her. We didn't really want to do it, but we felt that maybe we should. I explored homeschool curriculum, we prayed and prayed. But the bottom line was, we didn't want to raise a weirdo. And Gracie, well she is so social that it seemed akin to abuse to "make her stay home". And then there were the comments from friends and family "Homeschooling? ugh! you're not thinking of THAT, are you?" and also, "Please don't".
So the following September we enrolled her in kindergarten, but with hearts open to homeschooling if it became clear that's what God wanted us to do. So every day she came home, and I waited for her to drop an "F-bomb", or tell us some horrific incident of injustice, or say that she hated it there. But...it never happened. There were some minor incidents here and there, but nothing bad really. Still, I became very uptight, worried who she was playing with, what she was hearing, or worse seeing. Flashbacks of Eric Salvesen whipping out his penis to show me in first grade haunted me(see, even Christian school isn't a "foolproof" plan).The nightly homework did bug me, and she was pretty tired at the end of the day, but that's life, right?
So in October we scheduled our first parent-teacher conference. I arrived cheerfully, expecting to hear a glowing report of how bright Gracie was and what a joy she was in class. Instead, I got seatwork she had made mistakes on, and was admonished that, "if her reading doesn't improve by mid December, she will need to go to the resource room for special help". WHAT?! are you flipping kidding me? the kid is in kindergarten! It seemed like her teacher didn't know her, or care about her.
Then there was the assembly when they played Lady Gaga. And the Chinese New Year celebration when her homework was for me to read her Zodiac sign(I thought religion wasn't allowed in public school? oh right, just Christianity). And the time that kid told her God didn't love her anymore.
Then came the snow days. Gracie was missing days at a time, and we were getting antsy. So one day, totally unplanned, I sat down and did some "homeschooling" with her. We did an alphabet sheet, and a math sheet, read a chapter of "Little House on the Prairie" and I asked her to draw a picture of her favorite part of the story. She ate it up. She came alive. She begged for more. I'm on to something, I thought.
I started reading voraciously. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, The Moores, online articles. They all said it was better. And I didn't want what was good for my kid, I wanted what was better. I wanted to homeschool her. And I realized I already had, sort of. She only learned a little at school. I had taught her from the day she was born, without even trying. And she was "well-socialized" before she ever set foot in a classroom.
Jeremiah felt the same way. So we made the decision to let her finish the year and then homeschool her.
That decision opened up so many doors for us. We were living in a 900-sq-foot home with two small bedrooms and a third baby on the way. No longer "married" to the school system, we were able to move out of town, but still close by, into a large three bedroom, two bath home on 10 acres, which we hope to turn into a hobby farm. But that's another blog.
So Gracie finished out her school year in mid June. One morning, I told her, "tomorrow's the last day of school!" "Yay!" she shouted. "And then we do homeschool?!"
So here are, getting ready to start our homeschool year. Over the summer, Gracie's attitude has improved immensely, she is kind to her brother, and I don't stress about what she sees and hears so much, because I know what is going on in her life, and I know that we, her family, have the most influence on her. She has made some new friends, and she has learned to do some chores around the house.
And looking back, those homeschooled kids weren't really that weird. They had standards, and they stuck to them. And they were better socialized than the 13 year old girl who was judging them by their clothes. Except that one family, they were genuinely weird...
On top of that, I had my own nerdy little secret: I was homeschooled for 8th and 9th grades. And it was torture. My mother sent me to my grandmother, who graduated teacher's college in 1941. I was to be seen and not heard, to keep my nose in the books, and never, under any circumstance have fun. For any reason. Not that I could have, with her breathing down my neck. And there were the Abeka videos, which were a virtual insult to my 13 year old intelligence. I was seriously supposed to sit here while kids answered questions on video and pretend I was in a classroom? My grandmother is a wonderful person, and she tried her best. But that experience drove the nail in the homeschool coffin for me.
But God is good, and God is funny. I became a mom in 2004. We lived in a beautiful small town, less than a mile from one of the last walking schools in the country. Its students consistently earned some of the best test scores in the state. My husband went there, and had great memories, and many of his teachers still worked there. It was a no-brainer, Gracie was going there.
But a year before kindergarten, God started laying it on my heart to homeschool her. We didn't really want to do it, but we felt that maybe we should. I explored homeschool curriculum, we prayed and prayed. But the bottom line was, we didn't want to raise a weirdo. And Gracie, well she is so social that it seemed akin to abuse to "make her stay home". And then there were the comments from friends and family "Homeschooling? ugh! you're not thinking of THAT, are you?" and also, "Please don't".
So the following September we enrolled her in kindergarten, but with hearts open to homeschooling if it became clear that's what God wanted us to do. So every day she came home, and I waited for her to drop an "F-bomb", or tell us some horrific incident of injustice, or say that she hated it there. But...it never happened. There were some minor incidents here and there, but nothing bad really. Still, I became very uptight, worried who she was playing with, what she was hearing, or worse seeing. Flashbacks of Eric Salvesen whipping out his penis to show me in first grade haunted me(see, even Christian school isn't a "foolproof" plan).The nightly homework did bug me, and she was pretty tired at the end of the day, but that's life, right?
So in October we scheduled our first parent-teacher conference. I arrived cheerfully, expecting to hear a glowing report of how bright Gracie was and what a joy she was in class. Instead, I got seatwork she had made mistakes on, and was admonished that, "if her reading doesn't improve by mid December, she will need to go to the resource room for special help". WHAT?! are you flipping kidding me? the kid is in kindergarten! It seemed like her teacher didn't know her, or care about her.
Then there was the assembly when they played Lady Gaga. And the Chinese New Year celebration when her homework was for me to read her Zodiac sign(I thought religion wasn't allowed in public school? oh right, just Christianity). And the time that kid told her God didn't love her anymore.
Then came the snow days. Gracie was missing days at a time, and we were getting antsy. So one day, totally unplanned, I sat down and did some "homeschooling" with her. We did an alphabet sheet, and a math sheet, read a chapter of "Little House on the Prairie" and I asked her to draw a picture of her favorite part of the story. She ate it up. She came alive. She begged for more. I'm on to something, I thought.
I started reading voraciously. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, The Moores, online articles. They all said it was better. And I didn't want what was good for my kid, I wanted what was better. I wanted to homeschool her. And I realized I already had, sort of. She only learned a little at school. I had taught her from the day she was born, without even trying. And she was "well-socialized" before she ever set foot in a classroom.
Jeremiah felt the same way. So we made the decision to let her finish the year and then homeschool her.
That decision opened up so many doors for us. We were living in a 900-sq-foot home with two small bedrooms and a third baby on the way. No longer "married" to the school system, we were able to move out of town, but still close by, into a large three bedroom, two bath home on 10 acres, which we hope to turn into a hobby farm. But that's another blog.
So Gracie finished out her school year in mid June. One morning, I told her, "tomorrow's the last day of school!" "Yay!" she shouted. "And then we do homeschool?!"
So here are, getting ready to start our homeschool year. Over the summer, Gracie's attitude has improved immensely, she is kind to her brother, and I don't stress about what she sees and hears so much, because I know what is going on in her life, and I know that we, her family, have the most influence on her. She has made some new friends, and she has learned to do some chores around the house.
And looking back, those homeschooled kids weren't really that weird. They had standards, and they stuck to them. And they were better socialized than the 13 year old girl who was judging them by their clothes. Except that one family, they were genuinely weird...
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