Friday, January 9, 2009

Our Education Journey


Since I'm sure my interest (bordering on obsession) in alternative education will come up in my ramblings here, I thought I'd post a little synopsis of the education journey we've traversed with our kids to date. This will, for the most part, be a cut and paste of a post I wrote on a home schooling message board where people who had kids both at school and at home were discussing the challenges of having a foot in both of those worlds. For those of you who don't frequent message boards...DS= Dear Son, DD = Dear Daughter, DH = Dear Husband

Year 1
Send oldest DS to neighborhood public school (with fabulous reputation) for Kindy
Have serious philosophical issues with the school and end up moving him to a private Montessori school at Winter Break
Years 2&3
Happy with Montessori school – over the next couple of years, younger sibs follow
Year 4
Yikes – 3 kids in private school!!
Doing lots of reading about unschooling – fantasizing about quitting work, having the kids quit school and living our lives freely together
Reality – I can’t afford to quit work – even with the savings on tuition
Year 5
DH – to the rescue – he’ll stay home with kids (he already an at-home parent at this point – but will agree to have them with him f/t)
DH attempting to live out my fantasy – me jealous, DH unenthusiastic
Year 6
I swing a way to do most of my work from home - to become more a part of the home life and to allow for more flexibility (not everyone has to go on every outing, etc)
Older 2 decide they want to try neighborhood public school – want to be a part of what ‘everyone’ is doing
So – we quickly go from 1 parent home with 3 kids to 2 parents home with 1 kid!!
Year 7
After a year home alone, youngest DS decides to try public school as well
He is less than thrilled with the PS experience and comes back home at Winter Break
Year 8 (the here and now)
Older 2 in their 3rd year of public school and still happy with their decisions
Youngest DS still at home and we are finally having more success developing a social network, and bringing along Dad’s enthusiasm. DS has a faculty of teachers! DH substitute teaches on Monday and Fridays – so my mom (a.k.a. Grammy) has DS on Mondays and I have him on Fridays. DH has him Tues, Wed, and Thurs.
With Grammy he does a lot of cooking, sewing, gardening and outings. With DH he goes violin lessons, golf lessons, PE class (DH leads this class for a homeschool group), field trips and get togethers with home schooling groups, does science experiments, woodworking and practices baseball and football.
With me on our Fridays together and sometimes in the evenings (when the others are either doing homework or in bed) we tend to get slightly more schooly. We are on the 2nd volume of Story of the World, he is doing Rosetta Stone Spanish, Life of Fred Fractions, we are doing a read aloud, we sometimes do spelling/vocab work – but always with plenty of sword fighting and youtube surfing (or whatever his passion of the day happens to be) in between. The more open I am to following his lead and joining him in his world, the more willing and open he is to following mine.

So, that is where we are. Enjoying the journey :-)

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