blakfut on Xanga

Weblog

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Currently
Fleet Foxes
By Fleet Foxes
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
see related
Why I Choose to Homeschool part I

Okay, there's no way I can REALLY list all of the reasons I have chosen to homeschool in one blog entry.
I just thought it would be a good idea to start blogging about homeschooling, why we do it, info about it, etc and share it with those who are interested in learning more about it (specifically family members who don't know much about it).

Now, this is a blog, folks, so my grammar will not be perfect- this is where I 'talk' to people, it's not a research paper or a magazine/newspaper article. Don't judge the education my children are getting, based on typos and such.

It is not my intention to offend anyone with the entries I post here, so please do NOT take anything I say here personally or feel that my decision to homeschool my children means: I think that you are not a good parent if you send your kids to school; I think that everyone should homeschool; I think that I'm a better parent than you; I am judging you or your family because you choose to send your children to school. My decision to homeschool is based on MY family's needs, it is a rejection of what does not work for us and acceptance of what does work for us as a family unit and as individuals.

This will probably be a very long post, so go potty, grab a cuppa and get comfortable.

When Ash was 5 years old, I really did not want to send her to school, she was learning at home and I really didn't think it was necessary. I knew nothing about homeschooling, and if I had realized it was an option at that time I would never have enrolled her in Kindergarten.
When she was a baby and we needed more money to make ends meet (we've pretty much always lived paycheck to paycheck for different reasons at different times) I decided to do in home daycare. It was the only job I could think of that did not involve me leaving my child in the care of another person/center while I was working. It was important to me that she have the stability of a stay at home mom during her early childhood years. Her dad was (and still is) in the Navy and would be deploying at some point. I learned a lot about child development during the courses I took at the Navy's Child Development Center. Everything I learned there solidified my decision to stay at home with my child.

Back to Kindergarten now. She thrived academically at her first school. She loved all the extra homework, she loved doing worksheets and her favorite pass time at home was pretending to be her teacher. I was not happy with some things that I saw AT the school, but she was enjoying herself and I didn't know I had any other options so we just went with it.
Later that year I met a homeschooling mom, who was homeschooling through the public school and so she did not even have to buy supplies to teach her children. I was very interested, but knew that Ash was doing well in school so did not intend to withdraw her. I filed the info away for future use.
Then, we moved into military housing in another neighborhood, which meant that she had to transfer to another school. The new school was a nightmare, she learned more at home than she did at school. Most of the children were 'problem' kids, with deployed parents and other issues. She was bullied. In order to ensure her safety I volunteered just about everyday in her classroom. I saw some of the kids slipping through 'the cracks' already. The teacher was overwhelmed just trying to get the kids to behave, so academic lessons suffered greatly.
There was one child who seemed determined cause her harm, and he really frightened me.

After that school year ended I decided that she could learn more at home, and I knew she would be safe from such bullies. We homeschooled through a school district program where we went to a school each week to meet with the 'teacher' who gave us materials and 'assignments'. She received a report card just as though she had been attending school. I began to see how silly some of the work was, and how some things did not teach what they were supposed to. I saw that there were better ways to teach that material, or that some things were not necessary for 'lessons' because my daughter already knew that information. I also became pregnant that year, and gave birth that summer. After a couple of months of breastfeeding and caring for an infant I was convinced that I could not handle school work and caring for my son. Ash wanted to go back to school so she could be with her friends. Her reasons for going back were purely social, while mine were academic. Her teacher was great, and she learned a great deal. After homeschooling for one year she was way ahead in reading so they placed her in a 'combined' classroom, with children her age and a year older.

The 'socialization' was a nightmare. She was constantly bullied by the older girls. When she told the teacher, principal, etc. they really didn't' do anything about it. She was the problem, not the bullies. I was at that school so many times, and finally their 'solution' to my daughter being bullied during recess was to keep HER in the office during recess. Yes, I'm sure you read that correctly. My bright and eager student who was very outgoing and had never met a stranger became angry all the time. She became withdrawn and lost interest in activities that she had previously enjoyed. She was no longer outgoing, and was now very self conscious. She stuck it out the entire year, and we signed up to homeschool through a charter school program for the next school year. Two weeks after leaving public school, her personality and behavior had changed for the better and improved 95%. She has never fully recovered from the bullying though. She is still very shy and self conscious.

Saturday, 03 May 2008

Whatever

LOL, signed up for Melissa's updates via email, got sent to a page that wanted me to set up a xanga account, thought "WTH?" and just did it. There ya go. I promise I'll try to get a better pic later, LOL.
Hi everyone! I'm just getting started on Xanga... Drop me a comment if you've got some ideas on what to do first - or just to say, "Hi!" :-)