To school or not to school...?
Jan. 24th, 2006 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primsongWell, it looks like I might be homeschooling this next year, at least for one of my kids. It looks intriguing and refreshing and challenging and scary at the moment...
My son has never fit well in the academic mold, and is struggling along through his second try at 5th grade, not from lack of intelligence but lack of organization and maturity moreso - we were going to give the 6th grade a try within the comforting "womb" of our private school but now we've found our school won't *have* a middle-school next year and instead is entering into what will hopefully be a good partnership with another school in our area that is also "classical education" based to take on the 6-12th graders. They send us their young ones, we send them our older ones and they plan the curriculum together.
This sounds dandy (they're even busing the kids from school to school), *except* in the past we had crossed this school off our mental list of options for the upper grades because they were so very bent on high test scores, etc that they heaped the homework on the kids until they had no life. And while I am all for a school teaching Christian values and worldview, they had the Bible classes so frequently and for so long that the kids felt like it was being rammed down their throat and ended up being embittered against it - it stopped being " letter from your best friend who cares about you and has good advice" and their love for the scriptures was flattened by the intensity of it. Unless these two things have changed or are changing very soon we don't plan on going there - we have a little time until we have to decide whether to send our daughters. They have new leadership there, and a new principal who seems much more level-headed and relaxed so I am hopeful, but careful.
Either way, it looks like I've got an upcoming 6th grade education coming to me and my son - and a couple folks have offered us pointers to a local suppport group, though we haven't checked it out yet. Any thoughts from you homeschoolers out there?
My son has never fit well in the academic mold, and is struggling along through his second try at 5th grade, not from lack of intelligence but lack of organization and maturity moreso - we were going to give the 6th grade a try within the comforting "womb" of our private school but now we've found our school won't *have* a middle-school next year and instead is entering into what will hopefully be a good partnership with another school in our area that is also "classical education" based to take on the 6-12th graders. They send us their young ones, we send them our older ones and they plan the curriculum together.
This sounds dandy (they're even busing the kids from school to school), *except* in the past we had crossed this school off our mental list of options for the upper grades because they were so very bent on high test scores, etc that they heaped the homework on the kids until they had no life. And while I am all for a school teaching Christian values and worldview, they had the Bible classes so frequently and for so long that the kids felt like it was being rammed down their throat and ended up being embittered against it - it stopped being " letter from your best friend who cares about you and has good advice" and their love for the scriptures was flattened by the intensity of it. Unless these two things have changed or are changing very soon we don't plan on going there - we have a little time until we have to decide whether to send our daughters. They have new leadership there, and a new principal who seems much more level-headed and relaxed so I am hopeful, but careful.
Either way, it looks like I've got an upcoming 6th grade education coming to me and my son - and a couple folks have offered us pointers to a local suppport group, though we haven't checked it out yet. Any thoughts from you homeschoolers out there?
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Date: 2006-01-24 05:48 pm (UTC)I understand see why the schools sometimes do the heavy coursework and such - they are always under such fire from the public secular system that they feel they have to "prove" they are good schools and it can come out in "see our test scores are higher than yours!" - It also draws in new families and their students as parents are looking for "bang for the buck" if they're going to pay tuition and high scores are something they want to see. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), that competitive approach isn't what we're wanting... We'll wait and see how it pans out. I feel like I'm always making up my kids education as I go!
I was in 14 different public schools growing up, and it was the Honors classes in High School that saved my sanity, so I completely understand what you're saying - thank goodness for the "gifted" track. (((OBT, who is still gifted)))