To school or not to school...?

[primsong]

Well, 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?

Comments

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Huh! No, I hadn't heard that, though it makes sense. Our school is a little different in structure and content, ("old fashioned" manners, memorization by recitation, Latin, volunteer service, etc.) The boys seem to do well with it, perhaps because it isn't all "What are your *feelings* about this emotive propaganda? Write an essay as a team" stuff that my eldest is running into in the public high-school. That works for relationship/communication people like most girls, but the boys just sit there and stare and flunk. In the 10 years we've been there, I'm only aware of one boy that was on ritalin for a while, but they phased it out over a couple years.

We've never ever regretted not using the public system, no matter how much it's cost us with three rounds of tuition to pay...it's been worth every penny, and I think it's helping us here also because our school demands a fair bit of parent involvement, so we've always been "in there" with the kids education to some extent anyway... just thinking out loud, I guess.

The public system can work too, I'm sure, but do keep involved! Volunteer in his classroom, help out in the cafeteria during his lunch hour, be willing to protest if you think something is inappropriate for your kid - whatever... it really matters to the children to have you in there for them.

[accioboytoy.livejournal.com]

Exactly - that's why even though my not having a job is not great financially, the fact that it allows me to be there in his school every day to drop off and pick up, plus school field trips and such is such a blessing at this point. I think the more ways you can be involved in your kid's lives when they're younger, the greater positive effect it will have when they are older as well.