Smrt Lernins

You’ve probably met those parents. Those parents: the ones whose children can do no wrong. It’s never their children’s fault; their babies are being wronged by the system or picked on by a bad guy.

I always prided myself on not being one of those parents.

I wasn’t one of those parents throughout Captain Science’s rocky pre-homeschooling educational career. When educators brought problems (or “problems”) to my attention, I didn’t immediately jump to the assumption that my child had done nothing wrong. In fact, I tended to err on the side of it probably being something he was doing that wasn’t quite right or, at least, not quite what they were looking for. When we had that horrible last year in public school, the third grade year of misery, I thought that perhaps, just perhaps, there might be a little something wrong with Captain Science. After all, if both his teacher and the gifted teacher thought something wasn’t right, it had to be him, right?

I was determined to not be one of those parents, brushing off concerns about possible developmental or behavioral problems simply because it was something I didn’t want to hear. Even though my gut told me that there was nothing “wrong” with Captain Science (even if he were different, different =/= “wrong”), I tried to listen with my brain instead. As a result, I not only jumped through hoops, but I made my child jump through hoops. He was assessed by a speech therapist. We asked my PT sister-in-law (who specializes in children with developmental/neurological disorders) take a look at him. We had my SLP brother-in-law and my PhD in early childhood education mother-in-law quietly assess him. We took him to a counselor to ascertain if he was “on the spectrum” as his teacher implied (“He reminds me so much of a boy I had in here last year who had Asperger’s.” “Having a label isn’t a bad thing! Everyone had a label these days!”) or if he had some deep-seated emotional problem that was causing his school problems.

After we’d jumped through the hoops, we discovered that the answer was that Captain Science was a quirky, incredibly bright boy with one glaringly big problem: the very school system that had insisted we had to jump through hoops to begin with.

At about that point, it hit me: maybe, just maybe, being one of those parents didn’t necessarily mean being blind to my child’s faults. Maybe it meant being my child’s advocate and supporter first, speaking up for him first, taking his side and believing his rightness first, instead of assuming that the adults were right and my child was probably wrong. Instead of presuming him guilty and allowing his accusers or detractors determine the means through which he would be cleared or condemned, perhaps I needed to presume him innocent until they could come up with some compelling evidence as to why I should believe he was anything otherwise.

Last night, I had a golden opportunity to be one of those parents when Captain Science’s soccer coach’s mother called to complain about his behavior at soccer practice (Captain Science is apparently one of “three or four” miscreants on the team). Instead of immediately becoming angry at Captain Science and assuming he had, indeed, cut up, I asked for some concrete examples. The coach’s mother could give me none, but said her son (the teenage coach) would. The coach had a difficult time articulating any specific examples, or articulating much of anything at all, other than one claim that Captain S had told another coach “you can’t make me” — something the coach I spoke to didn’t experience first hand, but only heard about after the fact. The only direct complaint the coach could give me was prompted by his mother, whom I could hear carrying on in the background: Captain Science had taken off his shirt during practice and hadn’t immediately put it back on when asked. This apparently greatly distressed both the coach and his mother, but is hardly an infraction I feel necessitated calling home.

I decided to be one of those parents. I know Captain Science pretty well. If he were being consistently criticized, fussed at, told he was doing something wrong, he would be complaining about how much he dislikes soccer when I got him at the end of practice. Instead, he’s bouncing off the field each day, full of joy, telling me how much he loves it. That doesn’t tell me my child is misbehaving and being corrected, so either he’s not the cut up he’s being accused of being or his coach lacks the authority to command respect and discipline the lack thereof. Neither of those makes me feel I need to “handle [this situation] at home,” as the coach’s mommy thought I should. In fact, that female coach Captain S had supposedly sassed? He brought up, unprompted, the brand new coach he’d had that day and how tough she was. He said she threatened to make them run laps, do pushups, etc. if they didn’t follow her instructions, and, Captain Science added, “I believed her!”

So, being one of those parents and assuming my child was NOT in the wrong lead me to investigate this further, without getting upset at him or about the situation, and discover that the source of the coach’s (and his mommy’s) dismay was probably the shirtlessness (their hangup, not mine), not the sass. Sure, I’ll keep an eye on him at the remaining practice and a half to make sure he’s not being rude to his coaches, but I’m not disciplining him for something I don’t remotely believe he did. I don’t doubt that the coach may feel disrespected, but after speaking to the kid, I think that any issues of respect problem lies in him and not in his players.

Yes, I know that this isn’t exactly the same as thinking my kid can’t ever do any wrong. It’s certainly more of a middle ground. It did, however, require a little bit of a paradigm shift away from thinking adults are right, children are wrong. More importantly, it involved a shift to thinking in favor of my child. Nothing wrong with a default of “I know my kid and he’s not a bad kid.” Nothing wrong with that at all.

If that means I might be one of those parents, even just a little bit, I’m ok with that.

Care asks, “What do you think regarding using the library for materials? Is it worth going out and buying your own copy of all materials? Will the library (be likely to) have core texts and you can just use all their books? Is a blend a reasonable and feasible option?”

Many homeschoolers rely on public libraries for part or all of their materials. Public libraries can provide a perfectly valid way of cutting monetary cost while homeschooling. Depending on the size of your library system, the speed at which books can be ordered from other locations in the system, and your ability/willingness to travel frequently to the library to order, check out, and/or renew books (some systems allow online ordering and renewal), the library may be a useful part of your homeschool year…or it might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Adrienne Furness even wrote a book for librarians whose libraries see a high volume of homeschoolers, Helping Homeschoolers in the Library. Adrienne also has a website called Homeschooling and Libraries with great resources for both homeschoolers using the library and librarians assisting homeschoolers. Denise G. Masters also has some suggestions for ways library systems can become more accommodating to homeschoolers. If your library system doesn’t currently have any of these systems or protocols in place, find out if there’s someone you can speak with to start implementing some of these changes.

If your budget is significantly constrained, you have free and easy access to a great public library system, and your homeschooling philosophies/methods don’t call for a lot of consumable materials, the library may be just the ticket for you. My personal experiences have not made me into a huge library-for-homeschool enthusiast, however. I’m of the opinion that buying your own copies of materials is almost always worth it. Libraries aren’t my first choice for homeschool materials for many reasons, such as:

1. Time is money, especially with multiple children. Using the library as a source for all or most of your homeschool materials can greatly decrease the monetary cost of homeschooling, but the trade off is a potentially huge increase in the time cost of homeschooling. Every minute spent driving to and from the library is a minute that can’t be spent elsewhere. Every minute spent trying to locate the books on a library shelf (sometimes being thwarted when the book isn’t actually there) is a minute that isn’t going to actually reading the books in question. Can this time be well spent on these endeavors? Well, sure, if you can carefully plan your week around your library time. As each of my children begins homeschooling, however, I suspect our time is going to become an increasingly valuable resource, one that I can’t see spending on a lot of library back-’n-forth. I can order books online at night, during snack/lunch time, or when the kids are at outside lessons or playdates,  which makes that the more time-efficient one.

2. Library books are not meant to be consumable. If you’d like to keep checking books out from that system, you can’t mark in/on, tear pages from, or in other way “consume” a library book. Yes, I’m looking at you, Tank.  I enjoy making notes in my books. I like to be able to dog ear a page if I need to. While I discourage margin doodling (Captain Science is a notorious doodler), I want my children to be able to take a note, underline a word or passage, or work through a problem on the page if they need to. We do have some books, like Life of Fred, that I don’t allow marking-up, but most of our curricula is of the consumable variety — meant to be written in. The benefit of a writable/markable curriculum is that it cuts down on the number of binder and folder filled with looseleaf paper, which, incidentally, never actually stays in those darn binders.

3. You’re really not supposed to photocopy that copyrighted material. While I’m not the Queen of all Ethics (I’m sure some of the software on my computer isn’t entirely on the up-and-up), I do feel that one should purchase consumable materials for home use, rather than photocopy the pages that aren’t expressly marked “for reproduction” and use the photocopies. When you do that, you’re reducing the number of sales for that particular publisher/writer, and guess what? If they don’t have enough sales, there won’t be another volume or companion book or edition of that material!

4. My library doesn’t have it. “It” being pretty much anything that I want to use for homeschooling. Sure, I could rearrange my academic plans based on what’s in the library (or available free online), but that seriously limits what materials we can cover. While my public library system has multiple copies of The Well-Trained Mind (various editions) to help a homeschooler get started, it doesn’t have a single book in the Life of Fred series, anything by Michael Clay Thompson, or any of the beautifully-illustrated DK Publishing history books. I can find supplemental books there, but nothing that makes a thorough enough curriculum for my gifted child, who really does need the challenge and creativity of the curricula we have chosen. We went through quite a few options to find what worked for us and not a one of those options was available in our public library system.

5. It only saves you money if you don’t rack up fees. We…um…yeah, kind of misplace library books sometimes. We have a kinda-sorta system on making sure those books don’t get lost, but someone always snags one from the “library books go here” spot and carries it off, then it doesn’t get turned in with the other, or somebody forgets the date the books are due, or somebody assumes somebody else renewed those books whilst s/he was at the library last time, and before you know it, we’ve got $20 in fees on all of our library cards and have to start checking things out under pseudonyms (which takes us right back to that ethics thing, people).  We already do this with our pleasure reading books to the extent that it’s usually cheaper for me to just buy the damn book outright.

6. I’m a book junkie. For those homeschoolers among us who are book junkies, it’s not enough to just read the book. We have to own the book. A big fat bookshelf is ever so much more satisfying than a big fat wallet, don’t you think? I love the smell of books, the feel of books, the lovely weight and size of a trade paperback (as opposed to library-bound hardbacks or thumbed-apart cheap paperbacks).  Books are my dear friends and my precious treasures, but a loaner book from a library can never be more than a passing acquaintance or another man’s rhubarb. I get something of a high from opening a FedEx/UPS box with a new book inside. I derive great pleasure from my shelf of curricula (and even have great dreams of one day arranging it all by topic, like Patchfire’s shelves).

7. Friends make great lending libraries. Patchfire has loaned or gifted me with a great deal of curricula. I, in turn, am prepared to pass along the stuff that didn’t work for us (or is just too young for us) to other homeschoolers.  Patchfire loaned me all of her Greek/Roman materials, and when I give it back to her, it will be accompanied by all the Greek/Roman materials I purchased. Reciprocity amongst a homeschooling community can be one way to cut costs without completely giving up that library. In this way, any book has the potential to help many families. Plus, it makes for a great excuse to get together with other homeschoolers. We’re planning a “Curriculattes” meeting for homeschooling parents to drink coffee and show off or swap curricula. Free or cheap stuff AND a night out? You can’t tell me that isn’t better than a library.

8. Libraries want you to be quiet. Tank, people. I have Tank. I really don’t think I need to explain it any better than that, do I?

9. Sometimes I get a bad case of the gonnas. As in, I’m really gonna make it out to the library this time…if I get around to it. I procrastinate. I put things off.  I drag my feet.  I know this about myself. If I rely on sources outside my home as my primary educational tools, my poor kids are going to be making do with crackers and magazines some weeks, because as much as I think I’m gonna make it to the library each and every week, I know it’s not actually gonna happen. I was also gonna do a lot of art projects and a ton of field trips this year, but without careful pre-planning, that didn’t happen, either. If I were to use the library with great frequency, I’d have to stick very rigidly to that color-coded schedule! I could do it if I had to, but I’d have to overcome a whole passel of gonnas to get there.

10. Have I mentioned I have three kids? I know, I know. Plenty of moms with way more kids than I have pile them into their white conversion van once a week and trot them meekly and quietly into the library to make excellent use of the facilities and resources. I am not those moms, however. Coordinating Captain Science’s need for certain books with Tank’s hands-on curiosity with Babypie’s “you’ve set me down and now I’m going to run off” isn’t my idea of a great time. It’s enough of a pain when we go for pleasure reading.  If I’m trying to locate specific books on the shelves for Captain S., it’s harder to corral Babypie, and Tank is piling up picture books on the reading table, and…ACK! Smrt Mama starts approaching a Smrt Meltdown of her own. Daddyman is usually the one who ends up taking Captain Science (and sometimes Tank) to the library for free reading books, and that works just fine for us.

The long (very long) and short of it is that we haven’t had the need or inclination to rely primarily on the library for our curricula, but that certainly doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for you or anyone else. Learn what your public library system has available to you and develop a schedule and system that allows for regular visits and timely returns of materials…and when you do, please let me know!

That’s what the [Smrt] Homeschooler thinks about using the library. What do you think? How do you and your family use the library as a part of homeschooling?

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

I’m sometimes amused by some of the ways in which people stumble across my blog. I use Google Analytics to track my site statistics, so I get a nice breakdown of search terms used to find my site. While I’m usually glad to grab a new reader, I’m not sure I’m really the site that some of these people are searching for in their great Googling adventures.

The search terms may be completely straightforward:

smrt lernins
smrt lernins blog
smrt mama
smrt learnings
patchfire eclectic girl (who was looking for you and got me instead, Patchfire?)

Sometimes the search terms are curricula-centered:

mct grammar
can abeka be secular?
building poems m clay
ellen mchenry “the brain” homeschool
compare just write and writing strands
life of fred math overly christian
jesus in math class/jesus mathematics/jesus math/bible verses on mathematics (four separate searches)

Sometimes, the searcher clearly has…let’s just call them “strong feelings” on certain topics:

unschooling failure (well, yes, I do give some examples of that here)
are there unschoolers that are not hippies (yes, but the other unschoolers killed and ate them)
being unschooled did not prepare me (Am I the only one who is terribly curious for what this searcher was unprepared?)
are home schooled children to sheltered (My answer: No, but they are able to distinguish between “to” and “too”)
homeschooler sheltered (also “sheltered homeschooler”)
pitfalls of unschooling (better than “pit traps of unschooling”)
unschooling idiocy (this works on a few levels, so please feel free to insert your own joke here)

And finally, the downright bizarre:

“a lot of pee” (their quotes!)
captain underpants valuable lessons learned (lesson learned: Don’t read Captain Underpants)
lern sex (No! Learn spelling!)
distilling urine (Ok, fair enough. I do have a post tagged with this)
etymology of sexy (I’m pretty sure it derives from the word “sex”)
in the event of this tough situation (break glass, remove homeschooler)
seculat thrusday (yes, I know this is just a matter of typos, but what a glorious combination of typos!)
why is math hard for pretty girls (because God doesn’t give with both hands)

Then there’s the one search that really tugs at my heart strings, because I could have been the one who searched for it about a year ago:

homeschooling parents who feel panic and anxiety (You aren’t the only one out there! I’m here! You aren’t alone!)

If you found my site through a search engine, how did you get here? If you were searching for my site, what do you think you’d search for?

Daisy asks, “In light of the recent news articles about homeschooling families who have flown under the radar and abused their children, do you think there should be more government oversight of homeschooling?”

My experiences haven’t convinced me that either system is worse or better for protecting children from (or leaving them subject to) child abuse as a whole.

I don’t think homeschooling is to blame for this. Not in the slightest. I think officially enrolling a child in homeschooling may provide a simpler means in the long term of hiding extensive child abuse, but a public or private family could easily withdraw their student from the school in the name of moving (to another school, district, town, or state) and just not re-enroll — most states don’t have the resources to follow up with every student, especially if that child isn’t using any government services that would keep him/her fresh on their radar.

Children enrolled in public or private school are victims of abuse every day, too. It goes unnoticed or unreported. Children can fall through the cracks anywhere, long absences can be excused, transient families can easily slip out of the sight and minds of the school system. Just because a system is full of mandated reporters, it doesn’t mean that they will notice the abuse. It doesn’t mean that they will take it seriously even if they do. I went to public school with an individual who was abused extensively (both sexually and physically) by a parent throughout the time we attended school together. I had no idea and I don’t think most of the teachers did, either. Until we install cameras or human monitors in every family’s home (homeschooling or public schooling) for 24-hour “oversight,” we can’t catch every incident of abuse.

The important common factor I’ve noticed in many of these deaths is not that the children are schooled at home, but that the parents adhere to a strict set of religious beliefs, keep themselves isolated from anyone outside their insular religious community (in fact, they’re encouraged to cut themselves off from people with differing beliefs who might lead them astray), and follow supposedly Bible-based parenting “guides” such as To Train Up a Child by the heartless, conscience-less, and utterly godless (beyond a belief in their own righteousness) creatures, the Pearls.

Religious extremism and blind obeisance to a dangerous parenting method killed those children, not homeschooling. Those same crimes, committed under the instruction of the Pearls’ books, could have been perpetrated by the parents if their children had been enrolled in private religious schools. They could have been perpetrated on children enrolled in public school, though I think it’s unlikely that these parents would have enrolled their children in public school. Government oversight of homeschooling wouldn’t have changed the fact that these parents believed God wanted them to beat their children until they obeyed perfectly and cheerfully. The Pearls specifically instruct parents to beat their children with 1/4 inch flexible PVC pipe, because it hurts, but the marks fade quickly. Child abusers often develop methods to disguise the abuse they are committing and the Pearls teach parents how to be meticulous child abusers…and that the only way they can be right with God and raise godly children is through systematically breaking the child. Unfortunately, some children aren’t broken as easily as others, so the beatings continue.

You know where government oversight might help? Through investigation of the dangerous cult of child abuse led by the Pearls (or other churches espousing child abuse). I was shocked that they were NOT listed on the SPLC’s “Hate Group” watch list, because the Pearls clearly hate children. They also hate women, but they seem to view women as large children who need the same degree of abuse and mastery. You want to reduce the number of deaths in homeschooled children? Start investigating the churches that hold TTUAC “parenting” classes (I use “parenting” in quotes because it’s more like “prison guarding” than parenting). Look for the churches that are telling their congregation that the only way to be right with God is through frequent application of the “rod.” Look for the families that are gobbling up the advice to beat their children as a path to righteousness. The parents who believe their child should be beaten until she pronounces a word correctly (because Michael Pearls says that sort of willfulness deserves a beating) will beat their child whether she’s in public school, private school, or homeschool. If the government can investigate the FLDS community because of potential child abuse, surely they could investigate the Cult of Michael Pearl. They can investigate child abuse if someone reports it. REPORT IT! There’s even a precedent for investigating churches/pastors who are espousing child abuse. You CAN investigate the church and its leaders if that church is telling you to break the law…or break your child.

Most homeschoolers (religious or secular) do not beat their children and many, many abused children are attending school within the public system. Oversight applied to all homeschoolers won’t catch this abuse, because abusers are often sneaky. They’re careful. Do you think that a child will be covered in bruises on check-in day? Of course not. Pearl-trained/abused children are squeaky clean and perfectly polite when they’re marched out for company. If you want to stop these abuse death, you have to go to the source. Stop the abusers from teaching other parents how to abuse. If you belong to a church that espouses the Pearl methods, speak up against the wrongness and danger of these methods. If your church is considering starting Pearl (or Ezzo, or other religiously-based child abuse classes) speak up. Say, “NO, this is NOT the way to God! This is the way to kill or seriously injure your child.” If they continue with the classes, keep your eyes peeled for signs of abuse and turn the abusers in in. You may not be a legally-mandated reporter, but you are a morally-obligated one.

Today’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” post is something of a cheater topic, as the person who asked the question was heavily involved in helping me sort out the answer. Still, I think my process could be helpful to other people, so I might as well answer this question somewhat formally.

Patchfire asks, “How did you choose your approach to homeschooling?”

First, I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to Patchfire. When I was first considering homeschooling Captain Science, she never one tried to talk me into it or convince me to use any specific approach. I know she was really hoping I’d make the decision to homeschool. I know she was hoping I’d choose a classical approach. Despite that, she constrained herself to only answering the questions I asked, only giving her opinion when I requested it, and also being honest about the challenges. For that, I am truly grateful, because I don’t have any doubts or regrets about the decisions we have made. I know they were our decisions.

Deciding on classical homeschooling was actually remarkably easy for me, though building up the courage to choose curricula and develop a schedule was hard. I have several homeschooling friends, both in person and online. I looked for the families whose children were most like Captain Science in temperament, ability, and learning style, and then assessed whether I liked how they were learning, how much they were learning, and whether or not I found them to be pleasant and well-rounded individuals.

The winner, hands down, of the “most like Captain Science” and the “most like how I’d want Captain Science to be in the future” was Patchfire’s Eclectic Girl. I loved the things she was learning, the methods by which she was learning, and wphat an enjoyable child she seemed to be overall. Plus, she and Captain Science are like two scrawny, brainy little peas in a pod, so it seemed like an easy choice to give credence to methods that worked well for her.

It was also fairly easy to choose an approach because I knew what approaches I didn’t want. I’ve never been a big fan of unschooling, at least as I’ve seen it modeled in the “real world” (or by online folks like Sandra Dodd of the “I’d rather have dentures than have memories of my parents forcing me to brush my teeth” school of thought). My personal experiences with Montessori weren’t great and I’m just not a centers kind of girl. Waldorf/Steiner? Yeah, not going with any approach that so strongly advocates a delay in reading. Unit studies sound great for some areas or topics, but I couldn’t see myself developing an entire curricula around them.

However fringe or hippie I might be in some areas of my life, when it comes to education, I’m fairly traditional. I value reading and writing, and yes, I think those are skills that should be developed earlier rather than later. I value thorough mathematical education, which includes things like knowing the multiplication tables. I think memorization and recitation are important skills for every person, skills that I have found useful on many occasions in my adult life. I value rigorous, evidence-based science education. I value history education that is both broad and deep. All of these values pointed me towards a classical approach to education.

I would recommend that every prospective homeschooler read The Well-Trained Mind first, even if classical education doesn’t sound like something that would float your boat. It’s the most thorough resource on what children should (or could, at least) learn and on what and how much to introduce when. You might read WTM and love it like I did, developing your own classical curricula for your child. You might say “Eff this noise!” and chuck it into the back yard for your chickens to eat. You might take parts from WTM and parts from other places. Whether or not you strictly define yourself by someone else’s approach isn’t the issue — I’m sure some of the most rigorous classical homeschoolers might consider me to be classical lite, as we haven’t yet started Latin (though we do a Latin-based vocabulary) and we don’t to that many fabulous extracurriculars. You just need to find a place to start if you’re trying to decide how to choose your approach to homeschooling. The rest will fall into place after that.

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler chose her approach to homeschooling. Good luck choosing yours!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Nana (my mother) used to work in our county’s public school system — first as a substitute teacher, then as a parapro, and finally as a PE teacher (before “retiring” to help take care of Captain Science while I finished my undergrad). She often referred to the children at her school as the “bubble wrap children of [NanaSchool] Elementary” due to overt helicopter parent over-protectiveness exhibited by the majority of the [s]mothers (and some fathers bothers) at the school.

One great example of this is during the Presidential Fitness Challenge. The children had to run a short distance in order to meet the standards. Apparently, many of these kids had never run before, because they were stopping in the middle of the run, completely freaked out, because…

Their hearts were beating fast and it was hard to breathe while they were running!

They would then go, wailing miserably, to the front office to call their mommies, who would come snatch their fragile darlings up out of school to take them home, declaring that they MUST have asthma (undiagnosed, of course, and oddly enough, completely asymptomatic otherwise) and should therefor never be made to do any hard physical exertion.

Whenever someone makes a comment to me about the sheltered existence of homeschooled children, I think of the bubble wrap children of [NanaSchool] Elementary, and I smile.

Yes. Sheltered. That’s totally us.

“But I really need/have to have my…”
“I absolutely rely my…”
“I just couldn’t live without my…”

‘Fess up. We’ve all used variations of the above phrases to describe something that we probably don’t really need (in the “immediate levels of Maslowe’s hierarchy” sense), but that we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe we cannot function well without*. Now, I’m not a Luddite by any stretch. Many of the technological things I’ve learned I don’t really need have been replaced by cheaper, more streamlined, or healthier versions of my former crutches. The difference is that the alternatives take a little more work for more reward and don’t engender a panicked feeling of “no! What will I do without it!”

Here are the things I once thought were absolutely necessary to my existence, that I have found I no longer rely on:

Live Television: I like to be able to veg out with a little mindless entertainment in the evenings. When Officer Daddyman insisted that cable wasn’t in the budget (and our house’s position makes it difficult to get signal) and that he didn’t want the children exposed to the intensity of advertising on the for-profit children’s networks, I balked. Couldn’t we cut another corner elsewhere so I could have my shows? Through Netflix (less expensive, no commercials) and Hulu (a free, limited commercial web-based viewing service), however, I have plenty to watch and I now find myself so frustrated by regular commercials that I seldom watch television when I have the opportunity. Sure, I have to watch Glee a day late, but it doesn’t make the show less entertaining…in fact, fewer commercials makes me like it a lot better!

Caller ID and Call Waiting: After an ugly divorce, followed by on-again, off-again years of phone harassment by my ex-husband (which I had to record for documentation for court), I developed a profound love of caller ID. Unrecognized number? Queue up the recorder, just in case. After the termination of my ex’s parental rights and Captain Science’s subsequent adoption by Officer Daddyman, however, the only things holding me back from ditching caller ID were fear (which I needed to get over) and habit. Caller ID hasn’t done a great service to people’s phone manners, after all, and it’s not like that many different people call me. Goodbye, caller ID! Call waiting also went out the window, because I have both a home phone and a cell phone. In an emergency, people can get me, even if the home phone is busy. I haven’t found myself missing either service. Caller ID and call waiting — I can live without them!

The Newspaper: When my parents moved to their new house and Officer Daddyman and I married and took over the house note on my childhood home, we considered continuing the paper. The argument for it was that I could read it at my leisure without having to sit down at the computer. The argument against was that I could read it online for free. We opted not to get the newpaper, and I’m so glad we did. The quality of our paper has gone down hill significantly. The paper becomes smaller, lower-quality, and more conservative each year. With my anxiety issues, reading the news every day isn’t always the best plan, anyway. I have select news outlets I rely on for information, and let Patchfire screen the rest of my news for me. Sure, it keeps me somewhat ignorant of local happenings, but I don’t worry over every shooting or car-jacking. The newspaper — I can live without it!

Microwave: How could a mother (or father) ever survive without the convenience of a microwave oven? When I first started homeschooling, I found myself relying on the microwave more and more often, between heating leftovers for lunches (no more school cafeteria) and feeling run down and a little tired of dealing with the children by the evening (just zap it and be done). When our microwave started to die shortly before Christmas, I found myself in a panic. What was I going to do without my microwave? It finally went to the great electronics store in the sky shortly after the New Year and was replaced, not by another microwave, but by a rice steamer. Slower cooking time, sure, but significantly better flavor and texture (and no concerns about the questionable safety of microwaves beaming through the kitchen). In the month since ditching our microwave, we’ve adjusted quickly. Leftovers reheated on the stove or in the over taste better. Food prep takes a little more planning (though only a little more time), but that has only helped eliminate that panicked meal-prep rush. Microwave — I can live without it!

Eight hours a day “to myself”: This was my biggest anti-homeschooling argument, by far. I really needed those eight hours that Captain Science was in school away from home to get anything done (and to maintain my sanity). Once I stopped to think about it, though, I realized that this particular “can’t live without it” didn’t speak very highly of me as a mother. Had I really had children believing I was entitled to a third of my day without them or that I for some reason deserved hours of peaceful, child-free alone time? Could I really not accomplish anything because they were here? In retrospect, that mentality was lazy at best, downright selfish at worst. Of all the reasons to homeschool or not homeschool, getting rid of the kids for the better part of my daylight hours couldn’t be part of the argument. Yes, I have a little less quiet time now, but the laundry still gets done, dinner still makes it on to the table, and if anything, I have more time to socialize, because I’m not worrying about making it home in time to meet the bus. I’ve had to find ways to engage with my children that would be less crazy-making and ways to find moments of solitude (which might explain my stack of books in the bathroom), but it’s been completely doable and completely worth it. Eight hours of time without the kids every day — I can live without it!

Your list of “I could never live without them”s may be quite different. Your list may be eerily similar. Ultimately, it wasn’t about any of the above things being inherently bad (well, maybe the “8 hours without the kids” mentality, a little bit), but about the dependence on them being unhealthy, expensive, or fostering a huge degree of laziness on my part. I feel good about having changed how I thought and lived in those areas.

Make a list of the things you think you can’t live without and see if you actually can. Set a short-term goal and find alternatives. It’s remarkably freeing! Microwaves, cable television, the ability to switch between two clearly identified callers…those are all nice, but certainly not necessary like I thought they were.

The internet, on the other hand? Absolutely can’t live without it.

*Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which you will have to put**. It’s perfectly fine when applied selectively. If you have doubts about how you can apply sentence-ending prepositions safely and correctly, however, please leave it to the professionals.

**Incidentally, the “up with which I will not put” quote was likely retroactively misattributed to Winston Churchill. No source of any such quote has been produced.

I was pleased to see this great article in Access Atlanta about the growing number of local homeschoolers and the various programs springing up to accommodate us. These programs are “part of a trend of home schoolers becoming involved in activities that would have once seemed the antithesis of learning in a private, family-based environment. What began with home educated students making their presence felt in scholastic sports leagues and youth orchestras has spread to cultural institutions.”

Along with listing information on various programs available to homeschoolers, the article also gives information on homeschooling numbers both nationally and state-wide:

In part, this development can be attributed to critical mass: In its most recent study in 2007, the U.S. Department of Education estimated some 1.5 million students nationwide were home schoolers, up from 850,000 in 1998; the private National Home Education Research Institute says the number may be as high as 2.5 million now. An earlier analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2003 found that 40.6 percent of all home schooled students lived in the South, nearly twice as many as in any other region of the country.

Officially, Georgia now boasts almost 40,000 homeschooled students! I have some questions about the bolded portion of the following paragraph, however:

In Georgia, 39,207 students were home schooled in 2009, according to numbers compiled by the state Department of Education. The highest concentration was in metro Atlanta, including 3,276 in Gwinnett and 2,942 in Cobb. Fulton’s total was listed as zero, suggesting the overall figure statewide is probably higher.

How is it that Fulton county lists no homeschoolers at all? Every county in Georgia should have the same reporting requirements. What is going on at the Fulton county superintendent’s officer that no homeschoolers are being reported? If any of my readers living and schooling in Fulton, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences about this.

It feels nice to be a part of something. Two years ago, this article would have meant nothing to me. A year ago, it might have piqued my curiosity, as we were just starting to explore alternatives to public school. Now, however, I’m part of a group that is “making [our] presence felt.” I love my new community of families and I’m so glad we have all these wonderful local resources available to us.

MJ has a few questions for the [Smrt] Homeschooler this week. She asks, “How long to do you plan to homeschool? What/how do you base you decision on whether or not to homeschool the other kiddos? And/or will you start Babypie out on the ‘public’ path or just skip it altogether and do homeschool from the beginning?”

Right now, my plans for homeschooling have no upper limit (other than college, obviously). That is going to be entirely up to Captain Science’s needs as he ages. I’m sure there will be many subjects where his needs outweigh my abilities. Luckily, that doesn’t necessarily mean a return to public school, unless he wants to attend one of the magnet high schools in our area, of which we have several. He could attended our local university (or one of the downtown universities) as a joint-enrollment student. He could take classes at Pierian Springs, which offers classes for upper grades with a collegiate style schedule, format, and campus (complete with collegiate pricing, though. Ouch!). We can get packaged curricula or find online classes for Advanced Placement classes, if it’s outside my subject area, and he can take the AP tests to exempt out of college courses. There’s tutoring, co-ops…we have lots of options. Returning to a mainstream public school really isn’t one of them at this juncture, though.

I might do with Babypie what I’m doing with the Tank, and put her in a year or so of preschool at someplace like the little Methodist school where the Tank goes. It will depend on her needs. I have no plans to enroll either of the kids in a mainstream school past pre-K, though. I’ve become too disenchanted with public education’s methods and goals. I think homeschooling is better for my kids and for our family as a whole. If one of them shows a need for a different environment, we’ll address that as it comes.

As a bonus, MJ also would like to know, “What’s the wackiest religious based material you’ve seen out there?”

Oh, MJ. How could I pick just one?

Emily at Learning Vicariously asks, “If you could go back in time, would you have homeschooled Captain Science all along, or were you happy with his early education before last year’s teacher? What made you decide to put The Tank in a traditional preschool? What are your plans for him and Babypie in the coming years?”

I’m not really much of a “go back and changes things” person in general. The end is almost always a result of the process. I never would have come to homeschooling as a first choice — I had to get there by seeing how nothing else was right for Captain Science.

We learned a lot from the different schooling methods. I regret a great deal about those years, too, especially not pulling the Captain out of his Montessori school when we first suspected the bullying problem (the bullies in question was the teacher’s daughter and her best friend, the daughter of another teacher in the school) or insisting that he be moved to a different class in public school when we realized the ongoing issues with the teacher were so extreme. I’m unhappy with Montessori and public schooling, both as they apply to Captain Science and systemically. Having something to which I can compare homeschooling, however, is a good thing. Having Captain Science’s attitude, demeanor, and willingness to work to compare to how he was in other schools means I can appreciate just how good homeschooling is for him. Seeing what methods don’t work for him gives me a better idea of what we should try as an alternative.

We opted to put the Tank in a traditional private school setting for a few reasons. For starters, the little Methodist preschool is the same place where Captain Science went for two years, and he loved it there. The teachers are sweet, it’s low on the God stuff for a church school, it’s close by, and relatively inexpensive. Because this was our first year homeschooling, I thought it would be best for Captain Science if we could focus as much attention on him and his education as possible. I had no idea how this was going to work! I had no idea to what degree we’d struggle, how much time it would take, or anything like that. Having the Tank out of the way for a few hours, three days a week means I can put a lot more energy into school for Captain Science on those days.

I also did worry a little about the socialization issue. The Tank isn’t old enough for classes at the co-op, so he spends a lot of that time playing with the babies and younger toddler. While many of my friends have children Captain Science’s age, their other children are mostly older or younger than the Tank. He’d never spent any significant amount of time away from me. I wanted him to have an opportunity to play with other children in a safe environment for a short period of time — preschool seemed like an ideal place for that. Plus, he had been begging me to go to school since he was old enough to realize Captain Science was going somewhere, and despite the Captain being home now, the Tank still wanted to go. He enjoys it immensely and I view it as a regular playdate much more than I do “school.”

Next year is still up in the air for the Tank. I know I’ll homeschool from kindergarten onward, but whether or not we re-enroll him for another year of pre-K is yet to be seen. I know he’ll want to go, but I’m not sure I’ll want him to. The back and forth to the preschool is disruptive and inconvenient, so if I can find a better outlet for the Tank’s (considerably higher than Captain Science’s) social needs, we may not go back next year. As for what we’ll do with Babypie, that’s still so far in the future at this point that I don’t even want to think about it! There are several other baby girls her age in our homeschool circle, which gives her more of a ready-made friends than the Tank had available. With her being my (potentially) last baby, I might also be too clingy to send her off anywhere. Yes, I admit it! I might be a bit overprotective of my baby.

All in all, I’m happy with the choices we have made for this year, but I wouldn’t rearrange our past in hopes of getting this experience sooner. It’s homeschool-by-comparison that allows us all to truly appreciate what a gift we have been given.