Feeling good...

I'm NOT feeling good today but I AM feeling good about Q not attending public school. :-) Every day lately, I have just had this sense of peace come over me. More and more people are seeing that our school system is broken. There are 4 documentaries coming out now. The War on Kids and The Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture, just to name a couple. I'm excited about this, but it seems Americans are slow to realize that these issues are in fact issues and slow to realize when it's time to do something about them. As in, the time is NOW. They are also a bit ignorant in realizing that homeschooling is not about letting your kids sleep in, stay up late and run around doing whatever they want, whenever they want, although there are some families who do that and that is THEIR decision. No one else's. Look around- what we see now is what the public school system has been putting out- kids who bully others, committ suicide, steal, vandalize and disrepect people. Of course there are good kids who go through the public school system, but it seems to be fewer and fewer all the time. I'm excited to see all of the great, intelligent homeschoolers and unschoolers who are going to become adults in the next 10-20 years. I bet it's going to be amazing. :-)

Working hard to let go...

Today has been interesting. Yesterday, I gave Q the day "off." He doesn't do more than an hour of "official" school work each day, but I do have him read some and he enjoys a book we have called "Mind Benders" where he can solve logic puzzles. I want him to know his multiplication tables and his basic division facts. I took much of last year thinking about what I, as his mom (and a teacher), want and think he should know, but to be honest, it's not a lot. Just the bare basics. Today, I kept thinking, "Make sure that at least he does some math today..." He has been playing on Roblox.com for a while. He loves that. He's very creative and he is learning math by converting "tix" to "Robucks." They each deal with sets of 500 and 1,000 so he has to multiply large numbers. Yesterday he asked me what 1,040 times 62 was. We worked it out on paper. He "does" math every day. Why do I keep thinking that he has to learn a certain amount/concept in math at a certain age? I mean, realistically, I don't believe he does, but there is this fear of "what if?" that I can't shake. What if he is 15 and doesn't know how to multiply multi-digit numbers? What if someone asks him in the next few months what 78 divided by 3 is and he doesn't immediately know? Q is an excellent reader and he has great comprehension. If he needs to find information, he can find it and understand it easily. I need to figure out why I get so hung up on "he must do some school work every day."

SO, guess how much formal school work he did today? NONE! :-)

(it feels kind of good!)

I'm figuring it all out!

I feel so good about this school year. It was the first "Back to School" season I didn't have to participate in and I can't tell you how FREEING it felt. After I pulled Q out of school, I realized the stress I felt every Sunday night, trying to mentally prepare for the upcoming week, thinking, "What's going to happen THIS week?" or "What will Q get in trouble for THIS time?" or my favorite thought, "What 'mean thing' will his teacher/an aide say to him THIS week?" I didn't have to worry about ANY of that. Then the holiday season came... I realized that we were not BOUND by the "school schedule." I don't just mean 9am-3pm, Monday through Friday. I mean bedtime, morning time, even weekend time. We can stay up late or get up late... Q is learning ALL DAY LONG, EVERY SINGLE DAY. School ended for his public school friends and I didn't have that, "Thank GOD!" feeling like I always had, so incredibly happy that he would be home for the next 2 and 1/2 months. It was just another great day that would lead into more great days... I felt such peace and it was amazing. When school started up again a couple of weeks ago, I had that peaceful feeling again. I didn't have to buy school supplies, only to have them "divied" up between his entire class, I didn't have to buy a pair of "cool" markers for school AND for home (because he would never know what he'd end up being able to keep or not depending on how his teacher set up the supply "system" in the classroom). I had such a calm feeling as I often do now.

I am figuring it out as I go. I'm a teacher and a "hard-core pro-public schooler" turned anti-schooling (for kids under 18, at least). I'm learning new things every day and reading as much as I can. My son is happier and taking in more than he's even aware of. He's finally not saying that he "hates learning" all the time. He's realizing that learning is fun and interesting and that it's not a CHORE; something he is forced to do.

Peace. :-)

Feeling lost...

I haven't written for a while. I go back and forth about what I want this blog to be about. I want people to learn from not only my mistakes, but my experiences and I want to share my journey as a mom (as well as my kids' journey) through the public school system and OUT of it (thankfully). I'm hoping it will help someone who's going through some of the same things I did. I also want to talk about different ways of learning; different "out of the box" ways of learning. Why do we have to do what we've always done, if it doesn't work? Why don't we ever stop to really look and see if it DOES still work or not? I always wanted to be a teacher. I never thought of doing anything else at all. There were no other options for me- I was a teacher at heart and I was a supporter of our public school system. I'm not anymore, and although it makes me sad, I'm so happy that I now SEE so much more than I ever did before about educating children and that I don't just sit idly by saying, "Ok, sure, cause that's just what you're supposed to do."

Spring has sprung!

I am feeling a bit better, now that the season is changing and lifting my spirits. AND, time has gone by- there is space now since the Health Care Bill has been passed. The anger got bad for quite a while - especially with the Tea Partiers- but it has died down a bit. I don't believe the worst is over, but I was feeling pretty stressed when I last blogged and cut it short. :-)

I'm on to a new rant- Unschooling. A family from Massachusetts who unschools their two kids, were on Good Morning America a couple of weeks ago. There was SO much "buzz" about it online and I was actually really shocked at how mean and truly ignorant most people were on the topic. In reply to someone's post, another gal said something like, "Your ignorance is showing; you were probably raised in the public school system..." That really made me think. Most people do go through the public school system and all of these adults who were saying things like, "Those parents should be put in JAIL!" and "Maybe this guy should get together with the nut who put pretended to put his child in the balloon some months ago. They would seem to have in common the complete disregard for what is best for their children" are SO ignorant. These unschooling parents are spending TIME EDUCATING their kids themselves. They are sacrificing so many things, to make sure their kids know what they need to, in order to have a full, rich, meaningful life. Just because they don't send their kids to a government-run school whose system is FAILING, there is no other alternative to learn?? One parent said this," If my son only studied what he wanted to learn he would have no interest in history, social sciences, learning to write a coherent sentence, biology, geography and no school day would begin before 1pm." First of all- SO WHAT if the school day didn't begin before 1pm?? Secondly, is he saying that if his son goes to public school he WILL have an interest in the aforementioned subjects? It's been my experience (as a public school teacher and mother of three) that the exact OPPOSITE will happen. Children's love of learning and natural curiosity is SQUELCHED in public school. You can see the excitement for learning gradually, but quickly, extinguished between Kindergarten and Fourth Grade. It drains right out of them. Unschooling (and homeschooling) parents give so much of themselves. They create learning opportunities for their children and not just between 9am and 3pm, Monday through Friday, they do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I SO wish people would understand that.

Frustrated

I find myself becoming more and more frustrated lately. With the passing of the Health Care Reform Bill, there has been so much violence, cruelty and just plain ignorance. It makes me mad, I admit. I get frustrated that people can really not even read up or try to learn about something, have no information about the topic and then are mad because they believe certain things they hear other people say, whether the info is true or not. I don't have patience for that, the older I get. Within all of this, is religion. Religion can sure mess things up. But- that is a whole other post!
:-)

Unschooling

I'm a teacher. If you asked me "who" I am, I would first say a mom and I would then say "a teacher." Being a teacher is a huge part of my life as well as just who I AM. Imagine my surprise, to find out that I have a very "unschooling" philosophy about learning. My older boys who are now 21 and almost 19, had such a hard time in school. Consequently, I had a hard time right along with them. I always felt like I was going crazy and often asked questions such as:

*Is it just me or is what is happening to these kids (mine and everyone else's) really wrong??
*Am I crazy?
*Is my perception of how to treat kids/people altogether WRONG?
*What is wrong with me??
*What is wrong with my kids?

My husband and I recently (October) pulled our 4th grade son out of school because we could see, for a THIRD time, the same things happening that we did with the older two boys- teachers were being disrespectful and/or downright mean to our son, he hated going to school, he got in trouble at school for things he didn't do and so on. Being a teacher, I have never understood why many (most, in my experience) teachers are rude to students. I have determined that teachers are teachers for one of three main reasons:
1. They did well in school and they want to help others do so (and see no reason why kids CAN'T).
2. They want control of a group of kids (they need to "be the boss).
3. They became a teacher just because they "fell" into it.
Of course there are admirable reasons why people become teachers, but honestly, I haven't run into many.
So, after we pulled our son out, I was really wanting to be conscientious about making sure he was still learning. I've been reading books about homeschooling, which automatically led to Unschooling. UN-SCHOOLING? That goes against everything I've been told, believed and done in my WHOLE LIFE. As with my kids growing up and feeling like I have been tricked, because I really didn't "get" that they grow up and leave you, I feel tricked about this topic as well: School. It's not what I thought it was, it's not what it should be (in my opinion) and things I thought were possible are not. The system isn't even set up FOR them to be possible.
Now I am on to a new chapter in life- reteaching myself what true learning and good education is all about. It's not going to happen in the public school system, that's for sure.