Parenting in general is filled with decision after decision about what is best for our children. From the time they are in utero, we are making choices about all kinds of things. Whether we are deciding between disposable or cloth diapers, the best brand of first shoes, or if or how long we should breastfeed, all of these choices are very personal ones. They also have no one right answer. Every decision we make as parents will find someone who believes the opposite is better for them. Schooling is no different. I can't say what is best for your family, just as you can't say what's best for mine. The key to all of these parenting decisions is choice. You don't get to decide for me, I don't get to decide for you, and the government doesn't get to decide for either of us.
This diary is about the choices we have made concerning education and why we made them. I hope you will read on, and if nothing else walk away thankful that we all have the right make our own choices for our own families.
I want to start off back in 2004 when our daughter (lets call her Lily) began her official school career. She was about 3 1/2, and our son (who we will call Tiger) was 1. We had just moved to my very small hometown, right across from the very (public) elementary school I had attended, and for the most part loved, as a child. The school offered an income based tuition preschool, and although paying for such a thing was not going to be an easy thing to do, even with the sliding scale, we made what sacrifices we had to and sent her for 3 half days a week because we felt the program would be very beneficial for her. Her teacher (with whom I had worked when the school's preschool program began when I was in 6th grade myself) was wonderful, and Lily enjoyed the experience very much. The next year we sent her again, this time for 4 half days a week, with pretty much the same results.
The following year, circumstances required us to move to a different area. It was in the same state, but it was a poorer area in general, with a much larger population. We enrolled Lily in Kindergarten at the elementary school we were assigned to. Tiger, now 3, was old enough to attend preschool, but we were hesitant to send him off to school with his personality what it was. He was very book smart (I don't mean genius here, I just mean age appropriate), but he was still very shy, very quiet, and uncomfortable being left with anyone he hadn't known all his life. After looking into the one program available in the area, we decided we would wait on sending him off into the world for at least another year, and he would continue to stay home with me.
Lily's K year was full of mixed emotions for us. Her teacher (lets call her Mrs. P) was wonderful, and the other staff I met were nice enough, but what I saw both in the school and coming home with her worried me. The time I had available to volunteer was limited with Tiger at home, but I did so at every opportunity, either bringing him along (when allowed) or leaving him with family with whom he was comfortable. I spent time in Mrs. P's classroom, I chaperoned on field trips, I went to PTA meetings (where I was one of 3 - 4 parents attending), and I used my previous experience in other volunteer organizations to help with fundraising.
Through all of this I became quite close to Mrs. P, the principal, and the other PTA staff. I had many discussions with them (mostly with Mrs. P) about how bad things were getting in the district. Mrs P told me about all the things she had to buy out of her own pocket, about how severely they continued to cut her aide's hours despite raising her class size, how parent participation continued to get less and less every year, how the district's lack of funds was forcing the closure of two elementary schools, which was going to flood the rest even more, and so much more. Despite the issues I had with Lily's individual experience (described below), I felt terribly bad for Mrs. P and all the other staff. It was appalling to me how one teacher was expected to be responsible for so many young children (most of which had serious behavioral issues). I was appalled as well at how much she had to spend herself on basic materials for the class. I am sure it was naive of me, but I just didn't expect such poor conditions in the place where the state expects us to send our children daily.
Now let's go back to Lily. Although I was an active participant both in and out of the school, Lily still had trouble with reading. I had several conversations with her teacher about it, but in Mrs. P's own words (as close as I can recall years later) Lily's reading wasn't a matter of concern, compared with the level of the other students in her class. Basically, because Lily was at the top of her class, the problems she was having weren't bad enough for the school to deal with. Now, you may think this is a case of dear old mom overreacting, but Lily being at the top of that particular class was no great achievement given the state of that class, and Lily's reading issues were in fact a real issue. The issue turned out to be primarily the method of instruction, and not the ADD we later found her to have, but it was still an issue. Behavioral issues also arose, in part because of things she was picking up in school and because she was always exhausted with 5 full days of school. It didn't help that she had homework daily on top of full-day classes. Five days a week, our home became nothing more than a series of battles to get her off to school on time, get homework done, get her to bed on time, even to get her fed! It was during this K year that homeschooling became a topic of discussion for my husband and me. At that point, it was more of a theoretical discussion; I didn't think in a million years I could actually do it, but the topic came up.
(I just want to clarify here, I certainly do not believe all children should be reading in K; I simply feel that if instruction is to be given it should be done in a way that suits the child, and any issues that arise should be handled regardless of how their ability compares to their peers. Bottom line, teach it right or don't teach it that young.)
Come the end of that year, we decided that we needed to make a serious change to our lives as a whole to give our children the best we could. We were a one income family (by choice), trying to live in a two income state. We decided to move south, as some friends of ours had a couple years earlier, to where we could live a bit more comfortably on one income and provide more for our children. We made one gross error in doing so, however, and that was making inaccurate assumptions about where the kids would attend school where we were moving, and we were left with a sticky choice. We could send Lily to the public school assigned to us (Tiger was still too young for K), or we could homeschool. We couldn't afford private school (which we would likely have tried if we could, even though the private school here is Christian, because homeschooling was so foreign to us), and we were committed to the house we had rented for at least a year, so moving to another district wasn't an option.
So, much to my initial dismay (HOW ON EARTH AM I GOING TO DO THIS!?!?!?!?!), we opted to homeschool for Lily's first grade year, with the expectation that when our lease was up we would be moving districts. Some may think we were rash in not at least trying the local public school, but when you inadvertently move into one of the poorest districts in the state and are inundated with horror stories once you realize it and start talking to people, it kind of puts you off from sending your innocent little 6 year old off to its schools. Call me selfish if you wish, but I was not willing to sacrifice my "baby" for a political statement or the greater good of the community. My number one priority as a parent is the safety and well being of my children, and my parental responsibilities took precedence over anything else the moment I became a parent.
I won't deny that it was a rocky road at first. I read lots of books and did loads of research online, but this was totally foreign to me, and all the local homeschooling resources were religious ones. After having the summer to prepare, we were off to the races though, win or lose. At first I took a very "school at home" approach, which I soon learned was, for us, a ridiculous notion. What Lily needed was less traditional, and she was my main focus that year, even though Tiger loved to participate and did very well doing so. Slowly but surely, as the year progressed we all found our footing and started not just to get results, but actually to enjoy it. A lot of the issues we had had with Lily behaviorally in her K year were disappearing, and she was really learning. We weren't involved in a lot of social activities because, as I said previously, the homeschooling groups in the area were too religious for our taste (expecting signed statements of faith to participate which we, as atheists, were not comfortable with - it wasn't that we were trying to avoid religious people), but Lily was in Girl Scouts and we went to lots of museums, parks, the zoo, and countless other places, and spent lots of time with the friends we did make.
It likely won't come as a shock considering the title, but we have never looked back. As time went on, we found social activities that did not require us to sign things contrary to our beliefs. Lily and Tiger have participated in all sorts of sports teams, dance, scouts, horseback riding, and more, in addition to your typical kid stuff like sleepovers. They have made a very diverse group of friends, including kids that go to the local public schools and the local private school, kids of different ages, races, religions, income brackets, etc. Some of these friendships have continued even when their friends have moved across the country, via the phone and computer.
We are now in our 5th official year of homeschooling and they are both thriving in their own ways. I am confident that our decision to continue homeschooling has been and is the right one for our family. Lily and Tiger are two very different children, but, having been a public school student myself, I strongly feel that they would both suffer in that setting (or in a traditional private school setting). Lily would suffer because she struggles, and Tiger because he would be bored.
Academically, Tiger is at or above grade level in every subject. Age wise, he would be in 3rd grade; however, the grade level of his curriculum ranges from 3rd to 6th. He is also no longer the shy little boy he once was. In fact, those that knew him then find the new Tiger unrecognizable socially. He can muck around with kids and hold conversations that would put some adults' social skills to shame.
Lily does still struggle at times with academics. Although her reading issues had to do primarily with the method her school used, she does also have ADD (not medicated), and has to work a lot harder then Tiger on a lot of things. Once we started proper reading instruction for her, she progressed well, and has been reading above grade level for years. The same holds true in other subjects. It may take time to find the right way for her to understand something, and she may move at a slower pace, but in the end we find it, we work through it, and she gets it. She is just one of those kids who struggles with the 3 R's (just like her father, I might add). The reality is that a traditional classroom (whether private or public) doesn't have the flexibility of materials or the time to work with her one on one that I do, nor do they have the time to invest on teaching her the strategies to seek out solutions for her issues herself. It is just as important for her to learn how to learn as it is for her to learn the material we cover. Socially, she is a little butterfly able to care for little ones instinctively (supervised at her age of course), enjoy playing with kids both younger and older than she, and communicate with adults respectfully and coherently.
I can't say whether we will homeschool through high school or send the kids to public or private schools in the future, as that will mostly depend on them. We aren't what most in the homeschooling community would consider unschoolers (if we must pick a "box", relaxed eclectic homeschoolers fits us best), but the kids are very involved in their own educations and will have a say in such decisions. What I can say with certainty is that if they choose to remain at home through high school I am confident that they will go out into the world prepared for it, because they are a part of it every day. In this age of technology with educational opportunities both on and offline, there truly is nothing out of reach socially or academically if you put forth the effort to find it.
In conclusion, I want to make my opinion on a few issues perfectly clear. In no way do I think public schools are evil or should be abolished. I do think public schools need change. In no way do I think all or even most teachers are bad or evil. I actually think most teachers are wonderful, giving people, doing what is often a thankless job. In no way do I think homeschooling is the only good option, or that homeschooling is right for everyone. I do think homeschooling is a good and valid option for many, regardless of financial status. In no way do I think what falls under the legal definition of homeschooling should be publicly funded (the legal definition is different state to state, but it is not currently publicly funded and is governed by its own set of laws or by an exemption in the states' compulsory schooling laws). I do think publicly funded schooling at home (which falls under public school regulations not homeschooling ones) is a valuable and valid option that should be protected. (Many who use publicly funded programs consider themselves homeschoolers, and in practice are in the sense that they educate at home and have at least some degree of control, however the legal distinction is an important one to those who don't use a publicly funded program because of the different laws and regulations governing the two.) My personal opinion on K-12 education in a nutshell is that parents have a right to choose the method of education that they feel is best suited to their own children, even if it isn't one I would choose.