Homeschooling Michelle

         I have been toying with the idea of homeschooling my two children for some time now.  Each year my children went to public school it seemed to be more and more of a hassle. Some things were just little irritations for me like when I had to fill out papers at the beginning of school and half of them asked for my children’s social security number. I for one could not see why the permission slip to use the internet needed my children’s social security number. I took to writing “this isn’t needed here” in those slots. Also the field trip permission slips now have an addition to them that says I will not sue them. I felt I should not have to agree to this just so my child could go on a field trip, after all who is to say that one of people working for the school might not do something to hurt or endanger my child and then I couldn’t sue them? I took to crossing that part out on the permission slips. Then there was the wasted time. My daughter went to school 8 days this year and never got a book in those 8 days! I wondered what they had done for eight days. But those weren’t my only reasons, the children were made to run the mile in temperatures over 90* F. I felt this to be quite dangerous and indeed we just had a girl in our area that died while at school running the track. It was 97* the day she died and while they still do not know if the heat was the reason, I think just the fact that they were out there in that heat was ridiculous. Plus both my son and daughter have been attacked at school and on the bus and sometimes the other children were punished but most times these incidents were ignored unless I actually went to school and made the school actually do something!

              Still I hesitated. The children’s father did not want them homeschooled even with all these reasons. I was not sure myself if I could homeschool them well enough so they could go on to more schooling later. These things kept me stalling for 2 years until my son got to high school this year and decided he did not want to be homeschooled however Michelle who was in 6^th grade absolutely hated it and really pushed me to keep her home. Michelle has always done extremely well in school; she was even in their “gifted” program every year. I asked her to go for one term but she did not want to go that long, she wanted to quit right off.  Among other reasons she stated there was no time to use the restroom and there were no locks on the doors (my son had told me that in the boys room there were no doors on the stalls at all) and the girls just shoved them open on her. I wonder why our school can’t afford locks on the bathroom doors (or doors on the stalls)?

She finally said that her dad could just “deal with it” because it was what she wanted to do. Deep down I really wanted to homeschool her too. I felt she could get a lot more out of her schooling here at home. We could work not just on the regular classes but have classes in things, which are important to her; classes in things which she will really need to use in life. I felt as if the school was raising my children and not doing such a great job of it. I finally realized that I really could do better. I printed up the papers the next day and called the school board to find out where to send them. We went back to the school just once to get her things. She was so excited!

  I found books everywhere. I had some great historical reading books for her here since I am very interested in history. Our local thrift store started us off with a sixth grade spelling, a really interesting history book, a geography book and some science books. Embay provided us with all sorts of Homeschooling science and craft kits. I was amazed at the wonderful kits there were. Things Michelle would have never learned how to do in school. A friend who also homeschools offered to send me all her sixth grade books and cds for free!  I was pleased at how easy it turned out to be to get all these things I felt we needed.

It has now only been a week into our school year. We haven’t gotten our math book yet but I copied several free worksheets from internet sites. She is reading a Dear America book; these are wonderful history type books!  We did a solar kit where she used a solar panel to run a fan, chimes and a light. Today she started a growing geodes kit where she makes crystals grow. We did a cooking class where she learned how to make breakfast burritos and we have plans for a  ‘making salsa’ class. The geography book I found was great. It has little quizzes after each section with answers! The history book I found has short story-like biographies about people like Lincoln, the Wright brothers etc. We had an arts and crafts class today where Michelle made a beaded bracelet and earrings for herself. Michelle says she would like to be a writer when she grows up. I have ordered a 6^th grade Creative Writing book for her and she’ll have her first homeschool-spelling test tomorrow.

Now after just one week I no longer worry that she might miss out on things that I can’t teach her and public school can. I don’t think they would have been able to fit in half of what we have done here in a week and I know Michelle enjoyed it a lot more than she ever did school. But Michelle isn’t the only one getting something out of this arrangement, I too am learning and feeling good. There is something very freeing about getting away from a school system that has never really worked for you in the first place. I am proud of all that I am teaching her and I know we will both benefit from the experience.

Rebecca Whitford