Yesterday was the first time I said the words aloud in public. “We’re homeschoolers.”
Just like that. Flat fact. Not “We’re leaning toward homeschooling,” or “We’re considering homeschooling," or “We’re considering all the options.”
The power of words is tremendous. Saying a thing out loud breathes life into it, gives it shape and form. Saying a thing out loud makes the thing real.
And you know what? It felt good.
Of course, kiddo-schmiddo is nearly official kindergarten age now, which makes it easier. I never did know what to say to people who asked me about school. It started when she was a zygote. I remember being in a restaurant, and this nice blonde lady asking me if my kiddo-schmiddo was in school yet, and I just stared at her, perplexed. K-S was in a highchair trying to eat a straw at the time, so naturally I thought the nice blonde lady had a visual impairment. “No,” I said, kindly. “No, she’s not in school. She’s not even two yet.” And the nice blonde lady, without skipping a beat, shot back, “Neither’s mine. You gotta get her in school.”
Or what? I didn’t say. Or she’ll miss quadratic equations? The kid can’t even wipe her own butt! She needs to be in a roomful of other cookie-crumblers for 8 hours a day like she needs a hole in her head.
It’s funny how that always seemed to be the first question out of everyone’s mouth—friends, family, perfect strangers. “When are you going to put her in school?” Yeah, I know, conversation starter and all that. It’s just funny that nobody ever tried to start a conversation by asking what her favorite color is, or does she like to draw, or does she have a dog. For a culture that seems to have pretty much given up on education for the over-six set, we’re pretty obsessed with it when it comes to infants and toddlers.
Anyway, all that’s behind us now. From now on, when someone asks me if K-S is in school, I’ll tell them what K-S herself told the last kindly gentleman who enquired.
“Yes, I’m in school,” she exclaimed proudly. “Mama school!”
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Who the heck I am and why the heck I'm blogging
I've resisted the urge to blog for years--mostly because I've been making my living as a freelance writer/editor for longer than I care to admit. Blog? You mean give it away? Pfft! I spend enough time and energy writing on spec as it is. And with all the discussion boards and forums and social networks I've frequented over the years, somebody somewhere is maintaining a database stuffed with quite enough squirmingly personal information about me, thank you very much.
So. Obviously, I'm blogging right now. Right this second. What changed?
Well, my kiddo-schmiddo came along. Way later than anyone expected (if she'd been born any later, I'd have made the cover of the National Enquirer) and way, way more disruptive. In the good way. Suddenly everything I knew and believed about raising a child went out the window, and before I knew what was happening, I was considering.... homeschooling.
There. I said it.
Now, up until relatively recently, I was like everybody else. I thought homeschoolers were weird, stunted little people desperate to keep their kids from experiencing The Real World. Then, a few years ago, I made contact with a long-lost relative who, as it turned out, was homeschooling her three children. And they were all normal. Actually, cooler than normal. One of the kids was competing in chess competitions at the state level, and one was working at a veterinary hospital while pursuing dual-enrollment at a local college, on her way to earning her D.V.M. And they all walked and talked and held their forks in the right hand and everything.
"You ever heard of John Gatto?" the mom mentioned, in passing, and then of course I was off and running. Not because I thought homeschooling would ever affect my life (my daughter was barely crawling at this point and school seemed as hazily ridiculous as a driver's license) but because, well, I'm nosy.
I looked up John Gatto, all right. And then I kept reading. Books, magazines, Web sites--anything I could get my hands on that was even tangentially related to homeschooling, I read. A couple of years passed, and by then I was convinced that homeschooling had the potential to be far more effective than institutional schooling--especially for a kiddo like mine, who's a breathtakingly exasperating combination of bull-headedness, hyper-sensitivity, and frightening intelligence. My problem was I didn't think I could pull it off. There's this little matter of paying for food and clothes and utilities, and where the heck was I supposed to find time to lecture about Archimedes and administer spelling tests while I was stumping for a living?
No answer yet to that last one. But as I tell my daughter, We don't do things because they're easy. We do them because they're the right thing to do.
For us--for now--homeschooling is the right thing to do. And I'm blogging about our adventures in Homeschool Land in the hopes of encouraging just one someone out there who's on the fence--just as I was encouraged, over and over again, by the blogs I've read over the years.
So. Obviously, I'm blogging right now. Right this second. What changed?
Well, my kiddo-schmiddo came along. Way later than anyone expected (if she'd been born any later, I'd have made the cover of the National Enquirer) and way, way more disruptive. In the good way. Suddenly everything I knew and believed about raising a child went out the window, and before I knew what was happening, I was considering.... homeschooling.
There. I said it.
Now, up until relatively recently, I was like everybody else. I thought homeschoolers were weird, stunted little people desperate to keep their kids from experiencing The Real World. Then, a few years ago, I made contact with a long-lost relative who, as it turned out, was homeschooling her three children. And they were all normal. Actually, cooler than normal. One of the kids was competing in chess competitions at the state level, and one was working at a veterinary hospital while pursuing dual-enrollment at a local college, on her way to earning her D.V.M. And they all walked and talked and held their forks in the right hand and everything.
"You ever heard of John Gatto?" the mom mentioned, in passing, and then of course I was off and running. Not because I thought homeschooling would ever affect my life (my daughter was barely crawling at this point and school seemed as hazily ridiculous as a driver's license) but because, well, I'm nosy.
I looked up John Gatto, all right. And then I kept reading. Books, magazines, Web sites--anything I could get my hands on that was even tangentially related to homeschooling, I read. A couple of years passed, and by then I was convinced that homeschooling had the potential to be far more effective than institutional schooling--especially for a kiddo like mine, who's a breathtakingly exasperating combination of bull-headedness, hyper-sensitivity, and frightening intelligence. My problem was I didn't think I could pull it off. There's this little matter of paying for food and clothes and utilities, and where the heck was I supposed to find time to lecture about Archimedes and administer spelling tests while I was stumping for a living?
No answer yet to that last one. But as I tell my daughter, We don't do things because they're easy. We do them because they're the right thing to do.
For us--for now--homeschooling is the right thing to do. And I'm blogging about our adventures in Homeschool Land in the hopes of encouraging just one someone out there who's on the fence--just as I was encouraged, over and over again, by the blogs I've read over the years.
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