Ok, as a former homeschooler, I have always had mixed feelings about the whole world of homeschooling. It worked out great for me (as a musician, it gave me loads of time to practice), but I've also seen people for whom it didn't work out as well. But I've seen a number of things in the past year or so that have made me really rethink the whole concept of how and where my children will be educated.
We have three kids in school right now. One of them needs to be in the school system - Kristen (our oldest adopted child) has some significant learning disabilities, and is thriving in the Rockford Public Schools cognitive impairment classroom. This class has been fantastic for Kristen and her development. She has come so far in the past two years of being there, and they are actually allowing her to continue there for another year (even though she is technically supposed to move on to the middle school next year). We want to spend our time with Kristen helping her to learn the importance of family and relationship, not fighting to try to figure out how to help her learn. Her special ed teacher is fantastic, and we are thrilled with what she is getting from her school.
However (you knew that was coming, didn't you?), I am less than happy with what's going on with our other two kids and their schools. Katie (our oldest) is a creative, a very spontaneous yet smart kid (a little like me, but more visual than musical in terms of the creativity). She rarely if ever brings homework home (she has plenty of time to get it done in class) and is bored with school. The only things she really seems to like are her electives - band and her special writing class called Myths and Legends. Plus, the things we hear about and see from the other students in the middle school just make us wonder about the atmosphere there and the kind of people she's around on a daily basis. She doesn't have any close friends at school to speak of - she prefers to spend time with her friends from church, almost all of whom are home-schooled. Plus, the schedule is awful. She has to be on the bus at 6:45 AM (for school that starts at 7:30 AM) and gets home at 3:10PM. She is not an early riser, and absolutely hates having to be up early every morning.
Daniel (our 8 year old) is at the elementary school that is about a block and a half from our house. I think I struggle the most with the things I am seeing and hearing from Daniel and his school and classmates. The most recent thing that waved a huge red flag in my mind was when we were driving to the store and Daniel, out of the blue, said something about somebody having an AK-47 over his shoulder. Now, Bekah and I have never talked about guns, don't let our kids play (even pretend) with guns, and do not watch tv or movies with the kids - ever - that involve guns like that. Evidently, Daniel has friends at school who like to play war and guns and talk about that kind of thing all the time. Daniel is especially impressionable right now, and this incident, combined with some other things that have happened in the past two or three months have really convinced me that I do not want him in this environment right now.
Plus, there is the whole challenge of being locked into the schedule of the public school system...both the daily schedule (having to have kids at the bus at a specific time, meeting them after school, etc.) and the annual schedule (only being able to take vacations when the kids are on break or else pull them out of school). I don't personally mind pulling them out of school - I mean, what are they really going to miss for that week that we are on a family vacation? But they get grumpy about it. And send us letters telling us how many days our kids have missed. As if we don't know. And tell us how them missing this much school will keep our kids from making proper progress. While my oldest is bored out of her mind and my 8 year old is learning about guns and playing war and learning all kinds of nasty things to say to his siblings.
And then there's the whole issue of my wife's schedule. We want to be able to travel and invest in family time whenever Bekah is off from school. Which means that we have to take the kids out of school in order to do that. So we are seriously trying to figure out if we can homeschool in the fall while Bekah is a second year medical student. I think it can work, and probably better than what we're doing right now. Especially for the family. If Bekah has a light day or doesn't have to go in on a particular day, we can take the afternoon and visit a museum, go to the park for a nature walk, etc. She can do much of her work from home (since all of her lectures are recorded and available online anyway) - so she can do her school while the kids do theirs. And we can have the flexibility to travel when Bekah has breaks, we won't be tied into a 6:30AM bus stop schedule, and we can make sure our kids are learning how we want them to, away from the kind of influence we want to eliminate in their lives right now.
So on to the usual arguments about home schooling...they won't have any friends / what about their social development? That's one of the main reasons we want to pull them from the public schools. Daniel is learning the wrong things from the wrong kind of kids already - and he is only 8 years old! Katie - well, she's such an independent thing that she is probably never going to even want to be "in" at the school, and as a result, doesn't really care what people think of her. Both of them have friends at church - Katie in particular - and we would much rather have them plugged into those groups. We as their parents would much rather be directing their social development, thank you. We don't need the public school system and the culture / lifestyle / peer group pressure that comes with that system telling our kids how they should think, dress, and act, what they should say and talk about, how they should play, what music / movies / books they should like or not like.
What about extra-curricular activities? Band, drama, sports? We don't believe that our kids will miss out here either. There is an outstanding homeschool band here in Grand Rapids that Katie can play in if she wants to. Our church has two different co-op groups that I am aware of that offer students opportunities to do advanced science projects, art, and other things like that. We can also get them involved in MORE other opportunities (like classes at the YMCA, swim lessons, arts opportunities with civic organizations like the Civic Theater and UICA, etc.) and when they get older, they can even do early enrollment for college courses. Opportunities that do not exist for public school students because of their daily schedules.
And ultimately, it will allow our family to be together more - right now, we are limited by the kids' school schedule a lot more than we are by Bekah's med school schedule. As crazy as that sounds, it is true - at least in terms of how we would like to do things.
What would that mean for me as the "med school husband"? Well, it would mean getting to work together with my wife to teach our kids the way we want to. It will probably mean more work on my part - but it will also mean freedom and flexibility for our whole family. It will enable us to spend more time together - even if we all "do school" together (Bekah studies or watches lectures while the kids do their school work). My current situation gives me the flexibility to do this - while still earning enough money to pay the rent and keep the lights on and food on the table.
Am I crazy for thinking this can work? I don't think so...I am the eternal optimist, but everything I can see adds up to this being a better solution for our family than what we've done this past year. I think we can prove to the world that we can home school WHILE Bekah's in medical school. Check with us in a year and find out! :)
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