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**LJ Idol Season 4 Week 18 Entry: Unsatisfied**
As many of my regular blog readers know, I pulled my children from the public educational system. This decision did not surprise me, was easy to make, but definitely took quite a bit of thought.
I am partially the product of the pubic school system. I say partially because I did spend three years in an accelerated private school and I spent many of my days in public school tuning out the teacher and lost in my current reading material.
My grandparents were all formally educated through the university level. Two were instructors as well as farmers while my other grandfather served as a career officer in the United States Navy. My father grew up mired in a familial history enmeshed in Virginia state history. My mother grew up in Europe attending those schools wherever her father found himself stationed. Her fondest memories are of Greece.
My mother returned to the States at the end of her High School career and found herself in classes she took years before. Graduating from the public high school in her Virginia town was a relief, and came after she took summer school classes to finish requirements early.
My mother, for the most part, lived as a stay-home parent while my father worked in the chemistry department of the local nuclear power plant. Mother’s interests ranged from computer programming to archeology to foreign languages to sewing. Both my parents kept a zeal for learning though they no longer remained in the confines of a school.
Growing up, we watched little TV. What we did view tended to fall in the realm of documentaries, “In Search Of”, and science fiction. Our home was one filled with books. Books stacked up in the bathroom, on the dryer, in the foyer, by the stove, under the beds, anywhere a flat surface could be found! My mother boasts a library of over 3,000 books currently and my sons recently started helping her better organize these many tomes.
We all suffer greatly from the disease of needing reading material. At one point, I believe we sat at a table and discussed the ingredients on the cereal box before us.
The first few years of elementary school were most enjoyable. Unfortunately the fun and playing turned to academic pursuits. Pursuits that I had discovered the answers to before in my reading or documentary watching.
Which led me to boredom in the class. I fixed this by reading in class. In Fourth Grade I read the Odyssey under my desk. My boys followed in my footsteps. The first note home came from Caramon’s second grade teacher. Yikes.
My Junior Year of High School I kept track of my reading because one of our teachers said that is a common question asked on college applications. I read over 100 books that year not related to school. (This was in addition to my dance lessons and my part time job and my position on the staff of the school newspaper. Busy beaver? You betcha!)
I married my husband young, though I continued to go to college for a while longer. He was valedictorian of his class. We both worried about our children in the public school system mess. As it turns out, for good reasons.
We tried, but it just could not work out. In second grade our son was bored. What do you do to combat that?
Now I am thankful we pulled them from the school system. I am not sure what might happen if the following occurred in class one day.
We school at home and we follow our own pattern. So our US History is not done anywhere near like in the school system. I found a local class for adults on the US Constitution that I am hoping to get into. Inspired, I decided we might be between books currently for US History, but that didn’t mean we had nothing to do! I pulled up the Declaration of Independence and told the kids to read it.
And so they did. You have to understand, we read a LOT in this home. And a lot of what my children love to read the most are the classics. They just finished Journey to the Centre of the Earth. So the Declaration of Independence? Piece of cake.
There they sat at the computer screen reading away. Discussing the different points with one another. And then it came. The question.
“Mommy, I don’t understand? People is a plural word but they are using a singular verb. That’s not right, is it?”
Erm, uh. OK, time for a side lesson into grammar, especially the grammar of yesteryear that does not come up as often anymore.
I proceeded to explain to them how people can be used as a singular as done in this document. We get done with our discussion and both my boys seem fine with it. Fantastic! Great way to turn a history lesson into a grammar lesson! Go mom and kids!
Uh-oh. I spoke far too soon.
“Thanks, Mom. I just thought maybe the Founding Fathers had bad editors.”
I love my eleven year old son. He’s got this logic in him that is unexplainable. Both my boys are a delight when they pop out with these things.
Suddenly, I realized just how thankful I am they school at home. I can just imagine the backlash at the public school for a child DARING to say the Founding Fathers had bad editors. “OH yeah teacher, I think Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Ben Franklin… well they all just couldn’t write well and so they needed to hire better guys to help them out.”
“We need you to come in to discuss your son’s behaviour in class.” Welcome to the No-Fly-Watch-List for your antisocial, anti-American, anarchist tendencies! What ARE you teaching in your home?
Bad editors?
I love it.
And this is why I teach at home. The public school system did absolutely nothing for most of the members of my family and they failed my children miserably. To say we are dissatisfied with education in this nation is a gross understatement. Besides, why on earth would I want to miss out on these gems that would go unappreciated with others?
Don’t even ask about the experiment to recreate Archimedes Death Ray. The other kids in Joram’s class chose experiments to determine a coin flips. My son decides to try to rebuild a deathray Archimedes supposedly used to burn invading ships for cub scouts. Nice.
At least he didn’t say Archimedes had a bad editor.
–Lady O
awallens said:
I too want to homeschool my children if I have any. I was horribly bored in school, and even now I have a lot of difficulty in knowing it’s OK to be smart and intelligent.
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Lady Ozma said:
You should absolutely do it then
There’s so many resources out there. I was horribly bored and now school’s gotten even worse. They’ve slowed things down even more and it’s really bad. The last year the boys were in school I looked at it more as a babysitter than anything else. It was just something for them to do while I did my errands and housework and when they came home they did their real schoolwork.
If you are losing your love of learning in 2nd/3rd grade how are you going to survive until 12th?
I also struggle with the knowing it is OK to be smart. I get into a lot of trouble because I like to have intelligent conversation which often leads to opening discussing topics… ie debating. People just do not know how to do that anymore so it turns into this “OMG she must be a freak for believing that” and etc etc. Me? I just like discussing so I’ll bring up points to think about even if I don’t believe it. *shrug*
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gauvaine said:
Your boys sound like carbon copies of Jimmy Neutron, death rays and Greek mathematician’s notwithstanding.
I’m very impressed with what you have accomplished with them. It makes me want to strive to do better with my own girls, who do, unfortunately, have to survive the public school system. But Nevada is lightyears away from Virginia in quality.
I was one of those kids who was reading Tom Sawyer, the Count of Monte Cristo, Conan, the LOTR, Elric, when I was tweenish. Not very much television watching. Books were my only refuge to get away from things. My girls have way too many distractions and not enough motivation evem though there are probably 1,000 books in our home right now, not including what is in the garage and in storage that I had to pack up for lack of room.
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Lady Ozma said:
Hmmm…
encourage them to read. Bribe them with pizza night. 🙂 HEHE Turn off the tv. 🙂
My boys are fun. I love them. And yeah, I should have known they’d be little Jimmy Neutron’s when they thought Bill Nye the Science Guy was appropriate viewing at age 2.
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gauvaine said:
Re: Hmmm…
One thing I can say is that my girls are thoughtful, polite, and respectful 95 percent of the time. Everyone at church just thinks they are wonderful, especially the Young Women’s leaders regarding Ashlynd.
Kiera is a handful, however. She is willful, stubborn, and full of energy and it is hard to steer that into something constructive, at times. She has a very bad case of middle child syndrome, unfortunately.
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: Hmmm…
HEHE I am always getting compliments like that with my boys. I say woot to you! 🙂 Good job.
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spydielives said:
I took the older of my two sons out of middle school and kept him out until high school. We had changed school districts, going from a magnet school program (he had been in his third year) to a “gee this is the best we can offer him” poor county.
He really appreciates, now, what college can (and can’t) offer him. He complained the other day that his Civics class is just a rehash of stuff we did when he was younger, but what can he do?
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Lady Ozma said:
I ran into that
Those three years I was in private school were 6-8th grade. I then repeated those three grades when I went back into public school for 9th. The reason I went into public was there was not a private school for an hour that would handle high school. *SIGH*
But what could my parents do? They are not the hands on sort and while they are starting to believe in home school, they still sometimes question it. I think they are seeing the difference and that’s good. 🙂 They are really getting into helping with some of it and that’s cool.
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lilmissmagic71 said:
I.love.this.entry.
I have long been weighing my options when it comes to my now second grader… he is bored… while other kids are reading glorified picture books, he is making his way into Tolkien… while I know they have made some attempts to make sure he isn’t too bored, it really falls to me where true education is concerned… I scour the History/Discovery/Science channels for shows to DVR of which I can make a unit, I buy textbooks by the car trunk load and take what I think is pertinent and expound on it mercilessly… the only thing I really think he is getting out of public school is the feeling that he is very very different from his peers. This has worried me to the point of beginning the journey toward homeschooling full time… *sigh* I applaud your choice… I hope I can make the same one in future. I don’t want him to be the disillusioned student I became… so bored that I pretty much gave up…
On a side note, the description of your parents house, with the stacks of books on every surface describes mine to a ‘t’… I have software envy for my best friend who got a Readerware (http://www.readerware.com/) for Christmas and is cataloging her thousands of books, movies and cds… I am SO getting one!
great job on the entry! It speaks to a very real crisis in American education.
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Lady Ozma said:
If your second grader
can read and fathom Tolkien and actually is ENJOYING it… pull him out of school. He’ll never make it in there.
There is such a crisis in American education. I wish you luck. If you need any help/support in your journey I’m totally here for you. I tried to “afterschool” but finally decided that was doing more than “school”.
There’s a lot of good information and you can do so much.
I’d recommend highly homeschoolestore. THey have a free download each week. 🙂 Might make for some fun things to give your son for extra stuff.
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lilmissmagic71 said:
Re: If your second grader
Well, I am only letting him read the Hobbit right now… I fear he hasn’t attained the capacity for the themes in the actual LOTR trilogy… Of course, the movies are civilization at my house, so he is itching to tackle them… he has the vocabulary capacity, but I wasn’t able to tackle them until I was a tween, so I am taking it slowly with him…
Thanks for the words of encouragement… I may just take you up on the offer of support… it is daunting to think that my son’s education might be in my hands… then again, really, it SHOULD be that way (in my heart I feel that)…
I will check out the site and add it to my lists of places to get supplemental work… I have a tendency to just go a few grade levels higher until I see something I feel is right within his grasp… as he mounts that challenge, I up the stakes a smidge… He actually ASKS for work from me, so I think I may be doing SOMETHING right… *grin*
Again, your story really did get to me… thanks for sharing it!
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: If your second grader
I love fantasy but I have a love/hate with Tolkien. There’s a lot of hidden stuff that’s probably missed, but that’s OK.
I gotta tell you, if it helps… your concerns are the same of EVERY HS parent. It is sooooo daunting. It is very time consuming. And when you start and you see how little you remember and how little you ever knew to begin with… it’s real scary.
Homeschoolestore gives away stuff at all levels. One week might be preschool, another week might be high school. It’s a great resource.
If you want some good reading lists for him, check out amblesideonline.org and oldfashionededucation.com 🙂
I’m glad that my story did you good. You are welcome. I posted something about a year or so ago to out myself as a homeschooler. You can dig it up if you like. It goes more into homeschooling…
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lilmissmagic71 said:
Re: If your second grader
side note Tolkien: I have a sort of complex relationship with him myself… his body of work drew out my love of fantasy and also showed me how writing can have many layers of subtext… Unfortunately, I have to sometimes look the other way, irascible misogynist he was, when any female character enters the scene… poor man couldn’t write a woman to save his life *grin*
Thanks again for the HS links and help… I know I have to brush up on my Latin… I was sickened when I learned they didn’t teach Latin base in school any more *grimace*
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: If your second grader
I just hate that he’s so wordy and obtuse so that people attempting to use him as their “token” fantasy go, “This is garbage!!!” *SIGH*
You are welcome!!! 🙂
And yeah no latin base is a darn shame. Your son’s age you can get a program called Minimus that’s fantastic. The teacher book is a fortune, but the kid book is not that bad. My kids use Latina Christiana.
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monkeysugarmama said:
Wow. I believe in synchroncity.
This entry comes at the end of the week where I have begun to really consider homeschooling my children.
My son is too young for me to have a handle on his unique educational needs, but my amazing, intelligent, inquisitive daughter, I am beginning to realize, may just think too far outside the box for her to thrive in public school.
God knows my best education, the things I learned and actually remember, came from my own personal “research” as a kid and the travels with my family.
This rocked and I may be seeking you out soon for advice on getting started!
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Lady Ozma said:
Wow, really?
Children are so amazing with their love of learning. It’s so inspirational. And then somewhere along the way, they lose it. And it’s so sad. If you can keep that love going, go for it! Do whatever it takes.
I definitely remember far more from what I did outside of school than inside the walls. My boys love school at home more.
Feel free to ask for advice anytime. Someone else was saying they needed stuff for their son and I gave some great websites. Check out the comments. 🙂
I believe in doing what is best for you and your child. To some that answer is alternative forms of education. There’s so much out there for support, never be afraid to ask/look.
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eqfe said:
I debated responding to you lovely entry for 24 hours. I would say that my education experience was similar to yours if not worse. I went to an inner city Catholic school that was free, ridiculously underfunded, but safer than the local public schools. The teacher moved at a snail’s pace, some of my classmates did not speak English, and\or had serious learning disabilities. Put it this way I started working full time at night at 14 and keeping up wasn’t difficult. Of course had my mother try to home school it would have been worse.
I applaud your decision to homeschool and its obviously been great for you sons. It just seems to me that like so much of the educational debate in this country homeschooler’s downplay some of the most important differences.
You describe beautifully why homeschooling is better than public education, especially for your sons, but why wouldn’t full time, all day private, taylored instruction from an involved, highly motivated tutor be better sitting in a classroom of 20 children at different intelligence and interest levels.
It kind of like this ongoing issue of studies proving that students who have music and art education leading to a better educated child. When I hear that I always think, okay that’s right, students who go to well funded schools with a full educational program, (probably in a safer, better neighborhood, with involved parents) do better than students in poorly funded schools, (with probably larger class rooms, worse nutrition at home, and less involved parents.)Its no different that the discussion around PCs in the classroom etc.
My son read and analysed in detail books like Animal Farm by the second grade and was lucky enough to be in a public school that was well funded and dealt with him well. My oldest daughter who has dyslexia was not as well served by the school system and we had to supplement with tutor’s and my wife stopped working and spent hours a day reading to her, but I guess strangely in retrospect we never considered home schooling her. I guess it was in part because the quality of the science labs and science program in that school district. (she’s currently she’s a chemistry major in University)
Home schooling is a great option, but I think mainly because is speaks to the importance of caring, involved parents doing the best they can for their children. I just can’t escape the notion that public education in America fails so often because it is woefully underfunded and all too many parents can’t or don’t get involved both in the political debate around funding, and directly in their child’s education.
Ok I’ll get off my soapbox now, great entry.
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eqfe said:
Re: If your second grader
My son introduced my wife and I to the Wizard’s First Rule series by Terry Goodkind. This series is in the Wizard and Sorcerer genre with each book exploring various side theme’s from D&S to Communism. They have adult content, but are subtle and tasteful and totally non-misogynistic.
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Lady Ozma said:
It is sad to say
But even in well funded areas, the schools are underfunded. They are also tied to these standardized tests that they inflict upon students starting at grade 3. The teachers do not have the freedom to truly teach anymore as they race that test date to cram information in the heads of far too many students.
People ask me all the time, “Is your kids’ school really that bad?” Actually, no, it’s fantastic. We live in a wealthy county with schools that are amazing. The high school is in the top 4% of the nation. (Colour me surprised. I went there and thought it sucked rotten eggs.) I live in Northern Virginia, ranked the 6th smartest state in the nation.
And yet I still think the schools are underfunded. Even here the arts programs are always on the verge of disappearing, there is not enough money to give to promote the gifted programs, there is not really anything for the accelerated students.
Sure, once you get to high school you can take the college prep classes and then finally the AP classes that can gain you dual credit. But, by then, many of the students that could most benefit from it have given up. I’ll admit it, I slept through the college prep classes. I slept through my statistics class that Karma forced me to retake the following semester when I entered college. (I slept through it then, too. It was an easy A in high school and an even easier A the second time around.)
A huge part of the problem with education in this country is the fact that parents don’t take an active role. It doesn’t matter how much funding your school has, how great the teachers are, how great the curriculum is. If you have parents who figure they are off duty in the educational department just because “that’s why they go to school” you have a problem. Parents who don’t care to meet with their teachers, ask the kids about their day, try to keep up with what is going on teach their children an important lesson. “School doesn’t matter.”
You don’t have to homeschool, but you should involve yourself in your child’s life.
My dad is a nuclear chemist. He helps me a lot with my science program. HEHEHE
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: If your second grader
Excellent read. 🙂 I highly approve. *GRINS*
There are so many good books out there. Right now my boys say, “Read Jules Verne.” They like him a lot. 🙂
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eqfe said:
Re: It is sad to say
I love the way we keep violently agreeing. He he.
THe funny thing is that as much as I love and appreciate art, I hate Hate HATE doing it myself. Art in school for me was pure torture. (and not in a good way.)
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: It is sad to say
My artistic talents do not lie in what they teach in schools. It’s like ‘WTH???” I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life. So art was always painful, too. Ugh. I say the art teachers just don’t appreciate true artistic talent. That’s it!
HAHAHA
I hate that the fine arts are going the way of the dinosaurs. I fight for them. The students need them. And like you said, the studies prove that kids with a background in the fine arts do so much better.
I suppose it is easier to check out during the day and let the schools “deal with that”. Just like in the evening it’s easier to let tv and video games babysit your kids.
Thankfully there are very involved parents out there fighting to keep what we need in the schools. I throw my hat in with them whenever I can. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. Not nearly enough to go around. *SIGH*
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java_fiend said:
LOL… Bad editors. That’s so awesome.
I was particularly fond of the “ship shaker” that Archimedes built. lol…
Yes, I have lots of problems with our public education system as it stands. There is a whole lot they do wrong. But I think they do try to do some things right too. I’m a product entirely composed entirely from public education system and I don’t think that I suffered too much. I understand the boredom when you are already beyond what’s being taught. But I do believe there are teachers out there that can spark your imagination and really fuel a desire to learn, a passion for knowledge. I’ve had some of them. And that is the sort of teacher I aspire to be.
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eqfe said:
Re: It is sad to say
Its funny in my family the baby (Sarah age 12) is the fine artist, the rest of us are craft people, although my oldest is borderline. Her “crafts” are glass blowing an ceramics and those to things run the gamut from practical to fine art.
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johnmill79 said:
Very interesting logic on the reasons for home schooling. I’d always wondered why people chose to do that.
I think you are improving every week you remain in this competition. I’m sure you’ve always been that good, but I think it’s just a matter of getting comfortable writing in this forum. Well done.
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Lady Ozma said:
I know, I love it
I think the schools try to do right. But there’s just too much for too many with too little resources. You know? I don’t really blame them, and I sure don’t have any answers. I tried to be really involved, but that only goes so far. And at the last school I was stonewalled majorly and THAT did NOT sit kindly with me. Do NOT lock me away from my child for 8 hours a day. GRRRR.
I had really two teachers that sparked me. One was my 7th/8th grade english and history teacher at the private school I attended. The other, well her class didn’t really spark me, but she as an individual did. She didn’t mind me kind of doing my own thing and gave me some leeway. I’d spend time with her outside of the classroom after school in good discussions we couldn’t have in class. Of course on that vein, there was a third teacher that I never had, but she was similar. I’d spend time after class and have great literary discussions. She apparently wanted me in her 12th grade class but *grrr* issues with my guidance counselor.
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Lady Ozma said:
There’s many reasons to homeschool
And some of my reasons are not even listed. That’s in my “coming out” post I did about a year or so ago when I outted my homeschooleyness. HEHEHE
Thanks for saying I’m improving. I’ve done some things that I am proud of in this competition but they didn’t fly well. I’ve stretched myself. Entries like this are few and far between in my blog because I don’t keep it quite this personable and journaly. HEHE Just for because. I used to, but I stopped… don’t know why.
I hope I’ve improved enough that I continue through next week. Especially since I’ve already got a post up!
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taliajenea said:
My husband and I were homeschooled at least part of our scholastic careers and plan to homeschool our kids, too. It’s particularly ironic for me to abhor our school system, considering my degree is in education…
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Lady Ozma said:
Probably comes from
You see how bad the system is being in there with that degree.
I love to hear from 2nd + gen HSers. It gives me hope that my kids won’t grow up going ‘What on EARTH was my mother thinking????!!!!”
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taliajenea said:
Re: Probably comes from
Most of us go into teaching hoping to fix the system…fortunately, I don’t actually have to subject my own children to it. 🙂
My husband and I both appreciated the flexibility of homeschooling (as far as being able to keep up with our development). As a parent, I like not having to miss any priceless moments. We have an incredible homeschool community here, too.
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: Probably comes from
HEHE I hear a lot of teachers say that!!!
We have a great HS community here as well. I’ve got tons of people to hang out with, my kids to play with, tons of stuff to do. I love it!
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: It is sad to say
My boys love to draw. They are quite good. Far better than me, but that’s not saying much.
Now my oldest… he’s obsessed with paper folding. There’s not a piece of paper that will remain unfolded in his presence. He got the origami page a day calendar this year. he loves that thing. LOL It’s like his prized possession. Oy I needed more origami armies… HAHAHAH
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kittenboo said:
my son is 2, and i have no idea what i am going to do, it is a tough decision
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Lady Ozma said:
Good luck deciding
It is a tough decision.
I knew I wanted to seriously think about it before I was a mom. When my oldest was 3 and preschools wanted to charge me a fortune for doing nothing but basically playing… and then in Kindergarten he already knew everything for the year at the start… same with myyounger son… I figured my days in public school were numbered.
Your son is 2. You’ve got time to figure it out.
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