More on Homeschooling

I must have been more than a little peeved when I wrote the last blog post on why I'm seriously leaning toward homeschooling for our kids because I seem to have lost the ability to be articulate. It happens - especially when I feel strongly about something. Left brain, right brain and all that. So here's a more well thought out post to why I will be (most likely) homeschooling when it comes time.

First off, I should mention that I have a terminal degree in writing and English. What that means is that it is actually higher than a Masters but because they cannot give you a Doctorate in Writing, they call it an MFA which is a Master of Fine Arts. However, I do not think that having a degree or any other credential is necessary to teach your child. I have to give credit for a lot of my own education to my mother who had a simple Bachelor's Degree, something everyone has in India by the way. It's not as big a deal as it is here. So, even though I went to private school, the bulk of my really learning and imbibing took place because my stay-at-home mom ensured that I actually understood it. There was school work and then there was home work. She bought me books, sat down with me to teach me and took my learning very seriously. In fact, I owe my math and science grade in the 10th grade (that's the last level there for school, not the 8th) all to her tutoring. I believe if homeschooling had been a possibility when I was growing up, my parents would have probably taken it. English wasn't her strong point so maybe they thought it necessary I go to private school.

So I come from a background of knowing that it's no big deal teaching kids. Add to that the fact that California schools are pretty low on the national spectrum for grades and I don't think there's even a contest between another teacher and me. What is it that someone else can teach that I can't? I have a pretty high IQ (probably higher than most teachers, no offense, just reality) and know my kids better than anyone else in the world. I think they deserve the luxury of having their mother teach them instead of someone else for the same reason that we don't eat out often. No one knows my family's dietary needs and tastes better than me, so I don't trust anyone else to cook for us, well, not on a regular basis anyway. And for me to send my children away for six hours a day five days a week into the care of someone else who's going to teach them not just math and science but their own ideas (inadvertently) there would have to be a pretty high level of trust there. And trust and anything run by the government do not go hand in hand for our family.

Which brings me to another factor. Teachers are fond of saying that they don't teach the kids their ideology, but the fact is ideology doesn't need to be formally taught. It can be a wayward comment, a hint, a mention and the kids will pick it up. How do I know? Well, I may be 31 but it hasn't been that long since I was a child. Children are so impressionable that if you want to teach them the right thing, you have to be constantly on guard not just in what you say but how you act. And careful teachers are not! (Again, I have friends that are teachers and I'm sure they're fine but they're not going to teach my kids and I don't get to pick them, so I'm talking about the general group here.)

Since my husband works in a lot of schools (he's a fire alarm technician) I hear from him the almost institutionalized tearing down of boys that takes place on a regular basis in schools. Every other group it seems is protected except for the white male and it becomes a verbal free-for-all when it comes to insulting them. I'm sure the pendulum swung the other way at some point in time, but my kids are growing up today and today a real man and everything he represents is an endangered species. I want my son to be a man when he grows up and my daughter to be a real woman who respects a real man and they're not going to be that going to public schools where she'll think she's privileged and he won't get any respect to develop his personality. I mean, if playtime is seriously curtailed and no one keeps score any more on the playing field during a sport, where's the true spirit of competition? Where, in fact, is childhood? How are they ever going to learn about things like morality, right and wrong, winning, losing, the idea of failure, of doing the right thing? Forget nobility!

I suppose I am old-fashioned. I don't believe that everyone is equal and that "you can do anything you set your mind to do." And I don't want my kids growing up in la-la land because when they come out of la-la land they'll just be looking for another one. They may find it, of course, in the government handout world we currently inhabit but we'd like them not to. We'd like them to make it on their own, to think for themselves, be critical, have judgment, a well thought out opinion; we'd like them to admit when they're wrong and understand that everyone is not equal, that sometimes you cannot do or get everything you want, that life isn't fair but it's so worth being a real person. We'd like them to know that sometimes failures are necessary and there is such a thing as right and wrong, that nobility comes from doing the right thing even when it's so much easier to bend your morality and get by in a mediocre existence.

My husband takes his role as provider for the family very seriously and I intend taking my role as the mother of these kids just as seriously. Yes, I guess that makes us old fashioned and pretty conservative. I just see it as giving my kids the very best start in their lives that we can. The luxury of a stay-at-home mom who is also their teacher. What a privilege!