Day 15: Then why home school? Secular Thursday

First, I will admit that I'm using my blogging obligations to procrastinate from the cleaning obligations around the house. Hopefully I will only allow myself a temporary distraction. :)




Around the web and around real life, I've found that it is hard for people to conceptualize a reason for homeschooling that is not for religious practices. The school is going to teach what I'm going to teach, right? So why not take advantage of the system that my taxes are paying for? You’re wasting your money and time better spent on your own pursuits. You can work and go on lunch dates with your best friend and be free to watch torrid romantic comedies during the day. Why on earth would you want to do exactly what the public schools are doing? If not for religious reasons, what else could there be?



I'm even going to go a step further and peer into the future and see the dimension where my son goes through the entire public school system and comes out of it okay. At least, no worse than the average student in the United States. Why would I want to home school?



Secular homeschoolers have a harder time proving why their reasoning is acceptable -even a few of those in the community have a hard time justifying their reasonings and, myself included, will latch on to other issues such as bullying, special needs such as learning disabilities or illness, and even curriculum as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back to justify the reasoning of not being part of the herd. Being a secular homeschooler puts you open to scrutiny because faith, even for the faithless, is infallible. You cannot argue belief in a God anymore than you can argue the belief in love. Mr Franklin said it best, "...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." So why would someone, who could as easily as they could home school, go and fight for the qualities they wish the school system to have? Sure, they could, but even if we did, concessions would be made and averages would be instilled and even if there was an improvement, the glaring mediocrity in that new public school system would tarnish even the most humble of educational requirements we have for our children.



So, I home school because I feel it is best. I see it as the best and I have faith that it will do the best. I don't need to align myself with a reason, a cause or a condition to persuade beyond the purpose of what I feel. If I must, I will liken it to a calling to God -that I believe that I can provide a better education for my son. Let the demonic public education cronies strike me down if this is false because I will not make my son a martyr to prove he deserves better.

Day 13: Not talking nice, not following directions.

Before I begin, I have to put up this timeline to help clarify my mood/anger/resentment/justification and all around bitchiness with this subject matter. I try, at least, to be fair in my judgment of the situation and while I've got a fire under my rear, I have a pretty loud bark but it takes a lot for me to bite. Since I'm catching you up to speed, I'm leaving some of the good out because this is about the bad.

It wasn't until after Logan's 6th birthday, around the end of January, that he had a good week. What I mean by good week is a collection of stars, smiley faces and stickers in the margin of his planner book designated for the teacher to remark on his behavior. School started in the 3rd week of August -so approximately 5 and a half months, even around Christmas with threats that Santa reads his planner (technically he does), we could not make one solid week of good behavior.

My please and thank you, open your door, ask you how your day was, pick up his toys by his own volition, helpful with the laundry, dishes, and all cleaning duties we will allow, pick up dog poop, make his own bed despite living in a house where beds are not made, thoughtful, caring, mindful, rarely needed but easily persuaded to do the right thing, sharing without prompting, courteous, loving little boy took longer than half the school year to have a good week. Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Up until that point, the best week he had was 3 out of 5 good days -the week before Christmas. If he had good days it was usually once a week and those were intermittent. Now, I wasn't expecting perfection, but definitely expecting the good to outweigh the bad.

Now that his behavioral situation is "explained" (....depending on how you look at it....)

We have had 4 meetings with Mrs. H in all. The first meeting the first week of school was met with, "I'm listening to you but I have to get this stuff done." so we tried to talk with her while she complained about the mountain of work she had while we were trying to figure out how/why Logan was having a bad day.

Second Meeting: A week later, the second week of school, of kindergarten, when I came to pick him up, she screamed at me about how horrible he was. In front of other parents, in front of his class, in front of Logan. Now, by this time I had been paying attention. Mrs. H had 23 5-6 year olds in her class. Long story short, I got a profuse apology from her, the principal and things improved for a week after that-then basically went right back to the bad days.

Third meeting: ADHD was brought up. So we would go and get him tested. We did (this was around his birthday) and his doctor said he had situational ADHD because, and I quote, "The teacher doesn't sound like she's got her shit together and can't control the class." Yes, reviewing everything made it bad enough for the doctor to curse (out of Logan's earshot, of course)

Fourth meeting we tell her that we're not pursuing anymore of this ADHD stuff, his doctor believes that the environment in the classroom is the culprit and we talked with her about how he responds to things. He is more apt to do something if he feels like he's going to get a reward -which is as simple as saying, "Good job!" (which came with a defense, of course, I mean how could we possibly think she's a negative person with all the previous examples of her behavior)

So from about early February to early April -a little over two months, I haven't been terrified of hearing how horrible my son has been, everyday, when I go to pick him up. But since his last bout of being ill with a virus, his little clique's no longer want to have anything to do with him, he's getting picked on and generally in a foul mood. That was his words yesterday and hers were 'not talking nice, not following directions'. We'll see what today brings. If it's another bad day, I'm going to ask Mrs. H how she would feel if she felt that she was getting picked on and not being listened to.   Sorry for the long post, hopefully I've explained the situation!

.....7 weeks, 3 days. We're almost done with this crap!

Day 1: We're in a box and we want out!

I should have started this blog sooner.....



This week has been a very trying one. Logan is sick. Very Sick. He also has been truant according to his school. Very Truant. And now we have to make sure that everything is cleared up with the District Criminal Attorney so, as Logan says, "We don't have to go to jail because he's been too sick." :(



This whole mix up could have been remedied if the attendance clerk has accurately reported his sick time being excused, but sadly, talking to her friend in the office is more important than her job. Imagine my astonishment to receive a glowering look of distaste for coming in there and interrupting her conversation about so-n-so to clear up the status of his absences was accompanied by a condescending jab about how I need to understand the importance of Logan being to school, everyday and on time.



Needless to say, I didn't take to kindly to the idea of someone saying that I am irresponsible and undermining my son's education. And did I receive an apology for the mix up that it wasn't reported correctly? Of course not! But now I know that I have to hand deliver notes and watch over her shoulder to make sure she does the job my taxes pay her to so that our family doesn't suffer the affects of gossip being more important than job duties.



This situation has now become what I will refer to as "The Straw". My sanity, my anxiety and my love for all that is good and great in this world has said, "Enough!" This is the latest thing that is now added to the laundry list of what can best be described as failures my son has been either directly or indirectly subjected to.



With private school being economically our of the question and charter school proving either impossible to get into and still subject to many of the same complaints in public school, what do we do? This is when homeschool entered my mind and has not left since suffering this latest bout of incompetency.



Yes. I said it. Homeschool. More commonly known as "religious-closed minded-sheltering-freak making-antisocial-hoity toity-anti establishment- brain washing" homeschooling. There. I said almost all the noted reasons for why I shouldn't consider it and those reasons have been considered. Rest assured, it is for most of those reasons that have brought me to this point. We are realizing the limitations of this box we've allowed ourselves to be in and we want out!

The plan:

Logan is going to continue through his kindergarten year because as hot under the collar as I am, I am not going to make a rash decision about his educational pursuits. This is his life and he needs what will work best for him. So, once school is out for the year, we're going to take a good break and work on this adventure. I want to set up the yarn/old toy dumping ground, aka the office, as a 'learning center'. I'm going to do a little research on what 1st grade is suppose to be like and what we're going to do that will help him should he return to public school because homeschool is not right for us. But for this time, we're going to give him and his education the chance we feel it's not getting in public school.

So, for now, this is it. My big plan and hopefully not too shocking or polarizing. I hope you enjoy reading about our Adventures in Loganland and our journey out into the unknown. Stay tuned for Day 2 where I hope to have a little more focus and hopefully not have to re-write a post because blogger has decided to be crap-tastic.

Loganism for the day: "There is not enough art in Art Class. We need to go to a museum because we can see more than in Art Class."