Why We Homeschool

We used to talk about homeschooling our children. BEFORE we had them. When Emily was a baby, she was colicky and screamed from 5-10pm every night. She stopped sleeping when we were out and about at 4 months old. Literally. If there was something to watch, she would keep herself up. The naps were given up at 18 months. She would sleep 12 hours a night (thank god) but nary a nap (or break for Momma) during the day. She knew all her colors by 12 months, her shapes and letters by 20 months. She started talking at 6 months and would put 2-3 words together consistently coherently by 9 months. She had so many words by 14 months that we stopped counting. And she hasn’t stopped talking. So she started preschool and we laughed at our idea of homeschooling. It was like that idea that your kid will never eat at McDonalds and won’t watch TV.

We’ve always known Emily is intelligent. She had a long attention span from an early age and loved to hear stories. We have always read to her before bed (and continue to do so). She is a self-taught reader. I remember Mike driving her home from the library shortly after her 5th birthday (still at a play based preschool) and told me “Emily can read!” I didn’t believe him. Then she showed me. Within a month she was reading chapter books. We figured all kids were reading at this age. At Kindergarten parent night (nearly 10 months after Emily started reading and she was already reading Beverly Cleary), they passed out a sheet with 20 words on it and said “These are the words your child will be able to read when they leave Kindergarten.”

After a couple months of volunteering in the Kindergarten class, Mike and I realized that we needed to do something. The teacher did her best: she sent Emily to the 1st grade class for part of the day, had her pulled out for an additional literacy lesson, and made sure she had higher level books available in the classroom. But it just wasn’t enough. I accepted the fact that she needed to be in a gifted magnet school. Part of the application process was having an IQ test administered.

When the IQ test was administered, Emily had been up late the night before, had a cold, and still scored in the 99.6% overall for intelligence. On of the subtests on the WISC-III she hit the ceiling, meaning the test ran out of questions before she ran out of answers. The probability that her test score was a bit lower than reality is extremely high. We were told by the Psychologist administering the test that she should NOT be in a regular classroom for various reasons.

I was shocked. I knew my girl was smart, but I had no idea, really. I went through so many emotions–the strongest was a feeling that I had let my child down by not recognizing this. I still feel guilty.

So started our saga with the public school. We were sure they would be just as enthusiastic about Emily as we were. Here was a child with unlimited academic potential–who wouldn’t want to foster it? What teacher wouldn’t want to see how far he/she could take this student? Again, we were SO naive. We met during the 2nd semester of her K year with her current teacher, the gifted teacher, and the principal. I had a list of what I thought they needed to do. They agreed to everything except the grade skip, but assured us they would guarantee her a spot in the 1st-3rd multi-age classroom where they would happily teach to her abilities, so the grade skip was a moot point(and the principal said we would be happy she didn’t when she was driving before her friends???).

I found out later that the principal had a history of being known as a “yes” man. And the multi-age class? A joke. They refused to teach Emily anything but what other 1st graders were learning. They stuck her in a reading group that was reading a book she had finished several months before. And they spent the ENTIRE year on Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. An ENTIRE year. The only saving grace of the year was the fact that because of our testing, Emily was pulled out of class with the 3rd graders for Challenge (GT) 3 times a week. And the Challenge teacher was the only one that really fostered her abilities. In fact, out of all 3rd and 4th grade challenge students, Emily was one of 3 chosen to present her project (each child was assigned a state to research and give a presentation on) in front of all the parents on a special night (GT is so undervalued at the school that not one other teacher/administrator showed up BUT the GT teacher. Yup, the schools most intelligent students and a principal or vice principal can’t come and support them).

It was after Emily came home crying from a project presentation for her class that we made the decision to homeschool. All the children in the school are required to complete a 100 day of school project. The criteria was to demonstrate 100 in an easy to see way. Some kids brought marshmallows in groups of 20, coffee beans grouped in 5s, that kind of thing. Emily decided she wanted to do an elaborate LED (yes, light-emitting diode) display of her initials. She drew them on graph paper and transfered them to a large piece of cardboard. She poked holes through the cardboard and stuck 100 LEDs into it in the shape of her initials and a butterfly. Then, she SOLDERED each LED (over 200 solders—after the first few she burnt her finger so Mike held the soldering iron while she put on the solder) together to create a circuit. The girl spent close to 15 hours on the project (with troubleshooting at the end when it didn’t work–she figured out what happened in the circuit). I remember how proud she was of it and I remember dropping her off and school and walking her to her classroom. I couldn’t wait to hear about her presentation.

Later that afternoon, she came off the bus SOBBING HYSTERICALLY. She never wanted to go back to school. Here is a project she had poured her little heart into, and she got a 1 out of 3, and really no positive words from her teacher about it. My heart broke. I remember calling my mom and crying. I used it as a learning experience “You don’t do things for the grade, but for the learning. You don’t always agree with the grade your teacher gives you etcetera, etcetera” but my child, who had been so excited about circuits and LEDs, refused to have anything to do with them after that. It has been nearly a year since that episode, and we still have not been able to find that spark and hunger for learning for anything that she lost after that project.

We homeschool so my daughter can learn at her level, at her speed. We homeschool so when she finds her spark, she can go with it, learning as much about a subject as possible, without fear. We homeschool so she has time to be a child, to continue to create pretend worlds to play in for herself and her sister. We homeschool so her sister will not know what it is to have her creativity stifled and her spirit controlled by a classroom.

We are all happier for it.