When I got up this morning, after praising God for giving me another day, I started to think about why I started to home school our son. Often when our boy was younger, early elementary school aged, other parents would question me about why I home school. I have always answered this question honestly and I'll share now.
Before Nate was born, I had been told by friends in the public school system that I wanted to not put our child in public schools, however after looking at the prices of private schools I quickly realized that home school was an option that was affordable on our household budget. When we moved to a very rural area I was set to send my child to school because my thought was that in a smaller school with fewer students, he would be the attention that he and ALL children deserve. However, I was not correct. My husband and I enrolled our son in a private pre-K. I took exception to the fact that even when I came to the school and sat in on his class, my child was still not called on. The teacher asked students who wanted to answer the question she wrote to raise their hands, well, all hands went up and after calling on all but my son, she decided to go to the next topic. The look on my son's face was chilling, it said to me that even when his mom was there he wouldn't get called. I vowed to not let that look cross my young child's face again. Life will give you plenty of hard knocks, do we really need for our schools to teach children early on, that some will be called on and some won't? When I talked with the director of the school I was told that this was not a race issue. Well, I hadn't said anything about race but once the director said that it wasn't racial and that because her sister, our son's teacher, had taught under privileged students I did get concerned. I see no shame in being under privileged but the color of a child's skin or that of his parents doesn't make him under privileged. That thought did not make me a happy camper and I was certain that I could met and exceed the requirements of my child's education. I had looked into private schools, but the rural aspect of where we lived made a private school out of the question. These day the question is will I home school all through school middle and high school? That is the plan, we'll see how everything turns out. I will always be firmly ensconced in my sons education whatever our choices are. Home schooling works well for our family and I don't think there is any need to "fix" something if it isn't broken.
After all that is said, I enjoy teaching our son and really feel that this is what I need to be doing. Schooling doesn't have to be strict and with books only we are able to tailor the classes to his learning style, just as any home schooler can.
Before Nate was born, I had been told by friends in the public school system that I wanted to not put our child in public schools, however after looking at the prices of private schools I quickly realized that home school was an option that was affordable on our household budget. When we moved to a very rural area I was set to send my child to school because my thought was that in a smaller school with fewer students, he would be the attention that he and ALL children deserve. However, I was not correct. My husband and I enrolled our son in a private pre-K. I took exception to the fact that even when I came to the school and sat in on his class, my child was still not called on. The teacher asked students who wanted to answer the question she wrote to raise their hands, well, all hands went up and after calling on all but my son, she decided to go to the next topic. The look on my son's face was chilling, it said to me that even when his mom was there he wouldn't get called. I vowed to not let that look cross my young child's face again. Life will give you plenty of hard knocks, do we really need for our schools to teach children early on, that some will be called on and some won't? When I talked with the director of the school I was told that this was not a race issue. Well, I hadn't said anything about race but once the director said that it wasn't racial and that because her sister, our son's teacher, had taught under privileged students I did get concerned. I see no shame in being under privileged but the color of a child's skin or that of his parents doesn't make him under privileged. That thought did not make me a happy camper and I was certain that I could met and exceed the requirements of my child's education. I had looked into private schools, but the rural aspect of where we lived made a private school out of the question. These day the question is will I home school all through school middle and high school? That is the plan, we'll see how everything turns out. I will always be firmly ensconced in my sons education whatever our choices are. Home schooling works well for our family and I don't think there is any need to "fix" something if it isn't broken.
After all that is said, I enjoy teaching our son and really feel that this is what I need to be doing. Schooling doesn't have to be strict and with books only we are able to tailor the classes to his learning style, just as any home schooler can.
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