Thing 1 has decided that he too would like to be homeschooled. My first reaction (kept hidden from everyone) was panic... How am I going to undo all the crap he learned in public school? Where am I going to start? Can I even teach him the Trivium at this stage?? How the hell I am going to afford this???
So I did what I always do, I read to find the answer. I found out it's never too late to homeschool. I also combed through The Well Trained Mind to see what teaching a highschooler is all about. I decided, through reading, that I will try to cram in a bit of the logic stage and some Latin before we move on to the rhetoric stage. It seems we'd almost have to do it that way.
I spent most of last night ruminating on it and most of today coming up with a book list. I definitely want to stick with Life of Fred for math. The rest I just pulled from the WTM book. I think we'll be getting a lot of his material from the library, but that's ok because he will be able to go himself and locate it instead of me dragging the brood.
I had a very serious talk with him today about what homeschooling will entail. I want to make sure he's not doing it for the wrong reasons. I also told him that once he makes his decision, there's no changing his mind. I don't want him to decide it was easier to skate through public school with mediocre grades than it is to not be graded but constantly supervised and held accountable for his work.
This is another huge failing of public schools. All they can do is give a kid bad grades when they're not putting forth the necessary effort. And so so many parents (myself included) brush it aside because their kid isn't "book smart". I'm not going to get in depth about why this is such a horrible way to think, but I will say that providing constant supervision and accountability, I feel, should eliminate this problem. He won't have a choice but to try.
So I eagerly await his decision. I am hoping I can get some help from the rest of the family. I'd like to get him a Kindle for reading a research. Big Daddy has one, so it's not absolutely necessary. Thing 1 also has a laptop for any internet research. He'd also like to continue studying German, so I'd also like to get Rosetta Stone for him. Thankfully, he has family members that he can converse with in German. I'd also like to acquire a good microscope for all of them. I think this will be doable. I've already resigned myself to the fact that we are probably going to have to use some of our savings to get all this material. I stretched the income tax return pretty far, but the cost of food is really draining us (Thing 1's friend's mom calls Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck", I tend to agree!).
I'm feeling pretty good about Thing 1 staying home now. I was a bit scared at first, but all I had to do was remind myself that, whatever I do, it will be better than public school. Sure, he may not receive all the benefits of a thorough, early Classical education, but it still has to be better than public school.
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