Possible Route

Leaning toward an option: local school district offers two half-days of on-site classes per week paired with home study using their curriculum. When I first looked into this I think there were some small differences in how the program was worded that made me close the window without further thought. This week when I re-read the description the wording enticed me and I saw that we are personally acquainted with one of the school's key people. We can get some insight from someone we know regarding the teachers and nuances of the classes.

• The most compelling factor here is the ease of the class time. I have always said that my kid needs some structured group learning time - whether it be one or two days a week in a school setting or multiple specialty classes that I choose and take him to on my own. Charter schools with such offerings are a drive; private schools with such are a drive and a lot of money. With the second option, there's cost and to have much variety, there's a drive. The route here proposed is a five minute drive and free. 
• Is it homescholing? No. It's learning at home. It's designed by someone else, overseen by someone else, and simply carried out by me. However it is ME for the equivalent of four school days a week. It is me deciding what approach and perspective to take, where and how to cover the material, how much we sit down, the daily schedule, etc, etc, etc and maybe more, I don't have all the details yet. I was looking at declaring myself a credentialed tutor and homeschooling 100% independently, that's the opposite end of the spectrum from this route. The lack of drive time, drive money, and class money are pro's here. Other definite pro: he is not one in 20 or 30. It is me focused on him; knowing what motivates him, what his strengths and weaknesses are, and caring very much.
• It is not the ultimate idealistic picture of homeschooling I have held in my mind. It is not everything I REALLY want to do that I really think is the best, but it may be very doable and doable counts for a lot - doable through thick and thin, consistent. Also, maybe I will be able to work in an awful lot of mentors and classics and Charlotte Mason; I bet I will. I probably won't be able to work in a lot of delayed academics and we'll just see how that part goes. If my kid is ready for the academics as they come, that's one thing; if not, it may do more harm than good . . . . and . . . . we can always try another route.
• Furthermore, academic concepts need not equal hours on end in a seat with "seat work." This option will hopefully still allow a five-year-old boy plenty of time to do things that I think are crucial - key words are dirt, play, experimenting, family, sunshine, running, climbing, thinking, problem-solving, imagining . . . .
• After spending months feeling a little crazy over kindergarten plans, I have total peace with this possibility. I still have legwork to do and details to learn; decision is not yet made but I have peace and peace counts for a lot. If we choose this route for kid #1's kinder year, that doesn't mean we are locked into this route forever. There are more school-aged kids and many more years of educating them on the horizon. This may be something we try and move away from or we may love it and be settled for a long time.
  

"You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing.

"What? Is it nothing to be happy?

"Nothing to skip, play and run around all day long?

"Never in his life will he be so busy again."
--Rousseau

I started my blogging journey with a great deal of tension inside of me . . . . as evident in many of my previous posts. Tension between my untested beliefs/ideals/hopes/etc and actually, personally, homeschooling and facing the pressures and expectations of both the outside world and my own years in the educational system and then the realization that finding some way to succumb to some normal route of schooling would be easier in every imaginable way - from actual hard work to time and space management in a little home to dealing with all the pressures.

I think the tension's gone! Not that it won't return or be an ongoing part of my journey, but the initial roadblock is gone. I am relaxed in that part of my brain and questioning whether or not it is laziness and apathy but am pretty confident that it is not. I embrace Rousseau's words above. I full-heartedly believe that nothing is to be lost by not intentionally striving after academic skills right now. I believe everything is to be gained by embracing play, fresh air, good books, God, and learning the content of the child's world that is naturally set before him each day (for now, not forever).

This article fits nicely with what I've always believed and now am ready to do without worrying.

This quote gives simplicity and focus to my world of academic learning:

What we need to improve education is not more curriculum, but better education, and that comes from classics and mentors. With young children you do two things: read them the classics—things at their level like Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web, the Little House on the Prairie series, fables and rhymes—then talk about it with them, teach them lessons.~A Thomas Jefferson Education p. 49

Barely Blogging

The last three weeks have seen sick kids, family vacation, Thanksgiving holiday, husband home a lot, and evenings spent either away or filled with other activities or with husband or as an exhausted pregnant mom going to bed early. And that is why I haven't even thought much about my blog, none the less actually blogged. And tonight's time here is very brief. First, to post this excuse and second, to mention that I'm about to update my "good reads" links - adding two articles I've come across recently. Both relate to my 10/11/11 post and my thoughts on play and early academics. Both do a good job of pinning school starting age more on economics and other needs than what's best for the brain of an individual child. . . . . very interesting reads!

In "good reads" links, see "What Can Slow Schools Teach Us" & "The Case Against Pre-School" (It was the second little short article on this page that first caught my attention; the top article is commentary on it.)

Soon I will share some pictures on November learning activities. My research and pondering time on what to do with my kids' education has been very little but there has been some discussion time on options and I did order a math book (Singapore Earlybird) to start working on with my soon-to-be-kindergartener! I'm anxious to get back to my old notes and contemplating educational philosophies and my approach for next year but honestly don't know how much serious research will happen in the near future with holidays and then baby on the horizon!

School hasn't always looked how it looks now in modern day America. The basic structure of public school as we know it had its beginnings right around the time of the Industrial Revolution and details have been changing almost constantly ever since. Generations and generations were educated in various other ways. And although there are many interesting tidbits to be gleaned by looking at education throughout history, age is my focus today.

The ancient Orthodox Jews did not begin formal schooling until age 12 or 13. This age happens to coincide with Piaget's findings (centuries later) on cognitive maturity. My parents started public school at age five, so did I, so do today's kindergartners, but things sure have changed. It wasn't that long ago that kindergarten was not viewed as an academic year. It was much more about play and arts and time with other kids, and I'm pretty sure the "Kindergarten Curriculum Contents" guide was not 81 pages long. In my own life time I have watched the formal teaching of reading, writing, and math skills get pushed down earlier and earlier in the public school classrooms. In my observations and research I do not see that the students are any better off for such an early push (and if anything worse off).

One of my college papers was on Vygotsky and the the importance of play to the overall brain development of a young child. In college education courses I had to research and articulate my thoughts on education. Recently I went out to our shed in hopes of finding some of the papers I wrote back then. I know that many of my beliefs haven't changed over the years and I could really use some of that studied, researched thought I put into those papers right about now. Sadly, the attrition rate, due mostly to rats and goats, has been pretty high in the shed. I couldn't find any of my old papers. I'm really mourning the loss because there was some good stuff there . . . . some jump-through-the-hoops-and-get-the-assignment-done stuff also but there were a couple of papers I remember vividly and very much wanted to re-read. I wish I had the paper in front of me right now, but I know that Vygotsky showed very powerfully how children need play, specifically imaginative play and interaction with people at different stages of development for optimal learning. When young children miss out on play time, their future cognitive development is affected. The things I researched and wrote about in college ring true to what I want for my own children. My goals of where I expected to see these things play out are what have changed. At that time I naively pictured myself spending the better part of my life teaching in a public school classroom. Today, I'm trying to come up with a picture of how it will all look in my own home.

Gatto says that if taught at the right time, basic reading, writing, and arithmetic can be learned in less than 100 hours. A leader at a seminar I attended said, "we expect our six-year-olds to sit in their seats for eight hours and tell our teenagers to go play." Now this is exaggerated, but the point struck me. I will expect my kids to be serious studiers but I do not see starting out that way. We will, and are, starting out with some academics but our kindergarten year will probably look much more like my parents' kindergarten year and much less like that of my son's peers. There is some fear in me here because I have a feeling that if you compare my son to other five, six, and seven-year-olds he will seem to be behind. However, I hope and believe that at age 12, 18, and beyond he will shine.

“I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age.”
Henry David Thoreau