At the beginning of this week my Facebook wall was flooded with photos of all these kids posing for their first day of Back to School. Many of my mom friends rejoice about this time of year with exasperated relief. Finally! I hear them shout, because once again they get to be rid of their children for several hours a day, five days a week.
I have mixed feelings about this phenomenon. On the one hand, I am super envious. I wish I could be free of my children for several hours a day, five days a week. I would love to have more than a couple minutes a day to myself in which I can just sit down to think and don't have to meet the needs of my demanding little monsters, only one of which can form actual sentences and talk to me, whereas the other just points and squeals urgently to get my attention for the things she wants. More aggravatingly often than not, she wants to sit on my lap and keep me from doing anything at all but being her chair.
Don't get me wrong. I love my children. I wish them only the best. I want to do right by them. I want them to have the best education possible. I want to see them succeed in their futures and not be delegated to just another fast food drive-thru attendant. I also super hope that by the time they are adults all this misogyny and gender stereotyping that goes on these days is obliterated from the world entirely.
While I would love to be rid of them for just a little while, to have a vacation to myself, I still find myself frowning at all these bright and smiling faces of children dressed up in the nicest thing they're likely to put on all year in an effort to make a good first impression. I remember those days with a certain sort of eye-rolling bitterness. What you wore the first day of school sealed your fate for the entire year. Either you'd be that kid with the brand new designer jeans that will instantly make you everybody's best friend, or you'd be the kid in your Great Aunt Lucy's hand-me-downs taken in at the waist to better fit you and ridiculed the rest of your life.
These are things I don't have to worry about with my children, yet, and desperately hope I never will. I think the only guarantee that I won't have to put them through that sort of exhausting social ringer is if I stick with my plan to home school. But that also means sacrificing my sanity and me time, and as an introvert this is an extremely difficult need for me to give up.
On the other hand, however, I've noticed that with so many other kids going back to school, everywhere else becomes virtually abandoned for several hours a day, five days a week. This is a bonus for us, with my husband's new work schedule. On the first of September he'll have switched up his week to having Sundays and Mondays off. This is nice because most of the nation goes to church (which we do not) on Sundays and kids are in school most Mondays (except those pesky holidays that always seem to fall on one; I'm looking at you, Labor Day). Therefore, the world is our family outing oyster! Free of crowds! An introvert's dream come true!
Last week was a primary example of the wonders of not being bound to society's expected nine to five grind. We took the opportunity of most of Cleveland going back to school last week and decided to have one last final end of Summer hurrah by visiting the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, just the four of us. The place was wonderfully deserted. Though we were a little sad to see the dinosaur exhibit was no longer operating, it was nice to be able to walk the park (even the Usurper) without having to dodge around the self-important and rude we encounter just about everywhere else.
The girls loved it. My husband and I loved the fact that we could actually enjoy ourselves and not get super cranky from having to deal with so many people. The last time we were at the Cleveland Zoo, we went with his sister and family, and the littlest monster pictured above left was so tiny that she slept in her car seat in the stroller the entire time. The place was packed with people then. We missed out on some of the exhibits both times, but it was nice to sit in the picnic patio and eat overpriced McDonald's for dinner without another living soul around us this time around. We actually got to hear the lions roar when they came out of their cave to bask on the sun rock.
This time we got to see the timber wolves, too, unlike last time, but neither me nor my husband could get a good picture of them. However, the littlest Usurper was immediately drawn to these statues, so she and her sister stopped to ride on them a little bit. I think, perhaps, she was remembering our temporary dog Lucky who went back to live with his original family before she was even crawling.
Sadly, the tiger was napping in his cave by the time we got to him. This was more disappointing to me, I think, because I was the only one who knew what we had hoped to see. The Usurper's favorite animal in the world is a tiger. She absolutely loves them. Probably in part thanks to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Had she seen the tiger, though, I think she would have tried to climb into the exhibit, like she kept trying to do when we walked through Kangaroo Land and saw the grizzly bears. Regardless of constantly having to battle her with her insistence on walking everywhere (I'm shocked she didn't pass out in the car on the way home), we had a good time. Admittedly, it was nice to be able to unleash her without fear of losing her in a crowd. Though having to pull her down off of everything and keep her from trying to squeeze herself through the bars of certain enclosures was an adventure, let me tell you.
We'll be going back to the zoo in a little over a month, but not the one in Cleveland. Ever since the Overlord was born, we've tried to continue carrying on a tradition with our friends to attend the Akron Zoo's Boo at the Zoo event. Of course, Cleveland does this too, but Akron is much closer for everyone involved. I'm hoping this year to get a bigger group of us together, now that more of my friends are having kids too. So look forward to October when I'll talk all about it!
Because this entire post is significantly lacking adorable pictures.
Remember when I said that the only reason I started this thing is because of my fellow mom friend Stacy? I don't even remember the conversation that brought it up. I think maybe we were talking about homeschooling, and how we're both feeling strong convictions to do that for our daughters. Whereas I have the full support of my husband, she's had to slowly persuade hers to the cause.
That seems to be a common factor among my fellow nerdy mom friends who are also considering or are already homeschooling. In fact, a small group of us had an entire conversation the other day on my Facebook wall about it. The subject came up when I posted a link to a product I found on the Toys R Us website that I greatly desired not just one of, but two. The item I'm talking about is a little kid's school desk. Not the vintage school desk that I'd have to pay millions for that I really, really covet, that I used to have as a child, but a cute little one that models the design in a more modern way.
So this got one of my friends kicking off the conversation of starting a mom group that caters specifically to us poor, forgotten Red Dragon Inn icons who fell into parenthood and out of role-playing. Geeze, I miss role-playing. I'd probably die if it weren't for Facebook, which allows me to keep in touch with all these beautiful minds that I wrote so many amazing stories with. And now we write about our kids. Hah!
Let's talk a minute about why homeschooling. I mean, why would I even entertain such a wild notion? I went to public school and I turned out all right. Right? If by "all right" you mean that I grew into a pretty level-headed, intelligent woman who managed to avoid teen pregnancy, drug addiction, food stamps, and STDS. Yeah okay. Sure. That happened, but I can only really thank public schooling for half of those things. Thank you, 5th, 7th, and 9th grade Health Classes. Without you, I-- No. That's not right. Those were just refresher courses to the things I had already learned from an anatomy book my dad kept in the basement that he had no idea I had found and read cover to cover. Because of some of the illustrations, I thought it was porn. Don't judge me!
Yeah. I'm pretty sure that long before I had ever brought home the permission slip for my grade school sex ed. class that I knew quite a bit about the birds and the bees. Thanks to a book. Truth be told, almost everything I have ever learned has come from books. I was so horrible at math in school because none of my teachers could ever explain it in any way I understood. The books were no help either, until I got to college and took a remedial math course with a book that made sense. I still ignored my professor, and spent my time reading the lessons while doing the homework, since attendance was mandatory.
If attendance was not mandatory, I probably never would have gone to school. Primary, secondary. Any of it. If I had known that homeschooling was an option, I probably would have begged my parents to set me up. The only positive experience I got out of formal schooling is the friends I made, and only because we've managed to maintain and rebuild our relationships since. Everything I ever learned in life that was worth knowing, I pretty much taught myself. By reading books, and through practical experience.
As an example, my high school English classes come primarily to mind. Fun fact, I was never in any advanced placement classes, and I think that's because I was terrible at memorizing terminology and reading retention. However, I was (and am) an amazing writer. I'm just going to put that out there because everybody tells me so. People have been expressing awe at my writing talent for as long as I can remember. All the girls in my Speech & Basic Comp. class, when reviewing any papers I wrote, would whisper aside, "How do you write so well?" The truth is the same now as it was then; I don't know. I just do.
And I'm sure my grammar isn't perfect. (Look right there. Starting a sentence with a conjunction. Geeze!) But boy do I know how to tell a story. You know how I learned to do this? Studious application. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote . . . all the live long day. When I should have been listening to a teacher explain something, I was instead writing stories. It probably looked like I was taking notes, but I wasn't. My brain has always been stuck in a fictional world, and I had to let it out!
So what did I learn at school? How to write, and write well. Did school teach me how to do this? Not really. No.
I tried college, because the one thing school did teach me was that I should continue going to school. I finished one semester, four whole classes, before giving up on it entirely, but that's another story. I have loads of stories. The more time went by, the more I realized that finishing a college education wasn't really going to get me anywhere. What I really wanted to go to school for was a major in Creative Writing, but the Capricorn in me kept (and continues to) saying that such a dream wasn't exactly practical. I mean, what the hell was I going to do with a degree in Creative Writing? Write a book? Well. Shit, son. I can do that without a fancy piece of paper hanging framed on my wall.
And that's when I realized... My children can do the same thing.
I'm not very good with statistics. I don't even know what to Google search to give you "the numbers." What I do know is that today jobs are goddamn scarce. Unemployment levels are high. People are putting themselves into tremendous debt just to secure themselves that piece of paper that says they're qualified for the jobs that are not there. So I realized that "the system" is jacked, that going to school isn't going to ensure my children anything.
So I have done the other thing I am good at; I have researched. I have read, and read, and read, and read everything I could possibly get my hands on regarding education. My favorite so far is the Sudbury method, which in its simplest form is basically professional unschooling. I very much like the idea of unschooling, that the child's entire education is based upon the child's interests. Many people reject the idea that children are capable of learning without structure and lesson plans and being taught by some authority figure, but my experience, again, begs to differ.
My oldest is only three years old. Since she was born, I have pretty much instinctively been teaching her. From the moment she learned to ask "uh-dat?" and point at something inquisitively, I have been teaching her. Even before then! We teach our babies from birth. They watch. They absorb. Even the experts will tell you that babies are little sponges, drinking in all the information and knowledge of the world around them. So long as we aren't keeping them in a box, devoid of stimuli, our children are learning. Every single day.
Pretty early on, my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, and various other people, asked me if I was going to enroll Lilah in preschool. I could not, and still cannot, imagine why. Preschool costs money that we do not have to spare, unless it's a Christian preschool, and you all should know how I feel about that already. I'm told Head Start is free, but I'm not even sure I want to bother with that.
What can preschool teach my child that I cannot teach her at home?
That is the one question nobody has been able to give me an answer for. And you can't even say "socialization," because then we'll just get into an argument about the definition of that word and... Just forget it. She learns social skills, what everybody actually means, just fine without having to be boxed into a room with twenty or so kids her exact same age all day long.
If we're talking math, science, history and all that general information that she needs to prepare herself for formal schooling, I'm pretty sure we've got that covered at home, too. We signed the girls up for a reading program at our local library called "1,000 Books Before Kindergarten," and the premise is pretty obviously simple. The goal is to read a thousand books to your child before they start Kindergarten. The idea is to instill a love of learning and a love of reading into your child so that they continue to learn. Once you read 500 books to your kid, bring them back for a free book. Once you read a thousand, the kid gets a t-shirt.
With the program packet came a paper that listed all the skills my kid would need to have learned before entering Kindergarten. Lilah is three years old. Out of the fifty some odd skills, she is only lacking achievement in about ten of them. I don't doubt that she is capable of learning, that she might even possibly be applicable for early placement. I don't doubt that she is eager to learn either, but that's exactly where I want to keep her. I don't learning to become a chore for her, as I felt school was for me.
I have heard that now kids are being sent home with homework as early as Kindergarten these days. I don't remember doing homework until I was in 6th grade! Parents are being pressured, too, to enroll their kids in a hundred and one extracurricular activities on top of all that. When do children simply have time to be children anymore? And the government wants to cut back on recess? Make school hours longer? Add more days? I'll just allow Sir Ken Robinson to better explain what I'm trying to say:
Let me stress again that Lilah is only three years old. Three years old, and the following is an incomplete list of the things she already knows:
The Alphabet - She can identify all 26 letters, upper and lowercase, visually. She knows which sounds all of them make, and can sing the alphabet song.
Numbers - She can identify all single numbers 0-9, visually, and the number 10 (one and zero together). She can count from one to ten without problem, and is starting to advance eleven through twenty ever so slowly.
Shapes - She can visually identify circle, square, triangle, rectangle, octagon, pentagon, oval, and sometimes trapezoid. She can draw circles.
Colors - She can visually identify all of the following colors: blue, yellow, red, green, purple, orange, black, white, and gray.
Spelling - She can recite the spelling of the following words: Lilah, Amelia, Mommy, Daddy, and cat. Additionally, she can write her own name, though her penmanship needs a lot of work still.
Counting- She is currently capable of counting groups of objects up to a maximum number of ten. Groups of things that do not exceed the number of five she can add up without having to individually count them.
Navigation - She knows which direction to turn out of our driveway depending on where we intend to go. If we are going to the library, she knows to turn right. If we are going to the park, she knows to turn left. I've noticed, too, that she has my innate ability to return to a location she has previously been, or backtrack, with shocking precision.
Landmarks - She knows what specific buildings are when we pull into parking lots. She knows what our house looks like, what the library looks like, what the "Farmer Store" looks like, what Walmart looks like, what her cousin's house looks like, and her friend Addison's house. She knows when we have arrived at our destination, generally proclaiming, "It's _______! We're here!"
Music - Though I can tell she shares my unfortunate issue of tone deafness, she can sing all of the following children's songs: "ABC Song," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "The Wheels On the Bus," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood Theme" (and various lesson songs), "Super Why! Theme" (and Pig's Alphabet), "Old MacDonald," and many more.
Most, if not all of the above knowledge, she figured out on her own, and (gasp!) from watching television. Yes, I let my kid watch videos, but I monitor her viewing. We watch only age appropriate programs, things like Blue's Clues and Super Why! (her two favorites). She watches what she chooses to watch, within reason, on Netflix, where there are absolutely no commercials.
What she did not learn from TV, she learned from asking questions, from being curious, and from observing the people around her and environment in which she lives. She learned all of this from practical application, from repetition, practice, and from my reading to her. She is already beginning to understand how letter sounds blend together, and I imagine she'll be reading independently by this time next year if not sooner.
So I ask again: What can preschool, or any school for that matter, teach my children that I cannot just as well teach them at home? Or, for that matter, that they can learn on their own? Especially with the library a mile (20 minute) walk up the road.
ps: If you're interested in joining our Nerdling Academy Moms ONLY group on Facebook, where we talk about this and more in a lady friendly, judgement free environment, feel free to shoot me a message, or search for "Nerdling Moms". Peace!
