On to the next popular question about homeschooling. {If you missed the first couple of posts, start HERE.}

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After inquiring about where our kids go to school, the next question follows easily. It’s a question we are asked often, second to the frantic and concerned inquiry about how our kids are socialized (I’ll get to that glorious one later).

“So… what made you decide to homeschool?”

Gosh, this is a question begging for a long-winded answer. With so many reasons surrounding the easy truth that we just felt we needed to, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Reason number one is child number one.

He’s so far out of the box he doesn’t even know the box exists. In my experience, parents often take offense at the mention of an intellectually gifted child, as if it somehow lessens the value of their own. It’s a strange phenomenon, but this weird parental competitiveness keeps me guarded on the issue. So typically I don’t discuss giftedness and homeschooling in conversation. However, I do want to be clear: having a gifted child was huge for our family in deciding to homeschool.

We did know pretty early on that we wanted to pursue the idea of home education, even before we had kids. The ultra-rich hire independent teachers and call it private tutoring. It’s the same thing except that tutors don’t fold laundry. We had pipe dreams of traveling as a family and other such nonsense reserved for musicians and Sir Richard Branson (we can dream, right?). Some friends of ours who started the family journey several years before us were already on the home educating train and we loved what we saw there. So when Micah came along, the seed was already planted. He simply provided the fertilizer to make it grow.

But shortly before his kindergarten debut, I panicked.

“This is for real now,” I thought, “I am totally going to mess this up!” I completely disintegrated. Reading and introductory addition seemed like certain death and the responsibility of formally teaching my own child suddenly felt like the entire Library of Congress was stacked on my chest. At the top of the pile were little devils in sharp suits pointing and shouting, “You can’t do this! You’re not qualified! You will ruin his life!! He will never learn to read because of your incompetence and everyone will watch you fail!” I was forfeit. My husband, always supportive of anything I pick for our family, said he would fully support whatever I thought was the best path.

That was my big out. Relief!

We enrolled Micah in a small, local private school. It seemed a good compromise between the worlds of public and home schooling. He had only eight kids in his class and a teacher fit for boot camp. A sweet bunch of five year olds like grapes in the press. Yes, their teacher kept order in a way that surely taught discipline, but it was too much. A kindergarten teacher should have some nurturing quality that endears him or her to their students. These are the pink-skinned newbies for crying out loud.

My first clue this was a bad match was the daily notes that came home in red ink and Laura Ingles Wilder era cursive. “Micah is sharpening his pencil too often. Please have pencils sharpened before class,” or “Micah did not finish his seat work again. He is taking too much time to complete assignments.” They were nit picky notes even if true. Tattle tales that a teacher should handle in her own classroom, not serious behavioral issues needing immediate parental attention.

Well… except the one that said, “We do not kiss our seat mate. It is inappropriate.” Ok. I’ll give her that one, but until I got the giggles under control I couldn’t even ask him about it. Once I did, I had to concede that his seat mate was indeed adorable, but we agreed that kissing was not for school and definitely just for giving to Mommy. Aside from this isolated incident, the daily disciplinary notes were like a slow leak under the sink. Eventually you notice the amount of water and have to take action.

On the wings of the notes home we discovered that creative expression was not encouraged. Sure, they did loads of painting and cut and paste. Cute projects you’d expect from a curriculum for five year olds. Directed art was encouraged, creativity was not. In one instance, she chided Micah for adding flair to his happy sun project stating, “Our suns do not wear eye patches or hold swords,” and she tore the sword off.

Everyday he would say, “Mama, she just doesn’t like me.” We assured him that she of course liked him (we lied) and tried to modify his in-school behavior, but the criticism was crushing him. She had eight children to instruct. Eight. One was unconventionally creative and could do mental multiplication without realizing it. He was eager to learn and eager to please, but his instructor was unwilling. We had changed what we could on our side, but what she wanted was a different student.

Maybe it was all the red ink seeping way under my skin that irritated me, but after poking around amongst the other parents and veteran office ladies, they all sheepishly confessed that she was indeed over-the-top strict. They almost always concluded with, “but she helps set the standard.”

Hmmm.

This standard was not one we wanted to carry.

A rote and restrictive education might work for other children, but for ours the alarm was sounding loud and clear. This kid was not going to succeed on this path. He was too far ahead in certain key areas to engage at a normal age level and at the same time had a typical attention span of a five year old boy. Sure, in another school or with a different teacher it could have been better, but maybe not. And every year there would be a new dance to learn.

You know what’s interesting to me? In our school system, better provisions are made for children who lag behind than for those who run ahead. Be it public or private he would likely run into the same issues.

My baby brother went through this same obstacle course.

He once colored in an entire desktop out of sheer boredom and he regularly failed tests that were too easy for him. He just couldn’t play the game. At the same time, I saw him tutor my sister in high school math (she was almost four years older) and literally ace the SATs without a single prep course.

There were a few good teachers who fostered his strengths, but his primary and secondary education were largely useless and painfully unchallenging.

So when my own kid, so much like my brother, began hitting those same walls, I knew we had to do school differently.

At a church event during that time I listened as a second grade public school teacher said to another parent, “I can’t be expected to cater to smarter children. It just wouldn’t be fair and I don’t have that kind of time.” I understood where she was coming from, but I didn’t like it. The answer was obvious. What we had originally intended to do was the better choice for him. So we pulled the plug… and the lights came on.

{to be continued…}