The Elephant in the Room

For several months, I've been censoring what I've written about here--and perhaps, as a result, I've been writing less--because as the boys grow, their stories become more their own and less mine to share. In particular, stories involving Luke and our rather short attempt at having him in a kinda-but-not-really-traditional school. Those stories aren't mine to tell in this public space, but I think it's okay to talk about the end result of those experiences, which is that we've decided to homeschool, at least for the near future.

I see this as a one year at a time endeavor because quite honestly, if I think about a period much longer than that, it seems completely impossible. So we're doing it for the rest of this year--and let's be honest, we're doing it for next year, too, as it would be rather unfair to ask him to transition to yet another environment in six months.

When I manage to live in the Now, I can see all the good that comes from this decision. Perhaps most importantly, he is himself again. He is the Luke that we know--the funny, quirky child who delights in talking endlessly about what he knows, what he's read, what he's learned, and how he knows what he does. He has time to play and to read and to learn, all things that were being severely restricted during his time at school.

The part that made it a difficult decision is that I liked the school he was in, and more importantly, I loved his teacher. Loved her. She was absolutely fantastic--respectful to the students, communicative with the parents, open to input from us and willing to incorporate that input in meaningful ways. If I could have had my pick of Kindergarten teachers, she is the one I would have picked. And as sad as I am that she is no longer a part of his life, I am in equal measure glad that she was his teacher for the past five months because now, we know that it wasn't the teacher and it wasn't the school. There is no blame here, only admiration and respect for the teachers, the school, and the methodology they employed. Despite that admiration and respect, we had to admit that no, this wasn't working. No, he wasn't benefiting from this experience and in fact, was being harmed by it.

So here we are, gradually easing ourselves into the title, Homeschooler. (Or perhaps I'm the only one who needs to be eased into it since he has been perfectly willing to claim that title before we even started.) Here we are, working through the curriculum and figuring out which things work for us and which need to be tweaked. Here we are, making connections within the community, going to the park, building tree houses and walking through streams. Here we are, walking through the butterfly house at the museum and listening to the museum volunteer detail butterfly life cycles as we watch a brightly colored butterfly stretch out sticky wings, having just emerged from its chrysalis. (And isn't it funny that one of the last things Luke was working on at school was studying a box of flashcards about the life cycle of a butterfly?) Here we are, doing the all the same things we've always done, and yet, they're very much not the same at all.