Three and a half years into homeschooling. Three and a half years. I never would have imagined we would still be at it, or enjoying it or even still thinking about doing it one more year. And yet here we are. People ask me all the time "Why did you decide to homeschool?" The answer is complex and simple. Because we didn't know what else to do. Or because we could. Or why not?
When I really sit and think about it, the real answer is because we had to. I was literally watching my child's sparkle and passion fizzle out with a teacher who was determined to crush him. As an educator, I cannot imagine waking up every day and plotting to make a student cry. Yet I am certain that was her main goal. She was like the principal in Matilda, horrible, dreadfully depressing and guaranteed to ruin every child's life if at all possible.
Matilda had Ms. Honey on her team, fighting for her love of reading and her educational aspirations. Back then, in that lonely third grade, my kid just had me. I couldn't sit by and watch him wrinkle and shrivel under a bitter teacher's evil thumb.
Three and a half years later, I sat with my son while he chose his Stanford Splash classes for a weekend. What kinds of crazy kids choose to go to school all weekend? Talented ones, creative ones, bored ones... Gifted ones. My son delighted in his choices and savored the idea of a weekend filled with engagement, creativity, games and fun. He lectured another friend who asked him why anyone would want to give up a weekend for learning. Life is for learning he told him, as I sat by proudly smiling (and making a mental note to bring that up next time the Minecraft time is a little too long for my own comfort).
A friend recently wrote that her son had encountered the same kind of teacher- the one who hates her life and can't imagine anyone could ever be happy. The kind who wakes up in the morning determined to bring the world down with her. My friend's son has been in the nurse's office repeatedly for anxiety and stomach aches. He can't figure out what he is doing wrong that makes his teacher hate him so much. He is only 8 and an adult is destroying his love of learning. Sadly, there are teachers like this everywhere- teachers who should have retired a long, long time ago or teachers who just hate their jobs.
Is your kid in a class like this right now? Are you spending more time in meetings doing advocacy, begging for differentiated instruction, negotiating another 504 or behavior plan and trying to figure out why there are walls up at every turn? Are you spending several hours a week trying to convince a school to educate your child that you could be spending educating him yourself? I give you permission to walk away. Seriously, just walk away. In all 50 states in the US, you can literally just throw your hands up, take your child and go. No matter what they tell you at the front desk, it is 100% legal.
So here we sit, on the beautiful Stanford campus, while my son is off in Animal Behavior, Science of Star Wars or perhaps Of Mice and Monks. He has his sparkle, all of it and he has his love of learning for the sake of learning again. Homeschooling made that possible. Passionate learning comes from within, but a wicked teacher can reach in and rip that right out of a kid. It takes time, healing and opportunity to explore to put the passion back inside again. If you can, take the time. While there are days that aren't perfect, neither of us has ever regretted the decision. And on the days full of sparkle, we relish the idea of another day or month of homeschooling.
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