“The essence of our move to homeschooling came down to the answers to two questions. What kind of childhood did we want to provide for our children, and what could the school system provide for them that we couldn’t do better?”
How we would educate our children had never crossed our minds before having kids. When you imagine having children one day in the future, many things might float across your mind. Who will they look like, will it be a boy or a girl, will they grow up to be someone you are proud of…or not. Education rarely comes into play because it is so static. Maybe they’ll go to a charter school or a Montessori school, but they will go to school.
For us, once we did finally have children, there were so many other beautiful things to focus on as new parents. School was very far off in the future during the early days of watching their every little kick, squirm, smile, and fuss. The world waiting outside of our little bubble was such a far and distant land that we again gave it not much thought.
Iwona and I both traditionally attended school growing up, with both similar and differing experiences. In Poland for Iwona and the United States for me, the classroom experience was similar. There was never a thought given to any other way. It was the 80s, and we made our way to school on our own, not quite uphill both ways, but without anybody holding our hands. Once inside the classroom, you were the possession of the teachers that ruled the school, some with compassion and others with an iron fist. As a kid, you didn’t think about it much either. Whether you liked it or not, school was a big part of life and you attended because everybody attended.
Neither of us had a bad experience. We were not bullied any more than anybody else, we were not grossly mistreated by teachers. When looking back on my own early school experiences they were perfectly OK. There was nothing that I loved about school, but there was certainly nothing I loathed either. It was nice to see friends and play with them at recess, it was fun to go to gym class and go on field trips to local museums. It wasn’t as much fun to sit through lesson after lesson about parts of speech or long division.
For us and our oldest son Max, Pre-school was like a catered private school experience for an affordable price. Like driving a Jaguar for the price of a Volkswagen. Although it still broke our hearts to be apart from our Son for even just a few hours, the teachers and staff at the school were as caring as your favorite Aunt, and the communication from the school about your child’s day, their daily accomplishments and any concerns your child might have were constant. You felt as if you were there with them, holding their little hands as they navigated this tiny slice of life on their own for the first time. Max would come home each day with a project he made Even though almost every day would start with tears at drop-off, he would arrive back home with a smile and a story about his day. He was spending time learning how to socialize with other children and adults, and he was learning coping skills for being on his own. It felt like we were still doing the right thing for our child.
If our Preschool experience was a Jaguar, then our introduction to Kindergarten was the hand-me-down Ford Tempo. The one with a suspicious odor, and the check engine light on that your Brother told you was nothing serious.
Max was already 6 by the time his first day arrived, and we are lucky enough to live within walking distance of the Elementary school. Mommy, Daddy, and little brother Noah, all walked him to school on his first day. It was so hard to send our little boy off to spend an entire 6 hours away from us. It takes a lot of trust to put your child’s well-being into the hands of strangers, but as so many parents do we trust the system. It’s just what you do, right? Your child is of school age, and everyone from extended family, neighbors, friends, and co-workers are all expecting that your child is now going to attend school. So, as hard as it is, you pack them up and send them on their way trusting that they will be taken care of.
The first couple of weeks are always hard, and you expect that so it was no surprise when Max would come home exhausted and exasperated at the end of the day. Iwona and I were both heartbroken to see our sweet little boy so emotionally distraught, but we forced ourselves to accept that we needed to do this for Max. By allowing him to go through this process, we were helping him grow and become an independent little human.
The school year moved along, and each day was similar to the last. Max would come home asking why this was necessary. Our best answer, always being something to the effect of this is just what we do, but his points were quite valid and poignant for a six-year-old.
Max would come home from school with stories of his day. He was frustrated and couldn’t understand why he was being forced into this situation. Why was it that he would sit quietly at his desk as the teacher had asked, while the teacher and her aide, would spend most of the day concentrating not on the 23 kids in the classroom but instead on the few that were unable to sit and pay attention? The child who would lay on the floor and not get up, even when the teacher asked them to go back to their desk, or the one who would not stop screaming at other kids despite the efforts of the teacher. Why, after 2 weeks in school, were these children being given gold stars for sitting down and being quiet for 5 minutes, yet Max had yet to receive a single gold star?
COVID-19 certainly did not help the situation. Tiny little children are being exposed to their first school experience with their cute little faces covered by masks. Everyone must’ve looked like a stranger. You never saw the smile on your classmate’s faces as they greeted you in the morning, and it was hard to understand what anybody was saying with muffled voices.
Another instance where bad decisions seemed to be made by the school administration was in the cafeteria. Max was a slow and picky eater as it was, so making sure he was getting some food in him during that six-hour day was imperative. Iwona would ask him to help pack his lunch each day, so he would have some say in what went into his lunchbox in hopes that it would help him to put something in his mouth that wasn’t a chicken cutlet. He would come home almost every day with almost all of the food that he left with in the morning, and at first, we would explain to him how important it was that he eat something during the day. Like most caring parents, we were concerned and wondered what else we could do to help him see the importance of eating during the day. We wondered how he could sit there in the cafeteria and not eat the yummy choices he helped to pack into his lunchbox. Then, after a couple of weeks of stress, Max came home one day and explained that it was too hard to eat because he is distracted. Distracted by other kids, maybe? Distracted by the commotion of having to eat lunch in a noisy and new environment without a parent reminding you to take another bite? No…distracted because each day during the 25 minutes these children were being given to put some sustenance in their tiny, growing bodies, they would all be seated at desks that were in the cafeteria facing forward. At the front of the cafeteria, a teacher would turn on a television and let them watch a cartoon. Now, I don’t know about your child, but my six-year-old when presented with a screen in front of him is going to stare at that screen and watch whatever it is in front of him. It could be 15 commercials in a row, but they are going to be glued to it.
The conversations between Iwona and I started within a couple of weeks of school beginning. The first conversations were simply of frustration with the school system and concern for our child. Were we overthinking it or overreacting to the situation? Either way, we both agreed that it was our responsibility to not only look after the education of this little boy, but it was also our responsibility to look after his happiness.
The word Homeschool came about organically and, certainly in my mind, a solution to the problem akin to the lottery being a solution to paying off our mortgage. Great in theory but never a reality.
It was day by day and week by week in our house. Each day was the same with Max coming home frustrated. Some days it would be with a smile and others it would be in tears. He was very in tune with the situation. The tears were never of sadness, they were always derived from frustration. The frustration was that he was not learning, he was not having fun despite being encouraged by both of us to try to do so. He was the quiet, sweet, and polite boy that the system did not have the time to teach. What was being taught at the moment was a lot of what he had already learned from an involved and caring family and extended family of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Even at six years old, he could see the lunacy in the situation.
The essence of our move to homeschooling came down to the answers to two questions. What kind of childhood did we want to provide for our children, and what could the school system provide for them that we couldn’t do better?
The answers to both of those questions, we learned, were one and the same.
The childhood we saw for our boys was one of fun and adventure, of learning about the World and their natural surroundings. We wanted them to be able to spend time with each other, with their aging Grandparents, and with their large extended Family. We also wanted to make sure they learned how to be good people, be polite, and treat others with respect and kindness. We wanted them to learn their ABCs, to read, write and be math whizzes.
The thing is when we gave it some more thought we realized that the school system is at a disadvantage in all of those areas. By having to act as a de facto babysitter for 6 plus hours a day so parents can make a living, they are spending all too much time wasting time. Time cannot be used efficiently when there are 20 children and 1 teacher. It can not be used efficiently when each child has a learning curve and can’t be addressed individually. The school system could never provide our children with the same experiences we would, nor could it provide the same level of love and support they would get from us and our families.
Once our minds began exploring the removal of these boundaries surrounding childhood and education, the reality of homeschooling was an easy concept. We embraced it wholeheartedly when we visualized the beautiful childhood we could provide our boys. Limitless learning opportunities, unbounded schedules of learning, play, exploration, and family time.
The fear of doing the best thing for your child is undoubtedly a heavy burden to carry. Throughout this whole process, it was the question we asked aloud and in our minds and hearts. How do you know what will be the best decision for their futures? Will they grow up to appreciate the decision you’ve made for them or will they despise you for it?
All we want as parents is to give our children the best life experience possible while they are under our care. The best might change over time, but in the present moment, it seemed like a no-brainer.
We gave ourselves until Halloween. That was the deadline that we were going to push towards. Even after the decision was made in our minds, the weight of the societal norm still weighed heavy on our minds. We knew in our hearts we were making the correct decision for Max, Noah, and our Family. The questions that would come from family, friends, and society were still clouding our conscience and making us question ourselves.
On a Friday in mid-October, we submitted our letter to the Principal and Superintendent informing them that we would be removing Max from Kindergarten. We submitted our lesson plan for the year, we packed our last lunch, and we were off on our new adventure.
The smile on his adorable little face was worth every lost minute of sleep.
