Heads *or* Tails – Tails – Decision

During the last school year, I was faced with issue of what to do with my daughter and her education. She had been passed over for admittance into the “gifted program” for reasons that seemed to change with every inquiry, and she was miserable. I had slowly moved from lunch once a month, where we were at by the end of kindergarten, to lunch once a week, to lunch three days a week, as well as being room mom, Monday and Friday fluency, and whatever else I could think of to relieve her stress.

I was so willing to do all of this because the more time I spent in the classroom the more I realized that something was just not right. The teacher honestly tried every trick in the book to corral this motley group; but they were simply too diverse in abilities and behaviors to ever really work well together. How does one teach to children with no reading skills at all, children with average reading skills, and children who read way beyond grade level? How does one person teach children who have learned to behave in a classroom setting and are intrinsically motivated to so, children who are learning to behave and can be externally motivated, and children who have no classroom behaviors and are resistant to all efforts to develop them? I can tell you that in the ten months my daughter was in first grade I never found the answers.

What I did find was the answer for us, homeschooling. It was not an easy decision, made more difficult by our summer move (another fascinating decision); but it is a decision I am happy I made. I have been able to tailor a program for my child that allows her to read at or above her current comfort level, and learn math at a pace that is comfortable for her (including actually learning all her addition and subtraction facts). I actually teach science, social studies, and geography on a regular basis, not as an after thought or something that is done only after the state competency tests have gone by. I also allow her to be creative, have fun, and take some control over what she learns and how.

So, here we are traveling through our first year of homeschooling, tackling second grade and beyond with fascination and exuberance, tripping over ourselves and our curriculum along the way. Would I make this decision again if I had to do it over, yes, yes I would.

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