In most states and in most situations, homeschoolers enjoy a vast array of magnificent freedoms. I will get to all my favorites in future posts, but today I'll talk about the Big One.
The Institution.
When homeschooling one rarely has to deal with the institution. An institution as elaborate and important as the educational system simply has to have a billion safe-guards, procedures, and rules to follow. And lots of paperwork. This can be a huge headache, but one cannot expect a nation of children to be educated for free without a complicated, ever evolving beast of a structure. Aside from each state's accountability requirements, homeschoolers don't have to deal with that. They are a nation of one. One family, one set of children, one ultimate vision of education--like really straight-laced outlaws. One for all, and all for one!!
When we decided to put the kids in school, I had to face that beast for the first time and I was terrified!
If you're really lucky you may live in a town that runs like a well oiled machine. Your town employees may be paid wonderful wages and given great benefits. Or you may live in a town where some of your officials are strapped and burnt out and under-appreciated. Let's go with scenario two. Little, old, terrified you walks up to the great fortress of school admin offices to register your precious, perfect, delicate children for school. Your face is screaming, I've never done this! What do I do? Please help me? Hug me, please! But your face is met with the face of utter indifference and stone-cold boredom. Not all the faces there are like that, just the one who is supposed to be helping you. So you go back and forth trying to get all the paper work right. You drive all over tarnation to get those blasted papers. You finally have your ducks in a row and bring them to the office. The office is closed. It is early afternoon. You keep calling, keep trying for days never quite getting the timing right. You even talk directly to the superintendent when he accidentally answers the phone, and he can't answer your questions. He tells you to call back tomorrow when his secretary is in. So you officially freak out. You call your husband sobbing, your best friends sobbing, inviting them all to join your elaborate freak out party. Then when the tears are dried and the mind stops racing, the blood starts boiling. Oh yes, you get very angry. You are now on the war path, which is a joke because the only time you are confrontational is when you're level-headed and calm and it is actually necessary. In this case, it is not. You're just freaking out because you are terrified and the process is laborious. In the end your husband brings his charm and mystical, magical people skills to the office--it's open, she's there!!--and everything gets done with smiles and grace in less than ten minutes. They give your kids their summer reading books and send you on your way with an upbeat 'good luck!'
That was honestly the hardest part of the entire process of starting public school. Maybe it's because this was the first, real step into public school and the final step out of homeschool. You could say I was a bit emotional about it.
From that point on, we were able to proceed in a much more objective manner. I took the kids to see their school. Amazingly, the teachers and staff don't LIVE at the school year round to answer your questions and tell you everything is going to be alright and your children are just perfect. So by "see their school" I mean we looked at the building and the playground. We totally peaked in the windows, and I played up all the fun set-ups in each classroom. And I may or may not have read the elementary school handbook cover to cover....twice. The kids were exceedingly excited. This was a new adventure, and we only used positive, encouraging words to introduce and process the idea. (I also stopped saying negative things about institutional schools years ago--for such a time as this. Also it's not nice to harp on the negative in general.)
I did call the school the very first day they opened their doors. It may or may not have been precisely one minute after they opened. The woman who answered the phone was so warm, so inviting. Blow me over! Mrs. T. She's like my new favorite person of all time. She set up a time for us to meet with the principal. When we walked in the doors she welcomed us with a greeting that could turn even Vladimir Putin's frown upside down. We met the principal and he showed us everything in the school. The kids got to see their classrooms, and we even ran into a couple of their teachers. The first day of school would have been the first we'd meet them if not for this encounter. We left the school that day feeling very good about our decision.
I guess you could say the lesson I learned from this first experience is one that applies to most life steps. Some things will be exceedingly difficult. Some days you'll totally lose it. But then it all comes back around, and some things will be incredibly fun and interesting. On those days, one must be sure to remember that what one thought would be horrible and impossible turned out to be anything but.
