The cool kids on the bus

Tim and I have been thinking seriously about homeschooling. It was a concept I always knew existed, but I thought it was for the religious-right-anti-government Libertarian polygamists. It wasn't until I read articles in Mothering magazine shortly after having Amir that I discovered that liberal hippie parents homeschool too. I like the idea of unschooling the most, a method that involves teaching children through day-to-day experiences rather than sitting down for formal lessons every day. On the Natural Child Project website, I like this thought: "The traditional curriculum is based on the assumption that children must be pursued by knowledge because they will never pursue it themselves." That is the pure basis for unschooling. It doesn't mean the parent isn't there to guide and teach; it's actually the exact opposite. Rather than using a strict and set curriculum, putting a textbook in front of the child to read, you must actively engage in observing what subjects your child is steering towards and then think of what to teach them based on those experiences you observe. For instance (and not like we are actually doing this, because of course he doesn't understand yet), Amir is suddenly fascinated with wheels. From that fascination, there is a myriad of things to teach: geometry about circles, algebra, pi=3.14..., radius and circumference, auto-mechanics, energy. And the idea is because it's his interest first, he will hopefully take an interest in learning about these things.

Back to our discussion at Petra: some of the other students we were talking with seemed pretty opposed to homeschooling, for "socialization" purposes. And at first I thought the same. But how often do you actually socialize in elementary school? You are forced to sit in your desk, if you even think about talking and heaven forbid whisper something to your neighbor, you may receive a demerit or have your star moved to the sad face column. You must be quiet in the hallways, there is silent lunch sometimes even. Recesses are shorter and shorter these days. And as far as my own elementary school experience, I definitely did not make friends and become socialized. Elementary school was brutal, I had few friends and was often left alone to play. I was kind of quirky though, so it's understandable. I had a huge mop of curly red hair, I loved to read and was a total bookworm, and I had the whole Mormon thing to contend with. A lot of the girls in my grade wore Kelly's Kids monogrammed dresses and had perfect straight blonde hair, and were Presbyterian. I always wanted to be those girls. And they all turned into identical sorority-loving elementary-ed majors at local colleges in South Carolina. Jealousy over. Let's be honest here: my life is so much cooler.

Which brings me to the cool kids on the bus title: like my elementary school, students on this trip are still playing the exclusion card with the nerdy/uncool kids. There is a select group of cool people, they sit together in the front of the bus, eat together, hang out together during free time, etc. and the uncool kids best not try to encroach. It has come to the point that uncool people are booed to the back of the bus if they try to sit up front and then get rejected. It's CRAZY and SO FRUSTRATING. There are enough seats on the bus for some people to get their own seats, and so they get on the bus and everyone claims their own seats. Then the stragglers get on the bus, and don't care where they sit really, but people will really look at them like the seat is completely taken. Unless one of the stragglers is a cool kid, they will get a seat no problem. Tim and I attempted to sit up front, mostly because my two friends are up front and I wanted someone to talk with (they are cool as well, but mostly they are up front because of pregnancy-induced carsickness and the other is married to the teacher). As I tried to sit down, one of the ULTRA-COOL kids started freaking out and told me I couldn't sit there. Not wanting to be immature and stoop to their level, I simply moved to the back with Tim. And you know what, we've had a great time back there with the uncool kids. Because actually, they are really cool, and they don't complain about having an antsy baby reach over the seat and pull their hair. End tirade.

Back to homeschooling:

Another opposition to homeschooling is the statement that teachers are trained in teaching and so must be better equipped to teach our children because they know more about the subjects at hand. Teachers are trained in classroom MANAGEMENT, with a little subject matter thrown in. And seriously, I was smarter than my 5th-grade teachers when I was IN 5th-grade. I'm pretty sure I can teach my kids what I learned up until college. I'd have to brush up on my calculus (or perhaps send them to a community college when they are a little older to take courses/Independent Study online courses) but I think I could teach it. Same with all the Physics/Chemistry I learned in high school.

Finally, I think my kid is awesome. He's only 11 months and he's already so awesome to hang out with. And I know he'll probably only get cooler and more fun to hang out with, so why send him away all day starting when he's 6?

But alas, situations change, life gets in the way, we'll see if our aspirations pan out.