Thursday, May 11, 2006
i want my boy back!
for years i have heard how parents dread summer vacation and can't WAIT for their kids to go back to school. well, Jeffrey has only been in school for 2.5 months and has only 10 days to go and I can barely stand it. I want him home! I don't want him in school. He knows he has the choice, if he wants to go back to public school, but I hope he never does. In fact maybe I shouldn't give him that choice. Elementary school is probably harmless but I surely don't want him in school when he is older. I don't know how parents can stand to have their kids away from them all day!!!
yes he is an irritating 8 yo. what he needs is more parental interaction and supervision. more hands on activities. I wish now I had never put him in school. my goal was always to be more of a facilitator, to provide educational opportunities. To have all kinds of interesting materials available. somehow, in part due to my mother the school teacher's influence, partly due to my own lack of confidence, i moved away from this goal to more of a school at home approach. i was even advised to have a scheduled routine, such as, math at 9 a.m., reading at 9:30, you get the idea. I never did go that far, but I did make the mistake of becoming too focused on sticking to Sonlight's schedule and not being flexible enough.
so I can't wait for J to come home so we can start over. I don't mean start school at home over! I mean start living life over! Learning through living! Delight driven learning! Interest driven learning! relaxed home schooling! unschooling! whatever you want to call it. of course the 3 R's are important and we will stick with our excellent and fun math curriculum. whatever we do, we'll try to have fun! and at the same time, work on the children's behavior issues. At this time that is more important than learning history or whatever. I am beginning to have more confidence in myself and in my children. it will be a learning experience for all of us!
yes he is an irritating 8 yo. what he needs is more parental interaction and supervision. more hands on activities. I wish now I had never put him in school. my goal was always to be more of a facilitator, to provide educational opportunities. To have all kinds of interesting materials available. somehow, in part due to my mother the school teacher's influence, partly due to my own lack of confidence, i moved away from this goal to more of a school at home approach. i was even advised to have a scheduled routine, such as, math at 9 a.m., reading at 9:30, you get the idea. I never did go that far, but I did make the mistake of becoming too focused on sticking to Sonlight's schedule and not being flexible enough.
so I can't wait for J to come home so we can start over. I don't mean start school at home over! I mean start living life over! Learning through living! Delight driven learning! Interest driven learning! relaxed home schooling! unschooling! whatever you want to call it. of course the 3 R's are important and we will stick with our excellent and fun math curriculum. whatever we do, we'll try to have fun! and at the same time, work on the children's behavior issues. At this time that is more important than learning history or whatever. I am beginning to have more confidence in myself and in my children. it will be a learning experience for all of us!
# posted by Anne @ 6:25 AM 
