Obligatory Kindergarten Post
Lots of mommy bloggers are writing back-to-school and/or kindergarten posts about their kiddos, and I'm going to add to the bunch here. There's been a lot of processing going on in the past year for me and M regarding the best "school choice" for our kiddos... I've been meaning to write it down and process some of it here, but I never managed to get to it.
Our thinking about schooling choices began around last January. As with everyone, we had three choices... public school, private school, or homeschool. Private school was not really an option for us financially, and there weren't any private schools around here that we were interested in, anyway. Public schools in our town are not that great (or so we assume from my husband's knowledge of the area 15 years ago when he went to school). So from the beginning we were leaning in the homeschooling direction.
My first reservation about homeschooling is a pretty obvious one... how would I handle educating my daughter and while managing her two younger siblings, and the part-time work that I do, at the same time? As of last January, I could barely find 20 minutes in the day to give N a violin lesson without a baby crawling all over me.
At first I also had some anxiety over finding a good curriculum and equipping us with the necessary homeschooling tools, but I quickly convinced myself that I could do that pretty easily if I just made enough time to research it. Even after a quick preliminary internet search I found a wealth of information.
As time wore on, and I read more and more about homeschooling kindergarten, I began to realize that it may not be as big a job as I had thought. I began to feel confidence that, if I set up a good enough routine for us, I would be able to handle everything, little sisters included. I began to feel in my heart that homeschooling was the right decision.
There were (and are) several reasons why I would have preferred not to have N in public school. I don't want her exposed too much to the worldly influence of her peers. (I've heard six- and seven-year-olds singing "I'm sexy and I know it" at the playground too many times lately. Wrong. Just wrong.) I don't agree with all of the educational philosophies of today's public schools (sorry, teachers and administrators!). I don't like that there is so much "filler" time during the day in school-- N, or any child for that matter, could learn what she/he needs to learn for kindergarten in half the time of a standard school day. I don't like that the structure of a public school day wouldn't allow her much freedom to choose subjects that are interesting to her and spend more time on them.
The nail in the coffin for me was that there was no half-day kindergarten option in our town... kindergarten is all day, every day, for every child. N would be making the jump from 3 four-hour days a week at preschool to 5 seven-hour days of kindergarten. A jump from 12 hours of school to 35 hours of school per week. That seemed like a tough adjustment to ask her to make, especially where she would just barely turn five a month before the school year starts. She's still just little.
So yeah, I've got a few opinions. In addition to all that, I guess I just wasn't ready for her to be gone so much. I'm going to miss her. That's 35 hours a week that she'll be with somebody else and not with me.
But. We registered her back in April when kindergarten registration day came around, just in case.
N began to talk a lot about starting kindergarten. All her preschool friends would be starting. She would *finally* get to ride with our friends across the street on the *school bus*, she kept pointing out. We saw them get on every morning as we got in the car to go to preschool last year, and she was just counting down the days until she could join them. Whenever we even approached the question, she always immediately said she wanted to go to public school.
And then I began to fear that she would resent me for not allowing her the chance to try it out. Related to that fear, I began to worry that we would be the "weird" family on the block that homeschools their kids-- it's kind of unheard of in this community, at least among the people that we've met so far.
I don't care about being seen as weird myself... but I worried about isolating my children socially because of decisions I made for them. It seemed, from my preliminary research, that homeschool co-ops and social groups existed primarily outside of our town. So it would be possible for the girls to connect with other homeschoolers, but they would all be from outside our community. And it would involve a lot of traveling for us.
(In a way, we're already the "weird" family on the block. We don't have cable TV. We read a lot. We force our kids to eat weird fruits and vegetables. We don't have iphones. We can't really go back from some of the ways in which we've already isolated ourselves from the general public.)
It made sense that my social girl would want to go to school with lots of other kids. The point of going anywhere for her, really, is to meet people and make new friends. She is forever walking up to other kids and introducing herself, and then inviting them to play with her. Her main goal, when we visit the playground, library, etc. is to make a new friend. "I wonder if we'll meet any new friends today, Mama," she'll say to me. In fact, many of the friends we've made here in town, and now hang out with on a regular basis, are completely due to N's approaching them and introducing us all. Her shy introvert mother can take no credit for those relationships.
I began to think about our preschool visits, and how, despite the fact that we visited both the classrooms at the two different preschools we chose for N, and we talked to experienced parents and her prospective teachers extensively, none of that was able to prepare us for the day-to-day reality of her individual preschool experience. I knew that no amount of preliminary research would really give us a clear answer about whether public school kindergarten was right for N and right for our family. We would just have to live it and find out. The same went for homeschooling too.
We got the letter in the mail mid-July that N had been placed in the best elementary school in town (from what we've heard) and with a teacher that we've heard a lot of good things about. There was a lot of relief in knowing that she wouldn't be taken across town to one of the not-as-good schools (which apparently happened to some of our neighbors, since kindergarten space is at a premium at the school we're zoned for).
And then... I got this online teaching gig for Music Theory. I struggled to keep up, even just with the relatively small workload of my teacher training course this summer. Some weeks it felt like I spent every moment of my free time on it. And then I got offered to teach a second section, because my course had a waiting list for the fall. I couldn't refuse it-- this is the work I had been looking for all year, with the flexibility of making my own hours, and we kind of desperately needed the money.
It was then that I knew that I would need all the free time (and free child care, if you want to think of kindergarten that way) that I could get this school year, especially as it will be my first year teaching online, and I'm going to have to put in a little extra time to learn the craft and get myself going.
The decision was made for us, in a way. As much as I still feel that homeschooling would be preferable, I just don't think it's possible for us this year, with M gone 9-10 hours every weekday (although we're working on getting him more work-from-home days) and me working about 25 hours a week with all my combined jobs.
And so we're going to live it, and see how it works. We're going to test out this school system by being a part of it. With me working a bit more, we plan to be in a better financial position by next school year, so that if we feel we need to change our minds at that point and go the homeschooling route, we'll have more freedom to do that.
N has impressed me so much with how quickly she has grown up, just in the past month. Her maturity, helpful attitude, patience, and stamina amaze me every day. When I'm honest with myself, I know that she's ready and she's going to handle this transition beautifully. And I'm reasonably certain that she'll remain true to herself and remember all the lessons we have taught her. I know that M and I will be as involved (and watchful?) as we can possibly be in her classroom and with her teachers. I think it will be okay.
So now all that is left is to cry a little bit about how this is the end of an era.
Moms of kindergarteners, won't you join me?
She starts on Tuesday. Ready or not, here we go!
Our thinking about schooling choices began around last January. As with everyone, we had three choices... public school, private school, or homeschool. Private school was not really an option for us financially, and there weren't any private schools around here that we were interested in, anyway. Public schools in our town are not that great (or so we assume from my husband's knowledge of the area 15 years ago when he went to school). So from the beginning we were leaning in the homeschooling direction.
My first reservation about homeschooling is a pretty obvious one... how would I handle educating my daughter and while managing her two younger siblings, and the part-time work that I do, at the same time? As of last January, I could barely find 20 minutes in the day to give N a violin lesson without a baby crawling all over me.
At first I also had some anxiety over finding a good curriculum and equipping us with the necessary homeschooling tools, but I quickly convinced myself that I could do that pretty easily if I just made enough time to research it. Even after a quick preliminary internet search I found a wealth of information.
As time wore on, and I read more and more about homeschooling kindergarten, I began to realize that it may not be as big a job as I had thought. I began to feel confidence that, if I set up a good enough routine for us, I would be able to handle everything, little sisters included. I began to feel in my heart that homeschooling was the right decision.
There were (and are) several reasons why I would have preferred not to have N in public school. I don't want her exposed too much to the worldly influence of her peers. (I've heard six- and seven-year-olds singing "I'm sexy and I know it" at the playground too many times lately. Wrong. Just wrong.) I don't agree with all of the educational philosophies of today's public schools (sorry, teachers and administrators!). I don't like that there is so much "filler" time during the day in school-- N, or any child for that matter, could learn what she/he needs to learn for kindergarten in half the time of a standard school day. I don't like that the structure of a public school day wouldn't allow her much freedom to choose subjects that are interesting to her and spend more time on them.
The nail in the coffin for me was that there was no half-day kindergarten option in our town... kindergarten is all day, every day, for every child. N would be making the jump from 3 four-hour days a week at preschool to 5 seven-hour days of kindergarten. A jump from 12 hours of school to 35 hours of school per week. That seemed like a tough adjustment to ask her to make, especially where she would just barely turn five a month before the school year starts. She's still just little.
So yeah, I've got a few opinions. In addition to all that, I guess I just wasn't ready for her to be gone so much. I'm going to miss her. That's 35 hours a week that she'll be with somebody else and not with me.
But. We registered her back in April when kindergarten registration day came around, just in case.
N began to talk a lot about starting kindergarten. All her preschool friends would be starting. She would *finally* get to ride with our friends across the street on the *school bus*, she kept pointing out. We saw them get on every morning as we got in the car to go to preschool last year, and she was just counting down the days until she could join them. Whenever we even approached the question, she always immediately said she wanted to go to public school.
And then I began to fear that she would resent me for not allowing her the chance to try it out. Related to that fear, I began to worry that we would be the "weird" family on the block that homeschools their kids-- it's kind of unheard of in this community, at least among the people that we've met so far.
I don't care about being seen as weird myself... but I worried about isolating my children socially because of decisions I made for them. It seemed, from my preliminary research, that homeschool co-ops and social groups existed primarily outside of our town. So it would be possible for the girls to connect with other homeschoolers, but they would all be from outside our community. And it would involve a lot of traveling for us.
(In a way, we're already the "weird" family on the block. We don't have cable TV. We read a lot. We force our kids to eat weird fruits and vegetables. We don't have iphones. We can't really go back from some of the ways in which we've already isolated ourselves from the general public.)
It made sense that my social girl would want to go to school with lots of other kids. The point of going anywhere for her, really, is to meet people and make new friends. She is forever walking up to other kids and introducing herself, and then inviting them to play with her. Her main goal, when we visit the playground, library, etc. is to make a new friend. "I wonder if we'll meet any new friends today, Mama," she'll say to me. In fact, many of the friends we've made here in town, and now hang out with on a regular basis, are completely due to N's approaching them and introducing us all. Her shy introvert mother can take no credit for those relationships.
I began to think about our preschool visits, and how, despite the fact that we visited both the classrooms at the two different preschools we chose for N, and we talked to experienced parents and her prospective teachers extensively, none of that was able to prepare us for the day-to-day reality of her individual preschool experience. I knew that no amount of preliminary research would really give us a clear answer about whether public school kindergarten was right for N and right for our family. We would just have to live it and find out. The same went for homeschooling too.
We got the letter in the mail mid-July that N had been placed in the best elementary school in town (from what we've heard) and with a teacher that we've heard a lot of good things about. There was a lot of relief in knowing that she wouldn't be taken across town to one of the not-as-good schools (which apparently happened to some of our neighbors, since kindergarten space is at a premium at the school we're zoned for).
And then... I got this online teaching gig for Music Theory. I struggled to keep up, even just with the relatively small workload of my teacher training course this summer. Some weeks it felt like I spent every moment of my free time on it. And then I got offered to teach a second section, because my course had a waiting list for the fall. I couldn't refuse it-- this is the work I had been looking for all year, with the flexibility of making my own hours, and we kind of desperately needed the money.
It was then that I knew that I would need all the free time (and free child care, if you want to think of kindergarten that way) that I could get this school year, especially as it will be my first year teaching online, and I'm going to have to put in a little extra time to learn the craft and get myself going.
The decision was made for us, in a way. As much as I still feel that homeschooling would be preferable, I just don't think it's possible for us this year, with M gone 9-10 hours every weekday (although we're working on getting him more work-from-home days) and me working about 25 hours a week with all my combined jobs.
And so we're going to live it, and see how it works. We're going to test out this school system by being a part of it. With me working a bit more, we plan to be in a better financial position by next school year, so that if we feel we need to change our minds at that point and go the homeschooling route, we'll have more freedom to do that.
N has impressed me so much with how quickly she has grown up, just in the past month. Her maturity, helpful attitude, patience, and stamina amaze me every day. When I'm honest with myself, I know that she's ready and she's going to handle this transition beautifully. And I'm reasonably certain that she'll remain true to herself and remember all the lessons we have taught her. I know that M and I will be as involved (and watchful?) as we can possibly be in her classroom and with her teachers. I think it will be okay.
So now all that is left is to cry a little bit about how this is the end of an era.
Moms of kindergarteners, won't you join me?
She starts on Tuesday. Ready or not, here we go!
I think you've come to a good compromise. It's probably important to learn good social skills at a young age. And you can always enhance the curriculum taught in public schools at home. Homeschooling maybe become a more viable option, as well as a more desirable option as the children advance. I fear that public school teaches children what to think, instead of how to think.
ReplyDeleteOh you know I'm right there with you! I feel like I've done nothing lately but think about and blog about school, and even as we started 2 weeks ago I still wanted to homeschool. But I can tell you, coming from about the same point, that I am SO glad Amy is going to regular ol' kindergarten. She LOVES it, social one that she is, and seems happy and energized by it everyday. She's lucky to have a good school and a good teacher, but I am definitely overseeing it all with a critical eye. She's a bright girl and I'm less concerned about what she's learning (for now) and more about the experience of it all. I figure we'll take it year by year and hope to homeschool at some point. I'll be thinking of you for sure, I'm sure N will do great and so will you! Thanks for sharing and look forward to hearing how it all goes :)
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