This year I didn’t go through my usual cycle of Spring = Daydream of Homeschool; Fall = Boot Them Out Now. We had a great summer that was a little crazy with our basement finishing project, and we’re still sucking the marrow out of the warm days and cool evenings. We’re on a hiking-to-waterfalls kick (Stewart Cascades and Battle Creek Falls recently; next up Grotto Falls and Diamond Fork) and finally eating dinner outside.

Avery is at the same charter school as Callie this year and though she still misses her old school, she likes her (male, laid-back) teacher and there’s even a girl from her fourth grade class. I asked if they were friends last year and Avery said, “Well I know her and I don’t hate her.” Here at the smaller school, away from established friend groups, they have progressed to eating lunch together. Could friendship bracelets be far behind?

Avery tried out for the debate team and though it improved my daily prayer habit (tryouts in fifth grade??) it’s an extracurricular activity I can really endorse. There should be no problem ensuring she gets plenty of practice. She’s also swimming and reading too much and I had to take her bra shopping (for fifth grade??) which reminded me of my own mortality and also how much I hate shopping for intimate apparel.

The only fruit fly in our basil is math. You might remember that we worked through half of a Saxon math book last summer after she got a C in third grade. Not that a C is so terrible (though it is, let’s be honest, I got one my sophomore year at BYU so I know), but her attitude is horrible. This summer I took her to a week-long math camp at UVU, after which I got to hear the words “love” and “math” in the same sentence, though the emphasis may have been on the word “camp.”(Seriously, it was their first year doing it and at $45 for 15 hours of a fun, interactive introduction to everything from game theory to cryptography, i.e. A STEAL, I highly recommend.)

Back in the real world Avery enjoys saying she hates math and watching my heart shrivel. Because a) I love math and b) I refuse to raise girls who hate math. I would rather they pierced their noses and tramp-stamped their lower backs than hate math. (Maybe a temporary tattoo on the left forearm.)

Homework is a nightmare. She dawdles, she doodles, she daydreams. We cajole, I yell, Tom commiserates and wanders into bypaths of How This Will Apply When You’re in Algebra. She tested into the 6/5 math group which is right where she should be, and the math groups themselves are small (11-12 kids) and taught by every adult, including the director, at the school first thing every day.

After school she asks me what 6 times 4 is and I want to take the knife I’m cutting up peaches with for their after-school snack and turn it on myself. (I don’t mean to trivialize the mental illness that leads people to cut themselves, but sometimes I honestly think it would be a relief to pull out my eyelashes one by one rather than remind her that 6 times 4 is 24 and always has been, always will be, till the moon turns red and the stars fall from the sky.)

Some days I sit next to her and get frustrated-er and frustrated-er. Some days I don’t say a word and that seems fine: it’s her homework, she’s old enough to be responsible and take the consequences or reap the rewards, but then it’s 9:30 at night and her head droops limply over the heavy book and I even though I know she’ll perk up long enough to read once she’s in bed I just want her to get some sleep.

So I emailed her teacher and asked if I could come watch the math lesson. It seems crazy to have an hour dedicated to math and then have an hour or two of drawn out, make-you-stabby assignment-doing at home. He talked to her math teacher and this morning I went in. They took a test yesterday and Avery was the fourth person to hand it in and she got a 95. She got 100% on the multiplication fact test (I didn’t check to see if 6 times 4 was one of them; I’m assuming not since the nurse didn’t call to report a case of hives, bubonic plague, and dysentery on Wednesday). Avery is fine in class, Mrs. B. said.

Of course she is.

So what do I do then? Mrs. B. said, “Let’s talk to the director, she’s really good about this kind of thing.” We walked over to the director’s office and when Mrs. B. introduced me it took her just a second to say, “You’re here about math right? Though Avery was the fourth done on the test yesterday.” I explained the whole thing and said I was quite open to suggestions. The director said she’d be happy for Avery to do her homework at the school one afternoon. She can sit in Mrs. B’s room and ask her any questions but basically do it on her own. I’m to come after half an hour and then the four of us will sit down and show her the test scores and look over her homework and tell her that since it’s clear she can do it, from now on it’s her responsibility, that it’s up to her whether she does it and gets the points for it or not.

This is my kind of intervention. After 3:30 pm this afternoon in the Year of our Lord 2011, I will not mention the words “math homework” ever again. Amen.

The principal said (third-hand) that kindergarten was the hardest grade to teach because the kids come in which such a wide variety of skill levels, not to mention life backgrounds (and I would add innate aptitudes and interests). One kid comes in knowing how to read, another doesn’t know her letters. One kid can estimate a grocery bill, another has spent his early years taking apart small appliances.

This was meant to be comforting, I think, to Chrysanthemum, but it is troubling to me. I loved public school, every year of it, despite needing numerous accomodations that my mother had to fight for sometimes.

But what does this say about the other grades — that all the variety and difference and interest has been boiled down to a state minimum? Even if my kids are below average compared to the standards, what of their likes and desires, their individual outlierliness in pretending?

I know I always get extra-antsy about homeschooling in the spring, which is one of the indicators that summer is on its way (just as a return to public-school-benefits-listing in August is a sign that I have had enough of kids around me every hour), but this is just . . . not right.

My AP English class a couple years later was a million times better, and worth the price of admission to public school. Mr. Olsen stood at the front of the class, strumming his guitar and reciting poetry. We read books and wrote essays. I learned how to argue a point with evidence from the text, and to love poetry even if I did recognize the rhyme and meter. He was a Dead Poet’s Society-type of teacher, without the Robin Williams creepiness.

But was it worth suffering through two years of Mrs. Dart’s “honors” to get one year of Mr. Olsen’s sublime rendering of the William Carlos Williams verse?

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I still remember the tune he wrote to accompany it. I can’t recite the poem without singing it the way he did. His favorites were Dylan Thomas, John Donne, and Bob Dylan. I loved books before him, but all of my appreciation of poetry comes from those first fifteen minutes of class every day when we read our way through the anthology of poetry and discovered The Silken Tent, and Emily Dickinson. I did my college thesis on Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

We went to Sally’s parent-teacher conference last night. Mrs. W. loves Sally, and Sally loves her. Sally is helpful, cheerful, bright, blah blah blah. Sally’s grades were all A’s and B+’s. Dick and I being who we are, and one of those B+’s being in reading, we wanted to know why. Sally didn’t read at age three or anything, but once she did start reading (at seven-ish), she caught up right quick. In the past month she’s read A Wrinkle in Time, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the second Percy Jackson book.

Mrs. W. pulled out Sally’s DRA form and showed us where she’s at a fifth grade level for fluency, speed, and vocabulary, but lost points on comprehension, summary, and reflection. Fair enough. Those are important things, only it turns out the lack is in her comprehension of the test, not the text. I pointed out that the questions were poorly worded (asking for a “list” but expecting “list and describe”) and that a summary by definition means that you do not include every single detail. As for reflection, I am beginning to think that she is even more literal than I am, because she answered the question accurately, concisely, but apparently not reflectively enough to satisfy the district rubric.

Much worse though, when we were discussing this and Sally protested that she likes to read fast to find out what happens next, Mrs. W. said that the point of all this is to get you ahead, so that when you’re in fourth grade they don’t knock you back from a level 34 reader to a level 28. And I said:

HOLD THE (expletive, but only in my mind) TRUCK, lady, the point of all this is for you to enjoy reading a book.

I was pretty outraged. I know I probably started it by expressing concern over a B+, and probably lulled her teacher into thinking I cared what freaking reading level the district rubric assigned to my daughter (as if that matters in any way), but really, she can read whatever-the-heck she wants, and I only want to know if she’s really having a problem understanding what she reads — which, as far as I can tell from her re-tellings at home of the books she reads and her reasons for liking and disliking them, she doesn’t.

There are two things here, and I explained to Sally last night that knowing how to read and enjoying and understanding a book are one thing, and deciding to play the game of testing and school is another. If you’re going to play the game and take tests and go to school, you have to learn not what the best answer is, but what the test answer is. You can read for fun, but then you’ll have to go back and look for the details that will prove that you have read it. Eventually you will train your mind to pick up the kinds of details that teachers (and districts) like to ask about to easily and superficially gauge comprehension.

It’s fine. I reconciled myself long ago to the discrepancy between knowing something and testing well. And, if I may say so, I can teach her how to test well. And I will, because I want her to enjoy school and college and a profession of some sort.

But something in me rebels. I don’t like explaining to my nine-year old that her teacher at school cares more about how her answer on a poorly-written worksheet compares with the unstated and murky expectations of a central office than about whether or not she is enjoying herself reading books.

It’s not really a last-straw type of thing for homeschooling, but last night it felt like it.

Perhaps that is just the rhythm of childhood. Vacation — Christmas break, summer vacation, a trip in the middle of the year — is exciting, special, different. School is everyday, normal, routine, boring at times by definition.

But as I’ve been thinking about homeschooling, I wonder if it is more than that. Rixa commented on my initial homeschooling post that she would love a charter school with a half-day program. The day I read her comment there were two articles in the New York Times in intriguing juxtaposition. The first was about Forest Kindergarten, where kids 3 1/2 to 6 years old spend three hours a day outside in a 325-acre nature reserve, every day, regardless of weather (in New York State, where the weather is a factor). They explore and play, with no formal academic curriculum until first grade. I assume (hope) that even in the upper grades, outdoor exploration/play is emphasized.

The other article was a story of parents with children in Chicago’s public elementary schools trying to raise money to add an hour to the school day, which is currently 5 hours and 8 minutes long. “By comparison, students in New York City go for 6 hours 30 minutes. In Boston, they spend 6 hours in class, and in Los Angeles, most students are there 5 hours 19 minutes.”

I have long had an unarticulated feeling that I wish Sally could go to school, but just not so long every day. She’s at a school with early and late tracks, so her day is 8-2:15, while half of the kids go 9:15-3:30.  (That’s a 6 hour, 15 minute day). I think this schedule might be okay if three hours of it were spent outside, but I think her play time (and not on a nature preserve, but rather a limited schoolyard, is much less than an hour).

The parents (and educators quoted in the article) in the Chicago area are convinced that a longer school day, week, and year is the answer to making their children competitive. Chicago-area charter and contract schools are in session up to two hours longer than the regular schools (that would be over 7 hours in school each day!).

Interestingly, the parents in both articles are relatively well-off (as the Waldorf Schools are private, and one presumes, pricey, and in the Chicago area parents are wanting to spend more money in addition to their property taxes, etc). Often when there is talk of extending the school day, including moving from half-day to full-day kindergarten, and to adding pre-kindergarten, etc, legislators and advocates point out that households with two parents working need the extended child-care that a longer day would provide.

The economic and other logistics of homeschooling are fascinating to me. Homeschooling requires that a family be well-enough off to have a full-time parent, and/or modest enough in their wants and needs to accept the priority of homeschooling over the desire/need for a second income and/or that parent’s willingness to sacrifice temporarily some of their own ambitions.

When I think of Sally going to a half-day of formal education, or the wish to shorten her school day by even an hour (as she could if she attended the middle of the day and neither early or late track), and even when I am vehemently against homework, it is all in the service of providing her with more time in the day to play, preferably outside. This is even more urgent in the winter months, when it gets dark at 5 pm, and yet my three kids are outside in their snow clothes, long past the time when the sun’s rays provided meager warmth.

This again could be simply the rhythm of life in a four-season climate. Summers are for spending outdoors, for gardening, biking, jumping on the trampoline, swimming, running through the sprinklers, and winters are for quietly reading by the fire (or . . . doing homework or sitting in class).

But given what we know about dirt being good for kids, and active play improving sleep, and finally — how excited my kids are by the prospect of a week and a half off to sled, cook with mom, build snowmen and snow forts, and swim in the indoor pool with the big bucket and water slides, I am worried it will be impossibly hard to sentence Sally back to a desk come January.

When I was in high school, I read a book called Free at Last about the Sudbury Valley School. It was enchanting, and liberating, for me to know that there were places like that, and that my mother would support me in any sort of school arrangement I wanted to come up with for myself. From what I remember (and this is when Sudbury was one place, an experiment, not a “method”), kids went to school and then did whatever they wanted. Whatever they wanted. On a bucolic-sounding campus where anything seemed possible.

There were teachers, whom the kids could ask to be mentors or contract with to teach specialized courses, but the (I was going to say “onus” but that is the opposite of what the discovery of things, ideas, peoples should be, right?) — the planning and initial desire came from the students.

Marcy and Brad (who are three and five years younger than me) even homeschooled for a year while I was in high school, and though I stayed in public school (partly because the system worked, quite well, for me), I felt free just knowing that I was not a prisoner of the school system. Though there were times, when I compared some of the ridiculous bureaucracies of even my pretty-good school (think The Office applied to education with a twist of Kafka) to the freedoms of Sudbury, that if I had not been so ambitious/competitive at that time, I would have quit.

Now, I like to think that I can apply the principles of self-guided learning to my career as a mother and homemaker. If I have an idea that needs writing or a book that needs reading, I can ignore the cat food spilled on the floor, and last night’s sink of dishes and be glad there are waffles leftover from yesterday and that the kids know where the paper and crayons are (and the roller skates, doll stroller, and cat), while I do whatever I want, right here next to them on the kitchen table.

It’s a pretty good trade off for not getting a paycheck and not being known for having a beautifully-kept home.

The appeal of homeschooling, and my brand of “homeliving” is, as I see it — the freedom to do and learn what you want. Freedom from both actual regulations and others’ expectations. If I jumped up to clean my house right now rather than a couple hours from now, I’d be doing it for fear that someone will come over and see evidence of my “sloth,” not because I want it clean for myself (which I do, just not right now). This is also a financial freedom, of course, the freedom Mr. Bennet’s paying job gives me and also the freedom from extravagant wants. (Or at least the freedom from thinking that those wants, which I do have, are actually needs).

So that’s the biggest appeal to me of homeschool — freedom –  and also the largest drawback, because I have always seen that magical time when my kids start school (preschool and on), as the beginning of my personal freedom — from them.

But lately, because they are getting older (they’re 8, 5 & 3) and I can imagine Sally babysitting in the not-too-distant future, and because I don’t know if we will or should even try to have another baby, it has started to not seem so magical.

We had two weeks off school for our vacation, and then another week off preschool because of teacher’s vacations and illnesses, and before I knew it, I was answering Susan’s interesting questions about why our garden is “hibernating” right now and directing as Sally made an entire pizza from scratch, realizing that she’s even old enough now to deal with a 450-degree oven. (Under supervision. Calm down, Nana.)

I see possibility now where before, no matter how I admired the homeschooling lifestyle, I saw chaos and cramping and never, ever getting to go to the bathroom alone.

So I’m thinking about it. The basic philosophy — that my kids can learn without an institution to guide them, that I can provide basic instruction and figure out how to arrange any other instruction, that my kids can socialize with an even wider range of society without the structure of 8-2 school, and that they can become anything they want to be, is something I believe in wholeheartedly.

The biggest drawback, now, is that they like regular school. Sally has never had an academic or behavioral issue, and she loves her teacher and friends. Susan and even Spot like preschool and are always eager to go. Perhaps that should be the end of it, because it is certainly easier to send them off in the mornings and welcome them home in the afternoon. (Susan and Spot only go for a couple hours at a time, now, but I have looked forward to full days of being kid-free.)

Here in small-town Utah, I don’t feel the pull of homeschooling for any of the other reasons I have previously thought would make it an easy decision — here the other kids are, for the most part, good influences on my kids. I don’t worry about drugs and sex and that sort of thing. Of course it goes on, especially in the high schools, but it’s not something that can’t be avoided quite easily, and it’s not something that’s accepted as, well, acceptable. The values and lessons we teach at home are taught in the other homes around us.

I also have no complaint about the school Sally attends. As far as public schools go, I couldn’t ask for better, except for the large classroom sizes, but that’s kind of an insurmountable problem in Utah, and not as important in the long run as a cheerful, enthusiastic, receptive teacher, something that Sally has always had.

So why even think about it? In the past I’ve always been able to shrug it off, or wait a few days, and the idea goes away. Maybe it will again this time. Before, I’ve known it was time for summer vacation because homeschooling was sounding better, and that it must be August when I am dreaming of class lists and packing sack lunches.

I need to do some more research. Observe Sally’s classroom (though I have “volunteered” for parties when cornered and attended parent-teacher conferences, I’ve never sat in on a lesson), and read some books. My sister-in-law recommended The Call to Brilliance, but I’m finding it too mystical so far to be inspiring. On Twitter I got recommendations for A Thomas Jefferson Education,  The Homeschooling Option, The Well-Trained Mind, and The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling. Let me know if you have a book that changed your life. I’ll probably read Free at Last again (hoping it won’t have diminished as I got older).

And in the end, maybe I’ll revert to my default position, which was similar to my mother’s — that of support and interest in whatever my kids need, with intense relief that they are getting older and are (always have been) good at entertaining and “educating” themselves.

I asked Sally about it yesterday. What would you think of homeschooling? And she nodded, “That would be good.” Why? “Because then you could answer all my questions. Sometimes I have a question and the teacher doesn’t have time to answer mine, and that’s not good when you have a serious question.” Then she turned to me and said, “But would we still have recess?” And I reassured her that recess could be arranged.

—-

I wanted to add a link to one of the best posts on Homeschooling I’ve ever read, by Mrs. G on Pioneer woman.

Sometimes I think about homeschooling. This thinking usually peaks around May and plummets in July. The timing is handy, making me look forward to both summer vacation and to school starting again. And even though I know it’s a cycle, I can’t avoid it because let’s face it: two universal truths are competing here.

1) Kids are annoying. (Yes? You disagree? How about “high-energy” or “best-enjoyed-after-long-stretches-away-from-home”?)

2) Public school policy can be moronic.

I think I’m pretty rational (if liberal) about school attendance, so imagine my surprise when Sally’s school started sending home truancy notices last year. As if their attendance policies were somehow more significant than mine. Wait — Who gave birth to this kid? That’s what I thought.

When I reported to the school secretary, she advised getting doctors’ notes in future, as illnesses are excused. I asked, “How about I just tell you she’s sick. Because I don’t take her to the doctor for every cold or stomach bug, and I assume you don’t want green snot and vomit everywhere.” And the secretary kindly told me I could bring Sally in for them to determine that she is sick. As if I need anyone else to tell me my kid’s sick or to dispense a heavenly benediction upon my decision to keep my kid home from school. Just when, exactly, did public school import Principal Mao?

So. There’s a lot to be said for homeschooling, namely: freedom from dimwit public “officials” with unimaginable thirsts for power.

Then again (it’s July, after all), there’s much to be said for saying adios every morning at 8:30 and feeling genuinely excited to pick up the kids at 3. Love you again!!

I admit. This seems pretty unbalanced on the side of arranging things for mom’s benefit. Sure, Sally gets interaction and learns stuff at school. But I could set up playdates and fieldtrips and such. And now that she can read (after agonizing about her not reading by five, she read Harry Potter 1-4 last week), I am ultra-plus confident that she can and will learn whatever she wants to.

So why are we gazing longingly at the bins of Elmer’s glue and plastic pencil keepers? The stacks of freshly-cut paper and the Barbie backpacks?

The truth is, Sally needs other adults to love/emulate/admire. The longer she’s at home all day with me, the more needy she gets. I was teaching her Sunday school class at church until recently, and she always wanted to sit right by me, kissing my arm and distracting everyone.

Last June, Dick came home from a business trip on the last day of school. I picked him up at the airport and then we went to Sally’s school. I thought she would be ecstatic over seeing her beloved, fun, tolerant father. But she barely looked at him. She was inconsolable for a couple hours because she wouldn’t be seeing her teacher anymore: Mrs. Machol had announced that she was switching schools next year.

We reminded Sally that we were hoping to move too before the next year, and that she would be in second grade anyway. “But I won’t see her ever again,” she wailed.

Honestly? I was a bit miffed. Wasn’t she excited to see Daddy? Wasn’t she delighted about getting to be with Mom all the time? I promised to take her to the library (like kid crack) and swimming lessons (more kid crack) and Grandma’s house (ultimate kid crack), and, nothing.

Of course she bounced back, and this summer has been pretty good. But I want you to know that I am buying school supplies tomorrow, and next week I’ll call the school to see who she gets for second grade.

As long as her teachers are like Mrs. Machol and not Principal Mao, public school is best. For mom AND for Sally.

Don’t forget to go share your Things That Must Go. The LLBean Tote Bag giveaway ends tonight at midnight.

p.s. I don’t think Sally’s autistic. For one thing, she’s very affectionate and, for another, Grandma, despite all her other perfections, is not a trained psychologist. I’m sorry Sally was so crazy at the Little Women musical, Mom, but I don’t think autism was the problem.

But I’m turning over a new leaf. I’m becoming a model mother. Getting involved so I can say (honestly), No, we don’t homeschool, but we’re completely involved with the kids’ education.

Actually, when I checked the little red heart box indicating I’d be ‘happy to help out with the Valentine’s Day party,’ I kinda hoped that the Don’t You Feel Guilty For Not Volunteering paper would get lost somewhere between our car and Mrs. Machol’s classroom.

Instead, turns out that everyone signed up to ‘help out‘ with the party, and no one to ‘take the lead.’ Which shouldn’t be that surprising. If you don’t even get to ‘be in charge,’ why would you sign up to get all the responsibility and none of the power?

Possibly because she sensed what a great party planner I’d be (or that I was ripe for guilt-induced effort), Mrs. Machol asked me to take the lead.

I did and it was fantastic. Sally thinks I am the best mom ever. The end.

Here’s what I learned for next time. You might want to take some notes, especially if you (like me) have irrational (or not so irrational) fears of being like Kurt Russell’s drunk dad in Follow Me Boys.

I’d much rather be Fred MacMurray, the Disney dad/boy scout troup leader extraordinaire. Fred would never be twenty minutes late to an important scout night, dripping melting ice cream on the other parents.

How to not be like Whitey’s drunk dad

1. Don’t put off printing your bingo cards until the night before.
2. Don’t put off buying a new ink cartridge till the night before.
3. Don’t live in a state with sudden bad snowstorms the night before.
4. Do have good friends with printers and ink to go in them.
5. Do befriend over-coordinated room-grandmothers who just happen to pick up awesome supplies (cookies, juice boxes, and fruit snacks) during their monthly Sam’s Club run.
6. Don’t call the other mothers after 9:45 pm unless you know they’re on the way to their 10-4 shift at UPS. And if you do know that, don’t call anyway, because dwelling on the fact that another mom works nights so she can be with her kids during the day and help out with school parties ON PURPOSE will only make you feel greedy, inadequate, and lazy.

All that excruciating preparation minimal planning and moments of blind, staring panic paid off in the sweetest way possible. Mrs. Machol told me it was a great party and probably doesn’t think I’m a delinquent mother anymore.

Sally ran up to hug me during the party. Three times. And introduced me to all her friends. I’m afraid to help out with more parties; at some point, in one year or two, maybe five if I’m lucky, she won’t run up to me like that and she might hope no one guesses we’re related. (Might?) Of course, I could always pull out Follow Me Boys and threaten to bring the ice cream if I don’t get some love.