Another Brick in the Wall

"We don't need no education!"

I used to love that Pink Floyd song.  Especially since school (though I was always a good student) seemed like such a waste of time.  So much of school just seemed like busy work or full of useless stuff I was never going to remember.  It wasn't bad when I was pretty young-- I had first and second grade teachers who provided extras so I could go ahead of the class at times.  (I shocked my first grade teacher by finishing every single problem in the math workbook halfway through the year.  I'd been finishing early and the math was fun, so I just kept going....  She worked out an arrangement for me to meet with a second grade teacher and I got a brand new book.) In  3rd grade I got my first wake up call that school was about "conforming" rather than learning (though it wasn't called that).  I had gotten yet another 100% on a science test and rather than listen to my teacher go on through the eternal process of explaining each and every problem to the class, I got my library book out and started to read.  My teacher noticed of course, and gently reminded me that while it was good to read, it was not the time.  I was supposed to be paying attention to her.  Since I was not a troublemaker, I quietly accepted the rebuke and put away my book.  Then I resigned myself to being bored through the next 30 minutes.  It was only one of many, many instances in school where I spent the time daydreaming because it was just too boring.

I got to experience the other end of the spectrum too.  When I was in fifth grade (after a year where my teacher had not bothered to teach us anything about math), the school had looked at my placement tests and decided to put me in the highest math class offered for my grade.  That was the year I learned that I was "bad" at math.  I had missed one crucial bit of learning somewhere along the way-- how to reduce fractions.  It made keeping up with my class impossible.  I did horribly.  Homework was a torture session.  Some nights I would sit up alone crying over my assignment, unable to understand (my parents weren't much able to help).  When I asked the math teacher for help, she just told me to look at my book.  When I begged the regular teacher to let me move into the next math level down (studying out of the same book but at a slower pace), she refused.  She said she knew I could handle the work.  Obviously I could-- I didn't fail the class.  But I remember a late night or two where I thought maybe it would be better if I just killed myself, since I just couldn't get the math.  Dramatic (and silly, looking at it from an adult perspective) but true.  And my confidence was shot.  I was certain that I was just no good at math.  That conviction lasted all the way to adulthood, despite evidence to the contrary (passing the AP calculus test, for example).

When my kids started heading into school, I wanted to provide the best of both worlds.  A good education that didn't leave them twiddling their thumbs for large blocks of time but also gave them the help they needed so that they wouldn't get stymied by one necessary concept (like I had with reducing fractions).  I was thrilled to find their charter school-- it fit pretty much what I was looking for.  During the past six years, I've been satisfied enough to keep my kids there even though it means a LOT of driving.

But.

I keep reading more and more about homeschooling, and part of me yearns to do it.  It really sounds like the best way to make sure my kids are getting a quality education that challenges them and gets them the help that they need when they run into something more difficult.  I have friends who are doing a spectacular job of this, and they are doing it in a way that helps their kids love learning, rather than just considering it a boring but necessary part of life.

The problem is in the nitty-gritty reality.  First, I am one of those selfish moms who NEEDS a break from my kids.  With Terence's schedule being what it is, I simply wouldn't get one if I was homeschooling.  There are no girls' nights out for me.  (Date nights are extremely rare, for that matter.)  Granted, I don't get a break now either, with two little ones at home, but it is easier to only have two on my hands than five.  And there is the promise of a few hours of child-free recovery time four years from now.  Second, I just CANNOT imagine trying to teach B.  Teaching B piano lessons once a week strains my patience level to the stretched-thin-as-a-thread point.  Last of all, I don't think I could live up to my own expectations.  Pulling my kids out of their charter would only be worth it if I was doing the overachieving ideal homeschooling.  And I know myself.  It just wouldn't happen.  I fear my own lazy nature-- and because of that inherent lazy demon, screwing up my kids' lives.

So, I'll keep driving my kids across town for school.

In the meantime, I keep reading these blogs where people fear for our kids' future because of the terrible quality of our schools.  There are people (whose opinion I find myself agreeing with on other topics) who argue that sending your kids to public school is at best parental neglect and at worst child abuse.  (!!!)  I don't agree with that of course.  But what if . . . what if those naysayers are right, and what I think is a good enough education is in reality seriously shortchanging my kids?

Eek!  Maybe I just need to stop reading so much.  Or at least forgo the posts ranting about education. . . .