About a year ago I started heavily researching the idea of home schooling my son. It started out when I had dozens of conversations with others about my views on the educational system, and I realized that I really don't agree with the current "system" in place. I didn't have the best experiences and my time growing up could have been so much more productive, conducive, fun and educational then it was. Essentially, I realized that I wanted my son to get a real education and have fun with what he was learning.
At the time these thoughts came about, my son was in preschool. His grandparents wanted to get him into preschool and take a lead on it, since I already didn't want to get him into it. Though I agreed that they could do it with him and give me some time to work on my home businesses.
Truthfully, I feel bad about subjecting my son and myself to the preschool process. Especially since I did so more to avoid a guilt trip from my family and give in to lazy parenting. My boy ended up having a pretty crappy year, in which he got picked on, learned to be physically violent with other kids (because of being picked on), was made fun of for otherwise normal behaviors (like hugging) and he really only learned that school was a source of trouble. On top of that, even though Grandma said she would take care of the parental needs for the preschool, they still had me come in and out for at least one parent-teacher meeting every three weeks, most of which was spent telling me my 5 year old had speech problems, that he wasn't interested in what they had to teach and that I should get him vaccinated to fit in with the herd. It wasn't fun.
Another regret - even though I had already decided after that year that I would rather home school my boy, I feel into the guilt trap from my family that I should put him in kindergarten. I had already beaten out all of their educational worries, since my son is an exceptional learned when given the right environment. So they played on the socializing problem, which is one of my concerns, since my son is essentially an only child. He has a half sister who his 6 years older than he is and only here half of the year. We have another one on the way, but he will be 6 years younger then my son. Which means that most of his time is spent with adults, and many of the kids he gets to spend time with a much older or much younger than he is. There just isn't enough diversity.
So I asked my son if he wanted to go to Kindergarten, and when he said yes, I spent all summer looking for a school that was at least not the "norm" and that would preferably help him learn more than other schools. I found an alternative school I liked, but to suffice it to say, the school year that just passed was worse than the year before in preschool. They didn't hound on me about his speech (which we worked on at home all summer), or about vaccinating him. Though we now had a speech therapist hell bent on suggesting he was autistic or sensory disabled, neither of which he is. He got beat up, harassed (sexually and otherwise) by other kids and punished half the year for retaliating. He still wasn't very interested in what they had to teach and said he only liked going for recess and gym. Even with that in mind, he didn't make any real friends all year, even with lots of encouragement. So the socializing deal essentially backfired.
Through out the year I continued researching home schooling and came upon Unschooling. I was never really satisfied with the systems take over home schooling or the overly religious reasons why most people home schooled. It's fine for some, but I want something more diverse. Unschooling looked better and better with the more people I talked to about it, the more I read about it and researched the potentials.
Just a few days ago, I was talking with a friend about the idea of getting a co-op unschooling group together. In the state of Washington you have to be present whenever your child is doing any specific learning, though that doesn't mean we can't all learn together or have each parent teach what they are good at. It makes for a well rounded education I feel, especially when the children are the leaders in what we learn.
After chatting with my friend, we came up with the idea of getting a facebook page together to see who else wanted to join us (I'll talk more about the page in another blog). Not to mention, my son and I already agreed to try unschooling this summer and we have been having fun with it over the last few weeks. So after having an indepth talk with him last night, I decided it would be fun and interesting to document our unschooling adventures by blogging about them. Why not? lol
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