Thursday, January 1, 2015

Pro-Choice Schooling

originally posted 28 OCT 2014

Our children have experienced various types of schooling. They've been in public school, private school and homeschool. Why so many schools? With my husband's job, we move every so often.
Before each school year, we ask each child what they would like to do that year. Would they like to attend traditional school?

For the last few years, both kids have chosen homeschooling.

My son chooses homeschooling because he doesn't like to be held back. When he went back to school in fourth and fifth grade after homeschooling for a couple years, he complained about all the time wasted. With homeschooling, he does move through curriculum more quickly and now as a Junior in high school, he attends the local community college for his classes (still considered a homeschooler though).

My daughter has dyslexia. School was painful for her. She takes a bit longer to process information and with her IEP, she was pulled out of classes for tests and certain assignments. She struggled to keep up and, not only was she in the lowest reading group, she was the lowest in her group. Her grades were low and her self esteem was lower. She has homeschooled since second grade and on her fifth grade standardized testing last year, her overall score was ninth grade and every score was above a sixth grade level. More importantly, she is such a happy child now.

She is also my social butterfly. She loves her friends and she loves having a lot of friends. Her biggest reason for not wanting to go back to traditional school is that she wouldn't have as many friends and get to do as much with her friends. She has a point. In school, kids may have a close friend or two but they are stuck with the same small group day after day. I've shared before that, if anything, the over socialization in homeschooling is killing me.

Both kids are happiest homeschooling. My son will be off to a four-year school all too soon and will finish out his high school years in community college but, if my daughter ever wants to try traditional school again, she'll have our full support.

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