A very big thank you to everyone who emailed me after I reached such a low point last week. Many of you were surprised that Harry has gone back to school and were worried that I had rushed into the decision.
I did rush into the decision. I was full of doubt making it. I am still full of doubt and still sort-of regretting it. Especially since Harry came home yesterday saying he had burst into tears in the dining hall at lunchtime because it (by which I think he means the noise) was frightening.
Harry is at a near-ish state (public) school. It’s a good school with a really nice atmosphere. I tried to get him in there last year after removing him from school but they were full. I’m now waiting for confirmation that they can take William starting in January. We don’t fall in the catchment area so they have no obligation to take either of the boys but I think William will get in. I hope so because the school run is a nightmare: I have to go one direction for Harry and then the other way for William’s preschool. I’m not sure that William should start in January but if I wait until next September there may be no place for him and then I am back to homeschooling. Besides, he says he’s ready: he wants his PowerRanger toy and his interesting packed lunches.
I sort of want to go into all the details of why I decided to return Harry to school. The first year of homeschooling is always difficult, but actually it had gone pretty well and Harry’s progress was wonderful. But I have reached rock-bottom personally after weeks of terrible sickness, Harry was refusing to do school work, I was feeling that the unschooling methods I had to use over the summer were not teaching him enough and perhaps worst of all, Ben who is a feisty, sometimes adorable, but mostly difficult twenty-one month old was being so demanding that Harry and I simply couldn’t really concentrate while he was around. Not Ben’s fault of course because all one year olds need a lot of attention but Harry’s education was suffering. Add to that the prospect of the new baby’s arrival next Spring and the fact that I will have even less time and it all felt like too much.
But if I’m honest, at five years old he could have spent the next couple of years ‘learning through play’. I don’t like the idea of five and six year olds sitting at desks learning to read and write so I would have been more than happy to see him learning through play. And more importantly, from experience, I know that spending even an hour of one-on-one time with him each day would have kept him at the same educational level as his peers. He’s so young that even two or three years of this type of learning (while I have four small children at home – by which I mostly mean the all-encompassing, dominating baby that is Ben) would have made no difference to his long term academic progress.
I could have found an hour a day.
Even after a week at school where he has settled better than I dared hope, I am racked with guilt and worries that I have made the wrong decision. I dislike the nature of schooling, at least the way schools are currently run. Increase the education budget and get more teachers, lower the number of children in the classes and I would feel more confident that the children could be taught in an interesting way that fostered a love of learning. Add to that my son had a terrible time when he first started school last year. Add to that I honestly believe he would do better and learn better at home. Add to that if I could have given it a few more weeks I would have been feeling better and probably more able to cope.
But it is not all bad:
- unless they all get so attached to school that they don’t want to leave I would really like to homeschool them once the youngest is three or four. If I could get some help – someone to take Ben (and then also the baby) off my hands in the mornings – I could manage it now. I want to homeschool them, I know it works, I know I can do it.
- if it all goes horribly wrong for him, I can take Harry out of his current school and I am no worse off than I was.
- I love having the time with Ben in the mornings just to do things with him.
- I love the prospect of having both Harry and William at school all day next semester, Ben asleep every afternoon and me having that time to myself. Every day. (Even if I will spend it in a third trimester coma-like state.)
- I also love the prospect of having all four children settled happily at school, learning well and me being able to go back to work. Every day.
But then when Harry came home after his second day at school and I told him to stop messing about at supper time or else he would lose his playtime, he looked me straight in the eye and said ‘ooooh, I’m so scared.’
Yes, I can see school is teaching my boy so much 
.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it is a tough decision no matter which way you end up going. Even though homeschooling is going well with David, my days are very busy and I am just beat by the end of it. Part of me would love to see him off with playmates, picking him up at the school yard, having a little more time with the girls, especially my oldest, Sofia, who seems to need a lot of special attention right now. It seems there are benefits and sacrifices in both situations and I think the only thing you can do is say what will work for us right now? I think what I’m doing is working now, but my house looks like a bomb hit it so perhaps not!
That’s what I’m trying to focus on – what works for us right now. I know that I can change things in the future if need be.
My house looks less like a bomb hit it these days but then I have never been too bothered about mess, at least not since I had children because it seemed like I was always fighting a losing battle with tidyness!
I very much wanted to homeschool my kids, but then as my eldest grew it became really obvious that for the good of our mother-daughter relationship our personalities just needed a break from each other, and that she would benefit so much from having other adults reinforcing my messages about behavior. (She’s a force of nature.) The first few weeks of school in Kindergarten and first grade were terrible and really made me question my decisions, but after all the transitional stress wore off she’s done really well and been much happier than she was at home.
Don’t beat yourself up about your decision. Sometimes, these things come down to a lot more than academics or educational philosophy. I still can and do teach her academics at home, it’s the personal interaction stuff we needed to get from school and that seems to be working. And like you said, if it doesn’t work in the future we can go back to homeschooling.
I was with you until that last bit. His comment is not necessarily about school. Its probably about extended interaction with other kids beyond the boundaries of your family and chosen friends. He could have learned that down at the local playground or at any other place where he spent time with other kids. I have a toddler who recently spent a week at a true, traditional daycare center (because I was at an out of town conference and took her with), instead of the usual nanny who comes to us and has only her all day. I saw a difference. She was talking back, having tantrums and so on. I don’t think it was the place per say. It was more the interactions with others her age, as they try to learn and test boundaries. We can both make any case we want with the data before us, but ultimately, whatever our reasons, we will do what we think best for our kids.
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