A post from February 27th, 2003

Today is our very first day of homeschooling. I have to sit back and wonder if Hongo and I have made the right choice. Can we really make this work? Will we be better teachers than the public schol system offers? Will our precious baby be able to "compete" with her peers academically? So many questions - and I have to wait and see what the outcome will be. It will either be sink or swim - I hope we don't screw up........
Many people ask why we pulled ***** out of school. I don't think a whole lot of people believe in us, because what we are doing is "different". I really have nothing against the public school system - ***** had a fabulous K- teacher and the most of the students in her K class were very good kids. But when we moved, her new school was not quite what we expected. They didn't bother to check what reading or math level she was at. I was told "her teacher will test her and get back to you". No such testing was done......How can he? He has 20 other children that need attention, **** is not the only student he is responsible for.
I tried so hard to help her. I visited her class as often as I could, I helped her with her homework and made sure it was completed neatly and on time. I kept up on the teacher - offering help, asking if there were any problems, etc. He had nothing but praise for her, and so I began to relax. Then the problems began.........
Shortly before Thanksgiving, ****** was pushed down and hit on the playground. She immediatly went for help - but the lazy proctor told her that if she didn't know the kids name, the proctor couldn't help her. HELLO!?!?!? My kid is bleeding in her mouth - you can't take a few freakin minutes to find out who did this to her?
One week later she was hit in the head with a ball. Did anyone say soryy? No. ***** spent the rest of recess standing next to the chainlink fence, crying. No one would help her.
I wrote letters, I made phone calls. Nothing except apologies and promises to keep a better eye out for her. Throughout it all, ***** was determined to stay at school and find new friends. She would bawl if I needed her to stay home for a dr appt or illness. In late january, it began to happen again. She was being taunted by the students at school. She was pushed and left out of playtime, and called names that *I* as an adult rarely use. She began to play sick and try to get out of going to school. Every morning was a fight for her to get out of bed and go to school. A tummy ache, a bloody nose, whatever she could come up with. She missed 15 days in one trimester....
The last straw came about a week ago. I took off *****'s clothes for a bath and found some small bruises. They came from a boy in her class that decided that he was angry and needed to take his frustrations out on her, because she asked him to please be quiet so she could hear the story. I had enough. I sat down with HOngo and told him that this was not going to happen ANYMORE. And on Tuesday, Feb 25th after my parent -teacher conference, I made the call to the charter academy and our journey down homeschool lane began........
We have a great facilatator. Her name is Annette. She is very supportive and also very lenient about allowing me to teach the way I want to. For the first time in a long time, my daughter is excited about learning.
Today was tough, but we got through. We read a story and I picked some high frequency words, had her write them 3 times, and then make them into sentences. For math the topic was money, and we sat and talked about coins and their values. It took a while, but by the end of the lesson, Hongo had joined in and helped her figure out how to add coins up.
For fine arts, I put in a Wierd Al DVD and let the girls dance to their hearts content. That also counted towards PE, so we killed 2 birds with one stone! I am tired - I also spend the rest of the evening trying to get some stuff for our new website going. I'm very new to this type of thing, and I am figuring out with trial and error. There is more error than I would like, lol!

That post was definitly food for thought. Its amazimg to look back and see how we started, and how far we have come. LegoQueen still has emotional scars, but has grown to be a well adjusted tween with lots of friends. I also feel like the other two have truly benefited from LQ's experiences.