It's that time again! Back to school. This is always a bittersweet time for me. On one hand I'm excited for the new school year and all of the fun and interesting things that will come. On the other hand I miss my daughter as she is sucked back into the routine of homework and studying and early bed times from exhaustion. This year has much more emotional potency because my oldest is starting high school. HIGH SCHOOL! How did I get here so quick? Actually I've had half the summer to get mentally prepared for this moment.
The county that I live in has a lottery system for all of the schools so getting into the school that you want is... well it's winning the lottery! When we got the acceptance letter we were beyond happy. This is my first stage of WINNING as a mom. I began to see all of the dots finally connecting. I felt that I had successfully gotten my oldest daughter through all of the stages of school that I could and what happens next is up to her. That would be college of course. And while I've been lucky in good schools and great teachers for my oldest daughter I have decided to go down a different path for my youngest.
Within months of little one being born my wife and I discussed homeschooling. We mostly started talking about it for our oldest but we knew that would not be an option since she was about to start high school. But hey, we have another one coming up and this time we could do things differently. So why change things up if they worked so well for our oldest? I don't have scary stories about teachers being absent minded or a school leading our daughter down a path of destruction. But any parent can see that the school system is not working at its optimum level and our kids remain stagnant.
Here in Florida a major thorn in many parents' sides (as well as teachers and students) was something called the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assesment Test). Every student had to take it before the end of the year and it was a determining factor for whether you would be moving on to the next grade level. We were fortunate in that our daughter's teachers didn't focus solely on the test, but much of the curriculum was based on the test and not critical thinking or problem solving. It felt as though each year was to learn how to pass this dreaded test. So my wife and I would supplement her education as much as we could. We talked to her about life and encouraged her to ask questions and be curious about things. She loves to read so that helped out a great deal. In the summer we would give her books to read about all kinds of topics and talk about current events.
School is great! The vast majority of us attended school and we all came out pretty good. I just think that the traditional way of learning may not be for everyone and the system that we have now could use some tweaking. The FCAT is no longer but it has been replaced by another test that will take some time to see whether or not it is effective. Rather than wait to see if standardized tests will or will not work, why not take my child's education into my own hands? Which makes this phase of my oldest daughter's life even MORE emotional because I know that we won't be going through this again. And although we are moving into uncharted territory and I'm sure people will have many things to say about our choice; I feel very confident we're on the right path.
