As of this week, all the local schools are now in session. Today I was musing to myself about how very contented with life I felt, with homeschooling particularly. Suddenly I feel like I’m reclaiming the quality of my life again, and it’s just the first week!
This morning we enjoyed a family breakfast once everyone was dressed and ready to start their day. Ds11 made eggs for each person while ds7 chopped cucumbers and ds6 chopped tomatoes for a salad (salad for breakfast – very Israeli of me, isn’t it?). This was so much nicer than rushing to get sandwiches prepared for the day and searching for this one’s shoes and that one’s permission slip and rush, rush, rush. I often looked around at other parents rushing to take their little children to school in the morning, rushing to pick them up, rushing, rushing, rushing….and I wondered, are other people also thinking that this feels insane, do they wish they had an alternative?
It’s amazing to see the kids’ interest and even excitement about learning shooting up – each morning they tell me what they want to learn about that day and I try to follow through with that. This has been a wonderful way to segue from the school mindset they were in. I mentioned in a recent post that I’ve been using amazing programs from Discovery Education that I’m accessing via a trial subscription for educators that are so engaging and informative. (It’s so good that I just purchased access for the year, there are loads more resources than what I’ve had time for so far – if you’re interested you can get 60% off the direct purchase price by buying through Homeschool Buyer’s Coop, which is free to join. I don’t invest in many things so you know that I’m excited about this!) The visual presentations have been a really good hook to get the kids interested in a topic and then we go into more depth.
For example, we watched a kids program about famous people – this particular one was about Galileo. I followed this up with ds11 and dd12 with learning about his book, Galileo’s Dialogue, and understanding his theory about the universe more fully. It’s interesting how many famous people suffered terribly for their beliefs and many didn’t enjoy the golden place in history when alive that they had after death. We then learned about space, the universe, black holes (dd connected this to past reading of a Wrinkle In Time) and lots of other fascinating things, none of which have been topics that I’ve explored much in the past. When dh took the kids on an evening hike yesterday, ds11 took along the binoculars, since he had learned that the strength of Galileo’s telescope that he built was about the same as a pair of binoculars and he wanted to see what was viewable in the skies at night. (Of course for years I had a telescope in my garage in the US and no one had any interest in it – probably because I never opened up any topics relating to its use!)
It’s fascinating how so many things tie together, and I love seeing the kids beginning to make connections – this morning ds4 excitedly brought me a book we’d never read before with a page about the first man to fly and an illustration of the early airplane, and said, “We learned about this!” (He recognized the airplane from our learning about Orville and Wilbur Wright.)
The mother of a former classmate of ds7 called yesterday to find out why he wasn’t in school, and when I said he was homeschooling she caught me by surprise with her immediate response about how she’s always wished she could do that since she thinks it’s the ideal! This is an atypical response for an Israeli (at least I thought it was), and she told me she did parenting classes in Israel based on Gordon Neufeld’s approach so homeschooling was very much in line with this. It was nice to find a like-minded mom, and then when I went to the park just an hour later I had another nice conversation with another Israeli mother. After her initial disbelief that I was keeping a four year old home (then I told her I was keeping them all home), she went on to tell me all the problems with schools and why what I was doing was such a good thing. Far from the negativity I’ve been anticipating.
In the US I had just two negative conversations out of probably hundreds of conversations about homeschooling (notably both of those were newly married young adults without children). Despite years of positive, even glowing feedback at times, here in Israel I’ve minimized and even avoided discussing our plans to homeschool, thinking that with Israeli society having such an emphasis on the collective group over the individual that my days of pleasant conversations were probably over. These conversations reminded me of something I often told homeschooling parents, that how you present yourself very much affects the response you get. People may not have experience with it, they may think it’s crazy and they’d never want to do it, but if they have a willingness to hear another person’s perspective, you can have a respectful and positive discussion.
So it’s nice to be back in the proverbial saddle; I’ve had some anxiety regarding this decision but that has been fading away pretty quickly once we got started and were able to once again experience the quality of a homeschooling life. I’m really grateful.
Avivah
Hi Avivah, Wishing you and yours a wonderful year of health and learning. Susan
Thank you, Susan! I was just thinking of you yesterday, when I realized I had attended a wedding at your home of someone whose name I recognized online. Sending warmest wishes to you and your family for all good things in the coming year.
I think most Israelis are very aware of the problems of the school system here. The main response I’ve gotten over the years to homeschooling has been: “How wonderful! I could never do that.” They recognize that opting out of a bad system is a good thing, but don’t see themselves as able to do it. I always give back a response of “it’s not the right choice for everyone” so that they can maintain their sense that the choice they’re making is also valid.
The people who give a negative response here (not common, in my experience) are people who take the fact of our homeschooling personally, as an attack on their own choices. Or they’re teachers, who take it as a personal attack on their abilities to teach/manage a class. Though most teachers I’ve met give a positive response, since they recognize the problems that are rife in the school system.
Glad to hear that you’re enjoying being back “on track”. We’re also breathing a collective sigh of relief to get our lives back to normal now that summer holidays are over and the world is ours again 🙂
Louise, what you’re describing sounds exactly like the US. I’ve always told people it’s not for everyone, which I really believe, and maybe that’s why people don’t get defensive about my choices. It really doesn’t have anything to do with them!
You know, funnily enough, teachers tend to not be opposed to homeschooling when I speak to them about it. They just want to know how I keep my kids busy all day!! 😀
Wow, I wish I had the koach to homeschool. After the first few days of school, my kids are are not so excited about going. How do you maintain your energy, keep the laundry, home, and kitchen in order, make sure everyone is occupied with educational things, and maintain your mental health for the sake of your children? Also, how do you plan on teaching Hebrew to them?
I hope I don’t sound too negative, just wondering how you “pull it off”? Homeschooling is in the back of my mind, just now sure how to accomplish it while living in Israel (especially since I don’t speak hebrew well.
Thank you again for your inspiration!
Rachel, you don’t sound at all negative! Those are really good questions. I’ll try to answer this in it’s own post in the near future since it’s too long for a response here. I have some specific posts already planned that will give more details on some of the points (look for a post in a couple of hours about keeping little kids busy).
sigh, I wish I could homeschool. My children went back to school today, and I am dreading the coming year. The bullying, homework, pressure, is slowly chipping away my daughters self esteem.
What can I do? I’m a chassidish mother from Boro Park and homeschooling is simply not done.
I know how hard this can be, Shaindy. When my son who was dealing with the issues you mentioned was in school, I spent a lot of time with him daily building his feeling of connection to me. The reason for this is that the more a child looks to his peer group (or wherever else) for his value, the more hurtful it is when he isn’t successful in that framework/with those friends. Likewise, the more he draws his sense of value from his family, what is difficult in school is hard but not as damaging.
I often felt that this was one step forward and one step back; investing daily and then having him come home discouraged again, when I got to do it all again! I believe that this kept his school situation from being a highly damaging experience for him, though.
It’s really hard because there are so many factors affecting your child that are out of your control. And they’re in school so many hours that it’s very challenging for them not to feel defined by their school experience. I wonder as a mature adult how I would handle the kind of stresses that my child went through, feeling put down and inadequate every single day.
Something else that can be helpful is to help them find something they’re good at outside of the school framework that they can find joy in – music, dance, art, cooking…
Sending hugs and warmest wishes your way!
Thank you for your kind words. (You never know what they accomplish!)
Can you elaborate what you mean by “building a feeling of connection”? Is this in the family context, or do you single him out for private attention? I find that pulling out each kid to give them the much touted “10 minutes” is not productive. The others feel left out and it doesnt work. What I do try to do is sneak in private winks, or tickles, pat on the shoulder, during the day.
I have to admit, I’m starting to feel a bit insulted by your constant bashing of school. I’m sure you don’t mean to come across that way, but lately you seem to have such utter contempt for school- every time you mention school it’s to say how glad you are to be out of that horrible institution and that school is worthless, that kids can only get a REAL education at home.
Well, I disagree. I loved school. My kids, for the most part, enjoy school. School isn’t perfect, but I think there are so many benefits to kids going to school. Homeschooling would be a disaster for our family. My kids and I love eachother, but we don’t want to be together 24/7. I don’t want to teach them math, science, etc. My kids learn things at school that I couldn’t begin to teach them, they have experiences that they could never have at home, and they enjoy the interaction with the other kids in class, on teams, on projects, etc. I think it’s also good for them to learn to get along with and work with people who aren’t related to them. It’s practice for the real life they’ll experience when they finish school. And I think it’s good for them not to have their family to lean on every minute of the day- going to school helps foster a bit of independence.
You look on in horror as people are “always rushing” to drop off and pick up kids to/from school. I don’t think we rush that much. And when we do…it’s not the end of the world. It would never occur to me to pull my kids out of school to avoid rushing. People rush to work, to the drycleaner, to the bank…. going places in a hurry is a part of life. A pain, sure, but let’s not blow things out of proportion.
You always struck me as a nice person, and I’m not trying to attack you. I’m glad homeschooling works so well for your family, and I totally understand while you would blog about that, but please try not to be so patronizing and disapproving of those of us who send our kids to school- and please realize that many of us are thrilled with school and aren’t secretly wishing we could chuck it all and homeschool. It sounds like you pity us all, but we don’t need or want that.
Jessi, I’m glad you found a balance that works for you!
In the past you commented that taking a child out of school due to bullying was throwing out the baby with the bath water, here you say that rushing doesn’t justify homeschooling. If something is minor and everything else basically works together to support the child so that the net total of his school experience is positive, then parents leave their child in school. I don’t know how many parents pull their child out for superficial concerns; perhaps what seems superficial to you is major to those parents. My decision to homeschool is multi-faceted and it’s a mistake to think that because I’m sharing my enjoyment of one side benefit (at not having to rush from place to place every day) that I took them out because I can’t handle a bit of rushing in my life!
Of course I don’t think you homseschool only to avoid rushing. The only reason I mentioned it is because you wanted to know if parents who are rushing to school are wondering if there’s an alternative to the rushing: namely, homeschooling! Glad homeschooling is what is best for your family- just wanted to point out that most of us are aware of homeschooling but have no desire to try it, despite the side benefits. 🙂
Well, we just started public school and I have some huge reservations. We had planned on trying this for a year but so far what I see is confirming my concerns about school as an institution in general. I’m grateful for blogs like yours that show a different way. Not that one way works for everyone, but I’m glad to read about a wide variety. Helps us wade through the process. Thank you!
Thank you for your comment, I appreciate it! I agree that there’s no one way for everyone and our choices have changed over the years. Our homeschooling now looks different than it did with other children, the challenge for us all is to find the best option for our family at any given time!
Jessie/Jennie – I expressed myself very briefly so it’s understandable that you misunderstood. To me, the daily rush and time pressure isn’t something you *have* to live with. I’ve lived for many years without that and constant stress affects the quality of my life. I’ve spoken to many mothers who have expressed similar sentiments.. What I wondered was if people realized that there’s an option to this or do they assume this is a necessary and unchangeable part of life.
I hope that in over 20 years of parenting I’ve realized that people live different lives and need different things. I don’t promote one path for everyone, not even within my own family; I strive for a values based approach to decision making that leaves lots of room for variation. If you think my approach is otherwise then I don’t think you’re reading what I’m writing! It seems you think I haven’t gotten the memo about some parents/children liking/needing school, so I’ll put your mind to rest by sharing that I’ve heard the comments you’ve shared before and even without perfect recall, after hundreds of times it’s pretty well fixed in my mind. 🙂
Mazel tov on not going back to school once again! Wishing you a marvellous year of learning and excitement. Ps, if you keep posting links to HSBC,you can earn great free stuff, like the happy scientist subscription I’ve earned free 2 years running.