Everyone can remember two or three teachers they loved - teachers who excelled and expected their students to excel. Imagine an education system in which every graduating senior had 40 outstanding teachers whom they loved instead of just two or three. That would truly be a world-class education. But this will not happen until the teaching profession and salaries are raised to a level that will attract and retain high-caliber teachers.

((This article is written out of the states, but could easily be applied to us here in the Great White North.  Click on the quote to read it in its entirety))

 

It really is a sad state of affairs that the public school system is in.  I certainly don't blame teachers for wanting more money.  They in fact NEED more money.

When I went to college, I took the Developmental Services Worker Diploma with the goal of working with special needs kids in the school system.  A truly wonderful placement teacher that I had told me I had no business not running my own classroom.  He encouraged me to go to university and to eventually teach.

I did go to university, and I now have a very expensive piece of paper that I can do nothing with unless I go back to school for another year.  I need to get my teaching degree in order to make that worthwhile.

That is not something I am willing to do.

Why?

Teachers work too hard.

They put in 8 hours a day, but their day really doesn't end there.  The teachers I know take home their marking, their prep work.  They have their husbands help them cut out crafts for the next day.  For what?  For parents who are unappreciative, and for minimum pay.

It seems to me that the people who are in charge of, in essence, raising our children for the majority of a day should be making a decent wage.  A wage that they can at least live off of.

Teachers in our public schools are tired.  They're overworked and they have too many kids in their classrooms.  It is not their fault that the education received in a public school has become inferior.

And that is why we are going to homeschool.

Edited to add:

Hmm.  I don't think I was too clear when I was writing this article, as was kindly pointed out to me with a reference from another blog.

If teachers were paid more would we definitely send our kids happily off to public school?

I can't answer that.

Is the only reason that Public Schools are in the state they're in right now because of the pay difficulties?

I think that that is a big part of it.  Along with poor funding per student, too high student to teacher ratio, and too little parent involvement.

All I know is that God has led us to homeschool for now.  In the future?  Who knows. 

Do I look down on people who chose not to homeschool?  I certainly hope not.  I believe that we all choose to do the best that we can for our own families in the situations that we are placed into.

We do what we think is God's will for our lives, and I would hope that anyone else would do the same in theirs.

Do you know what I love about homeschooling?  I love that I don't miss it.  I don't miss the moment.  The big moment when the lightbulb goes on, and when the kidlets "get" it.

Keyzia is just breaths away from reading.  Today she wrote

miss
ing
bus
money

on a piece of paper.  Ja sounded it out for her, and she wrote it down.

The day that she understood that letters had sounds was a huge moment for her.  Now she asks all the time how to spell things.

"Momma, how do you spell 'love'?"

"Momma, can you write 'Happy Birthday' for me?"

"A says a, A says a, every letter makes a sound!"

It's kind of funny how as an adult we take these little things for granted.  I can read, I can type, I can even write my own name if I so choose.  It's effortless.  The words come easily.  I rarely have to sound anything out anymore, although I will admit, I do keep the dictionary at the ready!

I think that is why God gave us these little beings.  These little mini-mes.  They help us to look back, to remember our joy at learning new things, to show us something we may have missed the first time around.  I'm teaching my daughter to read, but she is teaching me the joy in learning something new.  I'm teaching her that words have meaning, and she is teaching me the joy in the words.

And that is why we decided to homeschool.

Keyzia had a dr's appointment today.  Nothing serious, I just wanted to get these warts on the back of her leg checked out.  ((Turns out that we could treat them, but eventually they'll just go away.  Keyz's immune system will realize that they're there, and they'll just disappear.))

Our doctor's nurse, Sylvia is quite fabulous.  She loves our kids and is always talking to them, asking them questions and that kind of thing.  It's great for many reasons, the main one being that my kids have no fear about going to the doctor's at all.  It's great.

So, Sylvia was asking Keyzia if she was going to school next year.  Keyzia turned to her and said, "I already do school!  At home!"

Sylvia was quite impressed and totally knew that she was talking about homeschooling! 

I was just so proud of my little girl.  It's funny too, you don't get nearly as many funny looks when she says we have school at home as when I say that we homeschool!

I certainly am feeling the urge to write today.  I get that way sometimes.  I mean, I started this blog as an outlet way back when with some very pathetic and sad posts...  just check out the archives and you'll know what I mean!

And today, today I've got that urge to put fingers to keyboard, and yet not a lot to say.  It's an odd feeling, really.

Well, what's been up with us?  Not a heck of a lot, really.  We're plugging away at life.  Getting through.  Eating as much chocolate as is humanly possible.

But, it does look like winter has finally arrived!  I think we got almost 30 centimetres yesterday.  AND!  To celebrate!!  The zipper on my one and only winter coat decided to die!  Hooray! 

sigh.

What timing, eh?  It was awful drafty when we went out yesterday, that's for sure.

The homeschooling continues on.  Keyzia is working on matching upper and lower case letters right now.  She is loving this game.  It's pretty funny, actually.  She was doing a rather difficult memory game... one where you have to match the word to the picture.  She figured out that she could find a picture, and just keep getting that picture and doing one different tile at a time to find the match.  Ja and I are so screwed.  Our kids are already smarter than we are!

Eph's toilet training continues.  Frustratingly.  He gets the whole concept, he understands and can tell when he has to go, he just can't be bothered going to the bathroom.  You know, he was a lazy bugger for nursing, and now he's a lazy bugger for going to the bathroom.

I think he gets it from his father.

And now I'm just going to end this post because it isn't really going anywhere, and frankly, I'm feeling sleepy from boredom just by writing it.  Go and read something interesting... like mooning the Fed Ex guy.

Have you ever read that book by Robert Munsch, Purple Green and Yellow?  Or something like that?  In it, the kid gets these wonderful markers and keeps drawing this great stuff.  The mom always says, "Wow, my kid is an artist!"

And here I am, cliche moment of the year, but, "My kid is an artist!"  She has such amazing fine motor control.  It really blows me away.  Her printing is, I think, even neater than mine!  She can write her name, Ephraim's name, mom, dad, and the other day she did Oma and Pake with some help.  I can spell off letters to her and she will write them down.

Now, I know what you're all probably thinking...  she is my daughter, and I probably am a bit biased...  but honestly, this kid is a GENIUS!  Must be the good genes she got from me!

Which brings us to the other genius child in the family, our son.  At his two year checkup, the doctor told us that the speech goal for two year olds is two word sentences.  Eph then told him a story about how Daddy took him on the bus.  I have to remind myself that he's still the young side of two...  his vocabulary is huge.  His understanding is amazing.  He blows me away. 

Last night, clear as a bell, he said, "I looked for Zia upstairs!  I looked but I couldn't find her anywhere!"  You can have a complete conversation with the boy.  Probably even on socioeconomics... 

And now, now he's almost there.  At the magic moment that all parents of young children wish for.  The toilet training.  He is doing GREAT.  Most of the time...  well, mostly as long as he's wearing his Bob the Builder big boy undies.  You see, the thing with these undies is that there's a little picture of Bob right on the front...  on the little flappy thing.  ((is there a technical term for that flappy thing??  What is it's purpose anyways???))  Saying "don't pee on Bob!"  Brings whole new meaning when he can look down and see Bob right there on the front of his undies.  The Franklin people need to get with the picture and put Franklin on the front...  it really doesn't do much good when the picture is on the back all the time!

I'm still putting him in trainers for naps and for when we go out anywhere.  Diapers at night.  But the messes are getting to be fewer and fewer.  Except, of course, when he takes himself to the bathroom.  I'm not really sure how he managed to get poop on the wall and on his socks...  and I'm not really sure that I want to know that one!

It's a hard life, you know.  Being the parents of such geniuses (geni-i??) as these.  What's especially hard is knowing that they're already smarter than us.  It makes me lose sleep at night.

The struggle about what to do about schooling our kidlets has been going on for quite a while now.  We've gone back and forth between sucking it up, sending them to the school up the road, finding a french emersion school, looking into begging our way into Christian school, and yet nothing seemed to fit.  It's the mother's instinct.  You mother's out there KNOW the instinct I mean.  The one where you talk and think about one choice to make for your child, and your stomach starts to hurt, and you get that stabbing feeling in your heart.  This is not to be mistaken for the hate that your kidlets are getting older feeling...  that one is more like a weepy thankful feeling.  Sadness at what is already gone, and yet anticipation for what's coming.

Ja and I, after more research than I ever did for any essay in university, have decided to commit to homeschool for the next two years.  That will be JK and SK for Keyzia.  The years when we can screw up the least.  The cheapest years of homeschooling.  It will pretty much be an extension of what I'm already doing with them.

The bottom line is that at this point we don't really trust the public school system to do better than we can in educating our children.  Do I believe that every family can or should homeschool?  No, I don't.  Am I certain that I can homeschool?  Not even a little bit.  My fear certainly over-rides my excitement in any given moment.  And yet, when I start the round of self doubt, the round of wondering what's coming, I get filled with a peace like I have never known.  I really and truly believe that God has led us in this direction, and that He will be faithful in pulling us through it.

Are there still issues that we need to work through?  Of course there are.  Who knows, at the end of a year we might decide to send them to school.  Or, at the end of two years, we might feel God leading us to continue homeschooling.

I was worried about what people would think.  My family, his family, friends and etc, and then I realized that it simply doesn't matter.  Not only do they already think that I'm a bible thumping/cloth diapering weirdo, but now they can just add homeschooling to the list.  The bottom line is that I need to do what we feel is best for our children.  At this point, what is best for our children is to school them at home.

And now, here we are, at the most important question that I think people are going to ask us.  What about socialization?  Let me just say that socialization has been one of our biggest issues...  that is until we realized that in the "big wide world" that we all live in, we don't just socialize with people our own age.  In my case, my world isn't made up only of people who are 28.  In fact, I think there may be only one other person that age.  In the school system, kids tend to only socialize with their own age group.  I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but from the homeschooling aspect, my children will learn how to socialize and play with all age groups. 

This is a very good article on homeschooling and the aspect of socialization. You can also type homeschool and socialization into Google and get a lot of articles on the whole aspect.

Our intent is to hook up with some other homeschooling families here in town.  This creates a support base for us, and also let's us use any possible talents to help other families out.  It becomes a win win situation.

I am very excited and peaceful about this decision.  I only want to do what is best for our family, and for us, for now, this is the best thing.