Where to begin?
This year has been crazy. Not just for me, but for a lot of my home schooling friends as well.
I thought that going into year five of this home schooling journey was a bit of an 'arrival' of sorts. That just maybe I had 'made it' and was on to smoother sailings.
Uhm.... no...
Getting rid of the dog lifted a huge weight of the constant responsibility- but at the same time the heaviness was still there. Like a daughter who would break out into weeping fits when she thought about the dog and still asks me when he's coming back or when I will get another dog to replace him. I expended copious amount of time trying to deal with and train him- and getting rid of him signaled yet another failure that was emotionally hard to deal with.
We also signed Elijah up with our local Air Cadet program and I have been volunteering with that as well. It's been interesting getting 'out' into the world again. For the past number of years our family has really isolated themselves with 'churchy' stuff and people. I had no friends that were not either home school or church related. It's taken a bit to get used to it, but I enjoy it (still working on the whole balance thing, though).
But at the same time, things just didn't seem to be working. So over the past few months I'd been looking into alternate schooling options.
There. I said it. I was looking into sending my kids back to public school.
I was done. I'd had enough of the constant fighting and bickering and whining, blah, blah, blah.
And it made me feel like a failure.
After much time and effort, and for a variety of reasons, even though I found a couple of schools that would probably have worked well for the kids- I didn't have peace about sending them back. I knew the problem was me- NOT them. Sending them back to school wouldn't fix that.
Like I said in my last post Filling the Wrong Bucket, for the past few months I have been chasing after my own will instead of denying it. And it's made everything go crazy (at least for me- I can't speak to why/how the other mom's I've talked to are having a hard time this year).
So I started trying to figure out some of the changes that need to be made in order for this to work again. For me to like my kids and teaching again. For us to not be fighting and arguing all the time.
The solution? Dropping our enrolled status and switching to being true home schoolers.
Up until now, we've been considered Distance Learners- not home schoolers, even though we do all our schooling at home. I have an assigned teacher that monitors our progress, assesses our work and writes up real report cards to judge how well we are meeting the Provincial Learning Outcomes just as if they were in a brick and mortar classroom.
And for that privilege, they provide some 3rd party funding to help pay for all the curriculum that we need as well as instruction for things that I can't provide or PE/lessons that you would normally have access to in a regular school.
But it's like dancing with the devil- you have to pay to play. And I'm done with it. Every time I add another child to the classroom (number 5 starts in September), I feel the noose tightening around my neck. More and more pressure to perform- for me as their teacher, for my kids compared to everyone else, etc. I don't want people to think they're stupid or that I can't teach!?!?!! I think we're all cracking under the strain!!!!
It's scary to think of what next year might look like if I actually go through with this. Yet at the same time, it's quite liberating to think that we can pursue those things that actually interest the kids instead of spending hours each day trying to get them to complete some stupid filler assignment just so I can put another check-mark on the list.
And more importantly, we can go back to why we started this in the first place- to train up our children to be Christ-like, productive members of society. Oh really, who am I kidding? I need it just as much as they do.
Keeping it real, by the grace of God...
Tammy
This year has been crazy. Not just for me, but for a lot of my home schooling friends as well.
I thought that going into year five of this home schooling journey was a bit of an 'arrival' of sorts. That just maybe I had 'made it' and was on to smoother sailings.
Uhm.... no...
Getting rid of the dog lifted a huge weight of the constant responsibility- but at the same time the heaviness was still there. Like a daughter who would break out into weeping fits when she thought about the dog and still asks me when he's coming back or when I will get another dog to replace him. I expended copious amount of time trying to deal with and train him- and getting rid of him signaled yet another failure that was emotionally hard to deal with.
We also signed Elijah up with our local Air Cadet program and I have been volunteering with that as well. It's been interesting getting 'out' into the world again. For the past number of years our family has really isolated themselves with 'churchy' stuff and people. I had no friends that were not either home school or church related. It's taken a bit to get used to it, but I enjoy it (still working on the whole balance thing, though).
But at the same time, things just didn't seem to be working. So over the past few months I'd been looking into alternate schooling options.
There. I said it. I was looking into sending my kids back to public school.
I was done. I'd had enough of the constant fighting and bickering and whining, blah, blah, blah.
And it made me feel like a failure.
After much time and effort, and for a variety of reasons, even though I found a couple of schools that would probably have worked well for the kids- I didn't have peace about sending them back. I knew the problem was me- NOT them. Sending them back to school wouldn't fix that.
Like I said in my last post Filling the Wrong Bucket, for the past few months I have been chasing after my own will instead of denying it. And it's made everything go crazy (at least for me- I can't speak to why/how the other mom's I've talked to are having a hard time this year).
So I started trying to figure out some of the changes that need to be made in order for this to work again. For me to like my kids and teaching again. For us to not be fighting and arguing all the time.
The solution? Dropping our enrolled status and switching to being true home schoolers.
Up until now, we've been considered Distance Learners- not home schoolers, even though we do all our schooling at home. I have an assigned teacher that monitors our progress, assesses our work and writes up real report cards to judge how well we are meeting the Provincial Learning Outcomes just as if they were in a brick and mortar classroom.
And for that privilege, they provide some 3rd party funding to help pay for all the curriculum that we need as well as instruction for things that I can't provide or PE/lessons that you would normally have access to in a regular school.
But it's like dancing with the devil- you have to pay to play. And I'm done with it. Every time I add another child to the classroom (number 5 starts in September), I feel the noose tightening around my neck. More and more pressure to perform- for me as their teacher, for my kids compared to everyone else, etc. I don't want people to think they're stupid or that I can't teach!?!?!! I think we're all cracking under the strain!!!!
It's scary to think of what next year might look like if I actually go through with this. Yet at the same time, it's quite liberating to think that we can pursue those things that actually interest the kids instead of spending hours each day trying to get them to complete some stupid filler assignment just so I can put another check-mark on the list.
And more importantly, we can go back to why we started this in the first place- to train up our children to be Christ-like, productive members of society. Oh really, who am I kidding? I need it just as much as they do.
Keeping it real, by the grace of God...
Tammy
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