It’s been one of my goals to write down the story behind our decision to home school our kids. Now seems like as good a time as any. Oftentimes I’ll be involved in a home school discussion on my message board, and I’ll be able to post a link to my story instead of typing the whole thing out again. Think of how much extra time I’ll have to do housework play!

The story starts in August of 1999. Our daughter had turned 5, and we prepared to send her off to a brick and mortar public school in our area. She was a petite thing for her age and looked so small compared to all of the other kids in her class. The idea to home school came to me then, and I looked around at various teacher supply stores to see what I would need to accomplish it. At this point, KT was due to start school in a matter of days. I was out of time. I felt like I had to send her because there was no way I’d be ready to school her in just a few short days. Oh, how I wish I knew then what I know now! Who says school has to start on a certain day? I could have taken a couple of months to figure out my plan. Hindsight is 20/20.

So several days later, she boarded the big yellow bus and off she went. Things seemed to go well at first. She made some friends. She was excelling in all school subjects. She was tested and found to be “gifted” and enrolled into the gifted program. For our school system that meant she left her regular class for about an hour once per week and worked with the gifted teacher.

Mike and I felt good that she was fitting in well. We felt we had dodged the home school situation. After all, the only things we knew about home schoolers were the stereotypical things: the families were very large, the moms wore denim jumpers, the kids were homely and awkward, and the reason they chose to home school was to go underground from the government. We wouldn’t have fit in with that group at all.
As the school year progressed, we noticed changes in KT. She began to have an “attitude” toward her little brother. I think she was associating more with her peers and felt she didn’t need him to play with anymore. Her social circle was at school, not at home. Some days she came off the bus crying because one of her friends was mean to her. Even at that young age KT encountered some very manipulative girls who were very good at playing one friend against the other. On any given day, she didn’t know if her “friends” were going to be nice to her or shun her.

Academically, she was bored out of her mind. The gifted program was not enough to stimulate her sponge-like brain and most of the days she was forced to learn things she already knew. I distinctly remember the day she came off the bus and complained that the class had spent the entire morning discussing what could and could not live in a river. She seemed frustrated that so many kids were listing off things like dogs, bunnies, and cats as animals that could live in a river. She explained to me that these animals were mammals and since mammals breathe air, they could NOT live in a river.

At this point we still did not pursue the home school route. There were many reasons. I felt I wasn’t smart enough, organized enough, or dedicated enough to do such a thing. I thought my kids would have huge gaps in their education. After all, what if I forgot to teach them something important? I felt like there was no support for home schoolers. I had no idea where to even begin to look for information on it. I wanted my kids to have peers to socialize with. I had gone to public school for 9 years, Mike had gone for 13 years, and we turned out alright. And, to top it all off, I did not want to wear a denim jumper!

That winter, Mike and I took a 5 day ski trip to New York. It was just the two of us. We had to leave Nick at home because he was just too little to ski. We had to leave KT at home because we felt she could not miss 5 days of kindergarten! My parents came down to stay with the kids while Mike and I headed off on our trip. It was very heartbreaking because even at the young age of 5 1/2, KT loved to ski. She wanted to go with us, but couldn’t because of school.

This is when the shift to home school happened. I distinctly remember being at Peek ‘n Peak. Mike and I were bundled head to toe and riding up the chair lift that would drop us at the top of an easy run. There was a tree to the right that was decorated with gaudy beaded necklaces and various undergarments (a Peek ‘n Peak tradition). Just after that tree, Mike turned to me, his goggles foggy, and said, “You know, if we home schooled, we could bring the kids skiing with us and not have to leave them at home.” There I sat on the chair lift, my mind racing. Here was Mike, who had been staunchly against home schooling for all of the reasons cited, bringing it up as a possibility.

It was now February of 2000. After the ski trip we returned home and I started doing some internet research. WOW! There was so much information out there. I had originally been worried that I wouldn’t find any information. Now I was worried I wouldn’t know how to narrow down the information that I found.

But I had time. We decided to let KT finish out her kindergarten year. After all, what harm could come of that?

To Be Continued……

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