Continued from WHY WE HOME SCHOOL …..PART I

So we made our decision to home school. We scoured the internet and narrowed down our choices. We began to network with other home schoolers. We found out the most amazing thing: The stereotypes associated with home school families aren’t true! Isn’t that true with stereotypes?

KT continued to go to school as before. Her new materials were delivered. We chose Five in a Row and Math-U-See as our primary curricula. KT was very excited to begin home schooling in the fall.

Then, suddenly, our timing changed. KT came home from school in early April and was telling me about her day. Then she added, “Two days ago, Jeremy said he was going to bring a gun to school and kill me.”

WHAT?

I had no idea where she would get an idea like this (unless it actually happened). Six weeks before, a first grader in Michigan had shot and killed another first grader. Prior to that, I never imagined school violence issues would trickle down to a 6-year-old. But now it was in the realm of possibility. I asked KT to describe exactly what had happened. She told me, “Jeremy said he didn’t like me and he was going to bring a gun to school and kill me.” I asked, “When did this happen?” “Two days ago,” she replied.

We then had a conversation about what happened after that. I asked vague questions to allow her to give me the information without putting ideas in her head. I asked if she told the teacher about what Jeremy said. She had. I asked what the teacher did about it. She told me that the teacher made Jeremy apologize and promise not to do it. That was that. Nothing more was done. And seeing as the incident happened on a Tuesday, and it was now Thursday, the teacher didn’t think it was important enough to tell my husband or me about the incident. We had to learn about it from our 5-year-old!

Let me backtrack a bit and give you a little history on Jeremy. I volunteered at KT’s school at least once a week, so I knew some of Jeremy’s story. In the fall of 1999, a drunk killed Jeremy’s father during a bar brawl. Jeremy saw a psychiatrist and was in anger management counseling. Jeremy came to school with red marks on his arms and black eyes. I suspect that Jeremy’s life was tough. I suspect that Jeremy lived in a house where a gun could be accessible.

So what’s a mom to do? I called the school, surprisingly calm, and asked to meet with the teacher ASAP. I went in early the next morning and told her KT informed me about a problem she had with Jeremy, and I wanted her side of the story. I didn’t tell her any of the details KT had told me because I did not want to sway her version at all. She told me about the incident from her point of view and it was word-for-word exactly as KT had told me.

And then….brace yourself….she said, “But Jeremy is such a sweet little boy. I didn’t think he would actually do it!”

She didn’t think he’d actually do it?

I was floored!

I am, by nature, a bit sarcastic, and my response to her statement of Jeremy’s sweetness was, “Is that the sound byte you want played on the 6:00 news after Jeremy kills my daughter?”

Isn’t that what people always say after some sort of tragedy? “I didn’t think he’d do it.”

My gut told me we needed to get KT out of there as quickly as possible. I feared something would happen and I would forever feel guilt for leaving her in school just one more day. After a weekend of prayer, Mike and I felt led to remove her from public school without hesitation. Legally, we were required to turn in an “intent to home school form” before taking KT out. I turned it in to the superintendent’s office Monday morning and pulled KT from school.

I don’t feel like we had a knee-jerk reaction to this incident. We did not go into home schooling for this reason. It was merely a change in timing. Instead of starting in the fall, we started in the spring. Originally, the motivation for home schooling was to give KT more of a challenge than the public school system could offer her. Another motivation was to enjoy family vacation time without the restrictiveness of the school calendar. School safety was not even in our minds on that chair lift in New York.

Why do we continue to home school? Because our kids have thrived in this environment. They are learning at their own pace. They can take some subjects slower if needed, or they can devour the subjects they love which come easy to them. They get one-on-one attention at anytime during the school day. They can complete in a matter of 4 or 5 hours what it takes brick-and-mortar school-kids 8 hours to accomplish. They do not have to waste 90 minutes a day on a school bus. They do not have an additional 1 to 2 hours of homework every evening. They can vacation with us and explore the world at any time. They are protected from bullies during these young years when they aren’t emotionally mature enough to know how to handle them. They can be involved in activities that interest them without worrying about school schedules. They can get together with friends at co-ops, swim lessons, art classes, ballet, acting camps, theater rehearsals, parks, and gym classes. They can complete their work in a fraction of the time and still have time to play and imagine and just be kids. They can be their own people and not feel like they need to wear a certain style of clothing or have a certain type of backpack just to “fit in.” They can learn from their parents about the beauty of God’s gift of sex and don’t need to hear crude renditions of sexual acts from other 10-year-olds on the school bus.

Home schoolers get grief about how they are doing a disservice to their kids. People worry the kids will turn out awkward and won’t be “socialized.” They fear the kids won’t be able to relate to others because they won’t have enough exposure to people outside their own family. I’m not so worried about that. Our kids are very active. They are involved in plenty of outside activities. They have been in professional plays and have been around lots of children and adults in that setting. From what I see as they audition, rehearse, perform, and interact with others, they fit in just fine with their peers.

So there you have it. The two part story on why we home school. Every spring we re-evaluate our decision and come to the conclusion that we’ll home school again the next year. That may change at some point, but until then we’re enjoying learning together.

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