The same woman who made the Shakespeare comment has a very different view of homeschooling than I do.
This lady (who was really very nice) homeschooled one of her sons one school year, but it wasn’t by choice. He’d been kicked out of public school for major disciplinary problems and they couldn’t afford a decent private school. She said it was a horrible year and both of them were glad when it was over, and that it affected their relationship badly. She seemed to think that I’m some sort of martyr to want to do this year after year.
I enjoy being with Katie so much. It’s wonderful. She is a very cool and interesting person. I learn about things that I would never have investigated if it weren’t for her. I’m getting a much better education now than I did when I was in school!
And I guess it’s a matter of attitude, or maybe it’s related to the personalities of the kids and parents involved, or the family situations, or something. Because this is a woman who (with her husband) adopted five troubled siblings after they’d been bounced around through foster homes all over the state for years and years. I couldn’t do that. I don’t think I have it in me.
She is obviously a very devoted, caring, involved parent—but homeschooling was not good for them. Of course, it wasn’t a choice, but a necessity, which was probably another big factor.
But yeah, it isn’t for everyone.
Oh—I think she nearly had heart failure when she learned that I don’t have a degree. Any degree. Not even an associate’s. She has several graduate degrees. But she’d just had a conversation with Katie that ranged from Shakespeare to word problems to the lexigrams used to communicate with some Bonobo chimps. She asked a lot of questions about different subjects and how I planned to deal with, for instance, chemistry and physics, and seemed satisfied. I could actually see the gears whizzing in her head, revising at least some of her notions about the relationship of degrees to education.
We had these conversations because our daughters were in a peer support group together, and we were all in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before it began, then it was just the adults during the hour+ time for the group.
