So then. Let's start at the beginning.
I'm one of those people for whom homeschooling never seemed like a real alternative. I admit it; I scoff at most of it. And then your child becomes almost school-aged and you begin to wade ever so slightly into the deep waters of the American education system and start to get an inkling that something isn't quite right. I ignore most of those feelings because, after all, public education is a fundamental part of American life. You shove the feelings aside and assume that the schools know best how to educate your children.
I had my "aha!" moment some months back at the local library, where I take my 3 year old weekly to interact with other children and choose new books. He is a very social child and never cares much where we go, so long as there are other kids there to play with. I usually chat up the other parents as well. On this particular occasion, he was playing with another little boy who turned out to be just a few weeks older than my son but who was much more reserved and his speech still a bit hard to make out. This mom commented on how well he played with the other kids and also on how good his verbal skills were. Then she asked me where he went to school/daycare.
"Nowhere," I answered. She looked very surprised and said that he was doing very well then for not being in school. I just nodded and spouted some nonsense about how he had lots of opportunities to play with other kids through other activities. I'd had this same conversation before. This time, however, I didn't just move on with my day. Something stuck with me about it, mostly likely because I'd just completed a tour of local preschools and been frustrated by the cost and by the fact that my son's birthday was so late that he couldn't be in the same class as most kids that he was clicking with in terms of play.
It sat with me all afternoon before I finally came around to this truth: My son wasn't advancing well IN SPITE of not being in daycare or school setting, he was advancing well BECAUSE he wasn't in a daycare or school setting.
He is home with a reasonably well educated mother who loves him and knows him best. I have the unique advantage to be able to work with him one on one and play best to his strengths and balance his weaknesses. We are also privileged to be able to choose specific activities for him that also provide him the best opportunity for learning and playing based on his personality.
From there, I began asking myself other questions. What exactly would he get from preschool that he wasn't getting at home? Certainly nothing academic. They'll be looking at basically the same material through kindergarten, until all the children have learned to read. Social skills? My son obviously has no issues there, as he plays quite nicely with other children based on my observations and comments by other observers. He has plenty of opportunities for socialization through play dates, the library, gym class, or any other of the hundreds of activities I could get him into. That leaves only the bit about listening and obeying an authority figure other than the adults already in his life. Great.
So, will I send my son to school for 12 hours a week and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars per month so that he can "learn" to obey an authority figure? At 3 years old, I think not. Age 3 is for playing. For exploring. For coloring whichever way pleases him. Or not coloring at all. Its for reading stories and playing games. Not waiting in line and staying quiet and tracing the same lines over and over again. There is a time and place for those things, even at 3, but that is not what its all about. That isn't how children his age learn and he is learning just as well with me right now. I will not be enrolling in 3's preschool this year. I can reassess his educational needs next year.
I'll stop there.
Next we'll go to what I hope to accomplish by trying a homeschool approach and how I hope to accomplish it.
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