One year today, working full-time at my old company, which is now a new company. It's been good in many ways and horrible in others. One thing I know for sure: I will have no lingering doubts when it's time to go -- I'll be done!
Gabriel has another book report due, which of course he complained about bitterly. He remembers a talk he had with his cousin recently about not having to do reports, and now exalts home-schooling as something that's super-easy and he'd have control over.
But the more I think about it, and the more I work with the boys on their schoolwork (which I do more of now, with my new higher standards for quality of work), the more I see home-schooling as some unreachable pinnacle. How do home-school parents do that! It could only happen with cooperative kids -- for me it's a serious struggle just to get the boys to put their lunch away every day. I can't imagine a whole 20-minute exercise or a whole day keeping their attention. What an intense job that must be.
At the same time, I've read in many places that the #1 factor in quality education is the child/teacher ratio, and home-schoolers certainly get a good one of those. They get committed parents who can be right on top of issues or deficiencies, or elaborate on strengths in exactly the way an individual needs.
I'd be the worst home-schooling parent in the world, and I couldn't possibly take the stress of overcoming the sibling dynamic and getting my children to listen to me, but it's like opening up a new world to think of what I could do with them -- if I could.
Meantime, I'll start my 2nd year of work tomorrow and let my tax dollars do schooling for me.
2/1/2011
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