Friday, April 07, 2006

Unwanted opinions @@

Yes, I needed to give a big eye roll yesterday.
We were at my 6 year olds ballet class. One mom knows we homeschool, the other didn't. Mom A (who didn't know that) was complaining about her first graders homework - how she like 1.5 -2 hours of homework a night and how they just don't have enough time to do anything fun anymore and blah blah blah.
Mom B, who has a dd in kindergarten (which my 6 year old would be in as well) said that it all sounded overwhelming and looked at me and said you must enjoy your schedule a lot now huh? So I said yes and I was glad we didn't have a schedule like that. Mom A looked at me funny and I said well we homeschool, so we just fit in schooling when we can during the day and it's nice.
Then she proceeded to tell me how the curriculum in our district was very intensive and it would be hard to get that at home.
Okay, seriously I just wanted to scream. First of all, this district's curriculum matches that of the surrounding districts, so it's not like we are living in a special district that has standards ten times higher than other districts. Secondly, I am very aware of what the district is doing because my cousin in in kindergarten here and I peek through waht he is doing just to see how it compares. Thirdly, if I wanted my dd to do exactly what they were doing in this district, I wouldn't keep her home so frankly, I'm not even that concerned about how we compare to the district kids. And lastly, we are doing just fine thank you very much for your concern.
I just hate the attitude that we must not be teaching our children as well as the district can, or people assume if they are home they must do much easier work.
Ah, but lest you think this only applies to non-homeschooling families, sadly it doens't. I have also been told by other homeschoolers how they are doing very in-depth, intense programs and the little workbooks my kids use don't compare @@ Yeah, the "little workbooks" my kids use, well, some of them are the same thing school districts buy and use in their classrooms, so I doubt they are all that much different.
Ugh.
I am very confident in our decision to homeschool. I am very confident in the materials we use. I think what we use is pretty much the same as what everyone else uses, just with a different cover, and in 30 years, my kid will probably be in roughly the same point in life that those using "more intense" programs will be in honestly.
Sometimes I just need to vent so that next time someone has to question what we are doing or imply I am somehow not giving my kids as good of an education as their kids are getting, I don't explode and tell them to bite me!
And yes, I know, a few years ago, I would have been the person with their mouth flapping open talking about how their child wasn't going to be as good as mine. But see, I've grown and learned and changed and matured some since then I guess. But I'm still pretty darn opinionated and stuburn and more immature than mature.
I do know for my kids, staying home is the best thing for them so far. If that changes, I'll change what I'm doing. I also know the curriculum we are using is not any worse (but not any better) than what the school 4 blocks from here uses or what Jane Smith homeschooler in Florida is using. But I will say this, it's not so much the curriculum you use, but rather how you use it and how well your child responds to it. Curriculum Y may work great for Jonny but flop for Betty. And that has nothing to do with the curriculum per se, but rather how well you can match your childs needs to what you are using.
Anyway, I guess I just needed to babble on about this for a few minutes to feel better about it. And like I said, my kids are doing great! =)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd say you handled yourself VERY gracefully - Kudos to you Brandie!! : ) Those situations always make me bite my tongue, too .... despite what's really going through my mind at the time.

Homeschool kids ROCK, you & I both know that -so I'm gonna just leave it at that! : )