Call me naïve, but I never anticipated one of my children asking to go to school. And if by chance some fortuneteller had given me a heads up, I would have placed my money on my older son.But life seems hellbent on reminding me how little I really understand.
Last December, as we were driving to get groceries, S, 13, surprised me by telling me that he'd like to try school.
Did I say 'surprised'? You could have knocked me over with a feather at that moment.
This is a child who has always seemed content and never lacks for something to do. He reads, uses the computer, makes things, cooks, and plays his bass. He has learned to code over the last year, cares devotedly for the cat, plays paintball whenever he can. He has a seemingly full and happy life.
I pointed this out to him. But he insisted that this was not a rash decision, that he'd been thinking about it for a few months.
He had two reasons for wanting to go to school, he said. First of all, he was wanting someone to tell him what to learn. (His words. I'll let them sit here unadorned for the moment.)
The other reason he gave me broke my heart: he wanted more friends. I don't think many longtime homeschoolers escape this issue completely. In our community, at least, the kids drift off to school by age 10 or 11. S's friends have all been in school for years now, but until this conversation it hadn't occurred to me that it was affecting him so strongly. He has almost never asked to get together with other kids, and I assumed this meant he didn't care much about friendship. That was clearly not the case.
It may be evident by now that I had a difficult time wrapping my head around this. (You want someone to tell you what to what?! Okay, got that out of my system.) As parents, we make the choice to unschool because we believe it to be the very best option for our children. But what does one do when the child himself chooses something different?
What S and I did was to pull over in the car and talk. And talk. And talk some more. I told him what I thought. He told me what he thought. Some tears were shed. To be honest, one of my first reactions was fear around losing him. I love being with S and his brother, and his brother at 18 is already out of the house a lot. The thought of S being gone, too, was not something I was prepared to think about; it felt like someone was pulling a baby from my arms.
But as S quietly emphasized, he is not a baby. He is taller than me. His voice has deepened. He is growing up, and he wants this. A large part of why we homeschool is so that our kids have freedom in learning. This is S's choice. It is how he wants to take his next step and therefore, in the end, it's what I want for him, too.
The next day I emailed a teacher in the independent study program whom I knew to be particularly attuned to individual students. We met, and she agreed to take him on and help him prepare to transfer into the school system. It's more or less a done deal. He'll start in the fall.
And ironically, I received a call this morning from a mom who asked about unschooling her 14 year old. She would be moving him from school to unschooling at the same time S would be going from unschooling to school. We had a long conversation. I have done this often in the past as I was for many years an area homeschooling contact, and I am always careful not to promise too much. I told her it would probably be hard on her because unschooling kids don't always make the same choices that we adults might make for them. Her child might not necessarily decide to study chemistry at the local college, start a business, or volunteer at the shelter. He might instead lie on the couch and watch YouTube videos all day. He might play video games deep into the night after sleeping until noon. He might appear to be doing absolutely nothing for long stretches at a time, stretches that would likely challenge her own sense of what a productive life looks like.
But I also told her that I was sure it would all be fine.
I am confident that it will be—for her son, and for mine.
• • •
Suzie I can’t help but feel like I’m looking into a crystal ball when I hear your story. I know this day will come for me too and I’m never quite sure when that day will be. In the meantime, I grapple with what my reaction might be.Right now my kids need me. They need me a lot, to help them find and navigate through the learning experiences they need and want. I feel I have a real place, a role that’s important and bigger than me. I really wonder what it will feel like to not be my child’s guide anymore.
I got a little taste of this one day when Simon said to me, “Mom, I’m thinking of taking school.”
‘Taking school,’ now if that won’t get him beat up in the playground.
My insides jumped a bit and I asked him what it was about school he wanted? Was it the classes full of kids, and if so, I told him I can arrange those, since there are lots of homeschool opportunities I'm not using. He said no, which surprised me because he always thrives in situations with lots of kids to be with. Then he told me it was the pop quizzes and tests. He actually wanted test anxiety!? He's recently read the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kids series and the Big Nate series and has been watching a lot of the t.v. series Arthur. The main theme in all these is school and test anxiety. So, perhaps he just wanted to see how the other half lives?
And he wanted a 'teacher' to mark his papers, not me. Fair enough. I jumped at his request and set up an appointment with our homeschool liaison to come in with tests to be marked.
I printed out a few end of unit quizzes from the math curriculum he’s dabbling in, he took them to his room, closed the door and completed them. He gave them to me and I didn’t look them over. I put them away to be marked by the teacher. We had our appointment, the tests were marked and he was satisfied.
About a week later he asked me when we are going to see this teacher again. I told him we can see him again tomorrow, next week, next month or never. It was up to him if he wanted to take more tests and have them marked. He told me he was done.
I was all ready for a life shifting direction change. I was thinking I'd have to get a curriculum happening and a real academic routine set up. Apparently not yet. Although he does seem to like more structure, he also likes to be able to choose when he wants said structure. I'm learning everyday.
Is this a situation showing intrinsic motivation, or a need for outside validation, beyond the family?
• • •
I was raised in a small rural prairie town where many of my friendships are still strong; 40 years later, I take friendship to heart. It takes work as a parent to help your children's friendships stay strong but that is an entirely other subject to blog about!
Being a challenging & head strong individual, my son would never have come to me to ask to go to school, so I offered it up as an option. I left the decision up to him. We proceeded to visit the schools around our home in which he would be the one to choose. He knew exactly the school he wanted the minute we walked in. Even though he chose to go to school he changed his mind every day until the first day of school. My son's fears sometimes win over his courage, so a helpful push out of the nest was needed. He wanted very much to go but was really scared of the unknown.
At ten years old his first week of school was a huge learning curve. The 'do's and don'ts' of peer culture were like flashing neon lights. My son does not take commands very well....do any of us? When an injustice was committed in the schoolyard he did not hesitate to speak up even if it was a boy two feet taller than him. He could not understand the pecking order or why you could not be yourself. He stuck with it though as he met a new friend who liked him for exactly who he was. They were inseparable. His year was filled with schoolyard games (his most favorite in which he still misses two years later), ski trips, talent shows and goofing around! It filled the loneliness and brought about new experiences he would never had encountered at home, that question of 'what are the other kids doing all day', he now knew the answer. At the closing of the year, we asked him if he wanted to return to school. He thought about this very hard, his reply "If I knew it was recess and lunch hour all day I would go back".
Unfortunately his best friend had moved back to Virginia so he felt there was not much to go back to. At one point my son said, "I'm glad you know me mom that I needed a push to go out and try new things".
Unfortunately his best friend had moved back to Virginia so he felt there was not much to go back to. At one point my son said, "I'm glad you know me mom that I needed a push to go out and try new things".
Educationally he learned absolutely nothing and was bored and annoyed by the curriculum. His teacher who did nothing but yell at them all year was entertainment to say the least.
Even today my son has fond memories of his year at school or rather his year playing in the schoolyard. He tells his younger brother that he "has to try school out even just for one year, so you know what it's like!" Fortunately for my son he found his karate club through school in which two years later, has become 'his community' and many of his friends from school go to karate with him.
Our family looks at our sons year at school as just another experience in life. Who knows what tomorrow holds?
