Walking Home with No Underwear

I have probably grabbed your attention with the title.  Hopefully, you will find the post interesting too.  Today, I took the kids swimming.  This is something I do pretty often to keep their skills up.  It is an undertaking in some ways because we need to pack up and walk the mile there.  Luckily our bags are on wheels.  I don't always have a lot of energy which translates into less time when I do have energy, so I frequently have the kids pack their own bags.  It is hard to get Carmella going sometimes, but once she starts packing she remembers everything.  So at least it is smooth once we get there.  Thomas, on the other hand, often forgets whole outfits having to walking home in the same outfit he wore there despite it being dirty and having had a full shower.  I am big on re-wearing outfits a time or two before washing, but after a bath or shower, I think something that is completely clean is most appropriate.  I often wear the same thing (for all leave-the-house occasions) for a full 48 hours between showers, but then I want a fresh outfit.  Anyway, today, despite being reminded by Carmella and me, Thomas forgot his underwear.  So I had to decide whether to let him wear dirty underwear after a shower or to walk home with no underwear on.  I chose the latter for the above mentioned reasons. 

Then, I started thinking to myself that it is a good thing that he doesn't go to school.  He would suffer in terms of lower grades for forgetting homework or forgetting to have it signed or getting in trouble for not having forms signed.  Of course, it can't just be my son.  I am sure there are loads of kids like him.  There must be lots of kids getting into trouble in school for being forgetful.  This isn't exactly what is happening though.  To my knowledge, parents are very involved in kids' homework and teachers purposely involve them.  The parents open the backpacks.  Perhaps this is the problem.  Kids often don't become accountable or independent because the consequences are so serious (in terms of grades) that they are not left to handle their responsibility independently.  I think it is good for my son that he had to walk home with no underwear.  Next time, he will be more likely to remember and it has no permanent consequences (like a school transcript), only the short term weird feeling of walking home in pants with no underwear under them.

The funny thing is that when he goes to one of his activities, I let him go in the boy's locker room alone and he changes outfits just fine and doesn't forget anything.  He is even fast at it versus my begging him to get dressed at home.  At that same activity, there is a boy close to his age, probably in between his and Carmella's ages, who changes in the girls locker room with his mother.  Aside from this bugging me a little bit since Carmella has to change with him, it is clearly not going to help him be independent.  I am not sure her reason for doing it.  If it is out of fear, it doesn't make sense since these are small locker rooms with the instructors (appropriate gender) moving in and out of them frequently.  I would understand fear in a big public place like a mall or grocery store with many strangers.  In those settings, Thomas still comes in the ladies room with us (provided Dad isn't out with us).  It must be because she feels like she needs to help him change or pack.  In my experience though, my kids handle things in a grown up manner when I give them space.  When I micromanage, they go out of their way to be forgetful and even goofy and out of hand.

Perhaps this is the problem with the education system today.  In the 1980s we were a bit older when we went to school.  I don't remember my parents ever opening my backpack.  Sometimes, they asked if I had homework and sometimes they didn't.  I learned to keep track of myself so I wouldn't get a bad grade or lose recess.  Now kids get a mixed message.  They are expected to work full-time at school as if they are adults, but they are not given the responsibility and corresponding feeling of independence.  It's not that I think parents should never help with a difficult homework, but being involved in it daily, especially at the expectation of the teachers, is counterproductive.  While I am not always successful, I try to teach my kids in a manner opposite to this.  I want them to have real responsibility (packing without me checking their bags), but don't want to turn it into a full-time job.

Anyway, this is what I was thinking about while my son walked home with no underwear on.  Only time will tell if my methods are better, but something to ponder.

Teaching Time Managment

As part of our homeschooling, I have a list of classic children's books sorted in precise grade level order (2.1, 2.2, etc.) that I am having the kids read in addition to their Time4Learning, outside activities, and impromptu play and experiments.  Sometimes, it is hard to get T to sit down and read because there are so many things he wants to do.  I began to push bringing his books with us to activities.  Since we ride the NFTA buses to go places there is usually extra time waiting for a bus and extra time when we get somewhere early because the bus times aren't always precise for the desired arrival time.  There is also the time waiting for a bus to come home.

He fought me at first, but when he realized that he was getting almost all his reading done during time that would otherwise be wasted, he got much better about it.  He now sees that he has more time at home to play and do other things.  Hopefully, he will begin to appreciate how important time management is.  I think this is a pretty good way to teach it especially because without going to school there is still a tremendous amount of free time and this just increases it.  When I was in school learning time management wasn't the difference between free time and more free time, but no free time and a little free time.  It was hard to see the point when I was so overloaded.  Only time will tell if the time management sticks, but we'll wait and see.  I certainly think learning it in the context of more choices is better than the way I learned it where there was more of a punishment element in not having all my assignments ready.  Again, we'll have to see how it works long term.

Kid (and Winter) Prompted Science Experiments

Walking down the sidewalks in Buffalo, I can't help but complain about the way people don't shovel.  I know my neighbors hate how I am last minute with my lawn in the summer, but when it comes to shoveling, I am out there quick and regularly scraping down to the concrete.  I don't believe in salt because of the environment.  If you scrape it right away and wait for the sun to come out (even the limited Buffalo winter sun), it is all you need.  When my kids encountered sidewalks that were poorly shoveled but covered with salt, I want off about this.  Surprise, Surprise!  Anyway, after I shut up, they asked me why salt is put on ice.

It then turned into a great basic science experiment.  We put two plastic yogurt cups of water in the freezer to freeze.  Then we took them out and put lots of salt, a big layer, on one of them.  I tried to explain that the one without salt was the control one and the other was the experimental one, but I am not sure they will remember.

We then placed them back in the freezer.  Over the next several days, we observed the one with the salt melt despite being in the freezer. 

Of course, they had to taste the salt water to see that it wasn't plain water.  That part was their idea, not mine, but since it was plain old salt, it didn't hurt them. 

The best part of the whole thing is that some of our regular activities prompted this which made it relevant.  Over the holidays, I know I was starting to worry about not being creative enough with coming up with experiments.  After this, I started to worry less.

I highly recommend this experiment, mainly because it is very easy and not too much work, but also because it is so relevant this time of year.

The Educational Headlines Get Scarier

Earlier this week, I was in bed flipping through the few channels we get with our antenna.  When I got to Channel 2, one of the major stories was NY To Add 300 Hours To Public School Year .  The story was about how five states, including New York, are planning to increase the amount of hours that students spend in school.  It is extremely disturbing to me since one of the reasons that I homeschool T & C is that I think that school is already too much of a full-time job for kids. Not only does it rob them of their childhood to benefit adults' work schedules (whose real benefit is the corporations that sell them the vast number of unnecessary items they buy on two incomes or low wages when families can't help but need two incomes for the basics), but nobody is asking the hard questions about the use of time in the schools or what is really necessary for children to learn.

The first question that should be asked is whether or not the time used in school is efficient or effective.  When T used to go to a local school for speech, there were several times, when the speech teacher called to tell me not to bring him since they were engrossed in a testing week.  If 10-20% of the time (from what I can tell) is spent on testing, then valuable class time for learning is being wasted, never mind the time for assemblies, discipline, lining up, etc.  Some things are unavoidable in a school environment because of its model.  Inherently, some time will be spent on making sure everyone is there and waiting for people to calm down.  It is just the drawback of 20-30 kids per one teacher.

What I want to know is how is my son, who hasn't turned six yet, reading at a nearly second grade level while only spending about 2 hours a day, 4 days a week on traditional academics?  How is this possible when he is not a genius and my health means that he learns independently in most cases?  How is it possible when he spends so much more time out in the world and doing random hands-on activities and free play?  I am not sure I can directly answer how its happening except that it is a clear testament to the fact that kids don't need to be couped up six plus hours a day away from their homes.

What about what they learn?  What skills are really necessary for adulthood?  Are kids really going to remember everything?  Is there some way to arm them with the skills for life-long learning instead so they can confidently pick up whatever skills they need when they need them?  It is time to look at the vast amount of knowledge available, the limited capacity of the human brain to master it, and come up with a better way to decide what should be learned.  Does hard core academics for so many hours make sense when there are many more things that adults need to know including things like homemaking which everyone needs to do in some way or minor repair for the large number of people who will own a home?  This is just to name a few.  After all, real learning happens when one chooses to learn and it is relevant.

I am worried for the other kids, honestly, really worried.  They are experiencing child labor masquerading as school and extracurricular activities.  My general observation of conventional school students close to my kids' ages is that they work almost all-day five days a week and sometimes several hours on Saturday.  They are at school about six and a half hours a day with little recess and a twenty-minute lunch break (short even by adult labor standards).  The transportation and waiting for buses adds half an hour to an hour to this.  Then there is afterschool program or extracurricular activities (almost always multiple ones a week) with kids often getting home after five or even six.  Then there is the socially acceptable (and necessary with this schedule) strict 8 pm bed time allowing a short dinner, bath, and homework.  The only difference between the problematic child labor of past years is that children now receive little economic benefit and eventually go into debt for college where the overworked kids of past may have received some compensation even if far too low.  They were also physically active while the kids today are acquiring numerous health conditions due to inactivity.  Yes, in the case of the extracurricular activities, there is some fitness in many of them, and certainly those are less "work" in the sense that presumably the kids chose them (even though parental pressure is pretty high these days so maybe not) rather than being forced into them like school.   I am not trying to romanticize the harsh lives of children in the past, but I think it is helpful to see the parallels including that it is still all for adult benefit.  In the past the adults whom benefited were the owners of family farms in the most benevolent cases and greedy factory owners in the worst cases.  Today, the educational establishment, even though perhaps better intentioned, benefits tremendously.  Parents today, no longer owning farms, benefit by having free child care to chase the rewards society glorifies most, money and status.

It will be interesting to see what the public has to say about the increased hours.  My guess is that most adults will be happy.  Parents will be relieved to have their kids time occupied while they work or run errands.  It is already pretty clear that parents today are comfortable turning their kids over to professionals to raise them rather than doing it themselves.  The educational establishment will respond by chasing more compensation for more hours, and designing new specializations for professionals who work in the schools.  The kids won't know if they are young and the older ones won't find a good mechanism for the outrage they may feel.  I know that I am outraged, but other than writing these sorts of articles, there isn't much of a way to change minds.  I am sure that if I tried to convince kids that they were working too hard, their parents, who already feel threatened by my unconventional choices, would not be pleased with me.  It is bad enough that the decision to homeschool is inherently an indictment of the decision by others to conventionally school even if I don't mean to specifically question the choices of others.  I know that many others, including other bloggers, like to dress their decision up in a sort of diplomatic everyone choosing what is best for their own family type of view, but when you choose something so out of the mainstream (homeschooling is known and growing, but still relatively low numbers) it really does say something about the status quo given that it is socially much easier to do what everyone else does.

What do you think about this news?  It won't be news for long because people will be happy or will more people choose to homeschool because of it?

Happiness as an Educational Goal

A couple of months ago, I took out Happiness and Education by Nel Noddings from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.  I have been meaning to write about it for a while now, but with the difficulty concentrating that I have due to fibro fog, reading takes me a very long time.  Anyway, I really enjoyed the book and its arguments.  I liked the discussion of happiness as a reasonable goal for education.  There really is quite a bit of support for it when looked at through the eyes of philosophy.

One of the best parts, however, was that it really illuminated how lopsided the conventional education system is towards hard academics and career preparation.  While intuitively, it seems unnecessarily to coop kids up on a nearly full-time basis for academics, I am not sure I thought about how many things that conventional school doesn't cover or cover enough that take up a significant part of life such as home making and interpersonal relationships.  I suppose that most people expect students to learn those things at home, but, of course, with all the time spent in school and on homework, they are not covered well at home either.

The book also touches on the inherent materialism that is the goal in education since everyone expects that if they work hard at school they'll get a good job and be able to buy everything they need.  Education is often cited as a way to promote equality and diminish poverty.  However, someone will always have to do the work that society values with low wages so it illuminates that poverty is a social problem and not an educational one.

These are just some of the things that I gleaned from reading this book.  I recommend it to everyone with kids, but especially homeschool parents.  While I haven't made dramatic changes to our routine because of it, it has helped me put our activities into good perspective.

Worm Farming Adventures

We have had a worm farm in our kitchen since before June 1st.  It has been a great learning experience for T and C.  My main reason for getting it is that I couldn't stand the idea that we put food scraps in the garbage.  Having the scraps be preserved, sort of, in plastic bags in a landfill bothered me.  Since we are in the city and close to large apartment buildings and businesses with dumpsters, a regular outdoor compost pile seemed out of the question since it could attract rats.  Most people compost to have a garden.  Hopefully, we will transform our front yard slowly starting next spring, but we are far from being gardening people.  It wasn't our main reason for getting one anyway, it was the landfill thing.

I waited until now to do a big post on it even though I have mentioned it on my other blog with our homeschool days itemized.  Now seems like an appropriate time since we recently rotated the last tray and found our mostly finished compost.

I say mostly finished because some of the paper wasn't eaten either because we didn't make the pieces small enough or because we had so much in the first tray as bedding.  However, the food was completely gone and we found no worms or cocoons as they had all hatched and migrated to the upper trays for new food.  We decided to put the paper back through one more time.  It was a great experience for the kids to see that the food was gone.  Here is a picture from June from that tray:

The journey was especially fun too.  We got to see the worms mate and we found cocoons.  Now that the population is much bigger, likely doubled, we catch them mating about half of all times we open the bin now. 

In this picture, there is both interlocked clittela between the worms and if you look closely, a nice cocoon near them.  Worms, in this case red wigglers, spend their days eating, crawling, and mating.  They mate weekly, when mature, and don't need to sleep.  They are hermaphrodites, but can't fertilize themselves.  Knowing their activities and optimum conditions is important for trouble shooting problems.  One example of a problem was escaping worms, not loads but too many.  In that case, we had stirred in food too soon that was still too hot and they had no cool place to find refuge.  We discussed chemistry a bit observing heat from the composting food.  It is important to note that microorganisms take care of the food and the worms eat them. 

Observation of worms in a habitat isn't the only positive.  It is also a good experience for the kids to take care of the farm draining the farm and adding food and paper.

It was a great all around project for biology, chemistry, environmentalism, responsibility, and sustainability, never mind the complete circle when we use the compost in our front yard.  The only part we bi-passed was making the farm.  I hit a sale on a tray set up and bought it when I had the chance to do it, but a more complete way to do this is to build your own using some of the videos on you tube as instructions.  In my case, I was concerned about my energy level and didn't want that to hold us back from the rest of the project.

If you have a worm farm, are you enjoying it?

City Living and Physical Education

This morning was a great morning.  First of all, I felt pretty good, not as good as yesterday but a far cry from the several bad fibro days I had earlier in the week.  Second of all, we did several errands this morning to buy supplies for a project we were working on.  One of them involved taking the bus to a big regular grocery store, something we don't do all that frequently. 

During our journey there, I couldn't help but think about the superior physical education that my kids are receiving.  Getting to the store involved quite a bit of walking.  First, we grabbed the bus down two blocks so we could hit the better mail box.  (For some reason, the one at our block has one pick up while the one two blocks down has several pick ups at good times.)  Then when we got off the bus we had to walk about five times as far as someone who would drive to the store and park in the lot.  We also brought our grocery cart which had to be pushed, not just to and from a car, but to and from the bus.  On the way home, knowing that getting the bus there has been unlucky for me without waiting a long time, we decided to walk and turn around each stop to see if it was coming (since the stops are pretty close together).  By the time we saw it, we were less than a mile from home so we just kept walking for a total of about 2 miles.  It was beautiful outside and and invigorating for the soul to be out in the sunshine with all the activity around.

A habit of regular exercise woven into life is what I prescribe as physical education.  This will benefit them far into adulthood.  It doesn't seem strange to them to walk distances to go places or to think about how to get things from one place to another without a car.  Unfortunately, physical education traditionally focuses on sports, specifically team sports.  I am all for sports that can be used regularly into adult life like running or swimming, but how many adults are on teams of the sports they used to play in school?  Relatively few.  Further, I have a serious problem with the message of team sports with the emphasis on competition.  Even when competition is downplayed, there is always a winner and a loser.  Many think competition is fundamental to our society particularly with the vast materialism in the name of the free market.  However, I don't believe it has to be.  It isn't inherent in our human nature.  Real and widespread collaboration would be a better way.  Of course, team sports reinforce competition in an enticing manner along side the conventional education and employment system.  It isn't enough to talk about collaboration while continuing to subscribe to the institutions whose fundamental nature is competition.  Our society would need to function quite a bit differently including rejecting conventional education with its testing, ranking, and sorting.  It would have to be a revolution of sorts since competition is so woven into society.  Almost every news broadcast where politics is discussed has it and walk into any business with a tv on and the vast majority have sports on for their customers (including the cafe at the grocery store this morning).

If T or C asked to join a sport would I let them?  Of course.  After all, we are trying to do our best at child centered learning.  Will they ask?  Probably not.  We have limited the exposure to sports on tv and discussion of team or professional sports as much as we can.  We wouldn't stop them from watching, but we never set an example of watching them ourselves at home.  More importantly, however, our simple urban living, sets the best example of all by using our bodies to carry out daily activities in a physical and more sustainable way.  We are probably in a very small minority.  Many homeschoolers, while rejecting conventional school, have their kids participate in sports as their physical education, never mind the vast majority of the population whose kids are in school with many participating in sports as well.  That is is fine though.  We aren't raising our kids to be like everyone else, but to make thoughtful choices about their activities and, therefore, views and priorities.

But keep checking in with us to see if the kids surprise us and ask to go on a team!

The Freedom to Take on Something Bigger

My son's joining the training choir at St. Paul's Cathedral caused me to reflect on the great gift of flexibility that homeschooling provides.  As kids progress in the choir program (an excellent free music education), the commitment can grow from one day a week to several.  Several days a week on one activity is a significant commitment that I am not sure I could have done it when I was a child.

The transition from kindergarten to first grade was horrific for me.  It wasn't the change in the work even though the academics got quite a bit more difficult between the two years, but the big change in schedule.  Kindergarten was was only half-day.  We had a focused three hours of school, reading groups and all.  Then we went home to have lunch and free time.  First grade was the first year of full day school.  Despite being six and a half and having plenty of recess time, I remember crying every afternoon for two weeks at the beginning of the year.  This also happened for one week at the beginning of second grade too.  I don't remember the details as much as would be helpful, but I know that my mother explained that I had to go to school no matter what.  After that, I am pretty sure I did my best to hide the crying as much as I could since I was the compliant type.

I know now from everything I have read on homeschooling why this happened.  It isn't natural to expect kids under 7 or 8 to be away from their parents for such long periods of time, 7 or 8 hours if you include the bus ride.  Now it is worse, of course, since kids go to full-day pre-k even younger and there is less recess time.  Many kids are more resilient than I was and can handle it better than I did, but that shouldn't justify the thinking that such things are normal or healthy.  I am not sure that it is right to blame my mother personally.  Homeschooling was very remote during the 1980s.  I am not sure that the option was even known to her.  If she had known about it, the pressure of doing exactly what she and my grandfather had done may have overridden her decision anyway, nevermind the possible griping by extended family members.  Certainly before the internet, resources weren't as readily available either.  Of course I didn't hate school, just the full day part.  Going half day, even year round probably would have been fine for me.

This difficult adjustment, however, limited the activities I got involved in.  I remember trying to go to brownies in first grade and hating it.  I think it was mainly that it extended the day too much after the long school day.  My mother tried to come with me, but it just didn't work out.  I also didn't like the arts and crafts focus.  One of my issues with first grade was also that you couldn't just circle answers on worksheets, but had to spend the time coloring.  The work was just drawn out.  In my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn't necessary to be cooped up for such a long day and I knew it was the source of my misery.

For now, T's involvement in the training choir is only one day, but if it grows, he will have the free time and low stress to be able to tackle it.  It won't be piled on an overscheduled week.  This is good, because he has such an interest in singing.  He walks down the streets of Buffalo singing all the time.  He will really get a chance to do what he loves. I think that the overall social influence will be good too.  The boys in the program, all of which are older than T, went out of their way to welcome him and I overheard them saying that they want to set a good example for the younger kids.  I was impressed by this conscious effort from 8 and 9 year old boys.  The best part was when he came out with a big smile on his face saying that he couldn't wait for next week.

His activities don't need to be limited to choir.  Since academics take up only about an hour and half a day for T, he has plenty of time left for something else if he likes, maybe a sport or dance.  This experience this week reinforces that homeschooling is such a good choice for opening up opportunities.  Have you had a similar experience?  Are your kids able to take on more because they aren't in school?

The First Day of School and Other Missed Milestones

Until my reunion, I checked facebook weekly at most.  It just feels overwhelming.  I am not entirely sure why, but I usually blame it on my fibro since my mother also finds it overwhelming.  However, since I have been spending more time on it, I can't help but notice all the "First Day of School" pictures that people put up.  Should I put up a picture of my kids with a caption "First Day of Not Going to School" or some other like post?  It is very tempting, I can tell you.

Of course what kind of picture would capture the homeschooling spirit the most?  A picture of C sleeping in with Dad after he did a late shift?  The kids playing a board game with Dad in the middle of the day before he heads off to work?  A picture from a day trip (more like half a day, I didn't feel up to a whole day) we took to nature trails earlier in the week?  T reading?  The kids working on their lessons on the computer?  A picture from our play date yesterday?  A picture of us getting on the NFTA bus?  A picture of them with one of their dolls with a homemade paper dress?  What about weighing bulk items to buy at the Lexington Co-op?  Cooking?  Caring for the worm farm?  I suppose I will need to analyze this carefully since there are so many choices.  How about this one - sending Dad off to work while we head out to the playground?

Am I a bad person to say that I find the whole "first day of school" and "back to school" somewhat cheesy, for lack of a better way to put it?  It seems like such a manufactured milestone.  Ending a school year presumably means accomplishing something, but at the beginning of the school year kids haven't done anything yet.  If parents were really interested in learning wouldn't they be more excited about their kid learning to read (or swim or paint or sing) than turning a certain age by a certain deadline to be included in a school class?  Is some of the frenzy that everyone does it and that you have to shop for it?  After all, Americans love comparing themselves to other people and shopping is part of it.  I guess this is it, I am just disturbed by the materialism and pressure to be like everyone else, rather than the pride of other parents.

Am I depriving my kids of the attention that comes with these sorts of milestones?  T didn't have a kindergarten graduation, just a trip out for dessert just the four of us (it was last December, not even when graduations normally are).  Certainly, the grandparents would have gotten excited about a graduation.  I suppose that I could have bragged about it online or at the playground or at church.  How would it have been received if I showed up at church in December and told my friends that T finished kindergarten?  I am not sure it would have been the same.  Regardless, I see it more as he completed the skills that are considered kindergarten in conventional school since my research has yielded the fact that the sequence is somewhat arbitrary.  Also, the completion was just the core curriculum we use, but not the things that the kids come up with that are of interest.  Can I really put a grade level on those things?  The paper Barbie dress, the handmade paper skirt?  The perfect freehand drawing of a princess?  Baking?  Making patterns with coins?  Totaling up scores for board games using different methods?  Learning to ride the NFTA bus?  I think you get the point.

Am I doing my kids a favor by focusing more on the learning than the milestones?  It feels like I am.  Since I was so compliant about school and the whole work-hard-and-get-ahead, I always felt like I was living for the next school break, year completion, or graduation.  There was too much pressure to savor the learning.  I don't recall nurturing my outside interests all that well either.  Research supports that focusing on the learning is better.  If you read anything by Alfie Kohn, you will find this out too.  Focusing on reward or punishment always takes away from the intrinsic value of the learning.

This homeschool year (if you want to call it that, since we don't take summers off) I want to do more unschooling.  I am afraid to give up a structured curriculum completely, but we are going to do less of it.  Time4Learning is already pretty efficient, but we are going to, where appropriate, test first and only do the areas that we don't know to free up time for whatever the kids want to do or read.  We are going to read as many of the classic books as we can without overwhelming the kids.  My health permitting, we are going to do more outings and field trips and play dates.

What about you?  What are you going to do this "homeschool year"?  What do you think about "back to school"?  Am I the only one?

Reunions and My Decision to Homeschool: A Reflection

We are coming upon the 20th reunion of my 8th grade class from St. Joan of Arc School in Chicopee, MA.  Since we were a tight small group of under 30 students, it is a reunion I am going to make every effort to make.  Until facebook, I fell out of touch with everyone, partly because I moved to Buffalo in 1997, but mainly because I was the only one from the group who went to my high school.  Recently, I have been excitedly checking my facebook for info on the reunion.  I go on almost daily, up from about weekly.

One of the funny things is that there was talk of who the class couple was.  Despite seeming to be nominated, I don't have much of an opinion on it.  However, I keep getting the funny feeling that if there is a "most changed" or something of that nature, I may be sure to win.

I wouldn't win at first glance, since other than being quite grey on top, I actually look quite a bit like I did twenty years ago.  I don't have too many wrinkles and I am within 15 pounds of my graduation weight.  Of course, in between I was 40 pounds heavier than now, but I had to lose weight to help my sleep to help my fibromyalgia.  Of course, depending on the kind of fibro day I am having at the reunion, I may be hobbling or waddling around especially after the long car trip out there.  We'll have to see about that.  The best part for everyone though will be when I open my mouth and they hear the slight but distinctive western New York accent I acquired.

But what about the more substantive changes?  Is anyone expecting a home schooling, bus riding, urban, Episcopalian, stay at home Mom with no car (I'll rent one to go there), no yard, no makeup and a home hair cut to boot.  Heck, I have a worm farm composter in my kitchen and rarely go to grocery stores.  I get my food from a CSA and a neighborhood food co-op.

I feel like there may be some surprised people whether they say it or not.  When I was at St. Joan of Arc and high school - undergrad too - I was a really hard worker and good at school.  I did every bit of homework, worked ahead, thought about school all the time, felt stressed about it, only read for pleasure during the summer, and had little other interests.  I wouldn't say I was smart for two reasons.  I had to work hard for my grades and I am pretty sure now that I only had (or only developed) the intelligences recognized in school.  School wasn't the only institution I was all about.  I was a Roman Catholic who never thought I would ever be anything else.  My Catholic school teacher mother would never have let me miss church.  I had visions of working super hard in Catholic high school and going to college with the best scholarship I could get.  While I may not have expressed it at the time, I bought into the importance and order of the institutions in my life.  I was going to get a good job, be thoroughly devoted to it, and live the same life as my parents.  I'd live in a similar neighborhood and drive a similar car and have a similar house and go to a similar church even if in a different region of the country.

In some ways, I didn't disappoint.  I graduated high in my high school class, got a full scholarship to college, got a good job, became a CPA, and went to graduate school part-time while I worked.  I kept getting better and better jobs.  My last job involved overseeing 3 departments at a large school district.  These were pretty good accomplishments, if I may say so myself.

As I went along, I became tired, physically and mentally.  Some if it was the fibromyalgia starting slowly and some of it was lack of satisfaction.  Regardless, I gradually started to question the conventional life and institutions to which I had been devoted.  I first realized that I wasn't living my faith, but punching the metaphorical church time clock.  I became Episcopalian because it felt more like who I am.  I got my traditional church service with women priests and openness to views on issues that I had.  Next, I got tired of the mindless (despite NPR), waste of time, environmentally horrifying commute to my cozy condo in one of the two cars we had.  As soon as I got it worked out we moved into the city in walking distance to my new job at the time.  We immediately shed a car and actually started participating in things since we were closer to them again.  Then Tom and I switched places.  I stayed home with the kids to care for my health and he went back to work.  I eventually found out I had fibromyalgia (shed the last car at the same time), something my mother didn't get until she was 50, 20 years later than I got it.  Obviously, the genetics weren't in my favor, but without an traumatic triggering event, I can only surmise that it is the result of the pressure I put on myself to comply and be good at school and career.

This combination of realizing that whole schooling to career to consumption lifestyle was unfulfilling and realizing that all that hard working couldn't safeguard against (and maybe even caused) the onset of a lifelong chronic illness led me to researching homeschooling for my own kids.  I also saw that despite being sold on school and college, that my husband with a masters degree was in and out of low wage collections jobs all the time.  Fortunately, now he is a security guard which is more stable (and he loves it), but is still not in line with what we were told growing up about getting a good education.  With all this, I wanted my kids to have a childhood rather than be cooped up 7 hours a day plus several hours of homework.  I want them to explore all their intelligence types.  I wanted them to have interests other than traditional academics.  At home, academics can be handled in a fraction of the time and at one's own pace leaving time for bigger multifaceted project experiences.  Certainly I put pressure on myself when I was young, but conventional school encourages and rewards this kind of compliance.  It is also a mission with enough flexibility for me now that it looks like I won't be returning to the career I had.

So what am I saying about St. Joan of Arc if I am homeschooling my own kids?  Nothing against it.  If someone is going to sent their child to conventional school, I know of no better place.  I enjoyed great classmates and the best teachers you can find.  Without the great people, I wouldn't be the person I am today.  I received an education from caring people with great values.  I just reject the full time job school is for kids, especially now 20 years later (no more half day kindergarten and pre-k a year earlier). Homeschooling just feels like the right thing to do.  The funny thing is that my kids are healthier than I was as a kid, happier, and further ahead than I was academically to boot.  The other funny thing is that I don't spend any more time on hard core academics than my friends do just getting their kids ready for school and helping with homework.

If you are a homeschool parent, are people from your past surprised?  Are you even a little surprised at yourself?