Friday, June 22, 2007

School Days

I spent yesterday with DN2's class at their field day.
We had a lot of fun and the day turned out to be absolutely perfect!
Today is their last day of school and she is so ready for the summer.
SN2 has been done with school for a few days, but those last couple of weeks usually involve the kids taking finals, so they get a taste of independence where they become the ones responsible for ensuring they show up on time for their exams.
I always loved that time in high school, the final exam period.
You could sit in the sun when your exam was done and it was such a wonderful time of freedom.
I had a discussion with a co-worker and we came to the conclusion that the last day of school, for most children, is really the most pure taste of freedom you can ever have.
No bills, no responsibilities, other than a summer reading list, and best of all, beautiful weather (contingent upon where you live, of course). Once you're in college you really can't experience that anymore because now you are paying for your education and worrying about your future.
Makes me want to listen to Alice Cooper sing "School's Out" for sure and remember that taste of freedom I had twenty-something years ago.
And then there are the children who are home schooled which is my segue to...And speaking of home schooled kids, although I wasn't.
I do appreciate the effort people put into home schooling their children because there are many highly intelligent parents who truly care about their children's education.
And then there are some parents who obviously live in states where the requirement to have an undergraduate degree in anything doesn't apply.
I was looking for some books on eBay and came across an item advertised by a parent who is homeschooling their child and here is the item description:
This is two Newberry Books. I do believe I got these for the Unit Study that also have up for sale: There are used for Medieval Times, & Renaissance. The books are in very good condition!! Very good stories, my son liked these stories very much. He is into castles , swords, & ect.... I think there is a couple more books you need for this curriculum. I think I have them also, I will be digging them out here in the next few days so come back & look!!! Thankyou!

I hope this person is not responsible for teaching grammar.
And I did not alter that quote at all, I picked it up directly from their eBay item.
I think there are a lot of parents who home school for the wrong reasons, and I've had this discussion with one of my co-workers who was an elementary school teacher for a number of years as well as with Kat, and we all agree that there are parents who home school and are just not qualified.
I'm not down on home schooling, because there is a girl here who just graduated from college who was a ten time All-American in a sport and had a 4.0 GPA, and could sing like an angel, but there are many parents who do a great disservice to their children and home school for the wrong reasons.
I've known people who have small classrooms set up in their houses and I've also known kids who wander the streets during the day because their parents claim "they are too bright for the school system so we're home schooling them," yet the parent is never around.
Why do they do that?
Oh well, I know my limitations with my children and I realize that the best environment for them is one where I'm not responsible for teaching them math and science.
Yesterday was the first day of summer and I fell asleep early so I did not get a chance to celebrate the Summer Solstice and maybe even dance around outside with no clothes on.
Good thing, eh?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

My experience with home schooling has been negative. I used to belong to a book club, which was started by someone I called the Book-club Nazi. She was a fanatical home schooler and would insult anyone who didn't home school their kids. Anyway, her grammar was atrocious. She had no understanding of apostrophes or spelling, and she refused to look things up. Our reading lists would be hilarious due to her refusal to check titles and author's names.