A New Look at School

Like a lot of other folks these days, we are getting ready for the start of another school year. But last spring we veered off of the traditional school track, and I don't think we'll be jumping on that train anytime school. That means our getting ready for school has been a bit different this year.

Once it occurs to you that maybe the traditional school model isn't the best one for your child, it's simply amazing the options that you can find.

For example, I knew that the option of home-schooling was out there, but I envisioned that it'd be me, standing over the kitchen table with a ruler in one hand and a text book in the other while my child sat waiting for me to lecture her. Not something I wanted to do, really! But once I started researching it (and interrogating my friends who home-school) I learned that there are tons of options out there. There are amazing websites that can give you tons of information so you can figure out what is best for your child and family. Here are a few:

www.homeschool.com
www.homeedmag.com

One of those programs, Time4Learning, was a godsend to us last spring when we decided to remove Caroline from school. We were able to pull her out on a friday and have her pick up the subject matter she'd been studying on Time4Learning by Monday.

But the more I looked the more I found. Did you know that now, thanks to the Wonderful Internets, there are all sorts of options for distance-education and online middle and high school?
When a good friend and fellow quilter mentioned that her son was doing high-school from home, I quizzed her intently (with a level of desperation that didn't even put her off at all.) Turns out that various universities and private programs around the country offer high school distance learning programs, too. Who knew? Take a look at these options!

Stanford University's Online High School for the Gifted and Talented
University of Nebraska's Independent Study High School
Kaplan College Online High School (remember those Stanley Kaplan test prep courses? These are the same folks)
Brigham Young University's Online High School
Laurel Springs School (a flexible schedule, online school used by lots of actor and athlete kids)

The list goes on and on. And, even more amazing is the fact that there are so many programs where your child can do some hybrid thing.... Take a class or two at your local school, and do the rest through online or distance ed classes. Some of these have self-paced classes; some require you to be at your computer at a certain time for a real-time online class. Once I started looking, I learned that almost every state offers some FREE "school at home" option, some even where they provide you a laptop and books and materials and have teachers oversee your child's progress.

Truly, the options are (I'll say it again) AMAZING.

And that means that if you have a square peg sort of child, you really don't have to shove her into a round hole sort of school. You can go carve your own... hole ... well, I mean, school. :-)

So, we have enrolled Caroline in an online school and will start in a few weeks. (NOT UNTIL SEPTEMBER! I'm sorta crazed about that.) I'm so grateful that we have the option to decide what SHE needs, and there are options out there that really do seem to fit very well.

I've spent a lot of time researching this over the past few months, and it's been on my mind a lot as we've sorted through choices, filled out applications, and attended umpteen "virtual open houses" online. And I can't begin to tell you how many people have said "I wished I'd done that for my son -- he really needed something different for high school" or "I was miserable in school, I wish I could have done something like that." We are so fortunate, it's clear, to have so many options.

Oh -- and in case you are wondering, these school programs tend to build in pretty terrific social options too. A lot of them have online chatrooms (monitored for safety and only accessible for enrolled students) so students can meet and make friends even though they're all over the world. They have student clubs. They coordinate activities so students in the same geographic area can meet. Some schools have end-of-year dances and parties for those who can come to the physical school site. And if your child does sports, art classes, other local recreational activities, he or she can maintain and make friendships with local kids, too.

I just gave away all the school uniform clothes from last year. Boy, did that feel good!

Honing In

Every day of our new unschooling life teaches me new things.

Here's the newest revelation: it's about MY ONE CHILD learning. I was thinking (and worrying a bit) about how it was that at school, they'd spend an hour on history or grammar, and Caroline has been completing the work in less time here at home. I was thinking that I wasn't making the work hard enough, or complicated enough, or that I should be making things last longer.

And then it hit me: in a classroom, it takes the time it takes because there's that "pass out the papers, get everyone settled down, make sure people have the right pages in their books open" time... And then it takes time to make sure that 10 or 20 kids understand the concept.

But at home? It's just about Caroline. And when she gets it, she gets it. We don't need to beat it to death just to fill an hour. She can learn the day's lesson, and move on to other things. She's currently working on an in-depth science project about cats -- and so she's engrossed in learning cat anatomy and researching about ears and whiskers and all.

DUH! Bigh light-bulb moment for the New Head of School.

Another realization? We can be spontaneous! Last week, we were thinking that today we'd take taking a field trip into San Francisco to visit the new Science Center, and see an exhibit of Nick Cave costumes at the Yerba Buena Center we've heard raves about.

But it dawned on me earlier this week that maybe this isn't the best moment to spend time with hoards of kids in a densely-packed Science Center, what with this swine flu thing... And then, this morning, Caroline woke up with a migraine. So, we're not going anywhere this morning and maybe we'll just go do some volunteer time at the animal shelter this afternoon.

We can decide what we want to do, and then do that!

Taking a Break

Now that Caroline is home for "unschool," our daily schedule has changed significantly. And the cool thing is that we don't really NEED to have a schedule. We get up, have breakfast, I get her started on her work, and we take breaks as needed.

Yesterday just before lunchtime we decided that we all needed to get outside, especially Gemma. Away we went, to the fields on the edge of our neighborhood. One of my favorite things about walking there is that the colors are soft and beautiful -- the hills are tinged with yellow and orange from the masses of poppies growing there.



And then you get into the field, and there are lovely spots of color.



We made it home just as it was starting to rain, so we were able to snuggle in for lunch and our afternoon viewing of Ken Burns' Thomas Jefferson video. It was a good day!