My name is
Melinda L. Secor and I am homeschooling my kids these days. My oldest child, now 13, did go to public school for a few years, much to my regret, as we still struggle to overcome many of the poor habits and behaviors learned there, three years later. He learned very little of practical use during his hours spent there, leaving much of the real teaching of basic elementary subjects up to me after “school” was done for the day.
I soon discovered that in our school district, all of the rhetoric spouted by the public schools about the need for parents to be “involved” in their child’s education is complete nonsense. They are perfectly pleased to have parents involved in fundraising through the PTA, or in chauffeuring children to school trips and activities, but involvement in the learning process is discouraged.
This became clear to me in my son’s first year of enrollment in public school, Kindergarten. When my son came home from school, naturally I asked him what he learned. In typical kid fashion, his standard reply was “nothing.” Imagine my surprise when I found later, when looking over his “work” at his parent-teacher conference, that this was not simply an automatic childish response to a pesky parent question, but an absolutely accurate appraisal of his hours spent in that place.
Beginning handwriting skills are apparently no longer part of the curriculum for this first year of schooling, nor are letter identification, number skills, shapes and colors, or any other real educational matter. While this lack of useful learning in the classroom did not adversely affect my son’s education, since he had already mastered most of these skills before reaching kindergarten age, he was bored to death, as were most of the “students” confined to the classroom, learning nothing, for hours every day.
His teacher got quite annoyed with me when I questioned this, politely asking why these things were not being taught in Kindergarten any more. She stated that the curriculum had been changed due to “a lack of parental involvement”….the standard excuse for any failing in the system. She further explained that few children arrived at school these days as prepared as my son, so teaching basic academics is difficult in the first year.
My response was…."So let me get this straight, your rationalization for teaching kids nothing is that they learned nothing at home? If this is indeed the case,
wouldn’t it make more sense to make up that lost ground by teaching them the skill they lack?" She told me it was not her decision …take it up with the school board.
First grade went no better. At this point, they did begin to teach those preschool and kindergarten level skills, but firmly on a “spell it how it sounds Honey” basis. I was actually reprimanded by his first grade teacher for insisting that my son spell correctly in his homework assignments. We
wouldn’t want to discourage expression by insisting that it can be deciphered by a reader. It was not until fifth grade that he actually had a teacher that expected proper spelling and grammar; she was new to our school system.
To make a long story short, my son was “graduated” from elementary school after fifth grade, deemed ready to continue on to middle school. His boredom in school had bred increasingly poor behavior and an incredible intellectual laziness. My son, who is a child of above average intelligence, had learned to conform to the low expectations of the public school system, becoming increasingly resistant to learning, both at school and at home.
Shortly after his “graduation”, we were listening to a story on the news about a Fourth of July event that involved the swearing in of immigrants as new American citizens. After listening to various details about the citizenship process for immigrants, he asked me “Is Grandma an illegal immigrant, or did she get a green card?” My mother was from Texas. He had no idea that Texas was part of our country.
Upon further questioning, he was unable to explain the difference between a country and a state, had no clue that Washington DC was our capitol, and had no knowledge of government and how it works. His math skills were lagging, and spelling and grammar were incredibly poor. He could not define basic language skills terms, such as noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Reading was a dreaded chore.
He never set foot in public school again. This was the final straw in our long struggle with the public school system. I began working from home as a freelance writer full time, quitting my outside the home jobs, and began homeschooling.
During the summer after his “graduation”, we embarked on an intensive effort to teach 5 years worth of neglected elementary level skills to ready him for a sixth grade curriculum. He made up most of that lost ground in those two short months, and is doing quite well now in his studies, although reversing bad habits like “spell it like it sounds” have been a challenge.
Reading is now an obsession, one that I have to threaten him away from to do his chores. He has reverted to his formerly bright, curious, and interested personality and is eager to learn new things. A few more years in that mind numbing environment might have been the ruin of this child, his appetite for learning and thinking crushed forever.
This hard lesson, unfortunately at my son’s expense, has benefited my two daughters. They will never set foot in public school. The difference is amazing. Where my son had to be pushed to sit for his homework, my seven year old daughter will work until I beg her to stop so that I can accomplish some work of my own. My youngest, at three years old, loves books and is functioning at an above average level despite her diagnosis of Down syndrome.
My sister,
Sharon Secor, and I are both
single parents and
freelance writers who educate our children at home. We are beginning this blog in an effort to encourage parents to consider homeschooling for their children as an alternative to the failing public school system. We hope to provide interesting information and resources that will be useful to homeschooling families, both experienced ones and beginners.
