Friday, August 22, 2014

Private School Program

Our children have been accepted into an extremely exclusive private school program. The teachers are innovative, personable, passionate about learning, and they love our children. They have a wonderfully broad study release program for any class that they aren't equipped to teach. They utilize the entire communities resources, and are not limited by contractual agreements. The teachers are also given stewardship over our children, and with that, they are given the right to revelation regarding our children and what is best for them.

We have been homeschooling for two weeks.

We have many reasons for choosing to begin this scary adventure. The most important reason being: We know our children best, we have a testimony that this will be the best choice for our children right now. The rest of the reasons don't really matter. If it bugs you that this is the only reason listed, feel free to talk to us about it. We are HAPPY to talk about it.

Now to dispel the myths  of why people assume we will be homeschooling:

  • "it's the easy way out" (Seriously, who would think that keeping all of your children home from public school is the EASY way out?)
  • "to make you look good" (Parents who home school their children aren't parents with super powers. They are just parents that want what is best for their child and the public school system isn't filling those needs for that specific child/family)
  • "you hate all things public school" (Nope. There are an innumerable amount of amazing public educators out there. I do hate the distortion of expectations that has occurred in public education. I hate the one-size fits all model. I hate the totally overwhelming job we've given teachers to teach 25+ children in a class. I loathe Common Core Standards.)
  • "to baby your children" (One of the problems we were running into with public education is being able to provide engaging material for subjects they excel in, and allowing more time to grasp subject matter they were struggling with. Heaven forbid we encourage them to go further into topics that they love, and provide time to actually learn things that aren't second nature.)
  • "because you can't stand them being gone for so many hours" (Laws. Agnes. SO not the case. I LOVE my alone time. I love my quiet time. However, I also LOVE seeing my kids go into the world and interact with people because more often than not it's a success. More often than not I hear that my children have lovely manners and are a joy to be around. I love being able to give my children a better opportunity to do that with homeschooling- to meet a broader spectrum of people than just the 25+ class mates assigned to them and the other children in their grade level. I will get to interact with them as they go out into the world to learn- and I am thrilled. I am thrilled to utilize people in my community and throughout the world to help my children foster a love of learning so that they can have the strongest set of wings when it's time to leave the nest.)
  • "what about the socialization?!" With this question I leave you with a humorous answer: At public school, what do you get in trouble for doing in class? Socializing. (the link is a comedian's answer to that same question- and after you watch that you should watch his yoga pants video)
Feel free to think we're nuts. We're over the moon excited about this. We have loved doing our first few weeks and seeing the love of learning as a family grow. 

With Love,
Jack and Amanda

P.S. If you want to be a part of our children's private schooling venture, let us know! We love being able to let other people share their talents with our children!


The Larsens