Sara Uselton

My kids bring up school quite a bit. I've had experiences with both seeing a cartoon or something showing how awesome school is, and showing a vision of school that doesn't commonly exist. After seeing this, my sons, now 7 & almost 5, at different times have said they wanted to go to school. I say, sure. I do tell them about the expectations that I think are pretty universal in school, and I know to be the expectations at the local public school, like not talking during big chunks of the day unless you raise your hand AND the teacher calls on you, Sitting at your desk for much of the day, and doing what the teacher instructs you to do. My sons are extremely free-form, and that turned them off right there. I tried very hard to not let my distaste for school shine through, and to just describe in neutral terms.

We're currently reading the Captain Underpants books, and they portray school in a very negative light with exaggeration for humor. At one part, the book says that they don't want imagination in this school. My sons asked me if that was true in real school. I said that every school is probably a little different, but that in most schools the focus is more on learning reading, writing, math, facts, things like that, and less on imagination.

Things like this come up a lot. I don't want to be down on school, because all of the kid's friends in the neighborhood go to school, and all the parents that I'm good friends with send their kids to school. They're young enough, they don't really filter their thoughts, yet. Then again, one of the neighbor kids, whose mom tried homeschooling for one week last school year, and having that go poorly for them (they were doing public school online, actually), was sent to Christian private school. A couple of months ago, he told my oldest son that homeschool was terrible, that he would never learn anything, that he wouldn't be able to go to college or get a good job.

After that, I really had to tell him why we homeschool, and why we believe it's the superior choice for us. I took great focus in making sure to talk about how every family is different, how our choice was not the best choice for others, etc. I also said that there might come a day, that they might choose to go to school. But I made it clear that the things the neighbor told him were most assuredly wrong. I don't hold it against the neighbor. He really wanted to homeschool, and was possibly told those things by extended family to help transition him back to school.

Up until now, I've just focused on living our life, enjoying each other, supporting their interests, and just having a good time, without worrying about talking about homeschooling. Now that my children are starting to be touched by stereotypes about homeschooling, I'm feeling the need to talk about the positives in homeschooling. (I keep saying homeschool, rather than unschool, because that's how I refer to it to the kids, because that's how we refer to it to the public at large, except other homeschoolers/unschoolers.)

I'm thinking I'll just talk about why we believe it's good for us, and the type of people we are.

I'm just wondering if others have had issues like this come up. Hoping to come up with better ways of talking about these things with my kids.

Thank you all so much for all the wisdom I receive here!

Sara

Meredith

"Sara Uselton" <saralouwho@...> wrote:
>I made it clear that the things the neighbor told him were most assuredly wrong. I don't hold it against the neighbor. He really wanted to homeschool, and was possibly told those things by extended family to help transition him back to school.
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That's something I've explained to Morgan, too - that it's really common for adults to answer the question "why do I have to go to school" with remarks like "to learn" and even "so you'll be smart - do you want to be a big dummy?" Most adults don't realize homeschooling is a realistic option, and certainly a family in which the parents felt they weren't able to successfully homeschool will be invested in believing it's not a realistic option - it certainly wasn't for them.

Mo's been asked directly "how do you learn anything if you don't go to school" but in her case, she thought there was something wrong with the kids asking the question. After all, how can one not learn? She once asked me if homeschooled kids go to college, in response to a question or comment by some other child and I told her yes, that I know several people who have gone to college who were homeschooled - which is true. Actually, of the adults I know who were homeschooled, the vast majority have college degrees and more than half have Masters degrees... but in a sample space of 4, that doesn't mean much ;)

Mo has also been around enough school kids to know how much they complain about school - certainly when Ray first came home he was very bitter about school and didn't have anything good to say about it. He still doesn't have anything good to say about it, for that matter, five years later.

---Meredith