Lisa Heath & Mark Irons

Dear People,

Last night I was telling my husband this: My 4yo daughter asked my why
children go to English school if they already know English - what do they do
there? I told her they learn their numbers and letters, do drawing, play
dress ups, read stories etc. She said, but we can do all that at home! I'm
glad I don't have to go to school, I like it here at home! I was very
proud.

But my husband's reaction was less than positive. He said he doesn't want
me to "put bad ideas" in her mind about school in case she does go to school
later on. He had a very positive school experience in an excellent small
village school (in England) of very high calibre and believes that if we can
find the same for Zoe, then she should go too. From my reading, I don't
think I want her to go at all. I told him that she can't help hearing me
tell people what I don't like about school in general and the schools
available here (in Hong Kong) in particular (which he seems to begrudgingly
agree with) and he told me he thought I should be more careful about what
she hears in case when it is time for her to go to school, she won't want to
as a result of what she has heard me say.

Does anyone else have differences of opinion with their spouses/partners on
the homeschooling/unschooling issue?

Lisa.

Sandra Dodd

> -=-he told me he thought I should be more careful about what she
> hears in case when it is time for her to go to school, she won't
> want to as a result of what she has heard me say.-=-


I think he's right in that. Something beyond your control could
cause her to be in school and you don't want your voice in her head
scaring her if she does end up in school someday somewhere.

Instead of making home seem better than evil dark school, make home
so cool that it's better than neutral, light school.

Something that affected my thinking about school, before I had
considered homeschooling, when Kirby was four, was another mom saying
she would NEVER put her two girls in school. I said "I really liked
school. What if they would like it as much as I did?"

She said, "I hated school. What if Kirby hates it as much as I did?"

At that point, we were even, but she added this: "What are the odds?"

Although I liked school myself, the vast majority of my schoolmates
really hated it. Some hated it because their homelife was good.
Some hated it because they couldn't possibly succeed there. Some
were ignored or tormented by other kids day after day. Before I was
out of Jr. High, two had killed themselves. They were "good kids,"
too—kids in band and in the top 20% or so academically. One had an
embarrassing homelife, but the other was the son of our long-favorite
art teacher and his home and family were nice.

Odds were that Kirby was not going to enjoy school as I had.

Kirby never went to school. That other mom's two did. She ended up
having them out a couple of times kind of experimentally, but they
wanted to go back because she didn't figure out how to make it fun
and large.

Sandra

agnes thiebaud

I do. My husband doesn't agree with homeschooling period. He won't even give it a chance even though the public schools out here are so bad. I'm in Oregon in the united states, near Portland to be exact, and their thinking about shutting down 11 elementary schools because there is no money for them. I mean come on! Anyways, i kinda understand where your coming from. My children would rather be home schooled, since their above public school grade level, but he just thinks it's my influence. I've just kinda given in to a compromise that they can go to public school if he gets them into a better one. We'll have to see. Hope things go better for you.

Lisa Heath & Mark Irons <lisamark@...> wrote: Dear People,

Last night I was telling my husband this: My 4yo daughter asked my why
children go to English school if they already know English - what do they do
there? I told her they learn their numbers and letters, do drawing, play
dress ups, read stories etc. She said, but we can do all that at home! I'm
glad I don't have to go to school, I like it here at home! I was very
proud.

But my husband's reaction was less than positive. He said he doesn't want
me to "put bad ideas" in her mind about school in case she does go to school
later on. He had a very positive school experience in an excellent small
village school (in England) of very high calibre and believes that if we can
find the same for Zoe, then she should go too. From my reading, I don't
think I want her to go at all. I told him that she can't help hearing me
tell people what I don't like about school in general and the schools
available here (in Hong Kong) in particular (which he seems to begrudgingly
agree with) and he told me he thought I should be more careful about what
she hears in case when it is time for her to go to school, she won't want to
as a result of what she has heard me say.

Does anyone else have differences of opinion with their spouses/partners on
the homeschooling/unschooling issue?

Lisa.



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

D Smith

Through this discussion, I've considered myself lucky.
My husband and I used to disagree about homeschooling
our son. But after MUCH talk, not just my point of
view, but a few of our friends, that have kids in our
public school system, he came around to my side. I
supported my case to him with a lot of research. I
think if homeschooling is that important to you, than
you should be able to come up with some kind of
compromise. Most important, you should consider your
child's needs. We agree that public school would ruin
our child, at least for now.
Danie

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katherand2003

Wow. It's interesting the lady with the 2 girls asked all the right
questions. Her answers illustrate the point you've made in the past
about choices. Two similarly good choices would have been happier
than the two drastically different choices selected from ("no way" to
school and sending them to school).

On that note, I enjoyed reading the "balance" article again:
http://sandradodd.com/balance

A great principle this story is a reminder of.

Kathe




--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...>
wrote:
>
> > -=-he told me he thought I should be more careful about what she
> > hears in case when it is time for her to go to school, she won't
> > want to as a result of what she has heard me say.-=-
>
>
> I think he's right in that. Something beyond your control could
> cause her to be in school and you don't want your voice in her head
> scaring her if she does end up in school someday somewhere.
>
> Instead of making home seem better than evil dark school, make home
> so cool that it's better than neutral, light school.
>
> Something that affected my thinking about school, before I had
> considered homeschooling, when Kirby was four, was another mom saying
> she would NEVER put her two girls in school. I said "I really liked
> school. What if they would like it as much as I did?"
>
> She said, "I hated school. What if Kirby hates it as much as I did?"
>
> At that point, we were even, but she added this: "What are the odds?"
>
> Although I liked school myself, the vast majority of my schoolmates
> really hated it. Some hated it because their homelife was good.
> Some hated it because they couldn't possibly succeed there. Some
> were ignored or tormented by other kids day after day. Before I was
> out of Jr. High, two had killed themselves. They were "good kids,"
> too—kids in band and in the top 20% or so academically. One had an
> embarrassing homelife, but the other was the son of our long-favorite
> art teacher and his home and family were nice.
>
> Odds were that Kirby was not going to enjoy school as I had.
>
> Kirby never went to school. That other mom's two did. She ended up
> having them out a couple of times kind of experimentally, but they
> wanted to go back because she didn't figure out how to make it fun
> and large.
>
> Sandra
>