Homeschooling and School
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Monday, October 8th, 2007Day One
He sobbed as I left. Reminded him of the ‘I go to big school now’ present he would get at the end of the day. Apparently he cried for a while and had to sit on the teacher’s lap for registration (how lovely is she?).
Not sure how the rest of the day went because I couldn’t get a word out of him after giving him his ‘I go to big school now’ present. An $8 PowerRanger toy and not only am I the best mother ever but he loves school now because he got a toy.
Day Two
He cried terribly when I said goodbye. Reminded him of all the exciting foods I had put in his lunch (lunch at home is a very basic affair - for school, no effort spared if it makes him want to go). Reminded him there would be chocolate buttons (sweets are mostly verboten at home) when I picked him up.
On the first day, he’d got out the smiley face I’d drawn and put in his pocket several times because he missed me. Day two? Not even once. Even after making me feel like the worst parent in the world when I left him.
Little toad.
Asked where his ‘I go to big school now’ present was for day two. Cheeky bugger.
Day Three
Forced tears. Even in my emotional state I could spot those. Did I say what a little toad he was?
Came home and for the second evening ate four plates of supper because he had ‘to grow to be able to run faster than his new friend’. School is going to get very expensive if this continues.
Day Four
Wobbly bottom lip.
Came home with stories about the activity he had done: sitting outside and drawing an oak tree and finding acorns. ‘Real ones, Mummy. We never did that in homeschool.’ I supress a grin and agree, even though we did actually. ‘See how much better school is?’ I say.
Day Five
Too many girls surrounding him for me to really say goodbye properly. Wobbly bottom lip and little worried wave as I left.
Came home with a Headteacher’s Award. I felt like bursting with pride. Over a gold sticker on a mass-produced certificate. Hugged and kissed him until he had to tell me to stop.
I’ve never seen him look more proud or pleased.
My boy. At school. Happy.
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Posted in Homeschooling and School
Day two
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007Tears on the first day are fear of the unknown. Tears on the second day are because you know how awful it is going to be.
‘I’m frightened,’ he whispers to me as I adjust his tie.
‘Oh baby, I’m sorry you’re frightened but I’m sure your teacher will look after you. And you made a friend so why don’t you play with him in the playground today?’
‘I want to go home,’ he says as the tears start to fall.
‘Let’s go and get a new reading book. Your teacher will be so impressed you’ve finished yours already,’ I say by way of distraction.
He starts to sob. ‘I want to go home Mummy. Please don’t leave me here. I want to go home.’
I give him a cuddle. ‘I know you’re upset but you’ll do some fun things today,’ I lie remembering the intense boredom I felt most of the way through school. I want to tell him he doesn’t need to be at school forever, just until the next baby is old enough not to require endless attention, but a couple of years is forever when you’re five. And, if I’m honest, I’m hoping by then he (and his brother) will love school and his friends with a vengeance.
We walk to the classroom, his crying becoming increasingly loud and desperate-sounding. Mothers look at me sympathetically as I try to calm Harry while Ben does an escaping act. A teaching assistant comes out and tries to console him but he is sobbing uncontrollably. I try to get through the door but as I push him through ahead of me other children block the doorway so I quickly wave goodbye and the teacher shuts the door to stop him as he tries to leave. I practically run out of the school so he won’t see me if the door opens and then stop in the playground and take a deep breath, feeling like the world’s worst mother.
Sometimes parenting feels like the worst job in the world.
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Posted in Homeschooling and School
Starting school
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007We’re dressed and ready to go early. Harry is excited but I’m downplaying today, knowing that too much ‘high’ emotion often masks the worries and tears which will be bubbling just below the surface.
For the fifteen minute journey I talk about anything other than where we are going. ‘Look at the cows!’ I exclaim and three voices shout back in unison: ‘Moo!’. The baby’s fascination with anything and everything we see from the car thankfully keeps everyone occupied and Harry distracted. But as I park the car he says in a small voice, ‘I’m not so sure about this anymore,’ and I feel my stomach clench.
‘What? Not sure about parking here?’ I say, being deliberately obtuse. ‘Look, come on, it looks like everyone’s walking down the church path to get there,’ I say in my jolliest voice. My heart feels heavy - as I know his probably is - and I wonder how I am going to get through this without crying. I bite my tongue - hard - to keep my composure. It is crucial that he does not sense anything negative about today.
For the next ten minutes he is shown the ropes and then I take my cue and say goodbye. The tears drop down his face as he clings to me so I’m brisk and leave without any further delay. But when we get to the car I start to cry. I feel like a failure. I feel like I’ve let him down. Even though it was my choice to send him, it feels wrong. I promised to homeschool him and I couldn’t even manage that successfully. I know he will most likely be overwhelmed by the playground yet I’m still sending him, hoping that like most other five year olds he will find school fun (or, if not, at least tolerable) and he will make friends. I try to remember that almost every other parent sends their child to school every day without any problem but it doesn’t help. The trouble is, in my heart I know he is probably still school-phobic and it’s so hard sending your child somewhere they don’t want to be. I could willingly homeschool him if he was eager to learn but every day had become a battle. He wasn’t learning enough and I need to know that he is getting an education.
I don’t need the ‘freedom’ that comes with having all my children in school all day. And I miss him. But mostly the sense of disappointment at the circumstances that have led to him returning to school is the hardest.
********
As for Harry? He probably forgot about me five seconds after I left.
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Posted in Homeschooling and School
Bullying, girls and the darker side of boarding school
Thursday, August 30th, 2007In our ongoing quest to find a suitable school option for Harry I’ve been looking at private schools.
Even before my children were born I vowed they would never be sent to boarding school after my own educational experience so it seems ridiculous that I am even considering sending Harry to a private school. But he would be a day pupil, not a boarder, and he would be (relatively) close by. It wouldn’t be three months before I see him again whenever I drop him off.
The facilities in these schools are, without doubt, far superior to anything our village school provides and far superior to anything I can provide by homeschooling. A cramped school with a tiny playground and a small field down the road for limited sports are replaced by schools with spacious classrooms, nine-hole golf courses, indoor pools and fully-equipped gymnasiums. Large classes of children of all abilities are replaced by small groups of children of above-average intelligence streamed according to ability. The education he would receive would be excellent. He wouldn’t miss days of homeschooling whenever I am sick or busy with a new baby or have things to do.
But it all leaves me feeling a little uneasy and it’s not simply because I disagree with the idea of a ‘privileged’ education (although quite where that leaves me over homeschooling - where he gets possibly the best education, but there are few facilities, and of course no school fees - I don’t know). I can’t help but see behind the scenes because that’s what I’m really there to look at:
- the way the children seem like model citizens but when they think you’ve gone they revert to feral animals (as witnessed at one school much to the chagrin of the headmaster).
- the way that discipline is often heavy-handed - not of the corporal punishment type anymore but heavy on humiliation.
- the need for some teachers to treat children like they are in basic army training: I remember a male sports teacher shouting to a group of sixth form girls in my school ‘Christ it smells in here. Which one of you has a kipper up your c*nt?’ Or being told as bedtime beckoned ‘hit the showers girls: deal with those nits, pits and slits.’
- the way that newbies are used as slaves: among a whole list of chores we had to do, we had to wait in line for an hour every evening to get dorm-mates their hot water bottles and hot chocolate (when I got back to our dormitory maybe I should have thrown it at them), we had to sniff the armpits of senior girls clothes to determine whether they needed to go in the laundry and we would have to run errands, often after we had gone to bed. (Although this was all at my first senior school. My next school didn’t treat newbies quite so nastily.)
- but mostly, the way that so much of a school experience is defined by what happens outside the classroom: boarding school life is structured but because the day is longer there is more time for trouble than at a state-run school. At my prep school (ages 7-11) I wouldn’t have believed that boys really had their heads flushed in the toilets until I went there and as we lined up for mealtimes in a long corridor you would see a boy come out of the boys’ toilets at the top of the corridor having just had that done to him. The teachers would go mad trying to find out the perpetrators and the boy would be further punished for not saying. Having said that, a boy came home from our local village school with small blood marks all over the back of his white shirt. It transpired that some boys had cornered him in the toilets and stuck drawing pins in his back. So yes, it happens at all schools but there is much more ‘downtime’ at private schools when the children are free to play with each other unsupervised.
Much of what happens outside the classroom exacerbates the survival of the fittest theory. At secondary school (high school) I was bullied terribly for a year until my parents removed me. After a year at my new school without problem the upper fifth girls in my house suddenly turned on me and my friend Amelia. They refused to talk to us, humiliated us at every opportunity, played practical jokes and excluded us from everything. For weeks. We had no idea why. On the last day of term Georgina, the ringleader, passed me on the stairs and made some sarcastic comment about my parents not turning up to pick me up (they were late). After weeks on the receiving end of her nastiness I completely lost it with her. I didn’t hit her - which I probably should have done, stupid cow - but I screamed and screamed at her.
When I arrived back at the beginning of the following term all six of us were in the same dormitory together. But over the first few days it was clear that I was gradually being allowed back into the ‘circle’, presumably because of my outburst at the end of the previous term. Unfortunately Amelia was not and I had a choice to make: stand up for my friend and remain excluded in the house or join the bullies and become excluded in the classroom (because Amelia and I were the only ones in our class from our house). I chose to be friends with the other four because I could not stand to be excluded any more.
It is a decision that I regret to this day.
Life became so unbearable for Amelia that she was forced to change boarding houses - so rare, she was the only girl ever to have done so in the history of the school - and was subsequently unable to be made Head of House the next year (crucially important on a school leaver’s resume) because she was new to her house. Life returned to normal for me. Georgina became Head of our House. When I was accepted back into the fold Georgina told me that the reason she had stopped talking to Amelia and me was because while waiting to sit down for dinner one evening we had rolled our eyes at each other and Georgina knew that we were rolling our eyes at her. When she told me I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach: weeks and weeks of misery because of an action I couldn’t even recall and was certain had been misunderstood because I just wouldn’t have done that.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? Bullied or bully? I’m not proud of what I did and I wish there had been an alternative. The rest of my school years were uneventful but I’ve had trouble forming female friendships ever since. At University my friends were entirely men and it’s only since I’ve met some fantastic mothers that I’ve bothered with female friendships. Even now I struggle with how cruel women can sometimes be to each other. And how unnecessary it is. And I will bail out of a friendship at the first sign of trouble.
Of course I have sons not daughters but bullying still happens between boys, usually the more physical variety. A friend of mine had his head slammed in his locker door until he passed out. He was bullied, violently, for nearly a year before his parents believed it was more than just ‘boys being boys’ and that their son needed to ‘toughen up because that’s what real life is like’ and took him out of his school.
I guess these things happen in all schools and of course not all children are bullied or bullies. I suppose you hope that you prepare your children enough to deal with it if it happens to them. When I took Harry out of school last year the first thing I did was start teaching him how to deal with bullies because we thought he’d be going straight back to another school somewhere. He’s a much more confident boy now, physically stronger, more confident socially and more mature. I’m pretty sure he could deal with minor ‘boys will be boys’ stuff. But the private schools that look so good on paper and when you are shown around them have a darker side, one I and many of my friends know first hand, and I don’t know if I can bring myself to let Harry experience it. He may need to ‘toughen up because real life is hard’, but not yet.
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Posted in Homeschooling and School, In the Past
Unschooling by default
Thursday, August 9th, 2007When homeschooling days didn’t quite go according to plan or when we had playdates or errands to run, I took heart from the fact that we could homeschool throughout the year, including the long summer vacation, and still keep up with Harry’s school work so that he wouldn’t fall behind his friends.
Amount of homeschooling done in the last three weeks? Approximately 42 minutes.
I cannot teach him while I am feeling like this.
I still take heart from the fact that he learns all the time anyway. ‘Tomorrow, can we learn about how engines work?’ he asks earnestly. I can tell him stuff like that without resorting to formal lessons. (Just.) (OK so maybe I have to skip off to the computer and check first before I teach him a bunch of misinformation.)
I also take heart from the fact that the average school child has 23 minutes of one on one contact teaching time with their teacher each week in UK schools. Harry has, until the sickness struck, been getting several hours a day.
But I still can’t get over this feeling that I’m failing him just a little bit.
Of course, he doesn’t care. While the sun shines and his best buddy-brother, William, is available to play with and beat up on a regular basis, while there are fields to explore and dens to make, while there is mud to race his cars through and things around the garden to build, he is as happy as any five year old could possibly be.
So while I am sick I have formally adopted the unschooling method. And it’s working for us. Maybe a bit too well. Because those curriculum books on the shelves? Well I’m wondering if they will ever be opened again.
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