Conference

Our first conference for Caroline - our first litmus test of how homeschool had prepared her for the junior high experience.......drumroll please.........

They felt she is doing well socially, has come to the school well prepared, and brings a fresh energy and perspective. So in short, so far so good.

As for "Areas to work on" every teacher mentioned organization, which comes at no surprise. The teacher's were very kind to say that this probably had to do with a lack of experience in that area, and expected it to improve with time, but I am afraid it is more likely a personal tendency she unfortunately inherited from her scattered mother. As I look around the living room right now I see a pile of her piano books on the floor, a cheese stick wrapper next to my computer from the snack she must have eaten last night while checking email and a sweatshirt wadded up on the floor. 

They totally have her figured out. Amazing.

Next week - The difficult skill of learning how to be "friendly but not friends."

It's a Pretty World Today

We all know junior high can be the most twisted, cruel and irrational social experience in American culture. One mother I know said of her daughter's middle school experience, "If I could give her a lobotomy and remove the past two years from her memory, I would." Her daughter was a girl who seemed to have it all; pretty, bright, outgoing and incredibly well put together for a young teen. 

I remember the completely consuming self consciousness, the mood swings and the extreme sensitivity that the age brought. I still look at pictures of me at that age, with braces, zits, a bad hair cut and black eyeliner, and cringe. To think of my baby girl entering this phase is...well....terrifying.

Caroline is showing signs; the question of "What should I wear tomorrow?" has become a project, not a question of what's clean and suitable for the weather, and we've begun debates about what is appropriate for make-up (the non-negotiable answer; a clean face and a swipe of lip gloss). 

So when she broke out in a horrible, mysterious case of hives all over her face, I thought all hell would break loose. When she itched them until they scabbed and she looked more like a tiny meth addict than a sixth grader, I thought she would bury her head under her covers and refuse to come out until they had healed.

But she didn't. She put on her cute, carefully chosen outfit, swiped her lips with strawberry pie flavored gloss, held her head high and did her thing. It was more than I can admit I would do under similar circumstances (While we were in Curacao, I bought a tube of Retin-A without a prescription, yielding similar results - I hibernated for days). 

To top it off, the peak of the scabby rash just happened to occur on picture day. PICTURE DAY! Do you remember the angst of picture day in junior high? Granted, they now have a "retouching" option to photoshop out any unfortunate, untimely blemishes, but this is not an option when your entire face is festering.

I wondered what the other kids would say. Would they be afraid to sit next to her or touch her? Would they make fun, or come up with some sick nickname that would hold for years?

But.......

......no one said a word. She left with a smile on her face, and came home still smiling.

It gave me hope for the future, and in case I ever need reminding of this,  have a selection of 8 x 10's, 5 x 7's and wallets to jolt my memory.

A Very Lonely House

We adopted Milo six years ago when we returned from Curacao. After a whirlwind adventure, aquisition of a dog symbolized permanency.

He had been neglected and was matted and skinny with an infected claw. There was such a sad look in his eye, but such a yearning for affection.  Given such a sad, mysterious history, it was amazing how quickly he became such a loyal, sweet, affectionate and happy dog.

Having never been inside a house, I kept him at my side for the first few weeks, and he became my absolute buddy. Even when unleashed, he continued to follow me constantly from room to room, up and down stairs, to the mailbox, the washing machine, to bed; wherever I went, Milo loped behind. When I tucked Caroline into bed at night, Milo would lay by her until she fell asleep and then come to my room and sleep at the side of my bed. 

Caroline's homeschool routine included "walking to school," which was really a brisk walk with Milo before we settled in to math. We often did math on a dry erase board on the living room floor, and Milo would always sit at attention and listen to the lesson as if he wanted to understand pre-algebra.  

He caroled through the neighborhood with us at Christmas, trick-or-treated with our kids at Halloween and trotted through our town's 4th of July parade wearing red, white and blue ribbons.

And when I cried on that first day of school, Milo caught the tears.

Last Friday night, Caroline heard the ice-cream man, and ran quickly out the house with a handful of quarters following that unmistakable music. Sensing her excitement, Milo happily followed, and was struck by a car at the corner on the way home.

He died in the car, in Caroline's arms, on the way to the vet hospital.

After a week-end of intense grieving as a family, Monday came. Matt went to work, kids to school, and I could not bear the silence in the house. I had become so accustomed to the constant sound of his jingling collar behind me and feel of him at my feet. I ran every errand I could think of to to avoid the emptiness. But five days have passed. Floors need vacuuming and we're all running out of clean underwear.

So for the first time, really, I am alone in the house.......and it really sucks.

Why

We knew that the transition from homeschool to a conventional classroom was going to require the cultivation of new habits. I pictured Caroline wandering out of a lecture without asking to use the bathroom, or digging into her goldfish crackers at 9:30 in the morning and noisily crunching them during silent reading. I tried to prepare her, but knew that their would inevitably be things I hadn't thought of.

The unforeseen first appeared on day two, the first night homework was assigned. Caroline had to write sentences for the week's vocabulary words: anthropology, anthropomorphic, anthropocentric and anthropophagus.  "Bill loved the musical Beauty and the Beast when the anthropomorphic plates dance and sing" was one of her sentences. I had to get out my big fat Random House Dictionary when she asked me to look them over.  They looked to be contextually accurate and grammatically correct. If we were homeschooling, we would have been done with it.

BUT......the paper (run of the mill college ruled notebook paper), was upside down and backward, the margin was in the middle of the page, and the assignment was going to be unintentionally turned in anonymously.

I had to break the bad news to her. "Crud" was her response. After a brief lesson from me in binder paper protocol, she re-wrote the assignment.

As I write this, Caroline is working on week two's vocabulary which include geochronology and geomorphology. 

I am going to need the dictionary again.

Heigh Ho!

We started homeschooling Caroline in kindergarten, when my husband's job took us to the tiny island of Curacao in the Caribbean. Math involved counting and sorting shells on the beach. Science included studies of parrot and puffer fish, dolphins and sea turtles. We read classic books under thatched umbrellas plunked into soft, warm sand. It was a homeschool fantasy come true.

When we returned to Oregon, Caroline went briefly to public school. It wasn't a nightmare, but wasn't a dream either; her math packets were covered with doodles of mermaids and fairies (no math). I had to pull her out of bed every morning kicking and screaming. After a year and a half of ho-hum learning, my husband and I knew we could do better, so we did. We plucked her from school and never looked back.

I became an avid supporter of homeschooling, and worked hard to put together curriculum that tied into travel throughout the U.S., Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. Caroline was able to explore areas of interest from scuba diving to fencing to cake decorating. She read the classics, wrote a novel, and trained a baby llama.  She is interesting and articulate, confident and creative. 

But the experience was not perfect. There were days when Caroline was bored. Sometimes, it brought the worst out in me as a parent and as a person. Although she was generally ahead, there were areas I had to admit I was worried about. The truth was, while I was confident about her performance in comparison to her peers, a little voice inside me said, "but how do you really know?" If she were to be plopped into a conventional classroom, would she really outperform? If she decides to go to a brick and mortar high school, or to college, will she truly be prepared?

Statistics are on my side. Homeschoolers out-test public and privately schooled peers. Colleges now recognize the validity of the method and admit homeschoolers. But homeschooling is extremely individual. Huddled under the umbrella of homeschooling, are different philosophies, approaches and values. We are a diverse population, which makes relying on statistics difficult.

So when Caroline expressed interest in a small private school close to home, we let her visit. When she said she was dying to go, we applied. When she was accepted, we took a leap. This morning, I took a picture of her on our front walkway with her backpack and school supplies. She smiled bravely and oozed with energetic anticipation. My husband drove her and she waved from the window; I went into a hollow, empty house and cried.

This blog will be about our transition to school. Both hers and mine. She'll face the challenges of middle school, complicated by an abrupt introduction to the harsh realities of a classroom, while I adjust to a new way of life, which will include finding a way to pay for private school and a new social circle. 

No matter how entrenched one is in homeschooling, the truth is, all homeschooling families may find their children returning to school. It may be for economic reasons, or a change in family dynamics. It may be child driven. It might be parent driven. But whatever the reason, it is a reality, that no matter how much you believe in it and advocate for it, changing circumstances may find you on a different road than you planned.

Wish us luck.