Homeschooling

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. We celebrated Jay's father's 80th birthday party and Thanksgiving. Penny went to a Christmas tea with Grandma. We all went to Cheyenne, WYO. for Jay's company's Christmas party where Jay actually won a laptop computer as a free give-away prize. And since then Penny has again brought up the idea of homeschooling. Way back in either August or September she'd been talking about wanting to try homeschooling. But, then she changed her mind, until recently. I think she's feeling that this big high school thing is way too much pressure on her. Ever since she started she has not been sleeping well. And lately she's been complaining about backaches. It could be because she has to carry a laptop (on loan to her from the school) as well as her heavy backpack all over the school, in which the main hallway is at least 3/4 of a mile long. She never uses her locker, because she only has five minutes to run through the crowded hallways to make it on time to her classes. There have been more and more reasons that I'm tending to agree with her that it'd be just fine to try homeschooling. Let me list a few: a bomb threat, lazy kids who won't do their part in projects where she's required to work with a partner, bullies, and the school giving her a survey about dating that made her feel very uncomfortable. I asked why the school wanted her to do that. She said it was so that they could get money. That's not really how I want her to be educated. So, I'm willing to give this homeschooling thing a try, at least for one semester to see if I can balance it with my 33 hour work week. But, I've devised a schedule that I think will work. In fact, it might even work better. After all, Penny is agreeing to do her part in helping Mom out with the housework, while I'm gone at work. She's quite a responsible young lady. And it could even count towards Life Skills/Home Ec credits. I think the pro of this would be that I can try to help her catch up in all of the areas where she's lagging behind. It was unfair, in my opinion, for the school to expect her to jump into Algebra I when she had been only at about 5th grade level math in Middle School. The poor girl hadn't even been taught how to tell time just less than three years ago when she was thirteen. So, I think going at a slower pace with books at her reading level, she'll be able to catch on to the concepts and fill in the gaps better before being thrust into mainstream high school level classes. Forcing kids to jump in and swim when they're not ready, like that, sounds like a set up for failure, as they may drown. Even though Penny's grades have been good (except for Math) she seems to be feeling like she's drowning, emotionally. This kind of stress level is starting to make her hate school. I want her to enjoy learning. So, I'm very thankful for the many friends, neighbors, relatives and even blogger friends who have already paved the way and started giving me great advice as we're just getting ready to take the plunge to try a different route. We'll see how it works for our family. The cool thing is that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal in our school district. For example, she could still continue taking orchestra or an art class, etc. So, we'll hope to find just the right balance for Penny. She's also getting excited about the new youth group musical that the church kids will start practicing for after the New Year. So, it looks to be an exciting new start for us for the new year!