This is What Homeschooling Looks Like
When I first moved to El Paso from Chicago just over five years ago, I admit I’d never actually known anyone who’d home-schooled their children. Fast-forward to now, and nearly everyone in my social circle is there thanks to this home-schooling network!
What’s been bothering me lately is feeling conflicted about the value of the public school system and trusting others to teach my son versus my own feeling of ownership over him and his learning. On the one hand, I was raised in a superb public school system that valued arts and music equally alongside academics and athletics. I reaped the benefits of that education and still came out the other side a well-adjusted, competent and hardly conformist (the biggest fear of “letting” my son attend public school is that he’d end up an automaton, of course!).
On the other hand, there are so many educational opportunities that happen within school hours, and I don’t want my son to be limited in his learning. I don’t want him to have “school hours,” I want LIFE to be SCHOOL. I want him to view learning as something he does every day for the rest of his life, something he has control over and passion for! I want him to love learning as much as he currently loves Lego. J
This school year, I signed my son up for three-day-a-week preschool classes (he’ll be four in a week!). Already, he has shown an aptitude for learning far beyond what I had assessed. He comes home with projects that demonstrate that he was ready to push ahead but I had not known to try certain projects or practice certain skills because I am not an expert in preschool. It took a while for me to admit that to myself. I AM my child’s first teacher, but I am not his ONLY teacher.
Therefore, I vow to stop judging myself on outside criteria of what home-schooling looks like – it looks like US!
Alison Westermann
Mom, wife, singer-songwriter
www.alisonwestermann.com
What’s been bothering me lately is feeling conflicted about the value of the public school system and trusting others to teach my son versus my own feeling of ownership over him and his learning. On the one hand, I was raised in a superb public school system that valued arts and music equally alongside academics and athletics. I reaped the benefits of that education and still came out the other side a well-adjusted, competent and hardly conformist (the biggest fear of “letting” my son attend public school is that he’d end up an automaton, of course!).
On the other hand, there are so many educational opportunities that happen within school hours, and I don’t want my son to be limited in his learning. I don’t want him to have “school hours,” I want LIFE to be SCHOOL. I want him to view learning as something he does every day for the rest of his life, something he has control over and passion for! I want him to love learning as much as he currently loves Lego. J
This school year, I signed my son up for three-day-a-week preschool classes (he’ll be four in a week!). Already, he has shown an aptitude for learning far beyond what I had assessed. He comes home with projects that demonstrate that he was ready to push ahead but I had not known to try certain projects or practice certain skills because I am not an expert in preschool. It took a while for me to admit that to myself. I AM my child’s first teacher, but I am not his ONLY teacher.
Therefore, I vow to stop judging myself on outside criteria of what home-schooling looks like – it looks like US!
Alison Westermann
Mom, wife, singer-songwriter
www.alisonwestermann.com