Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

I love StumbleUpon.  It's quickly becoming my favorite way to surf the internet.  I got up earlier than Aidan this morning (a rare occurrence - especially since he kept me up until 2:30am watching Stargate Atlantis last night) and while I was waiting on him to get up I had some donuts, a cup of tea, and some free time to surf.  I managed to find this little gem.


So that I'm not stealing any copy written material, here are just a few of the points.  If you'd like to read the entire article, you can find it here:  Secular Homeschooling Magazine




Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.


Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

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