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Nov. 27, 2007 Homeschooling is a personal choice. There are two main things to look at before deciding if homeschooling is right for your family. 1)Is homeschooling right for you? 2)Is homeschooling right for your child? These are two completely separate and different questions, each equally as important as the other. My daughter is 16-years-old. She has attended both public and private schools as well as being home schooled and attending boarding school. Different types of education have suited her needs and desires at different stages of her life and development for varying reasons. I'd like to start off by saying Sophie has never been a problem student. Her teachers have always been quite fond of her and she's never had problems at school either socially or educationally. She loves to learn and she enjoys hanging out with her peers. This has included the years she's spent with blue, pink, purple and green hair as well as presently with her massive - sometimes colorful - dreadlocks. The first time I home schooled Sophie we were living in Pensacola, FL. I pulled her out for educational purposes. She enjoyed her teacher and her classmates but the class was painfully behind her level. The school was either unable or unwilling to allow Sophie to continue learning at the level she was at so I was left with a choice to allow Sophie to remain in the school, be bored and find other things to do besides learn during those school hours, or to pull her from the school and allow her to continue learning at the pace she had been at prior to attending that school. The problem with forcing a child to remain in an environment that is not academically stimulating is that the child, at that point, does not need to pay attention in class - because the child already knows the material - and therefore will find something else to occupy their time. If you really think a child will sit obediently for 6 hours listening to stuff they already know day after day, well, you're just wrong. No matter how well behaved your child is no one is capable of doing this. You try to go to a room and have someone lecture you day after day on your colors and ABCs. You would get bored and eventually you would find something else to occupy your time. That being said, Sophie was not at a point where she was having any acting out issues and was still completely content in class, with her teacher and classmates. Nonetheless, it's my job, as a parent, to be proactive in her life and make sure that bad patterns do not develop as a result of a neglected situation, but rather to prevent problems from popping up by taking appropriate proactive measures. In the end, I pulled Sophie out of school and began homeschooling using computer programs, books, and other materials both on and off-line. The main concern, in Sophie's case, was making sure she had enough social interaction with other children. We lived in the old historical part of downtown Pensacola and took nightly evening walks. We were quite active so a lack of mobility and/or exercise was not a problem... just the lack of interaction with other children. We did not live in a neighborhood with many children. So, she would have to find her playmates elsewhere. I'm a strong advocate of extra-curricular activities. Extra-curricular activities are a place where you can find other children who are interested in the same thing your child is interested in. These children are there to work on that craft or skill, not to goof off because they have a passion for it. Parents put there kids in after-school care if they want there kids to be babysat or have a place to goof-off and play. I wanted Sophie in a structured environment where the children's minds would be stimulated. Where the children would be curious and focused. I wanted her in an enriching environment. We ended up putting her is a gymnastics class. She really enjoyed it. The gymnasium took gymnastics seriously. A couple of the kids had Olympic dreams. It was a place where Sophie would be with other kids who enjoyed the same thing she enjoyed while still being able to hang out and spend time with her peers. She loved ti. I was secure in knowing it was an enriching environment. It worked for us both from our separate perspectives and as a team. The bonus was that Sophie was not the world's most coordinated person, so she also got to work on that. I'm not good at everything. For example, I'm not a good teacher. Yes, that was our starting point. How do you homeschool when you know you're not a good teacher. Easy. You take yourself out of the equation. So, I did. I bought appropriate books. We spent a lot of time at Barnes and Noble looking through all of the different homeschool work books. Sophie would pick out the ones she felt were most interesting to her. I would look them over. If we agreed on the book, we would buy it. I would say that most of the time we agreed. If not, we would discuss why we liked or didn't like a particular workbook and make our decision based on the outcome of the conversation. Sophie was never looking for an 'easy' book. She was always looking for the right book - something that sparked her interest and curiosity - so I trusted her opinion and knew she was coming from a place that would be for her own benefit. I believe you can probably make that assumption with most any child. A child will be just as bored learning their (metaphorical) ABCs and colors again at the house as they would in a school environment. In a home environment you have the ability to gear the child's education in the direction of their particular interests. I let Sophie design many of her own classes. In the 4th grade one of her classes focused heavily on Roman and Greek mythology. She read a ton of books on the subject, studied as much as was available online and we visited several museums where she was able to see paintings and sculptures on the subject. Some of the museums we visited included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the LA Country Museum of Art, the Louvre, the D'Orsay and The Getty Center. At the Getty Center, Sophie found that a particular sculpture was said to be a particular goddess when in fact, it was different goddess altogether. Sophie wrote the curator and explained why it could not be the goddess as claimed but had to be this other goddess. In the 5th grade, Sophie wanted to learn about Tibetan art and artifacts. She used computers, books and museums as her material source. The Norton Simon Museum was one of the fine museums that ended up being an incredible resource as far as actual work at the museum and also for reference books. The museums bookstore offers a very nice collection of very specific and focused works rather than just a large selection of color photo, coffee table books ideal for gift giving. There were times when Sophie would go back into public or private schools. I had promised her she could go to middle school. She did. She went for the first semester of her first year in middle school. It was enough for her. It was also very important to her that she was able to have that experience. It was a rites of passage that she would have felt as though she had missed out on. I respected her need and allowed her that opportunity. 
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