What's happening to me?

A year and a half ago, I wasn't even close to where I am now. Sure, that's true in a geographical sense, but I don't even think my old self would recognize the new one. Not even a little bit.

A year and a half ago, we'd just received an offer on our house, so we knew our time in Florida was officially short. In that time, I worried and fretted over many things, among which were the quality of the schools in the district to which we were moving. On paper, they looked ...okay, but not great - not at all great like the public school my children were attending then. In fact, the poor(er) quality of schools was one of the reasons who opted to move an hour away from where my husband works, just so we could escape the overcrowded classrooms there. By comparison, the schools in our soon-to-be new-to-us district became the best of options that were, in my opinion, not good enough, especially compared to our beloved FL elementary school.

Indeed, I was right - I was profoundly disappointed with so many things: overcrowding, poor resources, the loss of dedicated music, art and computer teachers each of whom had state-of-the-art classrooms and supplies, less-than-impressive security measures, a playground that was too large for adequate supervision, a kindergarten that seemed more like Molly's preschool... and test performance that was, compared to other CA districts, not very impressive. I didn't even like their books, and the classrooms (which are about 20 years older, mind you) were dingy and dreary in comparison to the brightly lit and decorated classes at "our old school".

Eventually, I began to dread taking them there - that's how much I began to dislike the place. And then other things started happening, each of which forced me to feel ever more strongly about THAT school. But the culminating moment for me, when all these doubts swirling around began to gel into a most horrible thought, was when a friend - and former teacher in the same school system (who left the schools and went to teach at a prison) - said to me one day, "If you care about your kids and their education, you'll pull them out of _____ School and homeschool them."

Yes, that is the horrible thought that I'd been compelled to consider. It seemed to be a rather draconian reaction, even, and one I considered with some sense of resignation and even despair, as well as a bit of grieving for the many things we had (already) had to give up before we got to this point.

The first day of "school" last year was a bit of a non-event, but I took the advice of some of the 'experts' at our charter, and set out ground rules, and did other things that, essentially, were intended to create a "school at home" atmosphere. By then, I'd read enough that I had considerable disdain for the more radical types of homeschooling, most specifically unschooling, which I equated with unparenting. I know I wasn't alone - this is often how it's portrayed in the mainstream media, too.

In retrospect, I can say that for most of that (school) year, I was still mourning our move and what it had done to the landscape of my days - instead of having several hours each day to re-energize my very introverted self, I was forced to give up my 'me' time and spend it all with monsters my children, who, by the way, were also still grieving for their former home, school, teachers, friends, and way of life.

I suppose I had a typical first year of homeschooling - I changed directions, curricula, tactics, schedules, and whatever else applies, so many times that we were just treading water, and only barely. It wasn't until around March of this year, that things really began to change. I gave up trying to "save" that school year, and realized that I needed to focus my energy on changing and preparing for what was to come next.

Along the way, I'd found a couple of really valuable homeschooling groups, and eventually blogs, that began to make me really think about homeschooling, and I began to realize that, somehow, I'd not only accepted our "fate" (ha!) but I'd started to embrace it and even become protective of it - so much that, when my husband recently mentioned finding a better school district, my first thought wasn't "Hooray!", but, "Why?".

That's when I knew something was up. I began to 'hear' my local homeschooling friends talk about their own approaches, and more importantly, I began to read between the lines. When I mentioned to one mom that I'd been advised to double-check the state standards to make sure we were in compliance, she just sort of casually shrugged and said, "Yeah, and how's that going for ya?" She didn't mean to be rude to me, she was just acknowledging that the standards are pretty arbitrary and, um, useless.

So anyway, this weekend, I spent two and a half lovely and inspiring days at a homeschooling conference. I learned a lot from the speakers and workshops (well, most of them - a couple were duds), but what I came away with - what has been most valuable to me - is what I learned about myself.

I've become one of them.

There, I said it.

What I mean is, I've become one of those who sees the problems with canned curricula, with across-the-board expectations, with "one size fits all" education systems that often don't inspire, but instead quash a child's enthusiasm for learning. That's not to say that I don't see value in public school systems, but rather, that I see how hard it must be to educate adequately all the children in our classrooms and schools. I know there are teachers who do it - who are able to differentiate and accommodate the various learning styles and needs of their students, but the 'system' is rife with problems. More importantly to me - for my children, anyway - I have seen first-hand how a curriculum may serve one child well, but not another. If that can be the case for my two older children, then surely it could prove problematic for many children in one class taught by one dedicated but exhausted teacher.

The sessions that were most meaningful to me were those led by Tammy Takahashi, an unradical unschooler whose excellent and insightful commentary made me turn to my friend (also an unschooler) and admit that, you know, she has a point, and that I'm sort of digging this new (to me) explanation of what unschooling really is. My friend, whose journey started long ago, and whose children have never been enrolled in public school, just smiled; she probably was thinking, "It's about time."

And that's the thing. Another person with whom I spoke this weekend - a math professor whose book on math games was especially intriguing - casually commented that I "must be an unschooler." Seriously, I think I could have died right there, except that I had to admit she had a point, too.

So that's where I am. I told my friend, "This isn't at all where I thought I'd be a year and a half ago." It's a heckuva journey, and I have a feeling, it's just going to get more exhilerating, maybe a little bit further along the 'unexpected' path, but mostly, a whole lot more fun, and satisfying, and better than I ever could have hoped for.

How awesome is that? Yeah, pretty awesome.