Merry Christmas 2010
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Category Archives: kids
10 Reasons Why We Home School
Upon revealing that my wife and I home school our children, we find ourselves in heavy crossfire with an emphasis on us doing wrong by our kids. It’s interesting that the harshest attacks come from (1) single people, (2) childless people, (3) old people who grew up during an age where schools were still good, or (4) people who sent their kids to private school (be it Christian or a Yeshiva). I’ve also entertained some minor attacks from public school teachers, mostly in regard to my pride: how dare I think I can do their professionally trained job (that’s another topic though).
So I decided to do a list of ten reasons why we home school. You’ll notice certain things about this list compared to my other two lists. The five stupid reasons to opt out of home schooling dealt with the storm of stupid attacks I’ve had to weather; the five wrongheaded reasons to home school dealt with what I’ve heard some people say to justify their homeschooling: but these ten reasons are totally personal. They’re Our reasons for home schooling Our children in light of Our situation. Here’s the list:
5 Initially Wrongheaded (But Potentially Contextually Understandable) Reasons to Home School
I was planning to post this after my 10 reasons to home school, and even after my 5 stupid reasons to opt out of home school in favor of public school, but I faced another problem.
What if home schooling parents started offering their opinions of what they thought were good reasons to opt out of public school and then my post came out listing their reasons as wrongheaded? That would be highly suspect and embarrassing!
My second problem is that some of these comments make a lot of sense in the right context. Their initial problem is that they take a wrong view of education but, based on the right context, these reasons are sometimes justifiable.
Therefore, here are five wrongheaded yet potentially contextually understandable and justifiable reasons to home (instead of public) school your children:
5 Stupid Reasons Not To Home School (and Do Public School Instead)
In defensive discussions justifying my parental rights and educational choices for my children, I often find myself repeating my lists of reasons. I have 10 solid reasons why we home-school, which I was going to post today, but then I had an internal struggle.
What if people (as they sometimes do) started offering some responses which tied into some incomprehensibly stupid reasons to opt out of home-schooling and send my kids to school? I mean, they’d see this post and think I was spring boarding off of their incomprehensibly stupid comments. I am therefore ethically required to post this first!
My second struggle is that this post can only exist if people understand my number one reason for home-schooling: I can’t afford private school. I really can’t. I’m trying to save for retirement and the college education of three kids; it’s impossible to pay private school tuition right now.
With conscience assuaged, and the number one reason listed to my reader (that’s you), all struggles are rested. I can unapologetically offer five undeniably and incomprehensibly stupid reasons to opt-out of home school and send kids to school:
Interview With Sy 2009
This seems to be Kid week. We’ve done two interview with Josias (link here) and we figured we would do one this year, now that he’s in first grade.
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Interview With Elayna 2009
We did an interview with Elayna a year ago. Now that she’s reached the ripe age of 4, we figured to ask her some of the questions again.
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Sy’s Poems
Yesterday’s post consisted of things that Sy banged out without much more than five minutes of thought. Essentially, they were creative outlets for his random insanity. I also wanted to post some of his endeavors which he did take time to think about, and even wrote a second (neater) draft to get it right.
What you’ll see are two poems: one in verse and one in prose.
Sy’s Essays
Every now and then my Son does something that gets him in trouble, usually on account of him being insanely hyperactive while being on the verge of a migraine. At these times I try to find a way to both calm him down and redirect his energies.
Usually this consists of me telling him to sit down, stare at a wall for five minutes and then followed by a brief writing session. In the session he has to write down five sentences that tell me something about the wall—and they can’t be mere facts. They must be creative in their formulation, else he has to examine the wall some more.
Yeah, I know; it sounds crazy. Welcome to the world with Me as Dad. Here’s his most recent two sessions followed by a short essay on why he loves Summer that he wrote in Winter.
Weird Kiddo Convo: The Play
Here’s a weird conversation the kids had today which I just had to save.