I have seen the village....

Well, I guess it's official. Next year we begin homeschooling. After teaching in the public school system as many years as I have, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I have seen the village and I do NOT want it raising my children. People homeschool for many reasons. Mine are not new or different. I want to teach my children the way they learn, not the way some arbitrary standard has dictated. I do not want the pressure of standardized testing to prevent them from doing well overall in school. I want my gifted child to excel and bring home A's instead of C's because she is too bored to pay attention. "Really, mom? Monday. THAT''S one of our spelling words this week. If you are in the third grade and can't spell "Monday" then you have serious problems." My younger child has struggled all year to meet the classroom standards, but manages them just fine at home. When my oldest was in Kindergarten, she was a whole word reader being forced to phonics read. "Mommy, yes, I got it wrong. There is no such word as "wep." How am I s'posed to read that?" Now that my middle child is in Kindergarten, SHE is a phonics reader being forced to whole word read. She knows what sound "ing" makes but couldn't read the word "when" because no one taught her the sound "wh" makes together. I also do not want my children being taught a humanistic world view. I do not want them being taught fiction for science class. I want the Bible to be a part of their everyday studies. Against it should be tempered everything we learn anyway. I want my youngest to never have to go through what my other two have had to endure. I want to encourage my oldest child to read at her level, but books that are AGE APPROPRIATE. Just because she can read on a middle school level doesn't mean she needs to pick up a copy of the Hunger Games. Sometimes Judy Moody and Junie B Jones are just fun. And FUN is ok too! I don't want my children learning about sex and the way their body works from a stranger in a room full of other children. I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for transportation and meals for field trips when we have access to family passes and free days that aren't on traditional school days. I don't think my kids need to be out of school a bunch of random worthless days when they could be learning something amazing.
Many people say that I can still do all of that while leaving my children in the public school system. Let me tell you something. NEVER, NOT ONCE EVER, IN MY CLASSROOM will my child be offered drugs or condoms. And THAT is something you as a parent cannot control, what other students will tell/offer your kids. I don't want my five year old to come home singing, "I'm sexy and I know it." That's a little much for me. Am I conservative? You betcha! Am I going to teach my children what the actual Constitution of the United States of America says? Absolutely! Am I going to teach them that the holocaust DID indeed happen, that it was a terrible part of our history and that we need to learn from it rather than ignore it so that it NEVER happens again?! Guaranteed. Will I take them to the Smithsonian for a field trip? Oh yes! Will we have a class pet? (that was their number one concern) Sure! Is this going to be the hardest thing I have ever done in parenting so far? Probably. Am I up for it? Well, I am strapping on my high heels and I will let you know how the ride goes!

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go and, when he is old, he will not depart from it.