And over the years I've decided that it's that same genuine concern that prompts a lot of the negative responses people have about homeschooling. I just wish these folks would stop and think about what is REALLY bothering them, what their concerns really are. Usually, their objections are based on assumptions they have never seriously analyzed.
Like this one. If I had a nickel for every time someone has said to me, "But you're not a scientist. How are you going to teach them biology, chemistry, trigonometry?" I could pay my mortgage and have change left over. I always answer, quite seriously, "Well, I took those classes in high school. Didn't you?"
"Of course," the skeptic will say, "but it's not like I REMEMBER any of it."
This cracks me up. Sometimes I'll say, if I'm feeling snarky, "Then surely I can do a better job than your teacher did!"
I knew a guy who used to say, when asked about socialization, "But we don't want to be socialists!"
I was worrying the other night that I wasn't doing enough "educational" stuff with Noogs. The only structured activity we do is her reading lesson, which only takes about twenty minutes and isn't necessarily daily. Then two things struck me:
1) Noogs isn't even four yet; and
2) So?
I'm not trying to conform to some abstruse government standard of grading and testability, so instantly my life is easier than that of a teacher in a public school. The only demanding parents I have to please are myself and Darwin, and I don't call myself up to complain. And as Noogs is already learning to read, we seem to be doing things well so far. The girls can count and sing the alphabet song and memorize stories. I never planned to send them to preschool, and I don't think that they're behind the curve for not having gone. Besides, what could be more educational than having a new baby around the house?
I don't think anyone has ever asked me, now or when I was being homeschooled, about socialization. I wonder what the new buzzword question for homeschoolers is?
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