Lately I have been thinking a lot about alternative options to public school for my children. Yes, I know that Adeline is only 2 years old, but I am at home all day with the kids and I have a lot of time to think about this kind of stuff. The more I think about it, the less I want to put my kids in public schools. I went to public schools and I taught in public schools for 5 years, so I know the pros and cons pretty well when it comes to public schools. I want my kids to learn more than is available in public schools. I feel like the biggest thing I learned in schools was how to follow directions and test well. I obviously learned the basics as well, but I know I have/had the potential to learn so much more and that’s why I want more for my kids. I want to give them the opportunity to excel at things other than following directions (ironically, this is what I am trying so hard to get Adeline to learn right now!)
My dream for my kids is that they will love to learn, know all the basics in reading, writing, math, history, science, etc and then choose to learn more based on their own interests—be it math, science, art, music, writing, etc. I want them to be critical thinkers, to learn to work well with others, to learn leadership skills, entrepreneurial skills, business skills. I want them to understand politics, be financially intelligent, be athletic, have friends, be spiritually minded, socially well-adapted. I want them to learn about things that interest them and spend their time becoming this person instead of sitting in a classroom learning how to succeed in a public school. I know this is probably a little idealistic, but if I don’t start idealistic, I may just settle for the everyday public school thing. And lets be honest here, I may be so ready to get my kids out of the house when it comes time for them to go to school that I’ll just scrap all this talk of the ideal education for my kids and use that time to go back to school myself (or sit around the house watching soaps, eating bon bons and napping all afternoon…if only…)
So this is where I would like some opinions. Have any of y’all looked into home schooling, charter schools, Montessori schools, community schools, starting a school, or anything else of the alternative schooling nature? Have you read any books on education that you would recommend? Do you have friends who have gone down any of these roads? Are you sitting around all day and thinking about the same things? I’ll take all the input you’ve got!
