The Case for Home Schooling

I would never want to home school.

That's not to say that I don't think it's valuable or that it's not absolutely necessary in some situations, but I am just not cut out for it. Ask me how the David-working-15-hours-a-day-while-I'm-home-with-three-kids thing is going and you'll get the sense from the spastic twitch in my eye that I simply don't possess the patience to add school marm to my list of growing responsibilities.

Oh, I teach Michael things. We work on math sometimes, and letters, and do little art projects mostly involving crayons and fruit loops because I can't bear to get out the paint when I already spend all day every day cleaning. Though I think I just might be up for taking the paint outside today. That way I can squirt everything down with a hose when we're done (What I need is a big drain in the middle of my kitchen floor. Who's with me?).

But, I'm starting to realize I might have to rethink the whole homeschooling thing after reading articles like this one and this one.

To summarize, kids in Indiana no longer have to learn cursive. The argument is that cursive is an antiquated form of communication that should take its proper place among the dried-up dinosaur bones (because, obviously, nothing valuable could possibly be gained by having to practice one's handwriting). Not only does no one use cursive anymore, no one can read it, either. Sorry Grandma, no more personalized thank you notes. All you're getting is a one sentence email that uses text speak and gratuitous spelling mistakes to thank you for the lovely $$ you sent.

I hate to think what will happen if the power ever goes out.

And students in San Francisco will now be getting a full dose of gay history. Move over, George Washington, it's gay pride time. Now, I'm not opposed to kids learning about different groups of people, but for heaven's sake, let's have some priorities. When high schoolers graduate without being able to answer basic questions about the Revolutionary War or the powers belonging to congress but they can discuss the political contributions of Harvey Milk, there is something wrong with the curriculum. Truly important historical events should not be crowded out of the history books to make way for the contributions of every single minority on the planet.

I recently had a friend comment to me that she thinks kids are so much smarter and learning so much more these days than in generations past. Sorry, but I think Laura Ingalls at nine could have kicked our kids' fannies in every subject from math to geography. And she would have done it with proper grammar and correct spelling. In cursive. With diagrammed sentences.

Hey, come to think of it, she was partly home schooled.

As I was saying...