The road to hell....

.....is paved with good intentions.

This is a quote my father uses a lot. Oh, boy howdy is it true! There is nothing more annoying than busy bodies with nothing better to do than check in on your progress out of concern. Nothing more annoying in not trusting someone. Nothing says, "I don't trust you." like prying into someone else's business.

Yet this seems to be the theme of my life every single year I have been homeschooling. I admit my boys are not academically up to speed with their public school peers. We did a lot of experimenting with different methods. We tried unschooling, we tried Waldorf, we tried virtual public schools. We tried private, public, and an eclectic mix of them all.  Much of the fail proof systems have failed along the way in some manner; either academically or some other reason. I disliked unschooling because my children decided not schooling was the way to go. They would rather listen to the radio and watch movies. It did not fly. Public school was a life force sucking machine. Any twinkle and desire of an eagerness to learn was sucked out. We tried two private routes. One school was a joke. They changed teachers four times in my oldest class. When he left after going a year was still in the dark about what a period was, and I mean the grammatical period. They told me he was reading well, he was far from it. I brought home my 3 grader to begin Kindergarden/1st grade. He has been behind ever since, but is making progress, slowly but surely. His desire to learn was zapped in Kindergarten from the public school. Ever since he has resisted learning ANYTHING until recently. The problem lies here, but I am the one that gets the blame. The mama that travels all over the state and near-by states to visit museums, enrichment activities, etc... to teach my children about EVERYTHING. I do spelling, grammar, math, writing, science, history, and whatever strikes our fancy. I get the blame because my oldest two are considered "behind."

Behind what? Behind a public school child that knows NOTHING but how to be a great test taker? No, I do not have children like that. I have thinkers, ponderers, imaginative and creative brilliant critical thinking geniuses! They have a rich vocabulary. They know dates, details, and facts about many many subjects. They know how to follow their passion and think on their feet. They may not know the multiplication table right off the top of their heads but does this really stifle them? When kids taking the state tests are allowed to bring in a calculators and are passed when clearly they did not know their Multiplication Tables either (psss, I know this because they had to have the calculator!)

Why then am I picked on? Why am I considered not a suitable teacher? Tell me! I present the material. I do it in different ways. I made cardboard letters, I made stories up about letters and numbers, I made art projects out of letters, and I even did it the traditional way with workbooks and flash cards. I go all out. I cannot help it then if my child is not ready to learn. This could mean they are either not ready because of age or skill level or the fact they could care less!

My oldest refused to learn how to read until he was almost 11. Why? I don't know. He refused. He told me he did not want to learn. By God he kept his promise until he saw other kids able to read. He wanted to do it too. Now he is a reader. Is he really stunted? Well if he tried out for college right now, yes, but will he be by the time that rolls around in 4 years, no. He is brilliant. He truly is a genius, but not in the academically sense.

Bottom line is this. I can only present it. I can only teach the material. I can only get myself excited about it. I can only WANT my child to learn. If they choose to NOT learn, I cannot help that. I, nor can anyone else, MAKE someone learn if they do not want to learn. If they are fighting you then they will not learn. I can only re-teach the same material over in a different way until they finally have the miracle A-HA! moment and we move on.

Before you or anyone else bash the teacher, stop and think that perhaps the student is not ready, not willing, or simply a pain in the ass. Don't think for a second I have not done my best and put my best foot forward. I can only do so much, the rest is up to the student.

So BACK OFF! You are in no way helping!