I had a conversation with a homeschooling mom 5 minutes ago. Her son, a high school-aged kid, applied to and was accepted to a competitive public high school.
To motivate him to take exams and do school interviews, she'd tell her son, "Okay, let's get up and out of bed and prepare for another exercise in futility." And that's how they approached it. No big deal. An exercise "in futility."
And then, he got accepted to a really great Big City school.
"I saw the acceptance letter. He got accepted. The hard work paid off. And then I cried."
Tears of happiness? Joy? Maybe. But for a homeschooling mother, acceptance to an institutional school marks the beginning of an end. We relinquish our power over our child to others. And that feels so...weird. Sad. Tear-inducing sad.
But, happily, that student is doing great as a regular Big City institutional school student. I know that that homeschooling mom gave him a great foundation.
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Not at this point yet, but...my homeschooled seven year old son loves the idea of hitting those last grades of high school running, with lots of energy and no nine or ten year history of trudging through classes behind him. The time line of two or three years of a great high school and then college seem reasonable to him. I only have an idea of the big change which will come at that point though, after so much time working together. Yeah, it'll have to be a really good school to give this all up!
Julia
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