I've been trying to be patient with our transition to school, and so I haven't wanted to write this post, but then I've been finding that I haven't felt like writing any other posts, so I just haven't been blogging much lately. I do have a few pictures from other activities I need to put up here, but school is occupying a lot of my thoughts right now.
I think its so funny that one of the most common things I hear about homeschooling from school-going families is that it seems "too hard"--That whole "I could never do it" arguement. I agree, sometimes it is really exhausting having your kids home with you all day, although you can sign them up for classes and arrange playdates so that doesn't have to be the case every minute of the week. But right now, I'm thinking sending them to school is WAY harder.
There's the fact that you have to do things by someone else's schedule. Which means that you may have to wake them up an hour before they are naturally ready (and despite what you try, they may not be able to go to sleep an hour earlier to make it up). And you have to get them dressed and out the door right away, even if they are having an off morning and really need time for extra hugs and snuggles, or even extra breakfast. You have to get them to and from school by the clock, whether it works for you or not. Believe me, its a lot easier to set your own schedule and do things when it works best for your family.
Then there's all the time wastage. I knew that was going to happen--its one of the reasons why I think homeschooling is so great. And after spending a little time in Bean's class, I've seen firsthand how much effort and time goes into getting 25 kids to all do what they need to. The example that has me the most annoyed would be coming in from lunch. They finish recess at 12:50. They come back into the building and stop for a bathroom break. I don't know exactly how long this takes, but since only 3 kids are allowed in each of the bathrooms at once, I'm guessing that they don't get back into their classroom until at least 1:10. Then they have DEAR time. When I was teaching, this stood for "Drop Everything and Read", and it probably still does in most classes, but for Bean, it means Drop Everything and Rest. They have to put their heads down on their desks while quiet music plays for about 20 minutes. Maybe more. I know the day I got there at 1:45 they were still "resting" Then, because they have electives from 2-3:00 p.m. most days, they start to pack up and line up. This means that from 11:45 (let's be real--they probably start lining up for lunch at 11:30) until 2:10 or so, they aren't really doing anything. And if you figure in how much time it takes for each of the transitions, that means the first 3.5 hours of school are probably mostly group management, too. I'm not saying I don't understand it--25 five and six year olds are a lot to handle--but its just one of those things you don't have to deal with when homeschooling.
And along with all the daily time that is wasted, there's the fact that they've been in school for 5 weeks already and STILL haven't managed to finish the school-wide assessments and get their small learning groups set up. I really liked the idea that they would be breaking the kids into small groups for math and reading, and that the whole school does these subjects at the same time, so its easy to switch kids to different rooms for these groups depending on their level in that subject, but it was supposed to happen in the first 3 weeks. I'm not sure what the hold up is, but its now gone long enough that I'm ready to start asking more questions (I was trying really hard not to be that parent, but I'm not going to last.) I keep asking Bean each day if she has done any math, and most days, she can't think of a single thing that would qualify. Maybe she's not recognizing math time, but I'm getting a little worried.
Finally, today, she got her first weekly homework calendar. Now, I'm not a big fan of homework anyway and completely agree with the research that shows that for the most part, its pretty pointless in elementary school except for the occasional special project. But this list I just got seems completely over the top for K/1. Each day, on top of the 30 minutes of reading she's supposed to do each day (and I'm a fan of reading--only it would go a lot better if she wasn't so tired at night after getting up too early and spending a long day at school), she's supposed to do 2 projects with her sight words (could take anywhere from 10-30 minutes each day), has a couple math concepts to work with (which she swears they have done nothing with in class), and a couple social studies projects to do as well. For example, this week they are supposed to be watching the local news or CNN and summarizing one of the stories and they are also learning about homes and neighborhoods, so for tonight she needs to draw a blueprint of our house. Some of these projects are fun ideas, but she's already spent 30 minutes on homework today and could easily spend another hour! We don't get home until almost 4 and we try to have the kids in bed by 7:30. Somewhere in there we have to do dinner and bedtime routine, oh, and bathe the kids once in awhile. And all she wants to do when she gets home is play. This is a kid who was used to spending hours and hours every day in her make-believe games and setting up complicated scenes and situations.
Honestly, I'm just not so sure about this whole school thing. Part of me thinks that we made a mistake in the school we picked, and part of me thinks that school in general was a mistake for us right now. But Bean is having fun, and I don't feel like I can change things on her right now because of that fact. So I've been trying to keep my whining to just a few choice people, but maybe now that I got this out of my system, I can blog about something else. And it could be worse, I heard from one kindergarten mom whose daughter is just coloring all day. At least Bean gets to chant with her class, "B says buh". (And she actually did tell me that in this 6th week of school, she finally sat down and read for her teacher--so maybe her teacher now knows that Bean already knows what B says.)
And I'm going to apologize right now to all my public school teacher friends. Like I said, I know so much of this is out of your hands--classroom teaching is a lot of crowd control and trying to meet the needs of kids at a million different levels. It's hard to get away from a lot of this. I actually like Bean's teacher--she seems like a nice lady. I'm just having trouble reconciling what our lives are like now compared to a couple months ago.
