And so we begin with some hopes and a few acorns...

This is the first post in my new homeschooling blog. Even though I've been interested in homeschooling since the nineties when I first learned about it from a family I was close with, I'm a novice starting out in the adventure for the first time. I'm eager to learn all I can to be a good homeschooling mama.


After struggling to come up with a blog title, with my husband's help, I chose the name Acorns and Storybooks because of the acorns that cover our yard and the books at the heart of the curriculum we will be using. We'll be starting out with Before Five in A Row, a collection of storybooks and activities designed for little ones ages 2 to 4.

Grandma's Graphics

We've decided to homeschool our little one, Gabriel, for preschool to start with. Ideally, I would like to keep going but we are going to take it one level at a time.

So why are we doing it?

We want to give Gabriel a sense of learning as a way of life. A daily thing that you just do without thinking, like breathing.

 More and more, it seems,  traditional schools compartmentalize learning as a means to an end. And that end is becoming, more and more,  to mean test scores.

Instead of learning to read so that you can discover more about the world, children are being taught to read so that the test scores are high enough to get state funding.

As children grow up in the school system they are increasingly asking one question about learning.

  "Is this going to be on the test?"

The joy of learning, of discovery, is being taken away from them.  And for what?  Educational policies decided by people for various political reasons?   I want something more meaningful.

 
Another problem I see happening, especially in the preschools, is the increasing academic pressures being put on two, three, and four year olds.

   This is the time when learning should be centered around play and discovery, story times and crafts.  Yet more and more preschools are advertising and putting the emphasis on academics at earlier and earlier ages, taking time away from play and discovery.

   Parents are being a sold a bill of goods that unless their kids are at a certain level by age 5, they aren't going to be able to "compete in the global workforce."

Do we really want to raise a cog in the wheel?  A little worker bee?  Do we really want our child to view his peers as "competition?" 

Is it any wonder that little elementary school kids burn out so early?  That they want to zone out on video games and cartoons at age 8? 

There is also the underlying cultural assumptions that kids who enjoy learning are "nerds" and thus are "uncool." Social cliques form around the concept of cool and uncool very early in schools.

While little kids who show a love of learning are praised and adored by teachers, their more jaded peers can turn a passion for discovery into a reason to ridicule and tease.

I don't want my child to stifle his sense of self because a bunch of popular kids decide he's not cool if he likes science or math or reading. I want my son to be his authentic self. And to like that. Not to be ashamed that he knows who all the presidents are or can identify a certain type of cloud.

Between the academic pressures to succeed and the social pressures to be "cool" and not show your love of learning, education in schools is becoming less about learning and more about making sure you can pass a test. And then sadly, forgetting that knowledge.

I saw what happens when people get to college and think learning is just about test scores. They miss the real lessons of life, of understanding, of growth. They miss the discovery about themselves and their fellow man.

In a poetry class once, the professor was reading a poem about the musician John Coltrane by LeRoi Jones. The class started talking about jazz, blues, rhythm, poetry...and music in general.

It was an amazing conversation about how poetry and music intersect, how Jones was capturing the essence of Coltrane in the lines of the poem. Connections were being made, people were coming alive in the class.  It was what you hope a humanties based class in college would be.

Until.

Until one girl raised her hand and asked, "Dr. Smith, is this jazz stuff going to be on the test?"

"Well, it depends on your essay."

"Well, if it is not going to be on the test then why are we discussing it? I just think we should study what's on the test. I don't see the point of learning about jazz when we're supposed to be discussing poetry".

The sad and scary thing was that she was studying to become an English teacher.

I hope that when my son grows up he sees the poetry in jazz.  I hope he never asks the question,

"Is this going to be on the test?"