Closing a door

February 28, 2011

I wrote this on January 25, to an online message board for MAVA, the virtual school in Massachusetts (sorry for the wonky text–it was a literal cut-and-paste job):

We have almost finished our second month and I’m begin to lose my grip. I can

honestly say that I haven’t had a day doing K12 when one of my two kids hasn’t
been weeping over their work at one point or another. I am so tired of the
stomping, the whining, the tears—-

Here is the thing: They are not strangers to school work. We have always done
sit-down math, history, science, grammar, spelling, It wasn’t as scripted as it
is now, but we weren’t totally unschool-y. I don’t make them do the tedious work
and we skip anything “optional” b/c I’d rather they just go and relax/play.

And don’t even get me started on what the heck do I do to keep my 6yo son busy
when I’m locked down in the dining room for the morning and into the afternoon
with the girls.

My kids are generally pretty well behaved and do follow rules. They will do
their work (eventually) but I feel like I’m fighting with them almost all the
time when school is “in session”. It’s almost like a tag team—-one kids will
be a model student while the other is a wreck and then, “POOF!” they switch. I
jokingly said that I’m going to get an ulcer and gray hair from this. Not
jokingly: This isn’t fun.

And, I’m no newbie—this is my 5th year homeschooling! When the girls do their
work without complaint, we have no issues with the program at all.

Would love your advice. Is this unique to my household, or are most of you
finding this to be a fight? Do you reward good behavior or punish the bad?

Thanks,
Christina
This, in a nutshell, sums up what life has been like for the past couple of months. (Can you tell how much I wrote this post to myself, as if to pick myself up and cheer myself on?)

What I didn’t include in any of my public statements is that my son had started throwing huge angry tantrums daily, my kids were at each other’s throats most of the time, and I was barely able to make it through the day without having to go sit in the bathroom to cry and question why I couldn’t make this work.

So, this past Friday, I made a decision. We are leaving the virtual school, effective immediately.

We’ll take a week off to regroup and go on field trips (heck, we didn’t even take off “school vacation week”, so I guess we deserve it), and then finish out the school year as regular old homeschoolers.

As soon as I made this decision final in my head, the feeling in our house–in me–changed. I wasn’t running a list of what we needed to finish up over the weekend, mentally ticking off all the ways in which we could do better if only we applied ourselves more.

The kids felt the lightness too: That night, D—our little guy—crawled into bed with me and said, I love you, I love you, I love you over and over again, and then wrote John and I notes: “You are the best Daddy in the world”, “You are the best Mommy in the world”.

I’m not sure what life holds in store for us going forward, but I do know I made the right choice for us right now.

And for everyone who has commented, called, written or even just wished us luck during this decision-making process, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so fortunate to have you all in my life.

——————————————————-
While MAVA wasn’t right for us, I do hope it succeeds in our state. I plan to post more thoughts about the program specifically in the coming weeks since I think some families may be interested to know if it would work for them.

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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Kids, Fairly Odd Me, Homeschooling, MAVA 10 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: It’s a double

February 23, 2011
Photobucket
two teeth lost within five minutes of each other;
the Tooth Fairy had a busy night
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Homeschooling in a public school world

February 7, 2011

It’s been almost two months since we started with MAVA, the new virtual public school in Massachusetts. The lack of new posts on this blog should be an indication that it is, indeed, kicking my butt.


But, I’m kind of enjoying the butt-kicking, in some weird way. It feels good to have a plan, to check off items as we do them, to track our progress more concretely than we were before.

But, there are definitely growing pains in this new school, both at our home and throughout the program. My girls would rather play than do school (shocking, I know). They complain about how long it takes, forgetting that things move so much quicker if they don’t w-h-i-n-e at every step.

And, my poor son. I’m still struggling to keep him busy and learning and engaged while wrapped up with my other two.

Outside of our home, the only other family I knew in real life who was enrolled in MAVA recently quit. The public school’s beating drum that says “move forward, move forward” thrown on top of K12’s vigorous curriculum (which is, ironically, all about “mastering tasks at your own pace”) got to be too much for them.

Aye, there’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say.

It’s hard to marry the homeschooling lifestyle with the public school mentality. The public school wants us to finish at least 80% of all of our subjects by the end of June, never mind that we joined more than 20% into the school year. Never mind that I was already doing school with the kids in September, October and November, not lying on the couch wondering how they’d get educated.

The public school wants 80% complete, but K12 says “mastery, mastery”. So how does one move forward if a child is stuck? How can I spend an extra week on long division when the clock is ticking?

Report cards were just issued that were based solely on what percentage of the program is complete in each subject. I’d say we did fair. Each girl got one “W”, or Warning grade. Belly got hers in Art, which is funny given that the girl takes three hours of art classes each week, but alas, her progress in the program lags a bit behind.

Jilly got her “W” in History, a subject we have always kicked ass in up until now. I like the K12 History program, it just gets shuffled aside a little bit in an attempt to get to math-reading-spelling-grammar-french-science-art. But, again, it feels funny to see a “W” in a subject that I’ve loved enough to do well into the summer each year.

I asked our “teacher” (more on this later), what will happen if we are at, say, 65% at the end of June. Will they kick us out? “No!” she replied quickly, but then admitted she isn’t sure what that means for us. I know they want the kids to stay on grade level, but I don’t really care if my 4th grader becomes a 5th grader in September, December or March of next year.

I care that my kids learn and understand the work.

I don’t want to outright quit in frustration though. I want to see where we end up in June and then take stock in our family life, our homeschooling life and our place in MAVA. Maybe there will be a place for us next September, maybe there won’t. But, it’s too early to stop now.
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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Kids, Homeschooling, MAVA 7 Comments
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