"Four years ago I took my two school-aged children from public school and began homeschooling. We signed up under a state charter school, and I had romanticized my role as my children’s educator. I had wall calendars, alphabets, space posters, and presidential bios posted on our walls. It was my first day homeschooling and it took exactly one hour to realize this was not matching what I had envisioned. Eight hours later, the night ended with a to-do list and nothing crossed off as I sobbed to my husband over some frozen pizza. I felt like a failure.
I was so wrapped up in what I wanted for my children, that my romanticized vision and academic hopes of early graduations were more important than what my children actually wanted or needed. I would like to say Red Baron pizza brought me clarity and perspective and that day two was better, but it wasn’t. I continued to make schedules, jammed curriculum down my children’s throats, iron-fisted education upon them, and “coached” them through the work samples demanded by their charter school. The times we weren’t homeschooling I enjoyed immensely. I liked being around my children and we laughed a lot. However, as soon as I metaphorically placed my teacher hat on, it happened: I spoke, they didn’t listen; I yelled, they cowered; I learned, they tuned me out.
After a year-and-a-half of hating home educating my children and secretly wishing to send them to a brick-and-mortar school..." Continue reading here.
