Thank You, Public School

For those who don't know, I homeschooled my children for 5 years and then last year, after my husband abandoned us, I enrolled them in public school for the first time.

Public school has been both better and worse than I expected. Some parts of public school have actually been good, and maybe some day I'll post about that. But I've come through this experience with a firm conviction that homeschooling IS the best option if one can manage it and if one has the social support to do it without going crazy or keeping the children isolated.

To come to the point here, my subject line is entirely sarcastic. There are many things I do thank the public school for, but this post is tongue in cheek.

So, here are the things I'm "thanking" public school for this week:

1. My darling boy, my just turned 9yo Christian Gentleman son, walked up to me this weekend and said "Hey mom, what is a F*cker?". Now, I TRULY almost dropped into a dead faint at even hearing the word come out of his mouth.

[I will confess to being a potty mouth at times - you can take the girl outta the Corps, but you can't take the Corps outta the girl you know. But the extent of my cursing is "Hell" and "Damn" and that's about it. Oh yeah, there was that one time I let "Ass" slip out [and heard it repeated by one of my adorable children less than 2 hours later]. But the "F" Bomb? No way man.]

So, AFTER I picked my jaw back up off the floor, I said, pretty calmly "Son, where did you hear a word like that?" and he said "Oh, that's written on the wall in the bathroom at school. It says 'Tommy is a F*cker'. What does that mean mom?" [For the record, "Tommy" is one of his best friends]. I decided against a full anatomical description of exactly what a F*cker was and instead went with "that is a very bad thing to say about someone. I don't want you to ever repeat that word, OK son? I'm sorry someone wrote that about your friend. That was a terrible thing to do."

2. My lovely 7yo daughter informed me today that all of the boys in second grade had decided that they were "Gangsters" and they spend recess fighting each other. The teachers have been told and threats have been made. But my 7yo is upset because apparently these fights are getting very violent and some of the boys are being harmed and there is lots of talk along the lines of "We are gangsters and you better not mess with us! We'll kill you!"

3. My sweet 5yo is becoming completely neurotic because she keeps getting extra homework. She's in speech therapy 3 days a week and keeps missing important parts of class. She's becoming obsessed with what she is missing and is certain she's going to fail Kindergarten because she's getting behind. There seems to be some sort of disapproval from her teacher or something that is worrying her - she feels like she's being "punished" for going to speech. As far as I can tell she's doing well, but she's extremely anxious about going to speech now. Do I pull her or leave her in? I have no idea what the right thing to do is....

4. Thank you public school - all 3 of my elementary age kids have already [4.5 weeks into the school year], spent SIGNIFICANT time watching television. SOME of this TV has actually been educational - "The Magic School Bus" and such. But much of it has been just junk - stuff I wouldn't even let them watch at home. When I ask "Why are you watching TV at school?" I am told "The teacher was busy and needed to get some work done." or "The teacher had to do Dibbles testing so we watched TV all afternoon while she did it." Great.

Our Tax Dollars at work.

5. Speaking of dollars - we've already, in 4.5 weeks, been subject to THREE fundraisers between the elementary school and the middle school. Yes sir-ee, THREE. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. *sigh*

6. Thank you public school PE coaches for totally ruining physical exercise for my children. I spent 5 years of homeschooling them, teaching them that exercise is fun and worth doing. When I brought them to you last year, I had kids who LOVED to run, loved the challenge of physical exercise, and would do crunches and push ups for fun.

In less than a year you've convinced them that anything other than lying on the couch with a Wii remote in hand is torture and to be avoided at all costs. Did you really NEED to make them run till they puked? You couldn't come up with an interesting game that would have kept them running AND having fun? What exactly did they teach you in college?

And seriously, 6th grade PE coaches - do you NEED to tell the 6th grade girls that if they can't run a 5 minute mile they are doomed to be fat and unhealthy and die an early death? Cause, you know, 6th grade girls don't have enough body image worries as it is... yeah, thanks a bunch for that one.

I applaud your success in creating yet another generation of exercise-phobic couch potatoes. OH - and women with eating disorders, let's not forget that. Bravo.

*sigh*

I had one of those "I should pull them all out and homeschool them" moments today. And then that tiny shrill voice in the back of my head [you know, the voice of my last shred of sanity] shrieked "Are you nuts?!! What, you don't have enough on your plate?!!!"

In an alternate universe I'm still homeschooling these children and they are doing great. Everybody loves to run and nobody says the "F" word or even knows what a "gangster" is.

But here, in my universe, I know that I can't do that - not here in a place where I have no friends close by, no homeschool contacts, no homeschool groups to join and no homeschool resources to use... and how the heck would I even buy curriculum? It is not even possible. It just isn't.

So, I'm taking a deep breath and praying a lot. I'm working hard at home on their faith formation and their morality - and I pray that I can counteract whatever damage may be done.

God brought me here and I have to Trust Him to get us where He wants us to go.

God bless you!