There is a general assumption that if you homeschool you hate the public school system. Although this might be true for some it is NOT true for this homeschooling mom.
I LOVE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS
I mean that.
All of them.
I have so many friends and relatives who work in the public school system and they are amazing. These are smart, well-educated, passionate, caring people who adore children and the act of teaching. I’m rather fond of teachers and the administrators who support them. These are people who get up and fight a battle that is ALWAYS stacked against them. And no amount of jars of candy and gift cards will ease that difficulty.
No, what I hate is the public school SYSTEM. The system which everybody agrees is broken.
A system where kindergarten teachers are so busy testing and assessing their students that the children have no time to play.
A system where 50% of new teachers will quit after the first five years of teaching
A system where a teaching salary is so meager that men are incapable of becoming teachers because they cannot support a family of four on that salary, which leads to our young boys being constantly surrounded by female teachers.
A system where teachers are told what to teach, when to teach it and how to teach it.
A system where teacher salaries are not based on work ethic, or innovation or time in the classroom but instead on whether or not all of their students test at the same level.
A system where a teacher must be equally afraid of being shot or wrongfully accused by a parent.
A system where one ISD can build a multi-million dollar football stadium, while an ISD the next town over doesn’t have enough money to build classrooms, or provide practice space for their students.
Nobody wishes this system worked more than me – I want the system to work because I want a country that is filled with educated, and critical thinking citizens. I want an environment where children are exposed to a variety of ideas, where their differences are celebrated, where students are not forced into homogeny.
And there are as many ideas regarding how to fix it as there are people with opinions in Washington but what nobody has stopped to do is to ASK A TEACHER. Teachers get it — they get it in a real way. They get the fact that it has little to do with fancy buildings or fancy technology and has more to do with the space and freedom to teach the children in front of them not the “standard” child which fits nobody. They understand that it is about allowing one child the space to learn slower and the freedom to let the other to bolt ahead. They understand that it isn’t about test scores but about inspiring a desire in a person to NEVER stop learning. It is about books and art and questions and sometimes not knowing the answers. It is about experimenting and play and mistakes and do-overs.
It is NOT about high-stakes test scores which tell us nothing about anybody.