homeschool works

Here's a beautiful house, going on the market next week.  Four bedrooms, two baths, remodeled kitchen, all new carpeting and finishes.

It's lovely.

 Plus the floor plan is excellent.  It's a roomy, and also thoughtfully planned.

 Here's this old house tonight, and tucked into the arm chair is the one I want to talk about.

That's Lydia, who headed from homeschool to high school this fall.  A couple days ago were the parent-teacher conferences, so we went. 

The teachers seem well-educated and devoted to the cause, kind and helpful.

They report to me that she is an excellent student: engaged, organized, easy to relate to, responsive.  She initiates communication, asks questions when directions are unclear.  When she's done with her work, she helps the people around her, rather than becoming a distraction, she's helpful.

One teacher referred to her as, "Well-read."

???  Harry Potter?  What are we talking about?

Conferences like this are very gratifying.

So then we got in the car and I asked her about this.  How is this possible when in homeschool she slept half the day, attended pj and her demands and needs,  rolled around with the dogs for hours, baked cupcakes, wrote her own stories and did her own research reports?   She had that excellent math tutor for the last year, true, and that was beyond helpful--to me, for sure.

(The math tutor is a whole separate story, actually. She was a coworker of John's who became a real estate client of mine, a gentle, sweet engineer, and I enlisted her help with Kari's math when it became too contentious between Kari and me.   She agreed to do it, and in doing so became a confidant of Kari's that I could trust--she would only inform me of their conversations if she felt it was necessary--and it never was. 

The relationship was layered and multidimensional--her past relationship as a co-worker of John's, our client/realtor relationship, and student to teacher with Kari.  Math was learned and along the way, everyone felt respected, understood, and appreciated.)

Lydia (as she's known at school) aka Kari at home,  laughed,

"I don't KNOW.  All I did was goof around 90% of the time.  But I do listen in class now, and I do the assignments and hand them in, and take the tests. The teachers are super nice and helpful.  I don't get it either."

My mom speculates that the kids are so just plain excited to be there, after boring, dull homeschool life,  that they participate in an enthusiastic way.

I agree.

She's probably right.

She usually is.

So, in students leaving homeschool?

We are now 8 for 8.

James has received acceptance to the university, so as long as he passes his classes, that's a done deal.

Moving on.   Even with balky internet, we are.

Nervous homeschoolers?  Fear not. 

love forever, Val