Raising Freethinkers: The Education Conundrum

One of the things troubling me as a parent of 3 children who are just a few short years shy of becoming school-aged is how to begin preparing their little minds for the pliability it requires to soak up knowledge. I think a huge part of it is massaging their already established curiosities, taking every opportunity to satisfy the whats, hows & whys that will soon be brewing at their intellectual surface. I'm certain of a few things already:

• I must give them consistent, varied, and unique opportunities to establish their interests. I want them to have a broad range of stimuli available to them so they can explore whatever piques their curiosities. While we'll be limited in some ways (geographically and financially speaking), it will be important to introduce new things, new places, and new people to them. Kids may thrive on routine, but variety will give them the chance to think outside of their little boxes and appreciate things that are unfamiliar. The hope is that this will foster a love of learning and becoming explorers by their own rite.
• I must give them space to grow. I want to raise them to be independent, rebellious, intellectual thinkers. I want them to question authority - even if it's my own. I don't want them to be systematically programmed to just mindlessly follow the rules and float through life on auto-pilot. I want them to cultivate their own self-discipline and have the guts and audacity to initiate change when they feel it's needed. I'd like them to be innovative, unique and constantly questioning their predicaments, looking for ways to improve themselves and their world.
• I want them to be unafraid and accepting towards those who are different than them. I don't want to raise them in a bubble, surrounded only by Mommy & Daddy's kind. I want them to be steeped in diversity, interested in other cultures, and eager to discover new ways of life alien to their own. I want them to be tolerant of practices they don't necessarily partake in, and I want them to establish early on a sense of compassion, empathy and altruism that will extend not only to their immediate peers, but to the rest of the whole, wide world outside of their zip code. I want them to dream of faraway lands and it's residents. I want them to aspire to travel and see the world when they're grown.

These things I know for certain, and while it gives us a good foundation as to how we hope our kids will turn out, it does nothing at all to help me establish how I want them to be formally educated, or if we want them to be formally educated at all! The current conundrum we're facing now is which direction to go as far as how our kids are taught. We've got a good idea of how we'd like them to operate as Good People, but then there's the ABC's, 123's, History, Science, Geography, Algebra ... 

The hard questions here are: 

• How much do they need to know to be prepared for life? Will they aspire to become academically at the top of their chosen field and pursue college accreditation? Or will they hone in on the arts, or a skilled trade? Perhaps their vision will lead them to want to join the Peace Corps, travel to remote corners of the globe and help others. Maybe the (gulp) traditional 8-5 corporate lifestyle will be their preference. However it turns out, we want to make sure even their early childhood education gives them the proper tools and mindset to be able to both discover and pursue their goals. The onus is on us, the parents, to make sure they're given everything they need to succeed.
• Which learning style will suit them best? We've learned an incredible amount about their personalities that have recently formed to know that our boy is a hands-on kinda guy who gets bored sitting still for too long. Will this change as he gets older? Our twin daughters may look alike, but their personalities are as different as night and day. One is introverted, one is extroverted. Do I lean towards these innate traits of theirs and model their education around it, or do I challenge them to go outside of their comfort zone? The fact is, they're going to change as they get older. We need to be prepared to grow with them and be willing to change with them. I'm pretty sure the public school system isn't going to conform to our kid's changing needs or redirect their curriculum to what suits their current interests. They're going to teach them to be autonomous, obedient, and structured to the point of monotony. And we're 100% positive that is not what we want for them. 

All that established, we've made our minds up that home schooling will best fit our family. I'm fortunate enough to have a husband who both shares my vision and is willing to work hard to provide for our family while I stay home and see to it that our children are well taken care of, beyond their basic needs, and flourish as they grow up. I support public schools, as they provide an education, and meals, and the attention that some kids probably do not have the good fortune of getting at home. It's just not for us.

I've been reading and researching and soaking in every bit of information available on the internet as to which method of homeschooling will suit us. In the posts that follow, I'll be hammering out the pros and cons of each.

Everyone admonishes me for wishing the years away too fast and suggest that I cherish this time while my kids are babies and toddlers. I think it's easier said than done. I look forward to my kids relishing in more concrete activities and interests! As I type this, my two year-old son is celebrating the ability to take off all his clothing and strip down naked as he triumphantly tosses his diaper over the child gate while my twin daughters are practicing the highest decibels of their war cries as they take turns yanking at each other's hair. Sigh. 

Revise, Revise, Revise

After my particularly long absence at the blog seat, I spent time reviewing our two years as parents via my past posts, and learned how rapid changes in perspective is the norm for people raising kids. I embraced the fact and felt decidedly happier knowing that it's okay for me to look back on certain events and realize that I could have handled things better. It's not worth beating one's self up over it, as it was a learning experience and there will be hundreds, thousands - millions more of those presenting themselves as our kids grow up.

That's not to say that most of my time has been spent stressing over our parenting tactics and capabilities, and although I'd be fibbing if I said it didn't keep me up most nights, I am positive that this form of stress is constructive, and helps us become both better parents and human beings. We've been focusing a lot lately over how quickly our kids are growing up. It's mostly me, feeling teary-eyed and nostalgic, while the husband gently and lovingly humors my sentimental booby-ness, consoling me. The infant stage is behind us, and it left a long trail of happy memories that we'll cherish forever. We're currently in the throes of  the toddler phase, and if it doesn't drive us both clinically insane one child at a time, I'm sure we'll reap many pleasant memories from this period in our lives as well. Our goal is to keep up this patterned tradition of happy kids > happy parents > happy memories.

I realize these are the important formative years and that we only get one shot at making sure our kids grow up feeling loved, happy & secure. These are the years when attachment parenting is supposed to help develop a strong bond between us all. I'm thinking we have about 2-3 more years of this before they turn into sassy little independent kindergartners ready to soak up all the knowledge the world has to offer them. This is where my current pre-planning meltdown has begun. The first person who suggests that I'm overthinking it (which I am usually guilty of) will be ignored, because literally speaking - who can put too much thought into their children's education?

It started off considering our local school district, which leaves much to be desired. I researched elementary schools outside of our small radius and decided on a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) facility that I felt had more to offer than a traditional magnet school. I began considering my kid's interests and innate curiosity and realized that they were really too young still to be able to recognize these things in them. They're still into pooping their diapers and climbing on couch cushions and participating in Peek-A-Boo olympics. But I know it's right around the corner, and I want to have a handful of options and pre-decisions at the ready for when we have to get serious about school placement.

Like most mothers, my mind started inadvertently creating scenarios that would fall into the "worst case" spectrum: School shootings. Bullying. Recreational drug use. Sex. Bad teachers. Visions of just handing over my kids, still swaddled and vulnerable, over to the wolves...! Suddenly, a public school education seemed to drop a few slots on our range of choices. I mentally revisited my own public education and decided that sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, a half-assed curriculum taught by apathetic, uninteresting, underpaid teachers and the highly overrated "socialization" factor that people seem to deem so important did absolute nothing as far as preparing me for life as an adult in the real world. Unless of course you count working an 8-5 administrative job as a corporate robot while being totally disenfranchised with anything  that I was truly passionate about as progress. I don't. So we considered other possibilities.

We've managed to make it and keep our heads above water on one income while raising kids who aren't school-aged. Could I possibly re-enter the workforce, use the second income to fund a private school tuition? We discussed this. Most private schools are expensive, but unfortunately cater to children with a curriculum based around religion, which doesn't resonate well with us. While we'd prefer a secular environment while we teach our kids HOW to think and not WHAT to think, the options just aren't out there for private schools in our area. I'm pretty steadfast in the decision to not indoctrinate our kids with religion until they're old enough to both explore and discern which worldview, be it secular or dogmatic, would best fit within the framework of their life choices.

We started considering home schooling, and at this point, it is the major contender in how we're going to educate our kids. While it was in the discussion phase, neither my husband or I had much experience or information about it to be able to make a solid decision. And so the research begins...

More to follow, as I journal through the surprising research and findings along this new journey.