Technically, Joey, currently in pre-school, is already being home-schooled part-time. As a matter of fact, this is what this whole blog has been about so far.... early education by parents and/or care-givers. Many children Joey's age do not go to pre-school full time. What is different about what we have been doing is that we purposefully limited his school exposure to what we considered the bare minimum for socialization. When Joey was 18 months old, we started with two mornings a week for a year, then we increased to three mornings a week for six months, and now that he is accelerated to an older class (and will therefore enter pre-K at three and a half), he is going every morning so he can bond with this group of older children as much as possible. Another thing we are doing differently is that when Joey is not in school, we are implementing the program I design and plan every week, so his activities are not a random sequence of events (they do include extra-curricular endeavors, which will the topic of a future post). Therefore, we are not relying at all on the school to provide his education, just play and socialization. Now, I realize this is a very interesting statement I just made... The fact is that at some point I came to feel, as a parent, that my child's education was going way too well at home and was way too important to entrust a school with the bulk of it. This was the first hint that perhaps we should look into homeschooling (either full-time or part-time, the latter being currently our preferred option). But we will come back to that. Our Options for Kindergarten:
Clearly, everyone's options will be different, but this may give you an idea of how we are going about this decision process, and may aid you during yours. Our priorities are as follows: 1. the ability to keep Joey on his accelerated path and document this is the case (because when he gets older, if he is doing college work, why shouldn't he get college credit for it, right?) and/or 2. the ability to homeschool him part-time (and by part-time, we mean half-days because who wants to be doing math after getting out of school at 3 PM?) 3. the ability to incorporate serious language instruction (French and Hebrew) and studies in our religious background (for us, it is Judaics).
Option 1: the local Jewish day school. Great for Hebrew and Judaics, but not good for acceleration (from reviews of parents with gifted kids there), although they did agree to screen Joey for KD a year early (so at least there would be some acceleration). As a matter of fact, the reality of private schools is often that they are really good for kids 'within two standard deviations of the mean' cognitively, but not for kids who are four standard deviations from the means, which is what we are dealing with. Also it doesn't look like they are willing to consider a half-time option, even though there is quite a bit of interest in the local community for having that option. Finally, they don't have a French language program (or if they do, it is not immersion).
Option 2: a private Montessori school. Great for acceleration (it is built-in with Montessori) but perhaps not so great when it comes to documenting progress in terms of grade level. Also, the multi-age classroom would mean that Joey would 'lose' his current accelerated status. Not a deal-breaker though. They do have a half-day option and we might be able to argue to continue it in the higher grades. The other thing I love about Montessori is that the classrooms are very quiet, and this is good for gifted children, I think, who tend to get over-stimulated in noisy environments (actually, don't most children?) And this particular school also offers immersion French as an after-school activity (with a native French speaker who is a teacher there). Of course there are no Judaics or Hebrew (but no 'seasonal' units and decorations either, so good for us in this regard), so we would have to provide that during our homeschooling. This may present challenges because our nanny really doesn't have the background for it, so we will have to hire tutors, which will add quite a bit to the expensive private school bill.
Option 3: our area has a special public school for highly gifted students, but it is so insanely competitive to get in that we are not banking on it... I think we will try for it anyway, but they only start in 1st grade (they would admit Joey early as long as he had attended KD in an accredited program).. and it is also a public school (what we were trying to avoid since a full day might mean little time for religious studies). I am not sure if they would allow part-time homeschooling due to the special nature of the program (part-time homeschooling is legal in our state). Clearly, we would have to provide foreign language and Judaics ourselves.
Option 4: our area also has a French language immersion school. It is a public school, so not so great from this point of view and in a so-so neighborhood. However, the principal, having a highly gifted child himself, is very understanding and is completely on board with part-time homeschooling. So it would be free and we could provide tutors etc to cover Hebrew, Judaics, and other extra-curricular activities without too much problem. Joey would be grand-fathered into early 1st grade there if he had attended KD early in an accredited program the previous year OR if he had been home-schooled and had completed KD this way. An issue with this school is that we do not live in the right district, so this may be a non-starter.
What about regular public school full-time? Regular public schools do have gifted programs, but being 'pulled out' to an older class or enrichment for a mere few hours a week is just not cutting it for children who are so far from the norm and who may have other issues, such as asynchronous development (i.e they are ahead cognitively and academically, but they are a bit behind in social and emotional maturity etc) or even deeper issues (such as children who are 'twice exceptional' or '2e'). Joey is a bit asynchronous, but not 2e.
What about full-time homeschooling? Well, it is a possibility, and it certainly is tempting. I have read many books on the topic, including: Homeschooling for Excellence (very inspiring and some good advice there too, especially for those of you who are considering unschooling); Homeschoolers' College Admissions Handbook: Preparing Your 12- to 18-Year-Old for a Smooth Transition (absolutely awesome and full of practical information you can use); Early Entrance to College (also very useful); Homeschoolers' Success Stories (ok, not so useful but inspiring); Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families (I am not done with this one yet, but it seems that a large portion of it is dedicated to why homeschooling is best for some children). One truly inspiring book is "College by Twelve". It is an eBook that you can purchase. Clearly this family's background is nothing like ours, but it was still a great resource. So full-time homeschooling is on the radar, but things that concern me are: 1. vulnerability: if you do this full-time, your child's education is (for the most part, although not 100%) provided by one person. So you are completely dependent upon this one person, therefore if an illness or other change of fortune occur, you could find yourself without a teacher and without supervision for your child during the day; if you home-school only part-time, there is a readily available back-up if any of these things happen 2. socialization: it is clear from the data that home-schoolers are very well socialized, but it does take an extra effort and a higher level of vigilance to make sure that peer contact does happen on a regular basis. Also, in our case and although the homeschooling movement is a lot more diverse than it used to be, we do not fit the typical profile of a homeschooling family, so it may be more challenging to socialize our child with people we can easily relate to; 3. on a related topic, so much of Judaism focuses one one's ability to function as part of a community and to be part of a community. In other words, religion, while it encompasses things like law and history, is not just an intellectual pursuit that you can get good at 'in a vacuum' (by the way, the same comment could apply to learning a language). Certainly, this can be achieved through means other than a day school (like regular worship attendance and other related activities), but it is clearly more easily achievable when your child attends a faith-based school.
So this is where we are at right now! I will update this when I find out more information and as the year progresses.
No comments:
Post a Comment