The Moment I Knew He Wouldn't Be Going To Public School...

Last week I went to teach a math, science and technology (MST) class at a middle school (I teach from time to time) in my city and left my children with their father. I spent my entire day trying to get 13 year olds to research a topic and analyze and interpret the results. A tiring task to say the very least as they had a lot of difficulty with critically examining a piece of information and creating a way to share their thoughts and interpretations with others. When I got home, frustrated and defeated, I saw this on the wall going upstairs:

I asked my son and daughter what it was I was looking at, my son looked at me as though I was born last week and said "its the solar system-can't you see that?"

I replied with the obvious "is that what you guys did with daddy today?"

To which my son replied "no daddy was working so I read my Big Book of Space and then made my own solar system and taped it to the wall...do you like it?"

Of course I ignored the fact that it guaranteed a fresh coat of paint would be needed next spring and replied "I love it, did you do it all by yourself?" because in all honesty, I was completely shocked at what I saw in terms of the amount of detail that went into it-the relative size of the planets, the colours, the moons and the correct placement-and felt as though he must have had help...

He then said that his little sister had helped him with it a little bit-which delighted me even more because it meant that not only did they manage to do what I was desperately trying to get my grade 8's to feel comfortable doing-but also that they (somewhat) collaborated on the final product, a great bonus!

I wonder if the reason I had so much difficulty trying to illicit the same response from a middle school classroom was because they are not privy to the same opportunities that my children have been. At the beginning of the year, I went out and bought a boatload of books-all levels, a variety of topics, a variety of genres-and then just dumped them in the center of the living room and waited. Slowly but surely my little sponges pick up book after book and taught themselves-about nature, dinosaurs, provinces, rocks and minerals, seasons, mannerisms...and apparently planets as well. The opportunity they have to pick and choose at their leisure (mostly) what to read, what to learn, and what to do with what they have learned has allowed them to flourish in ways that I couldn't have dreamed up even using every "great lesson plan" that's floating around on the internet!

All children are born with an innate curiosity and desire to learn about the world in which they live in-I'd argue that it's part of what makes us such a dominant surviving species. I guess what I learned that day is that if you create the right environment, one in which learning is fun and not forced, resources are varied and plentiful, and give them the time they need, then there exists the possibility of true education.

I also knew that day that I could not risk taking this amazing gift away from my children by putting them in public school. I knew in my heart that this side of them would get lost in the midst of forced assignments, tests, and curriculum guidelines. And that left in that situation they too would end up in grade 8 without having the ability and desire to be able to first determine what it is they want to learn, then learn about it, then communicate their knowledge with others in a creative way.

That was the day I decided to truely sign myself over, heart and soul, to the education of my children. I'm all in baby.