TEARS and TRIUMPHS:The Katwijk Family Homeschool Story
I suppose I am somewhat of an oddity...for several reasons, but the one I want to address is the fact that I homeschool my kids. Many, okay, MOST people don't understand why I do it. I understand all too well why they don't understand. If you want to understand what I understand then you'll need to read this essay and the books mentioned herein, especially "Dumbing Us Down The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto. And if you are a parent of school-agers or younger, you owe it to yourself and your kids to do some research before deciding that homeschooling is not for you.
Any thorough homeschooling story must tell what came before homeschooling. Kim and I were raised like most Americans. We attended public school and received all the indoctrination associated with that, not realizing of course, that our childhoods could have been any other way.
When our children came along, the idea of homeschooling never entered our heads. We hadn’t heard about it. We had heard about Montessori school, though, and it sounded great. It seemed to be a very child-directed way of learning which embraced the concept of first teaching concrete ideas and skills, and later, abstract concepts. We enrolled Shari at age 2¾. She attended the Montessori preschool in Tacoma for three years, and Sheena attended for one year. It was a very positive experience—I learned so much!
After that, we moved to Littlerock and found ourselves too far away from a Montessori school for it to be practical. We did what everybody did. We sent our precious five-year-old off on the school bus to attend Kindergarten at the local elementary school. We were somewhat disappointed with it after having experienced the wonders of the Montessori Method of learning. (Shari had already learned nearly everything they did in her class that year.) However, we didn’t know there was any other option for us. So, one after another, we sent our children off to school.
Our first experience with homeschooling was when Shari was about to enter middle school. Neither Kim, nor I, can recall how we heard about homeschooling, but somehow we got the idea and decided to try it. Bear in mind, that we had little clue as to how to go about it or what the real philosophy of homeschooling is.
At first,Shari attended Tumwater Middle School Shari while the other kids kept going to public school. I do wish I had known then what I know now, sigh. I think our less-than-successful attempt at homeschooling was mainly due to a complete lack of understanding. Shari did not realize, and I only had a vague idea, that she should be directing her own education. She thought she needed to be spoon-fed everything. She was almost totally un-self-motivated, un-self-directed. This made our attempts feeble at best, after all, I had a nursing baby at the time. And so, halfway through eighth grade, Shari went back to public school.
Our next try at homeschooling came when Lance was a sixth grader and Jason was a third grader. I homeschooled only these two for one year. The success of that year was in the fact that I actually got to know my sons. Previous to that, I was frankly bamboozled by Jason. The little guy didn’t like to show his emotions or talk about his feelings, and he was so full of curiosity that I perceived him as mischievous. That year, I received insights into the workings of the minds of two very sensitive and intelligent sons. I discovered that Lance was capable of whizzing through his sixth grade math book at lightening speed, because he wasn’t being bored to death trudging through a zillion problems that he already understood.
The next year, I put the boys back in public school, feeling that I didn’t have time to school them properly, myself. (I now know just how wrong I was.)
Although I always had the feeling that too large a portion of our lives was being controlled by others, I couldn't fathom that taking them out of the system would have solved many problems, so I allowed the kids to continue in public school until 2004. By then, Shari, Sheena and Lance had all graduated from Tumwater High, I was pregnant with Mikaden, and Jason was a sophomore. Due to Jason’s dyslexia, he was in some of the special ed classes at the high school. He hated being with the “dummies” who didn’t want to learn. Jason’s best friend was a homeschooler, so Jason began asking to be homeschooled. I was pregnant; I was reluctant. Before winter was over, he was begging me.
As it happened, Tannan had been sick a lot during the Fall and had missed many weeks of school. Since he was in seventh grade, there was no forgiveness in the hearts of his teachers; he had to make up everything or fail.
Finally, even though the timing seemed all wrong, I relented. In the spring of 2004 I began homeschooling Jason and Tannan. Luckily, this time I had a mentor, my friend, who was Jason’s best friend’s mother. She gave me what I had lacked the other times I tried to homeschool—confidence. By September, I was convinced that I should bring the other children home, as well. Both Brandon and Rahzjon were very enthusiastic about the idea.Brandon
It feels as though our real homeschooling began that September. We left the school system with no intention of ever going back. It was very freeing for me! No more planning my life around the constraints of the school schedule. No more having our home and family time intruded upon by homework assignments or bad attitudes of children fed up with having their inalienable human rights trampled upon.
The experience was not a bed of roses, however. I had two boys with very negative attitudes about learning. Tannan and Brandon had been force-fed education for most of their lives, so they didn’t want me to assign them anything, and yet, they also did not know how to learn on their own. It was a catch-22. I struggled with various ways of getting them to learn, but avoided buying any sort of curriculum. I figured we could find all the information we needed by going to the library or other free sources.
We progressed slowly in our learning efforts, figuring out what worked and what didn't. Somewhere along the way, I read “The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom” by Mary Griffith. Ah-ha! I was an unschooler at heart, but didn’t know it. That helped quite a bit, but I still struggled with many philosophical questions—things that nagged at the edges of my mind.
Then one day, while in the Tumwater library, a book caught my eye. It was “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How toQuit School
One of the problems we faced as rural homeschoolers was the difficulty in finding enough out-of-home experiences for the children—ones where they could interact with other people and get some exercise. So, I bit the bullet and paid for gymnastics lessons for Anali and Rahzjon, and Juijitsu for Brandon and Tannan. It went well, until the economy went bad and Kim’s deck building business experienced four months without a job. We faced having to quit all our non-free activities.
I will be forever grateful to one of the Tumwater librarians who told me about ORLA (Olympia Regional Learning Academy). It was an answer to prayer. A couple of weeks after hearing about it, I had Brandon, Rahzjon and Anali enrolled. (Tannan was attending New Market by then.) We started in October 2007 and have loved it ever since. I would compare ORLA, roughly, to college in that the kids get sign up for whichever classes they wish to take. Each class is one hour in length and usually meets once per week. Funding for the school comes from the Olympia school district, so unless you're counting taxes, it is free.
When Mikaden turned three, I opted to have him attend preschool in Littlerock. He continued there until last June. During that time, he was able to have specialists help him with skills in language and large and small motor movement. Now at age six, I am homeschooling him right along with the others, and he gets to take classes at ORLA. His speech is difficult to understand, but he is bright enough that he is already learning to read. He loves learning and spends the majority of his time in pursuit of knowledge through educational videos, educational computer games, and educational toys and games.
This year I feel more positive about our homeschooling efforts than ever before. My kids are progressing in math through Aleks online math program (paid for with our ORLA allocation money). And (at last!) all of my school-aged children are on the same schedule! No rushing home to get Mikaden off the bus. No need to drop off Tannan where he needs to go. It’s great. Not only that, but the older “at-home” kids are all on board with helping Mikaden learn. They all realize that I can’t do everything myself, and I realize that I shouldn’t try to do everything myself—that I need and should expect their help.
Part of their learning experience is doing their own laundry, cooking supper and breakfast once a week, helping with house cleaning, helping their dad, babysitting whenever I need it, taking Mikaden to the bathroom (he is still working on mastering this important skill), and engaging Mikaden in educational activities.
In all, I have racked up nine years of homeschooling experience, and 30 years of parenting experience, and I have to say that the main thing that I wish I had done long before I did is read, read, read. That is my advice to anyone struggling with homeschooling, concidering homeschooling, or denying that homeschooling is an option for them. Read every book on homeschooling you can find. Get a clear understanding of why the public school system doesn’t work--at least not for doing the job of teaching and preparing children for life. Read “Dumbing Us Down The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto. (This New York City Teacher of the Year holds nothing back.)Reading
We might not be doing everything we should or could, but we are progressing, learning and loving our freedom. Even with our schedule of ORLA classes, it is nothing like being in public school. We love the positive, genuine, and friendly attitudes of the administrators, teachers, students and the other parents. We love the fact that at ORLA, parents are always responsible for their own children, and the children know (or quickly learn) they need to act responsibly. The teachers don’t have to worry about discipline too much, they can concentrate on teaching. We love the fact that if someone is sick, or we need or want to take a trip, we can go without much worry of the kids not being able to catch up when they get back.
As our homeschooling journey continues (I’ll be at this for another thirteen years or more) I hope that ORLA will always be here for us, and that the ORLA concept will spread to other areas of the state and country to benefit and support other families. And I hope that the homeschooling movement will continue to grow, so that children may spend their growing up years in freedom and happy pursuit of learning and feel the joy of discovery and of thinking for themselves.
Any thorough homeschooling story must tell what came before homeschooling. Kim and I were raised like most Americans. We attended public school and received all the indoctrination associated with that, not realizing of course, that our childhoods could have been any other way.
When our children came along, the idea of homeschooling never entered our heads. We hadn’t heard about it. We had heard about Montessori school, though, and it sounded great. It seemed to be a very child-directed way of learning which embraced the concept of first teaching concrete ideas and skills, and later, abstract concepts. We enrolled Shari at age 2¾. She attended the Montessori preschool in Tacoma for three years, and Sheena attended for one year. It was a very positive experience—I learned so much!
After that, we moved to Littlerock and found ourselves too far away from a Montessori school for it to be practical. We did what everybody did. We sent our precious five-year-old off on the school bus to attend Kindergarten at the local elementary school. We were somewhat disappointed with it after having experienced the wonders of the Montessori Method of learning. (Shari had already learned nearly everything they did in her class that year.) However, we didn’t know there was any other option for us. So, one after another, we sent our children off to school.
Our first experience with homeschooling was when Shari was about to enter middle school. Neither Kim, nor I, can recall how we heard about homeschooling, but somehow we got the idea and decided to try it. Bear in mind, that we had little clue as to how to go about it or what the real philosophy of homeschooling is.
At first,
Our next try at homeschooling came when Lance was a sixth grader and Jason was a third grader. I homeschooled only these two for one year. The success of that year was in the fact that I actually got to know my sons. Previous to that, I was frankly bamboozled by Jason. The little guy didn’t like to show his emotions or talk about his feelings, and he was so full of curiosity that I perceived him as mischievous. That year, I received insights into the workings of the minds of two very sensitive and intelligent sons. I discovered that Lance was capable of whizzing through his sixth grade math book at lightening speed, because he wasn’t being bored to death trudging through a zillion problems that he already understood.
The next year, I put the boys back in public school, feeling that I didn’t have time to school them properly, myself. (I now know just how wrong I was.)
Although I always had the feeling that too large a portion of our lives was being controlled by others, I couldn't fathom that taking them out of the system would have solved many problems, so I allowed the kids to continue in public school until 2004. By then, Shari, Sheena and Lance had all graduated from Tumwater High, I was pregnant with Mikaden, and Jason was a sophomore. Due to Jason’s dyslexia, he was in some of the special ed classes at the high school. He hated being with the “dummies” who didn’t want to learn. Jason’s best friend was a homeschooler, so Jason began asking to be homeschooled. I was pregnant; I was reluctant. Before winter was over, he was begging me.
As it happened, Tannan had been sick a lot during the Fall and had missed many weeks of school. Since he was in seventh grade, there was no forgiveness in the hearts of his teachers; he had to make up everything or fail.
Finally, even though the timing seemed all wrong, I relented. In the spring of 2004 I began homeschooling Jason and Tannan. Luckily, this time I had a mentor, my friend, who was Jason’s best friend’s mother. She gave me what I had lacked the other times I tried to homeschool—confidence. By September, I was convinced that I should bring the other children home, as well. Both Brandon and Rahzjon were very enthusiastic about the idea.
It feels as though our real homeschooling began that September. We left the school system with no intention of ever going back. It was very freeing for me! No more planning my life around the constraints of the school schedule. No more having our home and family time intruded upon by homework assignments or bad attitudes of children fed up with having their inalienable human rights trampled upon.
The experience was not a bed of roses, however. I had two boys with very negative attitudes about learning. Tannan and Brandon had been force-fed education for most of their lives, so they didn’t want me to assign them anything, and yet, they also did not know how to learn on their own. It was a catch-22. I struggled with various ways of getting them to learn, but avoided buying any sort of curriculum. I figured we could find all the information we needed by going to the library or other free sources.
We progressed slowly in our learning efforts, figuring out what worked and what didn't. Somewhere along the way, I read “The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom” by Mary Griffith. Ah-ha! I was an unschooler at heart, but didn’t know it. That helped quite a bit, but I still struggled with many philosophical questions—things that nagged at the edges of my mind.
Then one day, while in the Tumwater library, a book caught my eye. It was “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to
One of the problems we faced as rural homeschoolers was the difficulty in finding enough out-of-home experiences for the children—ones where they could interact with other people and get some exercise. So, I bit the bullet and paid for gymnastics lessons for Anali and Rahzjon, and Juijitsu for Brandon and Tannan. It went well, until the economy went bad and Kim’s deck building business experienced four months without a job. We faced having to quit all our non-free activities.
I will be forever grateful to one of the Tumwater librarians who told me about ORLA (Olympia Regional Learning Academy). It was an answer to prayer. A couple of weeks after hearing about it, I had Brandon, Rahzjon and Anali enrolled. (Tannan was attending New Market by then.) We started in October 2007 and have loved it ever since. I would compare ORLA, roughly, to college in that the kids get sign up for whichever classes they wish to take. Each class is one hour in length and usually meets once per week. Funding for the school comes from the Olympia school district, so unless you're counting taxes, it is free.
When Mikaden turned three, I opted to have him attend preschool in Littlerock. He continued there until last June. During that time, he was able to have specialists help him with skills in language and large and small motor movement. Now at age six, I am homeschooling him right along with the others, and he gets to take classes at ORLA. His speech is difficult to understand, but he is bright enough that he is already learning to read. He loves learning and spends the majority of his time in pursuit of knowledge through educational videos, educational computer games, and educational toys and games.
This year I feel more positive about our homeschooling efforts than ever before. My kids are progressing in math through Aleks online math program (paid for with our ORLA allocation money). And (at last!) all of my school-aged children are on the same schedule! No rushing home to get Mikaden off the bus. No need to drop off Tannan where he needs to go. It’s great. Not only that, but the older “at-home” kids are all on board with helping Mikaden learn. They all realize that I can’t do everything myself, and I realize that I shouldn’t try to do everything myself—that I need and should expect their help.
Part of their learning experience is doing their own laundry, cooking supper and breakfast once a week, helping with house cleaning, helping their dad, babysitting whenever I need it, taking Mikaden to the bathroom (he is still working on mastering this important skill), and engaging Mikaden in educational activities.
In all, I have racked up nine years of homeschooling experience, and 30 years of parenting experience, and I have to say that the main thing that I wish I had done long before I did is read, read, read. That is my advice to anyone struggling with homeschooling, concidering homeschooling, or denying that homeschooling is an option for them. Read every book on homeschooling you can find. Get a clear understanding of why the public school system doesn’t work--at least not for doing the job of teaching and preparing children for life. Read “Dumbing Us Down The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto. (This New York City Teacher of the Year holds nothing back.)
We might not be doing everything we should or could, but we are progressing, learning and loving our freedom. Even with our schedule of ORLA classes, it is nothing like being in public school. We love the positive, genuine, and friendly attitudes of the administrators, teachers, students and the other parents. We love the fact that at ORLA, parents are always responsible for their own children, and the children know (or quickly learn) they need to act responsibly. The teachers don’t have to worry about discipline too much, they can concentrate on teaching. We love the fact that if someone is sick, or we need or want to take a trip, we can go without much worry of the kids not being able to catch up when they get back.
As our homeschooling journey continues (I’ll be at this for another thirteen years or more) I hope that ORLA will always be here for us, and that the ORLA concept will spread to other areas of the state and country to benefit and support other families. And I hope that the homeschooling movement will continue to grow, so that children may spend their growing up years in freedom and happy pursuit of learning and feel the joy of discovery and of thinking for themselves.
