Nov. 9, 2006 - You can just tell they are homeschoolers...
I witnessed my first negative reaction to homeschooling yesterday. I am actually surprised that it is the only one I have seen in our three years of homeschooling...
We were at the weekly park day for our Christian homeschool group. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we had a big turn-out: 18 kids! One family brought along some plastic shovels and some food containers to use as buckets. There was another group of moms sitting about 30 feet from us. Within about ten minutes, I could tell we were making them uneasy. They kept looking at us, looking at the kids, and casting meaningful glances at one another. The wind must have been just right, so I caught several snippets of their conversation:
First mom: They must be a homeschool group
Second mom: How can you tell?
First Mom: There are so many of them and they are all different ages playing together. And look at their sand toys...I mean, who else would use cottage cheese containers for buckets...
(laughter)
Third mom: I've thought about homeschooling my kids...but I don't think I could do it
Second Mom: I couldn't stand to be around my kids that long!
(more laughter)
I made a conscious effort NOT to listen to any more, and just smiled when they looked over at us. I don't think I have been stared at that much since I was in highschool. Their children didn't have any problems playing with those ruffian homeschoolers and their cottage cheese container buckets, thankfully. They all cried when their new friends and their "trashy toys" had to leave :)
What's funny to me, is the very thing that "tipped them off" that we were homeschoolers is one of the very things that I have come to love about homeschooling: different ages of kids all playing together.
I really remember in school how each grade postively hated the other grades. You never ever played with anyone in another grade. I had good neighborhood friends that were younger than me, but we didn't ever play together at school. My sister is six years younger than me, and I actually got shooed away by a teacher when I tried to talk to her at recess! The separation continued in high school. It was a huge scandal if a senior dared associate with the "lower" classes.
The "rules" are so different in the homeschooling community. It isn't uncommon to see older grade school or junior high kids pushing younger kids on the swings or organizing games for the younger kids. For the most part, my children play the most with other children that are within about two years of their age. The group does tend to break off into "older" and "younger" kids based on their interests. Still, a younger kid can easily join in a game of tag with the older children. The older kids often help make sand castles with the younger kids when they are too tired to do any more chasing. At park days, the teen-age girls do go off to talk by themselves. On most field trips and in the art co-op we had last year, though, the teen agers are a huge help. They have dusted off my daughter and carried her to me when she scraped her knee, helped younger kids with art projects, helped move furniture, and volunteered to help clean up!
Where else would my kids have 18 kind, friendly children to play with for two hours at a time? Recess at school is never that long, and they certainly wouldn't be playing tag!
So I'm glad that "you can just tell" that our loud, active, HAPPY kids are homeschoolers.
Comments
Nov. 9, 2006 - Thank you
Posted by wswalker310
Thanks for sharing your wonderful observations. Things like this always brighten my day.
Nov. 9, 2006 - School age segregation is unnatural!
Posted by SheilaG
I know totally what you mean.
Where else in society are we told that we must only socialize with those born in the same year as we were? It's completely unnatural.
And imagine that from a teacher's point of view. Thirty kids going through puberty all at the same time, all together. All those girls getting hormonal. All those boys getting ridiculous. And there are no older or younger kids to balance it out, so it becomes really magnified.
Children need older kids to help show them the way, and younger kids so they can learn servanthood.
The other difference I've noticed with homeschoolers is that they don't care about the boy/girl divide that much. My daughters are the first of all their girl friends to play with the boys. The other girls hang back. My daughters think, "what's the big deal?". They haven't gone to school where you have the self-imposed gender segregation either. Homeschooling is definitely more natural.
Nov. 23, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by quietcajun
I have to wonder what they were actually saying in their hearts... that it was so wonderful to see children play so nicely, that in their hearts they wish they were the kind of mom who had what it takes to parent whole-heartedly FULL TIME, that it was creative and inventive to build with recycled sand toys, that they feel inadequate next to women of such upright character! That's what I think they would tell you if they could be completely honest with themselves and you!
