A conversation this morning with someone (online) made me think other people might be wondering the same thing about our choice to use the public school, temporarily, twice.  (For that person, this will, for the most part, be a repeat, since I am lazy and decided to just copy/paste/edit LOL.)

In hindsight I do not know what I was thinking, putting them in public school, but at the time(s) it seemed to be best with what we had going on (moving). Funny, both times they went were immediately following a move. Perhaps that is the common denominator.... I *think* that, at the time, I was just sort of "using it to our advantage." It is there, our tax dollars fund it, why not use it *for a time* so we can get everything together...is what I mean. Same thing I think about ANY government assistance, by the way. We are not fundamentally opposed to government assistance. Do I believe that the government has any business educating its citizens, beyond the basic 3R's, though? Nope. 

I had even intended on sending them one more year, but after we saw what we did, coupled with their request to return to home schooling, we decided to figure out a way to "get everything together" and home school. Granted, we knew it would be temporary both times we sent them--we just did not think this last time would be THAT temporary. Again, we have used public school twice now, and both times have been the same laundry, different day. No more. Mark my written word: I will sooner enroll them in Abeka's DVD academy (if a situation warranted that) before sending them to public school again.

And by the way--even if we were opposed to government assistance, that would not make us hypocritical (since we have used some of it in the past, years ago, when we needed it). Rather, it would mean our views have changed. Sort of like, yes I have tried illegal drugs (as a teen), but clearly my views on that have changed, and I will absolutely speak out against those. I will never understand how changed/more informed viewpoints mean someone is a "hypocrite" to some people. Hypocrisy is when you speak out against one thing, while *simultaneously* doing just the opposite (if I spoke out against pornography and later went upstairs and watched it, for instance). It is NOT when you have done something previously, but now can look back and see the wrong in it, and speak out against it. Actually, having "walked a mile" gives one a head start in speaking against something--you understand *why* people may be doing what they are doing. As Maya Angelou has said, "When you know better, you do better."

And that's all I have to say about that.

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