My husband and I are individuals that highly value education. We basically feel that if you want to learn, you will find every and any way to acquire knowledge in any subject. He and I spoke about what type of education we'd want for our 'future' children way before they were even conceived. So last Fall, with the recommendation of a dear friend of ours, we found a lovely little Montessori school that fostered all of the things that we value in education with the extra emphasis in the love of the earth, the practice in being peaceful and respecting themselves and others. We cannot speak highly enough about the Montessori philosophy and we were beyond satisfied with the attention, gentle discipline and overall education that our two older children were receiving from it. Our children were contagiously happy. But along with a wonderful learning environment and loving teachers comes the price of sending your child to a private and philosophy specific school. The cost of sending them became way too expensive and although we tried to work out every way possible to make it work, it was just too much financially. Reluctantly, we had to remove them both. Of course they were crushed and while we were open and honest with them, there is only so much a five and seven year old will understand about 'grown-up money budgets' but we did the best we could do. Since they were attending a fairly small Montessori school, the children that were of school age were all registered as 'Homeschoolers' with the state. As liberal parents, we were very happy about this arrangement, that is until we had to switch statuses.
After being juggled from one Public School office to another and getting partial information in how to properly register our 'homeschool registered' daughter (and getting the cockeye from some-you know, the typical stigma in choosing to be different) we or shall I say, our daughter was placed in a 'zoned school.' My husband couldn't accompany me when I registered her, although we had talked about doing all PS related issues together. No biggie. I was up against judgmental PS staff and teachers, (it's the truth) and I abhorred the feeling of my child being treated as a 'Oh, she's a homeschooler?' with raised eyebrows as one teacher who actually ended being her assigned first grade teacher expressed at the new school. My husband and I hoped that we were doing the right thing and were trying to be as positive we could be. Since our five year old didn't make the Sept. 2nd (must be five on or before date-her birthdate is 9/8), she was still considered a pre-schooler so she had no placement in any Public School pre-K programs. I would be thankful later ;)
Our daughter Sabrina is an amiable, positive and genuinely kind hearted child. She accepted that she could no longer go to her Montessori school and she was open to her first day at Public School. In spite of all this, she had an awful first day, second day, second week and so on (refer to my earlier post on this topic-'Public School may be free but...') and it only got worse. We wanted to give the transition a chance and tried our best to instill a 'follow through' mindset to our daughter. We definitely didn't want to impart in her that 'if things get tough you've gotta run kid!' kind of attitude. Follow through was an important element for us in this entire process but as the weeks went on I started to think otherwise. Was I teaching my child to ignore her innate emotions? Was I forcing her to 'tough it out' even if she was expressing to us her true unhappiness and grief about the 'system and teacher'? I began to push away all of my 'socially accepted' tendencies and began to honor and listen to my mama lion intuition about what my daughter really needed and how I was going to provide (whatever it was she needed) to her.
I brought up my concern to my husband, once again. I just about cried every single time I spoke about it and how Sabrina was so unhappy. Until this last time, he was reluctant to pull her out because he felt (and I supported his position and agreed) that she needed to understand how the world operates and that not every moment or circumstance in our lives will go as we planned, intended or envisioned. He had a point and I was on his team. This last talk brought us both to one conclusion and that was that we had remove Sabrina from the 'system' before her wings got completely clipped. So when Monday morning strolled around, we both woke Sabrina up and told her, 'Sabrina, Mommy and Daddy love you very much and we want the best that we can offer to you so starting today, you'll be homeschooled.' Her face lit up like a full moon on a summer night even though there were still some sleep boogies in the corners of her eyes and she was genuinely relieved that she didn't have to go back to Public School.
We immediately re-registered her with the state as a homeschooler and began our learning journey together at home. Since I was left with a permanently positive impression about Montessori, I decided to incorporate the philosophy here at home. I researched Montessori at home, found websites that supplied Montessori tools, and basically created our very own Home Montessori classroom. We started out in a corner of our living room and now we've expanded to half of our garage. We could not be happier with our set up and the best part is that all three of my girls can benefit from learning from one another. I'll have to write about how we manage our learning and free time in another post for those of you interested in knowing how I organize (or try to for that matter-LOL!).
As parents we must make decisions that may not always concord with the 'social norms' or even familial acceptances but we do what is best for our own nucleus of a family. Whatever you're passionate about will inevitably spill into your child(s) life and through our actions and choices we teach them what is important and how we handle the ever changing and unpredictable world we live in. They too will have to make their very own choices one day, be it as young single individuals, parents, lovers, friends, etc. The best example that I can give my children is to always be candid and authentic with them no matter how trivial or severe of a circumstance. They will always remember one thing, the love that we shared with them no matter what.
