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4:22:00 AM EDT
Feeling Happy
Doing battle with naysayers
This message about Romeo and Juliet came through our homeschool email tree....we send out interesting events to each other that we discovered too late to make the written newsletter. Homeschoolers have become quite organized with communicating with each other over the years! In the seventies, when I started, I only met one other homeschooled teen in three years! He had left high school to be a jockey, and later rode the Triple Crown Winner Affirmed. His name is Steve Cauthen, another local boy.When I started homeschooling Mandy seventeen years ago, there were only hand full of other families. We were tight knit group, the homeschooling pioneers.
Now there are literally thousands of homeschoolers in the Cincinnati Tri state alone. I miss the intimacy of the old days, but like the empowerment being quasi-mainstream gives us. Years ago everyone thought we were freaks. Now instead of negative comments I get curious ones. Almost everyone knows someone who is homeschooling their children. The National winners of the spelling bees and geography bees that were homeschoolers demonstrate that children can learn quite well at home.
Columbine was the main turning point. After Columbine and Paducah, people quit asking me why I homeschool.
The last face-to-face negative comment I got about homeschooling was almost two years ago. The delightful Riesenberg children had spent the night, and the girls were all walking the greyhounds up to one of the corner stores on a lovely spring day. A neighborhood woman, The "Shit a Zoo" (shitzu) Lady accosted the kids in front of the corner store, declaring they should be in school and it was a rotten shame, etc. The kids were a bit scared of her, but remained very polite and came home. (That alone is different. The public schooled kids around here in this urban enviroment are tough and would not have accepted this politely!)
One thing you do not do is Bother My Kids Unjustly*.. I might have been meek and submissive when the MeterMan from Hell was scaring me. If he had been doing that to one of my kids his life would have been in jeopardy.
I am fierce.
When the kids told me that she had done all this--following them a city block talking about what a crime it was, etc. I jumped in my van and drove around until I saw her. I knew who she was. She lets her shitzu poop in my yard all the time.
I hopped out of the van and asked her if she had talked to my kids. She looked rather furtive. I think she was astonished to find out that I do not like scary ShitZoo Ladies bothering my kiddos. She started in on a high pitched whine about what a shame it is that I keep them from school.
I said rather calmly that it is my constitutional right in this country to be free, and that in my case the pursuit of happiness includes educating my children myself. Gathering up some steam, she asked why I had the nerve to think I was smart enough to teach my children at home.
By now I am calm and my usual saintly self. I smiled gently at her and said that I have two college degrees, I had three majors, I graduated with honors, and that my husband has a college degree with a minor and then went to pharmacy school. We are relatively well educated.
This somewhat took the wind out of her sails. She scratched herself with her dirty fingernails and peered at me, keening, "But what about coooommmpppuuuttters? Children need computers now days to get anywhere." She leaned close to me and hissed, "Your children will be left behind."
I beamed saintly at her, told her we had just spent three thousand dollars on a new computer but that Mandy had been using a computer since l990. She shut up.
*I am normally no where near this aggressive, but she really scared the Riesenberg children.
*People without any college degrees are perfectly able to homeschool their kids successfully. I was just using this point to win. She would not have believed me if I had said that education has less to do with educating your children than patience.
Anyway, the Shitazoo lady still lets her dog poop in our yard, and a few months ago David caught her bald facedly stealing our community newsletter. out of our yard!!! He asked her for it back, and she said she was not sure if she had one at home. He asked her a bit more firmly to return it, and she gave it back. She is Not Quite Right in The Head.
* I do not blindly accept what the kids say. If they are running in the street, picking someone's flowers, etc, and some adult told them to quit, I would back the adult up.
Anyway, the kids are planning on going. I ADORE Romeo and Juliet, but no one would be available to watch Shelby.
sigh
Begin forwarded message:
> The Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and UC are giving a free
> performance of Romeo and Juliet on Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. It's
> at the Ohio College of Applied Science auditorium, 2220 Victory
> Parkway one long block south of Macmillan. (Parking is off Cypress
> Street; turn east from Victory onto Cypress. Do Not park in the small
> UC lot off Victory Parkway.) This area used to be known as Edgecliff
> campus.
>
> The actress who plays Juliet has assisted in teaching my son's
> Shakespeare class. She seems talented and energetic.
>
> submitted by Rosemary
>
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the naysayers can be so idiodic! I still have them , after the stroke, doctors and therapists were concerned I could still do it, even relatives, but three years out , I am still a homeschool mom!We ditched all our text books! It's all on CD-Rom, my hubby helps as he can, just two weeks ago I had a doc tell me , I didn't think you could o it, but you are! My kids are getting a double education, as they are my daytime caregivers too, so they are learning more than most!
Julie~
http://journals.aol.com/joolsinwa/randommusingsofmymind
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Yea I too liked it when I was first beginning nad we were not so main stream. Seems the face of homeschooling has changed and I am not sure SOME of the new ones homeschooling are doing it from the heart. I hope you get what i mean. I did it not becuase it was cool. I think some are now doing it becuase its cool. I dont think those few are doing a bad job they are getting educations but they just do not well its just different. I cant really put a finger on it but its changed. You go with that lady. My kids are well behaved but as you can see other kids in the hood in last weeks entry are not wonder why?????????
4/11/05 3:28 PM