Ah, the reality....

Just recently, I posted a homeschooling article on my Facebook page and added a disclaimer about how this article painted the rosiest of pictures of homeschooling and how I felt that we do a disservice when we don't include the realities of what it's really like to homeschool.  And then I realized, I was the pot calling the kettle black.

My Facebook page is full of posts and pictures of how much fun we're having and all the fascinating things that we are learning.  I often post the cute and insightful things my kids will say while we're studying something.  I advertise when we are spending a beautiful Spring day outside exploring Nature instead of sitting inside doing worksheets.  And, while all those things are true, they don't necessarily paint the entire picture.

You see, when I mentioned going outside to explore Nature on a beautiful Spring day, I was met with moans and eye rolls.  That's right - my kids thought it sounded stupid.  I laugh when I read other peoples' curriculum reviews when they say "My kids beg to do their Math!" or "They don't want to stop when we finish a lesson".  Maybe they do.  I don't know.  That never happens to me.  No one has EVER begged me to do math.  My kids still groan when I tell them it's time to start our lessons.  Sometimes they huff and stomp their feet when it's time to come back from lunch.

So maybe I should preface all my Facebook posts with "Once I dragged them outside..." or "After several minutes of threatening...." and then go on to extol the virtues of hands-on science experiments.  We have had meltdowns, tears, screaming and tantrums.  Outright refusal to perform assignments and near mutiny have happened in our happy little homeschool.  Against everything I believe, and knowing full well it was the worst thing I could do, I have threatened to march my kids down to our local middle school and sign them up.  Right now.

Once, when my oldest was a preschooler, I asked my Mom about his contrary nature and his defiance.  She looked at me, and with a deadpan expression, she replied, "You were expecting complacent, compliant children?"  She's right, my kids were never going to be compliant, unquestioning rule-followers, and I don't really want them to be.  Still, I had hoped for that excitement about learning to come back.  They had it when they were little.  Their lack of it was one of the reasons I pulled them out of school.

Maybe it's too soon.  Maybe I'm not doing it right.  I don't know.  I do know that, after the eye-roll and the moan, and once we get started into the lesson, something wonderful happens.  The kids start participating.  They are making connections.  They start skipping along the stream bank, pointing out Cypress knees and trying to find out what kind of snake that is.

I also know that my kids are learning in a meaningful way.  They will not grow up to be good at picking out the one correct answer to a multiple choice question.  They will argue vociferously that A, C and D could all be correct under certain circumstances.  They will point out inconsistencies and question authority.  And I guess that's what I really wanted for them in the first place.