So many ideas....

I have so many ideas in my head I hardly know where to start! The homeschooling idea just simply won't escape my head and I have officially gotten the job that might make it all possible.  It's still full-time work but some of my job can be done at home and since the job starts very early in the day it brings me home pretty early in the day as well. Every day I lean more and more towards homeschooling, I get more and more frustrated by the work my children bring home and the lack of overall comprehension of a theme or idea. It feels like it's all memorization and preparation for testing and no creativity - no real learning. I am certain that I'm being biased at best..... But I still feel like there is so much missing.

One of my big concerns was/is my middle child. She seems to excel in the school environment ....loving to get perfect scores on papers and the teachers just glow about her. Student of the month, honor roll and all those things that make her feel good. But today I had a bit of an epiphany. She has a paper due in a few days and was in a complete meltdown about getting it typed and it being so perfect. Two things occurred to me:

1: I was baffled by the fact that they do all this work on computers and yet still in sixth grade she has no basic understanding of email and how it works. I would think that this would be a fairly valuable life skill to have.... She can navigate Instagram and iFunny and can't send an email? I suppose this could be entirely my fault but I would think that this is something they would have been introduced to by now. 

2: Far more importantly .....I realize that while she does well and loves to be "perfect"....she is so wrapped up in that perfect score and doing everything just so it concerns me.  When and where does she learn that it doesn't have to be perfect. That it isn't always black-and-white - there isnt always a "right" answer. I get that in math 2+2 is always going to equal four. But for her homework last night she had to define some words about ancient Egypt. She had forgotten her text and so we took the definitions out of the dictionary (what a novel concept). She took her time and worked hard at it and I sent a note to the teacher explaining what her definitions might be slightly different. Today she spent her class copying the "correct" definitions out of her textbook. According to her there was no actual lesson about any of these words or their context. And while her definitions weren't significantly different, she needed to have the ones out of the textbook for them to be "right". Meanwhile she still doesn't really know what irrigation is, what it's for, where it came from, how it was developed or anything. So what did my daughter really learn the last two days? Aren't I just feeding into her issues about being "right" or being "perfect" by sending her to the school and going along with these ideas?? 

There is still so much to think about - but every day I feel like there's more and more evidence to me that the schools can't truly give my children what I want them to have out of an education. At the end of the day will they get that piece of paper that gets them into college? Probably - but what will they have lost along the way? 

I truly hope that this job helps me to start on my homeschooling journey. That I can find a way to give my girls more. That I can believe that I am the right person for the job. And know in my heart that what is best for my children is not a piece of paper or the belief that they can be perfect..... But a desire to learn and grow through experiences and experiments and sometimes falling down and picking yourself back up. What possible better way to learn than that.  

I need more faith, more strength, and certainly plenty of suggestions. Leave any of it here for me ......