What to Do? Homeschooling / Schooling Angst

Ever since our decision to switch the kids from the charter school to an elementary in our district, I've felt uneasy. Beyond uneasy. Conflicted. No. Queasy. And it's not just watching St. Nick, Pie and Fish climb off the bus every afternoon, although that alone makes me queasy - how I hated the long bus rides home when I was too tired to stay awake but too afraid of missing my stop to fall asleep. Ugh.

Rather, I'm reevaluating (more like evaluating for the first time) what sort of adults I'm raising, and what the mission of our home is vs. what I want it to be. This sounds so abstract, doesn't it? Does a home have a mission? Aren't I raising kids, not adults? Part of my questioning has to do with life change, namely Little Miss Rowdy Britches, who began crawling yesterday (*applause!*). Part has to do with this post, and the brilliant idea presented there to develop a family mission statement. Equally a factor, a dissatisfaction with standard education, a deep dislike of being a cog in a Machine, or my children being cogs in the Consumer Manufacturing Machine.

Last night we sat through what was supposed to be a half-hour session on the 6th grade curriculum. I learned the district has moved to adopt the Common Core standards. Designed by teachers bureaucrats, for students bureaucrats. I felt like Scrooge for being so skeptical. Everything about everything at this school is so nice. The building is nice, the people are nice, the teachers are nice. The cars people drive are really nice.

We have another curriculum meeting tonight - will this sense of, "Isn't our school building wonderful? Isn't our structure brilliant? Aren't our methods superb? Aren't we all nice?" continue? And what happens if it does? Don't I want my kids to grow up nice? Right now I just don't know.

Oh, and it's also my birthday. Again.