Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Do leopards change their spots? No? Thanks for all the fish….

August 27, 2003 at 8:52 pm | In yulelogStories | 8 Comments

If you’re reading this and don’t know me, you might not know that I am a homeschooling parent. Shudder. Lunatic fringe. We — spouse & I — pulled our kids out of a “one-room school house” school in Salem, Massachusetts in June 2000 when he was 9 and she was 6. Then, last year was of course a chaotic business, what with moving to BC and settling into an oldish house that needed lots of renovation. …And I have to say that it was really really great to have that excuse: sorry, can’t put nose to grindstone, have the electrician in; sorry, haven’t cracked that material yet — the painters were in; sorry, the general contractor turned out to be a sorry crook who fired all the good crew and hired idiots, and we just can’t get to that math module at this time: sorry, sorry, sorry. Yet somehow we got a lot of work done, even though I wasn’t standing there like Dominatrix Docent, making them assume the position.

But this year is supposed to be “better” (more organized) which of course worries me. Aside from physical improvements, I’m pretty sure that there is no “better.” For example, right now she is voting against watching A Fish Called Wanda for the umpteenth time by singing/ reciting the entire repertoire of this Smiths album. She wants to see Black Adder instead. As you can see, my parenting style is immensely serious and it has coloured the offspring. Actually, it is of course perpetually insane around here and there is no better. Repeat.

It’s almost September, and it’s time to think about yet another school year, even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in an actual school.

One of the benefits of now living in Victoria, however, is access to South Island Distance Education School, S.I.D.E.S., one of 9 public distance ed. schools in BC, and probably the best of the lot. We began taking courses with S.I.D.E.S. last October, albeit part-time (all that renovation, remember?), which was fine since we’re slightly anarchistic types who don’t want to do “school at home.”

There are different homeschooling approaches — unschoolers, school-at-homers, the religious ones, the ideological ones, etc. We’ve been typically unschoolish, with occasional forays into fixed curricula. S.I.D.E.S. lets us keep some of the flexibility of unschooling, even as we pursue B.C. Ministry of Education curricula identical to the ones taught in the regular schools. With one major exception: the kids get to take courses appropriate to their level, regardless of chronological or “grade” age. She can take Math 7, Socials 8, and English 9 or 10; he can take Math 8, Socials 11, English 9; they both can take Science 8 and German 10. It doesn’t matter what age they are. But make no mistake about it; in just one week I’ll be back in harness as surely as if I were teaching courses somewhere. It will change my blogging, when I shift attention next week to their stuff. This might become the homeschooler’s blog.

But then again, it might not.

After all, there are always funny lines like “I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs than yours” (Wanda Gershowitz of the Fish movie, see above). “Aristotle was not Belgian”: ibid. Thanks Wanda, that’s an education.