Ms M and Bear talking to their very tiny ladybird friend

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”

~ Rachel Carson, “A Sense of Wonder”

These points are extracted from The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List (Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1).

• Please stop asking us if it’s legal. If it is — and it is — it’s insulting to imply that we’re criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
• Learn what the words “socialize” and “socialization” mean and use the one you really mean, instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you’re talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet… and you can safely assume that we’ve got a decent grasp of both concepts.
• Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if, as a homeschooler, she ever gets to socialize.
• Don’t assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
• If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a “reality” show, the above goes double.
• Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You’re probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you’ve ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
• We don’t look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they’re in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we’re doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
• We didn’t go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.
• Please stop questioning my competence and demanding to see my credentials. I didn’t have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don’t need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can’t teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there’s a reason I’m so reluctant to send my child to school.
• If my kid’s only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he’d learn in school, please understand that you’re calling me an idiot. Don’t act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
• Stop assuming that because the word “home” is right there in “homeschool,” we never leave the house. We’re the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it’s crowded and icky.
• Stop assuming that because the word “school” is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we’re into the “school” side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don’t have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
• Don’t ask my kid if she wouldn’t rather go to school unless you don’t mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn’t rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
• Stop saying, “Oh, I could never homeschool!” Even if you think it’s some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you’re horrified. One of these days, I won’t bother disagreeing with you any more.
• If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you’re allowed to ask how we’ll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can’t, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn’t possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
• Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child’s teacher as well as her parent. I don’t see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
• Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he’s homeschooled. It’s not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
• Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she’s homeschooled.
• Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
• Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
• Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won’t get because they don’t go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
• Here’s a thought: If you can’t say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

Today seemed like an ordinary day. The heat and humidity made it oppressive and since my husband is away, I was destined to spend yet another day at home. I did a mountain of laundry, horsed around with the children, read till I was hoarse and napped.

I woke up feeling disgruntled that the day had been boring… uneventful.

Less than two hours later, while having dinner, we heard a loud blast. A bomb had exploded at a site where a lawyers’ rally was to have taken place. This was at a market that we frequent, less than five minutes away from our home. Sixteen people have been killed and more than 40 injured by the suicide bomber.

This and recent events in the country have left us deeply saddened.

You know, when your two-year-old is happy her uncle has returned home safely saying words, which she understands completely, “There was a bomb over there!”, you suddenly realise that uneventful is not something so bad after all.

Dreadfully tardy or should I say fashionably late, Digital Jewel? *S*

I have been tagged… Yippee! Someone actually reads my boring blog!

7 Random Things About Me

1. I have more than 2 gmail accounts. OK, OK… I have 5 6.

2. I consult a doctor named Wicky Wong about my asthma.

3. I have never felt comfortable with my given names – my first is not used by family and my second can also be a masculine name. Either way, both make me feel awkward about my identity. I don’t know what I would name myself if I were given the option.

4. I often forego sleep because there are so many things I would rather do instead.

5. I went backpacking in India in 1997 and had the time of my life.

6. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon when I was a child. I now want to be a writer… sadly, the only books I have published are educational assessment books! (place track laughter here) If you live in Singapore and know my not-used-by-family-first name and masculine middle name you might have seen some of these… heh…

7. I love tea, don’t you? No? Sorry, can’t talk to you anymore…

… redesigning the site.

I do this every time I get anxious.

I shouldn’t… I have enough on my plate as it is.

OK someone just give me a SLAP upside the head!