Nosey questions about homeschool rant

Payday is every other Thursday.  I go grocery shopping late morning/early afternoon and take my 13-year-old with me.  I normally get the question, “How come she’s not in school?”, to which I normally respond, “Oh, she’s in school now, we homeschool.”  I get a wide variety of responses, most of which I find myself explaining my decisions and whatnot.  It’s getting extremely irritating, to tell the truth.

Today I was questioned about “school activities”.  The woman seemed oh, so concerned for my child’s well being.  HELLO PEOPLE!  Are you not concerned about the drug deals, the sex in bathrooms, the smoking, the cursing and everything else that going on in school under the noses of hundreds of teacher?

I’m getting tired of answering the questions of nosey people who think that they know better.

Ok, rant over.

Another homeschool year over

Our evaluator came over today to evaluate the oldest four’s school work for the past year. He signed off that they have shown progression and are able to move forward for the next year. I’m so glad it’s over.

Yay!

Evaluation

Thanks Jessie!

I forget I get readers. 🙂 The evaluations went well. Our evaluator is such a sweetie. He takes the time to just talk to them. Anyone who will just sit and talk to my kids gets an A+ in my book. 🙂 He signed off that they progressed on to the next year. Yay. We took the rest of the week off, went to the library – as I had been lax in having them read stuff beyond their school work – and had a very good rest of our week.

I’m feeling better and God loves me. 🙂

Stressin’ out

The kids’ homeschool evaluation is today. Am I prepared? I should hope so. Yes, I have their books ready for him to look through. Am I emotionally prepared? I thought so. But, I found myself to be short tempered this week. My back is in extreme pain and I’m dealing with a hurt foot. I was racking my brain to find out why my back and foot were hurting and I thought that the reason I was short tempered was because of the pain. My irritability, I think, is the result of PMS and stress. The back pain must be from that as well. Although, I don’t remember my back hurting this much in the past . I can’t even go work out due to the pain. Argh.

So, I will be so happy when 1:30 comes and goes. I like their evaluator. He evaluated them last year. He has a bunch of kids like us. He and his wife homeschool. He’s very pro-homeschool. It’s just nerve racking. Maybe by next year I won’t be so bad.

Evaluations

The evaluations are over and were a success! It’s a simple reminder that the God of the universe loves me.

Evaluation

I pushed back our evaluation from last Tuesday to tomorrow (8/23). I’m wishing now I hadn’t. I am so not looking forward to this, I feel sick. I know, the worst that can happen is that they will not progress. But I just have this awful fear of failure and what the evaluator will think of me. I know – silly. Fear of man thing and all. But I just went through the girls’ books and, well, I just want to buy those books.

Scott is coming home for the evaluation, it’s at 1. I’ll check back in when it’s over.

Evaluation

I homeschool 4 of my kids.

The first year I homeschooled, I gave my daughter a standardized test and turned it into the state.

The second year, my daughters were seen by an evaluator. She was a bit rough around the edges, but things went fine.

The third year I took my girls to her again. She passed my youngest daughter and did not pass my oldest daughter. Her understanding of my daughter’s curriculum was incorrect. And her basis of evaluation was incorrect. She did not look to see if my daughter showed progress – she looked at my daughter’s age and said that she should know certain things that she did not know and did not pass her. I turned that into the school board instead of getting a second opinion. I was not a strong person and just didn’t think of getting a second opinion.

But that evaluation caused me to believe that I couldn’t teach my children effectively. But I knew that the Lord called me to homeschool my kids. There was a war going on inside my head and I was going crazy.

I continued to homeschool my daughters the next year and my son also joined the ranks. But when it came time for evaluations, I couldn’t take them to the other evaluator for fear of the same thing happening as last year. But I also didn’t pursue getting another evaluator because I was afraid of what to tell the other evaluator and I was afraid I would be judged and my kids wouldn’t pass. I told you I wasn’t a strong person.

The next school year, I homeschooled 4 of my kids. A friend of mine was looking for an evaluator and told me that she found someone and gave me her number. I called her because I knew I needed to get the evaluations done, but I was a year behind and cowering in fear. The school board hadn’t contacted me about the missing year, but I was so scared to open my mailbox everyday for fear that they would suspend my right to homeschool.

I saw Wendy, the new evaluator, and explained that we hadn’t had the kids evaluated in 2 years, can she do 2 years for us. She did. She wrote up 2 letters per kid, well, the three that needed them and one for my son who had just started.

2005 – I was feeling insecure again in this area since we started out thinking we would do unit studies. Homeschooling 4 kids and having 2 babies was stressing me out. I did one unit study, had them do math and for a couple of months (they go by so fast), I did only Math. I didn’t have all the books, and the fear just started taking over because of my procrastination.

I think it was January when I started getting back on track with the school work, but I was having the kids correcting each other’s work. I still was having a difficult time managing everything.

Then I found out that Wendy moved out of state. I was crushed because I thought we had finally found someone who worked for us. Now we would have to find someone else.

I sort of left the ball in my friend’s court since she was the one to find Wendy in the first place and I knew she would have to find someone for her son. They went away on vacation during July and I got to spend that whole month worrying.

We started up homeschooling again this past week, just picking up where we left off with one exception. I am now sitting down with them. We all work on the same subject at the same time. I work with them to make sure they are understanding their work. I read aloud and work with them on their problems. I still hadn’t found an evaluator. My friend came back this week, but I hadn’t spoken to her. I realized it really wasn’t up to her to find me an evaluator, although, it would easier that way. I had been praying nearly every day for the past month that the Lord would send us an evaluator.

My friend called today to let me know she found someone. I called him and he sounds very kind. He had 7 children of his own that are homeschooled. He has been an evaluator for the past 10 years and has taught highschool, middleschool, been a principal and is now writing curriculum.

I had gone through the boys’ work last week because their drawer was completely disorganized. I don’t think the girls’ work will be too difficult to go through.

I have an appointment with him to evaluate my kids on Tuesday at my friend’s house with her son. I am so scared. I guess I’m still weak. I am trying so hard not worry about what other people think, not to be a man pleaser, but my kids future with homeschool lies in this man’s hands. Ok, it lies in mine, but if I blew it last year, he has the power to pass or fail them.

So, tomorrow and Monday I will be going through their books to gather a sample of their work for the evaluator to go through. I will be praying that the Lord give me peace and help me stop worrying. It is what it is. I cannot go back and do things over. I need to accept responsibility for my actions and hope that things go well on Tuesday and make this next year our best year so far.

This phone call today should have increased my faith. The Lord answered my prayer and sent me an evaluator. But I am still feeling so insecure in my ability to teach my kids that I forgot to look at that as an answered prayer – a blessing.

If you believe in the power of prayer and believe in Jesus Christ and believe that God still answers prayers today, if you are reading this and it is not yet Tuesday, August 15, 1:00 PM EST please pray for me. Pray for Bill, the new evaluator and pray for my kids.

Thanks.