Anyway, home schooled kids might be different, but they are different in a good way. They are much more mature, and grow up happier I think than their more conventional peers, but I am not brave enough to attempt it myself. Most of the teachers at Chip’s school are wonderful, but then again, they teach at a school where the parents are very involved and support their teachers. Parental involvement is the key. If the parents don’t care, the kids don’t care, and it’s almost impossible for the teachers to do anything about it, some are miracle workers but really it all boils down to the parents reinforcing the lessons the kids are trying to learn at school.

Anyway, I think you’re doing a great job, your mother in law has bragged to me about how great the kids are when I’ve gotten notes from her. If things don’t improve, I might consider doing the same thing, but I think they will, most of the teachers there are awesome and one of our friends teaches fifth grade there, I might go talk to him about what I can do to make sure Chip gets the best teachers (since I know he already talked to Chip’s kindergarted teacher about the same thing, guess he just slipped though the cracks this year) Thank goodness this is all happening this year when both Trey and I are home to deal with it, because next year with the toy store we might have been too busy to catch it. Wish us luck!

Yeah, homeschooled kids might be “different”, but that’s not necessarily “bad”. And I have come to the conclusion that Cricket is going to be “different” no matter where he gets educated. He’s just not wired like everyone else. And in some ways that can be a very good thing…lol. I have also decided that it’s better for him to be a “different” sort of happy, competent homeschooled person than a “different” sort of basket case from being in public school. And we have a good school here, with wonderful people working there. I have nothing against them, and plan to send Sunshine there in the fall. It was just the wrong setting for Cricket. I see that now…lol.

And hey, if you decide to go the homeschool route, I’d be happy to toss ideas around with you. I’m becoming quite gung-ho on the homeschool thing, myself. Not as THE only way to educate a child, but certainly as a very good way. And in my experience, it’s not as scary as it seemed when I was on the outside looking in. You might surprise yourself.

And yes, it’s WONDERFUL when it all comes together and starts to flow.

I also have a son with AS. I also started homeschooling this year because middle school was just way too overwhelming for him. I am a licensed Special Education teacher with credentials and degrees and I still thought we couldn’t make it without the team.

I am finding myself constantly adjusting and thinking and changing my educational philosophy to fit my kid–what a concept!

I also am finding that I am loving it!

I am adding your blog to my favorites so I can check in often!

I found myself looking at some new homeschoolers that joined our group with those same stereotypic glasses. I found the child, who was around 10, to be gawky, extremely shy and the poster child for homeschool wierdness. I groaned inwardly at my decision to beginning homeschooling my little one, thinking what am I doing to my child? Well, after talking with the people, it turns out that they just started homeschooling and the child had previously been in ps the whole time. So obviously, homeschooling had absolutely nothing to do with it and no one blames any other type of schooling for creating wierdness, so it must have to do with other factors and probably has a lot to do with the thoughts and notions of the viewer.
Homeschooled students are usually seen in isolation or small groups and not in a group of 30 kids, so their eccentricities if they have some stand out. The word ‘homeschool’ seems to make some non homeschoolers especially alert and vigilant to oddities since they don’t really understand the whole thing. When they view a group of ps kids, they aren’t as scrutinizing since to them the situation is viewed in the spectrum of normalcy and their radar isn’t tripped as easily.
Just my thoughts of the whole wierdness idea.—

Kids who go to a public school become accustomed to interacting with each other in particular ways. Kids who school at home interact with people in ways that are slightly different–due in part, I think, to the different variety of types of people with whom they come into regular contact, and the different routines by which they live their lives. When you put the two together, they both tend to try to interact in the ways to which they have become accustomed, and they begin to discover the ways in which the two ways of interacting are incompatible–or at least have a slightly different “accent”, so to speak. Since what is “weird” is generally determined by what is different from the majority (or norm), it generally shakes out that the homeschoolers, being fewer in number, are the “weird” man out.

I think it’s unrealistic to think that kids who are schooled at home are going to develop the same habits of interaction that kids in a public, or even private school setting will develop. But I don’t necessarily see that as a negative thing. In fact, one of the reasons many people homeschool in the first place is that they don’t WANT their kids to learn, or even be exposed to, the kinds of interactions they could have to learn to deal with in the public school system.

Weird isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve been a little weird my whole life, and have come to quite value my weirdness. Lol.

Thanks for chiming in. I like people who make me think.

But sometimes cultural differences are not so apparent. When we see someone who dresses the same way we do, lives in the same neighborhood, eats the same kinds of foods, celebrates the same holidays, and so forth, we expect them to be “like us”. And then when they do or say something unexpected, it catches us off guard, even if it’s a perfectly “normal” thing to say or do in that person’s culture. (Whether that be ethnic, religious, political, or educational.) And we often feel off-balance, and even a little threatened by these subtle cultural differences.

I had an interesting conversation with a little neighborhood girl the other day, who was under the impression that people who wear a cross on a necklace do so because their ancestors crucified Jesus and they’re proud of it because they “hate” Jesus. I was glad to have the opportunity to explain to her that these people love Jesus and believe in Him, and that they wear the cross in remembrance of His having died on the cross for them. But this was different from her family’s religious tradition (in which one’s belief in Christ is meant to be shown in the way they live and treat others, rather than in a physical object to be worn). She certainly had come up with an interesting interpretation for a culturally unfamiliar practice. I was glad she’d asked me about it. I think we need to talk more about differences–and not be offended when people ask us about our own differences. It’s so much easier to be friends when we don’t have these cultural misconceptions between us, and when we talk about them we so frequently find that we’re more similar that we thought.