Public vs. Private vs. Homeschooling...What To Do?

As Parker nears the age when he will enter the school system, I’m overwhelmingly torn about which avenue of education to take. I was the product of the public school system and while I think that I turned out pretty okay, there were definitely ugly aspects to my education that I’d rather have done without: random bullying, ineffective teachers, bureaucratic (and useless) rules. Part of me argues that the reason I’m as prepared for the “real world” as I am is due to these experiences and part of me wonders if they gave me a harder casing than I really needed. So, I’m kind of thinking through a pro/con list of each teaching method and I thought that I would do it “out loud” in case any of you were experiencing the same dilemmas and had input to offer.

MY DILEMMA:

I am more concerned with Parker being a good person and a strong individual than I am that he be a good memorizer. I don’t want him to follow the crowd, I want him to find his own voice and his own conscience. I want him to be a citizen of the world, not of a single school district. I want him to be open-minded and compassionate.

MY OPTIONS:

1. Public Schools

My absolute favorite thing about public schools was the assemblies, pageants, crafts, talent shows and sports. In other words, I loved the creative component to schooling. I loved the close friends that I made and I generally had a positive experience overall. My least favorite thing about public schools was that I would often act out because I was unengaged or bored. As a current teacher myself, I know that you have to teach to the middle and that some students are ahead of the curve and that others need extra help. My problem was that I wanted to move faster and that just wasn’t an option, so I wandered out of my seat, spoke out of turn and generally got in a lot of petty trouble.

2. Private Schools

While I have never attended a private school, the Democrat in me in loathes the idea of having to pay in order for my child to get a decent education. I don’t like the elitism present in them and in my experience, the main difference between public and private schools is that students in private schools simply had access to more expensive drugs. However, there’s the chance for advanced curriculum and less tolerance for some of the bull that happens in public schools (I think). There are definitely some top notch private schools that can prepare students for excelling in college, but I’m not sure how good of a job they do in preparing students to excel as humans.

3. Homeschooling

What draws me to the idea of homeschooling is being able to tailor the curriculum to your child’s needs. The total flexibility in that is very appealing to me. I also have the luxury of having a non-traditional schedule where I have a month off in December and 3.5 months off in the summer. Instead of just reading about the world, we could travel it. I wouldn’t be constrained to a standard school schedule and I’d be able to make sure that Parker (and kiddo #2) were excelling as individuals. I would need to make sure that I was taking advantage of all of the extracurriculars available in the community such as sports and music.

The drawback to homeschooling for me is twofold. (1) Parker is an incredibly social kid. If we drive to the playground and it’s empty, he wants me to drive to another one that has children so that he has company. I need to make sure that I don’t choose an educational option for him simply because it’s what I might have preferred as a kid. (2) I work. While my schedule is currently flexible, that certainly poses some complications for what to do with Parker if I have meetings/conferences to attend. If I was a stay at home mom, this potential issue would be far less problematic. Also, I’m not sure that Parker and I need to spend all that time together. He is in preschool right now for 6 hours a day, 4 days a week and it works for us. He’s happy to have play time at school, I’m happy to get to be a grown up and when we see each other in the afternoons, we both have the energy and patience for a wonderful evening. Truthfully, I’m afraid of parental burn out, but that could just be because he is still very young and requires an incredible amount of interaction.

So, when it comes right down to it, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Do I start him off in public school and remove him at a later date if he isn’t thriving or do I take the chance and (if I decide it’s the best option) start homeschooling him so that he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out. It’s a good thing that I have a couple of years to figure it out I guess, but in the meantime, I’ll continue to research and figure out the journey that is best for us.