On Homeschooling

I am seriously thinking about homeschooling my son.

The act of writing that down for the entire world to see makes me feel like I need to put my head between my legs and breathe deeply into a brown paper bag. I mean, there is just so much to consider with something as serious as his education, right?

I worry that I would be doing him a disservice especially when I consider the prospect of trying to teach him calculus or help him with some of the mathematical formulas needed in highschool physics. I worry about the accreditation process and how we will demonstrate that Dylan has earned a highschool diploma. How will colleges view him? Will he be eligible for scholarships? The prospect of forever altering the course of his life in a negative way is intimidating.

But then I look at his school experience so far. Most of Dylan's teachers through the years have been good. They were competent, compassionate educators and he has been fortunate. It's the social side of school that has been a problem for him. He's the square peg.

It's not a matter of trying to assess his personal responsibility, either. There is no doubt that my son brings a fair share of his social woes on himself. Absolutely. However, assigning blame doesn't contribute to fixing anything. Dylan sees himself through the distorted and often cruel eyes of his peers. He has sat with me, crying, trying desperately to figure out what he is doing wrong. He is not mainstream at all and there are times that he's downright offensive, albeit unconsciously. Unfortunately, he's too young yet to understand that his individuality, once tempered with restraint and empathy, will be something to be celebrated. My biggest fear is that as he ages and the pressures of fitting into a peer group grow louder, he will resort to some sort of drug (alcohol, pot, food) both to assimilate with an element of society that is more accepting of someone different and to self-medicate his lonliness away.

I saw in the news yesterday about the student gunman in Wisconsin who held a classroom full of his peers hostage. In this country, there have been forty five school shootings since 1996. I find that number really disconcerting because it wasn't that long ago when the very idea of gun violence on school property was unthinkable. My point here is that something has changed and we, as a society, have yet to adequately respond to it. We have twenty first century children stuck in a 1950's school system. Some do well; many don't.

So all of this weighs heavily as I contemplate a decision. I want to do what is right for Dylan but for the life of me, I haven't quite figured out what that is just yet.