The Help

Before I read The Help, I had one of those epic Facebook discussions on a friend's wall, about the racial divide in the South, how people up north don't get it (she is a professor at Drake in Iowa), and had all these ideas and indignance that I needed to share.  I grew up in a racially, culturally, and socioeconomically divided city.  Black people went to public schools, which were terribly underfunded and in a sad state- some of them didn't even have air conditioning.  The whites that could afford it went to private school, mostly Catholic.  There was little to no mixing.  Whites had their golf and tennis clubs, neighborhoods, Mardi Gras clubs and parades, and suburbs.  Blacks had theirs.

New Orleans East was built as a haven for whites, with big homes and was far enough from the city... and then it was populated with blacks looking to get out of the inner city.  The white people then headed for the Northshore of Lake Ponchartrain, and build out in that area exploded.  What I never understood, and still do not understand, was the disparity of it all.  It is unfair in a lot of ways, but white people have not yet understood what they have done to themselves.  Segregating their kids into private schools and then paying taxes on public schools is paying twice.  Giving no oversight or funding to public schools means that the graduates of those schools have no skills when they graduate, some of them can't even read and write.  This is the job pool that white employers have to draw from for their businesses, and spend extra money training things that could have been learned in high school.  Also, moving across the lake means an hour commute to and from the city, and an hour and a half to the CBD.

What the heck just happened?

Suddenly, I find myself the mother of three children in school.  How exactly did that happen?

Sometimes these things happen when life just flows- opportunities come along that seem too good to pass up.  I had looked at the Montessori Kindergarten at a private preschool, that was originally going to be affiliated with the Charter school, in April.  I decided that it wouldn't be a good fit based on the teachers and Justin's learning style, which didn't seem to fit into their way of doing things.  So when the kids got into the lottery, I didn't bother to register.

Well, over the summer a few things happened with the Board of Directors and a new Principal/Director was hired as well as all of the teachers.  I know two people on the board and kept up with the goings-on at the school.  Everything seemed to be falling into place for the school so in August we decided to look at the school for Elle, because we felt she needed to be around more kids every day her own age, and because she needed some formal instruction in math.  We were falling further and further behind in the curriculum because it didn't fit her.

Fall in Florida

Here we are!  It's fall in Florida and we're still here.  Amazingly enough, Eric made it past his one year.  He's battered and bruised, but has won the admiration of one of the top chefs in the company, which means that the sky's the limit from here.  He's been talking about going to South Korea, but I don't think I am ready to take the international plunge just yet.  Marriott makes going overseas very attractive, with a nanny, driver, private school, insurance all paid for.  It's something we'd like to explore in the future. This summer was fun with weddings in New Orleans and Michigan.  It was good to be back in the Midwest and see family and friends in Iowa too.  Being in Iowa reminded us what down to Earth, do anything for you people are like, and we'd like to get back to that.  We're in the process of firming up which places we'd like to go to.

What Homeschooling has taught me

Wow that's a heady title, isn't it?  I am at a point in my life where I can see pros and cons of the homeschooling lifestyle, and they are widely disparate and that makes me uncomfortable, because it really is a lifestyle change, much like breastfeeding or not vaccinating or going on a different diet was.

Pros-

Lots and lots of time spent with your child(ren).  This can also be a con.  What homeschooling affords you is time to get to know your children as people, not things.  People who have their own styles of learning, relating to others, writing, reading, drawing, dancing, talking, adding, subtracting, building, crafting, the list goes on.  When my kids were in school I felt more that they were things to be moved from here to there, school, soccer practice, dance class, playdates, parties, you get the idea.  Perhaps it is also because they become their own individual selves, instead of a toddler or baby who absorbs your emotions and reflects them back at you.  Your kids also get to know you.  Your story before you had kids, stories about growing up, the pets you had as a kid, little things they get to know about you because they spend so much time with you and are curious.

Life Lessons

So I have been taking this course, Soul Restoration, that I found through a friend in Iowa.  It has been amazingly life changing and has helped me see even more patterning that I need to change.  It really is amazing how many lessons I have learned since we moved to Florida.

The first and best lesson I learned from this course was about boundaries.  Setting them, honoring them, not allowing people to violate them, walk all over them, or destroy them.  What I didn't realize is that I have had permeable boundaries for as long as I have been living.  When you are young and your "no" statements are over-ridden, either by words or by force, you don't learn how to develop and keep boundaries.  Then when you get a bit older and have the language to say that you are being hurt and would appreciate it if the person would stop, and the person says that you are "too sensitive", that is a violation of your boundaries.  If you don't stand up for yourself again, the person thinks that it is ok to continue being abusive and will walk all over your boundaries as long as you let them do it.

How long have I been saying this??

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Spring!

Has sprung!  I hope everyone is enjoying it.  Spring in Florida is beautiful!  Homeschooling is going well with Elle, we did learning profiles on the website after reading the book Discover Your Child's Learning Style, and that has helped tremendously.  It turns out that I am a print/auditory/producing (think workbook) learner and she is not.  She's a visual/picture/tactile learner.  So the curriculum that I was picking out for math wasn't meeting her needs at all, it was black and white and boring!  The unit study or literature approach she likes (we started Five In A Row in November), and I lucked out on the phonics workbooks because they are mostly picture learning.  She's also a relater, which means that she needs to talk things out to understand them, which was driving me crazy because she would constantly ask questions about what she was learning.  Turns out, she needs to talk it out to understand.  We went on a field trip to a composting place to learn about worm composting, and it was partly lecture and partly hands-on.  When I questioned her about the lecture, almost nothing had been absorbed except for the hands-on part of the lecture.  She doesn't learn that way, she is completely visual.  Art is her favorite subject and she started taking a homeschool enrichment art class on Thursdays which she loves.