The Last Page, 21 May 2012

Today G finished the last worksheet of his kindergarten year!  But lest that simple sentence belie the significance of the event, allow me to elaborate. (You can tell from my vocabulary that my personal education went beyond kindergarten.)

This school year was an experiment.  After looking at several schooling options for almost-5-year-old G, we decided on enrolling him in a public charter school that offered a homeschool hybrid program.  Being public, the school is free, but being charter, it isn't attached to a particular school district, so their programs have much more flexibility.

G is a very active kid, and having him stuck in a desk for most of the day didn't sound attractive, but I had a lot of insecurity about keeping him at home and taking sole responsibility for his education, so this hybrid program sounded ideal.   We would be provided with curriculum, the teacher and we would meet once a month to set assignments and go over the work G had done, and he had optional classes two mornings a week with other students.  Perfect.

But as things in an unexpected life tend to go, the year was not perfect.  Firstly, I realized when we started school in August how deeply I felt the void of not having my mom around as mentor.  She homeschooled six kids all the way from K-12, and I never anticipated venturing into home education without her.  I felt the pain of loss with every assignment and every activity.

Secondly, I felt a lot of stress with the pressure of suddenly needing four hours per day of "accounted-for" learning activities.  I knew that pretty much everything we do is a learning activity--but it took about 6 months for me to figure out how to easily keep track of it on paper.

Thirdly, my mother-in-law died and my brother-in-law was incarcerated and my sister-in-law had a wedding, all in the space of 6 weeks.  During the following 8 weeks, my dad got engaged and one sister had a baby and another sister got engaged.

Finally, worksheets stop for no man, regardless of crisis or exhaustion.  As we met with G's teacher the first couple times at the beginning of the year, I began to realize that the only learning activities that "counted" for school records were worksheets.  Turns out, G hates worksheets.  He loves learning and discovering with books, computers, games, movies, play, and hands-on.  But sit him in a chair with a paper and pencil and teeth grating begins.

Worksheets have been the bane of our existence over the last 9 months.  Hair-pulling, tongue-biting, fist-clenching, groaning exasperation.  And that was just me.  G added whining, goofing, doodling, scribbling, squirming, and complaining.

But thanks be to God and my dear friends who prayed for us, today we finished the last one!

The very last page was a math worksheet.  After the second-to-last page, G and I did a little dance.  After the first side of the last page, G and I did a little dance.  After the last side of the last page, G and I whooped around the room and spun in circles, before giving big hugs all around!

The last page

Z gets big props too, because he's been a trooper, sitting quietly or playing on his own during all the hours G and I have wrestled with pencil and paper.

Isn't this a fairly momentous achievement?  To top it all off, G did a year-end assessment with his teacher, who found that he has improved in all subjects by a minimum of one grade level.  I'MNOTAFAILURE.  We celebrated today by getting G his very own library card and going out as a family to dinner and dessert.  Tomorrow we'll celebrate by not doing any worksheets.

And next year we're doing a different school program, but I'll tell you about that later.  For now, we're just thankful to be done.  Hooyah!!