I'm baaaaack :)

Well, we have had an eventful month, those Joyful Learners and I.

It was very nice to hear that people were missing the blog, but it was also making me even more conflicted. Ella has decided to try school, and Declan also wanted to go. Due to some other issues in our lives, I thought that this might be a good time to go with their desire to try.

It is very hard to make this decision. Many people in my life who I know through homeschooling have made a point of telling me how much their own children will never want to go to school, and how grateful their children are for the homeschooling lifestyle.

This makes me feel (whether it is intended or not), that they have an implied judgement on my failure to make my children *love* being homeschooled, or that they want school because I am an unschooler, or not really an unschooler, or whatever the implied judgement is.

Granted, I am not in the best most secure head space right now, so I could be making this all up.

Anyway.

Ella was *very* clear. She LOVES her life. She is happy. She likes her friends, she loves her family, she is secure. She is grateful. She is learning. She wants to try school.

She has been wanting to explore school for a good 6-8 months now. I did what most "good" unschoolers would recommend. I expanded our world, I connected more. I facilitated. I validated.

I finally realized that I was making a big mistake.

I had finally hit that place (her wanting to try school) where I was not letting her make her own decisions. I was, in fact, manipulating her into "appreciating" the gift of unschooling, while at the same time denying her wish to try something new.

If it had been skydiving, I would have said, "Let's explore that!"

If it had been driving a car, I would have said, "Hmmm....how can we fill that desire?"

But it was school.

And I was saying, with all my gyrations and interesting strewing, "WHY!?!? What am I doing wrong? What can we do differently?" All the while implying that her desire was wrong.

So I said, "Okay. Let's give it a go."

Now, I am wondering where this will lead us, where this will leave this blog, what I am going to do in this new chapter of relating to the kids and school.

But, I am back here. And will be keeping you updated on the Joyful Learners in school for the time being.

November is National Novel Writing Month

Well, I am going to try again. It is National Novel Writing Month again. Ella is actually joining me in this pursuit and we will see how it goes. So far, I have more than 2000 words, which sounds impressive until you calculate that I will have to write 1666 words a day and so today I have to write about 3000 words to keep on schedule.

I am being quite verbose, and every minute thinking of Mr. Burns (both mine and Richie's high school English teacher) saying I had "diarrhea of the pen." I am sure he is rolling over in his grave at all these writers writing for word count and editing in December for clarity.

So, how this will effect my blogging will remain to be seen. I am thinking either I will write a lot to "warm up" (read: procrastinate), or I will actually get to writing and not blog much.

Ella's goal, as a Young Writer, is set at 18,000 words. She has writing nearly 1000, and she had to kill off a character who just wasn't working. My goal is set by NaNoWriMo at 50,000.

Okay, with the near hurricane outside, I am off to try to get to 3000 today.

Banned Books Week

We love banned books. In fact, reading a banned books list is like reading a list of my favorite books and authors. Maybe that is because of my liking for fantasy and horror and my fond childhood memories of Judy Blume. Maybe because I love Mark Twain and JD Salinger.

Maybe just because I am passionate about exercising my rights.

Getting Approval

This summer, I sent my letter in at the last minute, as usual. Then I went away for pretty much the first two weeks in Sept.

While I was gone, someone called and said I had filled out the wrong form.

Huh?...well, since I do a progress report and letter of intent with listed materials, I don't know why they couldn't write "see attached" on the *new* form, as I did on the *old* form.

Then, the day before I got back, some one called and said that the principal would like to meet with me. My dh was home, and he said, "Okay, she's away, but she'll set it up when she gets back."

Again, um, huh? And, no I won't.

The principal *can't* require a meeting. I called him and said I didn't want to cause any trouble, but felt that it was important to stay within the requirements of the law.

He said, "Well, you are the only homeschooler I know of!" (laughing, ha ha, you wacky woman, clearly implied).

I said (laughing slightly and gently), "All the better to not set a precident!"

Total silence on his end.

Then, he says, "Well, I'll talk to our lawyer and get back to you" (all laugher and bon homme gone now).

Now I freaked out.

But, I went about my business. I knew I was right and that I had every right to homeschool my child and that Massachusetts legal statutes require only that I be "of competent ability and good morals".

But, still I worried for two weeks, and didn't hear anything.

I contented myself by thinking that this was a new principal and he probably had bigger fish to fry than little ol' homeschoolin' mama me.

And two weeks later, I got my approval.

Monday in fact.