Hmm

Some of you know that we've been thinking a lot about schooling for next year - homeschool, private Jewish school, public school... (Ok, anyone who knows us at all knows that the chances of pigs flying are possibly slightly greater than the chance of us sending our kids to an American public school. If that offends anyone, so be it.)

One of our current dilemmas is that the Jewish school has what we see as a very rigorous Kindergarten program. They basically do double curriculum (ie. secular and Judaic studies) so I can understand the need for a lengthened school day, but 7:55am until 2pm presents the following problems:

1. 7:55am?!??!?! This would require leaving the house no later than 7:30am every morning. Need I say more?

2. Rachel is a grouch for at least an hour in the morning until she's feeling more awake and ready to eat something. I don't relish the thought of having to wake her up at 6am every day. Even if she's awake on her own, I cannot imagine getting us out the door at 7:30. Again, I say, MUSICIANS DON'T DO MORNINGS!!!

3. 6 hours for Kindergarten seems really really long. I think that this would be a real stretch for Rachel. Whatever happened to good old half-day Kindergarten? (Ok, I know the partial answer to that is that working parents prefer full-day programming and so there you have it. While I agree that it is easier logistically, I think that it makes for a very long day for a 5-year-old.)

4. As if I want to have to pick up Rachel at 2pm every day knowing full well that would be smack in the middle of Anna's afternoon nap. Yes, I could likely tweak the nap a bit, but it still seems rather annoying.

5. $9K for tuition for the year. Yes, they do have financial assistance but one look at our bank account would deny us any outside aid given that proceeds from our house sale are in there. (And no, we would not hide that from anyone despite the fact that the funds are technically in a foreign account!)

Anyway, it looks like we're pretty serious about trying out homeschooling in the fall. We've talked a bit to Rachel about it and she is actually very enthusiastic. I've been reading a few books on homeschooling. So has Rachel - for kicks, I asked her to read the back of one of the books to me. She did. Every word. Even the "hard" words like option, accessible, alternative, perplexing, misgivings and adventure.

Given that the typical Kindergarten sight word list contains words such as he, she, am, are, yellow, cat, dog, etc, I think that we may be onto something with this learning at your own pace theory.

Besides, it'll be fun being once again outside of the mainstream. If nothing else, we're always good for some behind-the-scenes gossip. "Ben and Jane are crazy. They moved to the US then back to London and then to the US again and now they're planning to homeschool. They really must be religious nuts with no desire to produce well-adjusted socialized children."

Comment away...