I got this email today from a friend and mentor in our local homeschool group. She is not the original author, but I appreciate her passing it along! Apparently the woman who wrote it lives in Utah and is a pillar in the homeschool community here. It's a great story.
How My Son Rebelled and Followed His Mother's Example
My oldest son (31) was raised in the home school rebellion mode of the `80's. He married a lovely intelligent girl who happened to be an engineer. He has a master's in Computer Science and works as a scientist with secret government clearance for a research company. (Yes. It's his dream job.) They kept their oldest child home for Kindergarten and then succumbed to pressure and put her in first grade. (The bright yellow school bus picks up at their very house. Every morning their little darling saw a bunch of kids dressed in the latest fashions with cartoon merchandising on their backpacks file into the bus.) She is now in 2nd grade and has regressed to grade level in math. Fortunately her teacher does not make her suffer through the phonic lessons, but instead lets her read chapter books in the coat closet. (This makes us smile because her father had the identical experience, being separated from his peers because he all ready knew how to read in first grade. Some things haven't changed.)
Anyway, they have been considering taking her out of school because 1) she hates it 2) losing math skills 3) bullying 4) doesn't have enough time with family 5) wants to read on her level 6) boatloads of busy work to distract her from learning. However, her mother has just been through a difficult pregnancy and wanted K to finish out the year. The baby arrived early, in March, and I went out to New Hampshire to help with the 4 children ages 7, 4, 2 and baby.) My son decided that he would take the 7 year old out of school for a week for the family event of a new brother and a visit from grandma. He sent a note in advance to inform the teacher and ask for assignments. She refused to give him anything and threatened that K would be critically behind when she returned. Odd, in that she is ahead in every subject. We had a lovely week. We went to museums in Boston and the zoo. We made bread and read stories. We had a cubic yard of sand delivered for the sandbox, (a cubic yard is a lot of sand!) We painted portraits and built Lego robots. We kissed and rocked and held the baby and sang him tunes with original lyrics.
A month later my son got a letter from the superintendant saying that if K missed one more day of school for any reason she would be considered truant and legal action would be taken. The next day she had a fever of 100*. He explained to her that it was not legal for her to stay home. She was instructed to go to school and shake hands with every classmate that she could, cough on her teacher and ask to be sent to the nurse. At 10:30am he got a call from the school nurse to come pick up K as she had a fever or 102*. When he picked her up from school he also picked up the paperwork for removing her from the system. He spoke with the superintendant and explained his reasons. The superintendant told him not to worry about the truancy letter because ¼ of the students in their district are absent more than the law allows. In New Hampshire, compliance with law is routinely ignored. I must have raised him to have a low tolerance for bad laws, because this was the last straw for my boy. Many grumble about bad laws and institutions. Those who take action are rebels.
Karen R.
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