One of the main reasons we want to home school is that we figure we'll never find a school with a curriculum we like, with any decent number of children of color, for tuition we can afford.
Except we just did.
We found a Montessori school near us that actually has a serious commitment to diversity and it's working. There are at least 2 or 3 African American kids per 15-20 kid class, and lots more non-Black kids of color, too.
The curriculum is classic Montessori, which I mostly like. I like the multi-age classrooms (each "level" incorporates 3 years), the individualized "work plans" for each student, the complete absence of grading (quarterly anecdotal reports) and the physical classroom space. What sometimes squicks me a little about Montessori is the emphasis on orderliness and the idea that there is One Right Way to do everything. But this particular school (we went for a private tour) seems to have a flexible enough attitude not to be too awful about that. I do like the emphasis on respecting the materials and each other and tidying up after yourself.
I wish Montessori didn't insist on calling everything the children do "work." I realize this was Maria Montessori's way to emphasize the importance of children's play, I just wish we could respect play, as play and not call it work. But that's kind of a semantic issue and I can get over it.
I am also not ready for Nat to be in a full-time school and don't think I will be for a long time. This program is three hours/five days. We might very well skip Fridays on a regular basis, if she goes, since Friday is usually "yea! Cole-mom is home, let's hang out with the family all together" day and Nat did so terribly when asked to just spend 45 minutes tap-dancing on Fridays last Fall.
If she goes, it will be in the Fall when she's four and a half. I am telling myself it's okay, because I am getting roughly this many hours of baby sitting, now, so it will still give me plenty of time to do all the same home school things I do now (or plan to do this spring, after not being able to keep on top much last fall during all our moving and settling).
Nat would get two full years of part-time before she went into the 6-9 year-olds class for an 8am-3pm day. I don't know how I feel about 8am-3pm days for a 6-year old. Maybe we can keep taking Fridays off or something, if we decide to do this school at that point. And Nat's birthday is in February, so she'll be fully six and a half then.
But this brings me to money. We can afford the half-days, as the money for that is slightly less than I'm paying for baby sitting now. The trouble is, we'd still need some baby sitting, because of Selina. But not as much. And the nice thing is I can spend the time when Nat is in school (and Selina isn't with a sitter) hanging out with Selina so she can get her own good strong home education going between now and 4 if we do this same thing with her.
I'm also reminding myself that we can not go to the 6-9 year old class if we don't want to or it doesn't seem like the best decision (or we can't afford the full-time tuition, the very same year Selina would be starting to do the 3-6 year old half days). I had been pleased to learn that school is not compulsory for kids until 7 years old in Illinois, and was thinking seven would be the first time I'd even consider school, but probably wait until nine. We could, theoretically, bring her home again for the 6-9 years and send her to the third level ("upper elementary" they call it) at nine and a half.
On the other hand, the Montessori place is small, with a 1:10 teacher:student ratio and it follows a lot of the same philosophy that attracts me to home schooling. Its weaknesses are music and physical education, but we'd have time (in the half-day years, anyway) to keep Suzuki and church choir and capoeira in our plans. I don't want us to be rushed and stressed and over-scheduled when Nat is only six, because she's in school full-time and trying to cram in "extracurricular" things. The school does keep to a half-hour homework limit after the kids hit the 9-12 year old class, so that bit seems reasonable.
We will apply for the fall and see what we see. I do think Nat will really enjoy it. It's totally up her alley. She will thrive with the freedom to explore the room and choose what she wants to do, and she will enjoy playing with the same other kids--at a range of ages--every day. I think she'll handle that "One Right Way" to do everything without getting a perfectionist or compulsive hang up, like some kids definitely do. I just hope she doesn't get bored with the One Way, or if she starts inventing her own ways, they let her. Because that's how she is. When she finishes out the learning curve for something, she complicates it. Most commonly, she complicates it by turning it on the adult who's trying to "teach her" and tries to teach the adult. "What sound does B make?" she'll ask "b-b-b" I'll say "Good, Mama Shannon, I'm so proud of you!" she'll praise.
Can't you just see her doing that with the counting beads to her Montessori teacher?
It will be an adventure, I guess.
