Educating Noah

What a journey this year of homeschooling has been! Some of you may not know that this is Noah's first year of homeschooling. With my older two children we homeschooled in the JR High and High school years. They got along fine in Elementary, well Autumn did. Caleb I've since learned suffered in silence through it. So I thought Noah would be happy there too. I was so wrong.

My funny bright boy, turned into a depressed chaotic child, who his father and I didn't know. At home he would relax and be his normal happy self. At school by what the teachers told me he was someone else. He hated the work, he hated being confined to a chair, he didn't understand the other kids. (it's a big city school) there were bullies to spare.

I had a teacher tell me that he's ADHD. Two doctors told me no he's not, after testing him. The teacher said find another doctor that would diagnose him...Are you kidding me? One of the doctors was our pediatrician that's known Noah for his entire life. The doctor told me there's nothing wrong with Noah, there's something wrong with the classroom. Noah had an I.Q. test and tested in the average range for all subjects except he tested in the superior range in Verbal ability. That didn't surprise me, the boy can talk and he talked early in life. Everywhere I take him, he loves to talk to people and they comment on how intelligent he is. His gift for gab was not appreciated in school, not at all!

Even when he worked at school, he needed to talk it through, softly to himself. This made the teacher very upset. I spent many hours in his classroom, whenever I was there I saw my Noah!

Sitting still, working, relaxed and happy I was there. This confused the teacher...how can a child not have ADHD when his mom was in the classroom and have it when she wasn't? hmmm....

Maybe because that's impossible! You can't turn on and off ADHD!

I've had his first grade teacher tell me that he reads below grade level. What the heck?! At home the child read like crazy. I thought "what should a first grader be reading for goodness sake?" What was going on was Noah would refuse to read for the teachers. They placed him in a reading class, he still refused to read. I knew he could read and read well. I told them that, they thought I was crazy. They threaten to hold him back, I explained that to Noah. He went in the next day and read 5 levels up of books for the reading teacher. She couldn't believe it. He finished the year with the (20 year experience) teacher admitting she was wrong about Noah. He ended the year above grade level in all subjects and reading at a 3rd grade level.

Noah was a different child at school, this worried us very much. I began to get upset with Noah, I would give him long lectures that he had to "behave" at school! We punished him for his behavior, it never made a difference. It was really straining our relationship. I could understand why he was so different at school , than at home. He was certainly a strange child.

There was 40 minutes for gym, 40 minutes for art and 40 minutes for science a week. That's it! Times up, whether your still working or interested. All subjects Noah loves. From late Fall until Spring his teacher would not let them go outside for recess, indoor recess only. Meaning they could play with Lego's or games for 20 minutes quietly.They never used the gym for recesses.

They also took away outdoors lunch recess and shorten the lunch hours. They had assigned seats at the lunch tables and a no talking rule. How miserable! No wonder the kids are so out of control when they couldn't move their bodies and burn up some energy.

Noah's second grade year was a bit better. The teacher never called me at all. Whew!!!

But that's were he encountered two bullies that were just plain scary!!! That was it, we decided to homeschool him.

So this year has really been amazing! We are so happy we've made the decision to homeschool him now. He has read so many books this year, there is no way would he have read that many books if he was in P.S. He has learned all the math a 3rd grader should learn in record time. He's writing stories on the computer. He's a excellent speller.

I swear he's covered about 3 years worth of History in this one year. His favorite subject.

The time we've spent out in nature is an amazing gift! Studying, just being out in the woods is fantastic. We both have made wonderful friends at our homeschool group park days, nature classes, science labs.

He is relaxed, happy, confident and wanting to learn. Brad and I are much less stressed out now too! Even though homeschooling is more work on my part, that's part of being a mom. You have to do whats best for your child. I wish I never ever sent him to school, it nearly crushed the spirit of my amazing little boy. He's great now, so I shouldn't dwell on it.

In the beginning of the homeschool year Noah really wanted homeschool to be "school like" He hadn't deschooled himself yet. So that's what we did. After just a few weeks Noah relaxed a bit and found his groove with homeschooling. He was so amazed that I was asking him what he'd like to learn and what he'd like to do first. This child just bloomed! Now we are almost unschoolers.

We don't plan ahead on subjects, they come and go according to Noah's interest. Such as the Civil War has been a year long subject and will be a life long passion for Noah. There are days were we we role play...that's what Noah calls it. We pretend to be Lewis and Clark, pioneers or adventurers. This can take up the whole day. But you would believe the learning that goes on.

His imagination has returned! The only thing I was concerned about was math. I really thought it was an important year for him to learn math. So that is one area he had little choice in. I did try to make it has fun as possible.

Life is good now, I hope he'll never have to return to school. Unless someday Noah wants to go back school then he can. It's always his choice. For now he loves being home and free. Some days he'll say "Mom, I feel so sorry for the kids in school right now." Usually when we a walking a path in the woods.

Now he can read what he wants, learn what he wants and talks all he wants. He's focused and interested in so many things. I have to trust myself and Noah, that he will grow up to be a productive, caring, and most importantly... happy adult.

The teacher that wanted me to drug him so he would sit quietly and not move, pisses me off! I'm so glad I never gave in to her (she screamed in my face one day!) and listen to the doctors and my heart. Yeah, some days his talking drives me a bit nutty too! But I'm sure his talking is a gift of some sort, don't you think?