Mom of two boys wrote:
Anna1111 wrote:
Welcome! (((Hugs))))
While I know some amazingly supportive professional teachers, and I come from a long line of professional teachers, I think what you encountered is more normal. Essentially, you're telling them that you're going with another "brand" of schooling, and their egos are wounded. It's rather like telling the folks who run McDonalds that you've decided Burger King makes a better burger and you'll be eating there from now on.
Come & chat with us each day - or whenever you can - and you'll have some encouragement & support in this endeavor : )
Thanks, I didn't even think about it that way, but you're probably right. I think that possibly, homeschooling might also be less common than I realize. This isn't the first odd reaction that I've received. When I got a call from the special ed teacher from the elementary school a few weeks prior, I informed her that we didn't have anything to discuss as I was planning to homeschool. Her response was dead silence - to the point where it got sort of awkward. She was literally speechless! I was thinking something along the lines of "wow, she must live in some kind of a bubble" but now I'm starting to get the idea that maybe the idea of homeschooling really is honestly something that these people have never really thought about before.
Regardless, my sons teacher apologized again to my husband this morning and she also wrote me a pretty detailed note describing how sorry they are in a sincere effort to fix this. That helps a lot. At least they aren't acting like they were entitled to say the things that they said. I'm still feeling pretty crummy about the whole thing though.
Homeschooling is actually pretty common in America - and is becoming more common every day.
http://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/It shares the statistics for homeschooling - and how common and how tremendously successful it is. I think you'll find it tremendously helpful at this point.
To be fair to the public school teachers - the very nice, devout public school teacher who reviews our portfolio every year was hesitant at first by the idea of us homeschooling - BECAUSE - she teaches in a "challenging" city school and has seen one or two of her students pulled out of school to "homeschool" in dysfunctional families where she feared for the child's welfare.
Sometimes these public school teachers have seen it all, and have their guard up. It can take them a bit to adjust.