Don't Miss It!

This past week as I was checking out at my local grocery store, the cashier asked about my Fibonacci t-shirt and if I was a teacher.  I told her I was through a hybrid-homeschooling program.  One day a week we meet together as a community while students work independently at home the other four days.  She went on to tell me about her two adult children who work as high school teachers.  Both her children were dismayed and distraught with what they have to put up with.  She recounted how one teacher gave a student a B.  Not too long after the parent showed up with her attorney and threatened the teacher with litigation if the grade was not changed to an A.  Needless to say, the teacher relented but felt abandoned by her administration.  

I mentioned that I had a similar experience when working in a local public school.  One of my students was being bullied by a player on my team.  I had asked my player to stop bullying this girl.  Within a week or two, I was called into the Dean’s office along with the parent of my player and her police officer boyfriend.  The police officer began telling me what he was going to do to me if I didn’t drop the topic with my player.  The Dean supported the police officer.

The cashier lamented how things have changed in high schools.  She said if her child had gotten in trouble, she would have gotten mad at her child but now parents get mad at the teacher.  We have lost reasonable standards of good behavior and replaced them with defensiveness regardless of right or wrong.  

Walking away from that conversation, I can’t help but think of what parents have to go through to homeschool.  At least one of the parents has to pause, reduce, or sacrifice a career which is no easy thing to do in a culture that esteems money and success.  Children are not always thankful for the attention, standards, and exhortation to rise to a higher level than those around them.  

And yet, on that final day when all has been said and done, will any parent be grateful that they chose the free and watered down school option with little to no personal investment required than the one where they poured in their time, attention, resources, and love?  

Children are only young once.  Don’t miss it.