Little known fact about me: I was homeschooled for a year.

If I’m remembering correctly, the reasoning went something like this. My grades had been slipping for two years at that point, due to what I now recognize as my first ever bout with depression (because no, eleven-year-old me, wishing that you’d get hit by a car is not normal). I remember a lot of talk about me not knowing how to study, which is fair enough I suppose, and a lot of blame being cast at the decision of the school district to put me in a fourth grade class that was, charitably speaking, a disaster. 

(the same fourth grade class in which a boy gave me an index card with pee on it, in which I was so bored by the material that I took to drawing on my desk for hours at a time, in which I was a permanent member of the “100+ club” because I’d learned two years before that 0x0=0)

(if I’m casting blame for my depression, it falls at the feet of puberty hormones, a pair of abysmal school years in a row, and plenty of bullying)

So I was homeschooled for eighth grade. My sister was homeschooled the same year, because the district was thoroughly messing up the accommodations for her learning disability (at one point, someone caught her closing herself in her locker during a break in classes because she didn’t want to do her assignment). My brother was homeschooled the same year because it wouldn’t be fair to leave him out. 

It was a weird year. I know that, at the start, I was… reluctant, to put it gently, and by “reluctant,” I mean that I remember having some screaming afternoons for no reason beyond that things were weird; but I eventually got the hang of learning at home, especially after we got into a routine that largely consisted of schoolwork ending by 12:30 every day and plenty of free time afterwards.

My parents used mostly religious curricula; I don’t think it was all A Beka, which was the In Thing at the time, but I feel like I used A Beka for math. My science book talked a lot about how evolution wasn’t a real thing and came with some supplementary materials on that subject, including a book I loved called “Dinosaurs by Design,” which had lots of informational pages on dinosaurs sandwiched between illustrations of, for example, Adam and Eve hanging out with a parasaurolophus. 

(I had to look up how to spell that, don’t judge me, when I was in my dinosaur phase, everything got its name from The Land Before Time)

The history text wasn’t terribly memorable. The English/language arts stuff was great, but then again, I’ve always been an E/LA person. I had to memorize a bunch of poems, and while I don’t remember how any of them went, I remember the act of memorization. For math, I did Algebra I, and I cheated so very much. Whenever my mom would leave me alone to take a test, I’d grab her answer key and input everything, which she must have known about, but it happened anyway. And then in June, as I was preparing to head back to public school (having apparently learned how to study), I had to take the Algebra I final at the high school and panicked because I’d been cheating all year and now my inability to math would be public knowledge and my parents would be furious and it was the end of the world…

…and then I got a 93?

Oh, and then every week or so, we hoofed it up to the nearest Christian school for my sister’s in-school therapy (I think? I don’t remember much because I spent the entire time reading Baby-Sitter’s Club books and longing after the smell of pizza in the other room), and most of what I remember about that was sitting in the front seat of our van singing off-key along with my Sound of Music CD.

Even 20 years later, I can’t decide if it was a good or a bad experience; honestly, I mostly settle on neutral. I don’t know if I actually learned to study or if my depression just ebbed somewhat. I was in honors and AP classes throughout high school, so something went right somewhere. And I remember, my first day back at high school, being beyond surprised when the friends I’d last seen in June two years prior not only remembered me but were incredibly happy to see me. 

(hahaha, thirteen-year-old me was such a miserable child, someone please go back in time and help her and also please de-frizz her hair)

*

Meanwhile, in the world of today, we’ve decided to homeschool Sam for the school year. 

I’m excited for it and simultaneously terrified and worried, because I don’t want to pull him out of school this year, but it honestly seems like the best option. Even in Massachusetts, where a lot of people have been doing really well social distancing and wearing masks, we’ve started seeing Covid-19 cases creep back up, which bodes incredibly ill for the school year. Had we kept up with the low numbers of the summer, I’d have been happy to send Sam back for at least a few weeks so that he could’ve had access to the school’s counselling services and learned to use the distance learning tools they’d set up for the students. 

But the numbers started to creep up.

And ultimately, Sam is… not the best at being self-guided. If we set him up on my computer or on a laptop and said “you need to do your schoolwork,” it wouldn’t take very long for him to end up on YouTube watching Markiplier play a game in which he’s a piece of bread (this is a thing, apparently). I don’t blame him for that, because he’s six. I barely know any adults who, when presented with doing work versus watching videos on YouTube, will easily choose the former. 

It’s the rock and the hard place I’ve been talking about. School isn’t safe. Distance learning won’t work for him. What are we supposed to do?

Well, it turns out that the answer is homeschooling. 

Just for a year, mind. I still think that Sam really needs that social aspect to his education, and that if Covid can get under control by next September (please please PLEASE), I want him to be back in a classroom for that reason alone. He needs kids his age. He needs socialization. He hasn’t had that in ages. 

But for now, homeschooling.

A friend of mine in the next town over posted a link to the curriculum we’re using; it’s called “Moving Beyond the Page,” and it’s largely literature-based and customizable. Sam’s a pretty smart kid overall, but he’s definitely far more advanced in math than he is in reading/writing, so we’re doing a first grade curriculum for reading and writing and a third grade (!) curriculum for math (because he can multiply and divide, and I listen to him do it and think how are you doing this, I couldn’t do that in my head until I was an adult). 

In my fantasy dream world, I’d want to grab one or two of his friends and their families and just do a small group working on the same curriculum, but that almost feels too risky and seems impossible. I wish there were a way to make sure he keeps in touch with his friends, but they’re all so young that the Messenger Kids app ends up being a “sometimes I remember to message my friends but mostly, I play games” thing. And I know that, if he’s anything like me, he’ll spend a lot of the first couple of months in screaming tears over our new normal. 

But. If he’s anything like me, he’ll adjust and come away better for it, having a good and fun (albeit very weird) year and blowing his future second grade teacher’s mind by asking them, “So when do we start square roots?” as everyone else is just getting into their times tables.