Daycare and a homeschooling revelation

Further to my homeschooling post, today an opportunity in disguise presented itself.

The new daycare was officially notified as of 530pm this afternoon that the kids are being pulled out. To cut a long story short, Jase went to get them this afternoon and when he got there, there were 15 kids sitting on a mat looking scared... being "supervised" and yelled at by a single carer telling them to stay on the mat. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to figure that doesn't sit right with us OR regulations... so, we had a chat to Julian about whether he liked the "new school" or "Kimmy's school" as he refers to the other one. He has always said he liked the new one more, until today when he told us he likes Kimmy's one because the teachers are nicer and I have to say we agree.

I called the ABC centre and gave notice and then called our old daycare where we feel so much love and really feel spoilt in comparison, and I told the director there I'd like to book the kids in for Monday and keep their Wednesday and that we'd somehow find a way to get there without a car.

I thought I'd like Julian to attend daycare 3 days a week, but they are chockers on all days except Monday and Wednesday so it wasn't an option. I was initially disappointed but settled for being on the waiting list for a third day for him and then WHAMMO got one of those little lightning bolt moments of clarity.

Here i was trying to get him into a place designed for preparing kids for school when just a couple of posts ago I was talking about staring a homeschool journey. Go figure! I 'got' what an opportunity I could make of that day with him, rather than putting him into daycare for the extra day. So I'm stoked that it crept up on me and I realised it and am stoked for what i believe is yet another blessing in disguise.

Following this, I spoke to a friend of ours tonight who "officially" starts homeschooling his son next year. We talked about the importance of having an environment for kids to learn in in a collective type set up with other children (not age specific, but just in relation to learning social responsibilities) rather than having it occur in an isolated, age specific or individual setting.

I love discussing educational philosophy, so our chats about schools and deschooling are always a joy for me.

If I think about it, I really began having an interest in deschooling and homeschooling just over 8yrs ago when studying to be a teacher. I realised pretty early in my degree that I definitely didn't want to teach in a school environment as I didn't subscribe to institutionalised learning environments. I decided that even though I wouldn't teach in a school setting, I'd still do the degree so I could at least feel 'qualified' to teach my own kids should I want to. (I'm still 5 subjects away from completing that degree I should add.. but I have decided I don't need to be qualified with a degree in order to teach my kids... it's what we do before school starts and before the school day and after school anyway!)

Anyway, back to talking to my friend...

I told him that I think we're ready to embark on the homeschooling journey too... and that I'm still in an information gathering phase... deciding if i want to follow a curriculum or not, and that while I'm excited about all the opportunities it presents, I'm also a bit scared of the responsibility involved!

I told him we'd be more than willing to team up with him and his wife to share resources and responsibilities with our kids beginning next year.

To top it off, he also manages our local kohanga reo - which is a Maori culture and language pre-school. The kohanga is only a suburb away from us, and he's hoping to have 2 days a week at the kohanga as part of the 'curriculum' for his son and any other kids who attend. I told him we're interested in teaming up for sharing responsibilities to make it a collaborative type arrangement.. so watch this space!