How Private Schools Groomed Me

PRIVATE SCHOOL BENEFITS

That I use in HOMESCHOOL

Even though I was the product of a teenage mom's single parent home, my mother scraped together enough money to send my brother and I to private school.

MY LOVE AND HATE WITH PRIVATE SCHOOL

I started private school when I was in Kindergarden. It was a small Catholic school across the street from my house.

I was an 'average' student that had a tendency to be talkative, social, and somewhat of a day dreamer.

In those days private school meant you worked harder, had discipline and you learned about God.

I loved my private school up through 8th grade. A lot of my cousins attended the school with me and it really felt like an extension of family. The nun's house was walking distance from the school.

I also believe that the Nuns were the only Caucasian people in my entire neighborhood, lol!

I LOVED being with other kids that were all being 'groomed' to do great things. To work harder than they thought possible, and to be kept in line from bullying or misbehaving by a tightly managed school environment - or - they got the 'boot' and were kicked out of the school.

I HATED that all the things above didn't work for my sons. Neither of my boys thrived in a PRIVATE SCHOOL environment.

WHAT I TOOK FROM MY TIME AT PRIVATE SCHOOL

and USED IN MY HOMESCHOOL

The rigor! Going to private school and being pushed beyond my boundaries with a lot of challenging work, and homework - MADE COLLEGE A BREEZE!

Even though by today's standards, I would have been pinned with possible attention and hyper problems, the fact that in Private School My Peers Worked Hard, it made me want to work hard.

Also, having so much work, I tended to be FORCED to FOCUS.

So, I started slowly grooming my kids in that manner.

Things I replicated from my private school experience:

1) We started homeschooling slowly with focus on remediation of skills
2) Each week I added more subjects, 'but noted to my kids to tell me if it was TOO MUCH'
3) Took away too much idle time. My youngest would destroy things, not on purpose, but because he was 'bored' he'd start to try to 'find' things to do.
4) I asked my kids what their interest was and filled their time with interest focused curriculums that they love.
5) Create an environment of learning and discovery.
6) Challenge them to 'THINK BIGGER' and research, plan, and create a PATH to their BIGGER
7) Practice the 'SKILL' of testing

PEER GROUPS are another strong area that homeschooling allows me to filter. They have friends that LIKE the same things they LIKE. But I also PUSH them to try things they never imagined. And you know what - 7 times out of 10, they end up loving the experience.

BENEFITS I HAVE WITNESSED

My kids adjusted EXTREMELY well to college material. They actually think that COLLEGE IS EASIER because they had a heavier course load and more deliverables during either HOMESCHOOL or their time at PRIVATE SCHOOL.

TIME MANAGEMENT and organization is a skill you learn when you have a LOT to accomplish. and my kids had many classes and projects to manage.

COMMUNICATION skills in writing and oral communication is much more advanced for their age because I make it easy for them to talk about their challenges with a subject, their schedule, or even challenge a grade I've given them. These are skills they needed when being a 'young' college student.

WRITING and COMPUTATION skills benefited since their curriculum always relied heavily on writing and computation.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX is something I instituted in my homeschool that WAS NOT in PRIVATE school. However, me being in a 'box' made me REALLY creative about how to get out and around the box, lol!  So, I always made my kids approach things in a scientific method approach to a plan A, plan B and plan C.