Reply to Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences?

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Reply to "Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences? "

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am the "off the grid" Homeschooling poster, and PP describes it perfectly (although I feel like it's a pretty common term?)

the funny thing is, we're at one of the highly coveted schools EOTP that gets a lot of love, and I think they do their best to insulate the kids from the "pressure cooker" but I'm still feeling it and don't like many aspects of the teacher:student ratio or the access to outdoor time and generally feel like there isn't enough of a sense of fostering what my kids find interesting.  Yes,they all have to learn their ABCs at some point, but my oldest kid in particular is already starting to feel shame and internalizing his inability to be the "noarmalized" learner that teachers love in their classes.

Is there school in DC, private or public alike, that will allow him to follow his interests and allow him ample outdoor time to do the dreaming that this kid needs that doesn't also cost $40K/year and/or mean he's only going to school with incredibly wealthy children and all that implies? [/quote]

Can't tell what grade you're thinking about, so these skew older.

Sandy Spring Friends in  MD might be worth looking at -- logistically impossible for us and, while not 40K, still 30K, so maybe not realistic.  Couldn't get my head around Waldorf, but I've known a couple of kids who were happy at Washington Waldorf in Bethesda.

In DC, one of my friends has a kid who is happy and unstressed at School without Walls.  Another sent three kids through SWW pre-Rhee and their education sounded a lot like mine (and certainly included lots of mad scientist in the basement-type activity!) but that friend warned me off Walls, saying things had changed and I wouldn't like it.  Other friend's kid is there now-- so post-Rhee.  Which means I've gotten really mixed signals (and the two friends involved are both academic-y guys who understand/share my values and concerns) but enough positive feedback to think it's worth checking out, especially if choice is limited to DC proper.

And if you're seriously considering home-schooling (and therefore willing to forego cohort to a significant extent), I think both Stanford and GW have online HS -- MS even, in GW's case.  Depending on kid/curriculum, that might leave time to explore and certainly allow time- and place-shifting (work when you're most productive, seize the day when it's beautiful out, read in the park instead of at your desk).

Good luck and, if you find what your're looking for, let people know!  [/quote]

just out of curiosity, do you work?  EOTP "not off the grid according to everyone" poster here.  We both have jobs so for us I don't really see home schooling as a possibility.  But even if I quit my job, to be quite frank, I would only feel comfortable home schooling until a certain age - just because I am very liberal arts and never got anywhere near Calculus, almost failed Geometry, etc.  Do the Stanford courses provide enough info for parents who cannot teach their kids for the kids to teach themselves?  We would have home schooled in the early years if we felt we could have afforded to quit my job.  I would have loved to have done it.

But, the much maligned or underestimated summer medical courses at Georgetown University that my one kid wants to take are not something we could create in our house, especially the access to human cadavers part..........  These courses are for older kids - high school kids - and provide six college credits, so they are hard core.....  We kind of felt like we were home schooling to a degree in the early years just because the academics at the school were not that solid so we needed to supplement.  We did CTY.  Both working with kids in public does allow us to save the money to kind of do expeditionary learning in the summer on our road trips, which we adore - but again that is mostly about American History and other subjects I feel really comfortable with.  When we looked at the DC k-12 home schooling option we thought combining school and us would be better, but Stanford sounds pretty impressive.

Please let us know what you do and how it works out![/quote]

Hi PPs - "off the grid" here.  I'm currently managing a small business out of the home.  It adds to the bottom line, is very flexible, and while it helps, it definitely wouldn't cover private school tuition for two on top of our other expenses - we could swing it but it would be at the cost of retirement/college savings for sure.  I worked for a big corp for 15 years, allowing us to build a nest egg and pay for law school and that is now starting to show it's benefits and has allowed me to leave that stressful life behind.  (I pumped breast milk in the car and missed the sweet infant years -- although I'm not sure I'm cut out for that anyway, so don't cry for me Argentina...)  For all intents, I'm a SAHM today: pick up from school, do a lot of volunteering for school and other orgs.

I feel pretty sure I could implement an education for my kids that suits their needs far better than the school they currently attend - but they are young, probably younger than yours so I find this advice helpful.  And, in many ways, this is a great city to home school in!  (BTW just to cover bases we're not religious and that's no component of this desire in any way - truly.)  Plus, the idea of renting an RV and taking a cross-country educational trip is just so very appealing.  But to your comments pp, I'm not the best at the things they'll eventually need instruction in (see spelling and grammar in this post!)   This is part of the problem, I'm not sure that 1.  I'm cut out to home school, I clearly spend WAY too much time on my computer while my kids entertain themselves in the next room, 2. It's the dynamic we'd be introducing into our relationship that makes me very weary - mom as teacher?  and 3.  what about the social aspect?   Home school kids are WEIRD.

My oldest needs to hang off trees and dream - dream a lot - and once he learns to read at a prolific level (which is a little slow in coming) I think I'll be hard pressed to keep him out of a book because he ADORES a tale.  He's a story teller, that's where he belongs.  I'd love to travel and do month-long units and pick a single topic that HE wants to learn about and really dig into it and cover math and all of the other aspects in that vein, but my particular capacity for spending long days with an 8 year old -- mmmmm -- not the best.  My youngest is the "normalized" learner that teachers dream about - but is also very pensive and keeps too much close-to-the chest.  Hard to draw out what's actually kicking around in there - and I'm not sure I'm the best person to do that, less sure about that than I am helping my oldest.

I just honestly, and legitimately want to raise happy humans and I'm torn about how to best do that.  Perhaps I'm over-thinking it, but I don't think it's any more ridiculous OPs question than Private vs. JKLM, so here we are.  [/quote]

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