Homeschool

It is official.
As of February 18th 2010 we are homeschooling Nephi.
I went to Turtle Rock Elementary early Thursday morning, walked right into the office, looked the secretary in the eye, and said (stumbling over my own words, of course) "I'm here to dis-enroll Nephi from this school."
She looked at me with a slightly surprised look and said, "Okay."
She wouldn't miss us a bit. And frankly, I feel the same.

Nephi si absolutely stoked about being homeschooled. Its really nice! I think I miss 2nd grade more than he does! But at the truancy meeting I had to go to the other week, they said something to me that made me know this was the best decision. They said that if we dont get him to school on time and everyday, then his educational responsibilities will be taken away from me. It hit me that I never really took on the responsibility of truly educating my son because I have been leaving it mostly up to the school. How stupid of me. Since then, I have been so excited to teach my children everything I know. And the fact that I can teach them in the kind of environment they need is just a wonderful feeling! Nephi is such a "hands-on" kid. He needs a job to do every minute of the day. And not to mention the teacher to student ratio is amazing, the best you can ask for!! And this leaves a lot of freedom for us to go on vacations and other cool family outings and field trips! I'm going to try and really enjoy this because I'm not sure how long I'm going to want to do it for. This semester is a test run. I will definitely let you all know if it works out.
The good thing about college is that I can take some online classes while im homeschooling the kids. And since Shane has been better about spending more time with us I'm not going out of my mind so much! He will be there to stay with the kids if I need to go study or take a test or something. I am only going to do part time though. Two classes at a time MAX. At least until I have things organized enough to where I can go back full time to finish sooner.
I really love education. Not school, but learning. I want my kids to fully enjoy the learning aspect of life in general. Figure out how to do things, put the pieces together with a positive outlook on life. I want them to be what they want to be and not what society thinks they should be.

There are a lot of reasons why I think homeschooling is the best for Nephi. A few of them are the school he was in, the people there. They had labeled him the bad kid, the bully, the spaz. Which might be true, but the kids there were using it to their advantage. The egged him on, teased him and told on him for every little thing. His feelings got hurt and he pushed back, and he got in trouble. However, it was mostly the school districts laws. If he was late or absent one more time, they threatened to fine us, put us in jail, take our kids away.
I'm sorry, but is it really worth it to destroy a family just for some funding? I'm not actually that sorry, because money shouldn't mean that much to anyone, you greedy jerks.
That is the main reason we took him out.
Despite that, if Nephi didn't want to be taken out we would have let him finish up the year at least.

So I am figuring out a good curriculum for him, catering to his needs and pushing him along the paths he is best at (and has most fun in as well) trying to make the experience of learning something that is positive and natural, not forced or prison-like.