The following are the benefits of homeschooling :
1. Healthy sleep
I can bet that my non-schoolgirl sleeps more than any random student. Even if you take those who study in the second shift. If Marie wakes up with an alarm clock, it is only because she started it herself (or the exam, but this is not often). And even on such days, she has time (we haven’t had any exams in the first lesson), and we don’t have to rush headlong, be late, run half-way, stumbling and not looking around at a crosswalk. I still remember how I felt at the first lessons at school – did you ever get a basketball in your face? Something like this – buzzing in my head, swimming in front of my eyes, zero thoughts. Therefore, I really appreciate the opportunity to sleep, because – a surprise! surprise! – I also now sleep more, because I do not need to be undermined in the morning, feed breakfast, help gather, send-escort, listening to constant nagging about “I hate school” and “how I want to sleep.”
2. Physical health
I probably won’t argue here – all of a sudden there will be very healthy schoolchildren-athletes, but I can definitely say that my daughter became healthier when she stopped going to school. Maybe the fact is that she sleeps without waking up as much as she needs. Maybe in the fact that it does not eat junk food in the school canteen and in the canteen. Maybe stress has become less in her life due to the fact that it is not necessary five days a week to conform to someone else’s ideas about her, to be nervous because of control and unpleasant assessments. And stress, as you know, weakens the immune system.
Surely I can say this – I still remember well the time when before going to school I gave the child several pills (vitamins, from a sore throat, general strengthening immunity fuflomycin) and with myself if a cough in the classroom interferes with the class. So this is no longer necessary. It is not necessary to send not quite healthy, but not enough patient to stay at home, the child in the class to the same not very healthy children. Now you can calmly cheer if you are ill, not bothering then going to the polyclinic to get a health certificate, where there are queues and other sick children and adults, so that the barely recovered child meets the next clip of pathogens.
3. Your daily routine
Not only the dream, how much is needed, not only the ascent, when you want, but we spend the whole day as we like. In elementary school, now children are not allowed to go home on their own – they must be met at the door. This means that at 12 o’clock I had to be at the school like a bayonet. Even if the temperature is shallow, there is a blizzard outside There were also adventures when, when I held my senior in school, I ran with Lerkin into the pool, and from there skipped back, and did not be late (it doesn’t matter that I didn’t have time to dry my hair). But worst of all, when he just falls asleep on a nap, and you have to wake him up, dress him and drag him to school. Do not leave him alone at home? It is good when the child is alone, or there is a free grandmother at your side. Another option is to hire a nanny, as we had for some time. But those who want to babysit for 3-4 hours a day – pick up from school, take to the music school, bring home – not so much. Everyone wants a full day to get more money, because the payment is hourly. In general, living by someone else’s rules, someone else’s graphics, and in any weather is not a fountain. Now, if the weather is good, you can learn lessons in the yard, or arrange a day off for yourself in the middle of the week, and if it’s bad, you won’t show your face on the street.
4. Own academic schedule
We are limited to the annual program – how much you need to know for certification is determined by the state and the school. But what and how much we do every day, week and month is completely ours. A little, but something. At school, the material is divided into equal pieces, it is assumed that children will learn it at the same pace for all. Marie, as I am sure many other children, unequally assimilates the material. In English, I am happy to swallow large portions, in biology and geography there are also favorite topics, but in mathematics you need to slow down, gain understanding at the micro level of each step in the solution algorithm, for example, equations, and then slowly move towards automatism.
At school, if you were at a birthday party on Sunday and did not have time to do homework by Monday – get two, on Tuesday there will be another task, or do both until a snowball from the homework has accumulated. I missed it, I was sick, I didn’t have time, I forgot – nobody cares, there is a schedule. The student is often in two states – in some lessons the rate of presentation of the material is too slow, it is easy for him, he is bored; in other lessons, the pace is too fast, the child is difficult, he does not understand, sometimes he even refuses to try to understand, because “it will not work anyway.” And we can afford, as much as we like, to run at a gallop across Europe or to slow down and stop. It is a pity that now it is necessary to turn in a year a year, for Marusya’s mathematics it was very helpful to get this extra time, which you managed to get by losing change on the first attempt.
5. Freedom of movement
This is partly a continuation of points 3 and 4: when planning the day and week, we can choose for ourselves where and when to go, not to postpone interesting places for the weekend, when there are a lot of people and queues at the cash desk if this can be done on weekdays. But for us the freedom of movement is also important in a broader sense – where to live. Since Marie does not go to school every day, we have changed places of residence twice (and this is not the limit). My husband is not for nothing called the Gypsy, there is something nomadic in my blood. Not only for pragmatic reasons, we moved to a more spacious apartment, then to a cottage in the area, so that the children could have a place to run and catch frogs. We want a novelty and adventure! It is valuable to us.
I am happy that we are not tied by a mortgage and school to one place – an apartment, district, city, country. Yes, we are attached to the school – but to appear there several times a year for certification is not at all the same as going there five or six days a week. We ourselves arrange and plan our vacation when we want, rather than counting the days until the long-awaited week in the fall and spring and two weeks in the winter! We go to our grandmother when we are bored. We are seriously thinking about going on a long vacation from the country, as many homeworkers / family workers do. Of the 12 months of the year, only 2 were needed for the exams. Compare this with 9 months on a short leash at the school. The difference in my opinion is obvious.
6. Security
You can think of me as a brood heel, but I’m happy that I can no longer be nervous every day – how can my child cross the road? Our school was across the road – two crossings, both with a traffic light, but for some reason, those who are in cars somehow don’t care for traffic lights or that the children are walking. Sleepy in the morning or a child tired after school is inconsiderate. And despite the fact that I trained my child by the road to cheer up and not to plod, without looking around, thoughtful, I cannot put in the brains of all motorists of the city! Alas! No, my Marusya is not locked in four walls now, she walks across the road alone, to the store, even on the subway and train, attempts have been made to travel independently.
But, firstly, not every day, secondly, with mandatory instructions on safety and behavior, thirdly, this is not a routine, this is a responsible independent excursion, the child has ears at the crown, she watches what is happening around, assesses the situation, and not dragged on autopilot in the dark winter morning.
About the danger in the school itself will not spread. We did not have hooligans who would take the money, spoil things, beat and offended. Who has this in school – they do not need to prove how pleasant it is to get rid of it.
7. Alien cockroaches
Everyone knows that teachers are different. I do not know how anyone, but it was a great relief for me to stop denying the different false attitudes that my child had been instilling in a day. With variable success, because sometimes my child’s authority was considered less, ahem, authoritative than a teacher’s. Our A.P. – as a wonderful person, and I am very grateful to her that in her class my daughter felt comfortable and safe, that Marusin neurosis, brought from another school, disappeared without a trace. But A.P. – a typical honored student-medalist, and her motto “first remember, then you will understand” did not suit at all for my child.
Maroussia cannot remember until she understands. That is, a certain amount remembers, but then everything disappears and remains empty, empty, empty. And to fill this emptiness all the same except for me there is nobody. But this is still a relatively harmless “cockroach.” Whether the case, when a teacher with a careless word (intentionally or not) instills in the child a sense of inferiority and helplessness in the face of the granite of sciences. You can’t get over that with any parental authority, believe me, I tried, to calluses on the tongue. It’s easier to leave and take the child out of this useless battle.
8. Savings
More precisely, not saving, but freedom to spend your money on your own. Now I’m not even about buying the notorious curtains or hangers in the classroom, not about the fees to the parents’ committee fund for flowers for teachers for the holidays. Let the flowers be, they have hard work. Since Marie has been studying at home (third year), I bought for her one thick notebook A4 on a spring and one folder with a cat (not used yet).
For everything else, we have leaflets, thin notebooks, albums and a laminated cardboard box in a cage that functions according to the whiteboard principle – wrote with a felt-tip pen, erased it. All this is in the house and do not need to specifically buy. No “total notebook 48 sheets in a cage”, no “separate notebook for the control,” no mixed covers, so as not to rumpled in a backpack. Stationery exclusively those that like Marisabel, and does not require a teacher.
Further clothes. Even with a free form every day, the front “white top, dark bottom” and the form of a physical-ru in the hall and on the street ski, shoes, shift, ski boots are still needed. This is the darkness of money, because it grows! The darkness of clothes and shoes that my child hates! Because it is not convenient. And does not wear, except when required by the school. It is already the third year without school, and I still give the bags a little worn (almost new) school clothes and shoes to friends whose children are still there. Yes, and Marie does not like these skis, she likes skates. Why should I spend money on what it will not use (skis), and then on what will be (skates)? Because the class should all together? Because the school can not organize a skating rink ?! Because the gym teacher does not know how to teach skates, but does he have standards for skiing ?!
Well, of course, all this good is lost endlessly along the road, left in the locker rooms, given to a friend, and completely forgotten. And we need a new and urgent. A bottomless pit for any good is our school! It doesn’t concern me anymore, hurray! Instead of all the unnecessary, I can allow the child to choose their own clothes and shoes that she likes to wear. And on the money saved on skis and notebooks to buy more books about space, capillary pens for drawing comics, a bracelet in the collection and a bag of gifts for the New Year. Because I want, and not because I need to go to school.