back to reality

8:39 PM 5/28/2007

Returned from home school conference. It was fabulous. We came home with a greater realization that home-schooling is for our children. We have some good friends who told us, "the conference was wonderful; now we know that we will not be using the Thomas Jefferson Education (TJ Ed) method." Let it be known (and we are not the first) that the TJ Ed method isn't for everyone and it's not necessarily better than the conventional conveyor belt method most often used in the public school systems around the country. It is simply a tool used to educate.

I still remember when JE and I first felt that we should home school our son. His first experience with public school seemed to go well; his and our memories of his kindergarten year and first year of elementary education was really good. His second year was different. About a week after he started second grade, he started manifesting tics, gestures and mannerisms that indicated his heightened stress in general. He would randomly start pulling at the neck of his shirt over to his shoulder, cleared his throat every 5 seconds, twitch his head toward his shoulder at random. I witnessed this one day when we were walking home from the bus stop. I almost cried as I watched him twitch and grunt all the way home.

Then there was the night when JE and I woke up to a scream from TD's room. We rushed in and found him gasping for breath. We were both scared, not knowing what to do. We took him to the emergency room and after waiting 5 hours, we were told he was throwing a temper tantrum. JE and I came to a different conclusion -- TD was experiencing an anxiety attack.

Following our conclusions, we attempted to work with the public school on this. We took TD to a neurologist who diagnosed TD with Tourette's Syndrome. We were told that we could create a contract that would do things like prevent a teacher from correcting our son's papers in red ink. That just didn't seem right to me to offer a band-aid to fix the problem and it didn't leave JE and I in any better situation to help TD. The teacher said she would be more sensitive to TD. The tics continued and we visited with the principal and teacher again. The option of putting TD in a class with severely mentally-challenged children was offered, but that was not what TD needed and my wife and I knew it.

At that point, we started seriously considering the option of home school, an option that would leave JE and I in control of our son's education.