Hi!
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and feelings as far as your decision to homeschool is concerned!
I feel much the same way about many of the points you made - I just can't seem to communicate it well when people ask me face-to-face why I'm planning to homeschool.
I'm already really sick and tired about people commenting on how I'm going to socialise my child and the newest one was a lady from my church who asked how my son is going to have friends if he doesn't go to school???
Excuse me?? He hasn't gone to school as yet, but he has friends already, from mother's group, playgroup, and children's church!! I should have been brave enough to say - by homeschooling I have the power to help my child choose quality friends - rather than being lumped with a HUGE group of children and be under the influence of people I don't want him to spend a bulk of his time with.
Before I had children I worked as a casual teacher in the public schools and the catholic schools and bullying was a big pet peeve of mine. I felt horrible reading that your kindy aged son was bullied so severely by year 6 boys. Did the school (try) to do anything about it? Or simply turn a blind eye?
My son is very bright and I do believe that he would find school boring and would act out and get in trouble. I also don't feel that schools teach boys in a way that is helpful to them so having two boys so far I would be really leery to put them in school. Right now he has a natural love of learning and I just KNOW that would be ripped out of him within weeks of entering school and that just breaks my heart.
I am enjoying chatting with you and I hope that you don't mind me continuing to ask you questions and run ideas past you as I prepare to embark on my homeschooling experience.
Do you (or have you) used a set curriculum at any time or do you (have you) created your own the entire time you have home schooled?
If you created your own curriculum how do you show that the child has mastered each KLA for their age? Do you make your own tests? Or create a portfolio to show what you have taught/they have learned over the year?
10 month awake for second time tonight - more later