I’ve been surfing. And reading. And following all sorts of links related to homeschooling. I then felt compelled to record a few thoughts on my own schooling. Here is the rambling report that followed:

I carried a bookbag with a bold statement across the front:

I [Heart] School.

And boy did I. I LOVED school as a small child. I attended Westminster Christian Academy in Augusta, Georgia, from K-4 through the first half of second grade and I have many great memories of my time there. One year my class celebrated “P” Day and we enjoyed a Picnic Party outside where we ate Pizza and Popcorn and Punch. And of course I wore Pink and Purple (my two favorite colors at the time). To celebrate Thanksgiving we all dressed up as the first pilgrims and Native Americans and invited our parents to come to some sort of special meal. I have fuzzy memories of an all-school fun day, complete with various relay races and water balloon fights, as well as a very Southern kindergarten graduation ceremony held at my church (every last kindergartener was dressed in white for the celebration). Mrs. Lovingood, the most grandmotherly assistant kindergarten teacher on the planet, holds a special place in my mind, while Cheryl Beach, a close family friend, was a fabulous second grade teacher who was known for her delicious monkey bread and sweet heart. When I moved across the country to California in the middle of the school year, it was Mrs. Beach who created a special book full of well-wishing letters from my classmates. She glued the letters to brightly-colored wallpaper samples – I still have the book in a box in my basement.

I now realize that my parents deserve most of the credit for my great education, from its roots at WCA to its pinnacle at Lincoln Southeast High School.

My mom read to us all the time when we were small. Our book collection was enormous (I can remember Adam going through the books and claiming them as his own by writing his name in front covers) and reading was always fun for us. That is, until Andrew bucked the system. But he likes to read now, so that’s water under the bridge. My folks couldn’t punish Adam or me by sending us to our rooms – alone time was a perfect time to read a book! True punishment was telling us that we couldn’t read. When we moved to California we entered the public school system and from what I remember, Mom worked hard to enter us into the TAG program (Talented and Gifted, a bit of a lofty title, in my opinion). Westminster had pushed me ahead of my classmates somewhat, and I think I would have been bored without TAG activities. One TAG project involved building, interestingly enough, a flume. We built a model-sized, working flume… Pretty cool thing for a third grader! I also began participating in spelling bees, where I recall losing once on “affidavit” which I chose to spell similarly to my dad’s name. And other than confusing “minstrel” with “menstrual” I think I did pretty well.

The remainder of my public education years were spent in the small town of Klamath Falls, Oregon, as well as here in Lincoln. In each school, in each location, I have wonderful memories of good times. There was the school year where I had the ultimate in creative teachers, Mrs. Griffiths, who figured out how to take her classroom on field trips despite being allowed only once school bus trip a year. We bicycled to the Oregon Institute of Technology to study robotics and walked downtown to take gravestone rubbings while learning about epitaphs. We made apple pies in boys vs. girls teams and had them taste-tested by the school janitors. In junior high I learned how to build stage sets, use a Macintosh computer to design lighting for theater productions, and dreamed about stardom in a theater class. My high school experiences are too many to record here, but suffice to say that I was afforded great opportunities to grow and learn during senior high. It wasn’t until I went away to college that I realized how many opportunities I had been given. And it wasn’t until very recently that I learned that the difference between high school and adulthood is that in school there are many people that want to see you succeed – and furthermore, they literally hand you opportunities where you can learn and be successful. Once you reach adulthood, it’s up to you to find your own way.

All this to say that I attended one private school and four public schools by the age of 18 and I don’t for one minute regret my schooling. It is for this reason that I want to enroll Livia in Lincoln Public Schools in approximately three years.

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As I post this entry, I need to acknowledge how incomplete an explanation it is for why I plan to have Liv attend public schools. Other factors that I may blog in the future include Livia’s needs and learning styles, the strength of particular schools and teachers, my own personality type and strengths and weaknesses, and, perhaps most importantly, my ideas related to issues of fear, control, and trusting God regarding my children.

There. I think I’m done modifying this post now. ; )