School.

Recently K has expressed a displeasure with our unschooling lifestyle. He's requested to go back to public school and I'm really struggling with the idea. I feel so strongly, so firmly against the public school system that I just can't fathom sending him back... essentially to fail.

K is not dumb, he just hasn't realized yet that he is and has always been a non-conformist. I can remember a 3rd grade meeting with the school, the social worker and her people, the teacher... and them saying to me (spitting it out at me, really) that K was a non-conformist. I looked at them totally perplexed at the disdain they were showing over this label. Really? Is being a non-conformist so bad? Apparently to the public school model it is.

How I wish I could go back to first grade with him and take him out then. How I wish I could have just followed my gut that was screaming that this IS wrong and just do it rather than listening to family who told me that I would never have the patience to keep my kids home. I do feel I had a lot of growing to do before I could keep the kids home but I think I would have rose to the challenge quite gracefully. I hate that I had to blindly follow because that's just what someone does... all kids go to school, homeschoolers are strange, etc.

I know someone is whispering in his ear, telling him that in order to make anything in this life he MUST get his high school diploma. He MUST comply to the standards that 'everybody else' had to go through in order to get anywhere. I know someone is in his ear telling him that he will get a scholarship to go to college... and I know someone has taken the very idea of 'school' and made him believe that it's all art and music and sports. I have tried explaining that it isn't but it's hard to tell somebody something they don't want to hear.

For now we are at a standstill. He's agreed to stay home and I'm desperately seeking opportunities for him that will somehow stimulate his non-conformity and encourage his artistic flair. His love of all music and his appeal to 'fit' in. I know in the end he'll be just fine. He will because he's my beautiful music man, non-conforming artiste. ;)