I have been doing more research on homeschooling - like always - and I am leaning heavily toward hs W as well. B and I were talking about it tonight and he seemed to agree (sort of, after a while). He was hoping I would go back to work one day so we can save up to move into our own house. I understand that, but my main focus is on the kids and their happiness and success in life. I was telling him about all the learning W does on his own lately and how he just has this passion for wanting to know and do it all. He has been reading books (and labels and signs), doing his little workbooks, measuring with the tape measure (learning about inches and feet), asking more awesome questions (today was "What makes a balloon go up?", which led to "What is helium made of?", and "How are shadows made?"), creating small words on MS Word, playing with letter tiles, playing website games (patterns, matching, etc), cooking, Legos, drawing, taking pictures, counting money, adding and subtracting on his fingers, finding places on the globe, learning state mottos with quarters and licence plates (with J and K's help!), and writing his name and other words. All this within the last week!

At a party today, B's brother went on about how his ds (14) almost failed out of school and was expelled twice this year. And his dd fell in with the wrong crowd and became absolutely "incourageable". I reminded B of K's "friend" problems at school, too. Then I brought up how well J has done this year and about her writing an awesome essay. I told him I felt that she won because all the other kids have these damn school methods and rules exuding from their essays and J just wrote out what was her true self in her own atypical way. I explained all of my feelings about why homeschooling and especially unschooling was so much better than any school. I asked him what he thought the real point of school was. I also stressed that we were so fortunate to have very self-motivated kids - which could hinder success at school.

Do we want W to be forced into a strict mold where he will have to change his natural learning style to please some strangers who don't even really know or love him? And be made to take test after test so the teachers can say they did their job? And follow terrible rules (no you can't go to the bathroom again, wait in line, no talking at all, lunchtime was/is at 10:30am (or 1:30pm) - too bad if your hungry now, stay in your seat, read this, write this, think this)? And be away from his family for 6 hours a day/5 days a week - starting at 5 years old? And be made to do even more tedious work once he's home? And be subject to bullies, strangers, teachers' bad moods, isolation, competitiveness, punishment, criticism, petty threats, and feelings of inadequacy? And most of all, no longer enjoy learning for what it really can be? All the spark and enthusiasm he has now will be lost to pleasing someone else every day. And he probably won't even realize it's happening.

But I will.

Yeah, I think my mind is made up. I will allow him to try the 2hr-a-day preK this year since he is so looking forward to it, but that's where it will end. Now I just need B to get more confident in this decision.