Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Choices. How is one to ever know the effect a choice they make will have? I’ve been thinking about this issue quite a bit lately. We all make countless choices and decisions everyday. Some matter very little; should I have a glass of water or a milk? Should we start our school day reading poems or get right into doing math? These choices probable have little lasting affect but what about some big choice. Should Military Kid save to earn the IPod Nano he so wants, or should we give it to him for Christmas? Should the boys dig the ditches for the drainage system with or without payment? Choices. whew, which is the right way? How will this choice effect the child? Oh if I only knew the answers ot these questions.

And then there are those choices that are made with some thought but with little knowledge of the long-term effect. One of those choices I have been thinking about quite a bit lately. In the spring of ‘05 Lee called and asked if ScienceKid would join her Science Olympiad team as an alternate, and travel with them to University of Illinois for the National Science Olympiad competition. With just a little thought we decided that ScienceKid should do this. After all he was ScienceKid; a kid who devours science. Earlier in the year, and actually the year before too, when Lee had asked SK to join the team we had been too busy with soccer, and swim team, and guitar lessons. Whew, what a full-plate. We have wised-up and limit the boys to just one activity which allows us to have good ol’ family time together. It is a choice that works for us but again I wonder if it is always a wise choice. Who really knows?

But this time we made the choice to send SK off on this adventure with the Science Olympiad team. So off he went, and since I went with him, I too caught the SO bug. The following year he was on the team and chose three events, one of them being Ecology. He enjoyed Ecology and started devouring all the biology books on our shelves. So last year while we did biology for our science he didn’t complain too much when he was given Food Science and Heredity as two of his five Science Olympiad events. Both events are areas of biology. Again he devoured our home library biology books and soon expressed a keen interest in majoring in biology or bio-chem in college. This fall when our school year began he was enrolled in an online AP Biology course which he is devouring and doing quite well in. So far he has a solid A in the course but more than that he is loving the topic.

There is no doubt that SK’s interest in science was there prior to going to the National Science Olympiad Competition, and it has always been as strong as it is right now, but I wonder. Would he be taking AP Biology as a sophomore and doing quite well in it if he had not joined SO? Would he have become so interested in biology last year if he was not studying for an SO competition and doing those two biology events? Where would we really be in science today if I had made the other choice when Lee asked SK to join the SO team? Where would we be?

Which makes me wonder too; what choices am I making now that will have profound effects upon my children? Are my choices for them helping them? Of course as a mom, and a homeschooling parent I worry too that I my choices might do them harm. It is such a hard spot to be in. What should they be doing that I am not aware they should be doing? How will what I am having them do effect their lives? Choices, they are just too critical at times.

I remember back in ‘74 when I insisted to my guidance counselor that girls too could go be an engineer-for-a-day, just like the guys. My choice to do so was not because I wanted to BE an engineer, but because I wanted to be out of school for the day. Little did I know that that choice would affect me by changing my career choice. Affect my life in every aspect for years upon years. I thought of this last week when we insisted that SK join the YESS program. How might this choice of taking him through this program affect his future career choices. Who knows. I just hope and pray that we are making wise choices.