Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

When we decided to homeschool ten years ago we were in a state and a town where homeschoolers were few and far between.  The only local support group was associated with a Baptist church and while I was welcome to attend meetings my kids were not.   I’d always been an independent sort of person so we struck out on our own, forged our own path and turned to the net for help and guidance as we began our journey.

When we moved to Delaware we continued on our own independent path declaring ourselves our own non-public school.  It was a path I felt comfortable following.  I later found that few homeschoolers in our new home state also choose this path, or at least of the several hundred I have met here, few choose this path.  Even fewer choose it when their oldest hits high school age.  Over the years I have heard the same reason for choosing the other path, the path where they join the satellite school — the mom wanted someone to look over her shoulder, someone else to check her kids work, and someone she was accountable to other than herself.  I shrugged, to each his own.   I also knew I didn’t need someone to check my kids work, or tell me that I needed to have the kids read 25 books this year, or write 10, 2page-papers, or do Algebra I then Geometry………  I certainly didn’t need someone else to blame the kids workload upon either.  When the boys have asked why they have had to do math or write a report or work through the logic exercise the reason has always been simple — it is my job to see that you are well-educated so you have whatever doors open to you that you wish to be open to you.

My job, no one else’s.   OK, so it is also my DH job.  We work as a team, parenting and educating our boys.

Last year I happily left Delaware for over 2 months, traveling across this great land, showing my boys their country, and just let the learning happen along our trail.  Before I left I heard grumblings from these same moms about how they could not leave on such a trip in early May since their portfolio review needed to be completed.  Portfolio review?  This state does not require a portfolio review, or testing, or…….  One price to pay for having that monkey on your shoulder.

Why am I talking about this today?   We’ve been looking at college entrance requirements and many require SAT Subject tests to validate that a homeschooler knows high school subject material.   Did you know that if I had joined one of the area satellite schools we would not have this hurdle to jump through? Yep.  We could just write on the application that ds graduated from such-and-such satellite school and he would not have the SAT Subject tests to take.  Sad, homeschoolers choosing to join this route just to avoid jumping through that hoop.  Freedom to school as I wish, follow the schedule I wish, use the curriculum I wish without someone looking over my shoulder……. no, that would have been too high a price to pay just to avoid the extra homeschool college-hoops.  I like my choice.

I do not have to ask anyone for permission  to go on a few extra field trips or an extended cross-country field trip.  Nor do I need to explain how we combined American History, Civics, and American Government into one course over three years, or that we covered geography as an integral part of history rather than as a separate course.   And I do not need to track the many books my pre-high school student has read.  He reads, often and happily, and I am the one to make sure of that.

But beware if you are just starting on this homeschool journey.  There are trade-offs to going it alone.  It is often times lonely to be in this state, to be your own school, accountable to just you.  Others will laugh, tell you that you should join their school, let them guide you and let them make sure your kids are doing what they should be doing —(doesn’t that sound allot like public school?)….. But then again, homeschoolers do walk to the beat of a different drummer.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost