On Education

I'm going to try to crank out a few posts here in an attempt to get caught up. I also need to get my house picked up, so I don't know how far I'll get. As soon as it gets too dark to work on the basement, Paul and I are going to head to town so we can exchange the oven and then Paul suggested we stop at Fazolis for a late supper.

Tomorrow I am going to Cedar Rapids. I'm a little nervous about leaving the boys and being that far away. But Paul will be in town should the boys need any help. And some of our neighbors are nice (most of them are, actually) I'm kind of excited. I'm going to spend the day with my friend, Laura, whom I have known since kindergarten. We've been friends ever since, but we haven't spent any real time together since about 1990. She lives in the L.A. area now but is in Iowa right now on vacation. I'm trying to convince her that she needs to move back to Iowa! So it should be a nice day.

I had Will take his COMPAS test up at DMACC last Friday so I can send his test scores to the Network for admission to the writing class next year. That ate up most of day, taking him up there, going home, then going to retrieve him, and returning home once again, only to turn around and go up north for softball practice later in the afternoon! When I went in, I took all 4 boys with me because I wasn't sure how long it would take. The receptionist joked about having new students and I joked back that well, we were homeschoolers and believed in starting them young! We gave homeschoolers a good name anyway because Will's scores were off the charts. He said that the receptionists were oohing and ahhing when the computer began spitting out his scores.

To get into the college, they require a 70 on the writing portion of the test. Will got a 94! He smugly informed me that he didn't need to take this writing class because see - it was right there on paper - he is a brilliant writer! So I questioned him about the writing portion of his test. Did he actually have to write anything? No, of course not! All the test consisted of was giving him paragraphs and he needed to correct what was wrong in each one. That is not writing! I told him, "Nice try - you're still taking the class!" I was gratified, though, to see his other scores. Even his math scores (and Alg. 1 has been a struggle this year for Will) were right on target for what they expect. At the same time, I now am aware that DMACC's admission standards are very, very low! At least I know he's not a dummy. He has, evidently, through the years, learned something at my feet.

Today was Ben's IEP meeting. It went well. I was grateful for my speed reading skills and I was able to read the lengthy evaluation report they handed me within the time it took for all the school personnel to arrive at the meeting. There were no surprises. Their observations were the same as what I have seen in all my years as his mother and teacher. I did appreciate listening to how they intend to teach him different subjects. In my mind, I was seriously beginning to wonder if Ben was even educable anymore. I still want the focus of his public school days to be on self care and life skills, but who knows - maybe he'll actually advance somewhat academically!

They are working on the actual IEP now and will mail me a copy. They weren't going to do that, which I did not like. Terry from church, who attended our first meeting (and unfortunately, had to work today and couldn't make it to this one) told me that he wants to review the IEP first. They told me that I had already signed off on the IEP and I did not. The only thing I signed was a statement giving them permission to have today's meeting which would move us forward in the IEP process. And then they wanted to give me reviews of Ben's progress only twice per quarter. I told them I needed those reviews every two weeks. That was Terry's suggestion, as well.

The other sticking point is transportation. I want to take Ben to school in the mornings. But I want transportation provided in the afternoon. The principal said well, he can ride the bus. I told him that was not an option. I rode a bus (full of Christian school kids, no less) as a child and I know what happens on buses! There is no way I'm going to subject Ben to that. The only way I'll agree is if he had an aide riding with him. So the principal said that perhaps we could have Ben leave school twenty minutes early in the afternoon and have a driver take him home first which would then get the driver back to the school to do the normal route. That would be fine with me. The only thing that might interfere is that I told them I want Ben to have vocal classes because of his love of singing. We just don't like to listen to him because he's terribly off-key and flat! It doesn't help that his voice is in the middle of changing, I understand that. I'm hopeful that some instruction might make listening to him more tolerable, especially since he enjoys it so much. That's the last period of the day, which might interfere with the whole taking him home early thing. We'll figure something out.

As it looks now, Ben will be starting school, just in the mornings, somewhere in mid-May. Then, his special needs teacher said he strongly recommends that Ben begin attending school in August two weeks before the rest of the kids actually start. It's a program they have for kids that need more continuity of their education. They also have it for two weeks after the school year ends in June. It's just two hours a day, 4 days a week. So I think we'll plan on that.

Now, if I can just untwist my heart and bear to let my little naked and blind fledgling leave the nest! It's hard, as I have waxed on and on about in this blog for the past 6 months, and I'm sure my readers are a bit tired of hearing about it. Let me get through this beginning and then I think I'll be ok! If not - you'll hear about it, trust me!

Educating our children is big, is it not? I don't even feel terribly burdened that all my boys must be successes and to do so, have to have a college education. If I did, I'd be even more of a raving lunatic on here. I'm not striving to raise geniuses and honestly, my hope is that they can just match the progress of their more traditionally educated peers. And obviously, I don't even hope for that for Ben. I view "education" as much more than just academics. It's part of the whole picture. The picture I have is that I want to produce Godly young men who are educated enough that options are open to them wherever God may lead in their lives - whether that means they are digging ditches or pursuing a college degree. It has just as much to do with their character development, and most importantly, how much they love and serve God. If that's evident in all their lives, then I will know I did my job as the custodian and executor of their educations.