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Roger White Academy

September - December 2006

For a couple of years prior, I had known about Roger White Academy - a private school run by a Baha'i friend of mine. I had meant to go and visit it since I am very interested in how people (especially Baha'is) create new learning environments. I finally went for a visit to Roger White Academy near the end of September 2006.

I was amazed and inspired by what I saw. There are only about 25 students in the school, ranging in age from 4 to 14. All of the children learn together in a large room (there is no grade segregation). There are strong bonds of love and consideration for each other - like a family, not just mere friends. I saw four year olds cuddled on the laps of 13 year olds. I saw boys and girls and different ages playing together. What struck me most was the environment... something in the air. You could FEEL that it was a spiritually nurturing environment. I could feel that there was healthy growth and development happening in this place.

I was also struck by how similar the teaching methods and arrangement was to my homeschooling. It looked like a family homeschooling... just a very large family. And instead of just one mother, there were about 4 adults who the children could choose from to help them with their schoolwork. I liked this idea of different children and adults working together.

At the end of the day, the person who runs the school told me that she was just starting a kindergarten program at the school and was looking for a kindergarten teacher and advice on creating a kindergarten curriculum. I offered to write up some suggestions from my experience homeschooling and with Montessori. I began to toy with the idea of being the Kindergarten teacher myself and the kids participating in this wonderful school. I was excited by what I saw and wanted to support this wonderful endeavor in the field of education.

I had wanted to specifically see how they taught history. The day I went to visit, they did not have a history lesson, but they were going to have history the following day. The day I had visited, Mishkin had looked after the children. He couldn't look after them the following day, so I decided to bring the children with me for the history lesson the next day. The kids had lots of fun. Justice forgot his sweater at the school. When we went to pick it up the next day, we ended up staying for their yoga class at a nearby karate dojo.

Roger White Academy offered part time studies for homeschoolers. One of the options was to come for half a day for history and art. Another half day option was science and drama. I asked the kids if they would be interested in attending the school. Haifa wanted to (she's most social). Justice didn't want to. I asked him why. He said that he did not want to be separated from Haifa and Verity - that he would miss all of us during the school time. I told him that we would still be all together. Then he was more open to the idea.

I consulted with Mishkin, and we decided to enroll the children for one day a week. We also decided that I would not teach kindergarten. But on the first day that we attended, when I told the principal about our decision to come one day a week, she said that she was thrilled that we would join her school but that she would much prefer the children to be full time students. I guess I was caught up in the excitement of this new school experiment that I said yes (which was a big mistake to go against the consultation that Mishkin and I had had together).

One week I was homeschooling and then all of a sudden, the next week my kids were full time in school. This turned out to be a great shock to my system. I was at the school with them every day (and so was Verity). But we spent much less time interacting with each other (as we were spending time interacting with new people at the school). We had to learn how to get up 2 hours earlier. I had to learn how to pack lunches for the first time in my life. We had to drive to a school every day. These things may seem normal to most people but they were completely foreign routines for our family and it was challenging to make the change. One morning, I asked one of the other parent helpers who had previously homeschooled what had made her decide to homeschool initially. She said that she just hadn't felt ready to spend time away from her children. Well... I just burst into tears. I didn't feel ready to spend less time with my children either. We talked for a while. She said, "But you're still with them all day." I explained how it wasn't the same as being at home together. I think the biggest problem was that I had not had any time to mentally prepare for this big change in our lives. I had just spent a lot of time preparing this years curriculum and schedule. I spent the last month emotionally preparing and gearing up to homeschooling and juggling my responsibilities and the needs of three children. And then all of a sudden, within a couple of days, it was all gone. Our homeschooling journey seemed to have come to an end. But had I ever made the decision to NOT homeschool? I felt like I was in a nightmare, living a life that I did not want to live. It felt as if I had lost my kids. This may sound dramatic (and maybe even a little crazy) but that's how it was for me.

I'm writing this almost a year later, so I forget some of the details. I tried to keep at it. I could see the benefits of being there. The children loved it. I knew that I was just experiencing the difficulty of change and that eventually we would settle into this new life and everything would go more smoothly. I began to reexamine everything. Why did we choose to homeschool? I thought that we had originally decided to homeschool because we did not feel that the schools we knew of were socially or spiritually healthy places for our children. We had found a school where the environment WAS socially and spiritually healthy, we enrolled the kids... I should be happy, right? Well, I discovered that I now homeschooled for many more reasons than bad school environments. I could now see how much homeschooling was a part of our families culture and identity. I could now see the value in the tight relationship bonds we were creating by being in our house together all day every day. I could now see the value in having the children not just do academic lessons but help out in the household chores throughout the day - being a part of a household all day every day in all its diverse aspects. Did I still have the right to homeschool my children, even though we had found a most wonderful school which Mishkin and I felt met our standards for education?

It was not getting easier for me to get the kids to school on time and pack lunches. It was becoming obvious that a school was not the best place for Verity developmentally. The school was extremely flexible and accomodating allowing a 2 year old to be a participant in its learning environment. But when teaching a lesson to a group of children, you need quiet so that everyone can hear. A 2 year old who is just learning to talk needs to be vocalizing all day and running and freely moving her body. It was hard to keep Verity quiet and it was unfair to expect it of her. And it was unfair to the students to have her distract and disrupt their lessons. So we decided that Justice and Haifa would stay at school and Verity and I would go home.

This made things even worse. Please remember, the school is a wonderful and amazing place. It is just me and our families lifestyle that didn't fit in. With Verity and I at home, I missed the kids even more and I could see the change in their relationship with Verity. I could see changes in their relationship to each other as well. Even though Justice and Haifa were together all day, they were spending less time with each other and more time with other friends and this was changing their relationship. We finally decided to have the children come back to homeschooling part time and attend the school part time as we had originally decided. But instead of once a week, they would be attending Roger White Academy twice a week.

I was struggling with asking myself whether it was selfish of me to want to continue homeschooling my children. Was it selfish of me to want to be with them all day? What was the right thing to do? I consulted on the matter with Mishkin and many other trusted individuals. I slowly came to realize that part of my decision to join the school was fueled by my insecurities about the shortcomings of my homeschooling. I was feeling very depressed and empty because I felt like I was giving up on myself. I had said, "This school can do a better job of raising my children than I can." I felt defeated. A friend of mine said to me, "It's wonderful that you want to put your energy into supporting this school, but who is supporting YOUR school?" This friend helped me realize that the choice to homeschool is not perfect and neither is the choice to participate in this school, each has it's pro's and con's, each choice is valid. We just needed to decide how our family wanted to educate our children, and that ultimately it was our choice and neither choice was right or wrong.

Doing homeschooling and school part time was not working either. Our schedule, our lives, our schoolwork, the rhythm of our days was disrupted. Five days a week the kids stayed up late, woke up late, had more free time to do their own thing. Two days a week they had to get up much earlier, go to bed much earlier. Three days of school had a flexible time schedule. Two days of school had a fixed time schedule. Three days of school could be done with countless breaks to play, talk with each other, eat, and run around. Two days of school required more sitting and being quiet than they are used to. Three days of school was just family. Two days of school was with friends. It was difficult for all of us to flip back and forth between these two environments.

Both Mishkin and I had been having difficulty with our children attending a school. We both felt embarassed to say that our kids went to school (since we strongly disagree with the way almost all other schools are conducted). We both felt an emptiness, a loss, without the kids around all the time. We realized how much homeschooling our kids was a part of our identity. It was difficult for us to participate in Baha'i community life and Holy day commemorations when our children had to get up at 7am. And active participation in Baha'i community life is a big priority for us for our children's education. It was really hard for us to make a decision because we could see that there were benefits and disadvantages to both choices (homeschooling or attending this school). It was very hard for us to know what the right decision would be.

What is more important? Developing close family relationships or sacrificing a bit of that to develop relationships with other children? Justice used to stay up for hours (often past midnight) reading - he could no longer do that while attending a school - is his hours of free reading important to his education? The school had an excellent academic curriculum and included many extra curricular subjects that we did not cover at home (drama and yoga). The children were not participating much in household chores anymore - is that a valid or important part of their education? At home, they spend more time outdoors in nature and moving their body freely even when they are studying? Is that important? At school, they learn the dicipline of sitting still, concentrating on studies, being quiet, being obedient to the teacher - these things are more flexible at home. Is this an important discipline to acquire?

We eventually decided that neither choice is better than the other. They are simply different. And we decided that the way we wanted to raise our children is by homeschooling them. We had started their education along that path. We had never felt that it was not working. We wanted to continue pursuing that journey. Homeschooling is part of our families culture, identity, daily routine, habits. We have enjoyed homeschooling our children and we wanted to continue enjoying the benefits of that lifestyle. Sure it's not perfect and it's definitely not for everyone. But it's how we want to raise our children.

This experience has really strengthened my commitment to homeschooling, in that it helped me really evaluate why I was doing it. Being removed from it, temporarily trying the other option helped me really see the diversity of benefits of homeschooling in so many subtle things. This experience also helped me to embrace my imperfections and feel a whole lot more comfortable with myself and my capacity. I am who I am - not perfect but a mix of different levels of capacity and skills in different areas - and THAT'S OKAY!!! Maybe the school would be better for them, but I don't need to provide my kids with the best of the best. I do a good job - no... a really wonderful job with my kids - it might not be perfect but it is definitely good enough. I feel confident about our decision. I feel confident that I am living up to my responsibility of raising up God's servants. I feel confident that I have the ability to develop their capacities to love and serve God and humanity.

So... how was the transition back to homeschooling? Would the children resent me for pulling them out of school and away from their friends? Would they insist on going to school? I was nervous. I braced myself for another difficult transition. We took the month of January off as a time to just readjust to family life and being together all day every day. In February, we started back into homeschooling. I think there were one or two times Justice said that he missed school, or wanted to go back, or wished he was with his friends. But really, neither of them complained. They were happy. They did their school work. We had their school friends over to play regularly. The transition was flawless, easy, natural. I was very surprised. And very relieved. So here we are... back on the homeschooling journey.

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