Just Say "NO" To Mass Schooling

So my son is now 3.67 years old and I think it's safe to say that he is now "reading". Not only can he recognize a good bunch of words, he can spell, and sound out the unknown. Right now we are working on writing - though I am not sure that it is a necessary life skill today. My handwriting is but a notch above doctor scrawl. I mean seriously, who even needs to handwrite anything in our digital age?

Meanwhile, my son's local age-mates are still wrestling with the alphabet; some of them despite $34 per hour Montessori schooling.

Ever since I committed to homeschooling my children (2 years ago?) I have always held a doubt in my mind about following through on this. The once in a while *very bad days*" with the kids on the homefront helped sustain my uncertainty. But now that my son is reading and doing a little math, it's clear that in 2 years, September 2011, when he is old enough for kindergarten, that he'll be so far beyond any school's curriculum and that it would be cruel to send him to *school*. He'd be bored, wouldn't have to *pay attention*, and would be looking for inventive ways to *act up in class*...just like his father did!

My wife was always much more doubtful that we would eventually homeschool our kids. Now that she sees our son's progress, I think even she is 100% won over now.

Since I have been blogging I have always gotten interesting emails from people all over the globe. Here's an excerpt from a Californian guy, talking about his kids and their education:

Don't know if your interested, but since you've got kids, I raised my last two kids outside the school system. I loved learning and erudition. Hated schools. So thought I'd give my kids the opportunity to avoid being turned off to knowledge. My daughter at age 12 was invited to work in one of the top biotech labs in the UC system by the world-famous scientist who runs it. Two years later, the kid is still there doing advanced experiments on flatworms into the molecular basis of aging. She's applying to university next year at age 15. Just took her SATs 2 months into her 14th yr and scored 780, 790, 800.

She's a smart kid but no more so than lots of other smart kids I see around. The difference: she wasn't held back by the pedagogical hacks that run those wretched hoosegows called "schools."

Pretty darn impressive, huh?

This gentleman, among many others, recommended to me the Saxon Math books. I'll be sure to check them out. For right now, I have found the introductory Kumon books to be sufficient.