Monday, March 19, 2012

Networking?


I hate the word, *networking*, but that's essentially a big and growing part of what I'm doing these days.

For one thing, it's not easy to homeschool kids in New York in the sense that there really aren't that many kids whose parents are educated enough(!) to pull them out of school.

So I'm always driving all over the place, introducing myself to everyone, responding to online forum questions, picking brains, and striking up *education* conversations with just about everyone I meet....all in an effort to find other homeschoolers, convince people to *opt out* of institutionalized AND to promote myself as an educational resource.

I mean today I drove 25 minutes Northeast to a little art/math co-op; then I drove out to middle island for my kids' American History Club (watch John here). Tomorrow we are taking the 40 minute train ride into NYC (plus a subway downtown) for an *Art and Design* fair with the NYC homeschoolers. THEN on Wednesday, we are trekking 90 miles east to an observatory at night!

So that's just a clue as to why my blogging has been so tragically light these days. Florida was easier. Less commitments!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting observation: there really aren't that many kids whose parents are educated enough(!) to pull them out of school.

I've been a mechanical engineer for longer than I care to admit and certainly feel qualified in [most] of the subjects my kids encountered. Everyone I work with would probably say the same.


But: we can't do both. And we can't afford to send kids to serious private schools.
Hence we pay the morons in the public schools. (Oops, who is the real moron here?)

The real irony: I can teach any math or physics course my local public schools offer. But they don't want that: I lack a teaching "credential"!

I can't help thinking there is a massive amount of underutilized talent here. (My colleagues and I are nearing retirement.)

There is, of course, the hazard of being captured by the system if we did participate ...