Wonderful

School starts soon. Middle school for my eleven year old. For some reason that got me to thinking about Everclear song “Wonderful,” so I just went over to the artist’s Captiol Records website to watch the music video. Life is tough for middle schoolers.

After great angst, we’ve decided to home school my daughter for sixth grade. Local Newport Mill Middle School is nearly walking distance, but other factors make it just too far. For one, there is the adjacent Albert Einstein High School. For another, my wife and I don’t believe that sixth and eighth graders should mix. Development differences are huge, particularly when many eighth graders already are sexually active and eleven year olds are such easy prey. Not a reality I like to admit, but one we as parents can’t ignore. 

[youtube https://youtu.be/MUfgAbFY4CA]

My daughter broached the home school topic before we did. She missed 40 days of school last year—still making the honor roll three quarters, amazingly. She often complained about screaming teachers and feeling uncomfortable by the classroom environment; too many days she cried to stay home, and we couldn’t see value in forcing her out to school. Several of her friends are home schooled and seem to her happier for it. So my wife, whose grandmother taught school, will become a home school teacher in just another week.

The challenge will be making home school “wonderful”—not in Everclear’s context, of course—for our daughter.