It definitely feels like there’s some homeschool attrition going on lately. It’s not just me. I’ve spoken to other homeschoolers and they feel it too. These days, the homeschool landscape feels more 2019 than 2021.
Maybe it’s the rebound effect.
Maybe it’s that we’re just all so done with COVID.
It almost feels like the last day of summer camp and everyone is leaving, waving goodbye from their cars and busses and leaving me behind.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to be here. I chose homeschool before it was en vogue, and stuck with it. This will be our 5th year! But part of me has a little FOMO. What am I missing out on and why does it feel like everyone is going back to traditional school?
When COVID first started, homeschooling soared in popularity and it became the new normal for so many families. Those same families embraced the slow pace, flexibility, and individualized approach to education that homeschool offered and many chose it for the following school year too. But the more families I talk to, I realized that they saw it as a temporary solution to a problem and are starting to trickle back into the school system. It hasn’t become the nationwide coup I’d hoped it be.
With my oldest starting 8th grade next year, I’m not sure where that leaves us. People ask me if I’m going to send back to brick and mortar for high school – I still don’t have an answer for that. What I do know is that we’re planning on homeschooling this year and we’ll take it from there. For the last 4 years, homeschooling has been my entire identity. I don’t know how not to talk about when I’m around other people. I love it so much, and yet, sometimes I still feel like I’m missing out. Call it “the grass is greener” syndrome. Or maybe it’s just doing something different than almost everybody else I meet. It makes me feel…..if I’m being honest…left out sometimes.
Last night, my youngest daughter performed at her camp talent show. She told me she would be performing, and so I attended. What she didn’t tell me was that she would be freestyle dancing for 4 minutes to the Black Eyed Peas. I pushed record on my phone’s video, fully expecting that her spirited freestyle shimmy and shake would end after about 60 seconds. It didn’t. She kept dancing and dancing. In her Captain America t-shirt and red tutu, she busted moves for the entire duration of the song. At first, people were clapping along with her ….after about a minute and a half….they (translation: me) started to shift uncomfortably in their seats. I laughed so hard, I cried. The girl showed no signs of slowing down. She just kept going. About 4 minutes in, I couldn’t stop myself – I decided to take matters into my own hands to save her the embarrassment, and ran up to the stage and joined her for the last 40 seconds of the song – anything to keep me from having to watch her endure that.
After the show, I thought about it some more and came to a stunning realization – it was me who needed the saving, not her. She was and would have been completely fine confidently gyrating and improvising her way in front of her entire division until the last note of the song. That kind of confidence, that kind of gumption – they don’t teach that in school. It’s that I-don’t-care-what-they-think-about-me attitude that amazes me. I’m in my early 40s and just now getting comfortable doing what I want, rather than what I think is socially acceptable.
She was dancing like nobody’s watching…..even though everyone was watching.
And then it hit me.
That’s homeschooling — swimming upstream when everyone around me is going the other way. Holding down the fort at summer camp long after everyone else has left. I learn more from my kids than I could ever teach them, and last night, I was schooled. If something feels right, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing. Keep on dancing like nobody’s watching – even when everybody’s watching.