My school life was a short one.
I was reading chapter books by the age of 4, kindergarten teachers wanted to put me in advanced learning, I was doing rather well in my younger years. One of the many disappointments in my child hood was when someone gave my Mom and Step-Dad the bright idea of home schooling. Ok, before you start thinking that I'm going to write this entire blog knocking on home school, I'm not.
One of the embarrassing mistakes I think for my Mom was that I was pulled out of school to do nothing. I did not do work. In fact I don't remember doing any work at all except to turn it in so we wouldn't get into trouble. So maybe a few tests here and there that I got the answers given to me. I remember the truency officer coming over to my home because someone (I'm assuming a family member) had turned Scott & my Mother in for me not doing any type of schooling. Everything was pretty easy to get around and we continued to not do a thing. I did not learn anything for 1,2,3,4 or 5th grades. In that mean time my Mom had 2 kids, her marriage was falling apart, and amongst other things started to happen. They both decided to dump me into 5th grade again (which means I would be "held back" but had the educational mind of a 1st grader.) I did rather well in everything for the most part. Reading & writing were my strong points because that's all I knew how to do. Math, Science,Spelling and other things were my weak points and still are my weak points. I have hard time adding and subtracting unless I'm using my fingers, I really truely sometimes feel like an idiot.
In my Jr. High years I barely passed Math. I would always do the extra credits and things to get my grade up to a D, and as most of you know I dropped out of High School 1st semester of 10th grade (which would've been originally my 11th grade year) I passed my GED with flying colors...Oh except for the Math of course. They failed me for the entire test because I didn't do well in math but perfected everything else. So I gave up on that, because I figured I must not even be good enough to get that done.
With my kids I'm hoping & praying that it will be completely different. Every since Alexander was born I've always sang ABC's and 123's with him. I taught him how to write his name by the age of 2 1/2 and he is reading what they call "fluent" chapter books in the 1st grade. Guess what he is struggling with, though? Math. I never ever thought to teach him how to add things. I feel like as a Mother I've failed to teach him how to add and take away/ do simple little equations....It never even crossed my mind. I've written his teacher a note on trying to help him with his problems because I don't ever want him to feel like he is stupid because he doesn't understand. Anyone can do anything if they have a good support system behind them. That goes for all of the children. Joey, Dylan, Miley, Aiden, & even our unborn baby. I never want them to feel like they aren't smart because they just "don't get it" I want them to succeed in life and that is my main goal in MY life. They don't have to be little geniuses or anything or straight A students even, I just know that every single one of them has potential to be something magnificent. I just wish someone would've thought that about me.