I stumbled across this blog, Unwrapping the Gifted, today via a list on someone's blog, via a link in someone else's blog, via a forum post. [Don't you just love how hypertext linking leads to interesting things?] Although she is coming from a teacher-in-the-public-schools perspective, I can really relate to many things I have read so far. Her blog is young, having only been started this past August, but it is full of a fabulous perspective on education for gifted children.
It's very timely that I found this today. We went to a playgroup that my neighbor hosted this morning. I dropped the boys off as a babysitting trade. When I returned about an hour later I was able to chat with three of the moms present. DS1's age came up, and I told them he was 5, that we homeschooled, and that he was in kindergarten. That answer was accepted without the shock that I was expecting, which was nice. One of the moms asked what led us to decided to homeschool. I answered that the primary reason was so that we could individualize his education, with traveling any time and enjoying being with my kids being secondary reasons. I didn't want to say, "because I don't want them to be bored stiff in school or become tutors for the other kids just because they already know stuff (like DS1 was practically doing in his daycare class when he was 3)," but I could have. Then the hostess interjected that she had been bragging on them to her friends (the other moms). We talked a little bit about educational styles (Montessori, Waldorf, and even unschooling), the co-op we're in, the magnet elementary school that is 2 blocks away, and the hostess admitted that she is considering homeschooling her son (who is almost 3). It was great to be able to talk casually about homeschooling in a completely new environment (meaning not at a co-op meeting or homeschool park day) and not feel like I needed to defend myself.
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