Cutting the middleman

So, Builder is still determined to get the Things into a school, any school , no matter their personalities.  However, Small Modox Girls may be out of the running.  (The price tag scared off Builder, and their hard-sell tactics with a side of soft deception scared me off.)  His new project is Big Mainstream Girls, where one of our nieces is enrolled.  (It came highly recommended by my SIL--whose kids go elsewhere.)
My response:  Isn't that particular niece still illiterate--in the third grade?
Builder then said that it's not the school's fault, because the girl has a learning disability and her mother doesn't put in the time I put in.
Of course her mother doesn't put in that kind of time.  The girl goes to school!  The school, which charges tuition, is supposed to handle that.  And, if I have to teach my kids everything anyway, why not just cut the middleman and teach them myself?  (Incidentally, Thing 1 may have a learning disability as well--but she's still reading at least at grade level.)

Mistress AztecQueen, Quite Contrary

Hello, my name is AztecQueen2000 and I have a contrarian nature.

Hello, AztecQueen2000

Years ago, when I became bat mitzvah, my rabbi started his bracha to me with the following: "The minute I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were trouble."  He then blessed me that I would stay a troublemaker.  I guess the blessing worked.  Here I am, 12 years later, still causing trouble.  Of course, this particular quirk of mine did not go unnoticed.  My eighth grade science teacher had to admire me for marching to my own drummer and not following the herd.  (Don't even try to do the arithmetic--I had a late bat mitzvah.)
But I think it goes beyond that.
Not only do I march to my own drummer, but the surest way to make me go against the herd is to tell me that Something Just Isn't Done.  Or for me to even sense that there is a "can't," sitting on the sidelines waiting to pounce.  When I first came to Brooklyn, I felt so stifled by all the "can't" that I think it pushed me away.  I "can't" have non-Jewish friends.  I "can't" listen to secular music.  I "can't" go bare-legged in the summer.  I "can't" pick a secular (if somewhat Israeli name) for Thing 1.  I "can't" keep Thing 1 out of playgroup.  I "can't" play my favorite game, Stump the Rabbi.  (OK, if I can't ask my rabbi my questions about midrash, I'll just rant about it here).
However, I'm beginning to wonder if that's a problem.  Fighting the good fight is one thing, but fighting just for the sake of the fight?  How many of my concerns are legitimate and how many are just a way for me to release tension by getting all riled up?   And is it just my contrarian nature that's causing me to question, or is it a legitimate search for the truth?

College--sex, drugs and Jesus Christ

It's odd that in joining this community, I found myself in a place where "college" has become a dirty word.  Those who attend invariably went to Orthodox institutions (YU or Touro), or completed a degree online in one of those bogus "seminary/yeshiva credit, life skills and CLEP tests take you from high school to a Master's in a year" institutions where I seriously wonder if they're accredited.
Often cited is the fear that college will interfere with one's hashkafa.  That the liberal professors with their teachings of evolution and hating Israel, combined with enough sex and drugs to make Woodstock look tame, will drive these poor kids off the derech.  Soon they'll be scarfing down bacon cheeseburgers at Friday night keg parties.  On Yom Kippur.  And it all comes from college.
Now, I went to college.  Real college.  And, yes, there was some of the "party school" atmosphere at the old alma mater, especially with Mexico and booze for the 18 and up crowd just a short drive away.  However, I was never pressured to try drugs.  I was never pressured to drink.  I only went on one date between freshman year and graduation, and spent the entire time fully clothed.  The biggest danger to my spiritual development in Judaism was...get ready for it...
Missionaries.
That's right.  While the druggie kids didn't care if I joined them or not, I could easily think of several people who tried to sell me on Jesus Christ.  From the guy in my first-semester Economics class who tried to sell me on the truth of NT prophesies (and any prophesy is true when it's written after the fact), to my freshman mentor who dragged me to The Rock church (pass the Kool-Aid), to my RA (who tried to tell me that even the best non-Christians were going to burn in Hell for all eternity--great way to make Jesus look like a jerk), to the man I dated for 18 months (although in all fairness, I was warned about him).  I had more people trying to sell me on Christianity during my college years than I've had trying to sell me on any other vice in my entire life.
So, please remember that the danger may not come in a keg, but in a book.  And prepare your kids for the missionary onslaught.

Curses! Curses!

For the next two weeks, we'll be reading about the ten plagues--seven this week, three the next.
The irony is, that had Hashem kept the end goal of freeing the Jewish slaves, those curses would have been cut down to five.  The rest--and the drowning of the Egyptians--was all on G-d.
Seroiusly, how much could G-d have been weeping for all the drowned Egyptians.  After the fifth plague, it was G-d who kept hardening Pharaoh's heart--thus causing more plagues.  It's like G-d wanted to destroy them for no good reason--especially since the enslavement was part of G-d's plan.  Even Avroham knew that his descendants would be slaves for 400 years.  So why did G-d do it?  Did he just want to show the world that He was the biggest badass on the block?

When the city is the textbook

Last night, Builder got on my case for taking the kids on two and three trips a week instead of having them bone up on their reading.  So, I did what any reasonable parent would do.  I grabbed My First Parsha Reader off the bookshelf, opened it to the first page of Va'era, and set it down before Thing 1.  "Okay, Thing 1.  Read it."
Thing 1 read it.  Thing 1 read it accurately and fluently.  You were saying, Builder?
Then I explained to Builder that our trips were not only fun, but educational.  After all, who can argue with the National Museum of the American Indian?  Or the Metropolitan Museum of Art?  Or the zoo?  Or the library?  I have a theory that a person could run around New York City for a year and learn more that that person could learn in a classroom.  In fact, part of the reason I like homeschooling is that we sit down for an hour or two of lessons, and then we're out the door.  There's so much that can be learned about history, science and the arts just by running around NYC's landmarks and museums.
Why call it homeschooling?  We're never home.  And that's the way I like it.

It seems like such a reasonable request...

but I can't get a copy of Small Modox's curriculum.  The menahel doesn't have it, and wants me to enroll my kids this second on the basis of no information.
And they are at an impasse.  They want the Things, but I'm not handing off my kids without an acutal curriculum.
And that makes me unreasonable.
However, see it from my perspective.  I've taught the Things from the time they were babies.  I know their strengths and weaknesses.  I've taught  ABC's, numbers, and even reading.  I've done pretty damn well, too, if my kids are grade level even by their biased admission.  I have to tell the state of NY what I'm doing in great detail.  All I want to know is "For my kids and on my dime, what are you doing?"
Now, I have seen other private school websites.  I was actively involved in choosing the last two schools I attended.  Both were chosen solely on the strength of the curricula.  Both publicized it for all applicants and their parents.  Every homeschool program I looked at had curriculum samples on their websites, as well as detailed book lists.  (Ambleside Online, the one I want to use with some tweaking to remove X-tian content, uses mostly public domain books--which means I can get them free.  The ones that are not public domain mostly have the "look inside" feature.)
Seriously, I'm not asking for state secrets.  I just want some kind of scope and sequence.  I'd like to see how it compares to their current curriculum.  I'd also like some idea of the books they use.  (Let's even take the issue of mid-year enrollment off the table--the fact that they even have that many openings is not a good sign.)

2e or not 2e--that is the question.

As part of the application process for Small Modox Girls (and really more for my own purposes), I had the Things tested.  I'm still waiting on the results for Thing 2.  Thing 1 came back with a Very Superior score for verbal and a Borderline Score for Performance.  The Borderline score was caused by one "outlier" test--the block test.  Apparently Thing 1 could not make patterns that match other patterns.  The results were so scattered that the tester did not want to do a full workup, since the aggregate number would not match Thing 1's ability.
There's a term for this.  It's called "twice-exceptional," or 2e for short.  Gifted kids with learning disabilities.  In this case, it's a visual motor delay.
So far, it hasn't affected her education.  Thing 1 tested at mid-first-grade level--and we're in the middle of first grade, so that makes sense.  However, no one really knows what to do with 2e kids in school.  Schools that are big enough for tracking really only have three slots: Gifted, Average, and Learning-Disabled.  So, where does the 2e kid fit?

• If they put her in Gifted, her delay will get in her way.
• If they put her in Average, she'll be right skill-wise.  However, content-wise, she'll be bored out of her head.
• If they treat her as Learning-Disabled, she'll be bored AND stigmatized (make no mistake, everyone knows who the "slow" kids are.)

Either way, Thing 1 will be turned off to school, and, concomitantly, to learning.  By homeschooling her, I can tailor her curriculum to her needs, giving her rich content while working on the reading and math skills.
In fact, it's already helped.  One of the signs of visual motor delay is illegible handwriting.  Thing 1's handwriting is not only legible, it is, for a six-year-old, very neat.  I attribute that to Handwriting Without Tears, a handwriting curriculum developed by an occupational therapist.  Also, she does daily copywork to reinforce neat handwriting.
Looks like the best option is still homeschooling!