The Weekly Photo + a Little Rant About School

Elanor's 1st day of preschool.

This is the first year Elanor has gone to preschool. There are a variety of reasons I did not put her in earlier (too expensive, I taught her at home, and she had plenty of friends to play with already), but we decided to put her in this year because we just moved here and she needed friends, there was a close preschool with good reviews, it was inexpensive and we knew a couple kids going there. Elanor just started at the beginning of October and is loving it!

I think preschool is great and a couple hours a day, four days a week is perfect. I have been thinking and stressing about school ever since Elanor was born, because I don't know what to do! There are a lot of things I love about public school (variety of students, learn from a variety of teachers, its free, etc). However, there are a lot of things I do not like (too long of hours each day, too much homework/stress, they don't even learn all that much). School has changed so much since I went. The amount of homework and stress placed on kids, even small ones is so intense.  When one of my brothers was in school at Corbett as a freshman, he was in two AP classes, as all freshman had to at his school, and he said people would have anxiety attacks all the time over homework. It is just not necessary for school to be so intense. I do not think kids (high school, yes, but not so much that the average student has a panic attack about it) should have homework at all. If they cannot get it done the seven hours they are at school, then they do not need to do a further two hours when they get home. Kids should be able to play, have family time, etc. In other countries, such as Sweden, they have shorter days and shorter school years and yet out perform much of Europe. I love being in school and I want Elanor (and Alice) to experience that, but not in the schools we have in America. I don't really want to homeschool either. Perhaps for a year or two or whenever Elanor would want to, but I think learning in a diverse environment, such as public school is really wonderful. I basically wish Elanor could go to public school half of the day and then do homeschool as well. I am not sure it really works like that though.

Much of what we choose to do will be based on where we live at the time, the teachers at the school and how much I am able to help out at school (my mom did a ton at our school growing up). What do you do/plan to do? Thoughts, please?