A New Student

We have a new student in our homeschool this year! ME!

No, this doesn't mean that I have felt myself to be an all-knowing teacher during the last nine or ten years. It has been far from that. I have learned more since I started homeschooling than I remember learning in all my years of school. I have learned right beside my kids every year.

The big change this year, is that I'm actually a student. We added Rosetta Stone (Spanish - Latin America) to our curriculum this year. Rosetta Stone has a special Homeschool Edition that allows for some extra record-keeping so if I do this right, this could be Caleb's first high school Language credit.

As I entered the kids names and levels as students on the program, I added my own name along with theirs. Initially, I did this just so I could keep an eye on what they are learning and be a little bit able to help them if they have any questions.

But this is actually a pretty big deal. In high school and college (Latin and Spanish, respectively) I had horrible language learning experiences. (In writing this, I remembered that in second or third grade I was also put into a French class as part of an enrichment program. I think that was my earliest experience of feeling like an academic failure.) I managed to cram and test well enough, but I felt lost more often than not. It has been a source of shame (in knowing that however I passed it was as a big faker) and fear (that I really can't learn to communicate across languages in a world that will require bilingual ability).

Hope I don't get in trouble for being a Class Clown!

I have no idea how well I will or will not learn Spanish in the coming years. I know that I will likely be more accountable to working on it, because my kids are working on it as well. I will be more likely to practice it, because my kids are going to end up talking to me in the phrases they learn. I will be more likely to laugh at myself, because I'm trying to teach my kids to take a light view of these things in their life. And because I don't have a scholarship riding on it or a BIG TEST waiting for me at the end of the semester, I'm much more likely to learn it.

So welcome new student, and new beginnings, to Pitman Academy.