Loosing My Marbles

For those of you out there that think I've lost all reasoning power and a few of my marbles:

I have a pretty good idea what I'm getting myself into with homeschooling. You see
I have two bachelor's degrees:

Physics
and

Composite Physical Science Teaching: Physics

Both from the same school which happens to be in the top 10 for education in the US, according to US World and News Report (at least for the years that I was there).

My certification was good for 7-12 grade, integrated science, physics and chemistry and with two more classes, I would have been certified to teach math up to and including the second year of algebra. Another semester or so of math classes and I could have taught all the way up to calculus. My certification has lapsed because I chose to stay home with my children instead of pursuing a teaching career.

I was awarded several awards while in college including: Student of the Year, Secondary Education.

I have two years of educational training under my belt, and raving reviews from the teachers that I did my clinicals and student teaching with and a job offer, which I refused to stay home with my children.

I have put together an extensive portfolio of my teaching abilities, which I've scanned as a PDF, if you want to see it.

I think you would have a hard time establishing that I'm not qualified to teach (besides the legal problem of actually having a current certification, which is easily remedied).

I don't have any grandiose ideas about what homeschooling is going to be like. It is going to be hard, there are going to be days that end in tears, on my part. There are going to be days that are wonderful and fun. The simple matter is that my kids were not getting the education that they need and the school hasn't been helpful in finding ways to help them. Both of them were dealing with what I think were serious problems beyond their control.

I tried to talk with the school, but, like a door to door salesman, the door kept being slammed firmly in my face. I have yet to have a conversation with a teacher or an administrator from this school that didn't leave me with the feeling that had their been a bubble over their head with their thoughts printed in it, it probably would have said something like "Lady, you don't know anything, just get out of our way and let us do our job." The straw that officially broke the camel's back for me was that they wouldn't tell me who my children's teachers were going to be for this year. The school that we were at before we came here had teachers picked and informed the parents well before school started. My sister-in-law has known who her daughter's kindergarten teacher is for nearly two months. I had things that I needed to discuss with these teachers that might have changed my view of what we needed to do with the kids.

My kids are here and now, they need an education and it is our responsibility to see to it that they do, not the state, the parents. You might not agree with our decision, but you don't have to live with it either.

I'm being terse, I know. I'm getting really tired of philosophical comments about home schooling verses public schooling, etc.. I just wanted to set everybody straight about my position. The only philosophical comment I'm making here is that parents should be there 100% for their kids how ever inconvenient or unpleasant the job may seem. Sometimes that is letting your kid flounder, and sometimes it is taking the time to teach them how to get by in situations without needing to flounder and allowing them sufficient time to mature so that the situations they find themselves in are ones that they can grow from, not drown in.