And, we did do field trips to Athens and Rome, walked World War I trenches and World War II beaches and knew Pearl Harbor very well. We’ve been blessed to have the most opportunity filled military assignments, that we capitalized on shamelessly. Now our study of the Eastern Hemisphere is matching up with an assignment to Japan. But I despair of explaining this to either school folk or homeschoolers. Outside the military community, most people just can’t conceive of what we’ve been able to see and do.

Boy, am I.

You’re tempting me.

I just found the stereotypes in the articles a bit amusing, but what QED is attempting to do is capitalize on exactly what most of us are trying to do in our homes. Highly paid professionals are not an absolute necessity…and hey, we’re more likely to be able to afford that trip to Australia without their fees!

I’m sorry your experience in the Montessori school were less than pleasant, but hopefully this works well for your family! My daughter has been homeschooled her entire life, and yet she is more receptive to other people instructing her than me. Maybe it is an age thing, or a personality thing, I don’t know, but I do understand what you are saying with that!

We have recently decided to go back to homeschooling after next month; our Montessori experience has been less than ideal–and not because of the Montessori philosophy, but because the school is a start up and has too many wrinkles to iron out.

However, we have decided to do a bit of what is mentioned here: outsourcing much of the teaching. Why? Because strictly homeschooling with my child and myself left terrible marks on relationshiplast year. My son is very resistant to me having a role other than mom. Maybe my mistake was ever enrolling him in school in the first place; but that did happen and he quickly formed the notion that teachers teach and mothers mother. We became very frustrated with one another, angry at times, hurtful. We both decided it wasn’t worth our relationship.

However, he is miserable in his new, small, Montessori school. Honestly, it isn’t any better than our public school. Our public school probably has more to offer us in terms of resources and community, but my son is very leery of the large setting of public schools and stresses very easily over the dynamics in them.

Our final option? A bit of what this QED offers: outsourced specialized teachers or classes, a personal tutor, combined with our original intent of traveling as part of learning. This allows my son to have highly qualified mentors and tutors without the frustration and negative impact of mom being someone other than mom (an idea firmly established in his mind.) It allows me to know that his education is more personalized and of higher quality than the public school or even his small private school… but it allows time for all the other stuff we feel is part of learning, living and being: music classes, theater workshop, language learning, chess club, wilderness exploration, travel, family functions, and whatever else piques his interest.

It is a personalized design and it will include quality mentors and tutors–something HE craves, but it will not be through an outside organization or source. It is something we are designing together within our community, our time frame and our budget. Records and curriculum do not concern us, and neither does the orchestrating of it all. I am capable of that.

So I don’t see QED being such a bad thing for parents/families that wish to homeschool or be outside of the institution of education, but are not comfortable or feel qualified enough to do it all themselves.

Thanks for always feeding us great stories. We most often get a chuckle out of the craziness out there. Now I’m off to the big box store to get another barrel of anti-bacterial wash. It’s bath day…