schooling update

I thought it was time for a quick update on Megan's and my school situations.

Vicki: Friday was the last day that I could possibly get off the waiting lists for the two distance ed classes I'd been waiting on. I was only planning to take one of them. Luckily for me, on Friday morning I was advised that I'd been enrolled in a class; unluckily for me, it wasn't the class that I preferred, Intro to Communication Studies. Instead, I am taking Intro to Fiction, English 101, and when I picked up the course materials package on Friday I realized that I've got myself into a rather dull-sounding course. The curriculum goes something like this: read these four dull "classic" novels and these two dull "classic" books of short stories. Then write essays about them, choosing from preassigned essay topics (yes, that's right, I don't get to decide how I approach writing about these books!!). I am holding out hope that maybe the books will turn out not to be so dull, and that maybe I will learn something about how to better appreciate well-written fiction; perhaps I will even learn something about how to write well. Meanwhile, this is a class I need so I am going to try and make the best of it, and I need to hop to it because I've already missed the first week of classes and the first essay is due on Thursday. Hopefully within the next year I will be able to leave this first-year, introductory course limbo and start to take classes that directly pertain to my areas of interest for my degree.

Megan: We've been having some concerns this year about the boredom factor at Megan's school. There aren't really very many academic offerings for her age group and she has not been getting the intellectual stimulation she craves. To a certain extent, boredom is part of the reality at a democratic school - the kids are expected to be self-directed, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out what you want to direct yourself at - but for a variety of reasons even Megan's internal motivation to learn doesn't seem to have been enough lately. Anyway, we had a conference with Megan's teacher in early January and let her know about our dissatisfaction and that we were looking into other options for next year. It looks like they are taking our concerns seriously and Megan is going to have some more interesting things to do with her time over the next few months. She's been given a chance to join a higher age group for a "3 R's" type of class, and will hopefully be enrolling in writing and calligraphy courses as part of the district "challenge program". Meanwhile, Jeff and I are meeting with a child psychologist next week to discuss an educational evaluation for Megan that would help us to figure out if she'd qualify for a gifted program (the district can offer her this evaluation, but the wheels of bureaucracy tend to turn verrrry slowly...) We're also going to see about putting her name down for late French Immersion locally. In the end we may decide to continue with the current school, if things improve; or we may decide to go back to homeschooling for a while. In any case, it's great to feel like we have some options.