Pre-Test Jitters and Keds

The end of the school year is quickly approaching and so is mandatory state testing. I thought that I didn't care much about testing or results, but as it gets closer, I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous. Will she know all the terms that a text book would cover but I didn't teach? What kind of holes might I be leaving in her education?

It's not my kid on trial, it's me. I feel a burden that I'm supposed to bear. It's actually good for me--maybe not the worry part, but the responsibility part--because homeschooling today is nothing like it used to be.

If I had been homeschooling even 15 years ago I would have felt the burden of having to bear up under tremendous scrutiny from all communities: local government (school board), neighbors, police, and family. Homeschoolers often felt that they had to hide their kids until after school hours, fearing that they would be turned in again by a well-meaning neighbor. With so much threat and so much misunderstanding about what homeschooling was or whether or not it was even legal, homeschoolers constantly had to be on their toes. They worked so hard to teach with excellence: they organized portfolios of the each student's work, maintained immaculate attendance records, and had a book filled with detailed lesson plans, mapping out each month in detail.

I can't say that I have that much order in my classroom. Today the NC law just requires that I register with the state, keep attendance records and test any child over 7 annually. And with so much more understanding and acceptance of homeschooling in the community and so many resources at hand, it's easy to become lax.

So, the fact that I'm a bit nervous about this test means that I'm worried that I didn't cover everything. I guess that means that I just needed a good jolt to reassess my year and see if I reached my goals. The test will tell me if I missed any concepts along the way that I need to add to next year's curriculum. It's so nice not to have the state breathing down my neck and neighbors calling the police because my kids are at the park at 2 in the afternoon.

Now I'm free to worry about more important issues: my greatest fear about homeschooling is that some retro homeschoolers will bring back denim jumpers and Keds.