Read Love in a Time of Homeschooling for Free Online Page B

after lunch they had visited the bridge. They were unpacking snacks at a cluster of outdoor tables when the teachers noticed that Julia was missing. Parent chaperones were dispersed to track her down, a worrisome prospect when surrounded by miles of woods traversed by a wide, deep stream. After twenty minutes of rising panic, Julia’s teacher decided to call the police. But first the adults walked all of the children back to the buses, and there, lo and behold, sat Julia, waiting patiently.
    â€œIn all my years of teaching,” Julia’s teacher complained when she called me and John in for a mandatory conference, “I’ve never had this happen.” (This from a woman who had taught for more than three decades.) John and I were thoroughly apologetic. We would “have it out” with Julia.
    â€œWhat happened?” we asked her that evening.
    â€œI was staring into the stream,” she said. “There were fish swimming on the bottom, and I was watching them for a long time. And when I looked up, everyone was gone. So I went back to the bus to wait.”
    I had to admire my six-year-old’s calm logic. Although I lectured her on the need to stick with her class, in retrospect I would have placed more blame on the supervising adults. If a child could be left behind so easily, how simple would it be for a stranger to lead a first-grader away from the group?
    I looked down at Julia with my most serious expression: “Thank God this didn’t happen when you were in the caverns. Imagine how scary that would have been, to be alone in those miles of darkness.” My mind was filled with images of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher lost in McDougal’s cave.
    The next year, John and I were informed that Julia could not attend the second-grade scavenger hunt (located in wooded hills surrounding a deep lake) unless a parent came along to watch her; John dutifully complied. Later, during the fourth-grade trip to Monticello, Julia’s teacher held her hand for the entire visit.
    â€œIt’s lucky she’s such a delightful child to have at your side,” the teacher said.
    â€œDo you still lose her in the school building?” I asked her.
    â€œOh yes,” she said, nodding.
    Apart from physically losing Julia, the teachers also lost her attention. Back in the first grade, the teacher who had lamented Julia’s disappearance at the Natural Bridge also worried aboutour daughter’s lack of focus in the classroom. Julia seemed to be tuning out the class for hours at a time.
    â€œShe’s in her own world,” explained Mrs. Hennis, “and it’s a wonderful world. But she needs to spend more time in our world.”
    John and I knew all about that. At dinner, I would sometimes nudge John and say, “Look at Julia.” And there she would be sitting, frozen in mid-chew, her fork at her mouth and her mind miles away. Her behavior reminded me of the words of the English poet William Wordsworth, in his “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” Wordsworth suggests that humans enjoy a state of consciousness before birth, a connection to the spiritual world that lingers in the minds of young children until their earthly experiences fully sever the connection. As Wordsworth puts it, “Trailing clouds of glory do we come from God.”
    Julia seemed to be tuned to a different frequency, a reality preferable to our own, and I would have liked for her to enjoy her alternate world for as long as possible. But success in the public schools demanded that she march in step, and especially with our firstborns, we parents crave success.
    Back at our parent-teacher conference, Mrs. Hennis compared Julia to her own son, a unique and creative boy who had struggled through elementary and middle school. Fortunately, by high school this young man had found his niche, and had succeeded, academically and socially, from that point forward. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Hennis