School's In!

Back to school means that I'm back to finding supplements that work. Yesterday, while visiting with a friend's mother who's also a professor of education, I told her about the many ways that I had found workbooks and online programs to help the education process. In retrospect, it probably sounded like bragging. But I was just so excited to share what I had found that works.

She said that it sounds like I could be homeschooling. Yeah. Maybe I should have.

But that's the point. Parents really do have to supplement more than ever before. Our education system has evolved into a more pressure cooker situation where we're asking schools, parents and children to do more, even as everything costs more, too. Is it too much?

I've been talking to parents of high school seniors about how much they really have to be involved, not just their kids. There are a multitude of deadlines for seniors. Missing one could be fatal. And we all miss deadlines, so it's good to have parents as back-ups.

Or there's the dad who's helping to coach his 10-year-old son's football team. Four nights a week for two hours plus games on the weekends. What kind of time commitment is that?

It's routine around here for kids to practice soccer 2 to 3 night a week and games on Saturday.

And then there are parents, like me, who drag our family to see Obama and Biden because I think seeing the political process in action and watching the media do their job is just as an important educational lesson as anything they'll get in school.