As a Montessori preschool teacher, and Early Intervention Special Education Masters candidate, I did not consider any education path for my own child beside the traditional one offered by our school system; even when it was failing him.
At the age of three, my son was diagnosed with a cancerous, but operable, tumor, which led to a year of cancer treatments with an extensive team from NYU. The cognitive specialists on the team tested intelligence, and were concerned with the decreased cognition and reception/decoding of information sometimes connected with chemotherapy. From his results, though, we knew that we would likely be testing our son for the gifted and talented program.
After a disastrous attempt, and abrupt departure from, a kindergarten CTT classroom at a large public elementary school, my son was accepted into the Gifted & Talented program for first grade in another school. Due to factors including developmental delays from chemotherapy, we successfully petitioned the DOE for a kindergarten G&T placement. Though much of his 2 years in the Gifted & Talented program was positive, after several attempts at working within the system, we realized that public school, in general, was not the best fit for our child: physically, intellectually, emotionally, or socially.
My husband had long been a proponent of homeschooling, and, with some reluctance, I began this amazing journey with my family. We have researched and tested many avenues of home education: online academies, city-wide homeschool classes, book series, full-subject curricula, and piecemeal subject learning. In June we will have been, happily, homeschooling for three years.
