Educating Bella is my job.

It took me a long time to realise that.  I had a different job, once upon a time, and then I fell pregnant and took a year’s maternity leave.  And then I had the big decision to make, and I made it: to stay at home with Bella.  That was how I said it. But it wasn’t right.  What really happened was that I left my old job for a new one.  I went from being a finance professional to being an educator.

Some of the books we’re currently reading

I treat this job like I have any other.  I learnt my craft.  I learnt by reading books, by exploring various pedagogies and disciplines and choosing a mix of philosophies that best fit my establishment.  I learnt (and obviously am still learning) through experience, through the day to day of life with Bella. I continue to polish my craft, experimenting with different techniques day in and day out.

I’m learning so many things so that I can be the best teacher possible for my daughter.  I’m learning to speak Bengali, learning about music and arts and how perfect pitch is obtained, and how to become better friends with nature.  I’m learning how the human race learns and how best to teach our little ones.

I love raising my daughter.  I believe that I am the best person possible for this job.  I do not believe that a nursery worker, or a childminder, or even my family members can do as good a job as I can.  They don’t know my daughter as well, and they don’t have the interest that I do in doing this job.  Just in the same way that I am not the best person for most other jobs on the face of the planet, this is the one job where I am the best.

Does anyone else feel like that, or is it just me?

So it won’t surprise you that home educating is something that we’re seriously considering.  I never thought about it before.  It’s not part of my strict, narrow-minded Asian culture and heritage.  My husband doesn’t have the same background, but he is a secondary school teacher.  But now, I just think of all the things that I’ve learnt, and how well I know my daughter, and I want to be the person to put all this together to create wonderful years where her curiosity is never sated and she gets to learn about anything and everything she wants.  I want to help her learn to follow her passions, love life, be confident and chase her dreams.  I didn’t have a child so I could hand her over to someone else.

At the moment, my husband and I have agreed to flexi-school Bella: 3 days a week in school and 2 days at home, until she enters Reception (age 4.5).  From that point, her Montessori school requires at least 4 days a week in school, but it’s a private school and I suspect we could get away with 3.5 if we paid for the full 4 (!)  I’m fully aware that we’re extremely lucky to be looking at the situation like that, but I spent my whole pre-baby career working hard to earn lots of money, and this is what that money was for.

The only problem is that the more I think about it, the more I just want to keep her home altogether.  I’m struggling a lot with the idea of sending her to someone else for education.  But school is good – I loved school.  Independence from me is good.  Time for me to recharge is good.  And the Montessori school she’ll be going to is wonderful.  My husband (the aforementioned secondary school teacher), my mother-in-law (a former primary school teacher) and I all fell in love with it when we visited with Bella a few months ago, and I think it’ll be a great place for her to flourish.  So that’s the plan.