Star Trek Homeschooling.

When I first began homeschooling my little Elf, I thought that "homeschooling" was really all about teaching the kid to read and write. He may even learn to balance a checkbook eventually and fill out job applications and that sort of thing. I had no idea that I was doing it all wrong.

You see, I wasn't Thomas Jefferson homeschooling. Homeschooling on the Trivium. Classical homeschooling. Charlotte Mason homeschooling. Enki homeschooling. Anything you could imagine out there from "public schooling at home" - schooling to UNschooling. You need a special name to fit in here, folks.

And I'm just not fitting in anywhere here... so just for fun, I'm going to make up "Star Trek Homeschooling." Read along and decide which character suits you! We Star Trek Homeschoolers can't be a monolithic sort of group, you know. That's why it's called the Federation of Star Trek Homeschoolers when we get together for conventions each year. Not *all* of us wear the Vulcan ears or speak fluent Klingon, you know.

We'll start off with Red Shirt Homeschooling. I'm usually not one to tell parents what to do, but I do NOT think this is the sort of homeschooling you want to do. I know the guys in the Red Shirts appear frequently in the Star Trek episodes, but not for long. If you suspect that you are a Red Shirt Homeschooler, I would nix the interplanetary field trips for a while until you get more bridge experience and the viewers get attached to you.

Dr. McCoy Homeschooling: "Dammit, Jim, the school system is dead!" This is the "Party of NO" in homeschooling... we all know them. They're the homeschoolers who homeschool only because they think the system is bad or because they object to this or that. They're pretty ok people, really, and like Dr. McCoy, they have a lot of strong feelings about issues, unlike...

Spock Homeschooling. It's logical. It's ordered. It's great for large families because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, or the few. Big family moms get this concept, even if they don't speak it outright. They'll tell you that they love each child equally, and that each child gets 14.8 minutes of undivided attention each day... but... I'm thinking they're saying this because all the *other* moms keep saying this... and they don't want to be the oddball who says that it doesn't really work that way.

Uhura Homeschooling. Mostly because of the cool name. Uhura is smart, pretty, and she communicates well, but she can and will kick your butt if she is threatened. Don't mess with her.

"It's going to take me six YEARS to finish that curriculum, Captain! There's nae way I can do it by June!" Welcome to the world of Scotty Homeschooling! Study technical manuals in your spare time and make up crazy estimates for project due dates. Fun.

And finally, Captain Kirk homeschooling. Be adventurous in about any way you can imagine, and probably a few you can't. Go shirtless! Do things your way, because YOU are the Captain and you said so! Follow the Federation manual to the letter when it suits you and when it doesn't? How convenient that you were out of contact range with Headquarters when a major decision that affected the course of the entire universe had to be decided... My bad. But the Captain always does the right thing. And he gets to wear velour... mmm... velour.