Giving Thanks

I've been doing this blog for almost three months now, and one of the most fascinating things to me has been how I can be writing here in my little part of North Carolina, but be read by people all over the world.  In the past three months, my blog has been accessed by hundreds of readers from every continent across the globe except Antarctica.  For example, while my hits this past week have WAY predominantly come from the US, I've also had 8 contacts from Canada, 6 from Denmark, 5 from Singapore, and 2 each from the UK, Russia, and Kenya.

So for my non-US readers, let me explain that today is the holiday of Thanksgiving, the day when we gather with friends and families, cook a big turkey meal in honor of the first settlers who arrived here to find such a new and tasty wild bird on which to feast (although, with all the different diets people pursue here, there is more and more deviation from the "typical" Thanksgiving meal), and give thanks for our many blessings.  And since I have so much to be thankful for, I thought I would share at least the ones that relate to the subject of this blog with you all, my virtual community.

Things I am thankful for this year include:

• that my circumstances allow me to homeschool my son, which I believe is the best educational experience for him and the most fun I can imagine for me;
• that North Carolina has such a hands-off policy regarding homeschooling, allowing us the freedom to design curriculum and programs that meet our specific needs;
• that this community is so supportive of homeschooling and has so many classes and activities geared to this population;
• that my homeschooling support group has so many diverse, interesting, intelligent, free-thinking, innovative, committed, and really caring parents who contribute so much to my son and to me as we pursue our homeschooling journey
• that my spiritual community not only supports me in my own continued development, but has entrusted me with the opportunity to create a new "rite of passage" world religion Sunday School curriculum for our middle school youth;
• and that despite it all--the political debates, the lack of resources, the troubling policy issues, the implied insult by politicians that outsiders can do a better job running things than professional educators, the relatively low salaries, the continued interference by bureaucrats and policy makers--that there are so many dedicated, professional, and wonderful school teachers who spend their days (and too often, nights) serving the majority of children in Wake County (and, really, throughout the world) who attend school.  I had dinner Tuesday night with two of them, and even during a rare "Girls Night Out" on a long holiday weekend, they kept going back to talking about individual kids and things they could do to make their school experience better.  With all the things school teachers have to deal with, I think their job is much tougher than mine, and my hat is off to them.

In short, it is my greatest joy and privilege that I get to be a mother to one and a teacher to several dozen other extraordinary young people, and I feel very blessed that this is how I get to spend this portion of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!