Temptation

I am being tempted. I happened to be browsing the website of a local Christian private school (I don't really remember why - I had researched them quite a bit before deciding to homeschool), when I noticed the link for "Employment Opportunities." I clicked it, and found a job which has the potential to be really perfect for me - the school librarian. I have a masters in librarianship, though I did not focus on school library tasks, nor do I have a teaching certificate. But for a private school, I wouldn't need any teaching credentials - just 24 credit hours in library science. So I would be quite well qualified. And I love working in libraries. And from my previous visit to their school, I had learned that employees can send their children to this private school for a greatly reduced rate.

The reason this is tempting to me is that I don't always enjoy the "teaching" part of homeschooling, especially when my daughter is being stubborn, grumpy, and extremely slow to do her work, which was quite a bit this past week. I love researching curriculum, and learning things myself, but teaching is difficult at times. I like reading to them, doing experiments (when they're not too messy), and teaching them things which are exciting to them, especially when they make discoveries and link things together. I love having them all home together, and how much closer they've become to each other. But it's frustrating when I feel like I'm just force-feeding them facts. I think I'll enjoy it more as they get older, and more logical. But these early years will be trying at times, I know. It is tempting to hand them off to a more skilled teacher, especially when I'd be right there on the same campus with them. Plus, I really like all the other activities the school offers - music, sports, drama, etc. The class sizes are small, the teachers are all Christians, and the school is just down the street from my parents' house.

But there are too many cons to taking the librarian job. For one thing, my 2 younger children are too young for the school, so I'd have to put them in full-time daycare/preschool for 2-3 more years, which I definitely don't want to do. Plus, I'd have to go to work every day, at least during the school year, and get the kids ready early, and be gone all day, and still have to do all the housework and cooking when I returned in the evening. The kids would still have homework in the evenings. I'd have to wear more formal clothes, force the kids to wear more formal clothes, fix lunches for us all, etc. We wouldn't be able to take a vacation whenever we wanted, I'd have to make arrangements somehow if one of the kids got sick. I also don't totally like the curriculum they use (A Beka in the earlier years, adding in Bob Jones in the upper levels, plus some other things which they don't specify). Some of these things aren't big deals, but the need for preschool and the curriculum choices are the two biggies for me.

So I'm not going to apply for now. Maybe when all 3 kids are school age, if they have other appropriate job openings, I might reconsider. But maybe by then, they'll all be old enough to not drive me crazy while homeschooling. (I'll just be glad when my 2-year-old is a bit more controllable.)

So I went one last time to check the school's website, and saw they had added another job opening - a pre-calc/calculus/physics teacher! Another job that looks perfect for me, given my degree in physics and lots of upper-level math. Ahh!!! I think I better not look at their website again for a long time!