A Visit to the Local High School

Amy made my heart glad today with this remark, "Boy, I'm happy I don't have to go to school!"  It's the kind of remark that encourages an insecure homeschooling mother to just keep plugging along. 

The girls have been wanting to play tennis for some long while.  Upon hearing of this the other night, a friend from church generously loaned us a couple of rackets and a can of balls. He said, "Just go to the fire station and ask the fire chief for the key to the tennis courts.  I do it all the time."  Just to be sure we weren't going to be chasing a wild goose, I called the fire station this morning.  I had four girls all dressed for the courts and ready to go.  "No... we haven't had the keys for the tennis courts for three years.  You'll have to call the high school."  Aha!  Just as I suspected!  A goose was loose.

After learning that I would have to bravely send my girls on to the high school campus, I gave them $5 for a key deposit plus a walkie-talkie.  In fifteen minutes my radio bleeped.   I could hear a bit of resentment in my daughter's voice.  They needed to have an adult signature. Why don't adults trust kids?   I had to brush my teeth and make my hair look presentable, but my girls waited patiently.  Borrowing my daughter's bike I pedaled three or four blocks to the high school.

No one accosted us when we entered the gate, but the girls had been questioned the first time they went in.  "Do you have ID?  What are you doing here?"  As if they look dangerous.  But I can understand the school having security.  They might have weirdos off the street, four little Baptist girls in skirts, for example, come in shooting or something.  Scary.  Funny thing is, to me it looked a lot scarier on the inside that it does on the outside!

We made our way to the administrative office building and down the hall to the bookstore.  We could feel eyes turning to stare from all directions. Frankly I was happy to be an unusual attraction -- a  happy mother with orderly children, none of whom were dressed like street-walkers in training.  I signed for the tennis court key. 

As we exited the building we met the one teacher we know there, and we stopped to chat for a minute.  He's a good man trying to make a difference in this place. Truly, it's a mission field. His family homeschools, too. 

Going around the outside corner of the building I was thinking maybe we could get off the campus through a back gate and avoid walking all the way around.  I noticed a security guard leaving the building right behind us, and observant woman that I am, I did not notice until I had asked him for directions, that he was actually a police officer, and in front of him was a male student in handcuffs! 

On our way to the rear gate, which we found locked, one of the younger girls excitedly pointed out the little playground equipment, and commented that she didn't know high schools had playgrounds.  I explained that that was play stuff for the school's day care... 

Finally making our way back to the front gate, Alison said, "I don't like the way these kids look at me.  They probably think I don't know anything!"  I told her they probably know a lot of things she doesn't know, and to be glad for that! 

And after all that, the tennis courts were full.  But it wasn't a wasted trip.  We now have a key.  We learned first hand that school is like prison.  And I now have four kids who are glad to be homeschooling.

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him,
If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:31,32