When neighbors and friends asked me how home schooling was going this year, my answer was, "I don't know."

How was I supposed to compare my seventh-grade boys' education with those of his peers, who were taught each subject by a teacher trained and experienced in that subject? Up until this year, he had attended public school in DeKalb County, and his teachers had been excellent in every grade.

He wrote me a long letter asking to be home schooled so that he could commit more fully to his aspirations to develop his tennis game. I did not find this argument particularly persuasive, but there was enough about the way his middle school was run that I did not like —- including silent lunches for failure to turn in papers, and the whole class missing out on physical education for the misbehavior of one or two kids —- to convince me to give it a try.

I was also inwardly thrilled by the prospect of doing something out of the box; of taking back this measure of control over our lives that we had handed over to the county seven years earlier.

Knowing the caliber of teachers at his school, this was not an easy choice. In the beginning, I constantly second-guessed our effort. He was learning, but was he learning as much as his peers? What was he missing that they were getting? And then there is the mother of all questions: How would he compare with them on a standardized test?

With the year now behind us, and especially given the recent Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests debacle, I am now prepared to look back and count the positives. Here is the short list:

> All the learning that my child did this year was for the sake of learning itself. He learned nothing in order to make a grade or perform on a test. He was taught that a wrong answer simply means that there is something more he needs to learn.

> Our relationship was enhanced by our conversation around various social studies and science topics.

> He could work at his own pace in math and language arts.

> Educational leverage. Current events and articles that I value could be added to the days' assignment sheet.

> Lifelong love of learning was promoted for our whole family.

Yes, I am certain that a standardized test would reflect that there are some items his peers were taught this year that he missed out on. (And I probably don't need to mention that there were plenty of items on the standardized test this year that his peers missed out on, too.)

Yet, looking back over the year as a whole, when someone asks me how home school went this year, I have my new answer.

> Darby Christopher lives in Dunwoody.