Do you think there should be standards or oversight for home schooled kids or the people who teach them? If so, what type? How should it be done?
I’ve addressed this a bit in other posts here, but this concern is the main reason we don’t intend to keep the kids at home beyond 8th grade. We have made very conscious efforts to get the kids exposed to other people and other viewpoints through the activities they do. For example, our 11 year old sings in a choir and the choir went to Rome last Thanksgiving. (They sang at a mass at St. Peter’s, among other things.) I don’t know if we’d have the boy in the choir if he were in a school with a music class. Now, of course, the challenge is to find equally rewarding experiences for the other two boys. Our daughter is looking forward to student ambassadors or some other venue through her school.
Most of our homeschool friends struggle with the “experience” issue and do push very hard to broaden horizons.
Last one until late tonight or tomorrow for me…
There are several popular home curricula. I’m drawing blanks on their names right now, but they run the gamut from the extremely conservative and evangelical to the very conservative Western Civilization centered ones. Then, as mentioned upthread, there are the very liberal “Unschoolers” who take a more student directed approach. As such, people interested should decide what they are most comfortable with and what their kids would best respond to.
Ours do well with the Montessori approach my wife devised. We have friends who swear by their faith-based mail order coursework.
All this to say, ask a dozen homeschoolers the “best way to teach” and you’ll get fourteen answers. The first year is scary. After that, you’ll have figured out the way your kids learn, the things they have trouble learning, whether they need repitition, application, memorization, or visualization to reinforce things, and how you can tweak what you’re doing to help them learn and to remember.
I know I’m going to get spanked for this, but here goes…
The OP is stamped 10:46 AM, and Dangermon lists her location as California. With all due respect, if you are homeschooling your children, what are you doing spending a Thursday morning launching threads on message boards? Shouldn’t you be in school?
Thank you Ivorybill. Everyone’s answers have been most enlightening and interesting. What you all describe seems a vast world apart from the little bit I know of homeschooling through casual observation. I must admit a bit of jealousy at such a varied course load and that much in-the-field experience and observation. How awesome to be able to go to such places for class trips!
And not to answer for dangermom, but perhaps while she’s been posting they’ve been doing their actual homework portion. Or, as has been mentioned, a less structured and enforced schedule allows more occasional flexibility. Just perfect for things like the Dope. 
I’m back! Hah, **Icarus, **good question. I typed up the OP, went and finished my daughter’s writing assignment with her, started her on math, came back and typed a bit, went and finished the math, had lunch, and settled in for some serious typing during quiet time. I don’t spend every minute with her; we’d both go crazy. She does pretty well being left alone to concentrate for a little while. This morning, it was my turn to have the co-op preschool, so we did a pretty basic day since I was also doing the little ones until about 11.
I haven’t worried about it much. I don’t even know if we’ll go that far. If we do, I’ll hope that they’ll get asked to the prom!
Well, you were quite lucky, indeed. I wasn’t that lucky–as I said above, my public education was nearly useless–and I have serious doubts that our local schools, fine as they are, are as excellent as yours were. In any case, while it’s quite true that a good public school education offers many advantages that a homeschooler cannot duplicate, I would argue that there are a lot of different advantages to homeschooling that a PS kid misses out on. There’s no such thing as an education that gives you everything; you’re always going to miss something and gain something else.
I have a reasonable confidence that I am capable of teaching my kids pretty well everything up through 8th grade, at least. What I don’t already know, I can learn. Excellent curricula make it possible to teach all kinds of subjects which I could not teach on my own–I can’t design a math program from scratch, but I can certainly work from a textbook and teach the concepts laid out in it.
I’m sure your mom worked hard and did a great job. However, it’s worth noting that a teacher’s credential has very little to do with what goes on in a home environment; homeschooling teachers generally find that they need to unlearn many things (as we all do) and that they need to learn a lot of new things about homeschooling. A credential isn’t really any kind of an advantage (though I do find my MLIS to be helpful). Additionally, the first year is always the most difficult and least interesting, because you’re still finding your way. If your mom had continued to homeschool you, she may well have discovered zillions of wonderful things to do. I’ve been doing this for 3 years and would call myself a newbie. One year’s worth of experience doesn’t give anyone a good picture of the possibilities.
As I’ve said above, once you hit high school you start doing a lot of things outside the home if you haven’t before, finding tutors, going to CC classes, and so on. Though between us, my husband and I could probably teach world history, physics, English lit, and calculus, that wouldn’t be practical and wouldn’t prepare our kids for college. So I’m not really worried that my kids will never see other perspectives besides our own. Most homeschoolers, including me, work very hard to get their kids exposed to experiences and points of view from all over.
We then end up with kids who have done different–but not less interesting–things than their college peers have done, thus increasing diversity of thought and experience. Which gives everyone a broader perspective, don’t you think?
Homeschooling isn’t incredibly common here because of the school choice available. However, that school choice is now shrinking, and we’re seeing a corresponding rise in homeschooling. Quite a few of my friends are thinking about it. I wouldn’t say a tiny minority, but a pretty small one.
Since we’re here in California, the current ISSUE is the court case (which is now going to be reheard). While I feel comfortable that our local legislators are pretty pro-homeschooling, I’m worried that the teacher’s union and others will try to place restrictions on it, and you can be pretty certain that they wouldn’t be helpful ones.
Hmmm…in some ways, yes, in others no. The HSLDA has indeed helped many homeschoolers and was a major player in getting it legalized in many states, but it’s also known for its activism in other areas that homeschoolers aren’t all behind. It’s a very evangelical organization, but tends to present itself as representing all homeschooling. I am not a member. For information, well, we all spend a lot of time on the Internet. There’s tons of information out there, it’s just a matter of sorting through it.
Oof, the authority? As Ivorybill said, we’re too diverse a crowd to have one. There are a bunch of different educational philosophies–Charlotte Mason, classical, character education, unit studies, Thomas Jefferson, unschooling, Waldorf, Montessori, school-in-a-box…and lots of people simply pick and choose what they like best from each one (this is known as eclectic). My personal guru is Susan Wise Bauer, co-author of The Well-Trained Mind. I know exactly one other classical homeschooler IRL. There are a lot of prominent personalities, but you’d have to pick a flavor first. An unschooler would read John Holt, an evangelical would read Mary Pride, and so on–but there’s a lot of overlap too.
There, did that help? 
I have to go bake cornbread now.
That was wonderful. Honestly, I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. Thank you for explaining it so thoroughly and well. I’ll now leave all the questions to others who might actually have a chance of trying this out, seeing as I’ll never have any kids of my own.
So, here’s to many happy homeschooling trails for all of y’all!
I don’t feel that learning should stop when a kid leaves school, and the home environment, even for a public school student, is an important part of education. Kids lucky enough to have parents that believe that will get the best of both worlds.
I guess I was home-schooled before going to school, since I had a mom who taught me to read around 4 years and by the time I went to formal nursery school, was way ahead of my classmates (so much that they kicked me out, up to kindergarden). And my mom made a point of getting my schoolbooks (with answer guides!) for home use even before the school semester began, so I stayed ahead of the class.
But as much as I admired what Mom did for me up to grade 6 or so, I quickly realized how sheltered I had been, how limited my outlook was and how retarded my social development had become when I was exposed to “the world” in Junior High 7th Grade. This caused a serious collision of family and personal values as I wanted to do more things (dancing, singing, playing in bands, riding a bicycle beyond the block) and I had outgrown my environment.
So my experience was perhaps not typical. If you take your young kids to public activities and don’t prohibit outside contact, computer use or TV watching as “satanistic” or “corrupting”, they shouldn’t have as wrenching an experience as I did!
IMO homeschooling works best when it’s allowed to use its strength–the freedom to tailor a child’s education individually. Oversight from the educational bureaucracy tends to mess that up, and many of my ISP friends complain about it. If it’s a gorgeous spring day, perfect for hiking through the park and looking at wildflowers, it’s kind of a bummer to have to stay home because that math packet is due to the teacher–homeschooling is great because you can go on the hike and do the math lesson another day, when your kid is in the mood to burn through a week’s worth of worksheets before lunch.
I’ve been discussing this a little online with some others, though. Any standards, I think, would have to be set by experienced homeschoolers. PS educators have completely different experience that doesn’t translate well; they frequently don’t understand homeschooling, and the unions are just plain against it. So I would be interested in seeing a state have something like a series of classes (maybe online) for parents who want to homeschool. Say, a 12-week class that would go over the basics.
Idaho has been doing something very interesting; the homeschooling association has a committee that handles any complaints about struggling families. So if a principle hears of a local family that isn’t teaching or whatever, she can send the information to the committee, which visits the family, evaluates their needs, and helps get them back on track if they need help. I really like that idea, but California is so huge that it’s hard to imagine it working well here.
Oh, I missed this. No, we don’t have those sorts of restrictions. And we like music and dancing. So I hope my kids won’t have severe culture shock–I’ll send them to another country for that valuable experience.
Great points. Yes, HSLDA is a conservative group with evangelical roots and leanings. We’re not evangelicals, and we’re not totally secular homeschoolers, and we don’t have big issues with the faith foundations of HSLDA. We’re members primarily because Louisiana has a political reputation for doing stupid stuff, and we’d hate to be bankrupted trying to defend ourselves if things got totally crazy. I think it’s possible to be a member of HSLDA and not be hit over the head with Jesus. That said, if it’s not your cup of tea, there’s no need to spend the money.
Ouch! IMO, this type of smothering at a young age just makes the pendulum swing all the farther when the child leaves home, either to regular school, college, or to life. Kind of like the kids I knew in college who were the worst binge drinkers were often those whose parents had forbade alcohol of any kind at the home.
There are plenty of homeschoolers who take the sheltering approach. One family we know forbids their 11 year old son from watching Star Wars, of all things, for fear of the “satanic” aspects. :rolleyes: However, in the 1970s I went to public school with the son of a Pentecostal preacher who enforced similar restrictions on his family, so that kind of behavior is not unique to homeschooling.
Or, in other words, there are kooks everywhere. (Not to call your folks kooks if that would be a hurtful thing to do.)
You’re most welcome. Thank you for asking such good questions.
One thing about homeschooling is that you start being very aware of teachable moments. Scout science badge? Put it in the curriculum. Going to visit grandma? Stop at the historical site on the way.
One big key benefit we’ve found through our homeschooling is the marked increase in our kids’ problem solving and critical thinking skills. Not that these cannot be developed in the classroom, but sometimes kids (and adults!) need significant time to think through a problem and to develop a solution. In big classrooms there’s not the time to work on that.
At first it was painful to watch our oldest two, who had been in conventional school for their early school years, struggle with the thinking and problem solving tasks we gave them. It didn’t take them long to come to appreciate the satisfaction that comes from cracking a tough nut and to not worry about taking time to think things through.
Yeah, it’s possible that I’ll be sorry if things get ugly here! But I don’t think it will come to that, and I’d prefer to get one of the lawyers that do work for the HSC here. I’m not actually sure that HSLDA even accepts Mormons, secret cultish folks that we are. :rolleyes: I’ve heard stories.
I would agree that oversheltering leads to problems down the road. I do know a few folks who will only read Christian books or whatever and won’t study Greek myths at age 6 when the kids are ‘too impressionable,’ but I don’t know many. And they do pop up everywhere.
Oh, about classical homeschooling: I wouldn’t call it Western Civ education. It’s more of a method than a bundle of content; you can do it with anything. But there is a big emphasis on world history (chronologically studied, which I think is great) and on reading great works of literature so as to wrestle with ideas. And you’re supposed to do Latin. And Greek is good. And then a modern language.
One significant difference is that you don’t do nearly as much American history at first–since you’re studying it in order, you start with Mesopotamia and keep going, and you don’t hit US history until the third year in the 4-year cycle. This is supposed to give you perspective (the US isn’t the most important country in the world) and contextual understanding (the Constitution did not spring fully formed from George Washington’s forehead, as SWB says).
Thanks for the clarification. My wife and I both attended a liberal arts university, so we’re pretty keen on that style of education. We’ve done a bit of that with our kids, but not enough to call it that.
What if your kids expressed a sincere desire to go to regular school with the rest of the kids? Would that be something you’d be against or something that you might consider?
I had a brief period of wanting to go to an outside school. (About 9th grade I think) My mom gave me the task of researching schools (public and private). It didn’t take long for me to decide that I was happier and better off where I was.
Every other year or so, 'round about mid-March, my goddaughters decide that next year, they’re going to go to public school. Like Antinor01’s mom, their mom says, “Sure - go ahead and call the local school, find out what exams or placement tests you need to take, and we’ll make an appointment with a counselor to figure out what grade you’ll move into.”
Last year was the closest they got - they both took placement exams for high school, testing at or above age/grade level for everything, and 'round about August 1st decided they didn’t want to go after all. They enrolled in additional homeschool group classes, got involved in the homeschool dance committee and auditioned for a few community theater plays instead.