Homeschooling - does anyone else do it?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I only know secular home schoolers, but I haven’t seen this. These kids are exceptionally well-rounded socially, spend time out in society meeting real people, and their parents usually allow them much more agency than the average kid. IME, I have seen it in parents and children who attend public and private schools. This is the era of overprotective helicopter parenting, and those kids spend 7 hours in school (usually with people just like them), the rest of their free time is with a sitter/afterschool program, their parent, or attending structured activities with their peers from school. I rarely see the kids in my neighborhood (a white, majority Irish-Catholic one where most of the kids go to the local Catholic school) outside their houses. At least when I was a kid, living in a small town as we did I could spend hours out on my bike exploring.

Also, as you probably know, like gravitates to like for kids as well as older people. I went to several somewhat diverse public school systems; in each of them my best friends were all white, nerdy kids with above average intelligence and parents who were disproportionately academics (as were mine). That’s not to say I wasn’t friendly with all sorts of people, but school taught me is that I only had much in common with a very small subset. I had some social problems later in life because I didn’t learn how to interact very well with non-nerds, or people outside my peer group. I couldn’t make small talk and was intimidated by anyone older than me. This cleared up with a year or so of working at a real job with a variety of people. However I still only have nerdy, smart, mostly academic friends (even though I’m a high-school drop-out, I like to learn as do all my friends, and most of them have degrees by this point), most of whom come from the same kind of background as I do.

I guess what I am saying is that if you don’t make a deliberate effort to give your child varied experiences and familiarize them with all kinds of people, whether they attend school or not - they are not going to become well-rounded from spending 7 hours per day in a building with 1000 kids from your immediate area.

42

There is an umbrella program for homeschoolers at a church in Memphis that provides a prom and graduation ceremonies. I think they have a private school too though, so I guess it’s just a combination? Not sure since we weren’t part of the program. I didn’t think any of that was necessary. My daughter went to a formal military dance so she got to play dress up at least once.

43

I think that was me who mentioned that. Yes, some homeschool groups throw a Prom and other similar Dances. Some do it for their own students, but at least one I know of does a really wonderful thing: they arrange the Event for a Special Ed school full of developmentally delayed and otherwise handicapped kids. The homeschoolers get to learn event management and the associated logistics and budgeting, and then they get all dressed up along with the SpEd kids and enjoy the night together! I think that’s really cool.

44

Preamble - I didn’t take the time to read the whole thread. Some of this may be repetitive but it’s directed mainly to the OP. Also, this is likely to be a drive-by due to work.

We started homeschooling our four children when our eldest, who is a junior in hich school, was entering fourth grade in 2004. The decision at the time was due to a combination of triggers including poorly performing public schools in New Orleans; economic - private school tuition x 4 kids x (K-12 + college); dissatisfaction with the quality of private education; and dissatisfaction with some of the political pressures on public education. In our case, homeschooling worked and we’re very happy with the results thus far.

We found that the homeschooling community is largely made up of kooks from both ends of the political spectrum. We visited both the Wild Azalea Unschoolers group (far left; touchy-feely) and the Christian Home Education Fellowship (far right, of course) and while we had some common ground with each group, we were round pegs to their square holes. We did find some small homeschool groups for PE and play dates, so there was a peer group for our kids. We also enrolled them in scouts and in community sports leagues. Socialization is not a problem provided the parent teachers make a modest effort.

Curricula vary. One very good one is available from the Calvert School, a Western Civ based private school in Maryland. Others are pretty dogmatic from a variety of spectra both Christian and secular. We developed our own curriculum for K-6 based on Maria Montessori’s approach and we purchased the Calvert home study program and enrolled in their grading service for 7th grade as we made that the transition year from the home classroom to regular school. This was good preparation for shifting our kids from working at their own pace with limited examination to following a set of instructions and assignments and being tested and graded regularly.

It has worked well for us. Our daughter and oldest son are in public school now that we’ve moved to a smaller community with a viable public school option. Both are making straight A’s in all their subjects and we’re supplementing their school work with home reading on light homework nights.

The best thing, IMO, has been our using home school to develop their critical thinking skills. We work constantly with them to engage with their surroundings and to think through and solve problems. A close second is that homeschooling allows us the freedom to indulge a child’s interest more thoroughly that he’d get to in a more structured school. The experience is made richer by the ability to take the kids on field trips so they get first-hand exposure to interesting things rather than the one or two outings they might get each year in public or private school.

I do not like the hermit-type homeschoolers who do crazy things with their kids that, IMO, stunt their emotional and intellectual development. Thankfully those are easily avoided.

The biggest drawback for two-income families is that someone needs to stay home and run the school. That person needs to like being a home teacher and needs to be very patient and well organized. It is a substantial commitment of time and energy.

45

I’m not quoting the whole thing, but thanks for your experiences. I can imagine public school in NOLA was no picnic, even before Katrina.

I agree 125%.

It is, and this was easy for us. My husband loves being with the children, and is enjoying being a home teacher so far. While I adore my children, and love being with them, he is more patient than I am. Organization? That falls to me.

46

I don’t homeschool. I’ve seen it done well, and I’ve seen it done poorly.

One thing to be aware of is the dynamic between you and your child. Some parent/child combos are just not good bets for homeschooling. Some are great. I have a friend who is a teacher and her daughter was having public school challenges and she considered homeschooling. As a test run, they did it over the summer. It was a disaster - just because mom and daughter did not get along well enough to spend that much time together (too alike - daughter is now a lovely young adult and gets along great with mom). Know thyself and know thy child.

Another is the “reintegration challenge” - A bigger deal for some forms of homeschooling and some kids than others. As said upthread, eventually your kid might want to go to college. Or you might be forced to send them to school because you need to work. Just think ahead. One of my neighbors homeschools her daughter and tried to integrate her into public school and it didn’t work - her daughter simply didn’t have the “classroom skills” of sitting still, waiting her turn, doing math during math time - the teacher - challenged with 36 kids in a classroom - didn’t have time to teach her what everyone else had learned in the first four years of school. And Mom was one of those “my special snowflake” mothers. It was best for everyone when they decided public school wasn’t working out - at least short term. I believe the girl is getting a good education at home - the social thing in that family IS a little weird - she seldom plays with any of the neighbor kids and when she does is really immature. But I know plenty of homeschooled kids who are very mature for their age, too. That’s just that family (and honestly, is probably worse due to the homeschooling, but who knows - maybe she’d be a strange, immature kid had she gone to public school and played with the neighborhood kids).

47

Absolutely agree with this. Our daughter is very much a self-starter: she’s always done extra work outside of what was required. She loves to learn new things and is always reading or doing math. Our son needs more one-on-one time because he needs more help, especially in math. We already give him that: but he’s not getting enough in school.

Those kind of moms drive me crazy. :smiley: Thankfully, our two are very well behaved and know how to act in a classroom setting. They’re in sixth grade, so they have had training and experience in that. I don’t think that’s something they’ll lose, especially since they often find themselves in similar situations.

48

Grats on the forthcoming sprout =)

One thing I noticed in a couple homeschooled kids I ran into when I was at university a few years ago for a course I needed for my paralegal cert. I decided to get a lit class that looked interesting. What I noticed was they had absolutely no sense of participation. They did not seem to be able to understand a syllabus, getting the coursework done on a daily basis, working in a group of strangers and really what I would consider classroom discipline. I know that when I went through traditional school, we were taught to basically sit down, shut up unless called on and do what you were told. We learned to keep to a schedule, how to make sure that our homework was done on time, and according to requirements.

49

I’m an informal educator. I’m a credentialed teacher, but I teach in non-school environments - zoos, museums, wildlife parks. My least favourite group to deal with is homeschoolers. Even individual homeschooled kids who sign up to camps and classes can be mightily challenging to teach. Here’s why:

They are not “trained” to learn in a classroom setting, at least, not as well as their mainstream-schooled peers. This manifests in lots of different ways, the most obvious and disruptive being the homeschooled kids often attempt to engage in conversation (both with instructors and with other kids) when it is not appropriate, e.g., during a lecture. This usually takes the form of a long, rambling story, sometimes, but not always, related to the concept or materials being taught.

I can totally understand WHY this happens. The conversational, two-way flow of communication is a fantastic way to learn, and an easy way for a homeschooling parent to teach. It is certainly not appropriate in all settings, and makes my job much more difficult, especially since these kids may have some great input. I don’t have time to listen to 40+ kids tell me stories all day - I’m trying to do my job, which is to ensure that all the kids learn something new.

Sometimes the parent of a homeschooler asks me for a lesson plan or curriculum of the lesson. Sometimes they ask for it BEFORE I teach their kids. Well, to be honest, that’s happened once. I don’t see the homeschool teachers I’ve met becoming particularly involved in the lesson. Of course, sometimes the parents want to sit in on the lesson, which has almost always not helped, as their kids kept jumping up to go and ask them questions, or tell them stories, or just for a hug. Fine, great - but inappropriate in my classroom. I’ve learned to be very clear on guidelines for such groups, which makes me uncomfortable - I like to be a very casual instructor, and can take most things in my stride.

All those other, unspoken skills that kids learn in classrooms are also absent. I’ve had homeschool kids seem unable to grasp the concept of holding something while they touched and looked at it for a while, then passing it to the next kid. If I have to direct the flow of the feather (etc.) around the class, that’s 5+ minutes I can’t spend teaching. I’ve had homeschool kids refuse to sit on the carpet and demand a chair!

These have been my experiences. If you are homeschooling your kids, maybe this information will be useful to you.

50

I laughed.

I took my Girl Scouts to plant trees for Arbor Day with the park system. The park ranger carefully explained to a bunch of 4th - 7th graders how to plant a tree and gave a lecture on native trees and why we were doing this. There was one boy in the group. Didn’t sit still - check. Talked out of turn - check. Couldn’t share resources - check. NEEDED to relay long rambling unrelated story to park ranger and group - check. Homeschooled - mom and I were talking during planting - this sort of activity is such a resource for homeschooled kids!

He really appeared to be a sweet and inquisitive kid. But there are 30 kids here to plant trees, needing to share shovels and buckets and clippers and the expertise of the three rangers assigned to us. And Mom really seemed to be the sort of wonderful, involved, homeschooling mom doing her best - she was just completely blind to her kids group manners not being the same as everyone else’s.

51

Yeah, I was in college classes with two different homeschooled kids who both had this problem. If there was anything about the lecture they didn’t understand instantly and in full, they’d stop the lecture and make the professor explain it to them, and inevitably run off into half-relevant stories and anecdotes. It was completely disruptive and irritating to everyone else.

I didn’t bring it up right away because (1) there may have been lots of other homeschooled kids who behaved themselves and who I therefore never noticed, and (2) I’m sure someone would ask what the hell is wrong with that.

52

I hope you did bring it up eventually. That was horrible!

53

Well, I meant bring it up in this thread… but no, no one ever did bring it up in class :slight_smile:

54

Been away from the thread for a day and it has moved on considerably.

Just had a few things to add. Several people have latched on to the idea that home schooling takes a huge amount of time. Well, before we took the plunge we sat down a figured out just how much time our daughter spent per day in public school actually getting any sort of instruction. Turns out the answer is somewhere between one and two hours. The rest of the time is spent moving from place to place, waiting for things to start, or doing individual work that could as easily be done at home.

Home schooling instruction can easily be done in the evening hours. Once they have had whatever instruction they need for a project they can then complete it independently, asking for further assistance as needed.

As for Sattua’s point (which was already addressed, most school districts are fairly homogeneous) our district is made up of the town and surrounding environs with a population of maybe 4,000 people. There are maybe 2% who are not lower middle class or poor. Our daughter still associates with the local community through various activities but also is around the other various groups you are afraid she is being deprived of by traveling to nearby areas for other activities while the local kids are stuck seeing the same 30 faces every day for a year.

Also, I sympathize with araminty. You have been unfortunate enough to have been saddled with kids who are have not been taught, and probably not even shown, the way to behave in public. Blame the parents, not homeschooling. It is true that public school will beat this lesson into kids if the parents are complete losers like the mothers you describe. Teaching a kid manners should be done before they are allowed to participate in public gatherings, whether that be a park ranger lesson or public school.

There also seems to be a great deal of concern in the thread over curricula. There really isn’t any reason to spend any money or even a great deal of effort coming up with subject matter for any grade. Most states publish their curricula by grade. It is then very easy using the internet or public library to find materials that match the subjects listed. We spend maybe 8 - 10 hours per year putting together a plan for what we need to cover and then just look for relevant materials when we are ready to hit that subject.

There also seems to be a unstated idea that homeschooling is just public schooling moved to the home. That would indeed be a tragedy. Home schooling means being able to get rid of all the stuff that public schools do because they have to manage dozens of kids at a time. At home you don’t have to schedule every subject every day. You can tailor the lesson to the learning style of your child. You can give whatever time to a problem subject that you need. You can work on a single subject for a week at a time if you want.

My 12 year old spent a week learning the original pronunciation from Shakespeare’s time and memorizing the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet for a presentation she wanted to give at a Medieval recreation get together, just because she wanted to.

For that week, math could wait.