Homeschooling Question - Need Help

Factual Questions
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I’m currently a sophmore in high school, with this year about to end. My parents are moving, and I’ll be going to a new school. I’ve gone through lots of tough times thus far (as I’m sure many people have in school), and I think that alternate means of education would suit me better than public schooling.

I heard about homeschooling recently, and it sounds like a great idea… but I need a bit of guidance with it. I don’t know where to get started or how it will work out. My parents will not be home to teach me, I’ll be teaching myself everything. This presents a problem with subjects like math and chemestry or physics, where a teacher is usually needed to teach the concepts.

Also, how do colleges look upon home-schooled people? Are they willing to accept them, and how do they measure the academic level that the student is at? Is this done through standardized tests like the SAT?

Any help is appreciated.

Chris

2

TTK –

Great series of questions. First, some background…

I was homeschooled K-12 myself; this was originally because I had a genetic immune deficiency and some mild but noteworthy neurological stuff (from some cranial vault surgery I’d had as an infant), but I stuck with it even when I got better because it worked out so well for me. I ended up earning my bachelor’s at 17 by distance learning, and finished a master’s from California State the same way.

As far as homeschooling yourself goes: You’re not alone, but I don’t recommend going commando with this approach. I’d find a distance learning high school program–Bill Bennett fired one up a couple of years ago–or try my luck at the GED. If you earn a GED and have decent writing skills, you can probably move right on to a distance learning college program; the most prestigious is probably Penn State’s “LionHawk” program, where you do the first two years online at a community college, and the last two years online at Penn State, and end up with a Penn State B.A. for your trouble.

There are other options, but I’m not as familiar with them as I should be, so I’ve brought this thread to the attention of a friend, someone who is currently writing a book on nontraditional high schooling. He can probably offer more thorough and constructive advice.

Good luck.
Cheers,

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Those of you wondering why I began my last post with “Archetypal Trickster-God” will be happy (or disappointed) to learn that I haven’t lost my mind, but rather assumed that the “Title” field referred to my title, not the post’s. I guess I can settle for “Member” for now.
Cheers,

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TTK Globe:

The term “Home Schooling” usually refers to a stay-at-home parent teaching his or her elementary age children, using teaching materials adapted to help that parent instruct the child/children despite a lack of formal teaching skills.

What your describing differs in two ways – you are at the high-school level, and you will not have the benefit of a parent to teach you. So I believe what you are looking for is not home-schooling in the usual sense.

However, there are educational options available for what you are needing. One possibility is a “Correspondence School”. This is where your textbooks and materials are mailed to you, you read them and do the assignments, then mail them back to a supervising instructor. Once it is time to take a final exam you need to find someone in your area to proctor the test. (Often this is a pastor or other official that the school believes will honestly supervise you while you test.)

Another possibility is something called “distance learning”. This a program conducted by a regular school and using real teachers, but the students are studying from home and are connected to the school via computers and the Internet. Only a few schools are set up to do this presently, but the numbers are growing as demand is increasing.

Whether a college will accept a non-standard school diploma will depend on whether or not the school you’ve chosen is regionally accredited. Don’t be fooled by meaningless “accreditations”. It’s not enough for them to be a member of a correspondence school club. They need to meet the requirements of the agencies that accredit regular schools. The schools that have distance learning available are able to use the accreditation of their regular school program to cover their distance-learning program.

You might ask the guidance counselor at your present school for more info on these options. Or if you’re no longer there, then see if you have any luck with an Internet search. But again, beware of any schools that don’t have Regional Accreditation. The counselor can help you understand how that works too.

Good luck.

5

To answer your second question: yes, colleges definitely will accept homeschooled students. In fact, many colleges look quite favorably on homeschooled applicants because they tend to do better academically. And, yes, standardized test scores (SAT and/or ACT) are an important part of college admissions for homeschoolers (though I’m not sure how this works for those schools that have dropped or will drop the SAT/ACT requirement). I believe a GED is usually required for admission, however they may be willing to waive that requirement, especially if your test scores are above average (this happened to me).

Good luck with whatever option you choose! :slight_smile:

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Have you consider GOING to college NOW. If you still want to live at home with mom and dad you can, just drive or take the bus. (I assumed you were going to college. You are just as free to go somewhere else like tech school) I have 3 friends who dropped out of high school after their sophmore year.

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What do your parents think? What kind of budget do they have to buy a canned curriculum? Have a look for the Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn (I think ).

I know of quite a few kids who have gone from being homeschooled to college but most if not all of them have parents who were SAH or were very supportive of the option. If you are going to choose to homeschool, you’ll need to be self directed and capable of taking charge of your learning. What’s on offer at your local community college?

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I have a few freinds that were home schooled. I would like to remind that public and private schools teach more than just educational skills. They also teach interpersonal realtionships that you cannot learn through most home schooling because you do not have the exposure to as many people. Some (not all) people I have known that were home schooled had troubles with relationships for the simple fact that they did not have the exposure to people. I just want you to be informed, book learning is not the only thing you learn in high school.

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This isn’t a bad option, but I’d recommend giving the GED a try, if possible, before you do that; most colleges have a requirement that students should hold a high school diploma “or equivalent” to enroll, where “or equivalent” can mean the GED, a homeschooling background, an age of 24, etc., but usually not equivalent knowledge by itself.

I second the recommendation from earlier in the thread that if you do a distance learning program of any kind, you make sure it holds regional accreditation or the foreign equivalent. But accreditation seems to be much less important at the high school level than it is at the college level, and of course isn’t a relevant issue for homeschoolers.
Cheers,

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etgaw, did you learn your spelling at school? :wink:

I think most people are well-aware that socialisation is an issue. Why it is such an issue (usually for people who are neither homeschooling nor open to learning about it) beats me, especially at a high school level. If I at the age of 19 choose a career that is fairly solitary, that’s OK? But at 17 it’s essential that you hang out with people of the same age or you are going to be irreparably warped?

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etgaw, I realize that, but I’ll only be doing home schooling for the last two years of school. I know how to have conversations with people, but as it is, in a public school I choose not to hang out with people… I just have a few ‘in school’ friends.

They can afford a curriculum… a canned curriculum sounds good.

Honestly, the one of the reasons I want to do homeschooling is so I don’t have to do the 8 hours of schooling, + 4 more hours of homework every day. The other one is more of a personal reason, and it has a big effect on wanting to do home schooling.
I don’t want to make pretty posterboards, I don’t want to make a fancy play re-inacting the battle of 1812, and I don’t want to give a 5 minute presentation about something I’ll never think about again. I just want to learn what I need, and go live my life.

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Incidentally, I am a high school sophomore educated in a way that is not quite home-schooling but very similar to it. It’s called home-bound education. The difference between this and home-schooling: You get a tutor which the school district pays for, you generally get less work than other at-home kids, it is temporary (usually only for a couple of months) and you only qualify if you have a very serious, serious problem (kids usually get home-bound if they have a medical condition, depression most commonly. I got it because I have an ill family member). I know this isn’t what your looking for, but I’ve been through similar paper work and procedure the at-home kids have, and I possess first hand experience on the general subject.
First off, you should know that school’s are(or at least my school district is) very much against home schooling, and there going to give you a hellish time about it . Also, this sort of thing takes time, and you’re not going to be able to switch back and forth when you feel like it.
If you still really want to go through with this, the first place you need to go is to your guidance counselor. They have, or will get you, all the info you’ll need. If your still determined, you’ll see an administrator who will give you a thick packet of papers you’re supposed to read over with your parents. After your parents sign them and some other documents, and make out arrangements for borrowing books and materials, you’ll be set (it’ll take some serious time for it to go through, probably). If I recall, they asked a lot of questions about my parents level of education and willingness to commit. Keep this in mind.
I’m not an expert on the subject, but I strongly doubt the school district will allow you to completely tutor yourself (I know over a thousand high school kids, and I say this would be a wise policy). If you can’t find a dedicated parent, guardian, or teacher to go in with you, your chances of being abdicated from the public school life are very slim. Even worse, those subjects you mentioned are fundamental to getting your diploma, and the school’s not going to let you get by without knowing them. I hate to be concrete on this matter, partly because most of the replies have been positive regarding your idea, and the Straight Doper’s are very bright people, but I think you’re going to get a resounding ‘hell no’ when you tell the school about your plan. Honestly, I almost laughed when I read about your ambitions and your circumstance. If your hearts set, though, I’d recommend giving it a try. I’m sure the standards differ form state to state.
On a more superficial, but equally important, level, there are some serious cons to not going to school. Namely, having a social life. I am well connected, am fairly popular, somewhat anti-social, have a great girl friend, but I feel lonely a lot. Staying home 24/7 isn’t the utopia you might think it is (my one home-schooled friend works his ass off). Besides, where else do you get to see, everyday, hundreds of busty teenager girls in slutty tank tops and mini-skirts? (Still love you Alexa:) ) Obviously, if you have a functioning set of balls, you’re gonna be missing out.
Someone else mentioned going to college right now. Trust me on this and Don’t Do It. If you want reasons, or any more info, tell me. It’s late, and I’m tired.
As a peer, I wish you much luck.

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Oh god, that was an unsightly post. Next time I’ll use ‘enter’ instead of ‘tab’, so we won’t have anymore 500-word, behomth-monster blocks of text.

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ET: Some (not all) people I have known that were home schooled had troubles with relationships for the simple fact that they did not have the exposure to people

Yeah, and I had trouble with relationships “for the simple fact” that I had exposure to people! LOL!

Really, socialization shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’m guessing at your age you have a fairly firm grip on social skills :slight_smile:

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My sister went to college without graduating from high school first (she just left HS a year early, she couldn’t stand living at home any longer). And it was a well-known and respectable university, and she wasn’t a totally brilliant student. You just have to find a college that doesn’t require HS graduation.

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Agreed–and bear in mind that many of the schools that “require” a high school diploma in theory don’t actually require it in practice. Call your local admissions offices and see if you can work out equivalency in some way, through a high ACT score or something.

Meanwhile, the GED is cheap and easy to pass. The one in Mississippi is, I’ve been told, about 6th-grade level (which is probably why only people 17 and older are allowed to take it–the state DOE doesn’t want thousands of 12 year olds running around with state high school equivalency diplomas). It’s my understanding that about half of the states that have a GED don’t have a minimum age requirement, and yours may be one of them.

I’m not going to get into the silly homeschooling-socialization thing; homeschooling did affect my social life to the extent that I had the opportunity to choose my friends, which meant folks my age up until I hit my mid-teens and mostly adults thereafter. Now, at 23, I can “socialize” just fine with other folks in my age group–but I usually don’t, because most of them tend to be boring, whiny, and undisciplined. The vast majority of the friends I choose to have now are at least pushing thirty. This can probably be considered a side effect of homeschooling, but I don’t consider it a negative one. (And if you’re concerned about hooking up, church groups and coffee shops are much nicer for that sort of thing anyway. Less pressure, and less of a gaping audience.)
Cheers,

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TTK Globe, what state will you be in? The rules vary greatly from one state to another. I would be surprised if very many states allow home-schooling without an adult at home during the day to teach you. But how old are you? If you are old enough to drop out of school with your parents’ permission, you could continue your education on your own without interference and take the GED when you’re old enough.

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I’m 16, and living in Michigan. I don’t think I want to drop out of highschool… don’t most jobs require a high school diploma? Would I recieve a diploma (or something equivalent) if I were to home school myself?

I wouldn’t mind dropping out of school and teaching myself what I need, but of course I’d rather keep the status of being ‘in school’, but just teach myself at home.

I’m not really sure what a GED is… is it like a substitute for a high school diploma?

In my last post it may have sounded like I don’t care about getting an education - I didn’t mean to suggest that… I do enjoy learning and I would do my best if I were to teach myself. The way schools teach simply isn’t for me, while the home schooling method is.

Here’s the way I see it: A majority of people use school as their grounds for socializing… in an 8 hour day, 4 is socialization, 4 is learning. In some cases, it seems all 8 hours are for socialization and 0 are learning. For me it’s the opposite. I sit in school for 8 hours, opening my mouth only a few times the entire day. Then, I go home and do hours of homework, because I actually care about my education/grades.

It seems a bit unfair from my point of view. And the reason I don’t have much of a social life is because of a speech impediment I have, stuttering. This puts a ton of stress on me when it comes to projects that have to be ‘presented’ in front of the class or a group.

Now don’t think I don’t know how to socialize… I can have great conversations with people - adults that is. Every time I meet with an adult, whether it be in a classroom or somewhere else, I end up talking with them about things like computers, stocks, job opportunities, etc. I can never seem to have meaningfull conversations with people my age.

Anyways, I hope this puts more of a meaning on my situation.

Chris

19

Chris,

My sister-in-law is currently homeschooling herself through the end of highschool.

I think you should really read the book mentioned before, The Teenage Liberation Handbook : How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn. It discusses exactly what you are considering.

I would advise against going to the guidance counselor for this, as she will almost certainly try to talk you out of it. As DemonSpawn52 mentioned, many school districts oppose homeschooling ferverently, sometimes to the point of calling Child Protective Services. It is not uncommon for districts to attempt to control or supervise or even dissuade homeschooling by claiming non-existant regulations must be enforced and unnecessary paperwork must be filled out.

You should definitely educate yourself on the actual homeschooling laws and requirements in Michigan. The HSLDA is a good place to start.

As to a diploma, you will not get one by homeschooling unless you participate in some kind of correspondance course, as there is no regulating body to issue diplomas to homeschoolers. I guess you could make yourself one. :wink:

Being homeschooled and not having an official diploma will probably not keep you from getting a job or getting into college. But if you are really worried, try a curriculum like CLASS which is sponsored by an actual accredited private school.

Whoever said that his being in highschool makes this “not really homeschool” is very wrong, btw. You realize that homeschoolers don’t stay 8 years old forever, right? And that parents don’t magically change their views on the public school system when their kids finish the fifth grade?

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PS:

Colleges That Accept Homeschoolers