What's wrong with Home Schooling?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Some “homeschooled” kids actually get out into the world and exposed to culture much more. And they don’t necessarily spend all their time with their own families.

I’ve been told by a couple homeschooling parents that it’s easy to cover all the standard and required academic stuff in no more than half a year’s school days if you’re serious. Homeschoolers can avoid a lot of the inefficiencies of institutional schools, and of course they get superlatively personal attention in class. The real trea and the real value of HS, though, is what what one then makes of the rest of the time, to take on scores of the “extra” experiences that kids in institutional schools might get to do once in a while if they’re lucky.

Of course it takes smart, creative, and exceptionally dedicated parents to make it work as well as all that.

22

My niece is home schooled. Her parents (my sister and brother-in-law) are atheists.

Also, her parents are probably a bit unusual when it comes to home schooling parents. Her mother has a PhD in molecular biology, and her father IS a high school teacher.

My niece (she’s 16 now) has turned out to be about the least antisocial teenager I ever knew.

23

Uh, that should be,

24

Two words: Taylor. Swift.

25

Quite simply: most (not all) parents aren’t qualified to be teachers.

26

I homeschool my kids. They seem to be doing pretty well. But if I want to do a good job at it tomorrow I have to get to bed now. More later, perhaps. (I’m happy to answer questions, but I’m also very very busy ATM.)

27

(Didn’t read the other thread)

Yeah, my kid gets up at 8am (not crack-of-fucking-dawn like the “stand in the frost to ride the bus for an hour only to get to school to wait for class to start in 45 minutes” crew). He gets a proper breakfast of cereal, eggs, bacon or sausage and fruit. He helps do laundry and take care of the livestock before the “book lurnin” starts.

At no point does he have to go thru a metal detector.

He gets a butt-load of reading, math and science. No prayers, no pledges, no asskickings from unqualified PE teachers or other campus bullys.

If the snow is fresh, he can take a day or two or three and ski. Catch up on the book smarts when the sun done gone down.

Natural history? Fuck it! Load up in the camper and lets go to the Grand Canyon! Bring your note pad! And don’t forget your vest that has your Junior Ranger patches/pins/badges you earned at all the other National Parks.

Unfortunatly, he is only 2 grade levels ahead in some subjects, unlike the 3-4 in math and reading. Fucking slacker!

The real problem is that he will grow up not knowing what, or how to administer a “wedgie” or “swirlie”. Whats wrong with Homeschooling? What could possibly be right?

28

Some parents are excellent teachers who have well-rounded educations, and who can acknowledge the gaps in their knowledge. These people can make excellent homeschoolers.

However, most of the homeschoolers that I know of are like Grandma there. They believe that everything worth knowing comes from the Christian Bible (and probably only the KJ version, at that) and that they must protect their precious snowflakes from the evil libruls and the heathen notions that infest the public school system. They tend to be EXTREMELY ignorant of many subjects, and so how can they teach subjects if they themselves can’t solve a quadratic equation?

Let me point out that most of the really conservative Christians are homeschoolers for precisely that reason.

I don’t have any problems with homeschooling, just the people who practice it and who are not competent to do so. I would love to see some sort of tests, administered annually to both the teachers and pupils who do home schooling. If the teachers can’t demonstrate competence in the subjects that the students need to learn this year, then they’ll have to hire tutors or get those kids in class (public or private). And if the students can’t demonstrate that they’ve actually learned what they need to know for the year, then they either have to repeat the subjects at home until they pass, or they have to enroll in public schools. As it is now, those who want to homeschool don’t have to show ANY knowledge of the subjects involved. Austin Area Homeschoolers Is it Legal?

29

Same here.

Christ, NO!

I think that having homeschooling as an option is good; part of my problems at school stem from my mother’s rejection of the notion that her round peg of a daughter did not fit well into the normal educational process; she rejected any attempts at performing “special ed” inasmuch as that was available in Spain at the time: sending me to a special boarding school or moving me ahead were rejected in favor of “proper socialization with her peers” (they were my age. They were not my peers. D’uh!).

But I also think that, same as any other exceptional educational methods, it’s got to be handled very carefully. Being homeschooled by my mother would have been even worse than school was! Oh, and she was a certified teacher: if homeschooling had been legal in Spain at the time, she was qualified for it shiver.

30

I’ve known people who did it because the local schools were either sub-par, or their kids were just way beyond their grade level and they were bored and unchallenged in school. Many homeschoolers do excellent jobs. They also have their kids enrolled in after-school activities with other kids, and on school sports teams and in school bands. They are able to teach them far more than the local schools do, just because of time efficiency. The problem is the rest of them. I’ve been on homeschooling website forums where the mothers were ignorant and stupid and stated outright that they were teaching their kids at home because the schools didn’t have enough religion or discipline in them. And they wrote at maybe a fifth-grade level. I feel very sorry for their kids.

31

You know, when I began homeschooling my son, it was largely because of the backwards nature of the school district where we then lived. Eldest was a bright kid, given to questioning everything, and I really didn’t want him to become bored with school based on that situation. When we began, it seemed so very simple: I knew perfectly well that, up to a certain grade level, I could teach him more than he would learn in public school (and the only private schools - not that I could have afforded them - were all of the “we rich folk started a school back in '65 because we don’t want our young 'uns associating with them Negro sorts of folks” or the “we don’t need your stinking science, because we have the Old Testament” types.) Before I began, I did my research - on his school subjects, and on applicable state law, and on other people’s experiences.

As we progressed, I found that my big ideas on creating networks with other home-schooled kids/families didn’t work too well. In the surrounding four counties, I could not find one single “secular” home-schooled kid. All of the home-schooling social groups were pretty much Duggar East: evolution (if taught) was a damned lie, the Old and New Testaments were the be-all and end-all, and no one had even bothered to read the freaking Testaments - they just relied on what they thought the preacher said last Sunday. Socializing with other homeschoolers became not just difficult, but downright painful (in that my choices for my son’s schooling boiled down to education, not isolation.) I guess that experience, along with that of my niece, colored my opinion in a very negative way.

On a purely selfish note, I will say this: When I finally sent my son to public school (at age 8), I was so, so, so glad that someone else took over a 7-hour shift of answering “Why?” If I learned anything about homeschooling and kids, it’s that “Why?” never ends, and that it’s really hard to shift from Frustrated Mom mode (“Because I said so!”) to Teacher mode (“Because [insert factual answer here].”)

32

I’ve never really noticed homeschoolers being unintelligent, but, then again, I only met them in college. I have noticed a few being less social, but it’s not that common. The one thing I have noticed is a naivete. They seem to much less cynical than my other friends, which would be a good thing, except they also seem to be more easily misled, often being quite gullible.

Usually, though, after a couple years of college, they lose the gullibility, but don’t gain that much cynicism. And that’s why they are my friends.

33

There are lots of statistics on the academic achievements of home schoolers, nearly all of it showing that home schooled students do significantly better than publicly schooled pretty much across the board (cite). Pretty much the same is true of socialization - home schooled students tend to have better social outcomes than those in public school. (Cite.)

Which contradicts all the anecdotes in this thread.

:shrugs:

Regards,
Shodan

34

Back home (SC), most of the homeschoolers I know do it in order to protect their children from the Devil. They are overwhelmingly fundamentalist Christian, and their children go to fundamentalist Christian colleges if they go to college at all.

Out here, most of the homeschoolers I know are Pagan. They homeschool in order to protect their children from perceived bad school systems or to protect their children from “mainstream education that destroys children’s precious creativity.” Most of them are unschoolers, allowing their children to play video games all day. Their children may be creative, but few of them understand science, preferring to believe in woo. If they go to college, they rarely get a four-year degree.

As a professors, I’ve had a few professed homeschoolers in my classes. They’ve been mixed. Some of them have been highly successful, extremely self-motivated, and good critical thinkers. Others…have not been. I’m sure I’ve had a few that haven’t self-identified.

I feel that the majority of parents who homeschool are not qualified to teach their children things like science, literary analysis, history, etc.

35

The only homeschoolers I know are a couple with six young children who have decided that Catholic school is too liberal and permissive. The man works. The woman spends all day, every day, with six kids under twelve in an isolated house in the country.

My mom had six kids under ten at one point and she has often told me that being able to send the kids to school was the only thing that kept her sane. I don’t like to tell her it didn’t do that great a job… :smiley:

36

Do you have any articles from sources other than the Home School Legal Defense Association?

37

Is having children either educated at home or while traveling with family by tutors considered home schooling or is it considered something else?

38

Bullshit. The linked example shows the requirements to be a chemistry teacher. You will find, with a minimum of searching, that requirements for secondary education degrees where one becomes certified to teach a particular subject have similar requirements in most any college or university. Primary and middle level requirements are a little different. Once again, the link is typical of similar institutions across the country.

39

I wouldn’t make it illegal but I would require kids to spend like, at least 3 yrs, in the public system. Parent can pick which 3 yrs if they like. That way, kids being cloistered will get to see some of the real world, get some socialization in, some exposure to others outside their culture.

40

Our local schools are adequate, I suppose–though the math is horrifying. But quite frankly, in many ways I can do better with my own kids. Nope, I’m not qualified to be a classroom teacher, but then I’m not trying to manage a classroom, and homeschooling is an entirely different venture. Teachers who homeschool usually find that they need to un-learn a lot of assumptions, because it’s not the same thing.

The reasons that we homeschool have little to do with the public schools or the (very lovely) people in them. What it comes down to is that this is what works for our family. I love homeschooling my daughters and I feel privileged to be able to do it. I have my own vision of what a good education looks like (we are classical homeschoolers, which means a lot of academics, done differently) and we get to pursue that together. And as a bonus, we have lots more time to do interesting and fun stuff–with family, with friends, with new people.

Homeschooling gives my kids the freedom to work at their own pace and challenge themselves without being constantly compared to other kids. The result seems to be that my 10yo enjoys studying science, history, and Latin. Math is one of her favorite subjects! And at the same time, she doesn’t see the social barriers that rise up in school in the same way schooled kids do. She doesn’t think of herself as extra-smart (thank goodness) or other kids as smart or dumb–she is open to friendships with everyone she meets. She is far more socially adept and less awkward than I was at her age–I think she would be anyway, but the lack of the bullying that beat me down into a protective shell is a big help. Little sister, age 7, is a natural-born geek; she might as well have been born in a Tron t-shirt. And she is confident in herself and her friends. It’s interesting to watch her happily play fairies with the friends who prefer that (she also loves fairies, unicorns, and purple sparkles) and then run around the yard with a bunch of screaming boys playing Jedi at other times. It has never occurred to her that she can’t be anything she happens to feel like being–that a girl can’t wear lace and embroidery, or a Darth Vader t-shirt and ripped jeans, both on the same day if she feels like it.

We hang out with interesting folks. Several comments here show a belief that homeschooling is anti-diversity, but in an awful lot of ways it is, itself, a diverse thing. Besides the fact that a lot of different kinds of people homeschool, it fosters independent thinking in different ways than public school encourages. Homeschoolers are adding to diversity, not detracting from it, if not always in ways that people approve of (apparently because we’re different, which strikes me as a little ironic). At any rate, we’re the only homeschoolers like us that we know, and our friends tend to be of the hippie/pagan/Buddhist type, though sometimes they are some flavor of Christian homeschoolers–to my surprise, none of them have ever accused me of being in a cult or disallowed their children from playing with us–and sometimes they’re just middle-of-the road folks who happen to homeschool.

A couple of years back we joined a charter school that allows us to educate the way we like, but (happily, since we have been utterly broke for some time) pays for books, materials, and outside lessons. I still pay for a few things myself, because, for example, my favorite grammar program is published by Mennonites and of course the state doesn’t fund that. It’s been great. We can get as many science kits as we want–I never did any dissecting in school, and we can get anything!!-- and lessons we could not afford otherwise (we start riding lessons in 10 days). I’m sure it will relieve everyone’s mind to know that we are required to do state testing. I don’t mind the testing, but I sure appreciate the lack of pressure around it. We don’t have to spend hours of instruction time drilling, and my kids think tests are fun.

Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, and it’s not the perfect system. Neither is public school. We like the freedom to choose for ourselves what will work for our family.