To homeschool or not to homeschool?

[No Excuses]

It's basically a way for very religious parents to shield their kids from forming their own opinions. It's a complete waste of their youth.

They'll have a tough time getting into great colleges and will have to go through community colleges. Which again, is a waste of their potential and robbing them of experiences.

[Larry]

Accountable to. Otherwise they don't really care as long as they are learning.

That's pretty much the way I think it ought to be. Best way to balance the requirement that kids get educated, with parental freedoms. Let them teach, with just enough monitoring to make sure that they ARE teaching the things that need to be taught.

 

I think some feel like the HS stuff is too advanced for heir teaching skills . . . 

 

 

I suppose few parents have the ability to teach a Chem Lab in their home. 

 

. . . and that by the time they are there, the parents have built a solid foundation of ethics and values and they can filter out the stuff that is contrary and make wise decisions according to those values.

 

 

And by the time they're in their teens, and have been being instructed for half their lives, they can probably ignore facts and respond with The Party Line as well as most ES posters. 

 

[Elessar78]

It's basically a way for very religious parents to shield their kids from forming their own opinions. It's a complete waste of their youth.

They'll have a tough time getting into great colleges and will have to go through community colleges. Which again, is a waste of their potential and robbing them of experiences.

I don't know if I take what you said more seriously or less seriously because your avatar is Tywin Lannister.

[dfitzo53]

Here's my perspective as a public school teacher in an urban school system.  Take it for what you will.

 

We have a number of students who were at one time homeschooled.  Some of them definitely were for religious reasons.  Some of them were not.  Some of them come to us with a distinct social awkwardness.  Some do not.

 

I could say the same thing about students who come to us from private school.

 

Anyone who paints public schools, private schools or homeschooling with a single brush is, in my opinion, going to miss the point.  A great education or a terrible education can be had in any of those settings.

 

I will say the lack of oversight that seems to me to come with homeschooling raises mild concern.  That's not to say that kids in public school won't encounter a teacher with some kooky ideas, but in a building with twenty other adults the influence of that kooky voice will likely be mitigated.  In some homeschool settings those counterpoints are never presented.

[Elessar78]

Accountable to. Otherwise they don't really care as long as they are learning. Almost all of my friends and my wife are regularly told by the county that the kids are ahead of where "normal" public school students are academically. And my kids are generally done with all their work before 1PM. They start at 8. They love it. When my oldest was in public school he did terrible because as he would say "Hurry up and wait." He would always be one of the first finished with his work and have to wait twiddling his thumbs for others to finish. We all know what bored children are like. At home, he moves right on to something else.

I think some feel like the HS stuff is too advanced for heir teaching skills and that by the time they are there, the parents have built a solid foundation of ethics and values and they can filter out the stuff that is contrary and make wise decisions according to those values. Not always the case, but many times. One of the Christian schools also offers part time enrollment to supplement homeschoolers.

No offense, but I just don't believe that home schooling is this utopia across the board as everyone who does it makes it out to be. When you go all in, you have no other choice but to feel like you did so with the best hand on the table. 

 

In life, I find, there are no perfect systems. I've worked for very successful companies that turn multi-million dollar profits annually for decades and throughout the company there are huge inefficiencies. Public School Systems are the same way and, just like any endeavor, you get out what you put in. 

 

My biggest pet peeve is, as others pointed out, the sheltering for religious reasons. It's this growing movement that, from my vantage point, breeds ignorance and intolerance. In my sphere, it goes hand in hand with the non-vaccination movement. It's this Little House on the Prairie syndrome—a yearning for a "purer" time. Although, it wasn't a purer time, it's just idealized that way. It was a less complicated time where everyone worshipped the same God but let's not kid ourselves—people died in childbirth, died from simple to cure diseases, the rule of law wasn't established, there was slavery, there was genocide, mass extinction of species, etc. 

[Springfield]

Unless you went to school and received a doctorate in education then you shouldn't home school your kids.

You know that old adage about only a fool selects himself as a lawyer. Same line of thinking.

[SoCalSkins]

Here is another article on homeschooling. Basically under current Virginia law, filing a religious exception along with homeschooling permits parents to not educate children at all and Utah wants to adopt a similar exception:

http://www.alternet.org/why-are-christian-fundamentalist-parents-allowed-deny-their-kids-basic-literacy

[Larry]

Somebody needs to start a rumor that Muslim parents are using this exception, so they can not teach girls to read. 

[Destino]

Belief in religion will become a minority view within the lifetime of children in school today in America.

 

Putting children in a disadvantage by perpetuating  a bronze age philosophy is abuse.

 

The religious will be mocked and ridiculed in mainstream society with greater frequency as the years pass. The tipping point is coming and the religious will have to flee into their bubbles. Too bad these parents are so selfish and self-centered that validating their false beliefs without letting their children make their own decisions will come at the expense of their children being unable to function within mainstream society in mid-21st century America.

 

Your way of thinking is superior and other systems will fall before the truth of it.  Where have I heard that before....  Do you realize that you come off as a judgmental zealot?  It's cool though because there are other judgmental zealots out there and that makes it ok. 

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Your way of thinking is superior and other systems will fall before the truth of it. Where have I heard that before.... Do you realize that you come off as a judgmental zealot? It's cool though because there are other judgmental zealots out there and that makes it ok.

yuuuuup. Hardcore atheists are right there with the nutty religious. Maybe even worse. And goddamn if they don't absolutely polute the Internets.

[Destino]

No offense, but I just don't believe that home schooling is this utopia across the board as everyone who does it makes it out to be. When you go all in, you have no other choice but to feel like you did so with the best hand on the table. 

 

In life, I find, there are no perfect systems. I've worked for very successful companies that turn multi-million dollar profits annually for decades and throughout the company there are huge inefficiencies. Public School Systems are the same way and, just like any endeavor, you get out what you put in. 

 

My biggest pet peeve is, as others pointed out, the sheltering for religious reasons. It's this growing movement that, from my vantage point, breeds ignorance and intolerance. In my sphere, it goes hand in hand with the non-vaccination movement. It's this Little House on the Prairie syndrome—a yearning for a "purer" time. Although, it wasn't a purer time, it's just idealized that way. It was a less complicated time where everyone worshipped the same God but let's not kid ourselves—people died in childbirth, died from simple to cure diseases, the rule of law wasn't established, there was slavery, there was genocide, mass extinction of species, etc. 

 

If a person wants to pass their beliefs and culture to their kids there is nothing wrong with that.  If you think their is then please feel free to teach your children that the way women are treated in fundamentalist societies is equal to our own way of seeing things.  That India's caste system is no better or worse than any other, simply different.  I mean the argument you're making is that kids should make up their own minds and have things simply presented to them right?  The problem is you don't believe that. 

 

We all pass down what we think is valuable and beneficial to our children along with our culture.  That's how the whole raising children thing works.  I'm not a religious fundamentalist and I share a dislike for some of weird beliefs some people want to pass on... but who is to say my way of thinking is right for someone else or even better when looked at objectively by historians 200 years from now?  There is always the possibility that whatever each of us believes to be best is actually horrible and will lead to calamity.    

 

Also I don't think homeschooling is all about religion.  There are a lot of factors out there that parents worry about when it comes to their kids interacting with the schools system.  As far as socialization that can be accomplished easily without the pressure cooker of madness that is being chained to a class, assuming you don't fail a grade, for 12 years.  Suddenly the opinion of other kids is just as important as education (and often more so).  It's the system we have, there is nothing saying that it's the best system a person can create for their kids.  

[SoCalSkins]

Your way of thinking is superior and other systems will fall before the truth of it. Where have I heard that before.... Do you realize that you come off as a judgmental zealot? It's cool though because there are other judgmental zealots out there and that makes it ok.

People are free to hold any beliefs they choose. However, they are not immune to ridicule and mockery for holding those beliefs. There is no equivalency with believing in organized religion and indoctrinating children to believe in talking snakes, virgin births, a 4000 year old earth and an all powerful supernatural dictator controlling it all comparing it to deriving conclusions based on evidence and reason.

Holding beliefs despite evidence and in many cases against overwhelming evidence is not going to be sustainable. Statistics on these trends are not in dispute in the western world.

Having any respect for blind beliefs in Bronze Age philosophies is at an end. If you want to label that as being a zealot that is fine, but that is exactly where mainstream views are headed.

[Destino]

People are free to hold any beliefs they choose. However, they are not immune to ridicule and mockery for holding those beliefs. There is no equivalency with believing in organized religion and indoctrinating children to believe in talking snakes, virgin births, a 4000 year old earth and an all powerful supernatural dictator controlling it all comparing it to deriving conclusions based on evidence and reason.

Holding beliefs despite evidence and in many cases against overwhelming evidence is not going to be sustainable. Statistics on these trends are not in dispute in the western world.

Having any respect for blind beliefs in Bronze Age philosophies is at an end. If you want to label that as being a zealot that is fine, but that is exactly where mainstream views are headed.

Respect isn't about agreement.

[Larry]

Respect isn't about agreement.

 

Respect also isn't an entitlement. 

[MEANDWARF]

Respect also isn't an entitlement.

 

Whoa, you sound like a conservative!!!!!!!!

[RansomthePasserby]

I know that my high school pretty much consisted of 4-5 cliques. (None of which included me.) I assume that that's a pretty much universal experience.

Is being in the "I'm different, I was home schooled" clique really all that much more isolating or whatever term you want to use, than being in the jock clique, or the drama clique, or in my school, we had a group called "the grits", who were all the redneck wannabes, or any other such group?

I come from a pretty exclusively homeschooled "community" (I and most of my childhood friends were homeschooled through high school). Home schooled cliques are just like any other high school out there, just on a smaller scale with more emphasis on the science/tech kids, theater kids, and music/emo/punk scene kids. You won't find that many jocks or gangster types (except for a few wannabes). And, of course, you have the "homeschoolers," which is homeschool lingo for the really weird "different" kids.

[DCSaints_fan]

Not necessarily. Ask any teacher: the biggest advantage that a private school has over a public school is the ability to kick out the most disruptive kids so that the rest can learn. Catholic parochial schools, for example, provide a good education despite large class sizes, because the teacher doesn't have to spend half his or her time controlling those three kids who won't stop acting up or have major learning deficiencies.

Now if you are talking about an expensive elite private school, then you are correct. Small class size is part of what you pay for.

 

In my experience, it was pretty rare for Catholic schools to actually kick someone out.   However, they were much tougher with the discipline and the administration favored the teachers more than the public schools did, it was much harder for parents to politic and go over the teachers heads.   On top of that, the kids generally were more well behaved in the first place, because they had parents who cared enough pony up the dough to send their kids to a Catholic school in the first place.   Whereas with public schools, you got the kids who's parents didn't care (as much), or were perhaps single parent, so had limited time, etc. 

 

Disclaimer: My experiences were over 20 years ago, I don't know how it is now

[Elessar78]

I just pray to God (My God, not the homeschooler's God) that no homeschooler ends up on the ES "another student has sex with teacher" thread.

[mcsluggo]

In my experience, it was pretty rare for Catholic schools to actually kick someone out.   However, they were much tougher with the discipline and the administration favored the teachers more than the public schools did, it was much harder for parents to politic and go over the teachers heads.   On top of that, the kids generally were more well behaved in the first place, because they had parents who cared enough pony up the dough to send their kids to a Catholic school in the first place.   Whereas with public schools, you got the kids who's parents didn't care (as much), or were perhaps single parent, so had limited time, etc. 

 

Disclaimer: My experiences were over 20 years ago, I don't know how it is now

 

that self selection bias always scews things.   While the median parent of a student in private school is probably fairly similar to the median parent in public school, the tails of the distribution are definately scewed:   highly motivated parents are probably REALLY hightly motivated in private schools, and Private schools get the luxury of not having ANY totally dud parents that just don't give a s**t. 

 

home schooler self selection is maybe even stronger.  its a big decision to decide to home school, so you gotta REALLY want it for some reason. 

 

Home schooled based on religious/social beliefs tend to be REALLY far in that direction (more likely to be loony left or loony right). 

 

Parents that home school because they really think they can do better academically tend to be REALLY motivated, and hord core, and you can expect their kids to do better than average (and those same kids with the same parents would've also done better than average in public schools---- but who knows... perhaps not as MUCH better than average???)

 

parents that home school because they feel they are forced to because junior just can't fit in at school... well obviously those are particularly socially awkward kids BEFORE they are home schooled, and while home schooling protects them from un-neccessary abuse and probably avoids some serious mental scarring, it also removes some healthy education in how to get along in our society.

 

but anyway... my point is..... home schooling is a natural sociologists experiment.  you have a choice that imposes a real and significant cost on a family, so those that make the choice HAVE to be highly motivated for one reason or another.   It tends to create a group of individuals that exist in one sort of a population "tail" or another.  (but not JUST one)