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Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling?
VorpalRodent writes: I went to a private school for about 6 years, then completed my education at the local public school, going on to get a couple undergraduate degrees and a postgraduate degree. My wife dropped out of high school and got her equivalency many years later. Now, she wants to homeschool our son.
There is a significant body of literature which indicates that homeschoolers outperform their traditionally schooled counterparts academically, regardless of the level of education of the parent, and she certainly cares more now that she's older. I don't like anecdotes, but I certainly haven't seen the research borne out in any of the people that I know who were homeschooled. More importantly, it seems like the only reason my wife wants to homeschool is because she doesn't want to let go.
Our son would be going into Kindergarten this coming year. I'm interested in some rational discussion on this, since it seems like the only viewpoints I've ever seen on the matter are "Better academics" vs. "Social interaction," both of which are gross oversimplifications. It doesn't help that I can't find any statistical information on post-schooling outcomes.
There is a significant body of literature which indicates that homeschoolers outperform their traditionally schooled counterparts academically, regardless of the level of education of the parent, and she certainly cares more now that she's older. I don't like anecdotes, but I certainly haven't seen the research borne out in any of the people that I know who were homeschooled. More importantly, it seems like the only reason my wife wants to homeschool is because she doesn't want to let go.
Our son would be going into Kindergarten this coming year. I'm interested in some rational discussion on this, since it seems like the only viewpoints I've ever seen on the matter are "Better academics" vs. "Social interaction," both of which are gross oversimplifications. It doesn't help that I can't find any statistical information on post-schooling outcomes.
Coddling, though still an individual option, is generally better for the parents than the children.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I mean, haven't you ever met a homeschooled kid? Your kid needs to be properly socialized in a structured environment.
I have two step-children who fled their abusive father to come and live with me. Both of them were home-schooled for a time (about 12 months each). We learned a lot of powerful lessons from the first one, but even then, we faced huge challenges with the second one. /. in the last 6 months.
Some significant points:
1. Mum and/or Dad are not teachers. We're not qualified to be, and re-assurances from the homeschooling organisation are vacuous. Don't kid yourself about this. Being a teacher is a career choice, and there are very specific skillsets involved.
2. Mum and/or Dad don't want a teacher-student relationship with their child. You can't just throw a switch at 3pm and turn back into a parent. The child is not old/mature enough to process that changeover.
3. The child will lose out on a huge amount of 'non-curriculum learning'. Things like 'how to avoid the schoolyard bully', 'how to read a schedule and navigate to classrooms', 'how to meet project deadlines without parental intervention', 'how to negotiate the fickle friendships that happen in life', 'observe adult role models outside the family'. There are dozens of things like this.
4. There is research to support the position that children perform better when parents are 'hands off'. I can't remember the link, but one interesting one was posted to
5. Some children need real parental nurturing to get over a major life crisis. Most children do not. If your child needs that kind of care, be very careful of breaking your relationship with them by spending 6 hours every day with them.
In both cases, after 12 months, the children returned to regular schooling to a) escape mum and/or dad; and b) get a life/friends. The second one needed a little more encouragement than the first.
Good luck with it! Its been a hard road, and its only two-three years after they returned to regular school that their behaviours are starting to normalise.
A family who lived near mine, growing up, homeschooled their daughter some years, and sent her to public school other years.
In the semesters she was homeschooled - beside the academic benefits of homeschooling one might come up with, the whole family had the freedom to take a two-week trip down to Mexico in January or February every couple years, without being tied to the school schedule.
When she went to public school, she made friends who she would still see often when she was homeschooled.
They didn't plan a strict regimen of homeschool this year, public school that year, they just discussed the option each semester as a family and made a decision based on what felt right at the time.
She turned out normal.
...tested/proven techniques...
you mean like Common Core that is raising a generation of children that can't do math? Or whole language reading that is raising a generation of children that can't spell?
I'm 40, have two kids, one 10, one 3 and I live in the US. My ten year old has dyslexia and the school isn't in a position to help him so my wife augments his education with an alternative method of teaching children how to read. It work well for us.
Some good friends of ours have five children and want a Christian education for their children. With five kids they can not afford private school so the mother teaches all five and that works for them.
I personally went to a shitty public school. To give you a small example, I was ranked in the top 5% of my class overall, aced math, went up through "calculus" in my high school, but when I went to a University of California school, my foundational knowledge was so inadequate (hence the quotes around calculus) I had to take about a year's worth of remedial classes just to start working towards my degree. Yet some of my peers did just fine at places like NYU and Tulane. I games the system, they learned from it. Similarly, my wife attended an equally, but different, shitty school and finished her undergrad degree in three years and her law degree three years later.
My point is, in my experience it all comes down to what you and the child make of it. As I've come to learn with most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. In the case of children, they get out of it what the parents put into it as in the parents expectations on the child and their overall guidance.
There's a huge number of environment and personal factors that go into determining how successful homeschooling will be. The biggest two are the motivation and commitment of the parents and children, and available resources. In a lot of ways, homeschooling will have the same potential pitfalls as being self-employed while working from home do. Lots of potential distractions, with the natural human tendency to put things off for another day (and another, and another). Being self-motivated helps control that.
Resources are also important because if you are going to homeschool, you really want to play up on the opportunities homeschooling provides that traditional schools can't; stuff like more frequent field trips and "worldly" engagements. Many can be combined with vacation type stuff, involving travel to foreign countries and whatnot. It's not cheap, however, and you have to have solid finances to make it work.
You also want to invest in some books and curriculum aimed at the equivalent grade level of your child. You don't have to follow it all perfectly, but there's a surprising amount of stuff that people don't think about when it comes to early-child education. Having access to those resources will help make sure you aren't forgetting some major things.
Also, she should see if she can handle the teaching alongside the caregiving. Have her teach them a specific number of hours a day to get a taste of what it's really like. Some people just can't teach, others lose patience when it doesn't go as they thought it would, and when home-schooling, you don't get to say "school's out - I'm going home, having a few drinks, and not thinking about this until Monday."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Homeschooled children seem to do exceedingly well in the American national spelling bee. So there you go.
Every Montessori school/group of schools seem different but I've seen many good ones in different countries/states. There are both private and in some cases integrated into the public system Montessori schools. I'm sure quality and, even if they are following state/provincial education guidelines, flakiness, but with a little research you can find a school at a reasonable price that will treat your child as an individual, yet help them grow socially too.
You would actually ask advice involving your offspring's future on Slashdot?
You are acting like a controlling dickhead. Don't be a dick!
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
You only notice the awkward ones. Most are no less social than standard for intelligent, literate people; football isn't the center of their life. As far as socialization, that same argument works well for prison.
Yes, as frequently, as I meet normal ones in public schools. Actually more frequently, since many homeschool kids are pretty well adjusted compared to the many weird ones that I meet from public schools. In fact, I find quite a lot of weird kids in public schools. Don't you?
At kindergarten level it's not all about abc's. The social aspect of functioning in a larger group of your peers is also important. Does your son have a lot of kids in his life (siblings, friends, cousins etc etc)> Is he naturally extroverted or does he have a more introverted personality.
I also have a son of that age, only child. We have him in public school and have found that the academics at that age are secondary to the social aspect of school. Only you know what is right, and i am no expert. You should trust your parental instincts above all. Just consider that home schooling can be more isolating depending on your own family environment and social circle. Even if you try something and feel it is not working, no matter what you choose, do not doggedly persist to the bitter end. Monitor and stay flexible. Good luck!
decades of teaching experience and tested/proven technique
You mean decades of educational decline due to the overburdening of the staff by an out of touch government??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So I see a lot of negative responses here. Unfortunate. People like to harp on the homeschool horror stories and act like there aren't just as many public/private school horror stories. Both systems have their pros and cons. Some kids would be terrible in a homeschool situation (my wife, for example, really didn't care for it and much preferred a traditional school setting). Other kids thrive at home (I LOVED it and wouldn't change a thing looking back.)
I was homeschooled K-12, then attended four years of school, graduated with a bachelors, landed a job, got married, etc. I played basketball for a local private school, was involved in a homeschool program for highschool where I attended classes once a week with other homeschooled kids. Got a diploma and all that. Personally, I feel like being homeschooled prepared me much better for college and real life than a public school would have, particularly through high school. I was around a range of ages (what other time in life are you surrounded by mostly your own age group?), had to keep my own pace and meet deadlines without a lot of supervision, was able to customize my class schedule and subject matter (within reason) by working with my teachers and parents.
I have siblings that were also homeschooled for most of their education, are also pretty well adjusted adults now and don't have any major regrets about their education. It can work, and work well, if the parents and kids are dedicated to it.
Slashdot is a rough place to post this. Check out reddit.com/r/homeschooling for a more knowledgeable community, but there are a TON of resources to help you figure this out if it is something you are interested in.
I don't know of anyone doing statistical work on homeschoolers. It would be helpful, but the fact is that homeschoolers tend to integrate very well in society. It's not as if there is a magical 3 percent that stand out all the time for you to notice.
I only know of anecdotal material. I am one of those. I was homeschooled K-12 and am now in medical school (as a nontraditional student, after having worked as a programmer for 10 years). My homeschooling experience was actually very difficult, but it did prepare me for working hard in the world.
I do want to address the point of socialization, however. By and large, homeschoolers are VASTLY better socialized than public schooled children. The reason for this is simple. Unlike public school, where children largely interact with teachers and same-aged peers, homeschooled children interact with a great swath of society from a young age. (There are occasional shut-in familes, but they are rare and you obviously would not be one of them.) Homeschooling is absolutely not a question of academics vs. socialization. Homeschoolers get both.
However, there is a different balance to strike. Your time. Homeschooling is a very serious commitment, particularly in time. This is the part that will get you.
As for your wife letting go, both boys and girls grow up more emotionally mature and resilient if they remain close to their parents until puberty. This translates to better socialization, better mental health, and better emotional capacities through life. So it might not be a bad thing.
I had an awful time at school and am terrified about what my kids school life may be like. But that said this year my eldest goes off to pre-school.
Home schooling sits outside of the norm, so our attitude was that we would keep it as an option for use IF our child struggled or had an experience similar to mine. To homeschool you have to be prepared to take on a burden that is significant. Educating someone is hard and you need to be across a wide selection of material, much of which you haven't touched on or used since you finished school.
Our personal choice was that we would try the school system first. If that didn't work, and if homeschooling addressed some of the reasons why, we would look at it then.
have you SEEN the tech education at schools these days???? Neither have I
thats why
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Both my wife and I were homeschooled, and we both firmly believe it was one of the best things our parents did for us. You can make it work, but make sure your children continue to socialize (e.g. sports and music did it for us). Do it wrong, and you can screw your kids up. That said, public school gone wrong screws kids up, too. But do it right, and your kids can really flourish in an environment that caters completely to their learning style.
You also need to analyze your reasons. Homeschooling isn't easy-- you need to take your reasons seriously enough to be motivated and organized to make sure your kids stay on track. Reasons that don't truly motivate you as homeschooling parents will cause you to lose your drive, at which point they turn into "those homeschoolers."
A high school drop out who wants to keep your kid out of school since she can do better than those idiotic professional teachers.
Oh well, hopefully she's hot.
For what it's worth, my marriage was the same situation as yours(and my now ex-wife was just like yours). Not seeing eye to eye on simple things like this caused too many fights. I want my child to have up to date vaccines and be in public school, and I need my wife to have a decent job because of her lifestyle demands, etc.
After a long debate, we made the choice to move into a good school district and send our kid to school. This was a long fight, as she had family in rural Oregon who homeschool all of their kids, and based on the stories of the kids(dumb as bricks, pregnant by 16, etc), I did not want to send my kid down the same road. She also had separation anxiety(it was bad enough that she did not spend a day apart from him until he was 10[sleepovers] or travel without him until he was 13).
I went to private school for elementary and public school for the rest, and I was very satisfied with my experience, and I've made friends I otherwise would not have made. My time in private school prepared me academically and I was able to do extremely well in public school(entered a year ahead in some subjects), which was beneficial because doing well in public school in California gets you a great deal in state aid to state schools as well as guaranteed enrollment in state schools.
I don't think there is a replacement for the social education school brings(and public school was much more educational in that regard than private school), but I don't think that that is the only reason why. I also think that school provides the opportunities to advance just as much as if you were a real teacher homeschooling your kids.
I'll tell you this, it's way more difficult and far more expensive/time consuming than you might imagine. You should also be very clear about your reasons for doing this, keeping the kid at home is not one of those reasons. I know several homeschooled kids like that and they're a bit stunted, you have to make sure to get out and be active a lot more as well. Look around in your area for enrichment programs, for instance our kids go to public school 1 day per week. It's fantastic, and they make a lot of friends plus get that more structured school environment. Make sure that you're doing this for the right reasons. Finally, it takes an unbelievable amount of discipline from you both as parents. My wife and I are up late hours every week making sure that we have lessons ready, making tests, basically doing the things normal teachers do. If you're still reading and serious about this, it's also very rewarding. Seriously, if you do this right your kid will be light years ahead. You do it wrong and you'll really fuck up your kid's future.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
I was home-schooled up to the age of 17 and I think it's an OK option as long as you subscribe to some kind of curriculum that includes testing by a third party. I don't think it is something that parents can do these days without assistance; at least not if the student is to have any post-homeschool academic career. In my opinion kindergarten is way to early to start homeschooling. A child that age needs the socialization more than academics, meaning socialization with people other than your immediate family. Unless you were isolated overseas like I was I can't imagine a rational reason to start homeschooling until much later when the issue becomes academics vs. institutionalization.
If public was the only option I had, I would seriously consider homeschooling and working with other homeschoolers in the community for social interaction. (Our state has some of the worst public schools in the US.) I know several parents who homeschool and their kids are doing excellent. Luckily we have a couple of good private schools in the area, and even more luckily, I can actually afford to send my kid there, so that's where she goes -- and does very well. Kids are surprisingly good at adapting to most whatever you throw at them.
For that to be true, though, you have to let them grow and develop as independent human beings. Your wife's reluctance to let go should not be the deciding factor -- this is entirely about your kid's education, not your wife's emotional needs. Good luck finding a way to tell her that without ending up sleeping on the couch for a week, though...
1 are either of you teachers??
2 think you did well enough to "bluff" teaching??
if either is yes then hit
http://www.hslda.org/hs/defaul...
NOW no don't read any further in this thread don't do anything but GO TO The HomeSchool Legal Defense Association NOW
if you HomeSchool you NEED the HSLDA for the "Panic Number" minimum.
for those idiot parents who insist on not vaccinating their children.
Putting your own kids at risk is bad enough. Putting others at risk is criminal.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
One of my daughter's best friends is homeschooled. She and her two sisters have to be the nicest, most well-adjusted, and intelligent kids we know, and they have tons of (non-homeschooled) friends. Their parents work their asses off to make sure the kids are involved in a lot of activities, though, so it does take a lot of effort.
We home-schooled our children. One already has her baccalaureate degree and will soon pursue her masters; while her sister, is married with three kids, pursuing her baccalaureate transitioning to her dream, a Nursing degree. My youngest is a aspiring professional artist...and my eldest is professional programmer. Their academic success is due to my wife's dedication and the curriculum that best fit the children. I agree with other poster--meet the state requirements and socialization is important --so join home-school groups where interactive activities are rife and joint teaching efforts are used. So much to learn--but you control what is taught, respond to learning situations, and limit exposure of 'questionable' teachings (which are dependent upon the parents). We are proud of our children and their quality of education is on par or exceeds public education (dependent upon the child native tastes for subjects). It's worth the effort...in my opinion.
Your dumb wife versus decades of teaching experience and tested/proven techniques.
Home schooled children, on average, score in the 70-80th percentile on achievement tests.
Very few educational fads are "tested" and even fewer are "proven".
Here is an article that provides an overview of home schooling results.
And for balance, here is an alternative viewpoint.
Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I do a lot of supplemental home schooling on the weekends, focusing on stuff the schools don't teach: programming, robotics, electronics, wood and metal working, survival skills, etc.
Homeschooling can be challenging. Yes, homeschoolers statistically are smarter and less scholarly adept. But there are many variables, parents, children, family, friends, education levels, drive, children (yes, I said children twice), etc. If you're not choosing out of fear, give it a try. Maybe it works, maybe not.
Homeschooling is a huge success in Africa, the Middle East and the tribes in the Rain Forest!
On a more serious note, if you are in an excellent public school district the quantity and quality and breadth of the subjects they teach kids is astounding.
You cannot keep up doing homeschooling.
If you are not in a great public school district, move to one and commute (your kids come first) or do a private school.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
.......your wife doesn't sound academically qualified to be the sole instructor for your child. I say that as someone with two advanced degrees (I do not consider myself able to teach every topic at a high school level either). Now granted this presumably won't be an issue for awhile......say 7 or 8 years. And the obvious retort to this is that there will be a curriculum that she can teach from etc. But without the subject mastery, her ability would be hindered to offer further explanation when your child hits a snag. In short your wife would be one of those teachers that we all had who is reliant on reading verbatim from the "Instructor's Edition". Is that good education? Is that what you want for your kid?
If your wife wants to stay involved, she can bake brownies for the class.
My wife has worked as a teacher and has a related degree. Out oldest daughter went to a private preschool when she was three and quickly became bored with what they were teaching. We learned that the same curriculum would be covered in their four year old class so we decided to start homeschooling at that point. She is currently seven years old and is working on curriculum that is beyond what her nine year old friends are working on in public school. She has more friends than I did when I was her age and they are of a wider age range. She has played soccer, takes dance classes, attends church, and and we meet monthly with a homeschool meetup group.
We also have a four year old daughter who is working on similar curriculum to six year olds in public school.
We homeschool primarily for academc reasons as we have seen the horror that is "common core" and the waste of time that is "no child left behind". We have taught Astronomy, Robotics, Weather, and Bird Studies so far so we aren't just teaching the basics.
We live in Texas which has some of the most homeschool friendly laws on the books. Homeschooling falls under the same statutes as Private Schools. There is no attendance reporting, no mandatory testing, no approved curriculums.
The requirements for homeschooling in Texas are as follows:
The instruction must be bona fide (i.e., not a sham).
The curriculum must be in visual form (e.g., books, workbooks, video monitor).
The curriculum must include the five basic subjects of reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship.
The State of Texas assumes that if you care enough about your kids to want to teach them yourself that the state will just get out of the way. The Texas Homeschool Coalition holds conventions every year were we take seminars and shop for curriculum.
I Don't Work Here
In my opinion the first few years of school are a decent time to homeschool. There is no way to say what's best for any one kid/family, but there is a very small skill set taught in the first few years. The major subject is reading. This is a subject where one on one time is highly productive and group activities tend to be not as effective. As an example I have an aunt that didn't learn to read till she was in 4th or 5th grade. She got by through memorization of the story books as they were read to the class. When it came time for her 5 minutes with the teacher she could spout the story back and pretend to be reading. If it was a book that she hadn't seen she would look at the pictures and guess. None of her teachers figured out she couldn't read till she was almost done with elementary school. This doesn't happen if mom is spending hours per day, one on one with her child.
As for socialization, I can't tell you how many times my bully avoidance skills have saved me from a near certain pounding at the office. I went to public school and ended up as a physicist, so obviously there is absolutely no socialization benefit to attending public school. (How's that for anecdote.)
I made management after a couple of years and was afforded more schedule-leeway... bam, right into the public system they went.
Remember, the most difficult thing in the World to do is be hard on your own kids. It's easy with other peoples kids, the little rat bastards, but do your own kids a favor. A bit of strife is quite the character builder.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Going to a school is where you learn how crazy the world is. You interact with kids that are good, bad, friends, enemies, jocks, dorks, geeks, chicks, tomboys, bitches, bullies, honest, liars, druggies, straight edge, spoiled, poor, genius, idiots, boys, men, girls, women. You have teachers that are caring, could care less, inspiring, dead wood, fair, unfair. You interact with individuals, dozens, and sometimes hundreds of people at a time. Computer labs, machine shops, wood shops, sports equipment, art supplies, and these days even 3D printers. All that interaction in the hallways, homeroom, classrooms, gym, music, art, cafeteria. It's all so overwhelming and scary, but that's all part of it too.
Trying to pack this into the home version is quite an undertaking.
My wife and I were scared, well more nervous, about my kids going to school, and thought about homeschooling. I convinced my wife, who would have be the stay-at-home teacher, that it would be too much, and decided I really wanted my kids to go to school. She kept pushing, but I pointed out how hard it was just taking care of the crazy kids and how hard it would be adding in all the above too. Eventually, she gave up on the idea.
The main problem with homeschooling statistics is the self-selection problem as parents choose to homeschool. The homeschooling results are compared to public school results which have a mix of selection and default. We don't know how the kids of homeschooling parents would have turned out had they gone to public schools. Homeschooling parents are presumably more dedicated and involved and would probably be a net positive for public schools with free labor from parents. Homeschooling itself is self-selection but often the research is as well. There are some studies that use a large population - say from a curriculum provider - but many are from those that answer questionnaires. If you were doing a poor job at it, would you answer the questionnaire? There is a tremendous amount of potential in homeschooling if you have the resources, time, energy, support and strong inclination. But it is a huge amount of work and you have to be able to deal with negative or questioning comments from neighbors, relatives, coworkers and others that the kids come into contact with. If you want to see the potential, take a look at Alison Miller - her mother practiced unschooling - basically let the kid study whatever they want to without necessarily any structure or curriculum. Two other well-known examples are Venus and Serena Williams. I believe that they used correspondence lessons. Homeschooling may have given them the time to practice tennis to become the best in the game. It's interesting that their parents didn't have any training for tennis or tennis instruction. The rate of learning at public schools, on average, is abysmally slow. Do even 1/2 of high school graduates know Algebra? There are many excellent districts but you may have to spend a lot of money on real estate to live in one of those districts so that your kids can attend them.
Sounds like future porn actresses in the making.
sad...
I've no first hand experience but found the Stuff You Should Know episode[1] on the the topic very interesting. 1. http://www.stuffyoushouldknow....
Who would you be doing this for? The child or the parent?
As a parent I taught my kids to read before they went to school, and their times tables before they were 8. I think this was helpful but I will never know.
Some of my neices and nephews have been home schooled out of necessity - living in isolated African areas who have gone to normal school age 13. They have integrated well mostly and one of them was Head Boy at his school.
What their parents did say is that a lot of the home schooling material is produced for children who are being home schooled to ensure that they don't learn some things. Evolution and certain facts of life mainly. Suspect it might be a bit light be a bit light on Climate Change as well!
My vote is to send to normal school and supplement with targeted extra help and trips to stimulating places. My kids now think it was really cool I took them to Bletchley Park before it was full of Benedict Cumberbatch etc !
One point I would make is that because of the internet, kids now learn at least as much from each other as they do from adults. They no longer get one single version of the truth, and the sooner they learn to sort the wheat from the chaff, the better.
I would have to ask - Is there another (?work-related) reason that your partner wants to do this?
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
I would heartily recommend investigating the choices for charter and non-traditional schools.
We live in the attendance area for some of the best schools in California, yet educated our kids in a hybrid manner. Our kids "attended" a charter school that supported homeschooling. They had monthly meetings with their teacher and some specialized classes. When they were older, they could take classes at the local community college and get high school credit for this. Utlizing the local networks of homeschoolers, my kids got plenty of social interaction with other kids.
They all succeeded academically, going on to graduate from excellent universities.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
There is a lot to be said for the case where sex is not one of the many subjects
But while I've heard a lot of good things about home-schooled kids, one question that arises - how good is this option? I'd imagine that most of us are good in a few subjects, and could probably teach the kids that, but beyond those, then what? Like what if a parent is good at Math, but not Geography? What if one is good at History, but not Physics? How does one fill up the gaps? Would it be by teaming up w/ other parents and each picking a few subjects to teach all the kids involved? Administration aside, how different would that be from a school?
Almost all of the solid research I have seen on what factors actually account for future earnings, success in school, etc. tend to support the idea that the details of what you do for the kids are not really that important, but the broad brushstrokes of how your family and you kids' peer's families view schooling, working to achieve goals, and the importance of critical thinking seem to be more important that what school or educational method is experienced.
The fact that you and your spouse are trying to find "the best" for the tyke probably means that you kid is likely to do well no matter what you choose. Try to find friends for your kids who's families place similar importance on the idea of education, and that will probably help too. Kids who apply to elite schools and do not get accepted seem to have as successful lives as those who attend.
You might also consider that rather than home schooling, you might make an even bigger difference in the wider community's development if you sent your kid to the local school, and then devoted some of the time and resources that you would have spent on home schooling to supporting that local school with volunteering and money. If all of the "keen" parents abandon the public schools for alternative educational programs, us slackers who don't care enough about our kids are going to do so little that generations of public school kids are just going to end up as bums and thugs, putting all the weight of responsibile citizenship on your kids as they grow up. Seriously though, the local school would love to have additional involved parents, and the other families there would also love to have additoinally involved parents.
First, some background. We have 4 kids, in their late teens and early 20s.
A full gamut of personalities - from the artsy kid, to the social diva, to the mathy/introvert, to the football stud. Gross oversimplifications, to be sure, but they hit the archetypes.
Our decision was ultimately *against* homeschooling. Does that mean we were universally happy with our choice to public school our kids? Not entirely. If we knew then what we know now, we'd have looked harder for some sort of private school or charter school that we could have afforded. Our local public schools were terrific in elementary years, mediocre as junior high schools, and pretty nearly horrible as high schools. The high school experience was nearly wasted, with bored unengaged teachers, listless classes, challenges that petered out by 11th grade, and an administration that seemed capable of only making the worst possible choices whenever presented. We should have pulled our kids in junior high and sent them *anywhere* else. Oh, they still did/are doing fine academically - ACTs all 30+ - but this was despite the horrible high school system, not because of it.
The reasons we chose against homeschooling, in no particular order:
- simple expertise: while a reasonably educated parent (we both have Bachelors' degrees) can certainly teach pretty much every elementary and general junior-high subject simply by 'staying ahead of the kid' in the materials, but by high school and certainly in terms of anything advanced placement, nobody's well-rounded enough to be a teacher of everything.
- don't just like what I do: the fact is that if our children developed special interests or things that they loved that we didn't anticipate, there's little we could offer them. We in no way wanted to constrain their interests to our own, which would be natural given our own enthusiasms.
- the "social" thing: humans are social animals. We all exist in a hodgepodge of organizations (formal and informal), status structures, power relationships (formal and informal), with countless others ranging from direct family, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. *Fundamental* to the emotional and social development of a child is being involved in those evolving relationships *particularly* at certain stages of maturity with others going through the same learning curve. Generally, this is going to continue through our whole lives - at school, at work, in relationships, clubs, volunteer organizations, churches, etc. Simply put, we felt this was very much a 'time served' sort of thing; an hour playdate once weekly (or whatever) wasn't going to give our kids the sort if intrinsic, long-term give and take that primate children and adolescents need to learn those structures and how to navigate them. To best learn the gamut of situations that they would have to deal with would involve not just social experience, but social immersion. And let's be absolutely candid: the teen years for both boys and girls are awash with hormones and their follow-on effects. Learning to come to terms with this (& themselves) in-context is not something you as a parent can deliver by lecture.
- 'bye mom & dad! - following-on to the reason above, the primary thing a kid needs to learn as they mature? Doing without you. Really, how can you teach that?
- sports: if you're in the US, youth sports at a certain level are pretty much only through schools. I think sports are important to the development of a child, learning about competition, to win, lose, deal with others, trust others, as well as important values about diet, physical fitness, and the pure joy of physical activity when you are at the most perfect physical condition you'll ever be in your life. That choice isn't much available to homeschool kids, or if it is it's in a sort of stilted "we'll let them be on the team" sort of way.
- want to give your kid more intensive, in-depth learning better than what schools offer? Nothing's stopping you. School is really only a teeny
-Styopa
The certification argument is almost entirely a red herring for two major reasons. First, if you ask most teachers with certifications, you'll find that a massive portion of their education was based on classroom administration and not effectively communicating specific subject matter. Secondly, most home school curriculum are not based on in seat teacher to student instruction (though there are a plethora of online options if you choose that style). They are generally based on classical education which relies heavily on teaching children a love for reading with a heavy emphasis on classics and an ability to go seek and find answers for one's self.
... school teachers have to say about schooling vs education in the USA.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.naturalchild.org/gu...
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisu...
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
He was in public school through second grade. Kindergarten and 1st grade were great. He had awesome teachers. In the 2nd grade he ended up with a teacher in poor health that probably should have retired 5 years prior. It was not a great year and my wife had always wanted to try to homeschool but I was skeptical. So in 3rd grade he stayed at home.
Overall it went pretty well. There are tons of resources available to help however you must pay attention. My wife wanted to send our son to this 2 hour "science club" thing that met a couple of times a week. At first glance it sounded great until I read through all the literature. Turns out the guy taught Intelligent Design. I just about lost it. Some other home schoolers had recommended him to my wife. People homeschool for a variety of reasons but for a fair number it's because they don't like what is taught in public schools. I'm a fairly liberal guy. Hanging around that crowd was a tough thing for me at times and it was a source of tension between my wife and I.
My son is a social kid and he wanted to go back to school after a year. So for 4th grade, we found a private school with a small class size that seemed like a good fit. He was there through 8th grade but we often questioned whether it was worth the money, - especially once he got to middle school. From a math and science perspective he probably would have been better off in a public school.
We have neighbors with a large family that also homeschool. Once the oldest got to be about 12, he wanted to go to a school and the rest of them kind of followed suit once they got older. They're great kids. We know other families too where the results have definitely been more of a mixed bag. With one family in particular the kids are very accomplished in some areas while severely lacking in others, but that may have happened no matter where they went to school.
My take away from all of this is that success can be had in public, private, or home schools but it depends on the schools, the parents, and most of all the kid.
Definitely do your research before making a decision on this one. We considered it, briefly, with our daughter -- but ultimately decided it was just too much to tackle.
One thing I didn't even really consider, initially, is that "homeschooling" doesn't even necessarily have to mean you're keeping your kid at home all day, acting as their full-time teacher.
In at least some areas where there's an active homeschooling community, it's possible to work out arrangements with other people so you teach a subject or two that's your own area of expertise, and then you let your kid learn from other homeschooling parents who are teaching other subjects they're best at teaching. There are lots of possibilities here, up to and including parents who are willing to teach your kid most of the school day in exchange for you bartering for something they need like transportation and fixing meals for them.
At some point, I think this starts to blur the lines enough to where you start asking how much different it *really* is than just putting them in the public school you're already paid for via your taxes anyway? But there are a lot of ways to do homeschooling when you work with others in the community doing the same thing.
I've heard multiple parents who did home school comment that they felt it was easiest and most effective for younger kids though. By the time their kid(s) got to grade 6-9, they often put them back in a standard school. (Probably makes sense as middle school is when kids really begin valuing things other than just the learning process itself. Peer relationships start becoming important, and I think for many kids - it's actually the peer pressure to look intelligent or to "keep up" with one's classmates that provides motivation for them to keep working. With home schooling, part of that is lost or weakened.)
Home schooling is a great way to ensure that your children get the same singular viewpoint and misinformation that their parents grew up with, and that they aren't burdened by the intellectual challenge of deciding which of the conflicting ideas they might encounter from classmates and teachers, is correct.
Just as a healthy immune system needs exposure to a variety of germs during the formative years (with some vaccinations to take care of the worst ones), a healthy intellect needs exposure to a variety of ideas, good and bad. Involved parents at home help to quash the most irredeemable ideas that kids will be exposed to (like vaccines do), while letting children reach their own conclusions about the rest of them (and generally landing pretty close to the tree).
It's bad enough that adults are increasingly getting all of their news and information from singular ideological sources (Fox News, HuffPo, etc), but to restrict the intellectual diet of a child to what Mom and Dad teach them will isolate them before they even leave the nest. One of the great achievements of the American publication education system in the 20th century – something that was worth breaking down separate-but-equal to accomplish – was to bring together children of different ethnicities, religions, races, and even (to some extent) economic classes, teaching them a shared history and a shared set of values. Which they learned as much from each other as from the teacher. As a member of a Middle-Class White Protestant Republican family, I'm a better person – a better citizen – now because of the time I spent learning side by side with kids who weren't all of those things ... and in some cases none of them.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That is nonsense.
With homeschooling kids learn twice as much in half the time, yes, thats a factor of four.
Of course that implies the teacher/teaching parent knows what he is doing.
Bringing in your racist ideas about other regions on earth disqualifies you anyway beyond believe.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No, homeschoolers do NOT outperform schools. There are NO studies comparing the outcomes of homeschooling and public schools. All the current assessments are based on self-selected tests administered by _parents_.
All I had to do was do time student teaching, get the requisite C's in teacher school, and pass multiple guess tests. Nothing actually evaluated my ability to teach. Fortunately for the students, I cared, and still care, so I study pedagogy, but it's not, shall we say, common or encouraged.
"I was home schooled and I'm totally normal!" - Said many times.
"I'm friends with someone who was home schooled and they are totally normal" - Said 0 times
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
I'm going to make an amazing recommendation: go find some local homeschoolers, and look at their curriculums. Watch them teach their kids a day.
The most important thing to find for a homeschooler is a local co-operative. Lexington, Kentucky has 6 different groups that I know about, and I am pretty sure I don't know them all. A couple are primarily social, two of them are more rigorous than the local private schools (and the public school had to open a STEM magnet with UK's help to compete).
My wife has taught our kids all kinds of subjects, all the way through high school. She had to learn several subjects, but had little trouble in helping our kids excel academically (one just missed National Merit Semifinalist by a point or two, the second is on track to be competitive despite being an art major track). If you don't know a subject, purchase a full-service curriculum or take it at a co-op. And field trips are easy: one woman asked us about them, and my kids asked if seeing the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, the Intrepid, and Gettysburg in a week counted as a field trip....
The number one advantage (and problem) with homeschooling is freedom. We've had a couple of spectacular curriculum failures, but we also were able to get different materials and start over.
The dirty little secret of colleges is that education isn't that hard a subject. The only subject in college easier is social work, and teachers' IQ averages are 20 points lower than the STEM fields. The college classes aren't about learning the subjects (Arts and Sciences students learn more math than math teachers), they're about teaching groups of kids in a subject. If you can teach your kid a subject, you can always teach your child better than a teacher can, because you have 30 times the amount of time a teacher has for your child.
Pros: your kid may fare better with homeschooling because (may, not will)
1. Public school classes can only go as fast as the slowest kid. Not so at home. Your kid won't be bored because things aren't moving fast enough to keep their interest. Engagement = better learning
2. You don't have to put up with your kid struggling with the latest bureaucratic nonsense du juor handed down from on high for the education system. You can customize how you teach to your kid's particular mental processes to maximize uptake and understanding.
3. Because of #2 you have some extra room for teaching things that the school system doesn't have time, money, room, teachers, or interest in teaching.
Cons: your kid (and you) may fare worse with homeschooling because
1. Teaching is not a job, it is a personality type. Like "artist" or "engineer". If you are not a teacher you will find homeshooling a miserable experience. Your kid probably doesn't think like you and you don't understand each other's thought processes so explaining new concepts in a way they understand is an exercise in frustration. That's what teachers are good at - figuring out what the mind in front of them needs and adapting to it. If you aren't a teacher, it won't work.
2. While being a teacher isn't just a job, teaching is. A full time job. Don't kid yourself. If you homeschool you are committing to a full time job in your own home for no pay. If you intend to do it right, that is.
3. Homeshcooling requires commitment and fortitude on your part. You cannot half-ass it and expect a good outcome. You are talking about twelve freakin years of near-daily hard work for a kid that won't appreciate how hard it is on you. It will test your patience, stamina, creativity, sanity, and resolve. Be warned.
Could go either way:
1. No schedule. There's a lot of freedom in that. But then there is also a lot of freedom in knowing all your hellions will be out of your hair six hours a day for most of the week if they go to public/private school.
2. State requirements. Some are pretty onerous. It can get expensive. Some are so lax it's ridiculous and its easy to get complacent and slack off your teaching duties.
3. Higher education. Acceptance of homeschool education in universities is all over the map. Some are favorable, some are out-right hostile. Choosing a post-secondary path is a nightmare to try to negotiate at this point, but there's good stuff out there and its getting better. So, you know. There's that.
As I was homeschooled, my person experience - it was excellent. As for arguments against "social experiences / mono culture" I would argue that depends on the environment, as schools do not necessarily promote great social culture /etc.
In high school years I selected all my own course material,, this allowed me to do college level computer science courses during high school, I was doing C and x86 assembly, and programming EPROM chips, while my friends in local schools were lucky if they got an Apple ][ with a basic interpreter. I also used the flexible times to work on many projects outside my school - programming jobs, volunteer as stage manager for amateur theatre company / etc.
For me the major question to home school is ... is the child self motivated? If you are passionate about learning & study, home schooling offers far opportunities for development than is possible in a structured school experience. It allows you to take on far more advanced levels in your areas of passion / interest and to spend more time on areas you may struggle with. It is also important to ensure you get involved in other groups outside your school - i.e. special interest groups/amateur theatre/sports teams/etc.
Will I home school my own kids? I'm not against it, but don't have plans as yet. If I become unhappy with local schools, then this will probably motivate me to homeschool my kids.
get a degree in something plus training as teachers
Again, the dirty little secret of US education: no they didn't. Math teachers take less math than Arts and Science students. Math education at most colleges don't have a single class in common with math majors. I have a relative who has a post-doctorate in high school education in history; not a single class he has taken will apply to a history bachelor's degree, much less a history masters.
Education classes are about teaching classes, not the subjects.
School is not really about learning actual skills you will use later in life both in the workplace and in your personal life. I'm not saying you don't need some basic math to understand phone contracts or mortgages. I'm saying the social interactions and the incidental learning you aren't graded on is much more useful. You won't get that at home. But that's not even the most important thing...
By far the most important thing you get out of school is proving to others you not only know the material presented, but are capable of sitting down and dong mountains of mostly busy work and doing it well. That's what colleges want to see, thats what colleges expect you to do, that's going to be very important to employers. That's why snobby expensive college prep schools are so important. Simply scoring high on tests won't convey that. In my opinion homeschool is fail sauce because of what society expects. It may be stupid but that's our world.
Send your child to as prestigious a school as possible and then if you want them to learn useful things supplement their education.
Homeschooled children have one of the most important factors contributing to a student's academic success: parents who are highly interested in their child getting a good education. As for homeschooling itself, it is a mixed bag. Some parents make good teachers, some don't. Some public schools are especially good, others especially bad. Some children have certain traits that would make them a bad fit with public school, or would benefit from a faster pace. Homeschooled children run the risk of being socially stunted (especially so for those who would most appreciate not having to deal with people). You said you wanted statistics; I think a relevant one is that colleges seem to prefer homeschooled children over public schooled (but see first sentence).
There are materials available to help with homeschooling. These are probably a good idea unless you really really know what you're doing (which you don't). Even if you don't strictly follow them they can act as guidelines for pace/quantity/topics. You mentioned that your wife, a high school dropout, would be the teacher. Are you sure she has the perseverance to homeschool your children? (Amount of perseverance required of her depends on the amount of perseverance of your children.) You should also see if there are any local homeschoolers and see if you can join forces, or at least talk to someone with personal experience.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
We've started homeschooling our kids after a couple of years in public schools. I won't go into why, but our kids are happier and less-stressed and they are learning at acclerated rates. Not having a rigid school schedule allows for more flexibiity with extra-curricular activities and they school day is leaner and not packed with redundancy that stifles curiosity.
If you home school, the biggest challenge will be finding curriculum. There are lots out there--some kooky some good. The reason most people home school in our state is for religious reasons (i.e, they want to teach creationism and eschew anything secular about science). You're going to find lots of "young earthers" out there and their materials. You will aslo find Wiccans, atheists, and Pastafarians. There's a niche for everything so be judicious. A plus to the Christian curricular materials is that they are great for learning Latin. We teach that as the first secondary language because it is great for grammar as well as all of the root words and scientific applications later. It also makes it easy to branch off into Italian, French, and Spanish. You can just ignore the religiosity of it if you choose.
Try to stay astride with the local school district as far as the core of the compentencies are concerned. Teach those first. You'll spend a lot of time trying to figure out your kids' learning style--the strengths AND weaknesses become quite apparent. You'll probably find that your kids pick up on the material faster when they're not waiting on a teacher to corral 23 other kids along with the unit. This gives you more time to learn. My kids love science experiments and organized field trips with other home schoolers. Find a good community of others you can team up with--parents can share their strengths. We have a French Canadian mom who helps teach French and another who is an engineer helping with science.
There is a great opportunity for success and failure--it's all in what you bring to it. The important thing is to keep your kids curious--it's the engine for learning. Public schools can kill that curiosity but an ill-prepared home school parent can underserve it!
Good luck!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
When a parent wants their home-schooled child to get a diploma, they can request it from their local public high school (at least in our state). I have friends that are high school teachers that have been tasked with testing these students. The success rate is a mixed bag.
"...and besides what kind of situation in the real world are you thrown together with 20 or so of your same age people?"
Very nice. I hadn't thought of that particular aspect of the 'socialization' argument. I can finally rest easy that my dismissal of that argument is justified. Thank you.
Our kids were educated at home from around 4th grade to 9th grade. I feel that high school is a good time to introduce them to the good and the bad of public education and will help them transition to college and corporate social structures; Having them go back to high school will also allow them a more traditional transfer to college and help deflect some of the prejudice they might encounter from the unwashed peasants...
I wish that I would have home schooled them from 1st to 9th grade; I was always worried that I was not a good enough teacher, and that they might be missing experiences that they would have in a public school. However, because I was able to instill a love of learning to my children, I really did not have to baby step them through their studies. Their young minds were so fast at picking things up that they were hard to keep up with. If desired, I could have easily had them finish high school math in middle school etc. It was never my intent to accelerate their education to to raise a mythical genius child. I simply wanted them to be happy, and not have their young minds adversely indoctrinated during their developmental years.
We tried to make sure they were well socialized via local community center activities and years of martial arts training. My children had no problem transitioning into the public school system. They were well ahead of their classmates academically and quickly made friends.
I laugh at inappropriate times.
I can offer my perspective, being a homeschooled individual myself (grades 7-12). I took my schooling through a distance education program in my town though and was not taught by my parents and the material I was given was all self-directed learning. I had to register for all my classes and aside from a couple of clarifying questions I had over the years I barely spoke to any teacher. I was the type of person who didn't put a whole lot of effort into my work and yet still got good grades (B's and A's). So some things that I can say that I learned aside from what was in the courses was the ability to estimate how long it will take me to cover some material, how to manage my time, how to teach myself (this has proved to be wildly beneficial as someone who likes to learn new things for fun as well as for work as a programmer). I was also happy because I was able to use these skills that I had acquired after the first year of homeschooling and get into a good groove. This groove meant that I knew that I had to finish a certain amount of work (taking at least 1 hour and at most 6) in a particular course a day. Days where my chunk was finished early I would either do the next days work and then take a day off in the week or I would just quit early. I would spend my extra time either just relaxing or reading up on something I found interesting. I found this time to be very nice considering the long days that I knew my friends were spending at school and with homework after. I figured that if I had spent the same amount of time everyday that kids in school did instead of the way I did it as well as not taking two months off school one winter I could have realistically finished 1.5 - 2 years early. This would of course be if I was pushing myself, I avoided stress and found a more relaxed self learning style to be better for me. Now speaking on the note about what you are identifying as the reason your wife wants to pursue this, I am an introvert and I can deal quite well with being alone. I can for sure see how a child with an extroverted personality might not deal well with this type of environment. It is not every kid who can spend hours a day at home with the dedication to learn and not play. You may find it beneficial to wait until your child is a bit older (maybe around grade 6-7) to see how they would be at learning from home. The other thing to consider at the younger stage of this is engagement. That is the best way to teach and to learn, to enjoy the process and to interact with what is going on. The first few years of school is not at all like the last few years. My cousin homeschool's her two kids and she takes advantage of the fact that they aren't limited to what a classroom can do. They take educational trips to different places and they learn about things that are outside of this boxed curriculum that a school would normally have to stick to to teach a class full of kids. I mention these things because I am not some statistic I am someone who was homeschooled and I know what it's like. I know that homeschooling was better for me. I got away from kids who were smoking pot and or cigarettes in middle school. I was able to finish at the same time as everyone else despite the fact that I spent less time per week doing schooling and taking off weeks at a time in addition to scheduled breaks. I had the freedom to learn on my time and learn extra things that would benefit me that aren't taught in schools. I got to avoid all the crap that happens at high school. But again this is me and my experience. Ultimately it will depend on your son and whoever will be doing the teaching. You can read all the stats and review what the benefits are but if the person isn't right for it then they are not and any viewpoint or potential brought forth in some article or paper won't make a difference. Now you have heard what I liked about homeschooling and the things it has done for me and a potential of what it can do for your son. I might make a suggestion that could solve all your points. Wait a year. Let your kid go to public schoo
This is an important point. It isn't a binary choice between the typical public school (government school) or homeschooling by yourself. There are charter schools, there are schools that run half days and you homeschooled the other half. There are schools that meet one day per week. There are schools where you select which classes to send them to school for and which to do at home.
I was surprised to learn that in my town of about 90,000 households, 1,000 of those homeschooled their kids. That's 1,000 partners to work with. Families share curriculums, there are homeschool sports teams who play against the government schools, and parents teach small classes of three or four other students. So maybe we'll have three or four kids from other families come over for math class, or business or computers, while our daughter goes to music class taught by a friend who is a career musician.
Figure 1,000 families is about 1,800 parents. There are probably some parents who are chemists, some professional musician somebody runs an art studio, etc. So I don't have to teach my daughter art - she can do that at her friend's mother's art studio, then I teach her and her friend computer and technology stuff.
Anyway, there are a LOT of different options. In my area there are "crunchy" homeschool groups, specifically non-crunchy groups ... many choices.
I can not remember when I had my first science class; I do remember science in 5th grade (10 to 11 years old). When does most places start science education? Tim S.
We only homeschooled for a year but here's how I see it:
Pros:
Academics - sky is the limit
Flexible Schedule
Can be tailored to suit the individual child
Have more control over who your kid spends their time with*
Cons:
Danger of controlling too much of your child's life*
Expense - you've got to provide all your own materials
Have to be careful of materials and programs made available to homeschoolers, - often have a political bent
Takes a lot of time to prepare and execute, - especially as the kids get older
"Slashdot is not an appropriate venue to unleash your bitterness."
/. and I think I've completely misinterpreted the whole thing.
WTF? Seriously? Man, a decade of frequenting
Amen.
Some fairly positive results that I wasn't expecting to find http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ca...
I was homeschooled a while ago, under the same non-religious approach you seem to be taking (not that from what I saw of other homeschoolers that aspect really mattered).
For me, schooling at home was from just after sixth grade until I went to college - but my younger sisters were taken out of traditional school at the same time. One of them was homeschooled all the way from 1st grade until college.
I would say for all of us it was a big plus. The "social" aspect thing is actually the BEST part of homeschooling, being taken away during your most formative years from spending the majority of your time with people your own age, and instead interacting more with adults. If you think about it this is how people grew into adults for a LONG time until the modern factory sort of school system was introduced. It basically gives you a greater foundation of maturity and a better chance to discover who you are and what you like to do. When I went to college I felt a lot more self-assured about what I wanted than most people there, and peer pressure wasn't an issue as I felt comfortable making choices for myself.
It's not like there is no social interaction at all, I still saw friends from the public school all the time. I just didn't also spend my whole day with them. You can also join sports teams and other things that are traditionally social after-school activities, sometimes the local schools let you join for a fee, other times there are local homeschooling teams.
It's not hard to do a great job educating kids, there are a lot of options for places to get curriculum from, some of them you can get advisors to tailor the curriculum to specific interests of the child.
All that said it's a LOT of work, and requires a lot of commitment. I think it does pretty much require someone to be home - I mostly learned self-directed with my study topics set by my parents, but even so it's good to have someone around to ask questions or just to keep you on track.
If you do go ahead with homeschooling make sure to take advantage of the flexibility it offers you and go on educational trips from time to time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>. Most are no less social than standard for intelligent, literate people; football isn't the center of their life.
In my area, at least, there are several thousand kids being homeschooled and it is a social community. They take classes at each other's homes, do field trips together, have sports teams who play against traditional schools ... there is a strong social element, if you choose to engage in it.
As far as football, in one homeschooled family we're close to, the oldest boy looks like he just might be headed to the NFL. If not that's okay - he's getting excellent grades at a prestigious university.
This is sounding a lot like a situation my family is now dealing with, and the results weren't pretty.
My sister-in-law attempted to homeschool her daughter. It's a bit of a mystery why, because it definitely wasn't the usual religious or political reasons. The sister-in-law did not do well in high school, barely made it to graduation. I can only guess that she didn't want her daughter to have the same terrible experience with school that she had.
The end result was that starting at age 11, she kept her daughter at home, did not connect up with local school districts while moving to two different states, and apparently went from minimal schooling at the beginning to no schooling at all. Which should not have been a big surprise since she did so poorly in school herself. Her daughter ended up isolated from other kids her age, mostly just sitting in a room bored out of her mind. The daughter is now 17, the rest of the family has intervened and she's finally getting enrolled into a good small alternative school, where she'll be assessed to figure out where she needs to catch up, but it's going to take awhile because we know she needs some refresher courses on multiplication tables, for instance.
So you have got to ask yourself and your wife hard questions about why she feels qualified to teach when she couldn't even complete high school. Maybe adult life and the GED stuff got her up to normal functioning or maybe even better than usual - but probably not. What happens in the very real possibility that she finds she can't hack it as a teacher? Because the ability to teach is not in all of us, and if it was difficult to learn, it's going to be even more difficult to teach.
I had two cousins that were home schooled until high school where they graduated 1st and 2nd in their class. My aunt actually was a certified teacher- I think this is important. If you have misgivings about you wife's motivation and she really hasn't shown an interest in education I really think it would be a mistake.
I have 'home schooled' my kids in the summer and found that creating lesson plans and going over their assignments after work was exhausting. It is a huge commitment.
love is just extroverted narcissism
You have to remember that at some point your kids are going to leave home (you hope) and have to make decisions for themselves about their own education at university
That is *exactly* the most compelling thing about homeschooling. You usually have very little choice about what classes teach, about how far you can customize what you want to learn.
Homeschooling is WAY more like college in that you get to pursue what interest you. Parents should also make sure a foundation is being learned but you can explore topics far deeper than you ever can in public school - exactly the kind of preparation that helps you when you leave home, because you are learning to make educational choices earlier, and learning to study on your own earlier as well. It leads to you feeling a lot better prepared when you get to college than most of the people there...
I know, because I was homeschooled before I went to college.
A further thing to consider is whether the academics really are better for home schooled kids.
Pretty much any external test says yes, in fact it is. You really think that government approved curriculum thought by teachers that cannot be fired is going to be better than a carefully selected set of things thought by people that really care about you?
Don't forget that homeschoolers also have the option sometimes to take classes at the local school anyway, or community college classes for advanced topics well before they go to "real" college.
I'm sure that you can cram facts into their heads
If you are doing that you may as well not homeschool, that's not at all what it's like for any homeschooler I've ever known.
this does not turn out well at university when they are required to understand and apply knowledge rather than just regurgitate it
Because everyone knows all the prepping for standardized tests public school kids have to take has nothing at all to do with regurgitation! Oh wait. In fact that's the whole point of the public school system, is prepared regurgitation when the bell is rung.
Lastly I'd also question whether your wife is really capable of home schooling at all.
Real teaching is about helping kids when they are stuck, but mostly letting them learn. Real teaching is not learning how to force kids to regurgitate facts, which is what public school teachers are by and large trained to do. Real teaching is also about drawing up a good curriculum, but there are MANY resources to help homeschooling parents do just that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Education isn't just about what is in the class curricula, it is also about learning social skills, and just learning to deal with life. This is particularly true for a smart kid. I was an above average performer in school academically, but I had a tough time with social skills, and with learning to respect people I perceived to be my intellectual inferiors. Public school helped me with that a lot. I was exposed to people from all walks of life and learned that even if you are the Smartest Motherfucker in the Room(tm) that doesn't mean the other people are worthless or that you are better and oh, often you aren't the smartest even when you think you are.
Also it can be pretty hard to teach a really well rounded curriculum when it is just one person. You never know the stuff that may end up being valuable. For me? Various English class and speech class, bar none. They helped me overcome my fear of speaking in front of groups, and honed my communication skills. That is the second thing people will judge you on (after your looks) and it has helped me professionally plenty. All the math I did? Not useful, despite being in computers. Algebra is all I needed.
Plus for smart kids something that can be valuable to learn is that ya, maybe things move at a slower pace than you'd like, you need to STFU, deal with it, and do the work because actual jobs will have that too. You are not going to find some magic position where you are always stimulated, always challenged. Real life will be mired in BS too, so learn to deal with it.
I'm not trying to say public school is perfect, but in general I still feel it is by far the best option.
Also where I work (a university) we notice the same: The public school kids tend to do the best on entrance tests over all. A diploma and given SAT score gets you in the door, but you still have to pass university administered proficiency tests to determine what level of English and math you get in. You see a lot more home school kids getting stuck in the remedial classes than public school kids, including some smart home schooled kids. They just didn't learn what they needed to for university, in the university's estimation.
It's all about socialization, that's pretty important at that age (at any age, really).
Generally you can find some sort of part-time kindergarten (half days or alternate days), that's a nice way to ease into the school system for your wife and your child. Don't underestimate the difficulty for your wife--but ultimately it is better for both of them to spend some time apart.
If after a year or two you decide to homeschool for awhile, then that's totally fine.
I went to a private school for about 6 years, then completed my education at the local public school, going on to get a couple undergraduate degrees and a postgraduate degree. My wife dropped out of high school and got her equivalency many years later. Now, she wants to homeschool our son.
I don't see this ending well.
It is not often these days that you such an extraordinary difference in education between husband and wife. I've seen marriages strained and broken over less.
Is she thinking of a religious or secular education?
Traditional or modern approaches to what should be taught and how to teach it?
I can't speak to why your wife dropped out of school but you both need to be honest about whether she has the makings of a good teacher. You both need to be honest about why she wants to homeschool her son.
Homeschooled children run the risk of being socially stunted
I agree with much of what you said before this (homeschooling is not for everyone), but it is very wrong to say there's any risk of social stunting for homeschoolers. In fact the risk is far less for homeschoolers - because they spend the majority of the day interacting with other adults, learning how to behave like an adult.
In school you are spending a lot of time learning behavior from other kids who also do not really know what good behavior is, how healthy interaction with others works. You learn that a lot better homeschooling than you do at school, as a result you are more mature going into college.
Are you sure she has the perseverance to homeschool your children? (Amount of perseverance required of her depends on the amount of perseverance of your children.)
This is a pretty key factor, how much will they be able to learn self-directed without her watching over them all the time?
If they can learn some math and reading/writing with minimal guidance, you are probably set. The rest can be tailored to children interests which makes them a lot more self-directed anyway.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Good point! You need to teach these kids about socialization and how to interact with other people in the world around them. After all, you wouldn't want your children to grow up into judgemental assholes making invidious generalizations about some minority out-group of people they're barely familiar with, just because they're a little outside the mainstream.
hey wait a minute ...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I was homeschooled K-12 and loved it. I never had to spend more than 2-3hrs a day doing school work (but would often spend time on my own projects).
The biggest benefit I think is the customization you can give your children. Do they like math? If so, you can let them run free doing algebra to their hearts content. You can get them more advanced curriculum. On the other hand, I struggled putting my thoughts on paper. While this would have likely held me back in school, my parents just let it go. For whatever reason, once I hit my teen years, it just was not a problem any more.
Another really great benefit was being able to travel during the school year. We could go to all of the local museums and attractions while other kids were in school. And we were also plugged into local homeschooling groups so we still got to do things like field trips and sports. Overall, if you have a parent who is excited and willing to do it, I think you'll find it is a positive experience.
However, it's obvious these parents care about their child's education
In reality this is the primary thing that really matters to be successful at homeschooling.
And it's a huge step up from public school teachers where, at best, you MAY get a teacher who also cares that much. But if not, you have wasted an entire year that many things could have been learned in.
Like you say, there are many possible options. But homeschooling can give you great benefits if a more open model of education works for you and your kids... and if it doesn't, you better be thinking very strongly about either college makes any sense for them either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We home-schooled our children. One already has her baccalaureate degree and will soon pursue her masters; while her sister, is married with three kids, pursuing her baccalaureate transitioning to her dream, a Nursing degree.
I don't want to brag, but if I was to home-school my kid I would not give him a mere masters, I'd give him a kick-ass diploma, like a PhD in Awesomeness. And I'd take it away if he doesn't eat his vegetables.
lucm, indeed.
While you're off at work making sure you can feed everyone and continue with those house payments, who is making sure your kid isn't goofing off? Most kids don't have the discipline for homeschooling, especially when they're in a place where there's always something more interesting to do than the school work in front of them.
You also wind up depriving your child of the ability to develop necessary social skills and "street smarts" which only come from being exposed to the unwashed masses. Don't assume that just because you failed at aspects of it that they will too. You need to allow them a chance to stand on their own two feet if you expect them to walk, let alone run.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I've noticed a lot of people educated at public schools range from socially maladjusted to simply stupid. Why, some of them can't even figure out how to create a Slashdot login!
There are a lot of people who behave like they are still in high-school - where do you think all of the typical nonsense of cliques or bullying is learned from, and than carried forward into college and business and day to day interactions...
Home-schooled kids by and large you don't notice, because why would you? They are more professional, less crass and boorish. They don't attract notice except in passing to note someone seems strangely confident in themselves. But then you forget about them when little Timmy (attending public schools all his life) accidentally staples his finger to a desk.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you're a US taxpayer, then those public schools are there in some small part because of you. They are a small army of individuals who were trained just for teaching and educating children. Go investigate and see if you have a good local school and a good school district. If it's "ok" but could be better, then figure out how to get involved. Get elected to the local school board. (It'll be a real eye-opener, and a big commitment, since usually it's an unpaid, elected position.) Make your local public schools better for not just your children but everyone's children.
And if you don't want to go quite that far, but do discover that the local public schools are above state average, then be an involved parent. Studies do show that students whose parents are actively engaged with them and their school are higher achievers. We're not talking about "helicopter parents" but ones who give guidance, set a high bar for their child, help them expect good things from themselves and help them cope and correct course when things don't go as well as they wanted.
As parents, you're always teaching your children, even if you don't mean to be. Your actions are some of the most powerful teaching tools you have, for good or for bad. While your child is young, go look at your local schools, talk to the local home schooling groups, check them out, grade them yourself, check their backgrounds, look at their track records. Good groups, home or public, should be quick to help you find their positive achievements. You need to mine your own data, in your local area. People here, we may have good intentions, but what we think is important in education, may be completely different from what you have where you live.
Good public schools are working to hit their stride, raise levels of achievement, and change the life-long trajectory of as many students as they can. Do they have a drop out rate below, or significantly below the state average? That's typically a tell-tale sign. Do they have their own alternative high-school? If they do, then that typically means they take drop-outs very seriously, and aren't willing to let them go without a fight. How much of their Special Education do they do in-house? If they're working to keep more kids with high needs inside their system instead of just taking the easy way and farming them out to special schools, making that a last resort, then they truly take educating every child, every day...seriously. It's not just their career, it's their passion. You want people of passion educating our children. They care about the outcome of every child who walks in the door, personally. It's their mission to get them to succeed.
If you don't find that at your local public school...then that's the sort of person you need to be when homeschooling. It needs not not just be your career to school your child, it needs to be something you jump out of bed, excited to start the day, type of passion. If you don't have that at the public school, and you don't have it at home, it's time to find a private school that will meet that need.
Public education has been a family business for my entire life. I'm the black sheep, I went into IT. My siblings are teachers, and my father is a retired educator and school administrator. I've watched our local schools very closely for well over a decade, after my father retired. Good schools attract great teachers...rock star teachers, because they all share a passion for changing the life trajectory of a student. Whatever school you decide to put your child in, make sure it has that sort of staff in it.
There are very good public schools, and poor ones. There are great homeschoolers, and ones that are overwhelmed. You're going to have to look at your local options, and make the best decision you can. And remember: If things don't go according to plan, change the plan. Set a good example and help your child make good decisions.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Aside from my memories of public school, mostly traumatic, I subbed K-12 for a couple of years for a view from the otherside. American public education compares well enough with other countries up to about the fourth grade, after which it is a race to the bottom. The student subculture becomes increasingly resistant to and contemptuous of learning, which is just so not cool. We were paid more to sub middle school; we called it "combat pay." So seriously consider sparing your children middle school. For some who survive with curiosity intact in spite of middle school, high school can be a learning experience, but for too many it is a wasteland. Our son went to public school K-4, skipping first grade. We often read to him and I recall when he was in kindergarten he announced he could read. I flipped a few chapters ahead in the book I was reading to him and said, "Read this." He read without the slightest hesitation or fumbling, "Compsognathus was a small dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous." So I believed him. His fourth grade teacher was good, but I had seen things to come so we secular homeschooled him and were not in league with other homeschoolers in the area who were all religiously motivated. The so called 'gifted programs', all the ones in our area, were a bad joke. I suppose I wanted him to be like me, an autodidactic, which I didn't learn to be in school. He learned to learn and before high school he tested into college level in most subjects. After monitoring classes in one of the top rated high schools in the country that offered a lot of AP classes, he was put off that it took most teachers 10 minutes to get the students to pretend to focus. At thirteen he started college. He did go to a local high school one semester with two foreign exchange students we had taken in "for anthropological research" before going back to college. With an AS in CS he decided not to go to university as he could learn more and faster on his own and thought it would slow him down. He had wanted to get his GED, but was too young at the time, so near the end of college he got it. He is now, early 20's, working IT and doing well thank you. If I recall, I learned about /. from him, so educators all.
it is very wrong to say there's any risk of social stunting for homeschoolers. In fact the risk is far less for homeschoolers - because they spend the majority of the day interacting with other adults, learning how to behave like an adult.
I very strongly disagree with this statement. Adolescents should learn how to interact with adults, sure - but far more important to their social development is interacting with non-adults.
How do you deal with your first crush, your first boy/girl friend? How do you deal with your first bully? Who is your best friend, or your worst enemy? What's your first group of friends? All these need to be peers, and there is no substitute for having these experiences (for better or worse) younger rather than older. So many things about adolescence are the greatest thing ever in your life, and so many things about adolescence break your heart in a way you never thought possible. But experiencing these things at the same age that your peers do - in a way that you can only experience by being immersed with your peers - is the only way to be on an equal footing emotionally, socially and romantically with everyone else you will be dealing with in your young adult life.
I have no doubt that homeschooling can provide a better academic experience. I absolutely do not believe that it can provide the tremendous opportunity to do stupid things, make an ass of yourself in front of everyone, have your heart broken, be an asshole, and find yourself - for better or worse - that swimming in the great pool of co-educational age-equivalent fellow idiots called attending public school can. College is where I learned how to be a useful adult, but public high school was where I learned what not to do, which was in its own way just as important.
Also, I was a horny teenage boy and there were horny teenage girls there. Absurdly painful, awkward and embarrassing - but worth it all in the long run. And the best way I can think of for becoming a (more or less) well adjusted adult.
Your mileage, of course, may vary.
"95% of all Slashdot
I'm saying the social interactions and the incidental learning you aren't graded on is much more useful.
You learn all that homeschooling, only much better because day to day you are interacting with a much wider age range.
That's actually the main area where homeschoolers turn out much better than kids going to public school.
By far the most important thing you get out of school is proving to others you not only know the material presented, but are capable of sitting down and dong mountains of mostly busy work and doing it well. That's what colleges want to see
That sounds like a fucking horrible college, why would you pay $60k/year for that nonsense? What value would ding four years of busywork bring you? What kind of awful life would it prepare you for if that was your job afterward?
That wasn't anything like the college I went to. Yes SOME classes required a lot of work, but it wasn't busywork - it was *thinking* work. The same kind of work I did when homeschooling... the same kind they generally do *not* do in public schools. Homeschooling, if t can work for parent and child, is a vastly better preparation for how you will actually learn and work in college.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
is pointless. All the actual, (good) teachers I know are basically fine with it. The concept also makes a lot of sense as there is currently far too much variation in school curriculum from state to state and sometimes from district to district or school to school. If a kids moves from one state to another and finds they are basically a year or more behind or ahead of they were learning, it's not good for anyone. We also need high school graduates to actually, you know, be ready for college instead of having to take a bunch of remedial courses just to get up to speed on several subjects.
The people developing common core are, by and large, have a great deal of knowledge, experience, and expertise in teaching and developing consistent and engaging curriculum.
Just one example.
Seriously, I don't understand the big stink, mostly coming from idiots who randomly decided that if "the government" had anything to do with it, it must be heinous and evil. Those folks need to get over their own issues and actually LOOK AT the course material. It's not perfect but there's some really really good stuff in there and it's leaps and bounds better than the previous status-quo at numerous school districts across pretty much all states.
some girl I didn't even know decided to kick me in the nuts
Happened to me all the time until I figured out that they were not playing hard to get when they were saying "no"
lucm, indeed.
pros:
You get to shape your kid into a little version of yourself. He/she ends up accepting your worldview as the truth.
cons:
You get to shape your kid into a little version of yourself. He/she ends up accepting your worldview as the truth.
Math education at most colleges don't have a single class in common with math majors.
Ouch, that's depressing.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The flip side comes in some of the non-core subjects or in areas with high demand and low supply of teachers. I taught a foreign language in public schools for a while, with no education classes behind me, only graduate-level work in the language. Likewise, we hired a computer science teacher who had been a programmer, had run his own business, and had never attended education classes. Even in the core subjects, a number of the math and science teachers came from a military background (it was a Navy town) and had solid educations and practical experience with STEM but no education classes.
It took all of us at least three years to get the hang of teaching. Knowing the field is only half the battle: the other is getting your troops in order. Teenagers may well be creative geniuses and precious snowflakes, but they are not rational adults. They are growing into the role, and they need help doing so. Most of the education classes I had were worthless (the "philosophy of education" course was utter bullshit taught by an aged hippie), but the ones on classroom management and adolescent psychology were immensely helpful. Three years of experience solidified what I learned in those two classes. You might well be able to walk into a room of adults and brief them on any topic adeptly -- that's what people do in business meetings and training all the time -- but it's a far cry from being able to handle a room full of teenagers who haven't reached the age of impulse control, are only starting to come to grips with the hormones raging through their bodies, and honestly don't know why they decided to bring that porn mag or knife to class today.
I became good at civilizing the savages, and I found that the students learned far more when I had learned how to do that. I moved on later back into the adult world, but I still find that I can manage children when I have to. It's invaluable on airplanes when I get seated next to some little germ factory whose mother can't get him to control himself and doesn't understand him or why the airsick bag and everything else in reach fascinates him so. It's amazing how much time parents can spend with kids and yet have absolutely no clue what their kids see in the world; they only see the kids as time-drains to be put in front of a tablet or screen to get them out of the way for a while, or as potential embarrassments who need to be threatened constantly. Neither gives a kid the ability to reason and control himself.
One of the biggest takeaways from the whole experience, both while teaching and afterwards, is that most parents don't have the first clue how to raise their children to become decent adults. Some do, and they homeschool their kids well: my cousin homeschools her two kids for religious reasons, and they behave like adults, but she also had a few years experience in Christian education along with a degree in the same. Most parents who do homeschool their kids do have an active enough engagement in their kids' lives to teach them the control they need to become effective learners, and I've found that a number of homeschooling parents form collectives or co-ops that not only distribute teaching among parents with strengths in subject fields but also share knowledge of how to reach the kids most effectively. These co-ops are usually of such a small scale that they know the kids well and individually, something missing from large public schools. That works for them, but they're a small minority of all parents. I'd doubt that the majority of the population is capable either of organizing effectively or of handling children well. Here I'm thinking especially of the kids I taught who never dealt with their biological parents but lived with their grandmothers (parenting skips a generation in some communities, because the mothers are too busy carousing to raise their own children, and the fathers are unknown or incarcerated). Those kids' parents abdicated the responsibility of raising their children, and school is the only place that they'll find the struc
So what you're saying is for all that extra work, you got average results.
Somehow homeschooled kids score across the board higher than public education.
Five areas of academic pursuit were measured. In reading, the average home-schooler scored at the 89th percentile; language, 84th percentile; math, 84th percentile; science, 86th percentile; and social studies, 84th percentile. In the core studies (reading, language and math), the average home-schooler scored at the 88th percentile.
Foot, meet mouth.
The reason colleges prefer homeschooled kids is because they score better on standardized tests across the board.
I very strongly disagree with this statement. Adolescents should learn how to interact with adults, sure - but far more important to their social development is interacting with non-adults.
But the thing is you get a LOT of that anyway when homeschooling, as you spend time with friends when out of school. Or with other homeschoolers.
You get much more interaction with a wider range of ages, which is very useful.
How do you deal with your first crush, your first boy/girl friend? Who is your best friend, or your worst enemy?
A little confused here since that works exactly like it does for public school kids.
You just have more ability to avoid "enemies". Just like in real life. Unlike being in prison you get to choose who you interact with mostly. You learn you have real choice, something you can't really learn at school because in fact you don't have real choice about who is around you mostly.
I absolutely do not believe that it can provide the tremendous opportunity to do stupid things
Well lets see. While I was homeschooling, I used to do things like pretend to rally drive in a Honda civic going around 100MPH on gravel roads. And make my own fireworks.
You are SO SO WRONG on that point. Kids have just as much freedom to do stupid things. More really because you can justify raw materials purchases as part of education to your parents, them being unaware of intent...
Also, I was a horny teenage boy and there were horny teenage girls there.
Really confused why you don't seem to think homeschoolers do anything in groups. They usually in fact do more kind of extra-curricular things than public school kids do... while you were sitting at a desk forcibly stopped from interacting with all other students in your vicinity for hours on end, I was doing things like going to museums with other kids, including other teenage girls...
As I said, homeschooling is a far greater experience in socialization because you get a broader range of opportunity, in frankly much better environments that more closely mirror what you will experience in real life. Would you rather learn how to talk to women in a museum or a prison?
I met my wife taking swing dancing lessons, instead of at a bar... because I was inclined to meet and talk to other people while learning or experiencing, instead of sitting placidly. How is that not an awesome social background to bestow on someone? It's a lot more Dos Equis than Barney Fife.
When I was in grade school before I was homeschooled, I was generally pretty shy. The school environment was just making me more so. Some of my "socialization" Involved being hit in the back of a head with a brick, and being tossed around a bit during recess at times - when I didn't care to fight anyone. How was that healthy? There was no reason for it other than I was wiry and a little smarter than many of the other kids. I can tell you hasn't mattered at all knowing how to take a brick to the head in my adult life. What has mattered is being a lot more confident around other people than I used to be even though I'm still inclined to be an introvert. That was something I learned homeschooling, not from public school.
Again, I am not saying homeschooling is for everyone. But for anyone that can derive good academic value from it, you can have huge socialization benefits that go through college into your adult life.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Uh, are you familiar with the 'One True Scotsman?'
If they were homeschooled correctly they were better than the vast majority of public-schooled kids.
So if they were not better than the public-schooled kids they clearly were not homeschooled correctly then.
Sort of tautological isn't that? Homeschooling works, except when it doesn't, and when it doesn't its because you have done it wrong.
You can easily flip it and its just as valid: Public schooled children when done correctly are more mature, well-adjusted, reasonable, socialized, educated and rational than the vast majority of of home-schooled kids.
You've really made a pointless post.
now my eldest son is talking about buying his parents a house.
The fuck did I do to deserve that??
(his besties have gone on from state secondary to community college, the unemployment register, dead end shelf-stacking and zero hours contracts, even jail, he's buying his mom and dad a fucking HOUSE!?)
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The reason colleges prefer homeschooled kids is because they score better on standardized tests across the board.
This is true for the homeschooled children that do pursue a collage career. However, those who do fail so bad that they don't even apply for college aren't counted. This skews the numbers pretty badly.
Unless a parent is willing to invest the time it takes to home-school, it's probably not a good idea. It's not something you can do in an hour a day, in-between laundry and watching TV. It requires dedicated effort, and endless long hours. Including time on schooling oneself, to be ready to teach the children.
Some parents manage, and those are the success stories we hear about, with higher than average SAT/ACT scores. But some parents don't have the discipline, dedication or talent, and those kids end up enlisting or staring out the drive through window looking for Mr. Right.
Forget the research, ignore all of the imaginary educational progress that society claims to have made over the past few decades. The well educated mommy always knows best!
I would only have to ask myself, what would -I- want if I were that child?
I already know the answer.
Sent from my ENIAC
the whole point of why home schooling is perhaps not the best option that in the public system you don't get to choose what you teach them.
the "great" thing about homeschooling is that they get to pursue what they want and that's also the worst about it, because well, you could just as well start calling it no-schooling at that point.
and keep in mind that home schooling will require that at least one parent stays home every day to teach, there's not much security in that - either one of you might drop dead - and to keep the kid able to transition smoothly into the public school system in case you need to change the arrangement then you would need to match the curriculum anyhow to some degree.
if you want to create your own republic of dave then sure, homeschooling is the only option. but if you want to control them 100% and control what shows they look and what friends they have and what news they read.. then they're fucked already.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
70-80th percentile on achievement tests on average? Many Home Schooled kids may do very well but I'm just a tad bit doubtful of your numbers. First off, neither resource provided meets the criteria of peer reviewed research. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you will be hard pressed to find a research study that can accurately assess the number of students that are educated outside of our public and private educational systems. Long story short, if you are going to support your argument with "research" then you had best learn the difference between hippie-granola-jesus-crispie-treats and professional research articles.
My wife and I (mostly my wife) home schooled our son through 5th grade and then transitioned him to a private school. My wife and I are both college educated, I have a job that pays well enough that my wife does not need to work outside the home and as such has chosen to be a home wife/mom.
The main drawbacks to home schooling that we encountered were...
1) It's a lot of work, the parent doing the schooling should consider it their job. If that parent also needs/wants to work outside the home I would find it difficult to recommend home schooling.
2) There is some expense (but a lot less than the private school he attends now).
3) It gets harder as they get older and the material become more difficult. My wife (who is not a math person) had no difficulty teaching all of the math up through 5th grade, but now that he is doing algebra, helping with math homework is something that falls to me.
4) Ignorant people wondered if we were in some sort of cult and were attempting to teach our son that the earth is flat, or that he would become some sort of sociopath because they figure we probably just lock him in a closet with a pile of text books.
The benefits that we enjoyed were...
1) Massive flexibility, during my son's 4th grade year he was studying American history so we incorporated a 4-week trip to the east coast into his program for the year. He was able to see in person many of the famous historical locations that he had, up to that point, only read about. My son probably did 10 times as many field trips by the end of 5th grade as I did in my entire 13 years of public K-12 education.
2) Class size, in every education funding debate I hear, one of the biggest things that teacher's are always asking for is a lower student:teacher ratio. Homeschooling is the absolute sweet spot there, the student teacher ratio in our home school was 1:1.
3) Tailored lesson plans, our son's teacher was the person in the world who knows his strengths & weaknesses the best. I don't think I can overstate this, no teacher will ever know your kids as well as you do or be able to customize the way they instruct them to the same degree. For example when he was younger our son had some vision issues that required special glasses and vision therapy, this caused him to struggle with reading. My wife was able to compensate for this by using more audio book in his lessons while we worked through the reading issues. I think it's pretty likely that without this ability to fit the teaching style to his needs he would have struggled badly in a typical classroom.
4) How many traditional schools let you come to class in your pajamas?
A couple other thoughts...
1) People often wonder why you would want to do yourself that a professional educator has been extensively trained to do. I think this sort of misses the mark, my wife and I were not doing what a professional teacher does (manage a classroom full of kids from many different family backgrounds with very different individual strengths/weaknesses and do it on a very tight schedule).
2) There are TONs of groups supporting home schoolers (at least in our area). There are several great Co-ops where kids can sign up for classes in area that parents feel they are not equipped to teach (e.g. our son was able to take classes like Archery and Robotics at the co-op that would not have been available at a traditional elementary school.
In the end I think the decision will depend a lot on your personal circumstances, if you don't feel good about your local public schools and cannot afford private school then home schooling is worth considering. Are your kids well outside the norms (either above or below) in some areas, if so then home schooling will allow you do adapt their education to help them catch up or allow them to excel. How does your wife get along with your kids? If they already butt heads over many things then making her mom and teacher may not be the best plan; as our son approached the teen years it was more and more difficult for her to act as both mom and teacher and that was a factor in our change from home school to traditional school.
That's my $0.02 worth.
This is true for the homeschooled children that do pursue a collage career. However, those who do fail so bad that they don't even apply for college aren't counted. This skews the numbers pretty badly.
Try again.
To summarize: .| . 3.16 .| 58.6% .. | . 3.12 .| . 3.13 .| 54.2% .| . 3.18 .| 51.5% .| . 3.46 .| 66.7%
SchoolType | 1yr GPA | 4yr GPA | 4yr graduation rate
Public . . | . 3.12
Private
Catholic . | . 3.13
Home . . . | . 3.41
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Try again yourself.
The very first words in the study state:
This exploratory study examines the academic outcomes of homeschooled students who enter a
medium size doctoral institution located in the Midwest.
And later on:
Limitations
As mentioned in the previous section, the homeschooled student population used in this study attended a single institution. Additionally, the number of homeschool students is relatively small. As such, the results of this analysis should not be considered inferential to the general population of undergraduate students in the US. Rather, the results of this research should be considered a starting point in order to better understand academic outcomes of homeschool students entering postsecondary education.
I.e. it is biased from the start, excluding those homeschooled kids who did not pursue higher education. It only compares those who attended regular schools with homeschooled students who made it to posteecondary education.
It ignores all the failures who never made it that far.
What is more important ... schooling, or learning?
Not all the learning happen within the context of a 'school', no matter if it is home school, private school or public school. In fact, most of the learning average kids had/have were/are from OUTSIDE of the schools
Nowadays parents seem to forget that. They seem to think that once they throw their children into a school, it's the responsibility of the teachers in the school to teach their kids
NO !!
I have met people from public school backgrounds who are, while not very technically savvy, they are super streets smart, able to detect troubles before the troubles actually begin
On the other hand, some of those who were home schooled might know a lot of stuffs, but unfortunately they lack many of the skills to successfully interact with others, particularly strangers, and often fall pray to scams because they are not aware of the darker side of humanity
No matter which school you send your kids in, you, as the parents, have to know that your kids learn from you more than they ever could learn from their teachers
Learning is not schooling, and no amount of schooling can equip your children if they do not have the opportunity to learn OUTSIDE of the school
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
because well, you could just as well start calling it no-schooling at that point.
Close, it's called Unschooling
And it's exactly what you do in college too. Just like college, homeschooling means certain fundamental requirements. Just like college, homeschooling means you get to pursue interests in depth on top of core learning...
And it works amazingly well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Disclaimer: I am a certified [MSc] teacher in chemistry and physics. Worked the job only a year [went to do PhD and then do R&D in semiconductors] but all my life I have being interested in education and never stopped thinking and learning about it. Sorry for the gigantic post; there is so much to say about this...besides according to Terry Pratchett teachers can only converse in the form of short lectures:))
The major problem of standardized school system is the lack of flexibility and inability to provide different approaches to different types of students. I am not saying anything new here -- the class moves through the curriculum with the speed of the average student, not the best, of course. This is the classical case [to use popular culture reference] of "who and how is going to teach Ender"? On the other hand, the "slow students" are often slower than they can be again because of lack of flexibility in approach.
The major problem of home schooling is politics --> that the majority of people seem to want it not in order to educate their kids better but the opposite, to save them from "evil" knowledge and from hearing different points of view. This home schooling fad perpetuates the whole developed world ATM and the idea comes usually. from the religious circle of the parents. Please, understand me right, I don't want to start a war on this issue but it is true. In mitigation I can say that many other ideologies [politics, business, culture in general] also try constantly to meddle in schools and teach [or not] the students about certain things.
Two issues then -- one, now to make the system more efficient in pure education terms, without considering social and cultural issues. Two [this is the biggie] --> how to deal with the inevitable clash between the culture and knowledge in the family and the culture and knowledge of the world [school].
It is a FACT that what happens at school has major influence on the development of the young mind. It is a FACT that bad teacher can do huge harm and good teacher can do huge good. It is a fact that most families internal culture is narrow-minded compared to what the school teaches. And you cannot possibly separate culture form education. Example --> if you study logic, one of the best text books starts with debunking the whole idea of advertisement and shows you clearly how you are manipulated by it. But that message is universally despised by our culture [for it has been perverted to such degree that any objection against money grabs and inhuman economic structures is labeled as "freedom-hating"] and trust me, some enraged group of parents will protest [especially if daddy is making his bucks in advertisement:)]. During my short tenure I saw many such clashes. Parents asked me "why are you teaching them this, you are just physics teacher, what can you possibly teach them about everyday life". "Everything", was my usual answer and I tried to explain that the scientific approach is a system of thought that is universal and can be applied to any problem. As my physics teacher in high school said "you might be selling groceries all your life but if you understand a bit of physics and scientific approach you will out compete the other grocery shop". Very few parents understood...
Thoughts on issue one:
- make the cooperation between parents school and society more efficient and [wishful thinking] as free of politics as possible.
- Create "clubs of interests" [we used to have those very good under the communist system] where fast kids can learn more. Make those good and affordable.
- here is an idea --> teach skills. Go with the kids to where their parents work. If some kids show interest in advance machining [dad has golden hands and builds interesting stuff] let those kids have internships in that company or similar. Find what the kid really likes and then provide endless torrent of knowledge and practical work in that field. When motivated by curiously and satisfaction we humans excel and do not need a stick to make us
Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I do a lot of supplemental home schooling on the weekends, focusing on stuff the schools don't teach
...Aha! Perhaps therein lies the answer: The parents.
Education is best implemented with effective parenting, but rarely benefits the student without it. The Family's value for learning has more to do with the success and/or failure of a child's education than the quality of the school or the faculty. In other words, an education will be as effective as the parents ability to instil its value to the child. Rewards and incentives transform over time, and each student is ultimately self motivated regardless of the quality of carrots and sticks. In a sense, all schooling is ultimately home schooling. Perhaps the school provides the extra-curricular opportunities of most value; beyond the minimum public standard of curricula.
Why exactly?
Teaching basic math is a very different thing from learning to do advanced math.
And, yes, basic math would include pretty much everything up to university level.
Because teachers understanding advanced math is the only way we're going to get away from the lousy way math is currently taught in schools. Who enjoys that kind of math?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I assume those countries didn't include France, Belgium or Switzerland.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Then...
Now, before you think I did that just to be mean, I am an autodidact. My situation lands even further outside the norm than those who have been home schooled, such as yourself. I'm not trying to indicate that home schooling is a fail, per se; only that it is much more difficult to do well than even its most vocal proponents generally admit to. My own writing is more of an attempt to ape patterns of speech I consider optimum than it is a coherent application of the rules of English. That is a direct result of teaching it to myself according to my own standards. I don't recommend the process, frankly.
There is a very strong tendency for home schooling to pass along failings of the teacher, generally the parents. For instance, if the parents are poor at English, or math, or history, it is that much more difficult for them to catch failures in those areas, and to remediate them when they occur. Then there is the issue of superstition and how it affects scientific understanding, moral and ethical conditioning. Then what to do about the ritualized tribal behaviors inculcated by immersion and overemphasis of team sports rears its massively ugly head. It goes on and on.
Certain subjects are so difficult to teach that the worm turns and you may have a better chance to teach them well than a public school does. For instance, I would liken mathematics to a balanced, inverted pyramid. You teach it from the bottom up, laying each brick upon those that went before it, keeping the structure balanced at all times so that the whole process doesn't result in a flawed, imbalanced outcome. Fail to import a proper understanding of algebra, and the much of the rest of the process is in trouble, the balance is lost and with it, hope of unimpeded progress. So it goes.
Home schooling is a path that will have an immense impact upon the person whom the child will eventually turn out to be. I would find it very difficult to recommend to anyone without knowing so much about the situation, and the parents, that it would be considered invasive.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why would it be? A math major has already learned all the math taught in grade school. And a math educator, who will teach grade school, might need a refresher on how math is being taught today, but doesn't necessarily need to know math concepts more complicated than a few years past where they plan to teach. I'm sure if they truly love math they could take additional math courses as electives, but to get a job as a teacher their education should focus on how to teach.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
My mother is a retired teacher. The mother of my child is a teacher, too. My child is in the public school system. We do some additional teaching after school and I generally buy him more candy on saturdays, if he solves some mathematical puzzles. The teaching quality of every school varies. Generally, by home schooling, you could get much better learning results. The group size is just too large to focus on any individual problem. I think it is fair to say, that public schools teach the theory less effictively than home schooling. Practical application of that theory is known as homework and you should make sure your children actually do them. But not everything that the school teaches is on curriculum. You learn first and foremost social skills. Group sizes are large. There are idiots. There are true friends. There is a cute girl in the first row. You have to work with other people. Just like in real life later on. If you home school your children. they might become anti-social and biased on your personal world views. You can tell them Jesus created the dinosaurs and in your community that might be even recommended. Or skip those parts totally, because they weren't in the bible. Neither option is perfect. I would still choose not to home school my children. That does not mean, that you cannot actively ask your children what they are learning, look at their homework and teach them additional skills they don't learn at school.
Because few people understand why math is enjoyable without getting into advanced math.
And most teachers today definitely don't understand why math is enjoyable.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Home schooling is something parents do when they're religius nuts or child abusers. No kid would want to be stuck with their parents 24 hours a day and slowly become a socially retarded pariah.
Home Schooling:
Pros: Your over-indulged child won't be a nuisance to other children at school.
Cons: Your maladjusted teenager/young adult will be (a nuisance) later in life.
Public Schooling:
Pros: Your child will learn about life outside of his over-indulged home.
Cons: Other children will have to put up with him.
Actually home schooling can be popular both on the right and in the left. The right so they can be taught to whatever the parents think are Biblical principles, and the left in order to "protect" the child's self esteem, improve on the quality, or some other justification of that sort. It might also be important to remember that the quality of public education in the US since the 1960s or so has not fared so well, many baby boomers have realized public education today isn't as good as it was when they went to school-- largely because public schools have been under attack by the right in the years since. And then people wonder why things are so polarized, when both the left and right are home-schooling to their personal tastes.
Oh BS. Plenty of liberals choose to home school. The only thing home schoolers have in common in my opinion is their teachers are amateurs (with a few wxceptions).
This question isn't the best candidate for an ask Slashdot. The reason is that ANYTHING to do with raising kids is the equivilent of "Is Linux better then Windows" or "Iphone or Android, which should I pick? or "Ford or Honda?" for roughly the same reasons.
The group of people who have the source material you require to make your assessment have a deeply vested emotional commitment to the decision they have made. In this case what they did with their kids. So you're going to get emotional responses.
Additionally the KEY factor that we can't have any insight into is your kid(s). If there's one thing raising a kid has taught me it's that mine is a special snowflake, with all the positives and negitives that implies and I can't take decisions other parents have made for their kids and apply it to mine blindly outside of the most obvious cherry picked cases (e.g. vaccinations) My kid will react in a manner dictated by her personality.
For example, we've taken our kid to Defcon since she was 4. It's been a great experience for her and she self identifies with the type of kid who goes to a hacker conference and learns to solider and tell when someone is trying to social engineer her (a handy skill for your kid to have. Think puppies and vans). Is it the right thing for your kid? Who knows? Sure as heck not me. Do your research and find your answers, but do real research, don't ask on an internet forum :).
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Looking through this thread I'm amazed that no one comments (or not prominently) about the time and effort needed for homeschooling.
For us homeschooling is not an option. We both work full-time and I just could not ask my wife to stop working nor can we afford it financially if I were to.
That being said, our youngest son has Autism and would certainly benefit from homeschooling. He already goes to a special school with smaller classes and extra care, but still we feel that he could progress more academically if we were to school him ourselves.
For us this is a new experience since we have exactly the opposite experience with our eldest son. He is in a normal school (I'm from Belgium, so all schools are state funded but most are privately owned). And he has struggeled enormously academically. We have invested enourmous amounts of time in helping him, only to find out that the only way we could help him was NOT to interfere. Let him go to school and do his own thing.
Conclusion (personal): If homeschooling is an option (doesn't require big sacrifices financially and emotionally) and it works really well (both academically and emotionally) for your kids, then why not? But take into account that while one of your kids may benefit hugely from homeschooling, another may actually suffer.
A useful study would be to ask the question-- on average, what provides better outcomes, 1) a really small class size taught by amateur teachers, possibly as a second job, or 2) large class sizes taught by professionals who don't have a second job (for the most part, anyway), but may be burnt out or are provided with few resources or support. I'm glad it's a decision I don't have to make, but I'm sure glad home schooling wasn't in vogue when I was a kid. My parent's couldn't decide which church to take me to (one Catholic, one Protestant), tried to compromise (Episcopalian), found it met neither of their needs and lost interest (thankfully, as far as I am concerned). I shudder to think what that dynamic might have done to my education...
To get to understand more advanced maths, one needs to build familiarity with basic algebra, arithmetics, geometry, logic and abstract reasoning to name a few. For most people this is very alien and requires learning by rote, reinforcement, teaching attention to detail and so on. Most mathematics does not suffer approximate reasoning. This is a very exacting science and even sometime bright mathematicians sometime make sometime spectacular mistakes (e.g. Poincaré).
I agree the way math is taught now is pretty lousy, but I do not have a really great way handy to teach it better. Mostly it is a question left to the teacher. Great math teacher can do wonders with the material even in early classes.
"Would you rather learn how to talk to women in a museum or a prison?"
Seriously?
As someone with a math Ph.D. I can honestly say that I know much much better now how to teach some elementary subjects than I did while I was in undergrad. This is not because of having teaching experience, but simply because I much better understand what the actual point of something in a larger setting and what the underlying key idea is. For example, my child gets all As in math, but I still often notice that she didn't actually understand something, although typically she did master the topic well enough to solve the problems thrown at her in school. The problem is often that the actual point is never communicated probably because the teacher doesn't get it either.
Many abstract things can be taught in very concrete ways using simple games or by cutting some sheets of paper and playing with it. The problem is that when you see where someone gets stuck, you have to be able to think on your feet to quickly device a concrete way of clarifying it. This typically requires knowing much more math than what you're technically teaching. I assume the same applies to most subjects. A historian can probably put something into perspective much better than someone else who has just read the same passage from the same textbook and is walking you through it.
An example of what I'm talking about is equation solving. It took a while to explain that the point really is that if two things are equal, then doing equal things to them will result in equal results. Hence, when you assume that two sides of an equation are equal and keep applying the same operation to both sides, both sides still stay equal. In school this was mainly shown through examples, which the kids learned to follow, but driving the actual point home was neglected. After understanding the point, my daughter could by herself reason that steps she was performing were correct.
If you're well and broadly educated, teaching your child at home - if it is allowed - isn't the worst option, especially if the public schools available suck.
Sidenote: In Germany, homeschooling is illegal - the reasoning being, that children should be introduced to society and a broader perspective, even if advantages it migh have by being homeschooled are mitigated. It's also a mechanism to prevent fanatics, like religious ones, from raising children with a one-dimensional perspective. While prohibing homeschooling if the child does regular exams to prove its level of education is debatable, there is some reasoning behind this.
That said, maybe you can do a mix: Find likeminded parents and found a mini-school. Your children get the special treatment *and* a broader perspective on things aswell. 10 Families willing to pitch together and a few parents willing to participate can work wonders. You get small classes with the special care and attention and the social interaction all in one box. I remember my days in a private school with 16 students in the class. It was awesome.
If that's not an option, homeschooling done well can be a very good thing. School itself can be hell. I know regular school would have been for me. ... But I also know my father probably would've sucked at homeschooling, so it can be a bit of a tradeoff. ... What does your child say?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So what you're saying is for all that extra work, you got average results.
If by average you mean good results, I guess that would be a yes. I mean seriously, in what world of stupidity and cynicism did getting kids through post-graduate education became "average results"?
I'm not a fan of home-schooling in general because, at least in this country, it is generally perceived by the public as a means for Luddites to keep their kids off the sinful, Godless grid.
But here, this is obviously not the case. And for you to simply dismiss the results of their efforts as "average results" (when in this country "average results" means graduating from HS without knowing the difference between "your" and "you're"), that is just imbecile.
Whether you are just being cynically stupid or just deliberately obtuse, only you know.
There are 3 main types of schooling in America.
1. Public schools -- These are schools funded by public sources such as taxes and lottery earnings, etc.. They are often portrayed as crime ridden and failing in educating but this is often a function of the community they are in. Poorer communities tend to have poorer public education systems. It does have the advantage of socializing that other types of education lack (more on this later).
2. Charter / private schools -- These are schools that derive their funding from private sources such as tuition or through vouchers for poorer families. In the case of religious private schools, they also concentrate on their religious teachings as well as the standard curriculum. You find these in richer communities and they have the advantage over public schools because they can pick and choose whether the student will attend. Many see them as siphoning out the best students from the public school system and reducing the resources availible to public schools.
3. Home schooling -- This is where the student is taught at home for various reasons (some valid, some not) mostly for the reason of the perception that the previously mentioned types do not suit the needs or beliefs of the parents. The difficulty with home schooling is one of credentialing and certifying that the state approved requirements are being met. Home schooling requires a much higher degree of involvement on the part of the parents which often can't be the case due to the necessity of having both parents working to make ends meet. You do mostly see home schooling being done by parents who either have a high degree of distrust in the public forms of education or have a religious reason. Lastly, there are some areas that are remote or that have extreme weather conditions where home schooling is the norm. But these circumstances are fewer in the US because of the extensive network of public / private schools available and public funding of busing.
Personally, I think home schooling is a bad thing for kids since it doesn't teach them the proper socialization they will need as adults. It is often done for all the wrong reasons in all the wrong ways which can and often does hold the child back making things worse for that kid. And as the poster of this article has noted, it does tend to be the parents that can't let go of their offspring that want to keep them home all the time. This is unhealthy IMO. I personally believe that home schooling should be the choice of last resort since it does require a much higher degree of commitment from parents which often can't be met especially in poorer communities.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Such a great idea to deprive your offspring(s) of an active social life. Better keep them safe rather than risk catching them years later smoking marijuanas under a bridge. Homeschooling is all about control and oppressiveness.
I'm biased, having homeschooled our 3 children and have seen the results first hand. That said, nearly 100% of the benefit of home schooling can be summed up in 2 words -- "parental involvement". I never look down on those who choose to utilize the public school system, or any system. The reason our kids "turned out well" is because we worked very hard to make it so. It's certainly no guarantee, but if you spend time looking at options and choose the option that seems best for your kids (and by extension, best for you, you are heavily invested in them), you will be doing the right thing.
Like many things in life, you will get out of your kids schooling, what you put into it. Don't abandon your kids to the school system, that guarantees a bad outcome. Take control and be an active, involved parent, and whatever option you choose will be great for them.
This is not true. Most US teachers have the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in mathematics. Some of them (myself included) have an engineering degree and several upper division math classes (for majors). My course background:
Calculus and Analytic Geometry I, II, and III; Differential Equations, Discrete Mathematics, Applied Linear Algebra, Theoretical Linear Algebra, Abstract Algebra, Euclidean/Non-Euclidean Geometry, Number Theory, Mathematical Modeling, Calculus-Based Probability and Statistics, History of Mathematics, and Applied Analysis. The total number of semester hours in pure math was about 40 (some of the courses were on the quarter system and others were on the semester system, which makes the number approximate). These are just the pure mathematics classes --- obviously there was more math in the other science and engineering courses. And I was with math majors or engineering majors the whole time, many of whom went on to graduate study in mathematics. I also performed well, with an A in every class.
Your example of graduate work in education is likely true, because most PhD programs in content area education focus on research and pedagogy in that area. However, in many graduate programs (Ohio University is one example: http://www.ohio.edu/education/...) if you get a PhD in mathematics education you are expected to have master's level competency in mathematics. This is logical from the college perspective, because it allows people with PhDs in math ed to help out the local math department teaching undergraduate courses. Most people who get PhDs in a subject area (like math ed) were high school teachers who already have the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in the area. Many schools (Ohio State as an example) require an undergraduate degree in the subject area first, and the teacher's license is then obtained through a accelerated master's degree program).
I wrote this a few years back for no real reason, and it happens to be exactly the anecdotal evidence you where looking for, so here goes:
Homeschooling.
Hi, My name might be Jarik, and I was homeschooled.
Wow, sounds like we're at homeschoolers anonymous. But that is sort of how it is. There is a sort of stigmata (and a lot of misinformation) about home schooling, and I'm here to tell you about it.
1. They are a bunch of Religious nuts.
We've all meet them, the guy that says he was homeschooled because Moses appeared to his parents in a stain on the mattress, and now he's enrolled online to become an ordained minister of the church of the blind chihuahua. The truth is, he's just nuts. A lot of people are home schooled, and for a lot of reasons. Personally, me and my sister where homeschooled because where we lived for the first fifteen years of my life was nineteen miles from the nearest school bus stop, over roads that where not much different from a goat path, and after the first snow, the county would get around to plowing them sometime around June. It was just not practical to try and send two kids to school, and so we learned at home. We followed a schedule, did our work every morning, and usually where done and out to play by 2pm. That is not to say that every homeschooling situation is the same as mine, in fact, they vary quite a bit, but the point is, a lot of people resort to homeschooling because its the only reasonable choice available. On the other hand, some of them are religious nuts.
When I was 16, My Mom (Who was the teacher in my family) Decided we needed some socialization or something, and started taking us to a local homeschool group writing class, taught by the mother of another family. Lots of homeschool kids from around the area came to learn to write better, and this is where I met my first 'homeschool weirdo'.
At first, I attributed it to southern culture. (we had recently transplanted ourselves into Texas, from Montana) But after we got to know them more, we realized they where simply not like other people. They talked like they where from the 1800's dressed like they where from the 1920's and maintained eye contact for to long. Or something. It all finally made sense, when the teacher was talking to us about swearing. I have no idea how we went from prepositions and adverbs to that topic, but she finally made the statement that saying "Gee!" and "Gosh!" where the same thing as saying "JESUS CHRIST!" or "GOD DAMN IT." Now, I'm from what most people would call pretty conservative family, but that statement seemed a bit over the top, even to me. Fortunately, It was around that time that I had earned enough personal autonomy to decide not to go to that class anymore. Also, my mom thought that ladies idea was nuts.
2. They are all a bunch of Weirdos.
So you've probably been there, in some party, and there is that one guy that just plain weird. Socially inept, tells creepy jokes, stands funny, something is just off about the guy. While your at the punch bowl, spiking it from your hip flask, you ask the host, "hey, whats up with Josephus? whats his deal?" The host looks at you, wondering who you are and how you got into his apartment, then shakes it off and replies; "Oh yeah, don''t you know? he was homeschooled." More or less. What i'm trying to say is, there is a peculiar brand of weirdo that homeschooling seems to spawn sometimes. Sometimes. One of my co-workers was also homeschooled, and we joke about this. Personally, it feels like cult culture to me. If you've ever watched a documentary about any cult where they interview members, you'll know what I mean. They have this peculiar attitude that what they have learned from their cult is the only things a person can need to know. I attribute that to a lack of outside ideas, and the same thing can happen in homeschooling. If you only ever learn things from one source, and are taught that source is infallible, your outlook on life gets skewed pretty fast. I had the
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Initially I was against it but my wife pushed for it. I gave in. I'm so happy I did. The school experience is so different than public school it's difficult to convey. I can say that I have met many high school students and can say that they are the most well-rounded young humans I have ever met. Look into one in your area. It has been my experence that they would welcome your visit to sit in on some classes.
There are two things kids get out of going to public school. The first is indoctrinated, and the second is connections. If you want your kid indoctrinated into our extractive global economy, and you want them to have employment opportunities in it, then you need to send them to public school and not move them around in the middle of it so they can grow up with the same kids. If you are planning to go another direction, then no, they don't need public school. The quality of education they will receive is pathetic and the people they will learn to be like, likewise.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We all compete against our peers. And the problem in many public schools is that your peers are often lazy idiots that are pretty much effortless to compete against.
Then when you leave that school you're competing against a totally different group of people. And that is where you'll fail because you're not ready for them. You were ready to compete against the other kids in your class room. You could stomp them. But the next group is sometimes a lot harder.
What is nice about homeschooling... is that you don't really have peers. Your parents challenge you. Now, a lot of people think homeschooling is terrible because of the various religious people that tend to be all about homeschooling. But see it from the perspective of a young mind. If you're instead competing for the approval of your parents rather then to simply show that you're as good or better then your peers... then the standards can be a lot higher. I think people try harder in that situation. And they might be better behaved because their whole sense of social self worth is probably tied up in that approval.
Here someone will say that is bad, but if the point is to produce kids that have a high knowledge base then what is the problem?
A major component of why kids do better in private schools is because you tend to have to try a bit harder to equal your peers. They're a little less stupid and a little less lazy. So you have to try harder. But a home schooled kid might be competing literally against his mother and father who are doubtless better educated then nearly any high school student you could name.
Just think about the human animal and how it relates to its world.
An interesting compromise might be to manipulated the class room in such a way that the students do not feel like they are competing against each other but rather against an external standard or perhaps some select group of kids somewhere else.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Most US teachers have the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in mathematics.
I'll believe you, since I don't have any knowledge of US teacher training or US degrees. I do have a question that I hope you can answer.
How can that be possible? How can you have a degree in something else, and still have the same level of maths as someone with a maths degree?
For my maths degree, I had free choice for the equivalent of 1/2 of a year. Every other class was a maths class, although some over lap with the people studying physics and computer science (and the into stats class was general for a lot of degrees). There is no general education requirement for degrees in the UK, as that is assumed that you received it in high school.
Even for my free choices, I chose maths subjects, since there were more areas of maths to study that could fit into one degree. There were some areas, such as the calculus of variations, that I wanted to study, but I couldn't fit in.
So, if I, only studying maths for every subject in my degree couldn't cover everything, how can someone studying something else have the same level of maths coverage as me?
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
To homeschool or not to homeschool: that is the question, but the answer is not binary.
The research is absolutely clear: the kids who do best academically tend to have parents who are interested in their education and, specifically, read to their kids from an early age.
After that, everything is mostly details. You will find kids who do well academically in public schools, in private schools, in charter schools, in homeschools. And you will find kids who are pulled from one and placed into another because the latter didn't pan out.
The main takeaway is that you have to be engaged in your kid's education; that's really the only thing homeschooling has, by definition, over other educational avenues.
Time for my anecdote. Our eldest daughter had a rough time with bullying at her public school a few years ago. She is, at heart, a nerdy kid who had issues wondering why other kids couldn't relate to her ... which is, for better or worse, like chum to a bullying shark in elementary school. We talked to the vice principal, her teacher, and the piece of dog ***t's parents. The bullying mostly came under control. And then, we tried to figure out what to do to make sure our kid didn't look like chum. For us, it involved two things she loves: dance and swimming. Dance gave her good posture and the ability to look confident and strong even when she's nervous. Lifesaving classes taught her to be in control of a situation. And now, she's a confident teenager whose former bully politely ask her for tutoring (and she gets taken out, gratis, for tea and pastries).
If we had pulled her from her public school and homeschooled her, I'm not sure she would've learned that degree of self confidence and poise. And she still would have looked like chum in a private school, but we would have been paying for her to be bullied by well-heeled brats.
FWIW, that's not what my parents did under similar conditions ... and I HATED elementary school. My parents were oblivious, and I've never really learned how to deal with difficult people.
Our other daughter is a different kid; she got an award from her school last year mostly for standing up for classmates who were being bullied. She's ... intense. Public school is a good place for her to be.
I have to say your analogy of the public school system to a prison when it comes to social interaction was very insightful, and completely correct.
"Powers. I have them."
School isn't just about learning subjects. Its about learning about your society, how to interact with other people in the country you live in. Every single kid I've met who has been homeschooled has been weird. They've all been completely socially inept. They don't know how to interact properly and whilst they may be very clever in the subjects they've been learning, are completely oblivious about the majority of things going on around them at the time. Whilst these parents think they're protecting their kids, they're actually in my opinion harming them irreversibly. They'll eventually leave mothers bosom and go into a world completely unequipped to deal with the society they live in and it'll cause them real problems and hold them back.
Supplementing schooling with home schooling is great. Completely replacing it if you're the kind of parent who doesn't let your kid out to play with the other kids on the street is doing them massive harm.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
So if you happened to be a big supporter of women's rights, gun control, and gay marriage, you would be glad that your child was being sent to a school which taught the almost complete opposite of these beliefs? Not just that, but actually promoted behaviours, activities, and social activities based on them? I mean, come on - they are being exposed to different ideas, right? Why stay in their little fantasy world without being exposed to alternative values?
The only other thing public/private school offers is socialization, which is a must, but you get the good with the bad. With a little planning I'm thinking it would be pretty easy to have your kid interact with a wide variety of children and adults.
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As I browsed a bit through the comments, I see mostly replies from either people who have no experience of home schooling or others who are parents home schooling their kids. However, I would like to add my own experience as a child who has experienced almost all types of popular educational methods. I've been to public schools, private schools, correspondence schools, and even college as a replacement for high school. I was also home schooled for a number of years. So here's my story of each method:
From pre-school to first grade, I was in two different private schools. Now, of course, I can't judge much of the academics here since I was so young, but I can judge stress levels. This whole time era was stressful for me due to the quite strict nature of the second private school I attended. If my parents didn't move me out of there, I'm not sure how long I would have lasted.
From first grade to fourth, I was in three different public schools. I loved first and second grade. I learned, played, and just enjoyed everything about it. But, by third grade, the school system decided to try a whole new system of learning. I don't remember the full details, but it involved a complete rework of everything I was used to already. I balked at this change and my parents eventually forced the school to put me in a class that still used the old method. By fourth grade, we had moved so I had to attend a different school. I just couldn't fit with their educational method, and my parents were still frustrated from the last issue a year before. Thus then began a leap into home schooling.
For the rest of fourth grade, my parents bought a preset curriculum and associated books. This didn't end well as neither of my parents had college degrees and since this required quite a bit of hands on work from them, I got frustrated at them.
Starting fifth grade, my parents found, at the time, a totally new way to do home schooling. It was a correspondence school where the school sent everything required and vhs tapes of a licensed teacher in an actual classroom. It was like I was there but didn't have to deal with the nonsense of actually being there. Plus, I got to go as fast or slow over the material as I wanted. This gave me so much freedom that I really enjoyed learning and just kept going.
By the time high school was approaching, the correspondence school just wasn't cutting it enough for me. I wanted more without the wastes of time that it required. And, since this was now the dawn of online versions of everything, my parents signed me up for an online school. But for me, this still seemed pedantic and generally not very engaging.
After frustrating my parents for so long at this point, they worked with the local community college and got me enrolled, full time, at 15 years old. This basically replaced my high school years, and interestingly enough this didn't cause much of an issue of not having any prerequisite knowledge from high school. It goes to show you how much college repeats the same info in high school, especially for the lower level classes. I also absolutely loved this time as I was able to dive deep into learning all that I wanted.
So, here's my opinion of each method:
Private and public schooling can be stressful both from the system itself and from other classmates. Even though I can't comment on bullying as I never was, the stress from the system caused me issues. And not having the freedom to learn the way I wanted would have hindered me. Socializing in this format didn't happen a whole lot for me. I always kept one or two close friends and that was it.
Standard home schooling didn't work for us. But, I can see it working well with parents with better education. Of course, I do think there needs to be a good relationship between the parents and the child or none of this will work well.
However, the correspondence school is an awesome option for parents who either don't have a great education or aren't up to the challe
Your state or county rules may offer a part-time choice as well - when we lived in Iowa, you could do a part time enrollment, which we did to pick up classes that are harder to do with just one student, such as band or a full chemistry lab. My brother in North Carolina has his kids in a charter school part time so they can do athletics
Steve Cline http://www.clines.org, http://www.objectbap.com
Have you worked at a corporation? Except for the similarities in age, I'd say every single damn headache you encounter in elementary school, middle school, and high school except maybe having a colleague mess their pants will occur. Specifically:
1. Some people you work with are assholes.
2. Some people you work with will copy other people's work or otherwise take credit for it.
3. Some people you work with will only pretend to participate in group projects while reaping the benefits.
4. Some people you work with will be too busy talking and playing games to get anything done.
5. Some people you work with will have a poor grasp of hygiene, grooming, or both.
6. Some of your assigned tasks will be boring as hell and merely exist to fill some bureaucratic need for paperwork.
7. You will occasionally need to read, research, speak about, write about, or otherwise deal with topics that don't interest you.
8. There will be people you work with that you find attractive, and you'll have to interact with them in a courteous way and collaborate with them on work without acting inappropriately or being too nervous to proceed.
9. There will be micro-tribes and hierarchies. There's always micro-tribes and hierarchies, some are just more pleasant and well organized than others. There's the appropriate and brilliant quote, "People who say they don't play at politics just play at them poorly."
Even a dream job - and I consider software development pretty close to a dream job for me, I love my work - has all of those problems. I despised elementary school and middle school, had an okay time at high school, and loved college. But I'm grateful I went through schooling because of all of the aspects of day to day employment that it was [i]perfect[/i] preparation for.
I'll throw my $0.02, before you decide whether to homeschool or not, look at your local public school system. My mother was a public educator, and I was a student in the public system. For me and those I knew it was excellent. The caveat is that I was in one of the best public school systems in the nation, and as I've grown older I've seen many school systems that are on the other end of the curve. I lived in a state where public education is highly valued, in many it is not, and the schools suffer as a result. So bad failing schools beware yada yada, everyone says this, but the converse is more important - if you live in an area where the schools are excellent, then take advantage! Your local school system may be excellent, you won't know unless you investigate. Keep in mind also that standardized tests scores are only part of this. You need to look in depth at what other opportunities for studies are being offered, how individual schools are run and taught. Don't get anecdotes from people on slashdot, get them from the people in your neighborhood.
This involves a bit of legwork, but if it's too much to handle then put your kid in public school anyway because teaching them properly at home will be far more work than this.
In the US homeschooling is more popular with the religious right who don't want them "larnin' bout how we's sended from munkehs". In the UK, it's more associated with drippy-hippy Woodcraft-folk types.
This stereotype holds only for those who are unfamiliar with the reality of American public schools. In the US, homeschooling is more popular with parents who understand that typical US public school systems are a collision of bureaucracy, politics and labor unions where education is an afterthought. It is popular amongst parents who understand that No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) obsession with exams leaves behind children with special needs and punishes educational creativity. It is popular amongst parents who believe that being bullied by a drug-soaked mob of feral children and exposed to peer terrorism and gunplay is not a mandatory component of healthy socialization. It is popular amongst parents who believe that by banning Christianity and a handful of religions from public schools while allowing pseudo-scientific dogma, mammon worship, celebrity worship, political party tribalism, sports worship, brand idolatry, gun idolatry, flag idolatry, Apple idolatry and other forms of materialism provides a toxically unbalanced view of reality.
We have the tribes based on C# vs Java vs Python vs Perl vs Javascript. We have the pro-systemd and anti-systemd tribes. We have the Linux vs FreeBSD vs Mac vs Windows tribes. We still have to deal with cleaning up the technical mess when someone doesn't do their job or does it poorly. We still argue about decisions and job delegations. Dealing with real work includes things like filling in a time sheet (similar to the bullshit paperwork at school), meetings to plan stuff, code comments (whether you think they're necessary or valuable or not, they're extra work), etc... etc...
Our lives in the technology industry aren't quite like a prison scenario, but the analogues between corporate work-life in technology and corporate work-life in regular labor jobs are still present. We have it easier than most others, but the same situations occur.
... Seriously? If a cabbage picked its major right, it could get a B.A. at a lot of schools. How do you think all those frat boys that drank their way through college managed to graduate? Communications, English, Art History, Marketing... Most schools are more concerned about your student loan check clearing the bank than they are about quality of education. As long as your money's good, here, have a degree.
I don't know where you are, but where I am, if you're not in the trades and you don't get a four-year degree, your job options are pretty limited to jobs where you have to wear a name tag and/or a paper hat. Bachelors' degrees are so common that HR departments use the lack thereof to cull out resumes from the flood that they receive, and still manage to hire people, so it can't shrink the candidate pool TOO much. The result is that getting a job running Excel and going to useless meetings (which a high school junior is usually qualified for, skills-wise) requires a four-year degree.
Employers like degrees for a couple of reasons: 1) It shows that you can do mindless irrelevant busy work that accomplishes nothing without going insane, and 2) you most likely have a mountain of student loan debt, which makes you more unlikely to quit once they start and find out they're doing three jobs and getting paid for 2/3rds of one. Notice that neither of those reasons is related to the actual education.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I am aware of the studies that indicate an average home-schooled child scores better on testing than an average publicly schooled youngster. Though "homies" are sometimes schooled at home because of their parent's religious beliefs, they are still more likely than average to have attentive, involved parents than the lot of the public system's daytime babysitting service... these students would likely do better than average in the public school system.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Hey man, he saved one whole byte doing that.
Trolling is a art,
More importantly indeed.
It's good that you are putting aside the debate and focusing on your own situation.
Homeschooling is a huge time commitment. It's a defining lifestyle choice. It can work well or not. I know because I've seen and done both.
If you are correct, and I'll come back to that in a minute... if you are correct about your wife not wanting to let go, that in my experience does not work out well for the kids. In my experience it leads to a lack of independence in the kids. I've seen kids who were so carefully managed that the only control they had over their own lives was when they were misbehaving. It escalated as they got older.
On the other hand I've also seen kids who enjoyed their homeschool/co-op school lifestyle and thrived in it.
We married and planned on homeschooling. But (much longer story short) after awhile we realized that we hated homeschooling. It was clear that we and our children would be better off making the best of our community schools, in spite of their reputation. This has worked out well for us. And yet I know other families who still homeschool and are doing fine.
So first of all, this is a decision for you and your wife to make. It's like deciding what state to live in. Florida isn't objectively better than Arizona in any meaningful way. (We could discuss it on slashdot though.) The outcome will be what you make of it.
Which brings me to the real point. You did really well in school. You thrived. Your success today is largely based on your education.
Your wife is bringing a very different perspective to the decision.
I advise you to put aside your preconceived notions about why your wife thinks this way.
You and your wife must be an extraordinary people. Otherwise, why would people who chose such different life paths have managed to meet and get married? Yet, a puzzle, you aren't on the same page on schooling your children. Investigate.
I also advise you to look at what attracts you to your wife, and look at this disagreement you have about homeschooling, and see them as related. Look at this as some kind of anomaly to study. Get to know your wife better. Come from the perspective that she is awesome so this must be awesome too, if I only knew.
Happy hunting.
Personally, I think home schooling is a bad thing for kids since it doesn't teach them the proper socialization they will need as adults.
I had a pretty abysmal public school experience through elementary. And, quite frankly, I didn't start actually socializing with other kids until my parents started homeschooling me. Admittedly, it was only for a couple years, and I went to a public high school, but all of the friends I made while homeschooling had zero problems developing normal nerd-level social skills. Socialization isn't really something you can teach, considering it's so deeply instinctive to us as humans. Albeit, under extreme circumstances, kids struggle with it, but I wouldn't worry. Maybe someday it'll just make for a good story.
The studies that show homeschooling was better were skewed badly.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/l...
Home schooled children, on average, score in the 70-80th percentile on achievement tests.
That doesn't really mean much though, as you can't compare how those same kids would have done in Public schools. There's a huge selection bias here, as home schooler's do not have representative parents.
A large part of the low-performers in Public Schools aren't due to random stupidity in the general populous, but rather due to having parents who can't or won't provide a stable home life so that their kids can concentrate on their studies. If the family has the resources to devote an entire person to schooling the kids, they pretty much by definition aren't in that category.
Look at it this way, if you took the average Public School, and removed the test scores for everyone living in poverty or in single-parent families or where all available adults are working so much the kids are alone most of the time they are home and awake, you'd probably also see the remainder in the 70-80th percentile. Perhaps higher.
About 35% of people 25 to 29 have bachelors degrees. So did your pubic school fail to teach you what an average is?
Also, let me apologize if I rehash things already said in previous comments - I try to avoid getting to deep into the weeds in the
Academic performance: Maybe. My eperience with this was mixed. In the humanities, the strength of the curriculum covered a lot of gaps in my mother's education (said gaps were why she was responsible for teaching the humanities). Unfortunately, the weaknesses in the curriculum created gaps, too - she'd selected a hyper traditional curriculum from a catholic organization, and she tended to insert her own politics into interpretations of history and literature. My father's a research geologist, so he covered math and the physical sciences. The sciences worked out ok, except that he often lacked patience communicating the foundational math concepts - if you got it on his first or second explanation, you were golden; but if you were still stuck you'd probably stay that way. This hampered my younger brother quite a bit.
Socialization: Here's the part that's polarizing. There are definite issues with socialization. It's not that you only interact with family members - there are tons of opportunites to cavort with other kids: playing around your neighborhood (which we did back in the 90s - I gather unsupervised outdoor play is more of a rarity, these days), organized sports, organized clubs (cub/brownie/boy/girl scouts), the local YMCA swimming pool, etc, etc. The problem is most of that play is highly supervised and in small, intimate groups. You don't get any experience navigating the daunting social currents within a larger pool of people that includes a big chunk of relative strangers. The affects of this aren't always obvious, immediately. I started to show it earlier than my little brother - I became pretty withdrawn around kids I didn't know as early as 8 years old. My brother experienced more social awkardness than the norm when he hit about 11. We all stopped home schooling the same year, so my younger sister got out of it at the youngest age (about 5) and she is by far the best socially adapted of the three of us.
Most of the homeschooling families back had some sort of motivation beyond merely "I want my kid to have the best education" - education was always what was talked about first; but a lengthy conversation would make it pretty clear that they were really most concerned about other things: sometimes it was behaviour problems resulting from peer pressure (everything from "too much flirting" to "drugs"), sometimes religion, and (manytimes) more to do with problems the parents have than anything else: including in my mother's case.
These parental problem didn't result in undereducated kids in my family (although we had gaps we had to back fill later), but everyone I saw whose home schooling was motivated by parental issues went through seriuous struggles before they settled into their adult lives. I've kept in touch or reconnected with 3 of the home schooled friends I used to have since then and they all went through a similar trajectory.
Recommendations:
Was hoping to find some modicum of intelligent discussion here but once again it has turned into a monkey fucking a coconut
Tip from a head engineer at NASA: You can't press ctrl/alt/del in space.
Bottom line up front (BLUF). My recommendation is; Try the homeschool over the summer if you find your child is NOT keeping up to a pace to complete within a year then enroll them in a brick and mortar school in the Fall and maybe keep going on the home school curriculum as a supplement. Background: Neither my wife nor I were educated in the United States so we didn't have a good frame of reference for what to expect from the school system here. Our oldest son went to a great full day preschool and we (all 3 of us) were really happy with the activities, soccer, piano, taekwondo that they offered. For the first half of kindergarten, we sent him to public school which in this school district is only half day. He was bullied when they weren't teaching and bored when they were since he had covered all the same material in pre-K. We pulled him from that and sent him to a private school that offered full day Kindergarten. 3 years later, we can't afford the private school anymore and put him back in public school and his homework takes him less than 10 minutes. They put him in a gifted/independent study program that only happens a few hours a week. Our youngest we home schooled using a state approved curriculum and now our oldest is also using the same homeschooling program over the summer to skip grades in the public schools because the state says that the public schools have to accept it. Kids are sponges they are going to retain what ever they are interested in and is near enough for them to reach so home/private/public doesn't matter as much as exposure and practice.
The public school system in America has been under the constant grip of the hard-left since the 60's. If you trend the results against who implements policies you can see on whose door step responsibility for the problem lies.
The primary advantage is you remove distraction and can focus on teaching one on one. If you can remain on task and have a strict schedule your child can advance very quickly. Public school classes are tailored at 3-4 levels of skill and they lump everyone together and frequently, students are left behind or worse held back if the rest of the class is not ready to advance. But if you have individual instruction you can overcome trouble spots and then accelerate the learning tailored to your child's personality and skills. For example, before you kids even reach middle school age they could be speaking and writing multiple languages. They could have advanced reading skills and be tackling algebra before they hit the 8th grade level.
It is much easier for a parent to interact with their own child then for a stranger. You know your child better than anyone. You can provide much more encouragement and when you hit a bump you can regroup and come at it in a different way to overcome the sticking point. You will know best how your child thinks.
That being said, it comes down to you as a parent being prepared to learn more than your child about teaching and about studying. If you can dive in like a Geek in a tech startup you can help your child shine like never before. Most people are capable of a lot more than we think, with the right motivation and hard work your child can exceed your wildest expectations. Certainly farther than any public or private school could take them in a classroom setting. The only way it would be better is if you hired a private tutor with exceptional skill. You must become that private tutor. So if you as a parent are not prepared for that task then it's not a good idea. It takes a lot of discipline as a home school parent.
Forget about worrying about social interaction in public school being lost. Socialize the child with friends, clubs, activities, etc. You are not locking them in the basement or joining a weird cult. Seek out a home schooling group where you can learn from more experienced parents and obtain the proper curriculum materials to meet the state requirements. Then you can exceed them as your child's education grows.
There is much to be learned, especially the old fashioned way. Children with means in the 1800's were pushed a lot harder and further than today's children. The ideas of rote memorization should not be underestimated. All the new techniques are complete bull pucky! We now know that young children have a brain that can absorb information rapidly, that ability drops as the child gets older. Start them young and you can be amazed.
Public and even private schooling is absolutely terrible in the USA. Go read up on old fashioned education and you will feel stupid indeed. Our forefathers with a classical education would mop the floor with anyone from today's generation. They would just need to become acquainted with technology advances.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that *you* were home-schooled....
Not true in Michigan. Not even close to true.
Yes, you take education classes. You also get a degree in your subject area. If someone drops out of teaching math (like 50% of new teachers) they still have a full math major bachelors of science degree.
The stereotype is pretty strong in the US too, and not without reason I have known quite a few parents who looked into homeschooling and quickly discovered that all the local resources (such as joint field trips, groups for parents, etc) were focused on religiously motivated homeschooling and they were not happy about the people interacting with the 'homeschool community' exposed their children to.
From my experience, it isn't Home Schooling vs. Private School vs. Public School. But the level of parental involvement.
Many kids in Public Schools, the parents dump them off to them, as a free day care. Then when they get home, they may just say do your homework, before you can have free time. While not in the realm of abuse or neglect. It puts the child in a disadvantage, as they are not being reinforced with the value of the education.
Private schools (Because the parents are paying out of the pocket) are more concerned on the average about the child's performance. They will be more discerning on trends in the grades of the child so they will be pushed to work harder.
Home Schooling, is maximum parental involvement. So the child has 1 on 1 education.
However if your child is in even the worse public school, and you are very engaged in the child's education and you as the parent insure that you fill in the gaps that may be missing. While the official school can fill in gaps that you may be missing.
For example, my Parents never picked up strong math skills by 6th grade I began to exceed them (Fraction arithmetic/ Beginning algebra) So I needed teachers trained in the topic to teach me the new skill. This type of stuff if were taught at home, would be more glazed over, enough to pass the test, but not done in any detail, as this was a topic my parents were not skilled in.
As well schooling out of the home allows for a larger breadth of education. Even if you have advanced degrees, it doesn't make you an expert in all thing. (Kinda shown in the game show are you smarter then a 5th grader, where smart people with tones of skills still lose the game, because they are so focused on a particular area, and forget some of the details of your early education)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Oh wait, there is none, you're just whining because it's not how you learned. Get over it. Learning multiple ways to perform operations is a GOOD thing, and understanding why you're doing them and how they work is even better. Ever taken any computer science? If that's "the most extreme" example of what's supposedly wrong with common core it's significantly better and far head of the dumbed down, idiotic rote memorization taught by many schools previously The people responsible for this material are NOT a bunch of buffoons, they know what they're doing.
I also don't get this "would be" crap. Common Core is already in pretty wide use in the non-moron states/school districts, at least to some degree. My kids are being taught that way, and I've learned a thing or two from THEM as a result!
Check out: http://www.amazon.com/Teenage-.... Look into finding ways to gain more control over school, vs leaving it entirely. Such as enrolling in college courses, etc. If you are using homeschooling to protect your child from science or the outside world - it will end poorly. If you are using freedom from traditional school to let your child really explore and treat middle/high school as early college - go for it! I recommend waiting until middle school.
The decision to home school should take the entire environment into account along with the other educational options available. To rebut the flame bait in the original post I would purpose that what some people consider coddling is just good teaching practice (one on one instruction). I was home schooled up through grade 8(U.S). My little sister decided that she wanted to go to public school in 7th grade. Her experience in middle school made me glad that I waited. As a very artistic and fanciful child, she was basically tortured by both her peers and her teachers. She came home in tears one time because her 8th grade art teacher told her that she was wasting her time drawing!(She went on to graduate from Maryland Institute College of Art with a degree in painting). She would have been better off if she had skipped grade school and gone straight into High School. In High School she was encouraged to actually improve herself. Note: I would be the first to admit that being home schooled has an adverse impact on social skills development. But in the long run given the large class sizes, I am not sure that the social skills kids are learning in grade school are really that beneficial.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
I believe the main point that might lead to good outcomes for homeschoolers is that there is no way you are getting as good of a student to teacher ratio in a classroom. 30-1 or more is what some of the schools in the city near me have now. Even in a good school you will still be looking at 12-1 at the best. 1-1 or 2-1 is such a huge difference that it makes up for the lack of experience on the part of the parent in teaching. Plus the parent knows the child and how to get them to pay attention to the material they should be learning. You also have the option of holding off on a topic if they aren't ready to grasp that concept yet. In class everyone must progress together. Likewise, you can go deeper into a topic if it is something they find interesting.
I do think eventually the material will get beyond our ability to teach it effectively. Sometime before high school we are planning on transitioning our children to public school. But to start I see homeschooling as a huge benefit, even if it is extra work for us.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
My own education was in private, parochial schools through my undergraduate engineering degree, and it was outstanding. I went on to add a masters in business from one of the best biz schools in America, and feel very strongly and positively about the quality of what I received. Now, our two daughters-in-law are home schooling their children, and one of my wife's cousins home schooled both her now adult children. My own not very humble and bigoted opinion is that: 1.) It depends on why you want to do this. Does your child have special needs, e.g., do they suffer from ADD or social anxiety? Or are they intellectually gifted and you don't feel they will be challenged by the public system? Do you have strong religious beliefs that you want to be sure are taught? Or ?. If you don't have strong reasons why an outside school won't meet your child's needs, and all you're going to do is to buy and administer a commercial curriculum, I'd ask why you want to do this. 2.) If you do it, *do it right*. Home schooling is much like working from home; it's very, very difficult to maintain any sense of structure and balance in your home classroom with all the other things going on in your and your child's life. One advantage to a public or private school is to remove them from screen time while the laundry gets done, etc. My wife's cousin used a specific room in their home as the classroom, and that communicated the seriousness with which she approached the process. It helped maintain the discipline and structure that are needed. 3.) I had a long career working in customer facing jobs and management for a major American electronics company, and hired and fired people. In a second, retirement career, I've taught math in a number of career schools in the last few years, and I have been appalled at the poor skills in basic arithmetic that I've encountered. Modern careers requires that one be able to both analyze and communicate. At the grade school level, this translates into the need to drill the students *every day* in basic arithmetic facts for yes, two, three, or more years. But many elementary public and private school teachers find this less rewarding than promoting reading and language skills. The children need *both*, but they need the basic arithmetic skills established strongly before they can move on to the creative stuff like algebra and trig. This will mean confronting, cajoling, encouraging, demanding, teasing, laughing,...it's a lot of work and it's intense, and I question whether most parents are up to that. To be fair, many public and private school teachers aren't up to it either, and evaluating your local schools is part of this decision. 4.) An intermediate solution might be to supplement outside school with material tailored to your child's interests. My very technically gifted father had me wiring industrial relay logic from blue prints when I was twelve, and that interest led me to engineering school. One of our granddaughters is visually artistically gifted, and we try to encourage that. Another shows signs of ADD, great physical energy, strong creativity, exceptional skill with numbers, and an insatiable demand for attention. She needs enormous one-on-one time, and until she gets a bit older, could be a real outside school classroom disruption. 5.) My wife taught for 23 years and has a validation in gifted education. One of her observations is that children have to be pushed hard enough to feel challenged, but not so hard as to feel unsuccessful. If your child is outside the normal range, either by talent or lack thereof, or by personality or strong unusual interests, they need to be pushed just hard enough in just the right areas. Maybe you can do a better job of this, and maybe you can't. Be honest with yourself. 6.) You haven't mentioned religious beliefs, but if you're comfortable with a religious perspective, many parochial schools can be a better choice. Or maybe not; as I noted above, I got a killer education from parochial schools, but my own daughters ended up happier and more successful in public schools.
Then find me a study disproving me. I have found NO studies anywhere, ever, that support what you are claiming. Why do I need to do all of the work here? Ive already spent a good amount of time googling things like "student outcomes public private home" and these studies are all I get.
Put up or shut up.
I have 5 kids, 4 of which are school age. They are all homeschooled, not all of them have always been homeschooled, we move back and forth if needs arise or if a situation is not working.
There is a joke we told at my telecommute job.
"It's so nice for the bank that we work from home, because now we are in the office 24 hours a day."
That is the same attitude we have about school. Every second I spend with my kids has at least an undertone of me trying to keep them excited, curious, and intellectual about the world.
It isn't that they never go to school, because they are home. It is that they never LEAVE school, because our family is a school, with very clear and persistent intellectual goals and pursuits.
This is hard. It is expensive. It is a privilege afforded to us by only needing a single income. Every day we challenge our kids intellectually and academically, there is no other school that we could send them to that could boast that.
I suffer from mild ASD, and I could tell that the other kids knew I was different. Although I can mostly hide it now (I think), it's obvious that some people can still instantly tell. It's not fun when no one will talk to you at school because they can tell you're different. But even I, extremely lonely with no one to play with, thought the home-schooled kids were too strange and didn't want to hang out with them.
So do you really want your kids so messed up that not even lonely outcasts will want to hang out with them, just so you can tout higher than average grades around at your friends?
Converesely, are the parents capable of conducting the home school? Do they have the temperment and training necessary? Home schooling a kid or kids is a significant contribution in time. You can't just say you're going to do this, and not commit a significant amount of your time to the task each day, and provide the structure needed.
Do you really understand the subjects, and are you able to convey them to others? It's one thing to be able to do something as simple as add, and quite another to effectively explain this to someone else, particularly someone who has a limited attention span. Schools, particularly universities, are jammed with subject matter experts who cannot communicate effectively.
What is the personality and mind set of the child? Do they need significant social interaction? In many cases, they simply won't get this at home. Will they take acadenic instruction as seriously from mom and dad as they would in a school?
We home schooled two of our kids for a while. Our daughter had serious health problerms, and simply could not keep up with the school structure. Our son, a year and a half younger, seemed to feel his sister was getting more attention, and requested home schooling. Both had been in a private Christian school prior to this, and, after a couple of years, went to a public school. Both were far ahead of their classmates when they returned to school, and remained so for several years.
My wife has a doctorate in what I'd call teaching teachers to teach (it has a formal name, but I can never remember it). I have a BS and MS in physics, with minors in math and computer science. We both taught some at the university level (particularly my wife) prior to trying home schooling. I still had reservations about our ability to teach subjects in which we had minimal background, but it should be obvious that we were probably slightly better qualified than some.
This is one of those areas in which I don't feel there is a universal answer, As stated previously, it depends too much on the circumstances. Given the circumstances we had, I feel we did the right thing. But this is something that no one can really answer for someone else. You are responsible for your kids, not someone else (perhaps especially third parties who really don't know the circumstances). You will need to make the decision, and live with the result. My wife and I wish you well in making a good decision.
Having not done math (or maths as it's called here) since school (GCSE at age 16) I always thought I was bad at the subject. And that it wasn't fun.
Years after leaving school I needed to get a better grasp of it so I could do more things with my electronics hobby, so I signed up for an algebra course on coursera, then a precalculus course, and last year I did calculus 1. It was a revelation. Not only did I prove that I was not "bad at math" it was sort of mind blowing. Working through algebra and precalc, and the first stages of calculus 1 felt like sort of scrambling up a steep mountainside, through brambles and bushes, with it all being hard work and then all of a sudden I crested a ridge and there below in all its splendour was a wide and stunningly beautiful fjord illuminated by the morning sun, as it all suddenly started coming together and all the tools that I had learned to use in algebra suddenly all made perfect sense - and what's more - made perfect sense why we had learned a lot of these things, and how they can give insight into seemingly intractable problems.
I found that doing calculus 1 fundamentally made a difference about how I think of a great deal of things just in every day life. I think a lot more about rates of change and how rates of change change, and how things accumulate.
And yes, it has become enjoyable and fun.
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My experience from tutoring math for years: I would get home school students who had surpassed their parents math skills. So there is some self selection bias of good students with parents who care enough to pursue additional math/physics through tutoring.
The level of socialization of homeschooled children that I tutored was superior in virtually every way. Whether they were homeschooled for religious reasons or not, they were well adjusted young *adults*, far more mature than the regular teenagers I know from tutoring and coaching on a daily basis. Homeschooled kids grew to be adults. They interact with me as an adult. They took on responsibilities in a much more adult fashion -- scheduling tutoring times, paying me directly, etc...
Everyone likes to hate on the religious nuts and lump all of homeschooling in with it, but that was never my experience. Also, as far as socialization goes, they typically aren't locked in a room all day. There are abundant resources and communities surrounding homeschooling that have the kids interacting with others on a daily basis.
My opinion (and my kids are in public school) is that the hate for public school is just hate with virtually no foundation. There may be examples of some homeschooling craziness out there, but it's probably under the rates of public school drug dealing, murders, assaults, etc...
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My personal experience as a homeschooled kid was excellent academically, and somewhat difficult socially.
First, academics: my parents did little beyond the first couple years. They helped me learn to read and do basic math, and then let the books teach me, but really I didn't bother much with the books. I was intellectually curious about the world, however, which I think more than made up for book learning. At 16 I started taking college classes, first at a community college, then at a reasonable state school (VT.edu). By 18 I had 1/3 of a degree's worth of college credits, all As, at which point I transferred to a good liberal arts college (Hampshire.edu), which didn't have grades. I also did well there, as evidenced by getting into several very good PhD programs (MIT, UCSD, Brown). I chose UCSD, and aside from taking a long time to get the PhD I also did very well there.
Did my easy going home schooling experience hurt me? I don't think so. Yes, there were many topics I learned about the very first time in college, but as it turns out that's a fine time to first encounter difficult material. My first community college class was all I really needed to adjust to school learning. It wasn't an easy adjustment, but we are only talking 3 months of my life here, and I still got an A in the class. So, to sum up: home schooling can be pretty easy on the parents and the student.
As for the social side: it was isolating. But I was living in a very small town, where the only other kids were 15 minutes car ride away, or more. I was lonely a lot, and only had a few friends. That started to change when I first went to college, but as a commuter at a state school, the opportunities weren't that good for a shy kid. Going to the residential liberal arts college really helped, and I made lots of friends there, some of which I keep in touch with in the real world (not just facebook). I hope that living in a big city (san diego) will make the socialization part easier for my daughter at an earlier age than it was for me.
To conclude: it worked well for me, and wasn't that hard for my parents. I plan to homeschool my daughter.
I'd like to respond to the allegation that home-schooling is terrible for socialization.
I went to a Catholic school where the average class size was 18 students, and generally, there wasn't a lot of turnover from Kindergarten to 8th grade.
If, among those 18 students, you were branded "unclean" (nerdy, ugly, socially inept, didn't have the right clothes, and back then "gay/lesbian" was an insult also, no matter how straight you were...this was Catholic school after all) and you didn't have any friends (and it spread to the other grades how "unclean" you were), it was conceivable that you could go for close to a decade without making any friends at all (barring any after-school activities where you could make friends among kids that don't judge nearly as much).
If you have attentive parents that pay attention when your kid is never invited to any other kids' houses to play or hang out at the mall, or whatever and generally seems depressed over it, it's up to the parents to figure out how to get your kids properly socialized. For instance, friends who run an all-ages gym have a home-schooling program.
There are resources for parents who wish to home-school, same as there are resources for parents whose kids simply don't fit in. But school doesn't automatically guarantee socialization.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Don't home school... your kid will miss all the social growth that happens during 5-18, and not really be better off (except maybe better at taking tests, due to doing nothing else). Little of anything I know I learned in school, I learned because I was interested in something and actively pursued it. It's easy to point out home schooled people, and was especially apparent in college days... The very awkward kids with dependence issues.
What a great post, well said.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I agree the way math is taught now is pretty lousy, but I do not have a really great way handy to teach it better. Mostly it is a question left to the teacher. Great math teacher can do wonders with the material even in early classes.
You can start by requiring math teachers to take advanced math. That is my suggestion.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Agreed. Pretty much the same experience I had. Why was this downvoted???
Have you worked at a corporation?
Yes.
Except for the similarities in age, I'd say every single damn headache you encounter in elementary school, middle school, and high school except maybe having a colleague mess their pants will occur.
And a lot of those headaches happen precisely because my coworkers happen to be products of public schools. There is this subtle difference between learning how to deal with dysfunctional human behavior and encouraging dysfunctional human behavior.
We home schooled both of our kids for some period of time - the oldest until he was a 4th grader, and the youngest, until she was a 2nd grader. We did not do it for religious or "clingy" reasons - we did it because where we initially lived had very poor schools, with issues of gang activity and violence.
Our oldest was the youngest in his class when he was first placed in public school. And then was skipped yet ahead another grade. This was due not only to his academic standing, but his maturity. Likewise, we had the opportunity to allow the same with our daughter, but did not. Why? Most of our sons friends were in the grade above him, and most of our daughters friends were in the grade she entered into.
Both are friendly, warm . . . normal. Our son was awarded a full-ride to our region's flagship University and is doing well. He is slightly nerdy (he received a 36 on his ACT), but is also into sports - loves racquetball. Our daughter has a 4.0+, runs cross country, and is considering Harvey Mudd for her post-high school education. She is into science and math.
BUT - and here is the big caveat . . . both my wife and I have teaching degrees, with my wife having a Master's in Education. We are also very technologically proficient . . . and active in science.
The outcome of our kids, I don't believe, was vastly impacted by the home schooling . . . they entered public school at a relatively young age. I think basic parenting is the main skill needed . . . 90% of societies issues are due to bad parenting at some level.
I never found myself capable of navigating the social realities of schools. I found that the minute I entered the workforce, I was able to deal with the social realities with ease. None of the "socialization" I got in school applied. Adult society is different from school society/youth culture.
I think you're missing his point. The public schools reinforce tribal behavior. The more people who don't get that experience, the better off everybody is.
Thank you so much for this wonderful post. You do a great job explaining the real benefits of home schooling while destroying the strawman arguments agaisnt it.
We found through our own kids (trial and lucky error?) that they really have to find their "people", their social clique within and outside of school.
The growing up never ends..
Even in the public system, how fast children learn to read is strongly correlated with their family environment, so you might as well keep them home to start. Also most parents are fully capable of teaching basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. It's in the later grades, especially high school, when trained teachers are essential.
Have you worked at a corporation?
As an aside, "corporation" is a poor choice of words to use. In addition to businesses, which are the usual grouping described by corporations, there's also charity non-profits, various government agencies and organizations, various religious groups, and individuals. These have very different feels to them, just from the different sorts of people who are part of these corporations.
Yeah that's what I thought, too. Wow, so your kids turned into nurses and programmers, like everyone else's kids? Great! It looks like homeschooling had not effect on their outcomes.
I have a pretty low opinion of homeschooling. My objection is practical not categorical. Homeschooling is theoretically reasonable but I've never actually met a reasonable homeschooling parent. I'm sure there is one out there somewhere but she must be in hiding.
You've just described a highly dysfunctional work environment, except for the hot coworker part and the "I-sometimes-need-to-do-boring-stuff" part. The boring stuff part becomes dysfunctional if it gets too much, though. I can say from experience that not everywhere is like you describe. Long term, you might want to changing jobs.
As mentioned elsewhere, a number of factors correlate to create a highly artificial and dysfunctional social environment in lower education. A company where you're dealing with high-school social problems is a dysfunctional company. Hell, due mainly to honors classes keeping the bored clowns out of my way, my actual high school experience had few high-school social problems. The lower education dysfunctional environment was mostly middle school and lower.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
I do have a few observations on the subject. My wife and I became disillusioned with public school after seeing the results our son was coming home with. We did not have the money for private education so we had to figure out something on our own. We called it homeschooling.
We discovered that there are 2 groups.
The first wants more structure in a child's life than school offers. These people tend to be religious types.
The other group wants less structure. These tend to be the unschoolers.
In the end, it does not seem to matter. Both groups get involved with the kids. The kids benefit.
When our friends heard we were homeschooling, they asked a few questions:
1. Is it legal?
2. You don't have a credential? How could you possibly be qualified?
3. How do you tolerate being with your kids all day?
4. My kids don't listen to me. You must be a saint.
5. What about the "socialization?"
6. And (mostly from teachers) If I had to raise my kids again, I would definitely homeschool.
Fifteen years later, we have our 2 sons (now 18 and 20):
1. Each of them has 2 black belts (Iaido and Jujutsu)
2. Both of them are Eagle Scouts
3. One of them started college at 15. The other started college at 13.
4. Both of them are straight 'A' students.
5. Both of them are employed.
I enjoy their company. We have great fun talking around the kitchen table. They bring their friends over and we enjoy them too.
We did make compromises. Homeschooling does take time. My software business would be more successful if I had devoted the same time to it.
My wife and I don't regret a single minute we spent homeschooling our sons. And, we could not be prouder.
Take this anecdote for what it's worth, but my daughter has been home schooled or attended home school co-ops ever since Kindergarten (Ironically the reason we began to home school her was because of the principal of her elementary school - on the last day of kindergarten he gave a speech in which he pointed out that our children would spend much of their awake hours in the school and so it would be from the school that they would learn their values. I had never thought about it like that, but I clearly remember my years on public school and my wife and I agreed that we didn't want that for our daughter.) Anyway, Junior year of high school she decides that she wants to try public high school. That is fine with us so she starts attending in the fall. By the end of December she had decided to drop out. Here were her findings:
1. The students at public school are apathetic. The teachers were delighted with my daughter since she invariably knew the answers, would raise her hand, and would answer in full sentences. The other students would give as short of answers as possible and had to be prodded. This absolutely shocked her.
2. One day during morning announcements one of the guidance counselors said that she had handouts for some sort of career event coming up and to come by the office to pick one up. My daughter did so. Well it was a shocking experience for both her and the counselor. The counselor informed her that she hadn't actually printed out any of the handouts since in all the years she had been making similar announcements, not one student had ever stopped by to pick one up.
3. She learned that teen pregnancy is much more rampant that she had expected.
By the way, this wasn't some hick high school, but a large school in the suburbs of a large city. The students going here are mainly middle to upper class students.
A side note, even though she only attended one semester, when the year book came out she had more pictures (and even a half page article about her!) in it than any of her friends that attended the full year. She is very out going and vivacious and her fellow students and teachers really liked her, so it wasn't really a surprise. I was mainly surprised that I was so surprised at how apathetic the students are.
Thanks. I have to say I've been pretty lucky, though developmentally, I didn't quite figure out socialization until I left college.
You feel pretty stupid when you realize you didn't figure out at 25 what most kids know by the age of 5. Then you come to the conclusion that nobody else is perfect either, and things even out again.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
I know two families that are homeschooling.
In both of these cases, I find that the kids (five, total, between the two families) are extremely intelligent and show it, because there is no "anti-nerd" peer pressure for them to overcome. They speak clearly in full, complex, articulate sentences, and are not afraid to share their ideas.
On the topic of awkwardness, I don't see it. These kids have no problems speaking with adults on an adult level. Social groups exist for kids outside of school, and you should absolutely encourage your kids to get out of the house and do things.
Now, this is very important: I believe, in the cases of these two families, that a critical part of making this work is that the kids have all been encouraged to speak their minds. Sometimes they will pose a challenge to your existing ideas. When that happens, the correct response is to be open to the possibility that you might be wrong. In one of these families, the kids even got the family to change their religion, because the one they were following had too many inconsistencies. That's a big deal.
If you are inclined to take such challenges as "backtalk" then I don't think this will work for you. Your objective should be to raise children that can think for themselves; if that's not what you want, send them to school where they can learn not to think for far less effort than you could teach them.
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I have met homeschoolers who have the socialization issues you mention (though having also met their parents I wonder if its actually genetic). But, I've met far more homeschoolers who are properly socialized. People who meet our children often express amazement that they are home schooled since they have the same prejudiced that you are expressing and our children clearly don't fit to their preconceived stereotype. Our eldest daughter elected to attend public school her Junior year (you can read more about her experiences in another post I made below) she was so outgoing and popular that when the yearbook came out she had more photos (and even a half page article about her life!) than almost all her friends put together. The teachers loved her too since they finally had a student who was not apathetic and was willing to answer questions using complete sentences (and actually knew the answers!).
The problem is, the character it builds tends to be pretty destructive, to the person themselves and anyone unlucky enough to get drawn close to them. And in extreme cases, to the world in general.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Try It for a semester,
I a lot of school districts here, allow for home schooled kids to participate in a wide variety of "Social" Activities or split education between subjects.
Home schooled students here can take core curriculum at home, reading, writing, math, science, and attend public school for subjects such as art, music, and PE, Sports, Extracurricular clubs etc.
I would suggest a conversation with your local public school administrators about the options in your area.
Depending on the what your kid needs you will have to find what works.
And the great thing about homeschooling is it teaches you that's not the way things should be, and you don't have to be part of the problem.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
In case it went over your head, the analogy is prison = public school. From my personal experience in the public school system, I couldn't agree more. Fellow students = thugs, teachers = guards, principal = warden, cafeteria workers = cafeteria workers.
I haven't actually seen stats on that, but I do know that my home schooled daughter out-scored her public schooled friends by a significant margin on the college entrance exams. I'm not even sure if even one of her public schooled friends scored high enough to even get into a community college ;-)
And if you pick your major wrong, you end up picking cabbages. I guess that proves the American Dream is alive and well !-)
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Lol, like the adventure where you can try to outrun armed gunmen/students, try to avoid getting beat up by a bully or verbally ripped to shreds every day by a group of nasty teenage girls? Or maybe you would enjoy sitting in a gym for several hours while they comb the school for bombs due to a phoned in threat? HAHAHAHA, some adventure! And that's to say nothing of the "adventures" you can take on the drugs being sold by other students.
Seriously, I'm a product of the public schools, and all of those things happened to me or my friends, with only two exceptions: I never got shot at, and I never took drugs, though other students were definitely doing illegal things. But bullies hitting you, verbal abuse, bomb threats and lock downs (multiple times), all of that happened. So this idea that the public schools are some "developmental and social utopia" and parents who keep their kids at home are "depriving them of an adventure" is seriously misguided.
That said, my wife and I are planning to homeschool our three when they get to be that age, but it's not even primarily for the reasons above. We have many reasons, such as:
Frankly, I see the public schools declining in matters of academic rigor, discipline/safety, silly ideas like letting every kid have a tablet in class so that they can be distracted instead of learning, etc. I just don't see much benefit to my kids being there anymore. Homeschool is so much better in all those areas, and now that so many are doing it the social interaction problems are going away. There are many other kids in nearby homes, coops, etc to be with. So at least at this point, we are full steam ahead on home schooling.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
But when the schools attempt to illustrate things by cutting up paper or rearranging puzzle pieces, it is attacked as not being "proper math" by the usual suspects.
Also, math in the K-4 grades was painful for my kid. He was way ahead of the class and they just wanted to force him into lockstep. That has very much improved in middle school, his teacher is clearly very familiar with the subject and I quite like the common core / Smarter balanced ideas. The problem looking forward to high school is that he will "run out of math". These are things that simply don't happen to a home schooled kid.
I'd send my kids to private school but we spent all the cash on vet bills for the dogs.
Nullius in verba
(I can only offer anecdotal commentary.)
It really depends on the child. I was starting to read and do addition/subtraction at age 3. I wasn't pushed, but as my parents realized my potential, they supported and encouraged me. That support evolved into home schooling.
I did go to public preschool and kindergarten (half day sessions, home schooled the other half). There, the teachers accepted my ability and appreciated my willingness to read stories to and help the other kids.
After that, even though the school's officials acknowledged I was performing at a 3rd grade level, they insisted that I had to be placed according to my age. Being 6, that meant 1st grade. The teacher quickly determined that I always had all the correct answers, so stopped calling on me - not even calling me last, after the other kids gave up. And while I was allowed to participate in group "reading aloud", he was irritated by the fact that I had finished reading whatever story before the other kids were even ready to start the reading session. Also, I was not allowed to help my classmates. While he could not mark down my workbook, quiz and homework scores, he did give me zeros for class participation and "citizenship". When my parents complained, the teacher demanded the school officials assign me to a different teacher. After a week of only slightly better treatment by the other teacher, my parents decided to pull me out and resume home schooling me.
3 years later, a new private school opened. My parents arranged an interview for me. Near the end of the interview, the teacher looked at the public school records and commented "I'm sorry about what the public school did to you. But don't worry, you're the kind of overachieving trouble-maker we want," making my parents laugh. She excused herself, then returned a few minutes later, telling my parents that no further review was necessary and I would be accepted on full scholarship.
I think I got the best of both worlds. Home schooling provided the academic challenge I needed (and wanted). Preschool, kindergarten, Cub Scouts and other activites provided the social development opportunities. Then the private school continued both.
While a bit of strife may help build character, being held back academically is a lot more than a bit of strife. Being home schooled was not easy. My parents gave me lots of challenges, allowed me to meet those challenges, then setting new ones.
Do your kids a favor. Help them set achievable goals. Provide guidance (not easy answers). And don't be afraid to say "I don't know. Let's learn together."
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Math education at most colleges don't have a single class in common with math majors.
Ouch, that's depressing.
One of my good friends is a junior high math teacher, and although this is somewhat true, it is a bit misleading.
One thing that I have found is that for a subject say like algebra or elementary set theory, there is a level of understanding you need to pass a class and another level of understanding to teach it to someone else that has a lower level of understanding than you do. Taking linear algebra and group theory classes letting algebra rust isn't then same as learning basic algebra and geometry more in depth augmented with a survey of linear algebra, statistics and leaving the group theory on the table.
As a personal anecdote, when I was in high school, I was pretty advanced in math so my math teach made me "help" teach math to some of the other students in the class. At the time, I somewhat resented this imposition, but when I got to university (and did some tutoring and TA work), I found that these exercises helped me learn this basic material much better than I would have just to get an 'A+' in the class (and forced me to develop more than one strategy to get people to understand these topics).
yea i got that, that's a pretty ridic comparison
What prison did you do time in btw?
Compare the AC's children's achievements with the average child in public school whose parents care about his or her education and encourage him or her to succeed at school. The results are about the same, with the downside of the homeschooled child lacking critical social skills.
The question is, what is the cause of 1-9.
IMHO the cause for most of 1-9 is because it is mostly LEARNED behavior. It is learned that we accept and tolerate it, which is itself an indictment of the "system" that does accept it and tolerate it at least to the degree that these people are not weeded out.
Assholes, cheaters, lazy, goof-offs etc progress because they do enough to "win" that we overlook them, and so we have to deal with them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
True, it is hyperbole. But based on the prison portrayals I've seen in movies and on TV, my experience in public school says that it isn't far off. You might have been raised in a nice community where that wasn't the case. Not all of us are so lucky.
Lastly I'd also question whether your wife is really capable of home schooling at all.
This is the typical argument against homeschooling that tries to scare away prospective home school parents. A lot of parents buy into this BS and believe they are inadequate or not smart enough to teach. This is one of the main arguments paid teachers and public school proponents always use to scare the parents into believing they can't do it. It's not necessarily true, not only are a large percentage of teachers not adequate to teach, a parent that knows their kid and who is devoting their whole attention to them is a huge benefit that can make up for lack of actual teaching experience.
How do you deal with your first crush, your first boy/girl friend?
The same as in school, except that chances are, you won't have one because there is no peer pressure to "get a Boy/Girl Friend". Yeah, you don't learn how do deal with peer pressure, but on the other hand, you don't have to deal with peer pressure at all, and it becomes ALIEN to you. My kids were home schooled, and avoided most of the socially accepted forms of peer pressure, and do not fit many social norms learned in school.
They are socially awkward simply because their adult friends still act like they are in 8th grade (because they learned how to peer pressure in school) and still try peer pressuring techniques on people who it has no effect on. Awkward!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Couldn't help but notice that almost everybody commenting negatively on home schooling seems to have no actual experience with or knowledge of home schooling. The negative opinions expressed so far are mostly based on 'well it seems to me...' type arguments. Not that there isn't any research indicating potential issues with homeschooling. I just haven't seen much. I have seen lots of evidence (i.e. peer reviewed studies) supporting homeschooling as a viable or better option to most public schooling options.
Disclaimer: I was home schooled. I think I am reasonably well adjusted socially, and academically successful. I am currently pursuing a PhD in Atomic Physics.
A couple of points to consider. These are just my opinion:
1) Learning is much, much, much (can't stress this enough!) more dependent on individual desire and interest than on the resources available to them (at least now days, since resources are nearly unlimited to anyone who cares). I believe one of the biggest failures of public schooling is the tendency to teach students to be passive in their education, to dislike learning, reading, discovery and so on. I was mostly self taught in home school. It would have been great to have licensed, trained, etc., teachers to teach the subjects I was interested in, but I think I learned far more as a self motivated student without trained teachers than I would have as an unmotivated student with teachers.
2) Learning social skills IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL. That is what friends, sports, extracurricular activities and so on are for. This idea that the whole point of school is to learn social skills is ludicrous. Understand, though, that if you are going to home school a child, you need to make sure they have ample social opportunities, especially if they are particularly shy and don't seek that out on their own. That being said, unless they are very shy or you keep them in a cage (figuratively speaking), socialization with peers and others will happen quite naturally without your intervention anyway.
3) Myth: 'Professional', 'trained', 'educated' teachers are much better teachers than parents. Truth: a) Parents have much more capability to help their children want to learn. Now, see my first point. b) Public school teachers don't make much money. Teaching education degrees are significantly easier to obtain than hard STEM degrees (based reports from various friends who have done both). The result of these facts is that teachers are either those who aren't smart or ambitious enough to do something more rewarding, or those who really, really, really passionately care about teaching. I've seen both types in public school systems in the years I did attend school, but (depending on the school) I think the second is much less common. In a sense, then, the teachers and educational 'role models' for children early on are often basically the dregs of higher education. Most of those smart/talented/self-motivated enough to go into a more rewarding career did so. 4) Every child is different. Every parent is different. Every school is different. Every teacher is different. There isn't going to be a right answer every time. I think that most of the time homeschooling is a good or even better alternative. What research exists seems to corroborate that idea. The good news is you can do both. Home school for a couple years. Let your child go to school for a year. Monitor their maturity, their academic progress and social skills. Decide from there what to do. In some cases, you may even be able to do half and half (half day of public school, or just one class daily for older kids, etc.).
You know what else you did? You put actual parental attention into your children's educations. Some people consider that an important factor in student success. Perhaps they would have done just as well if you'd had them in public school and took an active interest. (Or maybe not; there's really no way to tell.) In comparisons of home-schooled children and non-home-schooled children, I never see this taken into account.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Terrible public schools. No ability to cause change in the program where it is really needed. Common Core.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Stop with the stupid rambles against Common Core. It's a curriculum for crying out loud. Nothing more, nothing less. If nothing else, it saves the poorer state and local school districts from doing the busywork of maintaining their own curricula. As far as the quality/content, I consider it an entirely reasonable and perhaps downright boring and uncontroversial. People who bitch about it seem to have no idea what it is that they bitch about.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
common core has turned math into a laughingstock
Are you sure about it? As in - have you read the curriculum and compared it to what, say, your local school district did before hand? I think it's rather uncontroversial and rather similar to what I went through in the elementary school, although admittedly it's paced much slower than it needs to be.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I find the idea that math is being taught by non-mathematicians to be preposterous. Would you like music to be taught by someone who can't play an instrument, or art taught by someone who can't create any art themselves? Well, it's for that very same reason that we need a mathematician's perspective even in teaching elementary maths. And by a mathematician I mean at least someone who has had the training of a mathematician.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Not only that, they fundamentally don't understand math. They can't see the forest for the trees. They don't know about the more abstract, unifying theories that intimately affect most of what they teach. Teaching elementary algebra without knowing what a group or a ring is, is silly. It's cargo cult teaching: all the moves, none understanding.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
This is not because of having teaching experience, but simply because I much better understand what the actual point of something in a larger setting and what the underlying key idea is.
This, a thousand times this! You can see the forest and the trees, and switch your perspective at will. U.S. math teachers can see the branches and the needles of the evergreens. I'm not sure if they even see the leaves of the deciduous trees, for they often know of only one way of doing a particular thing. Seeing the forest? Forget it.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
when the schools attempt to illustrate things by cutting up paper or rearranging puzzle pieces, it is attacked as not being "proper math" by the usual suspects.
Such as? Hopefully no mathematician would ever do that.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Now, take only those children whose parents took an active role in their education, which by definition includes all the homeschooled. The stats you provide include every child whose parents didn't care about education or who weren't able to be around enough as part of the group. You've got a pretty sizable selection bias there.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You can feel free to read all about it, the stuff is available online. I tried to look for specific examples of what I dislike about it from assisting with homework, but was unable to find it in the few minutes I can dedicate to it.
It seems like times tables were lost, and instead it is teaching kids hacks to do the math quickly. When they get older and get into more advanced math, it will slow them down as they will still end up trying to do
20 x 30
+
6 x 3
+
20 x 3
+
6 x 30
to get the answer to 26 x 33, rather than just knowing the answer from memorization.
http://ictm.org/presenter%2F49...
But yeah, I could just be quoting political FUD about the common core rather than having to deal with it doing homework with my own kids.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
As a young man, I used to really enjoy W5 (Who What When Where Why); an early investigative TV news program. I enjoyed it, in fact, right up until the day when it did a story on an industry that I actually knew a lot about; when I saw how they essentially fabricated their whole story line out of sensationalized half-truths I realized that I had been duped for years and I discarded the show entirely.
Frankly, this thread has made me feel much the same way about slashdot; the sheer number of (very angry!) posters who are pulling opinions out of their asses, who seem to think that simply having a grasp of some of the stereotypes associated with home schooling means that they actually know something is disappointing.
So let me be clear;
When you talk about the "lack of socialization" I know that you know nothing.
When you talk about "coddling" or "sheltering" kids, I know that you know nothing.
To VorpalRodent, I say that all these angry, uninformed, opinionated posters represent nothing but the intellectual inhabitants of a crab bucket, and as soon as they see a crab trying to get up over the rim they want to grab him and drag him right back down with them.
Ignore these people, because all they know is fear of the unknown and fear of taking responsibility for an important job themselves. This is what you learn from a conventional education; how to live in fear of being different.
Fuck'em; this country was founded on rebels.
"benefits" are something that undeserving human scum get due to society caving in to their entitlement issues.
"bennies" OTOH are something entirely different, something that nice people get as a reward for their talent, hard work, and general awesomeness.
it's not surprising that he'd want to avoid applying the bad word to himself - a lot of money has been spent on cultural programming to achieve that.
Why do I need to do all of the work here?
Because I am not the one that claims that home schooling is as good as or better than actual schools. We don't prove negatives, and it's up to those who make those claims to show that it's so.
That those who do go on to postsecondary education do better if home schooled is no surprised - the very top parents are likely far better educators than the typical school system, which is mediocre by design. But that does not say anything about the average parents or less gifted children. i too would like to see some statistics on how many fall by the wayside.
I think I was lucky in that I had a father who sat down with me for an hour or so after work, and taught me things the school didn't. School plus home schooling in my father's areas of interest and expertise (civil engineering) worked out pretty well. But I'm very afraid of what the results would have been if he were the one who schooled me in things he were truly bad at, like foreign languages or writing cursive.
I know a couple of people on the autism spectrum, one pretty far down it, now in their 20s. The more autistic one didn't do well in a rural school system, but flourished in a suburban one (he graduated, which was a bit of a surprise). The other just plain did well in middle school and high school. In both of the successful cases, the children got the support they needed, but were expected to be as mainstream as possible other than that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I tried to mod you up, but apparently my points just expired. Your description of the joy of math was among the most eloquent I've read. Thank you.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
1) Homeschooling definitely isn't for everyone. My sister and I did great, but that's because we had good parents and both of us are very self motivated and generally love learning new things. Friends who feel similarly about learning but went through the public school system all tell me that it did a great job of both making them (at least temporarily) hate learning, and also providing peer pressure to not show any kind of brains for fear of being picked on. Obviously YMMV depending on schooling environment. I had some friends who tried home schooling for a year and hated it. However, they were both extremely extroverted and had pretty controlling parents (I don't think I'd have done well with their parents either).
2) Reports of socialization being an issue are greatly exaggerated. I was highly active in boy scouts, swim team, and various church things. My sister had a similar set of extracurricular activities. There were also several events per year put on by our homeschooling organization. While neither of us had the quantity of "friends" that our peers in public/private school had, we more than made up for it in quality. The main social difference compared to my public schooled counterparts is that I related way better to adults and kids who were much older than me. My dad was an engineer, and by the time I was 8 I was holding intelligent conversations with his co-workers about their work whenever he'd take me to work with him, or on the occasion my mom drove us up to meet him during lunch. Some people might say that's a negative, but I see is as more the equivalent of living in the US during WWII/Cold War and being fluent in german, japanese, and russian. Arguably not a bad thing to know all of those languages, but also not an easy thing to live with being different in that way at that time.
By the time I got to college, I found the social stuff to be a non-issue. Either I'd end up gravitating towards the smart people in the class (and be highly motivated to keep up with them), or the people who were struggling would gravitate towards me (at which point I'd be highly motivated to stay ahead so I help them along). Also oddly enough, despite being very introverted I had no trouble at all sitting in the front and asking enough questions to keep the lectures interesting in my college classes.
3) There are a lot of people who do home schooling wrong and make the rest of us look bad, but at the risk of invoking the no true scottsman fallacy:
- Myself and the other well adjusted homeschoolers I know generally don't advertise that we were homeschooled. In fact, we went through an umbrella organization that appears to be one of those typical private schools that share space with a church unless you google it and read the website throughly. Even then, it's hard to tell that it doesn't actually have physical classrooms unless you realize that the address is in a business/industrial area that isn't necessarily somewhere where a school would meet
- In general, responsible homeschoolers are going to go through a similar umbrella organization. I'm fairly certain that the "imma isolate mah kids from teh evil world" types would have been thrown out from the one we went through, as they actually had educational standards that people were held to. That means the bad homeschoolers are more likely to stand out when they write down their school on a form (or proudly brag about how they're uncorrupted by the world or whatever) because they're their own schooling entity as far as the state is concerned.
- there are most definitely people who shouldn't homeschool. Either because the kids, the parents, or both don't have the disposition for it. The last thing I'd want to do is pressure those people into doing it anyway, but I'm sure there are lots of home schoolers who don't take that into account and try to sell it as the best thing in the world for everyone
4) Teaching isn't anywhere near as big of an issue
There is this subtle difference between learning how to deal with dysfunctional human behavior and encouraging dysfunctional human behavior.
Heh, that's actually very well stated.
So maybe we'll have three or four kids from other families come over for math class, or business or computers, while our daughter goes to music class taught by a friend who is a career musician.
Those were some of the funnest things I can remember from home schooling. There's nothing like being with a small group of people all anxious to learn and having access to someone anxious to share their expertise. And because a lot of homeschoolers tend to be king of becoming an expert in oddly specific fields of knowledge, the sorts of conversations that occurred when 3+ of us got together were always fascinating.
I became good at civilizing the savages, and I found that the students learned far more when I had learned how to do that. I moved on later back into the adult world, but I still find that I can manage children when I have to. It's invaluable on airplanes when I get seated next to some little germ factory whose mother can't get him to control himself and doesn't understand him or why the airsick bag and everything else in reach fascinates him so. It's amazing how much time parents can spend with kids and yet have absolutely no clue what their kids see in the world; they only see the kids as time-drains to be put in front of a tablet or screen to get them out of the way for a while, or as potential embarrassments who need to be threatened constantly. Neither gives a kid the ability to reason and control himself.
Care to go off on a tangent and expand on this subject a bit? You got me really curious now about what kinds of methods you use or what other sorts of observations or comments you have about managing a class of adolescents.
Whether you're talking private or public, an educational environment with the offspring of other parents is an irreplaceable (at times, admittedly unpleasant) lesson that all young people should be exposed to. It's not always pretty, but it grounds a young human in dealing socially with others for the rest of his/her life.
There may be no truth at all to the urban legend that young people are optimally suited to learning a language, but I would bet the light bill money that youth is an optimal time to begin studying the intricacies of human interaction.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The socialization available in public schools includes being introduced to criminal gangs, attacked by bullies, and contact with mind-degrading drug providers. Kids should be taught to recognize thugs and charlatans before having to interact with them.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
My grown children are at the house almost every day, and they respect me enough to listen to me some of the time. I kid when I say this, but I'll bet this "disown" thing comes with a smaller grocery bill.
Sigh. Parenting isn't about making things easy for your kids. That's what your heart wants to do, but without some adversity, no living organism learns to thrive.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's cargo cult teaching: all the moves, none understanding.
That's a good description.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We homeschooled our kids. It was a wonderful experience for them and for us. Two of them are now adults and the third is still homeschooling and doing great. All of them are both socially and academically far advanced of public schooled kids their ages. They also have better ethics and morals without having to go through the destructive parts that we hear so many people complain about public education.
In our state the rate of homeschooling is very high and it is not about religion or that sort of thing - a common misperception. In fact, of the many families that we know who homeschool, only one is strongly religious. All the others are heavy on the science end.
Public schools are a mess. We can't fix the public school system - people have been trying and failing for decades. Study history, please.
Homeschooling isn't for everyone but it worked great for us and a lot of other people we know.
And no, you do not have to be a 'teacher' to homeschool. That's hogwash.
Not to worry about the interactions part. Your kids would be fine. Sometimes the school is better. Many times the home setting is better. I think you both should follow your instincts.
Here in Australia, home-schooling is almost unheard of. The stereotype here is that only super-religious parents home-school their children, in an effort to shield the children from conflicting viewpoints. The exception is farmers in very remote areas where there are no schools.
What is it in America that makes home-schooling more popular there? Is it mostly religion-driven there too?
Its mostly paranoia driven. Some people dont want the "gubbermint" teaching their children ideas that might contradict creationism, or let them learn about science, the harm caused by easily vaccinated diseases or other things that may break the fragile brainwashing these children have.
We've got our fair share of nutters here in Oz, FOTLs (Freemen On The Land) are basically the Aussie equivalent of paranoid anti-govt rednecks combined with a generous helping of libertarian delusions. The thing is we just dont give them the airtime that their American equivalents get.
That and the public schooling system here in Oz is actually quite good, consistently from kindergarten to university.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Man, the excuses people will make to look down on home schooling.
In our area, where autism seems almost epidemic, an increasing number of parents are choosing to home school their autistic child rather than running them through the school system where all they will be is bullied, teased, alienated even further, and eventually dropped off the assembly line pre-broken. Any study of home schooled kids in our area that didn't account for this would of course find that the average home schooler had socialization issues; they're fucking autistic.
To my experience, normal kids in well-planned home school environments are happier, more emphatic, more motivated, and more able to interact with all ages comfortably than the kids who have to survive the numbing idiocy of school programming and its ridiculous idea that a kid's birthdate is the most important consideration when selecting peers.
School is a terrible thing to do to a good kid.
I never found myself capable of navigating the social realities of schools. I found that the minute I entered the workforce, I was able to deal with the social realities with ease. None of the "socialization" I got in school applied. Adult society is different from school society/youth culture.
I also never found myself capable of navigating the social realities of schoool and found that the minute I entered the workforce I was able to deal
eith the social realities with ease. The difference is that I think that having to deal with the harsher realities of public school in a safe environment
makes it easier to deal with the real world. Public school is an exageration of the real world and helps you be better at handling the real world.
2. Homeschooling academics can be more rigorous. As an engineer, I consider math to be the foundation of all my success, and common core has turned math into a laughingstock. Enter homeschooling, where I can pick the "Singapore Math" curriculum. Singapore typically scores number 2 every year on the international math achievement exams, their math program is entirely in (British) English, and I can have their exact program for my kids instead of common core.
Losing mod points to respond to this, but as a math teacher I can say based on substantial study and practice that you are drinking the wrong cool aid about common core. To see why you have to understand what common core is and isn't. Common core is just the set of standards, and it's important to read a bit of them to realize what that means and doesn't. Everything else that isn't written in the common core standards, but yet people still incorrectly call "common core" is just an attempt at implementation of the common core. If you see a given incomprehensible homework assignment, that's the implementation, not the common core. The standards don't give implementation details, the teacher, textbook, and/or district provide those.
Before I go further though, I will agree with your first statement. Homeschooling can be more rigorous, but as I am considering homeschooling my children, the thing I would do would be to implement the common core to it's fullest extent and attempt to exceed it.
I'll cut to the chase and give you the summary: the common core standards are more rigorous and are a substantial improvement on every state standard before them that I am aware of. They embody the important parts of the best of education research and the math standards for example are substantially based on the previous work of the Principles for School Mathematics developed by NCTM. So if a given implementation is bad, it means either the teacher or textbook are not as good as they could be, not that common core is bad.
Look at the Standards for Mathematical practice: http://www.corestandards.org/M...
and the following specific standard: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSA.REI.A.1
Explain each step in solving a simple equation as following from the equality of numbers asserted at the previous step, starting from the assumption that the original equation has a solution. Construct a viable argument to justify a solution method.
A classroom attempting to implement the standards for mathematical practice to fully meet the standard above will be leaps and bounds above a traditional classroom in terms of rigor, cognitive demand, ability to reach diverse students, etc.
Also having studied the TIMMS study in depth I can say that the reason Singapore does well on the exams isn't necessarily related to their curriculum, but likely has more to do with parental support for education.
Yes - it is mostly religion, sadly. You'll hear a fair amount of poppycock about "wanting a better education", but if *that* was the goal, a couple of extra hours a day of (Gasp!) reading with them would be far, far better.
From my experience it seems to be an even split between the religious and the non-religious hippie types.
While I agree in whole, there is one massive, massive difference that separates a corporation and school (and brings school a bit more in line with the GP's simile of prison): Ability to jump away.
When you're in school, especially in less-dense areas, you're stuck. Unless your parents have money and can send you to private/boarding school or have the time and ability to homeschool you, you probably have one and only one option. Even if you have multiple options, your parents have to do the process on your behalf, and even then the requirements to change schools might be beyond your grasp (and require there to be space at the other school.) So you're forced to go to the same school five days a week, where you know you'll get the same tormentors and same teachers and it becomes a minor form of hell. You know you'll get picked on, so you fear stepping through that door each and every day. It's psychological torment that doesn't end when the school day does. (I'm speaking from experience.)
With a corporation, your relative ability to jump appears infinite. The only absolutes that hold you there are A) no financial cushion to tide you over while job hunting and/or B) contractual obligations. Short of those, the only obstacle to leaving is yourself. Even if you don't change jobs, and you have tormentors at work, this does significantly less damage to your psyche because you have that option to walk away. Though you may never use it, having that emergency exit makes it a lot easier to deal with the day-to-day bullshit.
A kid not in preschool is part of the 50% who are still home schooled until kindergarten, so you compare development to others who have been schooled. That said not all public schools are the same. If you live in the suburbs your choices are pretty limited, but if you are in a city and your kid is a good test takers, there are lots of options. That is what saved me. While many people I knew moved to suburbs to get a half descent education, I aced my test and by the time I was 8 was going to the top and challenging public schools. At these schools I had access to equipment and professionals beyond what most home schooled can get. I would say for the first few years school would be good. If you can't bare public school, charter schools are acceptable for the young who educational needs are often basic. Private schools are a good option.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Clearly you didn't read my post, but it's just factually incorrect that public school (or private school) is uniformly horrible and soul-crushing. There are good and bad things about schools. And there are good and bad things about homeschooling.
Personally I just wish we would properly invest in our public school system so that there was no question of students doing better in school than at home. Homeschooling can be a reasonable personal decision for some people in situations where their schools are poor (and I would consider failure to deal with neurodiversity a sign of an extremely poor school). But as a society we should strive for an educational system where it isn't necessary, as well-trained professionals will always be able to do a better job at teaching than amateurs, given a sufficiently-supportive environment.
Homeschooler here.
As much as I enjoyed homeschooling and found that the academics were well beyond the accepted local norm, I cannot easily recommend it. It's something that the child really has to be ready for, as the best learning is self-driven. My sister, for instance, homeschooled for a few years with me only to find it was not her cup of tea, and went to matriculate at the local high school.
That being said, I have wondeful, life-long friends that I have gained through local homeschooling groups, and almost all of them are fairly successful and excellent folks, to boot.
Feel free to hit me up if you have specific questions but be forewarned that homeschooling is an extremely personal experience and I can only provide circumstantial guidance, not "real" answers.
Good luck!
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Amen to this.
I am a "homeschooling" parent. This does NOT mean my children are taught solely by myself and/or my wife, and it does NOT mean they are taught solely at home. It DOES mean that we have personally selected and combined a number of different educational opportunties for them. These include (but are not limited to):
Enrolling in college coursework while still in high school. Example: Harvard Math 23b. The majority of students in this class are admitted Harvard freshmen, but it is also available in an open enrollment capacity through Extension for anyone of any age willing to pay tuition. I like that peer group for "socialization" a whole lot better than the kids at my local public high school.
Hiring the chair of the language department at a local private high school to come to our home to provide personalized one-on-one instruction in classical Greek and Latin.
Hiring multiple music teachers for piano, guitar, theory, and composition.
Participation in team sports at the local health club.
Engaging a flight instructor for our son to earn a private pilot's rating.
Successfully completing qualifying flights for TARC
The Internet (Obviously). Taking advantage of online educational programs such as AOPS and edX and Open Courseware
Stocking our home with thousands of quality print books and plenty of subscriptions to lots of quality print journals (e.g. Economist, Nature, Lapham's Quarterly, IEEE publications, etc.)
Buying a whole bunch of the Great Courses
Joining CTY
Plenty of socratic dialogue with Mom & Dad. And plenty of unstructured time.
Flexibility to travel (including abroad) during the school year.
Concrete advice for OP: First, read The Underground History of American Education. Make of it what you will --- just include it (or criticisms of it) as a data point. Next, decide if any your local school choices (either public or private) are awesome. Do they approach the quality of Exeter or Boston Latin or Bronx Science? Understand the concept of a feeder school and that this concept can start at the elementary level. Got great public or private school options you like and can afford? Go for it. Not so much? Then go ahead and homeschool kindergarten. I guarantee you that your drop-out wife is capable of teaching your child to read and anything else they are supposed to learn in kindergarten. I guarantee you that unless you are completely negligent that your child will (if you choose) be able to enter first grade after a year of homeschooling and do fine. And I guarantee you that after a year you will be in a much better position to understand if more homeschooling is the right choice.
I look at my peer group--the kids I would hang out with in high school, and a couple of them have committed suicide. Many of them are still single. As a group, by traditional standards (not that it means anything really), modern life has not treated us all that well. Anyway, we accept the past and move ahead..
Good luck and stuff,
d
Hopefully you've read Paul Lockart's A Mathematician's Lament. If not, you'll find it quite resonating, I think.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
teaching kids hacks to do the math quickly
Those aren't called hacks, they are techniques and they stem from the structure inherent in numbers. As you progress in mathematics, you're supposed to be building a large vocabulary of such "hacks". Eventually you'll learn your multiplication table without even trying. More importantly, you'll be able to apply said hacks to larger numbers, where memorization doesn't help.
So, your complaint is not only solitary, but severely misplaced. Yeah, I attribute it to FUD. If you hear anything about Common Core from people who haven't read the source text and have no understanding of subject matter, everything you hear will be wrong. And I do mean everything. The misinformation is that bad.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I forgot the most important thing: you aren't supposed to read about it . You're supposed to read it . Go ahead. It's free.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I think tribal behavior is inherent to human beings. We can teach people to be aware of it, and to downplay it. But you'll never get rid of it.
I never said it's the way things should be, or that we should contribute to the problem. But unless you're absurdly lucky, you will have to deal with at least some of those headaches at your work.
As opposed to what? Homeschooling all of those people would fix their behavior problems? Most likely, they brought some or even all of their behavior problems from home to school, and not vice versa.
I do not want to make a blanket assertion that any one path is the right choice. I have the same problem of limited viewpoint as everyone else. But I hypothesize that major and minor behavioral problems are commonplace all over the world, not easy to solve on a massive scale, and thus learning how to deal with them - even though the learning curve is painful to climb - is an essential skill.
I'm moderately bright, I'm not a genius. I have the sense that with proper instruction, I could have finished the academic aspects of my formal education by age 17 (instead of 24). But the things that slowed me down - sometimes working at a pace much lower than I could tolerate, sometimes wasting time because of pointless work, sometimes dealing with unpleasant people, sometimes struggling to prioritize tasks across different sets of responsibilities - were all essential life skills to acquire.
Good point. And this is especially important for the worst schools, in which the whole environment is so toxic to learning and to normal (define that as you wish) social interaction that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
Of course, as adults all but the best jobs will still have some garbage to go with the treasure. But it's nowhere near the lock-in as at school.
"it's just factually incorrect that public school (or private school) is uniformly horrible and soul-crushing"
That's where we differ; if the schooling is comprised chiefly of forcing a kid to sit still and listen, it is horrible and soul-crushing. It cuts directly against every evolutionary imperative that the kid is experiencing. A couple hours of sitting a day? Sure. Any more than that is just warehousing, and that's all that any school does; good or bad, they all make the kids sit down, shut up, and watch.
I come from a whole family of teachers (grandfather, uncles, mother, brother) and my brother is currently the superintendent of small school district; even he admits that school is designed for the convenience of the adults and has little or nothing to do with the needs of the kids. The different styles of teaching that have come and gone over the years amount to different colored wrapping paper on a gift box filled with dogshit.
an educational environment with the offspring of other parents is an irreplaceable (at times, admittedly unpleasant) lesson that all young people should be exposed to. It's not always pretty, but it grounds a young human in dealing socially with others for the rest of his/her life.
Which was why my parents sent me to preschool and kindergarten. And then tried to send me to public school. Then, ultimately, to the private school. And, while not exactly "educational", the various extra-curricular activities contributed to this as well.
The home schooling they did was because I needed the academic challenges that the public schools refused to provide.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
In a school, your kid is subject to power hungry teachers spending half their time making sure the kids wear the correct uniform and behave how they want them to. And the other half of the time your kid gets taught pointless subjects. When they do end up in a useful class, they're held back by the slowest kid in the room. Teach them at home, and they can learn the subjects you feel are most important, at the speed they are able to.
I would heartily recommend you consider the action/adventure education that is the public school system.
Coddling, though still an individual option, is generally better for the parents than the children.
Re homeschooling. One concern I would have (I am now a grandfather), is the social skills and intermixing with other kids. As well, the recess, lunch hour and after school playing to burn energy. Home school children miss the interaction that is part of our healthy being.
I believe that the homeschooled child may have difficulty in adult years with interaction, or even with understanding his/her own children. If you were always isolated for learning around adults without other children around, you will have difficulty understanding how your child thinks. I would think that one should only do homeschooling if and only if there is a health problem.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
If you live in a public school district that cranks out graduates who repeatedly out-perform the rest of the nation, send them to public school. If, like my wife and myself, you are more capable of giving your child an education than is your district, then school at home. We tried two public schools before giving up on them and teaching our son. After only one month of home-school, he has surpassed the grade which his teacher told us he might not pass. Granted, we live in a pretty awful school district.
Fantastic post, thank you.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Our girls are all homeschooled - although the oldest (13) has now transitioned to high school.
There are as many ways of homeschooling as there are homeschoolers. They range from hot-housers (attempting to cram in more academic information than a school would) to those who wish to go entirely with what the children want. We err on the side of the latter, teaching only when interest is shown in a subject - often learning more in 20mins than if forced to sit through arbitrary lessons (which works something like ripping through a topic on Wikipedia when it intrigues you), giving a truly personalised education that is also less stressful for us as parents.
Our eldest did not read until she was 8 - which was when she wanted to - but by the time she entered high school she had read more than most children of her age, having vociferously consumed whatever she could. It was _her_ thing to read - she never had the negativity of thinking it was "school work" and something that "had to be done".
She is now an A grade student in almost all subjects, topping classes that other students have been taking for 7 years. What's more, she seems to be unique amongst her peers in appreciating her classes as a source of knowledge, rather than a thing-that-must-be-done to force doctrine into her head.
It was her request to go to school - for the social aspect. At parents' evening yesterday the only negative was that she doesn't do her homework if she doesn't see the point in it. I take that as a compliment.
The matter is really simple. Children learn better when they want to than when they are forced to. Therefor homeschooling is the most sensible option for young children. You can always have the best tutor available when your child gets to 12 or 13 or even at a later stage. But you can never undo the lack of identity or character destruction that was imparted by public schooling and, what basically boils down to, parental neglect of a young child who totally believes in his parents and will develop optimally if allowed to in the the nurturing and lovling environment your wife will give.
It really depends on how the homeschooling happens. I have three kids. The two older went through public schools. We moved to Los Alamos (Home of Los Alamos National Laboratories) specifically for the schools. My two older kids did pretty well K-5 in school. They both liked their teachers and loved science and history. But Middle School crushed them. By the time they went to High School, they had both become anti-intellect, anti-education, anti-reading. My youngest didn't do well in K or 1st grade. We started home schooling him in 2nd grade. Today, he's in 4th. He knows more about history than just about any adult I know. He is learning to program Java, and Python. He is interested in joining the home school speech and debate team, which is small, but all its members are internationally rated in multiple disciplines. He has joined a Lego engineering club, and is looking forward to the robotics team. He is well liked, an incredibly happy. He wants to start his own business, and I'll be working with him on a business plan to kick that off. In short, I'm a fan of homeschooling, provided the parent/s are on-board with projectized learning. Here is a good article from Wired about this: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/s...
It really depends on how the homeschooling happens. I have three kids. The two older went through public schools. We moved to Los Alamos (Home of Los Alamos National Laboratories) specifically for the schools.
My two older kids did pretty well K-5 in school. They both liked their teachers and loved science and history. But Middle School crushed them. By the time they went to High School, they had both become anti-intellect, anti-education, anti-reading.
My youngest didn't do well in K or 1st grade. We started home schooling him in 2nd grade. Today, he's in 4th. He knows more about history than just about any adult I know. He is learning to program Java, and Python. He is interested in joining the home school speech and debate team, which is small, but all its members are internationally rated in multiple disciplines. He has joined a Lego engineering club, and is looking forward to the robotics team.
He is well liked, an incredibly happy. He wants to start his own business, and I'll be working with him on a business plan to kick that off.
In short, I'm a fan of homeschooling, provided the parent/s are on-board with projectized learning. Here is a good article from Wired about this:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/silicon-valley-home-schooling/
As someone who went to private institutions for my entire schooling I would highly recommend you send your kids to a school.
My first job as a programmer was offered to me by the cousin of someone I met in school. I frequently networked with people who are in great positions nowadays and give me a heads up/recommend me when a project pops up in their company which also gives me a nice boost of revenue.
A lot of the people I met through school in general have been helped by myself in various ways, and a lot of them have helped me in return.
On the other hand, my cousin who was home schooled and has a double degree is struggling to find a job, I dropped out of university.
While I will not put into question the virtues of homeschooling, which academically might make your child prosper more than the alternative, the networking value is truly great. Alternatively look into meetups with other homeschooling parents so that your child may gain valuable social skills I sometimes do not see with typically home schooled children.
Just my two cents
You are concerned about your wife's ability to teach your child. Well, what has she taught so far? Can your child read? Add? If not, why does your wife think she's going to be able to teach those things now? If so, then what are you worried about?
--
JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
It depends a lot on your circumstances and the school district you are in as well as the state you reside in. Both my children are homeschooled by my wife with me helping out where applicable. We live in a school district where the high school has a dismal graduation rate of around 40%, the other schools do not much better. Ironically, the high school one district over and just a mile away has a graduation rate of 98%.So in that regards we as parents can't do any worse job than the local public schools. That said, if the public schools were doing well the incentive would be lower. Homeschooling takes a lot of time. My wife spends anywhere from 4 to 8 hours on actual instruction, but that on only four days a week. I do one activity at night or on the weekend. Also, my wife spends several hours a week on prepping for school and staying informed. That means if you have a full time or even part time job you may find not having enough time. Homeschooling isn't cheap, but you definitely can be frugal about it. Also, some states provide the text books no matter if a student is in public, private, or home school. You still need to buy books, materials, and supplies. The more work you put in yourself the less you have to pay. There are many curricula ready to go with instructions and tests and so on already done. Those tend not to be cheap. Homeschooling still has a bad rap, many think you are a religious nutball, a whacky liberal, a sect member, jobless, or the devil in disguise. Also, some school districts have staff that is totally anti-homeschooling. Some districts try to bully homeschoolers with made up rules, so in any case you need to be well versed on the legal framework. In some states like Connecticut you do not have to do anything although a letter of intent to the district is encouraged. In some you have to do a lot of paperwork with quarterly and annual reports, for example in New York. And then there are states like Pennsylvania that make homeschooling total hell with insane restrictions and requirements that are not even applied to public schools. For that reason the stats are hard to come by and often biased depending on who tries to make what argument. That said, the best thing is that you are in control. You and your child set the pace. If the child needs more time with one subject you have the luxury to spend more time. If you want to do an awesome project that takes a few days you can do that as well. If you had enough and need to take a few days off, you can do that as well. Vacation when everyone else is in school is also an option. You don't like a text book...find a different one and sell the other one on eBay or Amazon. All this is not possible in a public school setting. And that is the main reason why homeschoolers might do better academically, they set their own pace and they repeat the stuff they didn't get the first time as many times as it takes. It is possible to be at 7th grade level in reading and writing, but still at 5th grade level in math. That is not a problem at all as homeschooler as long as you get the content covered eventually. Often times it just clicks and a child gets it quickly although before it was like talking to a wall. Some children learn gradually, others have learning spurts and then level off. Nothing wrong with that, but something a public school with 40 kids in a class cannot accommodate. As homeschooler you can also cut out all that crap like daily pledge of allegiance or citizenship courses or whatever other useless garbage gets dumped on kids in schools. You can also prevent that your child's life gets destroyed by curricula such as "Everyday Math" or the many history books with totally distorted facts. Now to the dumb argument of homeschoolers lacking social interaction. Do you know how many school districts do not allow kids to speak to each other on the bus or on the school yard? And definitely not in class unless asked. What kind of social interaction is that? My kids attend a drama club, a choir, and arts and computer classes. In the summer they play with other k
I was home-schooled, and I don't plan to do it with my children if I can avoid the need. I'll be brief, but I feel that any parent considering home-schooling needs to really consider carefully if they are doing it for the child or for their own needs. Overly protective parents seeking to shield their child will do a great deal of harm. Parents who are not able to reasonably assess their own strengths and weaknesses as teachers will also impair their children's development. Finally, and most significant: you may avoid the pitfalls and perils of high school, and that could be an advantage, but I personally know that going straight from home schooling into college was an arduous journey, as I arrived with the social proficiency of an adult, and had no idea how to relate to those in my age group. It effectively took me until age 40 before I reached the point where I felt I could comfortably manage life and family in an "adult" manner (and it still feels weird, to be honest), and I strongly believe that the way I was sheltered and home-schooled by my parents contributed to this very odd form of arrested development.....and it's still not something I've overcome; I've just learned to compensate. There's not enough room and time to talk about it here, but I firmly believe that the home-schooling I received was a blessing for my education but a curse for my general social prowess.
Honestly, there are quite simply too many variables to distill this debate to a simple, reasoned decision.
I was home-schooled as well and I completely agree with LaurenCates and penix1 on this one. If I have kids I won't home school them. I don't think learning should take precedent over allowing a kid to be a kid (i.e. making friends and being involved in cohort of other like minds). If become concerned with their academic progress I will take the time to personally tutor them and help them with their homework.
You can always try it for a few semesters and then put your kid back in school to see if he's keeping pace with rest. generally if your kid gets some fresh air exercise great food great literature to read and some good learning experiences from you it will be far supirior to most elementary schools.
I cruised a large sailboat for a few years in the Paciifc and the Atlantic. We met a lot of kids who were being "sea schooled" using one of the fine correspondence schools that caters to cruisers. These were happy, well adjusted, kids whose basic education included multiple cultures and languages, a deep sense of responsibility as crew, and plenty of socialization experiences.
Many of these cruisers "swallowed the anchor" eventually and put their kids in public schools to meet the various state qualifications for university entry. According to the teachers in the San Diego public school system that I spoke to, these kids were usually a grade or two ahead and far more mature that their peers in age.
This is different from some parents that are sheltering their kids from protective or religious reasons, but it points to the fact that the quality of home schooling depends on the parents, the kids, and the actual curriculum. Generalities will be misleading.
I think the risk is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
There are 3 main types of schooling in America.
1. Public schools -- These are schools funded by public sources such as taxes and lottery earnings, etc.. They are often portrayed as crime ridden and failing in educating but this is often a function of the community they are in. Poorer communities tend to have poorer public education systems. It does have the advantage of socializing that other types of education lack (more on this later).
2. Charter / private schools -- These are schools that derive their funding from private sources such as tuition or through vouchers for poorer families. In the case of religious private schools, they also concentrate on their religious teachings as well as the standard curriculum. You find these in richer communities and they have the advantage over public schools because they can pick and choose whether the student will attend. Many see them as siphoning out the best students from the public school system and reducing the resources availible to public schools.
3. Home schooling -- This is where the student is taught at home for various reasons (some valid, some not) mostly for the reason of the perception that the previously mentioned types do not suit the needs or beliefs of the parents. The difficulty with home schooling is one of credentialing and certifying that the state approved requirements are being met. Home schooling requires a much higher degree of involvement on the part of the parents which often can't be the case due to the necessity of having both parents working to make ends meet. You do mostly see home schooling being done by parents who either have a high degree of distrust in the public forms of education or have a religious reason. Lastly, there are some areas that are remote or that have extreme weather conditions where home schooling is the norm. But these circumstances are fewer in the US because of the extensive network of public / private schools available and public funding of busing.
Personally, I think home schooling is a bad thing for kids since it doesn't teach them the proper socialization they will need as adults. It is often done for all the wrong reasons in all the wrong ways which can and often does hold the child back making things worse for that kid. And as the poster of this article has noted, it does tend to be the parents that can't let go of their offspring that want to keep them home all the time. This is unhealthy IMO. I personally believe that home schooling should be the choice of last resort since it does require a much higher degree of commitment from parents which often can't be met especially in poorer communities.
There is little students is taught at home in China. Most parents send their children to school, it seems must be do this. And it's specially to home schooling .Most famous example is Zheng Yuanjie. He is a famous fairy tale writer, and he just teach his son at home .At last ,his son became a good writer ,too.But I don't think every home school has the same result. When a child grew, maybe he can learn something by hisself,like me,I learn PCB by my self .I am a PCB design now.It 's my compangy websit.A PCB factory: www.nod-pcba.com .So it's difficulty to say it right or not.
Personally, I think home schooling is a bad thing for kids since it doesn't teach them the proper socialization they will need as adults.
What about where the socialization they would learn in public school teaches them 'all the bad things' (i.e. doing coke in history class is okay, etc.)?
And before you say that's where the parents come in to teach them - I say yes, but parents lose when it comes to social pressure to fit in.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Anecdotal Reference Sorry.
I have this home schooled friend in his mid-twenties who plays a character in my old school D&D game. While smart, he can barely read. We discovered this when I asked him to read the room descriptions his party was exploring.
He told us when he was about seventeen, the home school subscription service his Mother subscribed to lost its accreditation. (This kind of service supplied all the workbooks and materials for the schooling. I suspect they did all the grading by correspondence as well.) So he never did get an equivalent of a High School diploma.
So the gang even tried to get him enrolled in a GED course at the local Community College. He failed the test on the reading comprehension portion.
We'll keep trying.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Can you cite where homeschooling is illegal in California? a quick Googles showed there was a 2008 ruling that didn't affect existing law allowing homeschooling. The parents still need some oversight (with a partnership with a charter or private school or tutoring center) or they can set themselves up as their own private school. I'm on the road atm, so I can't do a more exhaustive search, but I'd be interested in hearing more information about this if you have some, because I'm coming up blank.
BOOP!
to get the answer to 26 x 33, rather than just knowing the answer from memorization.
Who memorizes the answer to 26 x 33, and how is that better? Most kids when I grew up were taught that to multiply 26 x 33, you start with 3x6 (which you DO memorize, or at least can work it out with addition) to get an 8. Then you carry the one, and add that to 2x3. 78. Ok! Then on the next line you fill in a 0 for the first digit, 3x6 again, so you put an 8 in the next column, carry the 1, add that to 3x2, so another 7. Now you add 78 + 780 = 858. That's how the vast majority of us learned how to do multiplication for numbers larger than 10.
How is that any LESS hacky than applying the FOIL rule for binomials ( 20 + 6 ) x ( 30 + 3 ) or using other algebraic factoring methods?
The question is, what is the cause of 1-9.
IMHO the cause for most of 1-9 is because it is mostly LEARNED behavior. It is learned that we accept and tolerate it, which is itself an indictment of the "system" that does accept it and tolerate it at least to the degree that these people are not weeded out.
"Tribalism" and us-vs-them seems to be inherent in humanity, a constant regardless of public schools, private schools, or no schools.
The argument "home schooling is a bad thing for kids since it doesn't teach them the proper socialization" is completely false and there is not a single piece of evidence that supports this claim. It is nothing more than uninformed blabber and prejudice. My children are homeschooled and they join in many activities that provides plenty of social interaction. Plenty of school districts have strict rules in place that undermine or even outright prevent social interaction in schools, so a public school is not necessarily the better place. Besides that, social interaction with whom? A group that can be joined and left at will or a bunch of teenaged bullies that a child cannot escape from in school? Or the teachers who tech because they want to push their agenda? I am very fine with my kids not getting "socialization" from those people.
Errhhh, both ability to teach and subject matter are required. Merely taking a few years past the level they are teaching is completely insufficient. Someone who has significant experience beyond the level they are teaching has multiple advantages:
A. fewer mistakes. Keep in mind a single mistake can confuse 30 students very quickly.
B. More thorough understanding of the subject matter is excellent for the student who asks a more advanced question or about a specific topic. Plus keeping the top 10% of the class engaged is excellent for the class, because sometimes students learn better from each other. Ex. As a teacher I use the precise, correct terminology, etc., but students know other students might not communicate it exactly.
C. understanding what will be essential further down the road.
Ex. 1. Although calculators may do addition and subtraction of number fractions, being able to do them by hand is crucial to learning addition and subtraction of fractions with variables.
Ex. 2 Long division of decimals is hard to learn and hard to teach, but essential for students to learn division of polynomials. Yes advanced calculators and WolframAlpha will do all of this, but that starts to get off topic. Briefly- when a computer can do all the math a person knows, what will their career be?
D.I learned calculus far more thoroughly while tutoring it, than I did in the course. And my current students learn much easier from me because I know Calculus far better than when I started.