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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 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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!
Your kid needs to be properly socialized in a structured environment.
There are many opportunities for socializing outside of school. They can play with neighborhood kids after school, or join a group activity like boy scouts or girl scouts. When my son was in cub scouts, several boys in his pack were home schooled. They were just normal boys that fit in with no problem.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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
I was homeschooled until high school, and had to deal with exactly that problem.
My father was at work (as an programmer/engineer/manager), and my mother was not particularly strong in the sciences at which I excelled. By 7th grade, I had surpassed their knowledge of basic science, and especially anything computer-related. My daily lesson plan devolved into a cycle of reading material I mostly already knew, asking questions to which I wouldn't get answers, and eventually doing a half-assed job in other subjects to meet the required level of completion that would let me escape to more entertaining things, like teaching myself another programming language.
In retrospect, the single thing my parents did right, above all else, was to teach me how to learn. By the time I got to the public high school, I was able to appreciate my classes as a source of knowledge, rather than a daily prison forcing doctrine into my head. That survives to this day, and is one of the main reasons why I continue to find new fascinating things to explore and learn about the world.
My advice, as someone who survived, is to see homeschooling as a chance to influence the core values your child uses through the rest of his life. Emphasize sportsmanship, creativity, logic... whatever you hope for your child, you can instill at an early age, but you should also be aware of your limits. As soon as your child needs something more than you can supply, you must put their needs first, and send them somewhere with more resources.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
By socializing with adults, your child can learn how to socialize with adults. That will help your child prepare for the adult world.
You should also probably try to balance this with other activities where your child can learn to interact with children. Children can be really nasty to each other. But in voluntary activities (basically anything except school), your child can do what adults do when someone is nasty to them: escape and stop interacting with nasty people. Your child won't have the opportunity schoolchildren have, to be bullied every day with no escape and no recourse.
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.
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
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.
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.
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That is *exactly* the most compelling thing about homeschooling. You usually have very little choice...
That's the problem though. Who is this 'you': the parent or the child? I strongly suspect the former either directly or by subtle influence e.g. I'd better not choose history because mum thinks it is a waste of time or because mum knows nothing about it and so the lessons are boring etc.
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.
Are these papers that you have looked at or is this just the usual education spin machine? I've stopped trusting any educational claims that are not backed up by papers I can read because half the time the results of those papers are misrepresented, not relevant to the given situation and/or heavily biased. For example do they compare similar cultural backgrounds? Do they normalize for intelligence by measuring improvement instead of absolute performance? Do they understand statistics? (you'd be amazed how 1 sigma deviations can get claimed as "evidence") etc. etc. It is very hard to accurately measure teaching.
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.
Not in Canada they aren't. If anything there is far too little learning of facts are far too much of the "discovery learning" approach. Your description of the state school system is nothing like the one we have...having said that I'm not at all happy with the system we have but I'd still rank it as far better than home schooling.
Real teaching is also about drawing up a good curriculum
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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...
About 35% of people 25 to 29 have bachelors degrees. So did your pubic school fail to teach you what an average is?
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.
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.
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 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
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.