I use the word "infesting" because it's Ladybug infestation season where I am. Right now there's about 150 of those little boogers right above my head "doing their business"... hope they leave me alone while I sleep.
Homeschooling isn't for everybody. I'm sure it takes a certain type of person, and perhaps your child is the type of kid who *has* to have peer pressure to thrive. It just all depends on the kid...but if your kid is "homeschooling material," IMHO it would be much better for him than a public/private school.
ALSO: You can blame any typos or dumb things about this and my previous post on my being homeschool if you want, but I'm just as human as anybody else and when I start off Monday with only a few hours of sleep over the weekend (even homeschoolers have to party!) bad things are bound to happen! =)
I know this topic is getting a lot of attention, but I thought I'd try and post something with a balance; and I'll try to be unbiased.
First of all let me mention that I've been homeschooled all my life. I graduated in 1999 and pretty much immediately started up my own computer solutions/web development/you name it company. I'm currently making more than anyone else I know my age (19, almost 20) and I'm having a blast doing it.
I consider myself rather popular. I have many friends in all different kinds of circles ("geek" and other computer friends, public school friends, other homeschool friends, church friends, band/music friends, etc). I am considered very outgoing and have been told by 7 or 8 of my friends that I'm the easiest person to talk to that they know (3 of those are public schoolers, a few others are church friends, etc). When I tell people that I was homeschooled all my life, most of them are surprised. When I tell them that I'm also a computer programmer, they are usually shocked...
OK, enough about me. Let's talk about me being homeschooled.
Let me give you some of the "up" sides to homeschooling from my experience...
1. Being homeschooled allowed me the opportunity to focus more on what I wanted to do, and less on the requirements for a high school diploma. In my state (and it varies from state to state) we are only *required* 4 hours of school time (they figured that in a normal public school day a student is only really at his/her desk doing school work an average of 4 hours). I could get up at 6 in the morning if I wanted to, have all my school work done by 10 or 11am, and spend the rest of the day coding, chatting, or just sleeping. Also, when you think about it, you could probably count at least some of what you like to do anyway in your spare time as High School credit (especially if you like computers).
2. The degrading lifestyle of drugs/sex/drinking/whatever never was something that was in my face and easy to get into. I'm not attacking anybody who lives that kind of lifestyle because it's your own choice and if that's what you want to do that's alright with me, but it was never even a temptation for me. Growing up under my parents all the time caused me to learn self-discipline early and forced me to grow up quickly in certain areas. It also taught me a lot of self-confidence and assurance in my life. I'm a respected person in my circle of friends who is known as someone with good morals and a high standard of living. Everybody I know trusts me and is comfortable around me. I've heard stories about several deans of admittance who have said they actually like admitting homeschoolers over public schoolers because a homeschooler is generally a better studend and less of a trouble maker than a public schooler. Now I'm not saying that to upset anyone and I know there's probably a lot of discrepancy, but think about it for a minute.
3. I didn't have to deal with being "unpopular" and the "everybody hates me nobody likes me guess I'll go eat worms" thing that public school does to some people. I didn't have to "just say no to drugs" because there was never the offer. I never had to deal with the highschool bully picking a fight with me.
4. Being homeschooled gave me the opportunity to travel a lot. I've been to 46 of the 50 United States, I've been to 6+ different countries. I've been to 4 different continents. It was easy to do school on the go, plus, much of what we did while we were traveling counted as school. Spend a while overseas for some foreign language credits, a week in Washington DC for some US History credits. Egypt for some world history credits. You get the picture.
There are more ups, but this is getting long:/
So, on the "down" sides...
1. If you're homeschooled and you don't have a parent or "teacher" monitoring you progress, it's easy to slip up and find yourself playing a computer game or writing emails on school time. Also, being at home is often distracting when you're trying to do school work. If you're not responsible, you could find yourself getting as much as a year behind in your school work. I would honestly say my grammar and spelling might not be up to par, simply because Myst/Journeyman Project was distracting and I didn't exercize the self-discipline to really study hard on it and not be distracted.
2. Socialization has always been a *huge* deal about homeschooling...but it's not as big a deal as people make it. If you're a computer guy, you can find lots of socialization online. If you like sports, you can make tons of friends in sports. If you like the church thing, there's good people to grow up with there too. Only about half of my friends thorough out my school life (and I had many) were homeschooled. The others I met in drama clubs, church, youth groups, online, music clubs (bands), etc. Basically, if your kid can talk, and likes to do something that other kids like to do. Push him into getting involved with groups in whatever that is and socialization is no problem at all. Also, socialization isn't just a homeschool thing. The ratio of kids that have 0 personality in public school is about the same if not more than the ratio of kids that have 0 personality that are homeschooled.
3. A lot of the way the world is today is molded to fit someone coming out of high school or college. I've never been in a real "class" before so I have no idea what it's like. The words "semester" and "recess" or "the bell" don't mean much to me. Raising my hand was a strange idea to me for a while.
4. The stereotype. Sometimes I get "dissed" at first glance for being homeschooled. Most of the time it doesn't matter, especially since I own my own business, but it might hurt me in a few areas if that wasn't the case. I doubt it would really matter that much, but you never know.
I hope this has been ah informative and balanced view on homeschooling. I wouldn't trade my schooling experience for anything, but, I'm not quite sure I'm going to homeschool my own kids. It all depends on what the schools in my area are like, what I as a parent and adult am doing at the time, and a lot of other things.
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Scared yet?
I use the word "infesting" because it's Ladybug infestation season where I am. Right now there's about 150 of those little boogers right above my head "doing their business" ... hope they leave me alone while I sleep.
I'm a karma newbie...be nice =PThink this will delay the US release date? Hope not... "Whoops" heh...
One more thought:
Homeschooling isn't for everybody. I'm sure it takes a certain type of person, and perhaps your child is the type of kid who *has* to have peer pressure to thrive. It just all depends on the kid...but if your kid is "homeschooling material," IMHO it would be much better for him than a public/private school.
ALSO: You can blame any typos or dumb things about this and my previous post on my being homeschool if you want, but I'm just as human as anybody else and when I start off Monday with only a few hours of sleep over the weekend (even homeschoolers have to party!) bad things are bound to happen! =)
Peace!
I know this topic is getting a lot of attention, but I thought I'd try and post something with a balance; and I'll try to be unbiased.
:/
First of all let me mention that I've been homeschooled all my life. I graduated in 1999 and pretty much immediately started up my own computer solutions/web development/you name it company. I'm currently making more than anyone else I know my age (19, almost 20) and I'm having a blast doing it.
I consider myself rather popular. I have many friends in all different kinds of circles ("geek" and other computer friends, public school friends, other homeschool friends, church friends, band/music friends, etc). I am considered very outgoing and have been told by 7 or 8 of my friends that I'm the easiest person to talk to that they know (3 of those are public schoolers, a few others are church friends, etc). When I tell people that I was homeschooled all my life, most of them are surprised. When I tell them that I'm also a computer programmer, they are usually shocked...
OK, enough about me. Let's talk about me being homeschooled.
Let me give you some of the "up" sides to homeschooling from my experience...
1. Being homeschooled allowed me the opportunity to focus more on what I wanted to do, and less on the requirements for a high school diploma. In my state (and it varies from state to state) we are only *required* 4 hours of school time (they figured that in a normal public school day a student is only really at his/her desk doing school work an average of 4 hours). I could get up at 6 in the morning if I wanted to, have all my school work done by 10 or 11am, and spend the rest of the day coding, chatting, or just sleeping. Also, when you think about it, you could probably count at least some of what you like to do anyway in your spare time as High School credit (especially if you like computers).
2. The degrading lifestyle of drugs/sex/drinking/whatever never was something that was in my face and easy to get into. I'm not attacking anybody who lives that kind of lifestyle because it's your own choice and if that's what you want to do that's alright with me, but it was never even a temptation for me. Growing up under my parents all the time caused me to learn self-discipline early and forced me to grow up quickly in certain areas. It also taught me a lot of self-confidence and assurance in my life. I'm a respected person in my circle of friends who is known as someone with good morals and a high standard of living. Everybody I know trusts me and is comfortable around me. I've heard stories about several deans of admittance who have said they actually like admitting homeschoolers over public schoolers because a homeschooler is generally a better studend and less of a trouble maker than a public schooler. Now I'm not saying that to upset anyone and I know there's probably a lot of discrepancy, but think about it for a minute.
3. I didn't have to deal with being "unpopular" and the "everybody hates me nobody likes me guess I'll go eat worms" thing that public school does to some people. I didn't have to "just say no to drugs" because there was never the offer. I never had to deal with the highschool bully picking a fight with me.
4. Being homeschooled gave me the opportunity to travel a lot. I've been to 46 of the 50 United States, I've been to 6+ different countries. I've been to 4 different continents. It was easy to do school on the go, plus, much of what we did while we were traveling counted as school. Spend a while overseas for some foreign language credits, a week in Washington DC for some US History credits. Egypt for some world history credits. You get the picture.
There are more ups, but this is getting long
So, on the "down" sides...
1. If you're homeschooled and you don't have a parent or "teacher" monitoring you progress, it's easy to slip up and find yourself playing a computer game or writing emails on school time. Also, being at home is often distracting when you're trying to do school work. If you're not responsible, you could find yourself getting as much as a year behind in your school work. I would honestly say my grammar and spelling might not be up to par, simply because Myst/Journeyman Project was distracting and I didn't exercize the self-discipline to really study hard on it and not be distracted.
2. Socialization has always been a *huge* deal about homeschooling...but it's not as big a deal as people make it. If you're a computer guy, you can find lots of socialization online. If you like sports, you can make tons of friends in sports. If you like the church thing, there's good people to grow up with there too. Only about half of my friends thorough out my school life (and I had many) were homeschooled. The others I met in drama clubs, church, youth groups, online, music clubs (bands), etc. Basically, if your kid can talk, and likes to do something that other kids like to do. Push him into getting involved with groups in whatever that is and socialization is no problem at all. Also, socialization isn't just a homeschool thing. The ratio of kids that have 0 personality in public school is about the same if not more than the ratio of kids that have 0 personality that are homeschooled.
3. A lot of the way the world is today is molded to fit someone coming out of high school or college. I've never been in a real "class" before so I have no idea what it's like. The words "semester" and "recess" or "the bell" don't mean much to me. Raising my hand was a strange idea to me for a while.
4. The stereotype. Sometimes I get "dissed" at first glance for being homeschooled. Most of the time it doesn't matter, especially since I own my own business, but it might hurt me in a few areas if that wasn't the case. I doubt it would really matter that much, but you never know.
I hope this has been ah informative and balanced view on homeschooling. I wouldn't trade my schooling experience for anything, but, I'm not quite sure I'm going to homeschool my own kids. It all depends on what the schools in my area are like, what I as a parent and adult am doing at the time, and a lot of other things.