My feelings on homeschooling are incredibly mixed, mainly because of my own experiences. This is long; skip to the end if you want.
I attended public elementary school from K-4th grade. Then my parents had a falling out with the school board and various schools in the district and decided to pull my sibs and me from the system to be homeschooled. That was also the year a homeschool-assisting “private school” came to town (they met 9 hours a week and basically assigned homework for kids to do with their parents). It was religious based, which I have no problem with, but looking back now the science curriculum really was a joke. Plus, my parents and the teacher couldn’t answer a lot of my science-related questions, though they were all great at English and history. I also passed my parents and my teacher in math by the time I hit 14-ish years old.
As for socializing? It was a tiny group and I was the only person my age. I was the youngest of the “senior” group (teens) and too smart for the “junior” group (elementary). As such I was resented by the olders and ignored by the youngers. Homeschool related gatherings outside that particular group, involving a number of kids in a multi-county area, were “my kid is smarter in X than yours” competitions. There was one girl my age at church, and once I figured out she was a big liar who got her kicks from embarrassing me I cut a lot of my church activities. We didn’t have money for sports; the money went to the homeschooling program, so I wasn’t in any. My social life outside my family was nil.
It was determined by age 15 that I could go to high school. That first year I had college-level biology and chemistry, per my parents' request; I was amazed at both, the teachers had ANSWERS. Sometimes I didn’t understand the technicalities but I was relieved that they knew what they were talking about. I tested into a high-level algebra/pre-trig class, where I actually did cry one day because I could understand the new concepts the teacher put forth.
I informed my parents that I wanted to finish high school and get a real diploma instead of a GED. They weren’t sure, and I spent a lot of my high school time “hanging on a thread” as they threatened to pull me out over and over again. I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t skip class or set fire to anything; I got all A’s and B’s. I had a very hard time seeing things from their angle and greatly resented their repeated assurances that my high school experience was a mistake.
As for socializing? When I wasn’t brown-nosing the teachers I was making a lot of embarrassing mistakes with my peers. Yes, I know that we all do, but I hadn’t had a real sex talk (I knew basic biomechanics and that was really it), and I hadn’t been around other just-hitting-puberty kids when I was going through that. Basically I was a kid in a candy store: Lots of good looking, grownup looking guys in that school, and I was a very naive Sue Heck from The Middle. I will not go into some of the more embarrassing mistakes of my teenage-hood; suffice to say that I still have bad dreams about some of them (my high school 10 year reunion is this summer) and I do feel that quite a few could have been diverted with a REAL sex-ed talk and class. Other mistakes, I think, would have been avoided if I could have been around a group of girls during my coming of age process. Things my mom took for granted would have been desperately good to know a bit earlier in life.
Conclusion: I am the most book-smart of my sibs, but several of them did well homeschooling. All of us who are of the right age either have a HS diploma or a GED, those of us who are older have some sort of college/technical schooling (except one brother whom I’ve mentioned in the Scammers thread).
TL;DR: I can see how some people need home-based, one-on-one schooling, but it will take a lot of dead ends at school before I pull my kids out of the system and try to teach them myself.
ETA: Since this is an etiquette forum, I'd like to point out that not only did we have minimal manners training but at the local homeschooling activities I went to, there was a big lack of manners-everyone talking over each other, interrupting recitalists, generally rude comments. Not just kids but their parents. Prossibly just the area I grew up in, but it was a trend that was flourishing last time I attended, slightly over 10 years ago.
