Home-schooling

[Roe]

I homeschool my youngest.  My older two went to public school though I wish I could go back in time and homeschool them.

We started homeschooling about 4 years ago due to health reasons.  The heath issue was resolved but we continued to h'school.  We enjoyed it so much and it gave my son the confidence that private school didn't give him.  (he went to a private school for pre-K). 

First day of Kindergarten, he tells me "mom, I'm not that smart."  (said with the biggest eyes ever!)  Broke my heart. Imagine a child saying that to you!  By the end of that year, he was telling his brothers what a genius he was!

It was an easy decision to make, homeschooling just works better for him. 

And don't let the name "home"school fool you, we are hardly ever home!  The age-old socialization question needs to die!!!  It's so outdated and foolish to think that h'schoolers don't socialize.  My son is involved in 2 co-ops where he takes great classes and has a number of really good friends.  He's not the type of kid to have tons of acquaintances (many are, but he isn't) but the friends he does have are true! 

My son also has time to take private piano lessons, join sports and has time to be creative. He has time to follow his interests and we take several field trips. (Wed. we have tickets to a play about the Civil War)  DC is a great place to h'school but many cities have wonderful museums and classes available outside the home.

And for the record, I do have a degree in teaching but anyone can teach. No really, I mean that.  Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.  Want to know why?  Because a parent not only adores and loves that child unconditionally but a parent will feel the enormous weight of responsibility that not all teachers feel for every student. (many do, but many don't)  As a homeschooling parent, I am aware, each and every day that I CAN'T.SCREW.THIS.UP.  And I take my 'job' very seriously.   

[Sharnita]

But sadly not every parent feels that, though of course they should and not every parent knows how to translate those desire into the correct action.  There certainly are a lot of parents who do a great job but there are parents like the one who indulge their child thinking they are doing what is best.  Just like any other type of schooling, the quality of home schooling instructor can vary widely. 

[Roe]

DH and I haven't got kids, though we're planning on them. We've both had bad experiences with schooling with bullying and bad teachers. We wouldn't home school by choice, but I have part of a teaching degree and I'd pull them out if there were problems, but only temporarily.

I have come across homeschooled kids in my training, but what I've seen hasn't impressed me. One girl argued with me all day and wouldn't stop talking. The girls at her desk wanted her to be quiet! Another girl was...uneven. She was a brilliant artist but behind in maths and wrote like a child two years below her.

So yeah, my feelings are mixed about homeschooling.

That's like saying "I once met a public school child and she was horrible!  She wouldn't quiet down and she wouldn't stop talking.  All public school children are loud talkers!"

Just like public school children, homeschooled children vary.   

[Roe]

But sadly not every parent feels that, though of course they should and not every parent knows how to translate those desire into the correct action.  There certainly are a lot of parents who do a great job but there are parents like the one who indulge their child thinking they are doing what is best.  Just like any other type of schooling, the quality of home schooling instructor can vary widely.

Honestly, I've never met a homeschooling parent who doesn't feel that way.  (I've h'schooled in two states)  And I've never met another homeschooling parent who isn't capable. 

I'm sure they exist but, in my experience, they aren't the norm.  Most feel that "I can't screw this up" sense of responsibility.

Most homeschooling parents I've met don't indulge their children.  As a matter of fact, most of the  parents I've met, who indulge their children, are public school families.  As h'schooling parents, if we indulge our children, we would be doing a great disservice to them, plus it would make our job much harder than it has to be so, again IMO, that hasn't been the case.

[Aluminum]

Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.

I find this statement to be shockingly condescending and very offensive to those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching.  One wouldn't say this about their children's paediatrician or spiritual leader in such a blanket, flat-out statement of fact; why do teachers earn this disrespect?

edited to fix quote

[kareng57]

Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.

I find this statement to be shockingly condescending and very offensive to those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching.  One wouldn't say this about their children's paediatrician or spiritual leader in such a blanket, flat-out statement of fact; why do teachers earn this disrespect?

edited to fix quote

I would have to agree.  I tried to teach music-lessons to my own son - it only took a few weeks to realize that it just would not work.  It was not that I didn't have the knowledge - but I wasn't a teacher.  Most of my "lessons" ended up with at least one of us in tears.

A short time later, we registered him with a student teacher.  Parents are not always great teachers.

[afbluebelle]

I'll be the first to say that I would probably be a horrible teacher. That's why I didn't try to become one. Unless it was autoshop... I'd be an awesome auto shop teacher!

[mbbored]

Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.

I find this statement to be shockingly condescending and very offensive to those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching.  One wouldn't say this about their children's paediatrician or spiritual leader in such a blanket, flat-out statement of fact; why do teachers earn this disrespect?

edited to fix quote

I would have to agree.  I tried to teach music-lessons to my own son - it only took a few weeks to realize that it just would not work.  It was not that I didn't have the knowledge - but I wasn't a teacher.  Most of my "lessons" ended up with at least one of us in tears.

A short time later, we registered him with a student teacher.  Parents are not always great teachers.

I imagine homeschooling versus traditional schooling is like most things in life: it depends on the student and it depends the learning environment.

I have friends who were home schooled and are now brilliant, well rounded and interesting adults who never suffered socially and I know many people who were really successful academically and socially in traditional schools. Frequently I think of a few friends I grew up with who would have really benefited from a more individualized approach outside of the pressure cooker school cliques.

I also have a set of cousins who were home schooled for religious reasons. Most of them did just fine. One totally rebelled against the more limited environment, was thrown out of the house and has really struggled to find his way in the world. His youngest sister suffers from an undiagnosed learning disability since her mother was not up to the task of adapting to her daughter's needs. She's now a high school drop out and I wonder if she had been enrolled in a more mainstream school somebody would have been able to identify her learning disability and she could have graduated with her peers.

[Slartibartfast]

Local homeschooling resources vary widely, too.  Some places have a strong homeschool community, so businesses like the YMCA offer specific homeschool gym classes and the like.  Other places have almost no support for homeschooling families, so the parents have to come up with everything on their own.  In some areas, the homeschooling resources are overwhelmingly aimed for one demographic (usually white and strongly Christian), but in other areas there may be a wider variety of ideologies available.  Where I live it's split - you can find homeschooling groups which are completely non-religious, but you can also find groups of frighteningly zealous parents who homeschool to shield their children from the evils of {atheists, boys, Santa, mini-skirts, fluorinated drinking water, or insert your own potential evil influence here}.  There are definitely some places in the US where if you want to homeschool, the only resources available will be ones that don't fit with your parenting worldview.

[Roe]

Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.

I find this statement to be shockingly condescending and very offensive to those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching.  One wouldn't say this about their children's paediatrician or spiritual leader in such a blanket, flat-out statement of fact; why do teachers earn this disrespect?

edited to fix quote

I'm a trained teacher and have many teacher friends.  I support teachers 100%.  I didn't mean to disrespect teachers but more to give confidence to parents.  Parents are their children's first teachers.  And yes, I do think parents are the best teachers for their children.  As such, parents can also recognize when they need to go outside the home for instruction.  (ie: piano lessons for my son) 

[Roe]

Any parent can teach their child better than a school teacher.

I find this statement to be shockingly condescending and very offensive to those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to teaching.  One wouldn't say this about their children's paediatrician or spiritual leader in such a blanket, flat-out statement of fact; why do teachers earn this disrespect?

edited to fix quote

I would have to agree.  I tried to teach music-lessons to my own son - it only took a few weeks to realize that it just would not work.  It was not that I didn't have the knowledge - but I wasn't a teacher.  Most of my "lessons" ended up with at least one of us in tears.

A short time later, we registered him with a student teacher.  Parents are not always great teachers.

No, but you recognized the fact that you needed assistance and went in search of how to better serve your child.

[Carotte]

I've seen plenty of teacher that have no pedagogy what so ever, to the point of being detrimental to their students, and I remember ending up crying after my dad tried to 'explain' something to me in math when I was 12; it was really easy I just needed to grasp the concept but he has no pedagogy either.
I think that some parents would do just fine until some form  of frustration comes up; usually the kid doesn't understand something that you believe is dead simple. If they don't have the resources or tools to approach it with a different angle then it won't work. After years of teaching hundred of kids the teachers will be most likely to have those tools, but they don't always have the time or want to.

[Roe]

After years of teaching hundred of kids the teachers will be most likely to have those tools, but they don't always have the time or want to.

I agree and this is why I think parents make the best teachers for their children. (whether h'schooling plays into it or not is besides the point) 

Thank you Carotte for saying it so much better than I could.   

(note: Just so I am not misunderstood, I'm not saying *all* teachers.  I have worked in schools before and I've seen it much too often, a teacher withered down by years of struggle that he/she no longer has much energy for the student who truly needs help.) 

[Jones]

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.

[Thipu1]

This is a very interesting thread.  It's given me some home schooling of my own. 

If you stop to think of it, involved parents of students in traditional schools do quite a bit of home schooling.  They buy books for enrichment or borrow them from the public library.  They take their children to cultural events and discuss news stories at home.

Just like home schoolers, they take education seriously.