[Willowy]

OK, keep religion out of it, we don't want this one shut down . But I do like to get a good homeschooling discussion going. I'm starting with a modified version of my response to the last thread, so it might seem a little disconnected.

I don't believe anybody isn't "qualified" to teach their own kids. That's what the teacher's guides that come with the textbooks are for. I've met public/private-school teachers who depend on the teacher's guides entirely, and couldn't tell you ANYTHING about the subject off the top of their heads. And at least any parent who is willing to have their kids around all day actually cares about their kids. That's more than I can say about most teachers (or parents!).

Unless a parent is homeschooling just so that they can abuse their kids without being turned in by the teachers (yes, it happens), I believe kids are always better off being homeschooled. But that's just my opinion. I've never had a good experience with any kind of school.

And besides, older kids basically "teach" themselves, the parents don't necessarily have to do anything. If a teenager wants to learn about something that the parents don't have any experience with, they can usually take classes at a community college or audit a university class.....the first year of college is essentially a re-run of the last 4 years of high school anyway.

Personally, I was unschooled......we didn't really do anything that might be considered actual "schoolwork". Oh, my mom tried---we had textbooks all over the house---but she wasn't organized enough to implement any kind of curriculum. But, I can construct a comprehensible sentence, balance my checkbook (to the penny!), and hold down a decent job, so I'm ahead of a lot of other people I know who did go to school.

I believe I got a decent all-around education. All those hours I spent at the library, reading all the new books they got in (because I had read all of the old books--it was a small library) had to help. And my mom used to subscribe to almost every magazine ever published, so that must have been helpful, too. I LOVE Smithsonian and Discover magazines.

Oh---not all homeschooled kids are really well-behaved. But, since they do get more attention from their parents, I guess maybe the percentage of well-behaved kids is higher in the homeschool community. But I always hate to hear about those perfect homeschooling families. You know, the ones where all the kids started reading when they were 2 years old, speak 6 different languages fluently, play 4 different musical instruments, make perfect scores on all possible tests, and are cheerful, willing, obedient, polite and industrious at all times. Ugh. Not that there's anything wrong with being perfect, if you can manage it, but they sure make the rest of us normal people feel inadequate .

[iwantmypup]

I am not a huge homeschooling fan, but I am sure there are certain times where it is good. But I don't think i could ever be homeschooled..

[emily445455]

I'm considering homeschooling, partly because there is more one-on-one attention between student and "teacher", and partly because of the issue we're not discussing on this thread

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by Willowy

I don't believe anybody isn't "qualified" to teach their own kids. That's what the teacher's guides that come with the textbooks are for. I've met public/private-school teachers who depend on the teacher's guides entirely, and couldn't tell you ANYTHING about the subject off the top of their heads. And at least any parent who is willing to have their kids around all day actually cares about their kids. That's more than I can say about most teachers (or parents!).

I totally disagree with this.... I think that teaching a child especially on the high school level is a big deal and I do believe that there are people who are NOT qualified to teach..... I am not saying that all schools do a great or even a good job... but I have seen some very uneducated people, some very inarticulate people.... and shoot like I said.... I can't even imagine being able to teach upper level science or math courses....

While there are some great homeschoolers out there..... and I think that homeschool certainly has its place.... I have concerns about people homeschooling for the wrong reasons and who are not qualified to homeschool....

And besides, older kids basically "teach" themselves, the parents don't necessarily have to do anything. If a teenager wants to learn about something that the parents don't have any experience with, they can usually take classes at a community college or audit a university class.....the first year of college is essentially a re-run of the last 4 years of high school anyway.

oh don't even get me started about this.... do you know how many freshman in college I teach who flunk out after there first semester ???? who aren't ready for college??? who don't know how to create a comprehensible sentence????

While there is some remedial work in college it is not meant to be a rerun of four years of high school because a kid didn't learn what they needed to learn either at home or in a public school.....

To say that a kid can be home schooled with someone not qualified to teach because shoot they teach themselves.... that just confirms to me how low your standards are for teaching excellence....

Personally, I was unschooled......we didn't really do anything that might be considered actual "schoolwork". Oh, my mom tried---we had textbooks all over the house---but she wasn't organized enough to implement any kind of curriculum. But, I can construct a comprehensible sentence, balance my checkbook (to the penny!), and hold down a decent job, so I'm ahead of a lot of other people I know who did go to school.

the fact that your mother wasn't organized enough and you were "unschooled" just basically confirms why I don't support home schooling in all situations and judging from what has been said in the other thread.... again it just confirms that not all parents can be responsible enough to home school....

I guess my question for you is "what is a decent job" ???? and what is a comprehensible sentence??? because I would guess that your ideas regarding those things and mine would be very very different.....

[skunkstripe]

I'm going to disagree too.

If you can speak, read and write reasonable well and balance a checkbook, that's great, but I expect a LOT more from someone with a high school education. If I had been your child, I wonder whether you would have been able to provide me with the education in calculus and physics which has served me well during my lifetime. I'm not saying everyone needs those, but in a school where those options are available, some will benefit. If you take them away from everyone, you've created one more 'dumb-down' step and heaven knows we have enough of those.

There are people who will do well even under rotten educational conditions, just as there are those who will avoid learning a blessed thing even if given all possible opportunities. You cannot base an educational system on either of those two extremes.

The purpose of the educational is (was) to make sure that a certain level of knowledge in a broad subject area is guaranteed. Unfortunately between tying funds for schools to local property taxes, making the schools ersatz parents, and educators meddling around trying out theoretical concepts on human guinea pigs, the Amercian school system is basically in the toilet as far as I'm concerned. And don't get me started on "no child left a dime." Even so, I'd still rather see that than some parent or group of parents playing teacher. If they insist on doing so, then the kid needs to be subjected to standardized tests and here's my reason why.

I have a friend who was raised in a commune. Not his choice, it was his parents' decision. This commune claimed to be educating the children according to the standards set by the state of VT. Well guess what, they weren't. They had the kids working on the farms doing child labor and didn't give a rat's patootie about the kids' education. His parents bailed out when he was a teenager and by then it was too late. He is now 25 and by his own admission cannot do simple mathematics. He'd love to get a job as a machinist, but he can't even understand the simple fractions expected of one. He's got a job doing what he was doing when he was 12: manual labor. He asked me to tutor him and while I am happy to help, there are programs that offer one-on-one for people like him. So look what happens- the state ends up stepping in and re-educating these people at a huge cost to the taxpayer. It's more effective teaching 25-30 at once instead of one-on-one. The same thing can happen when parents think they can teach their kids at the high school level on each and every subject.

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon, but I think it's time for the schools to stop being parents and the parents to stop being teachers. The schools should be teaching kids SUBJECTS like math, English, history, biological and natural sciences and also providing an environment where they have to get along with their peers. Parents need to be parents and teach their kids manners, responsibility, and provide for religious education if they wish.

[FriendsOfZoe]

Well, as someone who is changing plans in order to become a high-school history teacher in urban public schools, I have to suggest that I find it offensive that so many people believe that anyone is qualified to teach their kids. I guess that's the old adage of "if you can't do; teach" creeping up again, but the truth is that teachers are highly educated and highly qualified. The curriculum is not the hard part about teaching, especially in elementary levels; the tricks of actually getting a child to LEARN and be interested are the hard part.

I do have to add that high school curriculums are not completely easy either...teachers constantly undergo training processes that allow them to learn new trends and new ideas in the curriculum. And to speak from my experience now, when I am teaching elementary school children, the trouble is not that you don't know the things they are learning, the trouble is in constantly presenting it in new and exciting ways so that the children can actually take an interest and learn.

Now, for this whole "unschooled" issue, I want to add that public schools prepare people for life. I am being honest when I say that I was often bored in school, as I learned things much quicker than nearly all of my classmates. Instead of getting home schooled or going to a private school, I was forced to figure out how to supplement my education and seek out opportunities for myself. In high school, I took nearly every Advanced Placement course possible, so that I had more than a semester of college completed before I even started, and I worked hard enough to earn straight A's (or A+'s) and was the valedictorian of my class in addition to playing 3 sports, volunteering each week, being an officer in three clubs, working on the weekends, and still having time left over to chat on the phone with my friends about cute boys and such.

Now what does that say about me? Well, I had to learn how to find ways to challenge myself and to make my own opportunities to get ahead (if that's not classic American capitalism in training, I don't know what is). I went to a public, state university for free and continued to find every opportunity to get the best education I could out of that school, by seeking out special courses, completing a large senior thesis, taking graduate courses, and working with the best professors in my fields. If you are "underschooled" in public schools, it is simply because you did not seek out the alternative (or perhaps because your school didn't offer things like AP courses; which I regret for your sake, but offer my hope that all public schools will soon have the funding for both special/alternative education and for gifted opportunities).

Special education brings up another good point. The kids I know of that are most frequently homeschooled are the gifted (because "they're bored") and those with special needs. Special education requires a lot of training and it is my belief that no child with severe learning or other mental disabilities should be learning without the aid of a licensed, educated professional.

Next, a note on curriculum...I will be the first to say that I can't stand the public school emphasis on strict curricula (or especially on standardized testing), but we really have not come up with a better alternative yet. But it is highly unlikely that any parent will have the tools at their homes to have their children perform the necessary laboratory experiments that come with the science curriculum and the like.

Finally, I want to add that there are perhaps times when I believe it's okay for some children to be homeschooled (I can't think of any right now, but still, I won't deny it completely). However, the reasons that I have heard given for homeschooling are not only untrue but entirely offensive to those individuals who have devoted their lives to educating YOUR children. Additionally, that first article that was posted on the other thread was inherently flawed--it was not suggesting anything about home schooling but rather about parents being able to control their children (and somehow, my parents never had any trouble controlling my public-school-educated brother or myself) and trying to suggest that parents are selfish for working instead of staying home with their children--which is a beautiful fantasy, but completely out of touch with reality--where so many kids are raised by a single parent or already live in meager conditions while both parents work full time, maybe even double time.

[sillylilykitty]

I know 2 families that homeschooled all their kids (3 or more each) until they reached high school. Then they went to public school for that, that way they could play high school sports and other things like that.

[harrise]

The bigger question is: How do we fix all of this? Whether home or public school, we are pumping out inadequate citizens every day in alarming numbers. When I left high school at 16, I went and took the equivalancy test two weeks later. It was then I realized how bad the setup was (1996). If that's all the knowledge needed, I could have dropped out at 13-14 years old.

For me the problem with the public system is the achingly lethargic rate at which learning takes place. I have the ability to take in and retain information faster than most. That makes the structured learning environment a torturous lesson in patience and frustration.

Also, I have never personally met a homeschooler who actually completed anything. Willowy's description of a house full of materials and an "instructor" woefully out of her league is the only thing I've witnessed on that front. My Grandma taught me most evrything I needed to get through the bit of school I did. It certainly was not due to a teacher. Now I learn everything on my own, and typically with great success.

... and I don't believe I would have the opportunity to stop working for a couple of years to change my career path had I continued through the "system".

FOZ: I have seen enough credit reports (literally thousands) in my life to tell you that public schools are inadequate to set people up for what really happens afterward.

[RonE]

I know too many parents who seem incapable of helping their own children with their homework to believe that anyone can teach.

I have a friend who was a teacher before she became a stay-at-home mom. Her older child went to public school but her younger one had some special needs that led to a decision to home-school him. The parents made a special point to get him involved in youth activities so that he learned the necessary social skills. I think they did a great job, but I know for sure it was a 60 hour/week job - over and above the normal parenting obligations.

[duck_girl]

I'm homeschooled.
All I want to say is that, despite popular belief, yes, we DO have friends! I got tons! I just got home from a campout! (we stayed up till 5:00 am). That's all there is I have say 'bout that.

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by duck_girl

I'm homeschooled.
All I want to say is that, despite popular belief, yes, we DO have friends! I got tons! I just got home from a campout! (we stayed up till 5:00 am). That's all there is I have say 'bout that.

who said anything about friends..... it seems most of the discussion has concerned quality of education.
s

[harrise]

Originally Posted by duck_girl

All I want to say is that, despite popular belief, yes, we DO have friends!

I have always viewed that particular claim as more of a stereotype... ¿?

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by harrise

I have always viewed that particular claim as more of a stereotype... ¿?

I agree, most homeschooled families that I know of go out of their way to make sure their kids are involved and have friends.....

that to me is not a concern.... quality of education is more of a concern....

[harrise]

Originally Posted by Shalva

... quality of education is more of a concern...

Precisely. I believe the public system has a very solid foundation on which a few things need to be added to benefit more of society. Namely more emphasis on economics (personal vs societal), and credit. Oh golly gee I wish credit was discussed more in depth in schools...

Although, I wouldn't be here talking to you kind folk if more people understood finances and credit better.

[briteday]

We have homeschooled our daughter at various times. She is now almost 17 and will be attending the university this fall. Our daughter is bright and sitting all day waiting for the others (especially since she has spent all of her educational career under NCLB) is ponderous for her at best and a waste of time at worst.

When she has been in public school we supplemented her after school and on weekends with more rigorous material or expanding on areas in which she was interested. When we homeschooled it was because she was far enough ahead (in elementary school) that they suggested skipping her a grade or two (and she's already the youngest in her class due to her birthdate) and the school had no opportunities to expand her horizons during a regular class day. We found most teachers unwilling to differentiate any of the assignments or material to be taught during the year. (I will admit that our state does not score very high on any scale of academic ability)

Her third grade teacher put her at a table in the back corner of the room, told me I could choose whatever it was that I thought my daughter should be learning from (since the teacher told me she had no knowledge of materials above the only grade level she had ever taught...for 25+ years), and that standardized tests would be the proof if she was learning. I agreed to provide all of the language arts materials and teaching but asked that my daughter be included in math, science, and any other extra activities such as art and music. I concentrated on using the language arts materials to expand my daughter's knowledge of all different areas. It required me to volunteer at the school 2 mornings per week and work with my daughter after school and on weekends. I left the rest up to the teacher. At the end of the year my daughter scored in the 99th percentile in reading but she had 0's on the ITED's in multiplication, a usual 3rd grade skill. I confronted the teacher who told me that it was more important that the children internalize a "concept" (such as a table has four legs, so four tables would have sixteen legs) rather than memorize multiplication tables. Hmmm...I think they told me the same thing when I questioned reading by phonics vs. sight reading. My husband, a teacher in our district, spent the entire summer teaching our daughter math to catch her up to national norms.

We homeschooled 4th and 5th. Then our daughter wanted to go back for 6th. She decided to go back to homeschooling after a few months. The social studies teacher was showing videos every class period to learn American history (I think it was a series narrated by Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite). Being right after lunch and with the room darkened for the video, our daughter found herself drifting off mentally or literally falling asleep from boredom. The math teacher broke the glass on the overhead projector from banging on it so much while yelling at the kids. But the last straw was having the kids trade papers for homework correction. My daughter was consistently getting poor scores on homework. After a few weeks my husband looked into her assignments only to find that the other student was marking incorrectly. The teacher explained that our daughter's homework partner was a special needs student that she purposely paired up with our daughter for what she hoped would give the sp-ed student extra instruction...from our daughter. But in the meanwhile the teacher was not even spot checking the homework situation. So back to homeschooling we went.

Seventh grade went great as our daughter enjoyed going to the larger middle school and all of the social aspects that come along with that age group. Her English teacher was a new, young teacher who actually owned and used her red pen. I was always told by my daughter's teachers that they would not correct spelling or grammar errors on an essay because it would stifle her writing creativity, which apparently is more important to the district than creating a person who writes in a conventional manner that others can understand. The rest of her teachers were great as well and it was a good year. But at the end of that year two of her teachers told us that it was a waste for our daughter to be in 8th grade the next year as she already knew most of the material, but the district has no plan for younger students needing the challenge of high school curriculum.

So again we homeschooled. We worked more on higher level writing skills, went over all of American history...with a report each week on each president and their administration, continued on with the high school algebra that her 7th grade teacher had started her on, and dual enrolled her in French and chemistry at the community college. We also concentrated on geography (when was the last time anyone was taught states/capitals, mapping skills, or world geopraphy?), health/physical education, and computer skills.

9th grade...back to public school. Even though my husband teaches high school we felt that it was important for her to have professionals (other than us) teaching her upper level math and science. OK, that's good to a point. I happen to be a biochemist. My husband has degrees in history and vocational education.
The books read in "honors" English were not even at the high school grade level, most often leveled around 4-6th grade. The students never wrote anything more than a five paragraph essay. We felt the World Cultures history (also an honors class) was very well taught, but the teacher gave many difficult long-term assignments without ever grading them. The French teacher regularly gave 8-10 worksheets per class and said openly at Parent Night that they often piled up so quickly that he just pushes the piles off the corner of the desk into the garbage can. Biology was very well taught...chemistry not so much. Imagine my anger when my daughter came home with slight acid burns on her hands because no one had instructed the students that you always pour acid into water, not the other way around, BEFORE the lab.

Then they gave the first attempt at high school graduation proficiency exams in the spring of 10th grade. Our daughter passed all of them easily along with excellent scores on her SAT's and ITED's. To have our local high schools make the Newsweek Top 500 each year, the district has implemented an unwritten rule that all students, regardless of ability, must have one AP class every year. So the anticipation of being a junior and senior in classes with students of higher ability levels is now not the case. Again, she can only sit around while the lower ability students catch up.

A college advisor counseled us that perhaps our daughter should be done with public school and move on to higher education. He suggested that she attempt the placement exams at our local university to see if she would qualify to attend. It was surprising, even to us who knows she excels, that she could actually pass the tests. However, when all was done, the advisor reported back to us that she was welcome to apply to the university as she would be admitted easily. And further, that she could easily test out of all core English requirements if she chose to do so. (Funny, since she can't really write much more than a five paragraph essay! I guess when she does write she has learned enough to do it well. But I'd still like to see a lengthy research paper with a complete bibliography before walking away from English requirements)

So she is signed up for university classes this fall, including English! At times I feel uneasy about her education to this point as it has obviously been unconventional. But we did what we felt was necessary at different ages and stages. Sometimes school (public or private as we looked at all the schools available to us) works and sometimes it doesn't. Some kids fit in and others don't. But I believe that even when homeschooling the work should be challenging to the student and rigorous enough to meet national norms. Our state does not require homeschooled students to participate in testing, however I don't know how a homeschooling parent would be able to decide if their student was keeping up if they are not tested every few years. Most homeschooled students we meet in our area's networking group are well educated. However there are a few families who are choosing to unschool. Their teens are capable of basic math, reading, and overall knowledge of other subjects. The kids will do fine in jobs that don't require higher education. But if the kids ever want to enter college it is clear to me that they will need to spend some time at the community college level picking up higher level skills. But I also agree with the post above that schools need to be reformed. It seems as though the philosophy in the 1950's-60's of challenging those who can work ahead is now dead. The current philosophy of heterogeneous classes (I can't count the number of times teachers have told me not to mention "tracking" as a way of grouping ablility levels) and everyone staying on the same page is laughable at best. Has the current administration ever looked at a bell curve?

And to each his own. This is America, land of the free.

[harrise]

Originally Posted by briteday

(since the teacher told me she had no knowledge of materials above the only grade level she had ever taught...for 25+ years)

This is probably one of my biggest concerns. Complacency begets mediocrity. Most people I encounter are not willing to learn any more than they currently know. Consequently, they are much less likely to take calculated risks at furthering themselves. Instead they would rather "play it safe" and continue on with their sheltered existence.

There is no reason not to emphasize the advancement of capable individuals. My learning experiences involved a great deal of jealousy on the part of the instructors. Mechanical engineering was my chosen path yet I was stuck with the class that was still FIVE chapters behind the first year (because I couldn't possibly have read that far yet and still understand). That's when I decided I better do things for myself.

(... and no I don't blame Bush. Pfft...)

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by briteday

We have homeschooled our daughter at various times. She is now almost 17 and will be attending the university this fall. Our daughter is bright and sitting all day waiting for the others (especially since she has spent all of her educational career under NCLB) is ponderous for her at best and a waste of time at worst.

iagree that NCLB is horrendous.... however.... the question here is do you think that EVERYONE is qualified to teach their children.... ??? for me I personally don't care if people who are qualified to teach homeschool their kids.... I dont care... what I do care about is that people who are NOT qualified to teach their children pull them out of school and then basically don't educate them.... or aren't capable of educating their children....
that is what concerns me.... of course there is anecdotal evidence all over the place that homeschool kids do great.... or homeschool kids do terrible.... you can find evidence on either side of the debate depending on how educated teh parentes are.... how motivated and organized they are or are not..... my concern is not the kids who are getting a good/great education from their parents.... my concern is the kids who are not....

One of my puppy people has six homeschooled kids.... they are bright, well behaved articulate children.... she and her husband are both college graduates... highly articulate and ya know I have no issue with her homeschooling....

But when I hear about parents who are not organized to do anything with their kids.... and way over their heads that does give me pause....

its the land of the free and home of the brave.... but that only goes so far... and we as a society have decided that its not see free that a parent can choose to not educate their child....

Originally Posted by harrise

My learning experiences involved a great deal of jealousy on the part of the instructors.

ya know that is just laughable..... I am sure the teachers were jealous of you.... what a riot

are you a mechanical engineer now????

[bluedawg]

I guess families around here are lucky to have the resources and a support system in place to make it relatively easy for any family to homeschool.

[harrise]

Originally Posted by Shalva

but that only goes so far... and we as a society have decided that its not see free that a parent can choose to not educate their child...

[SARCASM] What about all those jobs regular Americans won't do? [/SARCASM]

Originally Posted by Shalva

ya know that is just laughable..... I am sure the teachers were jealous of you.... what a riot

are you a mechanical engineer now????

Heh, I knew that would turn a head or two. No, I am not a mechanical engineer. When I got to the stage where we spent time with industry professionals I decided that wasn't for me. I left that and started making the money I wanted within six months. However, I also understand that was a unique setup for myself. I would rather I chose the term "discouraged" for my teacher experiences. Up to the point I left school, I only had one teacher that made a mark on me. The rest always told me of the way "it" was, and things aren't "like that". That's what you get growing up in a 90% pot smoking mountain town...

[sheltiemom]

I have considered homeschooling at various points over the last few years. My daughter is gifted, and my son is borderline learning disabled. I spend 2-3 hours a night teaching them, on top of 7 hours a day at school. They are both in special programs for their different needs, one day a week during classes and one day a week after school, and I'm glad those programs are available, but it isn't enough. Some years I have loved their teachers, some years I have been unimpressed. Whenever I have a concern, the answer is always "work on it more at home". I see why people choose to homeschool.

When it comes down to it though, I know I don't have what it takes to homeschool full time. Knowing the material is one thing...at 2nd and 4th grade levels I know the material, explaining it to someone else is another thing entirely. I find even the few hours I spend working with my kids at home incredibly tedious and frustrating, and I can't even imagine trying to motivate them (AND MYSELF) on a daily basis.

The socialization aspect...public school is a terrible place to socialize your kids...it's the dog park of kids, you have no control over who's there, what behaviors they're picking up...*shudder*. Especially with my son being in some of the programs he's in, he's shuffled in with some kids who have real problems behaviorally and emotionally and it's something I'm not comfortable with. I'm still deciding if the benifits of the programs outweigh the negitives or not. Homeschooled kids have a social advantage imo.