OK, so, I’ve noticed this in a couple of threads, but I seem to be find are a couple of homeschoolers on this forum every couple of days, and I was wondering just how many there are, so, are you/have you ever been homeschooled?
I’ve been homeschooled my entire life, and plan on staying homeschooled until I entire college.
I am homeschooled (unschooled, really). It’s much better than public school.
I have 2 children, 6 and 4 and they are being “unschooled”!
<sotto voce>psst, MartyJ, you might want to edit the title of your original post. It may just reflect badly on “homechoolers” as a whole, if you catch my drift… 
</sotto voce>
Kinda like these blokes:
(more here…)
i personaly think regular school is much better then home just for one basic reason
a child that is home schooled has less interaction with children og his/her own age thus not developing all the coorect sosial skills nessesary, such as a child that went throu grade 1-12 at home then goes to colledge, it will be very hard for that child to get used to the change and plus theres a few other things that i think are bad about homeschooling but not gona type them, u can disagree with me but this is my opinion and most likely a fact as well
@mzungu: whoops… oh well, if anyone were to judge homeschoolers based on that, they would be emanating their own stupidity, so it doesn’t bother me much.
How many homeschoolers do you know? More specifically, how many do you know that don’t see kids their age, or that had/are having a hard time adjusting to college? Becuase I know quite a few, all of whom contradict everything you just said, including my sister, who was homeschooled her entire life, and has had no problems in college.
I think this is my favorite argument against homeschooling!
If we follow it logically, the argument states that in order to relate to and interact with adults, our children must learn to interact with children.
As with everything, homeschooling has it’s good and bad points:
The good point would be an actual education instead of a teen daycare service. Having gone to public school myself (In New Jersey out of all places), I can say from experience that it’s not the best way to learn anything usefull.
The school system is stuck in the 50s.
The bad point would be (as already stated) lower exposure (I didn’t say no exposure, but logically I would think that it is significantly lower) to social interaction, which is vital for any young individual.
Of course, that would be my “guess” because I was never homeschooled, but it seems like a logical assumption to make.
Homeschooling is quite rare in Belgium.
Most of us go to a public school (to avoid any confusion: by this I mean a school which is free for all social classes to attend without paying an entree fee) and I don’t think our schooling system is bad. Then again, Belgium scores as the second highest of Europe where schooling is concerned.
Just those 2 hours of obliged gym are too little…
The major advantage of public schools is the social aspect, but that costs some individual coaching. I cannot judge which would be better since I know only one of the two.
Of course, you also have self-study…
The argument is that to interact as adults, our children must first learn to interact with other children. Your phrasing contains a logical fallacy called an anachronism. Personally, I think it depends on the child.
I plan on sending my daughter to public school. We moved where we did because this area has the best public schools in the state - and, boy ,do the property taxes reflect that.
Here home schooling carries the connotation of religious fanaticism. The perception is that the parents of these poor kids can’t answer the tough questions about the validity of their faith so they prevent their kids from learning anything that runs contrary to their beliefs.
I was wondering when a thred like this would pop up.
I agree with that statement. [and I should know]
I was home schooled until I hit 16. at that point I decided it would be a good Idea to go to collage.
In the interest of having a high school diploma I took the GED test and finished with a score of 3190 [the average passing score at that time was 680] I then submitted my application to the school I wanted to attend, was accepted and moved away from home. [much to the mixed feelings of my parents]
I love what you said Phrangkk because it is so true. Your ability to interact with your fellow human beings is based on your personality, not where you got your education. If a child chooses not to go out of his comfort zone to make friends then he has a problem, but that may not be because he was educated at home. Though I never attended public school, I can bare witness that there are plenty of kids in the system that have social problems.
Now I would also point out that social problems [in some home schooled children] can be a direct result of the parents views. I offer as an example of this, a family in my area who also home schooled their children. Those are some of the most messed up kids I know. But thats not their fault. It’s because their parents kept them from going to public school out of fear of how they would turn out, and what they would be exposed to. These are valid reasons sure, except when they are taken to the extreme that these parents did. They were not allowed to attended any social events of any kind, engage in sports [even outside of school] and their interaction with their few friends was tightly controlled. Though their parents had good intentions, their solutions to the problem were causing more damage than good.
My parents kept me and my sisters out of the public school system for the same reasons [as well as a wish to have our education oriented more around our religious beliefs] but we were allowed to do most of the things that “normal” kids were. For example: I played soccer for 3 years, we did dance [Irish step] music [piano, violin, saxophone, guitar, and so forth] we even joined the choir in the local high school when we were of that age. And I have always had more friends than I can keep track of, and spent more time with them than may have been healthy. My younger sisters are still home schooled and they run cross country at the high school.
I would like to say one more thing. What you said Phrangkk brought something to my mind that my mother said long ago. “the reason we are homeschooling you is because we want to raise you to live in a world of adults, not children.” homeschooling has given me another advantage, I am a great deal more mature than the average person my age [I have always been this way] and that was a big help in my early attendance of college. I have had many professors, Roommates, and more importantly, girls, think I was 23 when I was only 16, 17, and 18. and through this I have been able to gain the respect to all those around me regardless of my age.
It seems that it is human nature to focus on the negative things in this world [this can be seen in the news every day, the good in this world just doesn’t make a good story] this being the case, homeschooling has been given a bad name if only because a few kids turned out to have a few social problems. [that the may have had anyway had they attended public school]
well thats my schpeel. Oh one more thing, during my first year at college [at 16] my GPA never dropped below 3.899.
<Edit>To: DadCantDraw. I think you assume a very great deal with the last statement in your post. could you plese explane yourself better so as to eliminate my confusion and the chance of misinterpretation? for example, I’m not sure what you mean by “here” </Edit>
this is going to a veeerrryyyy long argument…
Your phrasing contains a logical fallacy, that’s, well, just false. Despite whether or not you can answer the “tough questions” about the vailidity of your faith, you still have to explain it to the child, which has to be confusing for the kid. On the one hand, his/her parents are sending him/her to a school were they teach him about evolution, and on the other his parents are telling him that the school they’re sending him to, is wrong. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to let things go that way, does it?
Plus, if, like you said, the parents are simply preventing the kids from learning anything contrary to their belief, why not just send them to a private [your religion here (though I think it’s pretty obvious what religion we’re talking about)] school?
The above argument you mentioned makes no sense.
It’s weird how this turned into a debate about homeschooling vs. public schooling. I was simply asking who here was homeschooled. : |
I be homeschooled!
All this “homeschoolers wont get proper social skills” crap is crap. If anything, my social skills are better than most public schoolers I know.
Here home schooling carries the connotation of religious fanaticism. The perception is that the parents of these poor kids can’t answer the tough questions about the validity of their faith so they prevent their kids from learning anything that runs contrary to their beliefs.
I wouldn’t go that far. I would say that (in some cases) it’s parents trying to guard their children against beliefs that the parents find to be false. IMO, most parents “censor” their childrens lives to keep out things they don’t want their child involved in, or exposed to until they are more mature. IMO, that’s a lot of what parents are there for, to protect and guide their children to the best of their ability.
People have other reasons than just religion for homeschooling, too. (I send out info packets on homeschooling, and we get some requests because the parents want to homeschool their special needs child. Normally, towards the beginning of each school year, we get a larger number of requests for info, perhaps because the child’s school is “not working out”.)
I was homeschooled since 2 grade, and then took my GED, and may go on to college.
The statistics on this are, by their very nature, demographically skewed. On the whole, it’s all dependent on the individual. Some public school kids will have social problems. Some homeschooled kids will still end up dumb as a sack of bricks. The reverse is also true. One is not necessarily better than the other. Rather, I believe that they are actually dependent on each other. It’s already been mentioned that homeschoolers need to actively spend time developing social skills, because the homeschool paradigm is naturally deficient here. At the same time, the reverse is also true. Public school kids need to actively have their education supplemented at home. Part of the reason public schools are losing effectiveness is because this very thing is happening less and less (for various and [some] valid reasons that are beyond the scope of this post).
To be an effective system, children need both.
Well said. I hadn’t thought about it in that light, but there is a dependancy of sorts for both sides.
I personally don’t like public schools, just because it does not usually teach at a high enough level, and all of the cussing, and violence. Even though homeschool is kind of enclosed, and don’t get out much… there are homeschool programs that have all the different homeschoolers, in a certain area, meet for like an outing/picnic. So you can get out and have social skills in homeschool… I never had gone to any of those, but I know they are there… Also I have learned more than my friends in public school… I learn higher skills in all the subjects earlier… as an example… I am good in math, and we were taught Trig in like 8th grade homeschool, and expanded further on it as we progressed… My friend was in the 11 or 12 grade and had never done any Trig… He barely had gotten to any high end geometry… So I don’t know I just like homeschool better…
Aaron
I’ve homeschooled ever since the 4th grade.