Home Schooling

[Mercule]

As for the socially inept homeschooler stereotype, I have yet to meet one (and I've met quite a few through college and our church). Most of the really mal-adjusted socially inept people I met were socially inept people going through High School and the like.

This sparks a thought. When we were looking at homeschooling, we had so many people ask us about "socialization". Most were just pulling a knee-jerk reaction out of their rear, but some had actually met one or two "under-socialized" home schoolees. Well, I've met a whole slew of poorly socialized public schoolees. The only reason people give more weight to the one or two anecdotal home-schoolees is because it's not the standard approach.

Anyway, as has been pointed out, the die has been cast, re: home schooling. And this'll turn to politics real quick for me, so I'll withdraw after this comment.

 

[billd91]

One thing I wonder about "undersocialized" home-schooled kids is whether they were only children or had siblings. A friend of mine with some educational background is pretty adamant that single-children, especially ones who have never been in day care or school, are socially underdeveloped compared to kids who had siblings. I think he's a little crock-potty but it's still worth looking into.
Do any of your (and by your I mean ENworlders who have contributed to this thread) memories of undersocialized home-schoolers involve single-children or kids with sibs?

I happen to live in a dynamite school district and wouldn't consider home schooling in any serious capacity. My daughter is a little bit of an introvert as it is and we want her interacting with her peers as much as possible. She goes to a school with a focus on science and math and has multi-age classrooms. Now that she's a first grader and there are kindergarteners looking at her as a mentor, her self-confidence has grown considerably.

I went to public schools for my education and turned out fantastic, if I don't mind saying so myself. One of the great benefits is the variety of boredoms you get. And if you're having a bad day with a particular teacher, you only have to endure them for an hour before you're off and on your way to another class. My mother would have driven me to an early grave if she had home-schooled me.

When it comes to a mobile life-style, there's not a heck of a lot you can do. Home-schooling might actually be the most stable part of her education since it's relatively clear she won't have a stable set of friends that will be there for longer than a couple of years at a time.

And that leads me into another seque in this ramble. My wife was educated in both the Los Angeles school system and the British school system (specifically, in St. Albans) because her father often went to the UK to lead some UCLA study-abroad programs. It was usually only 1 year at a time in the UK, interspersed with 1-2 years at home in LA, but she doesn't regularly interact with ANYBODY from her childhood other than her sisters and parents. After college and all our college friends dispersed to the 4 winds, she was kind of adrift in a world with no close friends other than mine. It took years for her to settle down with some really close friends of her own that weren't explicitly friends of mine first. By contrast, I have a few friends that I've had since childhood and I can't undervalue what that means.

 

[The_Universe]

As requested:

My anecdotal undersocialzed home school-ee was the elder of two children.

 

[Vito]

Speaking from the perspective of my wife and myself, we think a blend is far more appropriate.

At first we very carefully considered home-school only, as we are both products of public education with very mixed results – the key here is that our public schooling alone prepared neither of us for our future lives (I joined the military and she went to college). We both faired well with our life-choices, however, very often we had to work harder to make up for deficiencies in that public education – the military made me a master at self-learning and research. Of course, we both now consider ourselves at least fairly intelligent adults through a hard process of learning over the course of the last 30-something years. At the same time, home schooling has its own limitations and problems.

In the end, we agreed on a mixture of public, private, and home-schooling. We enrolled my oldest daughter in public kindergarten this year. I also enrolled her in basic reading and math courses at the local Sylvan Learning Center, which she attends for 6 hours each week. My wife and I also spend a substantial amount of time collecting materials and working with both our daughters on any subjects they show even the smallest interest in – reading, mathematics, science, biology, history, etc. (at least 2 hours every single day). Of course, we also spend a considerable amount of time researching local private schools and their teaching methods – we plan on mixing years of private and prep schools once they are older and can take more away from the experience. In case you’re wondering, kindergarten was not challenging her at all and we were very close to pulling her and either home-schooling or private school. In the end we agreed on a compromise of all these systems for the reasons stated above and because we could not find a single “perfect” method.

Our greatest hope is that this combination of techniques will give them the best part of these different methods and try to allow for the weaknesses of each individual method. We are both firm believers that learning is life-long process, and we are committed to giving our children the best education we can afford.

Of course, coming from a background where my family traveled around the US constantly – I can say that it definitely was a mixed blessing as a child. Moving 3-4 times a year is very hard on most children above the age of about 6 – I spent a lot of lonely times in areas until I was around for a few months to make friends. Of course, I also learned a great deal more about the ways of the world than many of the friends I made…but YMMV. For example, I know that public schools vary greatly from place to place...some public schools are far better than their local private counterparts and many have specific subjects or curriculum that compete for best on state and national levels.

 

[WayneLigon]

In case you’re wondering, kindergarten was not challenging her at all and we were very close to pulling her and either home-schooling or private school.

Kindergarten should be challenging? You see some colors, you eat some paste, you go home.

Seriously, I know one couple that has home-schooled a few times on and off. They were military and moved a few times but stayed in one place for long stretches. They home schooled when they left here because they didn't like the school district they wound up in. Once he retired and they could choose the place they lived, they moved back to an area with an excellent school district. Wouldn't do the Blairs much good, though, since they'll be moving a lot.

 

[Vito]

Kindergarten should be challenging? You see some colors, you eat some paste, you go home.

Well, she already knew colors, shapes, numbers, and alphabet even to the point of reading very simple books before she was even enrolled in K. She was very unhappy and complained to us about "not learning anything new" in school. We didn't think we had over-prepared her for school, we just made sure she knew everything on the school district web site that she was supposed to know to start school...which as it turns out put her ahead of most of her classmates.

In Sylvan, she has progressed to 1st grade math and reading already. I don't know what we did but she absorbs this stuff like a sponge. Must be her momma's genes...

 

[Treebore]

I've been homeschooling my children for 6 years. I was a high school science teacher and both my wife and I have two Bachelors degrees, mine are BS in Psychology and Biology, my wifes are BA in History and BS in Biology.

The reasons I homeschooled:

The public schools where are lived were pathetic. I was seriously annoyed/disgusted by the level of knowledge my students had when they got to me in high school. Out of a class of 25 to 32 I would be lucky to have 3 students who knew and understood what they should have by the time they attended my classes.

I won't go into the drinking and sex parties they all talked about going to, or how many children in my class were pregnant, how many had drug problems, how many lived in fear every day of being beat up or worse, how many parents I talked to at parent teacher conferences that had no clue about what their children were going through because their children were afraid to turn to them, or any of the other high quality socialization I saw going on in the public school I taught at.


What did happen is that I decided that my kids weren't going to have to deal with all of that. I teach them everything. We watch movies and documentaries about drugs, crime, and all the other ugliness of society, and we talk about it in detail. They play for hours with the neighborhood kids, they know more than they want to about neighborhood bullies and the children being beaten by their parents as well as being punished with starvation. When I heard about the family whose husband beat the mothers head against a fireplace, and in front of the kids, I turned them in to the authorities.

My homeschool kids get plenty of socialization, and they are well aware that most kids and people are liars and out primarily for themselves, they know how to recognize drug users, and they know how to tell when people lie to them. They don't want to socialize with a lot of the kids. They have a small circle of about 6 kids that they play with. All without the added trauma of public school.

My kids are well versed in Math, science, and english. They have read a lot of old classics and are familiar with a lot of art because my wife is a pretty good artist herself. The biggest thing I have found is that writing well does seem to have a strong association with mental maturity.

My kids know how to cook a lot of basic meals. They know the importance of the food groups and how to eat a well balanced diet. They know how to do basic sewing.

Basically I am always teaching my kids. No matter what it is we are talking about, if there is something I can teach them, whether it is to question their understanding of how the current storm formed and why it ewas as severe as it was, or what specific type of earthquake hit SE Asia and why it caused tsunami's, or how I knew that person was trying to sell me something I didn't need, I talk to them about it.

About the only thing I regret about homeschooling are the sports programs.

 

[Hellefire]

By the way, this has nothing to do with the discussion really, but here's a picture of me, my girlfriend and Sunshine, as well as my brother, his wife and their 5 y-o son, in the background are a couple of my sister-in-laws nieces.

http://www.purgatory.net/pictures/geddak/geddaksbaby.jpg

Aaron

 

[reanjr]

In most subjects I can re-educate myself enough to teach her through high school.
In the subjects I cannot teach her for whatever reason I need to find people I trust to teach her.

Just so you know, this is not legal in some (most?) states. Homeschooling can only be done by the parent/guardian or a certified teacher. You can't just find someone who knows the topic to teach your child. Not that you can't ignore this; just wanted to let you know.

 

[reanjr]

Homeschooling is fine and dandy if you do it right, but be careful about making sure she develops her social skills. I've met a whole lot of people at college who were homeschooled and didn't know the first thing about social interaction. You could spot them a mile away, insecure as they are around their 'peers'.

Of course, I'm sure she won't have to worry about this, since her daddy's an ENWorlder, and we bees good folks.

You are dead on on that one. Kids have gotta be sent to camp or have regular playdates or something set up if they don't go to school.