Try it!

[88GT]

Articles: Swallow Your Pride, Save Your Child

How many will take the challenge?

 

[Kmcinnes]

We have been considering it for some time and are trying to work out the details to make it happen!

 

[giovani]

We home schooled our children up to the 7th grade, we meaning 80% my wife and 20% myself.
They are in public highschool now and There is no way We could do them justice as educators at this level.

Their chemistry teacher graduated top of her class from Westpoint, and there is no lady gaga in her curiculum I assure you.

 

[SideArmed]

Without even opening the link I knew what it was about. If only I could.

 

[GREEN607]

Great article! Thanks for posting it.

My late brother's youngest nine children were/are all home-schooled. When they first decided to go that route, years ago, I had my doubts concerning the results.

I feared those children would miss out on the interaction with others of their own age; possibly fall behind in subjects like math and science; and be 'timid' in challenges outside the presence of their parents. It was a legitimate and valid concern.... and certainly conceived out of caring for the children.

I am here now, to tell you....I WAS WRONG.

Every single one of my neices and nephews is scholastically several years ahead of their peers, who attend public school. Give the average fifth-grader a pen and paper (and nothing else)... and ask them to do four relatively simple math problems. Some will do OK; others will take a long, long time....and get about HALF of the answers correcty; and even others will be at a total loss, period. I can assure you, my nieces and nephews can do it 'in their heads' and then put it down on paper, and explain exactly how they arrived at the answers.

Home schooling, when done with love and attention to the needs of each child.... as an individual.... will not only succeed, but will allow something that 'modern' public education does not and cannot: the ability of each child, to THINK for themselves. (Which I believe the 'Progressives' fear, and don't want.)

 

[jamil]

Articles: Swallow Your Pride, Save Your Child

How many will take the challenge?

BTDT

Good article, BTW.

 

[88GT]

None of what I'm about to write in response is rooted in a critical nature. It is a genuine curiosity. So please don't be offended or put off by the questions. No ulterior motives or attempts to "gotcha."

We home schooled our children up to the 7th grade, we meaning 80% my wife and 20% myself.
They are in public highschool now and There is no way We could do them justice as educators at this level.

Their chemistry teacher graduated top of her class from Westpoint, and there is no lady gaga in her curiculum I assure you.

I think you underestimate your abilities to do right by your children.

Without even opening the link I knew what it was about. If only I could.

Why can't you?

 

[Leo]

I know people who home schooled their kids, and the kids turned out great, and were always respectful and didn't walk around pouting, or wearing goth/emo make up and clothing. They also seem to truley enjoy life. I am sure that there is some benefit to school, but especially now, there are lots of thing you do not want. Most of the people I know home school because of their religous values. Good People

Home schooling is not something magic where you have to figure everything out from scratch. There are academic home school co-ops, staffed with very educated people, that work designing curriculum packages that are far and beyond the quality of the recommended public school curriculum standards.

I remember a news story where an abused child was kept isolated like an animal in a basement, and never allowed contact with the outside world. By age she was supposed to be in the 6th grade. It only took a tutor 9 months to get her up to her grade level. That always made me think, why did the regular kids take 6 years to get to that point?

 

[Que]

I do not object to the tenets of the article, but what happens when the children leave the utopia of their secure home environment? I have no doubt there are advantages to home schooling children. However, most parents home school to keep their children from the bad element of society, but when that child grows up, it's sometimes revealed that that child is the bad element. Also, home schooling is great, until it's realized that the parents home schooling are worse than the school system.

Children have an innate ability to know the difference from right and wrong, which must go through a maturing process. If they are at home, in an environment where everything is right and they are never challenged to make a choice, how will they develop?

These are my simple observations and I could be wrong, but I bring them up for the sake of discussion.

 

[rwhitmore8]

I'm sending my kids to the coal mines once they learn their alphabet.

 

[88GT]

I do not object to the tenets of the article, but what happens when the children leave the utopia of their secure home environment?

Most of them go on to lead successful, productive lives having been well-raised.

I have no doubt there are advantages to home schooling children. However, most parents home school to keep their children from the bad element of society, but when that child grows up, it's sometimes revealed that that child is the bad element.

And you think this is caused by the parents' choice to homeschool?

Also, home schooling is great, until it's realized that the parents home schooling are worse than the school system.

So what?

Children have an innate ability to know the difference from right and wrong, which must go through a maturing process. If they are at home, in an environment where everything is right and they are never challenged to make a choice, how will they develop?

I'm not even sure what to make of this. Why do you assume they don't get to make choices on right behavior? Or that they have to be faced with hard choices before a particular point in their lives in order to handle future hard choices successfully?

Someone else used this argument on me a while back. It was the equivalent of saying I have to let my child touch his hand on the hot burner so he learns. I can't fathom the mental gymnastics one has to perform to say with a straight face that it is better for a 5th grader to experience the peer pressure of her friends pushing her to do drugs/be sexual with someone than to protect her from that choice before she's mature enough to make it on her own.

Preventing children from making bad choices when they aren't ready to make them isn't bad. It's actually good.

That's not to say that homeschooled children don't have an opportunity to make poor choices. They're children. They screw up all the time. They make poor choices every day. They throw temper tantrums. Hit their siblings. Disobey their parents. Refuse to do the chores. Smart off to grandma. Lie about their whereabouts when out with friends. Don't practice their instrument. Cut corners on homework.

But why should they have to learn on the really dangerous stuff? It's my job to PROTECT my children. I don't see tossing them into the "real" world before they are mature enough to handle it as being very protective.

Why should a group of 10y/o girls ever have to learn what it's like face the choice of telling an adult or just putting up with the "inappropriate touching" from the boy?

I don't see keeping children from experiences they aren't ready to handle as a bad thing.

These are my simple observations and I could be wrong, but I bring them up for the sake of discussion.

Good stuff. But let's remember here: the article isn't about homeschooling. Yes, the OP happens to be a militant advocate of the practice herself, but it isn't about homeschooling. It's about removing the government from education and freeing up people from having to pay for others' responsibilities. It's about being honest with our children. Frankly, it's about not being a hypocrite.

Homeschooling isn't the only alternative. ALL free market options are fair game. Send 'em to a private brick-and-mortar. Enroll them in online virtual schools. Teach 'em at home yourself. Hire a private tutor if you're really rolling in the money. Let's just not pretend things aren't what they are.

 

[RockofStrength]

I do not object to the tenets of the article, but what happens when the children leave the utopia of their secure home environment? I have no doubt there are advantages to home schooling children. However, most parents home school to keep their children from the bad element of society, but when that child grows up, it's sometimes revealed that that child is the bad element. Also, home schooling is great, until it's realized that the parents home schooling are worse than the school system.

Children have an innate ability to know the difference from right and wrong, which must go through a maturing process. If they are at home, in an environment where everything is right and they are never challenged to make a choice, how will they develop?

These are my simple observations and I could be wrong, but I bring them up for the sake of discussion.

If I may comment as a kid who was homeschooled from 2nd grade through high school:

There are crazy people (helicopter parents, weirdos, etc) who would keep their darling at home and potentially turn the kid into Norman Bates. And of course there are people who would do less than that but still be a negative influence by basically buttering the kid up and treating him like God's own gift to humanity. Well-meaning but otherwise bad parents can do nonsense like that.

However, even as a homeschooler I interacted with people outside of my home environment. Whether it was fencing (my sport of choice) or the various homeschooling groups/friends I was a part of we were plenty busy running about and meeting people. It was actually quite nice, since as homeschoolers we could, say, take Monday and Tuesday off to go do X thing with some other kids and then make it up with extra hours of study later on in the week or stay up late and have campfires. We also learned to manage our time to some degree, since so long as our parents approved we were good to do all manner of stuff while my public schooled friends were stuck in school.

Rest assured I had moments of being taken down a peg or two, or being corrected, or even just having to share my beliefs and defend them. For that matter, I had all the experiences any kid has with crushes, negative annoying people, bad friends etc. Homeschooling didn't deny me that.

Furthermore, specifically concerning this part:

Also, home schooling is great, until it's realized that the parents home schooling are worse than the school system.

That is actually quite difficult, unless the parent is going to outright ignore the child or refuse to instruct him. In that case, many selfish losers like that would rather the state babysit and feed the kid anyway. A child in the school system with crappy parents is little better off, since he now has the state as a surrogate parent which is hardly a good thing.

If you refer to perhaps parents lacking education but who otherwise love their kids and attempt to teach them...is that really any different from a kid happening to live in, say, an IPS school district? Some people have better educators than others, it's reality. No system is currently in place that fixes that issue, and with homeschooling it's not exactly as common a problem as some may make out.

I was educated by a father without a college degree and a mother whose degree was in nursing, yet I still managed to pass college level classes in government, psychology, economics (macro and micro), physics, English, World Religions, etc without much difficulty. Neither of my parents had even studied Pre-Cal in highschool, but I still passed it nonetheless. Sure my parents put effort into learning Chemistry and the like in order to help me when I needed it, but they had no prior experience or training that would have made them "qualified" had they tried to do the same in a public school setting. It's the effort to learn and teach, the passion, that makes a good homeschooling parent.

 

[Leo]

RockofStrength, thanks for chiming in. You just cant beat hearing from someone who "has been there, done that". I think your parents did well.

 

[RockofStrength]

RockofStrength, thanks for chiming in. You just cant beat hearing from someone who "has been there, done that". I think your parents did well.

The awesome thing is that my story was hardly unique. I had a good group of 5-15 friends at any one time who could tell you a story little different from my own. Most of them are in college now and are living a happy life. Some are wanting to be meteorologists, basketball stars, authors, business owners, computer "geeks" etc. I merely chimed in since I knew 88GT would likely be able to expound on the "this is what it takes as a parent" side of things.

 

[Leo]

One thing I have noticed is that other than school, there is no other venue of life where we are put together in an environment that all our peers are the exact same age.

There are some public schools that are experimenting with each grade having it's own complete building. So from the bus stop in the morning to the buss stop in the evening you are only with other 7th graders, etc. Our town did that, and other than three times as many bus routes to be serviced, and additional non clasroom staff, there was no difference, especially in the academic area.

As a small boy I was in private school. When we moved I was placed in public school and took catechism classes at night. I remember coasting for about three years, getting A's and B's in public school without even applying myself. The problem is, I became very lazy with no study habits and in high school, those habits caught up, and my marks were mostly C's.

I am no longer a Catholic, but those nuns actually did a good job teaching us the foundational skills right from the beginning. I do not think any of them were degree'd educational professionals.

 

[giovani]

None of what I'm about to write in response is rooted in a critical nature. It is a genuine curiosity. So please don't be offended or put off by the questions. No ulterior motives or attempts to "gotcha."



I think you underestimate your abilities to do right by your children.



Why can't you?

I think some homeschool parents overestimate their abilities , present company excluded

I do believe the early years are where the parents can do the most good, giving their children a much better foundation to buid upon.

The main advantage is that there are really no grade levels, the child only moves ahead when he/she has learned the material.
There is no book or materials that will allow me to teach advanced placement chemistry like a Westpoint grad.

 

[88GT]

I think some homeschool parents overestimate their abilities , present company excluded

I do believe the early years are where the parents can do the most good, giving their children a much better foundation to buid upon.

The main advantage is that there are really no grade levels, the child only moves ahead when he/she has learned the material.
There is no book or materials that will allow me to teach advanced placement chemistry like a Westpoint grad.

Why do you think homeschoolers can't get AP-level chemistry education? Would college chemistry courses be good enough?

 

[jamil]

I think some homeschool parents overestimate their abilities , present company excluded

I do believe the early years are where the parents can do the most good, giving their children a much better foundation to buid upon.

The main advantage is that there are really no grade levels, the child only moves ahead when he/she has learned the material.
There is no book or materials that will allow me to teach advanced placement chemistry like a Westpoint grad.

Parents don't have to teach by themselves. Distance learning in a way provides the best of both worlds.

 

[giovani]

Just took a consensus, I asked all 3 of my children if they thought my wife and I could do as good of job teaching them the courses they are currently taking(and remember we taught them through the 7th grade) , they just shook their heads and laughed.

Thats enough to convince me.

 

[Tsigos]

I don't care if people want to homeschool but it bothers me that they advocate the destruction of public schools. My child's public school system is great. They do a great job of teaching history, math, writing, etc. Contrary to the beliefs of many homeschoolers, things like manners, politics, etc are generally picked up through parenting.

If you choose to homeschool and have the free time to do it then good for you. But from my perspective, most of the fears of public education that I hear from homeschoolers are unfounded.