Homeschooling

[taxidriver]

good excercise of privacy rights, or threat to public schools and the status quo? I think that if its done right, it can be fine- but i know a few Mushroom children who probably could've used a different schooling experience.

[mzmolly]

1. It's a free country, and there are good reasons to do so.

I have chosen not to because I have a great school near by, but I am supportive of parents who chose to homeschool.

[Momgonepostal]

2. Just as with public or private schools...

..homeschooling families can be described as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I know some really outstanding homeschooling families who are doing a great job and whose children are getting a superb education. Other children would probably be better served by another method of schooling. I guess I really don't care how other people choose to educated their families, but the type of person who gets all high and mighty and superior about it rubs me the wrong way.

[lovedems]

3. When I was in college, I worked at the YMCA

as a lifeguard, swim instructor and we worked with alot of home schooled kids. They would come as groups to swim or get lessons. So, my personal experience with home schooled kids is, there is something not quite right with them.

Our neighbors 2 doors down home school their kids and I have the same feeling.

My sister in law home schools her children and there is *definately* something wrong with them. (She is 100% fundy and her kids say things like "You can't talk about Jesus in school so school is bad.")

Edit: I am sure there are some who don't fit my stereotype but I haven't met them yet.

[teryang]

4. When I saw my daughter's biology and physics

...books, I knew that the overwhelming majority of people who think they can home school their children to their best potential are just kidding themselves. These texts were college level material and way beyond what I learned in high school. Same for one of her math courses.

[Salviati]

5. I think that if people are going to homeschool...

then their children should be subject to the same progress tests that are mandated for the children in public school, with the same consequences.

If the public school students can't graduate without passing the tests, then neither should the homeschooled, if it turns out that teachers can be removed or public schools closed if their students continue to fail the exams, then people should have their 'right' to homeschool revoked if they do not effectively teach their kids.

[kimchi]

12. I agree, Siflnolly--prove an equivalent education.

I'd like to think that exams or documentation of texts would be required in most areas before graduation; but I have a feeling the requirements are easily met. Anyone have experience with the rules of homeschooling in your area?

[Bandit]

17. It has been my experience in the past that parents sometimes do the

work for their children just to get it done. For many years I lived in a small bush community in Alaska where the was no school and every parent did home schooling if they chose to live there through-out the winter. There were many parents that literally did their child's work for them so they could get it done and over with and the kid could go fishing or whatever. They also did the tests for them. I'm sure that would happen under the new standards as well. some parents (believe it or not) really don't care about their child's education.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. The danger lies in parents who use it as an excuse

to retain an unhealthy control over their children.

There was recently an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about a fundamentalist homeschooling family who didn't even want to send their daughter to a fundamentalist college like Bob Jones. They were going to have her take correspondence courses instead.

It gave me the creeps. When is that poor girl going to be allowed to make a few decisions on her own? She will be totally unprepared for the real world when she's finally allowed out of the house.

[Goldmund]

7. I would outlaw it.

Sure, there are some well-homeschooled kids. And without getting into the obvious defficient aspect of homeschooling -- a lack of social interaction and a potential of being raised in a bubble -- my main qualm with homeschooling is that it descends from the notion that parents are the alpha and omega of how their kids should be raised. I absolutely disagree with that. Unless they are planning for their kids to live on an isolated mountaintop somewhere for the rest of their lives, those kids will be members of the general society. As such, that society should have a part in raising them.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

8. what are 'mushroom children'?

n/t

[StClone]

10. Isolated and fed what is "good for them."

TAI

[NuckinFutz]

19. kept in the dark...

fed bull$hit.

[kentuck]

9. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday....that said...

If your children are homeschooled, they may end up here.

Then it had a picture of Mt Rushmore.

[phillybri]

11. I think it's a bad idea...

I would've hated it. I would've missed all the stupid social shit that makes school fun and annoying all at once...

[veganwitch]

13. anything thats a threat to the status quo is a good thing

we will be homeschooling our child until they express the desire otherwise. i think thats a fair trade.

[Nite Owl]

14. We homeschooled both our boys.

My husband and I were both teachers. My youngest was diagnosed with leukemia when the oldest was ready to start school. We were told by his doctors that any exposure to things like chicken pox would be deadly and we would have to have plans to separate if it was going around. He could not get immunizations either. So that's how we started to homeschool. By the time the chemo was over my oldest was nearly 9 and was well ahead of his peers. He was used to exploring things at his own pace and spending a lot of time on his own interests so we decided to keep up the homeschooling. They did well. Both have lots of friends and their friends are of all ages. They are free thinkers. Both are in college now and have a 3.6GPA.

[Cheswick2.0]

16. I hope your son is healthy now!

I think you are one of the sucess stories. Bravo! I know some pretty bizarre failures.

[Nite Owl]

20. The whole homeschooling thing

has changed since the days we started. We were rare back then and it was a more 'liberal' thing to do. Now I think it would be an upward battle. We sort of had it chosen for us by circumstances. My son is now 19 and doing great. He stayed out of the hospital the whole time he was on the chemo, no infections, which was some sort of record. We followed NYS curriculum and testing is required here.

[Cheswick2.0]

15. I think it can be done very well but often isn't

and I don't think the state or local school districts should have any financial obligation to those that homeschool by choice.
The religious fundamentalists who are doing it to indoctrinate their kids without interference freak me out too.

[proud patriot]

18. IMHO ...To each is own

I choose not to homeschool because
I believe my son needs to get to know
the world and the people in it , both good
and bad .

I have a friend who home schools her son .
I support her choice and it is not a religious
one for her .

[MI Cherie]

21. Home schoolers were begging ...

... for donations for their "education" in our neighborhood the other day! The Mom was sitting in her mini van and having the kids go door to door!

A little arrogant and hypocritical to beg for someone else to pay for the choices they make. IMHO

[Jim Warren]

22. Lotta "mushroom" fertilizer on this thread

This thread shows the kind of intolerance I usually find on FR.
Do you have kids yourself?
Do you anguish over the educational choices out there but without the financial means to choose the best among them?

There have recently been a number of homeschooling threads here. I have seen them usually devolve into anecdotal horror stories of fundy hillbilly stereotypes who exploit their own kids as some kind of unpaid labor source or such. Mushroom kids. Indeed.

Every homeschooling parent I know is acutely aware of what we code phrase the "S" word. Socialization. While the academics of homeschooling are indeed a challenge, we use an on line curriculum, we also work extremely hard at networking groups of kids into programs that offer a well-rounded and robust out of school experience. We schedule group poetry readings, book reports, plays, geology classes in the field with a docent at a nearby wildlife refuge, nature classes at an Audubon center in the area. The kids, a group of 12, are starting sailing lessons this week on the bay with a certified instructor from the municipal parks dept. Most of the kids play sports at various programs in the area.


We've made the conscious decision in our lives to live with voluntary simplicity and pursue the joy and the magic of the world that does indeed exist at our fingertips.
Our son, a lovely young man and a person whom I feel fortunate to know, attended through grade six a small public magnet school program that was started and now has been stopped. This school, being in the exploratory stage, offered a good basic foundation and he graduated as an honor student. The choices, IMO, become much harder and more difficult after grade six. We sat down as a family and discussed the choices then decided the what the next step should be.

We home school, not out of religious extremism, rather a lack of confidence in the basic institutional nature of society in our time and in the interest our son develop to his potential as a thinking, sentient being.

BTW, there are independent equivalency test requirements in most states. We are obligated to maintain all records and tests results.
Of course, this is something we are happy to oblige the law with since our son has aced the tests for the last three years in the 99+ percentile and though now chronologically in the ninth grade is currently performing academically at the college freshman level.

[ret5hd]

24. how much in vouchers do you think is fair?

[Bridget Burke]

27. Not a penny.

I'm not a parent but public education is worth my support.

If parents choose private schools or homeschooling, that is their right.

[Jim Warren]

31. Yes

Right now I agree with that.

I honestly don't know all the politics of vouchers to make an informed statement at this point so we've decided to do it on our own.

[Triana]

29. Good to see your post JimWar

...your reasons seem well thought out - and again, makes me feel better to know not all folks who home-school are fundys but just folks who want truely thinking, well-rounded kids and who haven't confidence in the usual institutions in general. That, I can understand.

[Triana]

23. Everyone I've known who 'home schools'...

...were Fundy extremeists. I don't know that they *all* are but I've known quite a few folks (and read in several articles/op-eds, etc.) that a lot of home-schoolers are religious extremeist X-tians who want to raise their kids extremely to the Right, hoping they'll get into politics and/or involved in other public duty type jobs, and push things further to the Right - such as over the edge a la GWB, Ashcroft, Falwell, et al.

Edit: nice to see some folks on here who are *not* extremeists who home-school. That makes me feel a little better! I have no kids so don't have much to say about good vs bad of it in general, but the scary thing to me has been the people I see doing it and their reasons for doing so (above).

[karabekian]

25. yeah but isn't it your right to raise you children how you want

and not how others say?

[genius]

26. There's a liberal homeschooling conference in Pasadena next month

Last year, all the speakers there were strongly anti-Bush and anti-war. It's called the Link.

[livinginphotographs]

28. I was home-schooled for a period...

Both my parents are atheists and raised my brother and me that way, and both have doctorates and were teachers at the time (my mom still is). They were imminently more qualified than the teachers at the schools where I was living at the time. Plus, my brother and I both grew up extremely liberal.

I was only home-schooled for about a year and a half until we could find a decent school system to send me to, so I may not be a great example, but I learned ten times as much and ten times as fast as I would've in public school.

And high school was such a nightmare that I wish I was home-schooled....

It's like everything else in life: there's good and bad and in-between, and it's wrong to stereotype all homeschoolers as fundamentalist lunatics.

[bleedingheart]

30. As a parent with children in public school, I am very involved with

their education. I don't do their homework and in fact I am probably tougher on them than the teachers.

I give my kid math problems to do when I see him slipping on his math tests. I correct his grammar and papers constantly....but yet I meet a number of parents who don't do that and then complain that the school is failing their children....but in reality the kids only get part of their education in school...the rest must be reinforced at home.

My mother was a highschool grad and dad had a 7th grade education and they were very involved in our education (public)...today...

My sister is a professor
I am an engineer
and my brother is a consultant in the pharmaceutical industry....

not bad...but we owe a lot to our parents...and of course the public school teachers!

[ulysses]

32. I actually considered it years ago (for kids we still don't have now)

but ditched the idea long since just on the idea that it'd be pretty much unworkable for us. I don't think it's *necessarily* a bad thing, but it's definitely got it's own set of challenges even aside from the fundie assumptions. I don't think it's a threat to public schools - certainly not a threat in the way that vouchers are a threat - and I'm not so concerned with the status quo.

My wife has a cousin with eight (!) children, all homeschooled for religious reasons. They're frighteningly well-behaved and certainly bright enough (their mom has kept up her certification, which I would imagine is a rare thing in cases like this), but extraordinarily sheltered. I fear for them once they really encounter the world...if they ever do. I fear for them even more if they do not.

I have to make myself remember at times that they aren't the face of every homeschooled child.