For pro-home schoolers only, please?

Question

I have been 'bashing' many of you on this board, and aside from being rude, I have not given you an open opportunity to address my complaints with home schooling, so could you answer for me:
Why did you choose to pull you kids out of school and home school them?
What was wrong with the public/private schools? Why didn't you try to change these problems by participating in your children's school?

What made you believe you could do an adequate job teaching?
How to do you grade your children's work? Can you objectively grade your son's/daughter's writing/penmanship/painting? (not the math or spelling, the objective stuff is easy, I mean the quailitaive stuff)
Did you have a fall back plan when you started? What did you plan to do if you could NOT effectively teach your children?
Can you name 3 advantages of home schooling?
Can you name 3 advantages of public/parochial school?
Yes its a tall order, and a yucky essay question
feel free to call me a poopy head if it helps

WOW! We have had some great answers so far! Picking the best is going to be very hard. I had suspected home school parents were just over protective or religious. Even though is ancedotal, your stories of how you met your challenges is very insightful. I was getting sick of hearing how every homeschooled kid was finished with high school at 12, was bound for Yale, and was going to be a Supreme Court Jusitice. I did not realize the parents were aware of how difficult this undertaking would be. I can see how use of the internet has changed the home schooling possiblities and networking possiblities form the time I was kid. PLEASE, MORE ANSWERS!

Wow, it closed!
Thank YOU ALL!!
There were a few really good answers
(and a few that made me scared for that person's children!!!)
I will leave it open to your voting

I learned a lot from your responses. I really appreciate the time and thought you put in to these long answers. I teach Saturday classes in DAPCEP, dapcep.org and I have had challenges relating to HS students. Perhaps next week I will post more questitions directly relating to my experiences.

Answer 1

I think that home-schooling is good for students because the teacher has 100% attention onto the pupil, plus the student would get a better understanding. Instead of a large group of kids where teachers have to often stop because of some of the class is messing around and time is wasted, home-schooling makes it a lot easier in some ways. Some disadvantages may be the kid wouldnt be able to interact with other kids their own age too.

Answer 2

Are you talking about people your own age or are adults actually unkind to you? I would say that kids your own age are probably jealous. The only problem I have ever had with homeschooling has been the safety issue, but that certainly is not a problem in your case. I would never say anything to a home schooled child or to the parents. It is the family's business. And the education can be much better. As far as the safety: in my state there have been several cases when abusers and molesters have been homeschooling their kids, foster kids, etc. That way a teacher or other responsible person does not notice any bruises, burns, etc. on the child. Also the child has no friends and is isolated from other trusted adults. This is the ONLY problem anyone should have with homeschooling and I realize these cases are rare. It has just been in the news several times locally and it breaks my heart.

Answer 3

1. Well, we didn't pull them out of school. Our children have been homeschooled from the cradle.
2. The public/private schools take away the family-dynamic that we desired to keep strong within our household.
3. :-) We have participated in our children's school from the start. 24/7 at home.
4. Resources -- there are so many things and people available to help us -- we had full confidence that any obstacle could be faced with aid from others.
5. We don't grade their work because we eliminate the variables. They work on math for 100% accuracy every day. They write everyday -- practicing essays and learning to write persuasively and clearly. They read, read, and read --- progressing from one level to another.
6. Objectively grade? Well, the idea is to write every day -- I can check grammar, spelling, punctuation... Painting? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Qualititive --- we strive for that along with the quantitative too.
7. A fall back plan? One day at a time
8. .....not effectively?..... well, we learned over the course of years that as the children learn to study the parents take a backseat -- the student becomes very capable of self-teaching. But yes, we have friends that are wonderful resources for "filling in the gaps". With the hundreds of thousands of books and products available it isn't difficult to find more than enough things that will work with each student's learning style and needs. If one thing isn't working -- adjust and adapt -- move forward.
9. 3 advantages? 1. The student can progress without obstacles in each discipline of study. 2. The student is able to completely master a concept without skating through it and rushing to the next concept -- this develops a better understanding of the material. 3. The student can take all the time needed to work through a difficulty -- in either of math, writing, or reading.
10. 3 public/parochial advantages? 1. Mom can sit and eat bon-bons while watching TV instead of supervising study hours. 2. Mom can chat on the phone for hours on end instead of helping a student with the books. 3. Mom can work full-time instead of being a stay at home mom..... Oh, wait... that's not really an advantage -- at least not for me!

Oh drat! I didn't know it was an essay question!!! I didn't answer it in the proper format. Do you want me to start over? ;-)
Nah, it's not yucky. It is a great exercise in thinking about WHY we do what we are doing. And no, i don't think that it would help to call you mean names. Your questions are very fair and worthwhile. If you were mean or rude in the past I do hope that you are willing to be nice now!

BTW: Home schools have many glitches and bobbles. We learn to work through it all together. Our students are not "super-human" or above anyone -- they are just kids like any others out there.

Have you ever considered visiting a conference put on by home-school organizations? Or even take a field trip to a curriculum sale --- you will be amazed at the enormity of material, the variety of methods, and the kaliope of people. Every one is different!

In Oregon the NW Curriculum Exhibit fills up a large room in the Colisseum -- with hundreds of tables with everything from educational games to college level text books. There are thousands of people that attend pulling wagons and carts to be filled with the things they plan to use to teach their children for the coming year.

Answer 4

I didn't pull my child out, he's never been to a school.
He's three and very quickly learning to read, can pretty much count to 100, knows that it gets dark because the earth turns, and that plants grow from seeds. He recognizes the flag and Statue of Liberty, and is also learning some basic civics. (we discussed voting during the elections).
We do art projects at home, go for walks and collect fall leaves. He puts together 24 piece jigsaw puzzles and we play board games. We cook and he does several household chores. We go to museums, Celtic and Renfaires, zoos and parks. He loves Jazz and we also listen to folk, classical, Celtic music and rock. He takes a martial arts class, and has taken soccer and arts classes.
I chose to educate him at home to give him a flexible, broad and cultured education. I'm an atheist but we can study all the worlds religions from an anthropological point of view.
I believe I have the language and research skills to teach my child, and his father can help when his math skills exceed my own. I think it's good for children to see their parents as lifelong learners as well. Studies have shown that even home schoolers with less educated parents do well. I believe that is due to the intensive nature of the small teacher to child ratio afforded home schoolers.
I want my child to be well rounded, and many schools have cut arts programs. Much of what's offered in the way of physical education (in those places where such programs still remain) are geared toward competitive children and not inclusive of children with less aggressive natures, which I find counter-productive. At home I can teach my child that everyone can find a physical activity that they can enjoy to keep them fit.
I want my child to have time to pursue his own interests, rather than filling his time with repetitive busywork. At home he can learn through play and the world will be his classroom. He can study when he's feeling focused and break for play when restless. He can learn practical skills and spend a week reverse engineering household items. Later he can apprentice with artists or craftspeople, or volunteer in our community. We can study languages other than Spanish or French.

I know I didn't complete the assignment as dictated, I just poured out my thoughts on why I homeschool. No time to edit, we're off to the park to play soccer.

Answer 5

My son is being home schooled due to extreme devolpemental delays due to a brain stem tumor.He is 12 with an IQ of 49.He has the abilities of a 4 yr old.There was nothing wrong with the public school for the exception there wasn't enough resourses for him to have a private aid who could work with him one-on-one.He attended K-5 in public school.I was a very active parent volunteer in his school.

I had to have faith in myself that I could help him.As for grading his work yes I am very objective.I often helped a teacher grade papers while volunteering at his school.His handwriting will never be up to par but at least he can sign his name and won't have to make a X for his siginture.He can read on a 1 graders level which he wasn't doing whn we began this year.

As for a fall back plan our only other optoin would have been to send him back to public school.Fortunatlly, for us it has worked out beautifully.This is our first year.

Advantages of public school are very difficult for me to name.While I can't say anything bad I really can't say anything positive.While he had wonderful teachers they just couldn't give him what he needed.He missed 37 days of school due to illness last year and was never required to make up any of the work.Yet he was passed to the next grade.

Home schooling has given him the oppurtunity to have one-on-one help.We will work on something untill he can unerstand it.It has been very hard for me to except that he will always be a child.What parent could possibly want to deal with that?
It is a joy to hear him read out loud and know what he is reading about.When he learned simple multiplacation tables I was thrilled.

Now, that's was a tall order but I won't call you a poopy head.LOL

Thank you for trying to understand the other side.

Answer 6

I am a homeschooled 8th grader.

Why did you choose to pull you kids out of school and home school them?
My parents choose to pull me out of school for 8th grade because I was not being challenged by the work prepared for me at my old school.

What was wrong with the public/private schools? Why didn't you try to change these problems by participating in your children's school?
My parents liked my school. This was not the problem. The problem was the academics. The work was not at my level. When I was in 7th grade, my estimated reading level was 10th grade. However, the books we had to read for school were about a 5th grade level. This made me bored and unhappy in school.

What made you believe you could do an adequate job teaching?
I am enrolled in an umbrella school, so if I have a problem I can call up the umbrella school and they will answer my questions. This was a nice back up plan in case they couldn't help me with something. This reassured them.

How to do you grade your children's work? Can you objectively grade your son's/daughter's writing/penmanship/painting? (not the math or spelling, the objective stuff is easy, I mean the quailitaive stuff)
The umbrella school grades my tests.

Did you have a fall back plan when you started? What did you plan to do if you could NOT effectively teach your children?
My parents planned on sending me back to my old school if this didn't work out.

Can you name 3 advantages of home schooling?
More free time for the whole family, Challenging academics, Closer family
Can you name 3 advantages of public/parochial school?
Sports...............that's it.

I will be attending a local private Catholic high school for high school. However, if that doesn't work out, I will go back to homeschooling. I will then enroll in one class in the local tech school and homeschool for the rest of the subjects. That way, I can be on their school sports teams and also participate in their extracurricular activites, but still homeschool.

Ellen Marie

Answer 7

I didn't pull my Son out of a public school.He never went to regular school in the first place. I homschool my son because I was born and raised in this town. And almost everyone I know that has been raised in this school system including myself. Has had nothing but trouble.I personally know some children whom were attacked on school grounds with knifes and one was raped.And all of the children I speak of are under the age of 10. The one whom was knifed was forced to ride the school bus with the offender less than a month after the offence. The school board refused to do anything because the boy's mother threated to claim that the school board was racist. Which the victum was a 7 year old white girl. But the charges were filed because she was stabbed not because the offender was a 10 year old black boy.All except for 6 of the students on the bus were black and the boy's mother still tried to make the same claim even after the other kid's parents asked to have him removed from school.They let him stay because they didn't want an accusation like that floating around.I also have a nephew whom was assulted by the highschools star basketball player and had the princapial tell my sister and myself that he flat out wasn't going to do anything because the team needed him. And if we pushed the matter he would find a reason to throw my nephew out of school.And the teacher whom witnessed the assualt had her job threatned and eventually got transfered to anthor school. The princapial said he wanted her out of his school because she challagend his authority and he wasn't going to have that.I also homeschool my son because he has sever asthma and is in and out of the children's hospital and wouldn't be able to attend school everyday.After really bad attacks he could miss has much as 1 month from school at a time. I would put him in a private catholic school we have one of the best in the country. Just down the road from me.But again he would miss to much time and not be able to keep up.has far has trying to make a change We parents have tried to make changes but the school board here prefers to stick their heads in the sand and pretend like nothings wrong.And you can't change something you don't acknowledge. I truely feel that the public school board in my county and The magarity of it's teaching staff aren't fit to teach my kitten to use the litter box.Has for has my qualifications I have more education than most of the teachers in this place. I am also very inteligent. I am self taught.I was pulled out of our public school system at 8 years old because of the inability to educate properly.When I was in school they didn't have all of the advanced classes they have now and I was forced to be in 3rd grade with other kids my age when I was reading,writing,spelling and doing math and grammer on an 8th grade level.I didn't better teaching myself then the school system did. I must have been a good teacher. I managed to finish high school get a diploma and finish my collage courses in legal studies with a 4.0 GPA.And it took me 9 months to get a two year degree.And I know I am being a good teacher to him. Because he is in 3rd grade and tests out on 5&6th grade levels.

Answer 8

1. My children have never attended a public school. We toured our home elementary school, I asked questions of the parents that have their children in that school, and we said "no thanks".
Our home elementary school is known to tolerate violence from its students. In fact, the boy next door has been known to strangle other children, and stab them with pencils, and I could go on, but I won't. I was NOT going to let my children be subjected to that in their classrooms. Not only that, but 33% of my city's schools are failing in requirements. 33%!!!!!!!!

2) I have a Master's Degree, and that is more education than many/most of the public school teachers in my area. I have always been intelligent and good with children. I have worked with children for years. I use the answer key to grade my children's work, and believe me, I can be very objective. Just ask my 8 year old why he has to keep re-writing his work over and over.

3) Our only fall back plan is that when my husband finishes school (next May), we may consider private school. Since my children are doing well emotionally, socially and academically, there is no need for a further fall back plan.

4) Advantages (homeschool)-my children get one on one attention, they aren't just a means for a school to collect cash. They learn BOTH sides of a story, not just the PC version. They are not exposed daily to kids with their pants around their ankles, sex talk and cursing.

Advantages (public)-it''s free. Sometimes the teachers DO actually care, and are good. (I had about 6 in all my public school years) The sports and extracurriculars are free. Sorry, I was public schooled, and that's all I could think of.

Answer 9

I had two sets of children several years apart. My older children attended public school throughout their lives (although one of them eventually homeschooled starting at 11th grade by request). We were living in a large city, at the time. Gangs started to pop up, metal detectors were going up at the schools, girls were getting knifed in the bathrooms by other girls over boys, drug deals were made by kids throwing paper wads around the class with the drugs inside. There was an influx of non-English speaking students which placed a further burden on the school system. I saw the older children struggle to survive each day -- just making it home alive was a huge victory -- and it was clear they were being influenced by their peers in some damaging ways. And this was all supposedly in an upscale community. We did attend several school support meetings and found the teachers fearful and discouraged -- many of the veteran teachers telling us they were getting out of the teaching field at the year's end. Replacing those veteran teachers were young, inexperienced teachers who were simply unable to make effective change. The lessons were dumbed down just to get kids to pass -- no real learning was taking place. As the two younger children were approaching school age, and I saw their innocence, I didn't have the heart to put them in school. Private school wasn't an option. My husband and I are well-educated -- 14 years in publishing on my part; my husband was a chief engineer in naval research. A radio program came on that spoke about homeschooling. Something clicked for me, and I began to do the research -- spent two years learning about it before actually doing it. There were a lot of sacrifices to be made -- living on one income, choosing home over career, learning to be a teacher, organizing the home, doing the research, making the lesson plans, planning for socialization, budgeting, etc. It all took time, and each year I learned something different and improved. My younger children were thriving and maintained their innocence and went on to become successful in public high school (after we moved out of the city). Our family bond became strong. Testing each year proved that the academics were being learned and mastered. When you have the kind of motivation that we had -- true concern for our children's safety -- it's amazing what you can do. In our later years of homeschooling, we formed a cooperative with 5 other families -- each mother taking a turn teaching a particular topic one day per week while the other mothers and younger children socialized. We did science projects, dissections, history lessons, dramatizations, field trips, book reports, etc., together as a group -- including themed dinners that centered around learning other cultures. Those were the best years of our 12 year homeschooling experience, and these friendships continue even though most of our children are now grown, have college plans or are in public high school. Each of these families has avoided the pitfalls with drugs, rebellion, teen pregnancy, etc., and they are standing out in the community as responsible and well-liked young adults. I wouldn't trade those years for anything, and I treasure the closeness that has cultivated between myself and my children. It took all of that time together to create it -- and it never seemed like work or sacrifice. When they tell stories about their childhood, I'm not hearing about it second-hand -- I was there enjoying it with them, and I'm in each one of their stories. To me, that's what homeschooling is really all about.

Answer 10

My word, what a long question......Okay, my parents decided to home school my brother and I because of all the junk that is taught in public schools. i.e. all that evolution, stuff on abortion, handing out contraceptives in middle schools and homosexuality. Not to mention all the peer pressure to have sex, do drugs, drink, smoke etc... I have heard sooooooo many stories from friends who do go to public school about what goes on and I am SO thankful that my parents loved me enough to teach me at home and away from all of that. So there's your answer.......poopy head.