why would you homeschool?

Question

to me it seems like a downright awful idea to take a kid away from their peer group. but that's just me, i went to public school my whole life. those who do homeschool, what is your reasoning?

Answer 1

My parents decided to homeschool me because they thought they could provide me with more opportunities in a more wholesome environment. If I hadn't homeschooled, I wouldn't have been able to:
1.) Go on a historical tour of the East Coast in October and do incredible things like lay a wreath on George Washington's tomb (those things make the BEST field trips :-P) and see Colonial Williamsburg.

2.) Get to see the Vice President when he sporadically decided to come to our small town's airport on the morning of a school day.

3.) Get to sit in the cockpit of the biggest airplane in the world on a schoolday (my dad's an air traffic controller, so I got a personal field trip :-P)

4.) Take dual-credit courses and knock out 24 hours of college credit. Oh, and get "socialized". (although no one even guessed I was homeschooled, some of them still think I actually attend there)

When you homeschool, you're not being taken away from a peer group. In fact, those who are giving that impression aren't homeschooling the right way. The point is to *replace* the peer group with another one, and to *replace* the social activities of school with other ones. I had all sorts of stuff to do: field trips, sleepovers, co-op classes, sports classes (I was able to join a USA swim team that practiced during school hours), not to mention church activities. I even had a homeschool prom (a real prom, not some rinky dinky thrown together thing) that I could have gone to if I wanted. I have never felt that I had anything taken away from me. In fact, by homeschooling, I'm getting to attend college now at age 16.

I'm not saying that some people don't do what you claim, but it's those people who are the odd man out. Most homeschoolers consider themselves to be personal chauffers! The joke in homeschooling is :"Why is it homeschooling? I'm never home!"

Answer 2

I think homeschooling is a good idea, my brother was a teacher and teachers have to follow a curriculum set by the school whereas home studies though they have to learn certain materials, don't follow the same format or curriculum. An example, 1 hour class on plants, what if the kids want to learn more? Home schooled kids can go with the teacher/parent outside and look at plants, they are not set on a daily 1 hour class allowance schedule. There is more quality content, besides the required content and more personal attention rather than 30 in a classroom. You could also integrate more into the home group say 5 compared to 30, that's alot more individual contact, and that's still being with peers and your own age group to make friends. Also with all the schoolings, drugs, and such in the world where schools are becoming more like prisons with metal detectors, security guards, and locked doors, a home environment sounds alot more appealing to me.

Answer 3

I'm curious. When did peer groups become so important? For much of American history, this was not so. Most Americans were taught at home before the 1800's. It's amazing Washington, Franklin, Adams, Lincoln, etc were able to function, much less become great Americans without the influence of a peer group during their school ages.
Here are a few notable people who were homeschooled. How do you suppose they were able to accomplish all they did without the all important peer group? With this in mind, can you explain your reasoning for putting so much importance on a person having as much involvement with their peer group as todays kids have?
Educators:
Frank Vandiver (President - Texas A&M)
Fred Terman (President - Stanford)
William Samuel Johnson (President Columbia)
John Witherspoon (President of Princeton)

Generals:
Stonewall Jackson
Robert E. Lee
Douglas MacArthur
George Patton

Inventors:
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Edison
Cyrus McCormick
Orville Wright & Wilbur Wright

Artists:
Claude Monet
Leonardo da Vinci
Jamie Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
John Singleton Copley

Presidents:
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
John Quincy Adams
James Madison
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
Abraham Lincoln
Theordore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Scientists:
George Washington Carver
Pierre Curie
Albert Einstein
Booker T. Washington
Blaise Pascal

Answer 4

Ummm.....homeschooling must now not be you locked in a basement someplace or chained to a table. Real international hobbies will also be the satisfactory side of a house founded schooling. We lawn and talk over with parks and farms. We attend quite a lot of lectures and my daughter was once encouraged to do a little pictures this iciness. My daughter loves to motorbike within the afternoons, sculpt such a lot mornings within the solar, cross with peers to the library, cross browsing and to the films on weekends and we each absorb artwork suggests each time we will. We use town buses and trolleys to get in which we wish to move. We motorbike the greenbelt and hang around on the skate park for "gymnasium magnificence". If you hate the form of homeschool you presently have, difference it totally! There are as many methods to homeschool as there are homeschoolers. Currently my daughter and a pal are becoming in combination to observe a weekly PBS exact on Native Americans. They watch and speak about at the same time they have got Rocky Road ice cream and revel in each and every others organization. If my daughter hated how she schooled, I'd inform her that was once her fault for missing creativeness and gumption, considering the fact that we university in line with her tastes, abilities and plans. You must check out that too.

Answer 5

"Take a kid away from their peer group." You know, human beings aren't born into a same-age peer group. I'm not taking anything away from my children. I'm giving them a more normal social opportunity: interact with people of various ages and not grow up in a family of 30-tuplets. (We DO get out of the house very often, in case you were under that commonly mistaken notion.) They have friends and peers, they're just not necessarily same-age peers. And they're not sitting next to them quietly at a desk for half the day. Wouldn't you know it--they don't even know half the time how old the other kids are or what grade they are in. They just play and do things together. I've seen public school kids who've just been pulled from school who won't go play because there's nobody their age to play with. :(

I homeschool my kids because I taught and didn't like what I saw going on among the peers and my husband teaches junior high and doesn't like what he sees going on among the peers (8th grade girls' clothing was so bad for a while the gr. 8 hallway was called the Red Light Hallway; kids spray Axe on their arms and light it up--one girl got her hair sprayed and lit on fire; the list goes on).

I think it's a shame that we've spent the past 100 years raising people to think it's normal, and even desirable, to grow up with what is the equivalent of 20-30 same-age siblings. It's not. Imagine raising a family of 30 kids who are all the same age! That's essentially what schools do. It's only for convenience, but it's brought a whole ton of societal problems with it.

(As an aside, I also now homeschool for the academic and general whole development benefits that it brings to my children.)

Answer 6

I homeschool because I learn better and I get to spend more time horseback riding. Some people say you don't get socialized but I go to homeschool activities with other people and I have lots of friends. I am 13 and I'm taking an online collage course at Harvard and all my friends in public school are jealous.

Answer 7

I went to public school almost all my life as well, 17 out of 22 years, and looking at what it's gotten me makes it pretty darn clear to me that my kids won't be attending school.

Putting a kid with an IQ of 150 in a normal classroom, expecting her to work at the same pace as her peers is analogous to putting a normal kid in a classroom of kids with IQs of 50 expecting the normal kid to go at severe retard pace. Do you know who are most likely to drop out of highschool here in the US? Boys with high IQs... yes, that's right... not the morons, but the smart kids. Smart girls don't drop out, they become depressed instead. Throughout most of highschool I wanted to kill myself. I doubt homeschooling could've been worse.

Kids bully each other over all kinds of BS. 17 years of public school never taught *me* to socialize... it did destroy my self-esteem though, thank you.

At age 18 public-schooled kids have no useful skills beyond basic literacy whatsoever... the only kinds of jobs they can get are flipping burgers and the like. That's ridiculous. People used to be journeymen when they were 15 or such. I plan on giving my kids the opportunity to learn a job before they turn 18... like take community college classes when they're 15-16 and get some applied associate's degree so they can get a job to support themselves through college (if they want to attend college).

There are more reasons, I could probably write a book on why I'd NEVER EVER send my kids to school (public or private). I wish someone had "taken" me "away from my peer group". Man, they sucked!

Answer 8

I think it is a downright awful idea to stick kids in with only their peer group and not expose them to "the real world" everyday. I am sorry, but there is more to this world than just being stuck in a classroom full of children only your child's age.

I homeschool because I can, because it is what we believe works for our family, because our daughter wants too, because she gets to converse with adults and children of all ages everyday, and simply because the school system is unable to teach our daughter the way we want, and a hundred other reasons.

Answer 9

We Homeschool because I got tired of my daughter coming home every 3rd day(in a 5 day school week) with a fever and having to spend 3-4 days in bed along with a weekly trip to the ER. At one point the Principal of her school showed up on my doorstep and pushed her way into my home claiming that I was aiding a truant....my daughter had been in the hospital for two weeks with a respiratory ailment and had only been home 24hrs when this happened. I had kept the school up to date the entire time of her stay and told them it would be another two weeks before she MIGHT return to school. To make further problems, this woman then made false reports to DCF (department of children and family services) and I had to deal with them, not to mention telling my daughter TO HER FACE that she (my daughter) was stupid and she (principal) was sending her back to kindergarten...sending a First Grader back to Kindergarten halfway thru the school year.
My daughter is very happy being schooled at home and learning tons...AT HER PACE. She enters 3rd grade this fall and is doing division,fractions and pre-algebra and does science at the Middle School level. I don't have to worry over her health as much as I once did although I do keep a watchful eye on her ---ALL(Acute Lymphoblastic Lukemia), Venom Anaphalaxia,Asthma.
BTW I am a product of the public school system with a stint in private and then back to public. There is nothing great about our school system in fact it's getting worse not better. Once the students were respectful and if you acted up you got your backside tanned not only at school but again when you got home. Now Teachers and Administrators can't even touch a child's shoulder without someone screaming sexual misconduct or abuse, and heaven forbid a child hugs a teacher(what does a six yr old know of assault). Clothing is downright slutty and half the time not even age approriate, gangs, guns, metal detectors and drugs, and to top the cake we have mandatory testing starting in 3rd grade with the FCAT that the children spend 3 months cramming for instead of actually learning... the test is not for the benifit of the children but to see if the Teacher is actually Teaching but yet half our children can't Read, Write, form an appropriate sentence or do a simple math problem.

So you tell me who's getting the better education!?!

Answer 10

We homeschool for several reasons. My 9th grader was pulled out in the beginning of 8th grade because she was labeled as having "learning difficulties" ONLY because she struggled in math. She basically was spending the entire day doing nothing but math. Even when it was time for science and history it was math instead. This was all in an effort for the school to improve their scores for that year. She EXCELLED in everything else but the school wouldn't put her back into the regular flow of kids. So I pulled her out. Now she has found her confidence again, and is reading and writing constantly. She choses alot of what we learn. We also have taken our time learning math because she struggles so much. We are not on anyone else's time table.
My 4th grader I pulled out because she was beyond bored in her 2nd grade class and was in desperate need of some stimulation. Again the school wouldn't advance her, so I pulled her out about 3 months after the other. We skipped over the rest of 2nd grade and went on to third grade. She has found a love for cooking/baking and doing things with her hands. She has learned to knit, crochet, and cross stitch from my mother-in-law. She had a hard time learning times tables, and so we have spent almost a year on them. That's because we can. She has it down really good now and we can move on to other math, which she is now excited about because she finally "got" how to memorize the tables.
Both girls are involved in homeschool tutor groups, dance, drama, Girl Scouts, church. They actually have more and much better friends than before. That's why we do it.