why do they question?

Question

These people get on here time and time again and question if it is better to be taught at home stating that parents are not qualified to teach. The national winner at the spelling bee this year, happens to be a homeschooler, is actually better at MATH and he beat out every one else!

What more do people need to see?

http://www.spellingbee.com/07bee/individuals/bios/011.pdf

One example, lol. This is just the LATEST example of MANY. :)

Answer 1

I actually watched the Spelling Bee this year.....and during the kids bio...he talked about music and math. Where are his friends? This kid needs to get out and enjoy life, play a sport, get active, find friends! He's going to turn into an asocial math whiz like John Nash (Russell Crow played him in A Beautiful Mind)!

Answer 2

The problem is that most public school teachers see the kids that have not been properly home schooled and have been placed back in the public system. Been there, done that. Please keep in mind that many people have pulled their children out of school for one reason or another and then send them back into the system having given them no discipline or system for learning. Those kids have been given a book and told to do the math in it or told to read the science book with no applications. One would assume that most of the folks that come on this site, since there is obvious use of the Internet, use more sources and more time with their children. Please remember, what most public school teachers see are not the successes of homeschooling, but the failures.

Answer 3

I think the young man who won the Spelling Bee is a classic example of a homeschooled student who is being educated properly. My 7-year-old son who I just began homeschooling this past November was inspired by the young man.

People who send their children to public school often have no concept of homeschooling. However, most homeschooling parents attended public school or private school. I have had opportunities to explain homeschooling to parents of public school students, and they encourage me to keep homeschooling. I live in a neighborhood where homeschooling is virtually non-existent, and the neighborhood schools are of poor quality.

Sometimes people just need to listen to each other; those who are informed should explain homeschooling to those who are not without getting too excited. No one could talk me into sending my son back to public school; if I thought it would benefit him to attend public school, I would allow him to do so. It doesn't bother me what anyone says about homeschooling. All I know is that it is helping my son to learn and achieve--enough said.

Answer 4

Ok...I have one child in public school and one child at home and guess what.....they are both straight A students!!!!

I think it depends on the student and how well they do. My son couldn't spell his way out of a box but he could do math equations forever. I don't think it's fair that a spelling bee is how we judge whether homeschooling is good or not...there are some complete failures out there that are homeschoolers too. Why can't everyone just see that each child is different...some do well in homeschool and some do well in public school. Why do you always have to say "homeschoolers are better" or "public is better" there are pros and cons to both!!! Get over yourselves!

Answer 5

I think there were 3 or 4 other homeschoolers in the top 12!

People who question it judgementally are usually just that: judgemental. It's hard living judgementally all the time: you find fault with everything and gain no real pleasure from it. They will find all kinds of other negative reasons to dismiss homeschoolers' success. Sometimes the questions are the result of ignorance, but usually, it's just plain jugdementalism, often in the form of prejudice. If these same people took the same stance against a particular race, they'd be called racist.

They're not interested in seeing that it does work. They're just interested in being top dog and feeling that they're right.

Answer 6

OK, I don't have a response to your question. I just had to let everyone know what a laugh I got out of picklez747's answer. To think that it's homeschooling that causes schizophrenia (the psychological disorder that John Nash suffers from) made me laugh so hard I almost cried! Thanks, picklez!

EDIT: Earl - I realize John Nash wasn't homeschooled. But picklez answer made it seem like the lack of socialization homeschoolers supposedly suffer from will cause them to become schizophrenic like John Nash. I'm quite certain it was his schizophrenia that caused him to be anti-social (not asocial, as picklez said) and not the other way around.

Answer 7

Hi, Thrice : )

Homeschooling socialization, like home education, is what the parents make of it, and can actually be great. HS is becoming more and more prevalent, creating greater opportunities for socialization, field trips, clubs and shared classes for hs kids. There are also volunteering, paid work, apprenticeships, internships, theatre, sports, travel, hobbies, which allow a much greater variety of socialization than experienced through public school.

Answer 8

The quality of teaching in a school all depends on the school and the teachers. The quality of learning at home depends on the parents. It all depends.


One, and even MANY examples doesn't prove anything. For example, there are many mutated animals in this world. If there were 100 birds that were mutated and only had 1 wing, you cant assume all birds have only 1 wing.

It all depends on the quality of learning, either side. Everyone will have different opinions, depending on how good their school was or their parents were.

Perhaps the people who have been homeschooled do well, becuase the parents who decide to homeschool their kids know they are good at teaching and are smart. It doesn't mean homeschooling is the best for every family. What if the parents are not very smart?

Answer 9

If they admit that something besides school works that invalidates all the crap they went through and that their kids are going to.

So they'll stick to knocking down their strawman homeschooler and I think we should stop caring, as hypocritical as that sounds given the two questions I just asked.

Answer 10

I've come to feel really sorry for people who don't know that there are limitless social opportunities outside of schools.

I work in schools, I see the socialization that goes on there, and frankly I'm not impressed and think it is unnatural-- not necessarily damaging, but definetly nothing like the "real world" outside of schools. Kids are segregated unnaturally by age, forced to sit quietly for long periods of time, have to raise their hands and ask to go to the bathroom... I'm sorry, but how is spending time in a room with a lot of kids you're not allowed to talk to socializing? Many schools now are employing silent lunches, recesses have been reduced if not cut out altogether. It's not uncommon when you go into the schools every single day to witness disrespect (sometimes on the part of the kids, sometimes on the part of the adults towards the kids), the fighting, the teasing, the rebellion-- school may be one option for social activitiy, but certainly not the only option and certainly, IMO, not the best.

At least as homeschoolers my kids get out every day in various places and situations and meet with a wider variety of people: Oh, we see some of the same people several times a week for educational and free playing activities, but we also have time a few times a week to go somewhere new and meet and interact with different people. In their classes the ages vary and they work in small, intimate groups doing projects. We go to our co-op, classes at community centers, childrens museums, botanic gardens, historical landmarks, field trips, chess club, college courses, library reading programs, volunteering, nursing homes, the playground, the pool.

Most of the places we go to, the social aspects mirror real life that an adult would experience than schools-- varied ages, allowed to speak and interact and move freely about the room, allowed to say, "excuse me," and get up and go to the bathroom, not a lot of teasing/fighting going on.

These people who cannot comprehend socialization outside of schools, I have to wonder-- what do they do with their kids during Summer break? Or expect kids to do when they graduate? Basically, seems to me, they'll start doing what homeschoolers were doing all along and get out into that real world they're always talking about.

MSB

Answer 11

People OBVIOUSLY are choosing FREINDS over EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS.

Wow! Maybe THAT'S WHY JOHNY CAN'T READ AND SUSAN CAN DO MATH!

Maybe it's the PARENTS FAULT!

And by the way John Nash wasn't homeschooled he was enrolled in a school with people and HE CHOSE not to have friends or his NATURE kept him from having friends and based on what we saw, he was already afflicated in his first year of college.

So, in view of this, maybe SCHOOL causes Psychosis!

That's all it seems to prove! It proves he CAUGHT IT IN SCHOOL!