Home Schooling?

Question

What are some reasons why home schooling is bad. I already know about the quality of learning,and social health but I would like to know of some more. Also I would like to know, if you buy text books to teach your children with about how much would they cost, and how much would science supplies cost ?

Answer 1

Actually from my experiences I've gathered that homeschooling promotes social health. Too many people are under the misconception that school is the only place children can be exposed to other children, diversity, new ideas, etc. And the quality of education varies from family to family, just as it does from school to school. Many homeschoolers recieve a better education outside the public schools than they would from within.

This year my textbooks, chemistry equipment/supplies, and robotics equipment cost us about $300 total. We did well. The robotics course was the most expensive because we needed all of the software, hardware, etc. It cost us close to $90 total. Everything else was considerably less expensive than it could have been. We used books from the educational publisher Glencoe, but found it economically unwise to buy the books directly from the publisher. Instead we used the catalog at Glencoe.com to determine which books we wanted, and then searched for the books on Amazon.com and purchased them used for a fraction of the cost. ($60 student edition government book only cost $10 used. No writing on the pages, no missing pages or anyting. Just a name written on the inside cover.) Many of my books are still in new condition, but they ranged in cost from $3 to $20 simply because the someone else already put their name in the book. And these were all 2005 to 2007 edition books.

Answer 2

Homeschooling is ONLY BAD if you have a BAD student and generally that student will be BAD in brick school as well.

All other views are biased propeganda from unions who fear for their teachers jobs and cush school systems that pay executives $200K a year to administrate failing school systems.

As for equipment it can get costly. You can spends hundreds on glassware for chemistry and biology. A good microscope costs over $100.

There are, indeed, some drawback to homeschooling. You can't, for example, just go out and buy Ether for live frog work.

Ether is a restricted substance and dangerous. It's highly flamable.

But it's readily available to high school biology departments.

On the other hand you can get a telescope for $80 and work at nights and get a better Astronomy understanding than you will from a text book. That's something schools don't offer until college.

There are, however, things you can do if you read the text books and understand the process.

I taught electroplating basics to two pre-teens at home using simple Hobbie Store chemicals (Copper Sulfate and a Zinc Strip -- about $5 at most hobbie shops) a 9v battery from Radio shack and a small drinking glass (not plastic).

You connect the leads to two pieces of the zinc strip, submerge half of them into water with copper sulfate, waite a few minutes and you see copper plating on the zinc.

Watch Beakman's world and you'll get a few ideas.

Answer 3

Someone has already addressed the question of social skills, and the fact that the quality of the experience varies from family to family. Even within the same family you can have kids who do really well with public school and others who are far better off being homeschooled.

From my experience, the drawbacks include:
Greater demands on my time, energy and organizational skills.
A home that is rarely as clean as I'd like.
Having to explain this lifestyle to ignorant strangers.

They can also include family stress if the extended family isn't supportive.

If you are a secular or otherwise non-Christian homeschooler it can be difficult to find a social and support network. (That doesn't mean that homeschooling is only for Christians, just that the groups for Christians are the most obvious, vocal, whatever.)

But really, I wouldn't characterize any educational option as 'bad' or 'good'; it really comes down to what is a good fit for your family. For some families it's homeschooling. For others it's public or private school.

Answer 4

Uh, what? Homeschoolers tend to do better on standardized tests than do public schooled students, so I'm not sure how you can claim that the quality of education is bad. Also, I know PLENTY of socially "healthy" homeschooled students, including my children. If you are going to use that in an essay or something as reasons for homeschooling being bad, then you are using information that is FALSE and writing a nonsense essay.

Answer 5

Unless you lock up your kids and never do anything outside the home, homeschooling isn't bad.

If you are willing to take on the responsibility then homeschooling is great.

Cost can be very, very minimal because of the library and internet. If you wanted, everything could be found in those two places.

Answer 6

My mom homeschooled me 8-11th grade. I hated it because I had very little interaction with other children.. I was bored, I got lazy not being in any sports, I didn't go out much.. I don't feel I learned as well as if I would have went to public school. I am at a University now and I still struggle with Math because I couldn't learn well with my mom or myself or over the internet teaching me. My mom got the books from the school for free. We also went through American School and got books through them and I would like to estimate it was roughly ($900) and my brother currently does a cyber school.. I'm not sure how much that costs but he seems to like it alot.