How can homeschooled kids be properly prepared for college?

Question

How are parents, who themselves are not highly educated, possibly educate their children better than teachers? Don't kids suffer disadvantages from failing to be exposed to multiple viewpoints, classroom competition, social interaction, and independence?

Thanks for all of your answers. I appreciate those of you who answered without assuming that I believed the inferred statements in my question. Those of you who have answered the question at face value are much more persuasive than those who think that I was attacking someone.

Answer 1

As a high school teacher, I saw several students homeschooled students come to high school for specific coursework...namely the advanced sciences, math or arts courses which would have been extremely costly to provide at home. or require expertise. At 16 or so, these students had never attended school before and there was no problem. Many went in wide eyed the first day, but after the intimidating first day, were regular students or better. Homeschooled students are generally more self-reliant and confident than kids in the school environment. There self-esteem hasn't been dragged through the mud with unnecessary competition and social interaction from maladjusted students and teachers.

Answer 2

Just to see the results, I started a question worded just like yours...


"How can homeschooled..."

Y!A displayed 724 similar questions.

A quick perusal of the answers to the similar questions would have answered you.

Why do you ask this same question when it has already been answered so many times? Why does it even matter to you?

Plus... where did you get the idea that homeschooling parents are not highly educated? Many that I know are current or former teachers themselves, some are college professors.

What multiple viewpoints are you talking about? The viewpoints from teachers who are similarly trained? Textbooks that are, at least in part, evaluated based on political correctness? Students all from the same general location grouped by same age?

Classroom competition? You mean competing for grades? All the homeschool parents I know are looking for mastery of subjects not a particular grade.

What social interaction are homeschooled students missing? A half-hour at lunch, a rushed 5 minutes between classes?

Independence?!!!

What independence opportunities are homeschooled children missing? Being told by a stranger when to sit, when to stand, when to speak, when to be quiet, when to go to the bathroom, when to eat, etc.?

Answer 3

How can public-schooled kids possibly be prepared for college? The presentation of knowledge and expectations are completely different, which is why so many freshmen suffer the first year away from school. For once, teachers don't care if they do the work.

In my experience with dozens of homeschooled children, they are much more advantaged with being able to work independently, learn on their own without being forcefed knowledge and taught to the test.

Teachers are not more educated that parents. They are educated in mass education, not necessarily in more academic arenas. They are taught how to follow the curriculum that schools provide, they are taught how to apply tests, they are taught how to do group think and discipline. Trust me, I started a teaching program at the state university, it did not help at all with academic knowledge.

As for the disadvantages listed, I know very few homeschoolers who are actually at HOME. LOL! They learn competition, interaction, independence and multiculturalism the same way that people have for millennia, by being out in the real world, dealing with real people. In fact, I'd wager that it's more useful than the artificial socialization that exists in school programs

Hope this helps

Answer 4

Question 1: The same way public school kids are properly prepared for college.
Question 2: I am highly educated. I graduated from public high school but my real education came from life long learning. I read. I understand.
I can educate better than a certified teacher because I know my son better. I can help guide one child rather than trying to guide 150 a year. (25 in a class times 3 classes a day times 2 semesters a year)
Question 3: Homeschool students are exposed to multiple viewpoints, group competition, social interaction and more independence than public school students.
Thanks for asking.

Answer 5

Given that the way universities teach has far more in common with the way most home-educated kids are used to learning, maybe the question should be: 'How can public schooled kids be properly prepared for college?'

|How are parents, who themselves are not highly educated, possibly educate their children better than teachers? (sic)|

Actually research demonstrates that children from families where the parents failed to finish high school achieve better educational results if they are home-educated than if they were to attend school.

Do you know how many teachers are teaching subjects in which they themselves only have high school level qualifications? It's a not insignificant number.

|Don't kids suffer disadvantages from failing to be exposed to multiple viewpoints, classroom competition, social interaction, and independence?|

No. There are 'multiple viewpoints' in books, articles, websites, journals, research papers, newspapers, magazines, radio programmes, television programmes, friends, neighbours, family members etc etc.

'Classroom competition' does not exist in my country's public education system.

Social interaction? My parents would love me to have *less* social interaction, heaps less social interaction, as they struggle at times to keep up with me and my social life (in addition to simultaneously keeping up with the social lives of my home educated siblings).

Independence? Are you kidding? My parents employ a number of people to work in their businesses and the one thing they'll tell you is that it is the kids who went to school who just stand around expecting my parents to tell them what it is they should be doing and when they should be doing it!!

Answer 6

How can Home schooled Kids get ready for collage?
By doing school, my older brother who has been home schooled all his life is now in collage. And there are no problems.
How can Parents who are not well educated themselves teach there children?
By using books and curriculum's. It is totally possible.
Do home educated kids suffer disadvantages?
Actually I think that public schools suffer disadvantages not homeschooling kids,
1. they are with a lot of kids there age all day, so it can be kind of hard to concentrate on school.
2. They are with kids there age all day while homeschooling children interact with kids and adults of all ages in groups, and there own family, now which one is more like the real world?
3. Public Schoolers can be limited to stay at the same pace as the class room while home schooled children can go at there own pace, faster or slower, which ever helps them learn the most.
That is my personal opinion.

Answer 7

//How are parents, who themselves are not highly educated, possibly educate their children better than teachers?//

To answer this for yourself you should actually do some research into homeschooling. It seems your working from some assumption that homeschooling is just school-at-home minus some advantages of school. You're actually comparing apples and oranges and don't realize it.

//Don't kids suffer disadvantages from failing to be exposed to multiple viewpoints//

Do your research. You're making baseless assumptions about what homeschooled kids are and aren't exposed to.

// classroom competition//

Is that always a good thing? Do you have proof that it is and that homeschoolers should attempt to emulate that or bemoan the fact that they can't reproduce it?

// social interaction//

More baseless assumption and...

//and independence?//

...Yet more baseless assumption.

Does nobody actually bother to research something anymore before they decide to make weird statements about it?

Angie - People generally get called on it when they make ridiculous statements or ask ridiculous questions that have nothing more at their core then tired stereotypes.

Answer 8

What hands on experience in math do think that public school high school students get? They too learn from textbooks. So you think you won't know how to raise your hand? Oh please. Give it a try right now. I bet you can do it. ETA: If you are going to be an anti-homeschooling troll you might want to delete all your other questions. According to some you are married. I assuming it is to the boy friend you have been talking about for months that was in jail. In several you are in the process of applying to be a foster parent and are asking how long it will take, if you will get financial help to buy the supplies you are required to have for the newborn boy you are about to take in etc.

Answer 9

Because once a child has been taught the basics they can usually teach themselves more advanced things.

Its also not fair to assume that no homeschooling parents are highly educated, some are and some aren't.

If you really wonder about college prep. just look at statistics. Homeschoolers ARE prepared. Whether everyone understand how they get that way or not, they repeatedly demonstrate that they are well prepared.

Answer 10

Lots of research out there showing that:

1) Percentage-wise, homeschoolers are far more likely to attend college.

2) Homeschoolers, on average, tend to do better on standardized tests than do their schooled peers.

There are these neat things called textbooks out there. You might have seen them: they use them in schools. These textbooks are also used in distance learning programs. Do you question the ability of a student to learn from a distance learning program? There are lots of programs out there designed to teach, even if the parent knows nothing about the topic: math, sciences, foreign languages... There are also lots of things called books that people can learn from once they know how to read; they don't have to wait for someone to "teach" it to them.

How homeschooling parents, many of whom are actually rather well educated, can possibly educate their children better than teacher is that the parents are able to provide the assistance a child need, able to provide the time a child needs--or allow the child to accelerate where appropriate--and the parent simply cares a whole lot more about the child's success than does the teacher. There's a growing amount of research showing that the relationship between teacher and student can have a HUGE effect on the student's success; there is a definite correlation between the success of students and the level of bonding with their teacher.

Please tell me how many different viewpoints you need to learn math? Physics? Chemistry? How to read? Where countries in the world are? The bulk of what's in school is not about viewpoints. Who told you that? Sure, there can be some different viewpoints for history, but all it takes is to take out a few different resources from the library or look up different sites on the web and you'll have plenty to talk about. Same thing goes for how to write an essay or anything like that. Besides, there are homeschooling groups, many of which hold classes and clubs where the kids get to discuss their various viewpoints. They also hear plenty of different viewpoints when at homeschooling activities because they hear what the adults are discussing.

Classroom competition is actually a negative. It does not help kids cooperate and be willing to help each other out, which is the kind of adult we would like them to be. There's a wealth of research out there on that.

Social interaction is available elsewhere than in school. In fact, if we stick to what social interaction really means, homeschooled kids are interacting most of the day with their own family, then there are all the various activities going on with homeschool groups, community clubs and lessons and more.

Independence? Homeschooled teens are among the most independent kids I know. They are given responsibility for their learning, they are allowed to get jobs--which many do, and during the day while other kids are in school, they set up all kinds of things... I'm not sure how sitting in a desk being told what to do, even when you're allowed to go to the bathroom, is supposed to be training for being independent. Independence is built upon by giving over responsibilities. Any responsible parent can teach this to their kids regardless of where the kids do their schooling. Has nothing to do with school at all, but parenting.