Homeschooling as an approach to a child's education?

[bomba923]

Assuming you have the time of course,

Would you guys favor homeschooling as an approach to a child's education?

Is there more risk involved, albeit with greater academic opportunity?

 

[mattmns]

I will very likely be home-schooling my kids. I have been in a few classes that are 80%+ elemtary education majors, and most are flat out morons and there is no way I would let them near my kids.

 

[Joel]

I havn't given the issue any thought, but just as a question: would you have time to educate them if you had a full time job?

 

[neurocomp2003]

pure homeschooling...i wonder if you cuold blend the too. Because there are some classes i think a child should take in school...music/art/gym/english.

Most other classes you could probably home school.
Math/sciences/social sciences.

unless of course your home schooling involves extra curriculars like sending them off to dance class or computer camp.

 

[Gale]

i sort of agree with mattms. if i can, i'll homeschool my kids. i don't really trust many teachers to do a proper job. aside from that though, i'd worry about my kid socially maybe? so, i might consider private schooling i guess, so that at least they'd be around other children. perhaps i'd teach them the first few years, (aka, elementary school or primary school, whatever...) and then enroll them in a regular school. public or private. i think once they're old enough, they'll have more control over their education anyway. plus, its less awkward i think, if maybe my kids were ahead, to get back into the normal system at a younger age. i think it would be traumatic teaching my own kids for all their lives, and then throwing them into uni.

 

[gurkhawarhorse]

no home schooling because i m not! lol, sorry couldn't stop.

 

[moose]

homeschooling can be bad or good...

The child needs to learn to be on his/her own more. The child also needs to learn to be more independent...

I think that kids can be homeschooled in elementary grades, but they should go to a public high school...

 

[Moonbear]

All good parents homeschool their children...at least informally. That is, a child's education doesn't stop when they leave the school grounds, and good parents always continue to supplement their child's learning at home.

When I have kids, I will most likely send them to the local public schools, where they will have to learn to get along with other kids. If I end up living someplace where the public schools are particularly bad, then they will be off to private school. I will always be supplementing their educational experiences at home, but would never deprive my children of the social lessons of attending school. I also would never want to limit my children to my own weaknesses or my own interests and strengths. I sure could teach them well in math and science, but what if my child's talents or passions lie elsewhere and he/she will be a talented musician or historian, and I deprive them of sufficient exposure to those and end up stifling them? But, I will also do my best to provide for them supplemental materials/tutoring/opportunities in anything they show an interest in in school, so I will not limit them to only what is offered in the school if they want to learn more.

 

[cefarix]

i went to public school until 4th grade, then i was homeschooled
so i ended up finishing high school when i was 14, and getting into a bachelors program at 16
on top of that, the workload was very little (2 to 3 hours per day). so i had the rest of the time to tinker with computers and physics, and i ended up making my own operating systems, the latest version of which i continue to work on
so homeschooling does have a lot of benefits if done properly

 

[Pengwuino]

Would you guys favor homeschooling as an approach to a child's education?

Is there more risk involved, albeit with greater academic opportunity?

It all really depends on what kinda homeschooling is involved. I believe there's many different systems people use to homeschool kids, some probably very successful while others probably very unsuccessful.

 

[hitssquad]

Perhaps homeschooling decision should be based partly upon the given child's aptitude

Would you guys favor homeschooling as an approach to a child's education?

If the kids have high IQs, homeschooling may be better. An option for homeschool parents is internet-based tutoring, so the parent does not necessarily have to be the sole provider of instruction. Since much of schooling simply functions as day care, perhaps GPS anklets, monitoring cameras and strict reward/pubishment systems would help, as well. That way the parents may not even have to be home during the school day.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One of my oldest friends and his wife chose to home school their kids - two boys. When the boys were approaching high school age they expressed the desire to attend a public schools due to the social attraction, which they did, and they each were moved ahead by two years. Though technically only a pre-freshman, and a freshman [nearly a sophomore], the advisor said that they both really qualified as seniors or advanced juniors, but that they shouldn't be placed so far out of their age group. I think they both entered high school as juniors.

I also happen to know for a fact that the woman who was in charge of home schooling for the state [in another area] was a complete flake whose own kids were walking examples of a failed education. So it seems that some home schooling entities or agencies are a waste of time and a joke, but the the education from home schooling can be greatly superior to a public education.

 

[moose]

Moonbear has the right idea. I know that the kids in my math classes who do best, and who can actually figure out problems(unlike most who just remember how...etc) are the ones who when they were younger, their parents always asked them simple math problems, something even as simple as counting up money in a game of monopoly. As a child, I always liked figuring stuff out, and my parents asked me various questions a lot of times. I remember in an interview, Brian Greene said that when he was little, his dad asked him to calculate various things which sometimes took him several days. I guess that if a kid's mind is developed like this, they will be above the rest...

 

[rocketboy]

Assuming you have the time of course,

Would you guys favor homeschooling as an approach to a child's education?

Is there more risk involved, albeit with greater academic opportunity?

I was homeschooled from grade 4 to 8.

By grade 8 I was doing grade 10 math. Why? Because there was nobody else in my class, nobody to slow me down, nobody to force me to speed up. I worked at my own pace for 4 years.

It depends on the child, my best friend was also homeschooled, and I live in a small town so my social life wasn't lacking because of it.

I am now in grade 12 at a private high school (Ashbury College) in Ottawa Canada. I also have a $5k scholarship to the school, and am doing the IB program. I'm not trying to brag, if I hadn't been homeschooled I don't think I would be where I am today, I definitely wouldn't have gotten the scholarship, and my parents would never have seen my maths/sciences potential and wouldn't have even considered sending me to Ashbury. I'd probably be attending the local high school where they call the graduating class the "Potential Grads" because there is such a low graduation rate.

Homeschooling allows you to discover your childs strong and not so strong subjects, and allows the child to learn those subjects at an individual rate. This is the biggest advantage toward homeschooling I would say. I was always poor in French, so I studied that subject at a slower rate. Since I was strong in math, I went at a faster pace.

It also teaches the child extremely good study habits at an early age, depending on how your "homeschool" is set up. My dad worked, my mom stayed at home and basically guided me in teaching myself. She was always there (as was my dad) to help me when I needed it, however for the most part I tought myself, I worked through the lessons of the textbooks and then did the excersizes. If I had trouble, I went to my parents and they guided me in the right direction.

Homeschooling also allows you to select the subjects to teach and how to teach them. For example, in grade 4 at a public school, kids don't do any form of current events (or not at the school I attended prior to homeschooling). At home, I had to write a brief summary of a news story that I saw on the 12:00 news, or read the newspaper and do a summary of an article. Not only did this teach me english skills at an early age, but it informed me of what was going on in the world, and that in itself can teach one much more than a textbook.

Ok, now for some disadvantages (and how they were overcome):

Although it depends on the homeschoolers, I never had homework, and I never had grades. I had tests although not to the scale that schools do.

However I didn't need homework, because everything was done at home. Homework in school at a young age is given (I think) for one main reason. There isn't enough time in class to finish the work. This is because it takes the teacher so long to teach a lesson. Why? Because she has to adjust to the paces of everyone, so the students all learn at the pace of the slowest student. A team is only as strong as its' weakest member. At home, I did a lesson, and I did the work associated with that lesson until it was finished, homeschooling is flexible, so I didn't have time limits on classes, I just worked away until I was finished. I did the work at my own pace, my parents noticed that I flew through the math lessons, so they started getting me to do 2 lessons per morning, because it was my strong subject. In school I would have been held back by students who weren't so strong, and would not have been able to develop my math skills to my potential.

I never had grades because there wasn't really a need for them. My parents knew how well I was doing, because they knew exactly what I was doing. A major problem with public schools is the lack of communication between parents and the school (the schools fault not the parents). Grades give a teacher a way of telling the parents how well their child is doing, however the problem is that it does nothing more than inform. It doesn't actually solve the problem if a student is doing poorly. At homeschool, the parents don't need grades because they know how well their child is doing, and if the child is doing poorly, they can solve the problem, they can change the curriculum, the type of work, the lessons, they can adjust everything to the needs of their child. At school this can't be done because the school has to teach according to the general needs of the entire class. Tests are the same way. My math textbook had tests at the end of every 10 lessons or so, and I did these tests. They told my parents whether or not I was ready to move on. If I was, I moved on, if I wasn't, I went back and re-learned what I needed to.

I hope that this helps, I think it is the longest post I have ever written, however if you are seriously considering homeschooling, please read it all.

-Jon

 

[Pengwuino]

I wonder how the parents personal bias effects a kids teaching in a loosely defined homeschooling program. I mean if I were to homeschool my children and I had a lot of leverage in what gets taught and what is shown to be important compared to our current school district's lessonplan, thered be some huge differences! They won't know the various Indian tribes, they won't know about 16th century chinese history, they won't know how to paint or draw or make collages (or however you spell it), they won't read the Scarlet Letter, but the hell if they wouldn't know calculus and modern physics by the 4th grade.

 

[rocketboy]

I forgot to mention a key aspect in my above post.

The transformation from homeschooling to high school was a pretty big adjustment. All of a sudden I had regular classes, homework, projects, grades, exams...and tons of students around me.

However, due to the study habits that I developed through homeschooling, I was able to easily adapt to the workload. The material wasn't too difficult (math was easy) because I was well prepared. I didn't skip any grades, partially because I went into a private high school where the standard of education was much higher than the public system, although they offered to put me in the gr 10 math program in grade 9. (I declined as I thought it couldn't hurt to reinforce it, turns out they covered some things I didn't in homeschool.)

The most amazing thing of all - I'm not a social outcast! This was partially because I attend a private school, where students come from all over...well the world actually (we have borders at the school). So everybody was in a similar situation as I was, that is, not knowing many other students. This is different going into a public system though, in the public school the kids all come from similar elementary schools so they already know each other.

Another example: My sister transferred from the local high school to Ashbury (where I am) this year, going into grade 11, where she was a new kid to a group of students who had known each other since grade 9. It's been 1 week and she has already become one of them.

So in terms of social aspects of school, don't homeschool your child throughout high school. High school is an important part of every childs life, not only for accademics but for social skills. Also, I think most kids will be able to adapt to high school society after being homeschooled, and it's a great place to learn because university is going to be like that as well (in terms of making new friends and not knowing anybody on the first day).

 

[Smurf]

I was home schooled for a year because there were no schools where I lived. By the end of the year we'd decided to move almost entirely to get me to go to a school. (i have a twin sister by the way - same stuff blah blah blah).

I was never a strong student though. All you people talking about how you're good at science and math... I kind of feel left out, I never did well in math. I almost failed math 11 (52% or something) and didn't take 12.

 

[Smurf]

Oh wait, I remember now. I DID fail math 11. But only by like 1%, they augmented my grade because they felt sorry for me. right right, it's come back now.

 

[pattylou]

Home schoolers around here are the far christian right; they don't want their kids exposed to the evils of public education (or that's the feeling I get when they make certain comments to me.)

I would not be able to home school my older child simply because she is intent on opposing everything I say.

I think there might be a psychological thing going on there - she is incredibly bright, and we had such an intense early relationship (she was our second child after our first child died) that it seems she needs to oppose dad and mom (us) at this point just to establish her own identity.

The combination of her intelligence, strong personality, early childhood experience, my short temper (I'm Italian), and so on - makes her much better off at the public school.

The youngest child would be fine with home schooling, but on top of everything I just said - I have no desire to be an elementary school teacher. I'm chompinbg at the bit to get back to research.

 

[Pengwuino]

Home schoolers around here are the far christian right; they don't want their kids exposed to the evils of public education (or that's the feeling I get when they make certain comments to me.)

I think its more of hte evils of public schools. With my experiences and with friends adn families experiences brought into account, I wouldn't want my kids in a public school as well. Some people think its a big over-reaction and exageration when people say schools are full of drugs and everyone haven sex... but its pretty much true word for word at my old high school and I don't see it getting any better. I suppose some people think its ok as long as you give the kid a cell phone to call you when they need a ride and you are naive enough to think they'll practice safe sex... but not me!

 

[Moonbear]

Home schoolers around here are the far christian right; they don't want their kids exposed to the evils of public education (or that's the feeling I get when they make certain comments to me.)

Most of the homeschoolers I've met fit into that category. Well, other than the few students here who have informed us they were homeschooled, all the homeschoolers I know fit into that category. Unfortunately, their motivation to shelter their children from the world seems to have outweighed any rational self-assessment of their own ability to teach or their own knowledge of the subjects they need to teach. They tend to be the bad examples of what happens to home-schooled children. How can a parent who themself was not a strong student teach their children well? Those are the kids who end up great at arithmetic, grammar and spelling because you can sit them down all day with drills and check their answers against an answer book, but terrible at things like writing essays requiring critical thinking because their parents just don't have the ability to teach or grade them on things like that.

One of the advantages of homeschooling, but doesn't need to be restricted only to homeschooled children, is that they don't stop learning during the summer vacation and forget everything from the previous year. Parents who send their kids to traditional schools don't need to rely on the schools to assign summer reading or assignments, they can do this on their own, and I really think that does help a kid excel in school to keep them reviewing material during the summer (some weirdos like me did this voluntarily...as I kid, I used to scavenge all the leftover dittos at the end of the school year and drag them home and then played school over the summer...much to my sister's dismay since she was involuntarily turned into my pupil and didn't want anything to do with it. :rofl: But, that meant I was continuing to practice those assignments during the summer, even if I thought it was just play.)

 

[Pengwuino]

What a nerd

 

[Moonbear]

What a nerd

I prefer "geek."

 

[Smurf]

I prefer "geek."

I prefer "Intellectual Superior"

 

[Evo]

Moonbear has the right idea. I know that the kids in my math classes who do best, and who can actually figure out problems(unlike most who just remember how...etc) are the ones who when they were younger, their parents always asked them simple math problems, something even as simple as counting up money in a game of monopoly. As a child, I always liked figuring stuff out, and my parents asked me various questions a lot of times. I remember in an interview, Brian Greene said that when he was little, his dad asked him to calculate various things which sometimes took him several days. I guess that if a kid's mind is developed like this, they will be above the rest...

That reminds me of my dad always asking me to do the math in his college textbooks when I was little. He got a kick out of watching me figure it out. I really have never liked math though.

 

[moose]

I prefer "Intellectual Superior"

I prefer "Elitist"