Thoughts on homeschooling?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

What do you think of homeschooling? I was homeschooled from kindergarten all the way through high school mainly due to religious reasons. I'm not really sure what to think of homeschooling in general now that I'm no longer religious.

I must admit I find some people's notions of what homeschooling is rather strange. The idea that homeschoolers have no friends and are isolated from the world isn't necessarily true from my experience. Undoubtedly there have been a few cases like that but I was homeschooled in three different states and I never encountered a case like that but maybe my experience wasn't representative of the whole. I had many friends growing up, both homeschooled and public/schooled. The several hundred (maybe thousand, I grew up in Houston which is a large city) homeschoolers in the city I first lived in up to age 13 had many groups that met together each week, we had field trips (in my case the vast majority of the time to real museums, not always creationist places), many of us including myself went to a few special classes in subjects such as writing, or math. Our parents didn't teach us everything. We had textbooks for every subject in every grade. Even though many of our textbooks were done by Christian publishers, in subjects outside of biology or astronomy, it was just normal standard non-controversial things being taught with a few bible-verses thrown in that were loosely related to the subject. Some of our classes were taught and graded by real teachers. Like I took geometry and algebra in my high school years from a video tape series by some guy who worked at NASA. He graded our tests too.

Although not necessarily true for most homeschoolers, I had complete access to the TV and the internet. My whole family are trekkies and I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek. I think Star Trek is one of the influences that pushed me towards atheism.

I am a bit socially awkward. I have a hard time relating to most people in my age group but I have no difficultly talking to people older than me. Although I had several friends growing up, I have only one friend in real life now around my age and he too was homeschooled (but keep in mind I moved across the US two times in the span of 7 years so that didn't help in keeping friends). I'm not sure this is because of my homeschooling or not. It could just be because I'm a total geek.

I'm not trying to say homeschooling is great or better than attending a real school, however. Just sharing my experience.

(hope I'm not posting this on the wrong board)

[The Grand Nudger]

My wife and I considered homeschooling for a bit, but eventually decided that we wouldn't be going that route. Nothing prevents us from giving our children the extracurricular lovin (as it were) if we feel that our children aren't getting enough of the good stuff at the brick building.

In the end, both of us were products of the public education system to some extent or another (amusingly I attended a faith based private school for a time and my wife was public school start to finish). Neither of us could really make the case honestly that we would be able to personally devote more attention and resources (time is a big one) to our kids than the school system does.

There is something to be said for social interaction, and that was something we felt would be slightly sub-par comparatively. We did find some groups that arranged little play-dates for everyone, but the thing that troubled us was the general party line of home-schoolers around here. Ask them why they didn't send their kids to public (or private schools) and you would invariably get a barrage of "evolution this, godless that".

Now, there are two professional educators in my immediate family, one of whom is a dependent, so I guess I could squeeze the lemon and demand services in kind.....but again, I would be getting the same services from the educators in my family that I would be getting from the school system - which I already pay for, whether I use it or not, and which can produce at least moderately intelligent human beings with my wife and myself as (tentative) examples. I'm also a huge fan of public education even in principle, and so that also gets weighed in.

[Napoléon]

What do you think of homeschooling?

Can't say I know all that much about homeschooling, but from what I can tell, if the person doing the teaching is competent and able to teach what needs to be taught, then I don't see a massive problem with it.

The problems that you could have could be that the parents (if I'm not mistaken it's mainly parents that do the teaching right?) aren't qualified to actually teach the subject to their child.

You've obviously had a different experience to this, but I do also think most homeschooled people are probably missing out on the social aspect of school, and learning things by interacting with those their own age. But as you've shown, it's not impossible to achieve this interaction while being homeschooled, although I do think it's very different.

I've also heard the curriculum's that homeschooled children get taught aren't exactly 'strict', or follow the guidelines of what they should be for school. I don't know necessarily if this is a bad thing.


So yeah, basically if they are getting teaching that is as good as or better than school, then I personally don't have a problem. My biggest gripe is simply whether the student gets the same standard as they would if they were in school, but a lot of schools don't exactly have high standards to begin with...

My 2 cents.

[A Theist]

What do you think of homeschooling? I was homeschooled from kindergarten all the way through high school mainly due to religious reasons. I'm not really sure what to think of homeschooling in general now that I'm no longer religious.

I must admit I find some people's notions of what homeschooling is rather strange. The idea that homeschoolers have no friends and are isolated from the world isn't necessarily true from my experience. Undoubtedly there have been a few cases like that but I was homeschooled in three different states and I never encountered a case like that but maybe my experience wasn't representative of the whole. I had many friends growing up, both homeschooled and public/schooled. The several hundred (maybe thousand, I grew up in Houston which is a large city) homeschoolers in the city I first lived in up to age 13 had many groups that met together each week, we had field trips (in my case the vast majority of the time to real museums, not always creationist places), many of us including myself went to a few special classes in subjects such as writing, or math. Our parents didn't teach us everything. We had textbooks for every subject in every grade. Even though many of our textbooks were done by Christian publishers, in subjects outside of biology or astronomy, it was just normal standard non-controversial things being taught with a few bible-verses thrown in that were loosely related to the subject. Some of our classes were taught and graded by real teachers. Like I took geometry and algebra in my high school years from a video tape series by some guy who worked at NASA. He graded our tests too.

Although not necessarily true for most homeschoolers, I had complete access to the TV and the internet. My whole family are trekkies and I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek. I think Star Trek is one of the influences that pushed me towards atheism.

I am a bit socially awkward. I have a hard time relating to most people in my age group but I have no difficultly talking to people older than me. Although I had several friends growing up, I have only one friend in real life now around my age and he too was homeschooled (but keep in mind I moved across the US two times in the span of 7 years so that didn't help in keeping friends). I'm not sure this is because of my homeschooling or not. It could just be because I'm a total geek.

I'm not trying to say homeschooling is great or better than attending a real school, however. Just sharing my experience.

(hope I'm not posting this on the wrong board)

....not quite sure yet how I feel about home schooling. I do believe in school choice though. In any event, I'm an old school Trekkie. Captain Kirk can whip Picard's ass any day!

[The Grand Nudger]

One major stumbling block to home-schooling (in my estimation) that I forgot to mention. It's worlds more difficult to secure a scholarship should you wish to continue your education beyond the homeschooling environment.

[Minimalist]

I question the motivation of people who home school. All their bullshit aside what it seems like they want to do is try to clone their kids into copies of themselves by preventing any awkward ideas from entering their heads. It's an ego trip.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...
Captain Kirk can whip Picard's ass any day!

There's probably gay bdsm fan fiction that depicts that but it's not canon.

[The Grand Nudger]

Rule 34.

[Cyberman]

...
Captain Kirk can whip Picard's ass any day!

There's probably gay bdsm fan fiction that depicts that but it's not canon.

I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you. The following is considered canon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m9E1QY-g4?rel=0

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As indeed is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw11Ak0mxyI?rel=0

[Anomalocaris]

Captain Kirk can whip Picard's ass any day!

That's the first sensible thing I've ever heard you say.

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There's probably gay bdsm fan fiction that depicts that but it's not canon.

Piccard does not exist in canon. It's all a fantasy created by the Talosians.