Your opinion on Homeschooling?

I think it all depends on the people who are doing it. My sister has homeschooled her five kids for the better part of the last 15 years and they are part of an association of people who pool their resources when it comes to teaching, sports, etc. I was kind of skeptical at first but her oldest just got a master's and one of her other daughters just earned her bachelor's -- and both graduated with honors. They are really motivated kids and would have succeeded in regular school, so I'm not saying that way is best, but if you get the right types of people together -- both parents and kids -- it can work well.

I think it is a great option for those who can manage to do it well.

I was at Disneyland about two years ago, and there was a huge group of home schooled kids and parents there that day as well. I have never, ever, been around a group of people who lacked as many social or personal skills as those kids and their parents. It was like land of the introvert retards.

I will probably get a counter-opinion that I am wrong or way off-base ... but I welcome that, I would like to hear just how anybody (1-12 kids) thinks that it will work.

My opinion is that to homeschool your child with just as rigorous learning as a decent public school would be impossible for practical reasons. You start with Kindergarten and the teacher there has taken four yrs of school of how to deal with these hyper little f***ers. They also (in my state) have to take continuing education to keep their credential. You don't learn much in Kindergarten ... but you learn to be quiet, sit still, share, socialize normally with other kids. Your teacher is a specialist in JUST THIS ACTIVITY.

Move to 1st, you are learning to print, read, do simple math. So here is another skill set for the teacher.

By 3rd grade, mult. tables, more reading, writing in cursive, more math, science, not sure what else we did, except timed mult. tables.

Move to Middle school. Now you are reading and writing at a high level. You are doing algebra. I took PE, Choir and Spanish I. Our four official subjects were Communications, Science, Mathematics and Social Studies. We had four teachers and they each specialized in ONE subject. We had one teacher each for PE, choir and Language.

You can see where this is going? Your teacher (likely one of your parents) would have to be well-versed in Natural sciences and Biological sciences, Mathematics, Reading, Writing, Social Studies ... not to mention Spanish, Latin, Italian, German (these were the languages we took in MS and HS) and PE, Band, Choir, Computer Concepts ...

I doubt there is a single person in the world that could adequately teach HS-level English, Math, Chemistry, Biology, Social Studies, Expository Writing, Physics, Anatomy and Physiology and all the other typical subjects that you take in just four years. Not to mention PE, choir or band, Language, Art, Drawing ... which actually seem simple on the surface.

It takes the average HS teacher 5 periods of teaching and one planning period (7:30 AM to 2:30 PM) just to teach one class. And this is after developing lesson plans for that class for years. If someone thinks they could teach 6 periods of class (to just one kid) and learn the next year's subjects in 2-5 more hours 5 days per week ... I say have at it. You will fail.

I should say that I am not a teacher. I should also say that I took all of the subjects I listed except for Band and the only language I took was 5 years of Spanish.

It gets more difficult in the older grades. In the younger grades any specialized learning the teacher may have is more than balanced out by the 1-1 interactions and focus of the parent. If you are going to do it for high school it is best to do it as part of a consortium of parents who have a bit more specialized knowledge.

I've known a few homeschooled people and it all depends on how much socialization they get. They can be completely backwards socially, or they can be absolutely normal, well-adjusted kids. They just need to have interaction with other kids and parents that know how to teach the material well.

How about public high school with homeschool tutors during summer?

As a professional educator I have mixed feelings. I think early on with an adult who is on the ball it can work but as the students get older and the content begins to become more narrowed and focused I think it's really difficult to pull it off successfully. I also have great concerns about the socialization aspect. I know a few people who home school their kids, and typically they seem to have "Quirks" that really make them different. They also usually tend to stick together playing with their brothers and excluding other kids. Although students who go to public school can be really strange. Personaly I'm looking into private school for my children although so far my oldest has attended public school.

I was home schooled for a year of in 5th grade...worst mo f*ckin; year 'o me life...Any o' y'all thinkin bout home schoolin yur youngins.....f**kin' don't!

I have no dog in this fight. I’m a public school product as are my kids so and consider myself neutral on the issue. You, however, posit that it is not possible to effectively home school kids. I absolutely disagree. Believe it or not, it has been done countless times. Home schooled kids regularly excel vs. their public school counterparts. I’m not going to argue which method is better but it’s ridiculous to dismiss all parents homeschooling their kids with a flippant “you will fail”.

If the bullying/teasing is so terrible that it is causing the student to experience severe depression and/or the child feels at risk for his/her safety (& cannot transfer to another school), homeschooling is a very viable option.

However, coming from someone who was teased quite a bit throughout my educational years, I feel a fair amount of teasing is actually good for a child in the long run. In my case, I believe it made me a stronger person, and let's face it--the teasing will not magically end the day one graduates hs...

With the availability of AP courses and the opportunity to take courses through local universities, I think even the most gifted students can feel challenged in traditional settings, assuming they live in a decent school district. Also, it seems it is the rare parent who is qualified teach hs level courses in subjects ranging from English to advanced physics. If they cannot afford to live in an area with good schools or attend private school, homeschooling might be a good idea.

Finally, I feel the ability to compare oneself to one's peers in a traditional school setting is beneficial. I suppose this could work both ways as well...if everyone else (or even just the "cool kids") in your grade are slacking off on school work, it might be easy to follow the trend. However, in my school, there were several really good students, so I think we all sort of competed with another to a degree, which helped all of us in the long run, as far as getting into a good college, scholarships, etc.

I'm actually pretty open minded regarding homeschooling...It really is an individual matter...I could go on and on...but I have other things I should be doing right about now...

I think the socialization process is vital to the complete development of any child. Kids need to have time away from their parents, in order to attain some sense of self and become independent in some gradual, age-appropriate way.

We have homeschooled kids on our club team, and they are extremely shy and withdrawn, and seem to need more explanations and guidance in activities. They are very polite and well-spoken, and always seem to be very aware of where they stand on academic levels (e.g., what advanced grade level math they are learning), but they don't interact as well with the other kids, and really don't take the bull by the horns, ever.

Honest opinion, I think it is just the helicopter-parent syndrome taken to another level. Many parents exercise control over their children's sports experiences, meddling into coaching decisions, starting line ups, try out cuts, training plans, etc.

Homeschool parents are making the academic break, which, in a way, is probably better off for the teachers and administrators who probably would have been holding conference after conference explaining why the school their kid is enrolled in is following x curriculum versus something the homeschool parent deems preferable for their individual child.

I have met some homeschooled kids. They were very well spoken and not socially off. I'm sure some homeschool kids are strange but I haven't met one yet.

I suppose it depends on what the kids is exposed to. Church, sports, group activities with other homeschool kids is probably best for social skills.

Where I went to high school, homeschool kids could participate on the school sports teams.

I know for myself, it's a darned good thing i went to public schools. I got picked on all the way through middle school when i finally realized it was because i was a jerk, a nerd, a wuss, and a smartmouth all in one. straightened out pretty quick after that and it's gone pretty well

if i had been homeschooled, i'd still be a jerk.

Tim Tebow was homeschooled.

Tim Tebow is nicknamed superman.

Tim Tebow won the Heisman.

So, if you homeschool your kid, they'll become superman and win the Heisman.

I was homeschooled through 7th grade. In response to the post about specialized kindergarten knowledge, 1st grade knowledge, etc., I would say that this is not much of a problem until high schoolish. The material is so basic in elementary school, and much of homeschooling is the kid teaching himself through practice in the first place.

To be honest, you spend an incredible amount of time dicking around in public school. I tried out public school in fifth grade and was blown away by how little we did in huge amounts of time. I went from learning about plants by creating my own mini-greenhouses to reading boring textbooks with no lab activities. I dropped out after six weeks because of sheer boredom. In contrast, I had worked for about 2-3 hours a day in kindergarten through fourth grade and ended up a couple of grades ahead.

The social adjustment issue all depends on the parents. I was a pretty normal kid, but I was involved in Little League, swimming, Cub Scouts, church, etc. I definitely did have experience with the 12-kid religious fundamentalist families that drove around in huge vans and were just plan out-there.

you dont have to be an expert it all subject to teach your children. teach them to value knowledge and skill and they will aquire it more or less on their own. by the time they are 16 or 17 you can buy a good textbook and you can learn it together.

How does home-schooling work? Do parents really teach their kids for hours a day, or does most of it involve the parents giving their kids books and things to work on on their own? Could a parent who works 9-5 and runs for an hour a day home school their kid?

English/Writing, History/Government, Math, Science -- a college-educated person could probably teach any of those up until the last couple years of high school, especially with the help of textbooks to guide you. It might be hard to get multiple viewpoints in history/government/literature -- class discussions were valuable in that way. On technical subjects, if the kid does most of the work and you have discussions on the sticking points, that might work for some people, I'm not sure.

A quick story, I'm not sure if I've posted it before -- my brother got D's in math for the first 90% of some of his classes in highschool because it was so slow and boring for him he just couldn't stand to pay attention. He'd sleep through class or not show up, and tried to just learn from the textbook. Before the end of a semester, he would spend a couple hours talking with our father about the sticking points and learn a semester's worth of material. He went in one year, got 100% on the final, and the teacher accused him of cheating off of his neighbors -- he absolutely couldn't believe that someone could improve so quickly. My brother had to point out that there wasn't anyone else to cheat off of since nobody else did so well. Individual discussions are incredibly powerful ways to learn things.

Foreign Language might be a bit harder -- native accents are hard to come by. Then again, the woman who taught French at my middle school barely spoke it, and the guy who taught me German was Bosnian.

Art/Music can be taught in private lessons. Many people take music lessons after class anyway.

public schools done me good wrote:

I know for myself, it's a darned good thing i went to public schools. I got picked on all the way through middle school when i finally realized it was because i was a jerk, a nerd, a wuss, and a smartmouth all in one. straightened out pretty quick after that and it's gone pretty well

if i had been homeschooled, i'd still be a jerk.

Quoted for truth. In the end homeschooling and private schooing are simply parents teaching their kids to take their marbles elsewhere if they don't like it.