Learn me: home schooling

You could make a reality show out of our local school district (Dekalb County Schools). From bribery scandals, accreditation threats, insane budget shortfalls, shoddy accounting, lawsuits, and nepotism galore they have it all.

SVreX wrote: Socialization... Reading this thread makes me think some of you actually believe there is some redeeming value to knowing how to smoke a joint or understand what a BJ is. I guess it is a GOOD thing to get everyone to sink to the lowest common denominator. When my daughter she entered college, honestly, she was a bit naive. I was (truthfully) a little uncomfortable with it. She didn't know what a lot of worldly stuff was, because that's what she CHOSE to be (I most certainly did NOT force it). Her friends respected her, and protected her. Someone would make an off-color joke (which she did not understand), she'd ask for an explanation, and they would say, "Trust me, you don't want to know". She was OK with that, and so were they. To the tremendous credit of her peers, they were very respectful of the choices she has made with her life, and helped her excel in her gifts, without compromising the things that are important to her. Sadly, not at all like this thread. She became president of 3 different associations on campus (including the swing dance club), graduated 4.0 with a double major, is fluent in 4 languages, has lived and taught in 3 countries (including a year in Korea with 800 students), is working on her Masters, and currently has an offer from the State Department. She is extremely well liked with great leadership potential. Too bad she didn't learn what a BJ is when she was in middle school! She has offered to give her perspective on socialization to anyone who is honestly interested in listening. PM me.

That's great, and I'm sure you're justifiably proud of her. But it is my opinion that a kid that bright, with parents as involved as you obviously were, would have been extremely successful in any system.

Again, the method doesn't matter as much as what you put into it.

I appreciate the kudos, but you don't know my school system.

Pathetic. One of the worst in the country.

I am absolutely convinced that my kids would not have done well, no matter how much effort we put in.

We really didn't want to home school. We tried hard to avoid it. I was thoroughly opposed to home schooling. Now, with 19 years experience, I see the benefits.

BTW, we didn't really do that much. My daughter and son have far exceeded anything my wife and I ever could have. We simply taught in a different manner. Instead of teaching the tests, we taught them how to learn and love learning. Instead of making them fit the school, we made the school fit them and their particular learning styles. After that, they excelled on their own.

slefain wrote: You could make a reality show out of our local school district (Dekalb County Schools). From bribery scandals, accreditation threats, insane budget shortfalls, shoddy accounting, lawsuits, and nepotism galore they have it all.

Maybe you are onto something!

How about we produce a series, and use the proceeds as a fundraiser for home schoolers!

Let me tell you a little story about my son...

He was in a conventional private school until 1/2 way through third grade. He and another girl traded back and forth for who was #1 in the class.

We used to make our kids read aloud at home. My son didn't like reading (even though he was first in his class), but he did it.

One night, I pulled my wife aside and said, "Chris can't read". She told me, "Don't be stupid, of course he can read, he reads to us every night". Then I clarified...

He is extremely intelligent, and could read most any book aloud. But he would pause and struggle when he got to different variations of the same word. So, he might be able to read the word "read", but not the word "reading". He had memorized a huge vocabulary of words that he identified as a picture (it's known as sight words). Kind of like if you paste an image of a document into an internet file. Google cannot search the text, because it identifies the whole thing as one image. He was completely unable to sound out a word.

I realized that I see words every day that I do not know, but the essence of reading is to be able to sound them out, and recognize their meaning in context. Chris couldn't do it.

We pulled him out of school, and my wife started over teaching him how to read phonetically. He was really unhappy with us, and it wasn't easy.

But he re-learned how to read.

Then something happened that I didn't expect. He started to LOVE reading. In fact, he loved reading adult level books about World War 2. By the end of 4th grade, he was devouring piles of 2" thick books about WWII. I NEVER would have read them, (I'm not even sure I've ever read a 2" thick book), but he loved them.

It's just an example. I'm not bragging on us or him, but it is a good example of how we were able to be flexible in teaching method and he benefited in a way he could not in public school.

In reply to SVreX:

I read that as a great success story that really didn't need to be an either/or scenario. Your children excel because you took time to teach them. If you took that time and left them in public or private school... same result. I have no issue with your choices mind you - just the presentation that that flexibility to teach him yourself wasn't available to you the whole time either way.

I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I disagree.

If I had told my 3rd grader that I was going to send him to school during the day to be taught by the "professional" teachers, but then when he was home I was going to also teach him 1st grade work because the "pros" were doing it wrong, I am quite certain it would have ended badly.

I am a carpenter. Why was I able to see his handicap, but all of his teachers for 3 years considered him a top performer? That's not too good.

It changed the dynamic. Status quo WAS the problem.

SVreX wrote: Socialization... Reading this thread makes me think some of you actually believe there is some redeeming value to knowing how to smoke a joint or understand what a BJ is. I guess it is a GOOD thing to get everyone to sink to the lowest common denominator. When my daughter she entered college, honestly, she was a bit naive. I was (truthfully) a little uncomfortable with it. She didn't know what a lot of worldly stuff was, because that's what she CHOSE to be (I most certainly did NOT force it). Her friends respected her, and protected her. Someone would make an off-color joke (which she did not understand), she'd ask for an explanation, and they would say, "Trust me, you don't want to know". She was OK with that, and so were they. To the tremendous credit of her peers, they were very respectful of the choices she has made with her life, and helped her excel in her gifts, without compromising the things that are important to her. Sadly, not at all like this thread. She became president of 3 different associations on campus (including the swing dance club), graduated 4.0 with a double major, is fluent in 4 languages, has lived and taught in 3 countries (including a year in Korea with 800 students), is working on her Masters, and currently has an offer from the State Department. She is extremely well liked with great leadership potential. Too bad she didn't learn what a BJ is when she was in middle school! She has offered to give her perspective on socialization to anyone who is honestly interested in listening. PM me.

This is nearly verbatim what has happened with our eldest daughter. She is only 20 but has her BA and job she will be starting in 6 weeks. We home schooled her from 4th grade on. Her high school was mostly done at the local community college where she earned dual credit for her classes. She graduated high school at what should have been the end of her junior year and had her AA 1 semester later. She had tons of friends and went to the prom, homecoming, football games, etc.

Our younger daughter was home schooled from 2nd through 7th grades. She wanted a traditional high school experience and we did that. She just graduated last week and will be off to college shortly. Her transition to regular school was like any transition but she was fine after a couple months.

The socialization argument I get. I have to ask, how many parents drop off their kid at school and mentally they have "checked the box" for all of these responsibilities?

Education - check Socialization - check Physical activity - check Sex ed - check Religious ed - check (no check in public school but you get something entirely different)

Being a parent means you have 100% responsibility for the education of your children. Education in every aspect and facet of their lives. Home schooling means that you are not just taking the local school's version of what THEY think is best for your child. In many cases the local school is great. In many cases the parents are simply not able to manage the education of their kids and public education is the best solution. I get that.

Most of the mainstream home schoolers we were around were a la cart educators. They found the best program and teacher for their kids. Sometimes it was the parent. Many times it was someone else. How many parents are able to teach high school level calculus, chemistry, British literature, music? I have a good friend who has zero ability to teach and they home schooled. They found all of the right people and resources and got it done quite well. As a side benefit, when you use these other resources they are rarely done solo. Your child is now in an environment with quite a few other kids.

>Scott

Datsun1500 wrote: The "look how great my home schooled kid turned out" is irrelevant. There are thousands of kids that just graduated from public and private schools this month that have the same, or better, accomplishments of your kid. There are good home schooled results, and not good results. Just like regular schools.

I agree. But you really missed the point.

I was not bragging on my kids. I was explaining how home schooling is able to be more flexible than public schools.