Homeschooling
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Here in Brazil, Homeschooling[^] is not allowed by law. But I myself really want to educate my son. I have several reasons, but for now, I wish your testimonials about that kind of education. I know what in USA, Homeschooling is legal, then really will be cool some words of who lived or know someone that lived it. (1) The country where you live allow Homeschooling? (2) What your opinion about that subject? (3) In your opinion, please, enumerate pros and cons of Homeschooling. Sincerely, Thank you very much! :cool:
Engaged in learning of English grammar ;)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:I should probably come clean here and say this to. My wife's mother has her masters of mathematics and has been a school teacher for uhhh about 20 years. So we're planning on a tad bit of help from her.:cool:
My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered process, husband to a murdered thread. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. - Gladiator I work to live. I do not live to work. My clients do not seem capable of grasping this fact.
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- Yes. Though, restrictions / regulations tend to vary a lot by State and even county. Some school systems are very supportive, others will go out of their way to make your life difficult.
- I think it's a brilliant (though hardly novel) idea.
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- Pro: children are taught by the people they've spent their whole lives bonding with, allowing for improved communication. Questions, learning styles, strengths and weaknesses are known and lessons can be adapted to fit.
- Con: mediocre parents are likely to make mediocre teachers. And even good parents may find that it's very difficult to devote the time and attention necessary to provide a good education.
- Pro: less overhead. A class has a hard time moving faster than the speed of its slowest pupil, creating many opportunities for boredom and frustration in students who excel or do poorly.
- Con: competition can be a powerful and useful motivator.
- Pro: fewer distractions. Throw a few dozen kids of the same age in one place, and there's gonna be some chaos. My grandfather used to sum this up as, "one boy - half a man. two boys - half a boy. three boys - no boy at all."
- Con: the whole "social" aspect. Personally, i think most people are way too comfortable around each other, and that it causes a lot of unnecessary problems. But if you think it's important, it's probably worth researching other opportunities for socialization. Again, depending on where you live, this can be made easier - some school districts are happy to open their extra-curricular programs to outside students.
- Pro: less suffering at the whims the board of education, curriculum fads, shoddy textbooks.
- Con: the responsibility for building a good curriculum rests on the parents. This can be a lot of work, especially starting out - even if you've been working as a teacher, you'll quickly find choosing textbooks, building assignments, and working through them with your children to be an eye-opening experience. In the US, there are a number of groups and publishers working to ease these tasks, but in the end, there's no one-size-fits-all solution - you'll have to put the time in.
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It appears that everybody is
I'm going to emphasize this statement by Shog: "This can be a lot of work..." with a minor edit, "This WILL be a lot of work...." We've homeschooled almost 20 years now. Taking full responsibility for the education of your children is a life altering experience, and it is not a bed of roses. There are black, black days, and then there are days on the mountaintop. All those magazines with the perfectly organized mothers on the cover? Bah! I haven't met one yet that reflects reality. Go in with your eyes open, find someone who has done it for a while (5+ years), and learn as much as you can. chg
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
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I should probably come clean here and say this to. My wife's mother has her masters of mathematics and has been a school teacher for uhhh about 20 years. So we're planning on a tad bit of help from her.:cool:
My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered process, husband to a murdered thread. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. - Gladiator I work to live. I do not live to work. My clients do not seem capable of grasping this fact.
code-frog wrote:
My wife's mother ... we're planning on a tad bit of help from her.
abusing your mother-in-law? hmmmm... be careful! ;P
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Here in Brazil, Homeschooling[^] is not allowed by law. But I myself really want to educate my son. I have several reasons, but for now, I wish your testimonials about that kind of education. I know what in USA, Homeschooling is legal, then really will be cool some words of who lived or know someone that lived it. (1) The country where you live allow Homeschooling? (2) What your opinion about that subject? (3) In your opinion, please, enumerate pros and cons of Homeschooling. Sincerely, Thank you very much! :cool:
Engaged in learning of English grammar ;)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:1 Yes 2 As far as I can tell with the exception of people living in remote locations with no school available, only parent's that have some overwhelmingingly wierd philosophy outside of the norm homeschool thier kids who grow up to be on average socially backward. I really don't see how these kids are benefiting if they ever hope to go on to a higher education. They will face the normal shock most public school students face going to college or university many many many times over. I really really suspect it's a very bad idea if you have any hope of your kids succeeding in life if they don't learn social skills at an early age with a wide variety of other people. Home schooling is bound to result in a *lot* of xenophobic people.
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Nothing but success stories here. My brother in law was homeschooled and his SAT/ACT/PSAT scores were higher on average than his peers from public school. He posted a lot stronger skills in math and science. My wife is going to be home schooling our 3 kids starting this September. We know about 300 families that homeschool right now and there's a huge trend here in the U.S. to do it because your kids seem so much more well off for it. There's huge homeschool groups here that organize field trips, corporate culture days and stuff. The education they get and the socialization they get is way better and of a much higher standard than public school. In the U.S. it used to be frowned upon and probably still is by the uninformed but it's strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. We have already set up a virtual classroom using net meeting where my wife can do teaching sessions over the PC to my 2 oldest kids and they can participate from their rooms and ask questions. (No this isn't the actual format for class but it is for follow-up questions and stuff.) We're really looking forward to it.:rose:
My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered process, husband to a murdered thread. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. - Gladiator I work to live. I do not live to work. My clients do not seem capable of grasping this fact.
I guess you hit upon one of the few reasons why I could agree that it isn't a completely insane and nearly abusive way to raise children: the schools suck so bad you don't want to send your kids there. If there is any attempt for them to socialize with a wide and *VARIED* group of children then it's probably not as bad as I can imagine, but if it's an excuse to shelter kids from the variety of people in the world then it's just sick.
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Where I come from, there is vocal minority who are strong proponents of homeschooling. So much so that the local University holds conferences on it. About two years ago, one of the sociologists at the University presented a paper that showed no overall difference between home vs. public vs. private schooled kids. If I remember right, he did observe than among home schooled kids the bell curve of achievement was flatter, meaning there were more top students, on average, than in public schools, but also more serious underachievers. Needless to say, his talk didn't go over well, though these groups haven't made as much noise lately. One big problem I, and several people I know, have observed directly is that many of the home schooled really do suffer in the social skills [edit: especially in structured environments.] It isn't just a red herring, as many proponents claim. Having met several kids who were homeschooled (including my step-brother-in-law) and parents who homeschooled their children, I've concluded it works best with children who have a lot of natural self-motivation and control and who aren't really extroverted. It also takes parents with a lot of patience. That last point is key; if you don't have the patience, don't do it. The second most important thing is to truly understand your child (or children). I know of families that sent some kids to public school, some to private and others were home schooled, all based on their personalities and needs. This is the best approach in my book. PS. code-frog brings up a good point. Here in the US Mountain West, there are several organizations that assist with homeschooling, including organizing trips. In one I know of, parents with specialties switch with parents with other specialties. For example, if you have one parent strong in math and another in science, they will each teach that subject. This same group--don't remember the name--has pretty good materials. We considered it, but I lack the patience and my two oldest didn't/don't have the personalities for it. My third child really needed the structured (emphasis on structured), social interaction of school and my youngest would thrive in any environment and she loves going to school (I'm planning on her becoming the wealthy one and supporting me in my old age:))
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Most of the homeschoolers I've every heard of do it for all sorts of stated reasons, but after talking with them about it for a while it pretty much comes down to they don't want their kids associating with people out side the parents approved social group (be it religious, hippies etc etc).
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I guess you hit upon one of the few reasons why I could agree that it isn't a completely insane and nearly abusive way to raise children: the schools suck so bad you don't want to send your kids there. If there is any attempt for them to socialize with a wide and *VARIED* group of children then it's probably not as bad as I can imagine, but if it's an excuse to shelter kids from the variety of people in the world then it's just sick.
Yeah, I agree. Our kids are so social though we couldn't possibly have them not be social. We have a friend base of over 100 couples and I bet 300 kids and my kids run and romp with all of them. It's such a great time. What's really cool is that you are in total control of the schedule. Hey kids, lets go watch the BSU homecoming game or let's go drive out to Idaho Fish & Games hatchery and see what's going on in the salmon beds. We are so dang active and we are way fine to leave our kids with qualified safe teachers and instructors and we'd like them to see the world. Our HSA (home school association) organizes raft trips, ski trips, factory tours and all sorts of stuff. The group is composed of science/engineer/doctor and lawyer types and they all have cool connections to cool stuff. We all got to go to the Idaho Shakespear Festival practice for free and they served us food. No we want to push them right into the face of society and make it real and practical. It's going to be a very good time.
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Here in Brazil, Homeschooling[^] is not allowed by law. But I myself really want to educate my son. I have several reasons, but for now, I wish your testimonials about that kind of education. I know what in USA, Homeschooling is legal, then really will be cool some words of who lived or know someone that lived it. (1) The country where you live allow Homeschooling? (2) What your opinion about that subject? (3) In your opinion, please, enumerate pros and cons of Homeschooling. Sincerely, Thank you very much! :cool:
Engaged in learning of English grammar ;)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger: -
Here in Brazil, Homeschooling[^] is not allowed by law. But I myself really want to educate my son. I have several reasons, but for now, I wish your testimonials about that kind of education. I know what in USA, Homeschooling is legal, then really will be cool some words of who lived or know someone that lived it. (1) The country where you live allow Homeschooling? (2) What your opinion about that subject? (3) In your opinion, please, enumerate pros and cons of Homeschooling. Sincerely, Thank you very much! :cool:
Engaged in learning of English grammar ;)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:My cousins were homeschooled. Of course their parents both well educated. While a home school education can be great as far as quality of education, morality, and safety the point of school is more socialization than education. An improperly socialized child is at more of a disadvantage than a poorly educated one.
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Most of the homeschoolers I've every heard of do it for all sorts of stated reasons, but after talking with them about it for a while it pretty much comes down to they don't want their kids associating with people out side the parents approved social group (be it religious, hippies etc etc).
I was home schooled because I was bored in public school and we couldn't afford a private school in our area that appeared to do better. I don't think there were any ill effects and I certainly wasn't anti-social. I'd highly recommend it in a lot of cases. Just like public school there's lots of good experiences and lots of bad. I think it is kind of silly to try to stereotype those religious-hippie-homeschoolers.. :rolleyes: Where I live now in Idaho, USA, we have a public-home school sponsored by the state. :) The Virtual Academy is a public school run from home, in essence, with the parents as the teachers. Basically it is an organization that supports the homeschooling and ensures lots of standardized tests and social interaction. Best of all worlds as long as there's a parent that can afford to stay home. The kids tend to do really, really well from what I understand and we plan to go that route with my daughter (but she's not old enough yet).