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Homeschooling


meiroy

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Would be happy to hear people's opinion about Homeschooling (for and against).    Having no personal experience, it seems that all that I know or think I know about it is biased, so would be great to learn from people with hands on experience.

 

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I have some friends who were homeschooled. I do think it unlocked a lot of their human potential.

 

They have home-schooler proms and sports leagues and things like that, but you're not getting the socialization you get in school. But that's actually a good thing, I think. School just teaches you to me an employee who fits in. So if that's not your goal, I would think skipping school would be a good way to avoid being too conventional.

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We homeschooled my son for several years and it was a fantastic experience.  A kid can learn a tremendous amount when he is able to learn at his own pace, i.e., without being constrained to learn at the pace of the slowest kid in the class.  Also, you are not restricted to some set curriculum, but can stop and explore things that interest him at the time they come up.  You can also cover subjects that are not taught in school, e.g., we spent 3 weeks learning about the Federal Reserve, time on insurance, investing, etc.  He was middle school age, so for science he read "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.  He taught himself algebra.  He started writing a book. Etc.  Socialization-wise I thought it was good too;  I took him around with me and he got to interact with lots of different people, young and old, professionals, young adults, etc.  I tend to think you become much better socially adapted if you can interact with a wide range of people, as opposed to just a classroom peer group. 

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Like the movie Stand By Me, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?".

It's not just about being friends with the neighbourhood kids, we went to school together too. A bond you don't have with any other people, ever. I grew up with them.

 

The social aspect of traditional school can't be taught later in life.

Having a child mingle with adults and some kids isn't the same as spending time with other kids you go to school with. It's just different.

 

 

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Like the movie Stand By Me, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?".

It's not just about being friends with the neighbourhood kids, we went to school together too. A bond you don't have with any other people, ever. I grew up with them.

 

The social aspect of traditional school can't be taught later in life.

Having a child mingle with adults and some kids isn't the same as spending time with other kids you go to school with. It's just different.

yeah completly agree , if you do it, you should really make them join some club or something competitive where they interact a lot with the same kids. So difficult to make good friends at my age now :( . And I think it is a good learning experience to be able to handle people you dont like, or are not similar to you. Also careful with this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pushy-parents-could-harm-kids-social-skills/

 

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And I think it is a good learning experience to be able to handle people you dont like, or are not similar to you.

That's a huge part of it too. You have to learn to wait your turn and you're not the centre of attention.

A big part of school is learning how to work in groups also.

Interacting with the opposite sex........for better or worse.  ;D

 

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I have no experience of homeschooling at all and it's not even legal here, but I have a hard time seeing how anything can be worse than public schools for anyone with above average abilities.

Why? Someone who is (significantly) above average doesn't need a teacher.

The social aspect of traditional school can't be taught later in life.

Having a child mingle with adults and some kids isn't the same as spending time with other kids you go to school with. It's just different.

I suspect that this is true, but given the history of home schooling in the US I would suspect that there must be some decent research on the subject. Because lets face it; this is probably going to be a worthless discussion where everybody is going to justify the decision they or their parents made. Cognitive Dissonance...

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Homeschooling probably widens the range of outcomes tremendously, both in good and bad directions.

 

In a regular school, if you have a bad teacher, well, that sucks but you'll get tons of other teachers, some of whom might be good.

 

If you have a bad parent-teacher that homeschools you across all disciplines and over years, filling your head with garbage nonsense, well, the damage will probably be a lot more severe than what any bad teacher(s) can do at a regular school...

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I have no experience of homeschooling at all and it's not even legal here, but I have a hard time seeing how anything can be worse than public schools for anyone with above average abilities.

Why? Someone who is (significantly) above average doesn't need a teacher.

Even more reason not to waste your days in school, then.

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It all depends on the education available in the school they can attend, the ability of the kids, the ability of the parents and other circumstances. The decision all completely depends on a ton of factors and there is NO single answer

 

Things to consider -

1. How good is the school the kid will attend. Some public schools are as good as private ones. We bought our house based on the school our kids would attend.

2. One income vs Two. 2nd parent works and you can send to private school. 

3. How flexible is the school? eg- When my daughter was in first grade (youngest in her class) she attended 4th grade for 1/4 of the school day. In second grade she got special math homework. etc

4. Socialization, Getting along with other kids, making friends that will last a lifetime, being part of a group etc.

5. Other circumstances - My wife and I grew up in a different country. School was a class with 70-90 kids on benches behind desks (we were lucky some of our friends in other schools sat on the floor). There was a blackboard, chalk and duster for the teacher. So when we see the classrooms, personal attention, classes for music, dance, drama etc. We don't quite get what all the whining and complaining is about.

 

Like I said the decision all completely depends on a ton of factors and there is NO single answer

 

 

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Things to consider -

1. How good is the school the kid will attend.

 

We moved from Newmarket to Bradford, Ontario (10 minutes away but sometimes it's like a whole different world...........) and we checked the public schools here as to how they're rated on the standardized testing. They were piss poor and we were nervous. The Catholic schools rated very well but public was significantly worse than the Catholic board and neighbouring public schools.

 

My mother in law is a former teacher in Toronto and told us not to worry since some schools/boards, taylor their curriculum towards the testing.

 

So even the stats that are supposed to tell us how well schools are compared to their peers aren't reliable.

 

So far through JK and SK for our oldest we're pretty happy though.

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It is never too early to start.  We had our son reading, writing, and doing addition and subtraction before kindergarten.  My wife was a stay at home mom and my son just picked up everything she taught him.  It depends on the child though, because we weren't able to do the same thing with my daughter, she even struggled in school until about middle school when she started catching up to the other kids.  I think whether you send you children to school or not, how they do will largely depend on them.

 

While my children have gone to school since kindergarten they have a few home-schooled friends who seem to be well spoken and just as bright as any other kids.  We didn't home school only because of the social aspect.  I still sometimes think it was a mistake not to home school my son, who could have learned at a much quicker pace than he is in school.

 

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I went to public school and I never learned any social skills. My personality is introverted and I did not pay insufficient attention to what other people think so I never fit in. I only really started to become more "normal" after my education ended. I have zero friends from elementary school and almost no friends from high school. Most of my friends I have made in the last few years.

 

I would be willing to make a strong bet that there are home-school kids who have far better social skills than I ever will. A lot of this comes from personality and inclination.

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I went to public school and I never learned any social skills. My personality is introverted and I did not pay insufficient attention to what other people think so I never fit in. I only really started to become more "normal" after my education ended. I have zero friends from elementary school and almost no friends from high school. Most of my friends I have made in the last few years.

 

I would be willing to make a strong bet that there are home-school kids who have far better social skills than I ever will. A lot of this comes from personality and inclination.

 

The social skills I learned the most in school were to follow rules and to try to emulate the popular people and the people in positions of authority. I wish I hadn't learned them.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm a public school grad, and don't get the hate aimed at them. I had a great experience, and my school wasn't anything exceptional, just a middle of the road midwest school.

 

+1. I have no doubt there are some terrible public schools out there, probably concentrated in low income areas which just compounds the problem, but I went to a standard midwest school and have zero complaints. Were there crappy teachers and kids I didn't like? Well duh, but that's a good thing in moderation, not bad. In a similar vein, I think a lot of the benefits of college have nothing to do with the classes but I guess that's a different thread.

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I went to public school and I never learned any social skills. My personality is introverted and I did not pay insufficient attention to what other people think so I never fit in. I only really started to become more "normal" after my education ended. I have zero friends from elementary school and almost no friends from high school. Most of my friends I have made in the last few years.

 

I would be willing to make a strong bet that there are home-school kids who have far better social skills than I ever will. A lot of this comes from personality and inclination.

 

The social skills I learned the most in school were to follow rules and to try to emulate the popular people and the people in positions of authority. I wish I hadn't learned them.

 

AI would guess that behavior existed before schools.  It sounds a lot like social instincts.

 

Popular people (celebrities) exist outside of schools, and the masses want to know them and copy what they wear, etc...

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