Home Schooling

[Socrates]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Dec 13 2005, 07:30 PM']I am going to send my kids to an elite private school with tutition costs over 20,000 dollars a year to express my socialist side.

Yeah, sure.

I don't support homeschooling for a number of reasons. One is acadmic. While a parent can easily teach one advanced subject or can teach all the subjects at an early age, it is more likely to be of greater depth if the teacher really cares about the subject and is trained extensively in that subject (:cough: Bio majors SHOULD NOT be teaching chemistry or physics, pet pev :cough:). The advantage of a formal school is that they have to hire these "trained" people for each subject and you are more likely to get someone well versed in that field teaching your child. I would much rather have E.O. Wilson teaching Little Iacoba (who is a Periodic Table and my daughter... long story) then, say, Robert Kaplan. With Dr. Wilson they are more likely to fully explore the subject and also I can rest assued that their tutor fully understands that subject he is teaching.

Social reasons are the secondary reason I don't support home schooling. I have meet a number of people who have turned out rather well from home schooling, I have meet an disprop. number, when compered to formally educated students, that lack a number of social schools. They often lack clarity and brevity in speech and writing and have a decided lack of articulateness. There is often an odd air around them in a number of their behaviors.

While many homeschoolers are moving into community based learn things, they are often still found lacking. They are often not exposed to radically opposing ideas and if the reason they are being homeschooled is to avoid these ideas, then, my friends, lets not kid ourselves and call it an education but rather by its real name, indoctrination.
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I'll start out by saying that I'm neither fanatically for, nor categorically against homeschooling. Like I said, homeschooling is only worth what you put into it. (And I'd say not all parents and families are cut out for homeshooling.) The same can be said of other schools -some are excellent, while others are miserable failures.

But as one who was homeschooled myself during my highschool years, and having known many homeschoolers, and having worked grading homeschool papers, I believe I have more first-hand knowledge on this topic than most. And I believe Iacobus' post shows a distinct prejudice and lack of knowledge.

First, with regards to academics, the fact is that statistically, as a group, homeschoolers consistantly out-perform their public-school peers academically and on standardized tests such as the SAT by a large margin, and even do better than many private-schooled kids. To claim that homeschoolers as a group are poorly educated and ignorant is, well, poorly educated and ignorant.

And it is not uncommon for homeschoolers to take community college courses or go to a knowlegable tutor for specialized subjects such as science, etc.

And the "social skills" issue is something that is often overblown. This really varies by individual familes. Most homeschoolers I know do not keep their children in total isolation, and they are not noticably different than non-homeschooled kids. In college, for the most part, there was no obvious way of telling homeschoolers from non-homeschoolers.
The main differences I've noticed with homeschooled kids I know is that they tend to be more polite, more respectful, and more at ease with people of a variety of different ages.
My father teaches at a college, and some of the best writers have been homeschooled. I myself was homeschoooled, and got high grades on my written papers.

And the point about "indoctrination" is rather silly as a blanket statement.
Are kids in a public school in which all talk of religion is forbidden, and where liberal, politically correct ideas are pressed, any less indoctrinated??
And children are being formed in their beliefs at this time. It is important to first teach them true beliefs so that later in life they will have a firm foundation to defend against "radically opposing ideas." To say that young children and teenagers must have to be taught "radically opposing ideas" while their minds and world-views are still being formed is absurd. People who were given a sound Catholic grounding early in life are less likely to lose the faith than those who were not.
This is just typical of the hypocrisy of liberals who consider teaching children conservative or religious beliefs "indoctrination," but consider teaching them liberal, secularist beliefs "education."

[scardella]

Most of the homeschooled peeps I've met have been socially well-adjusted and have generally done decently in college. It's certainly not any worse than what I've seen from other places.

That nervous tic they all have, though, is kinda wierd...

[Christie_M]

[quote name='Church Punk' date='Dec 13 2005, 12:53 PM']I notice that a few people on here seem to support home schooling. (homeschoolmom) HAHAH.

Anyway, I guess I am new to this concept as I personally know of no one that has done this before. I was just wondering what your opinion on this would be and reason for it.

If any of you are involved in home schooling what is your take on this compared to a Catholic school for your children or self?
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I'm being homeshooled at the moment. I love it!
I think that homeschooling is alot better than going to a "real" school.
1. You get to spend quality time with your siblings and parents.
2. you don't have to realy go through being stuffed in lockers. lol
3. you don't realy get "social" with other ppl, but that's why you have 8 brothers and sisters!
4. usualy when you homeschool, you do your schooling at your own pace!
I think that the children grow up to be better people.

But then again, your getting an opinion from a homeschooler. So I'm saying nice stuff about it. hehe

[quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Dec 13 2005, 06:38 PM']
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*grabs popcorn her self*

[franciscanheart]

its interesting to see the stigmatisms associated with both methods of schooling and from both sides of the argument. i went to both a private and public school. i know for certain it isnt always what homeschoolers make it out to be (not that all homeschoolers have a skewed idea of what 'normal' school is... they have the same bias i believe as those who go to a public or private school and talk about homeschooling)

[Christie_M]

hehe. no I was jokeing about the lockers.
I don't have that kind of idea of public or privet school. I think I would be fun to go to one for a week or so. Just to see how it's like. *sigh*

[franciscanheart]

Don't worry Christie, I wasn't talking about your locker thing I was referring more to comments made by Socrates (and others I have met with similar opinions).

[Christie_M]

oooOOOooo. lol

[Socrates]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' date='Dec 13 2005, 09:25 PM']Don't worry Christie, I wasn't talking about your locker thing I was referring more to comments made by Socrates (and others I have met with similar opinions).
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Would you care to specify?

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Dec 13 2005, 09:28 PM']Would you care to specify?
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[quote]School is not "real life." People are artificially herded together in groups of the same age, often without anything meaningful to do. What results is much mindless cliquishness, ostracizing, and bullying, while time is wasted on worrying about being in the "right" clique, wearing the "right" clothes, and listening to the "right" music, as well as the pressures of drugs, sex, etc.

This time would be better spent doing something real and productive.[/quote]
that.

[Tony]

geez Im the biggest double poster on the history of phatmass.. sorry kids

[Tony]

Im personally hppy I never was homeschooled.. because I knew hardly anyone outside of my school and youth group.. and I was also an only child for quite a long time.

That and I think its great to be able to support my Alma Mater in athletics and stuff like that.. Go Elyria Pioneers!.. sports is a big part of my life.. so to be able to get behind someone and still go to the games and stuff.. its great. some of you might not find this as a good enough reason to want to go to a regular school, but I very much do. Was awesome when I was seeing my own friends compete

[Era Might]

[quote]My public shcool socialization was a nightmare. And I only went untill the 6th grade.[/quote]

Mine was fine. There's no doubt that there are kids who can't adjust in school, for whatever reason. (Not to say you couldn't adjust). But that's life. There'll be kids who can't adjust in anything, including life itself.

[quote]It's unique all right. You only talk to "your friends", you cannot talk to anybody not in your grade, if a younger sibling and her friends talk to you and you talk back, you are shunned. There isn't real socialization.[/quote]

I never had any problem talking with anyone.

[quote]I have been to many state wide youth conferences. I have friends all over the state.
Lots of times I am so busy that my parents don't really see me for weeks; they drop me off, pick up. Some times I am actually gone for weeks at a time. (Doing social stuff and extra curricular stuff like sending the Governor proposals) [/quote]

That's cool. That's what you do. That wasn't life for me. Just a regular city kid. Went to school. Had friends. Hung out with friends. Lived a normal life.

Perhaps preferences are shaped through personal history. I was not Catholic growing up. There was no conscious attempt to "keep" me from the the dangers associated with public school. Like I said, I lived my life, made mistakes, had friends, whatever. That's more or less my outlook on life. You have to get out there. Homeschooling is foreign to me.

But, nevertheless, I respect homeschooling.

Edited December 14, 2005 by Era Might

[franciscanheart]

i would say for the most part the views on whether or not homeschooling is the way to go IS due in large part to your own personal history. it is important to understand that those who had a hard time in school might be more likely to lean towards homeschooling their children than putting them into an established school. i think it is the family who decides to do the complete opposite despite their own positive experiences but not simply to try it out. i would be interested in seeing someone who had a wonderful time in public/private school and was convicted in their belief that they should homeschool their children.

[Christie_M]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' date='Dec 13 2005, 08:43 PM'] .....i would be interested in seeing someone who had a wonderful time in public/private school and was convicted in their belief that they should homeschool their children.
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then you could ask my future husband. lol I'm going to homeschool, most likly he would not want to. we'll see who will win. (I will of course!)

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Christie_M' date='Dec 13 2005, 09:47 PM']then you could ask my future husband. lol I'm going to homeschool, most likly he would not want to. we'll see who will win. (I will of course!)
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is this an arranged marriage? (side note: where is your momma?)

[rkwright]

I went to catholic highschool, and have a cousin who is being homeschooled right now. The families have gotten in some arguments over all of it... Like you said hes not isolated, and plays sports and does youth group... but him, and the other homeschooled kids I've met (in highschool I haven't met any while at college) just have something different socially about them.

Here are some things I really enjoyed at my highschool that my cousin being homeschooled will never experience.

1- Friday night football games. Even in the snow cheering on a terrible high school football team because its the only time you can really hang out with your friends outside of class when you can't drive.
2- School dances, from freshman mixers to senior prom...
3- Lockers, the rush of trying to get to class on time, talking with friends in the halls
4- Those teachers that everyone hates but everyone has. Or those 'yearly' projects; my freshman year it was the latin project, senior year the dreaded 25 page economics project
5- Sports, going to state, going to nationals with a close group of friends, letter jackets
6- Mass for 1,200 kids. amazing
7- School pep rallys...sometimes lame sometimes a lot of fun

Hes not going to have the bad days I had either; feeling lonely sometimes, having too much work and sports interfering, getting involved in a nasty food fight!!

All in all it was worth every second of it and I feel sad that he'll miss it.

[missionseeker]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Dec 13 2005, 10:35 PM']Perhaps preferences are shaped through personal history. I was not Catholic growing up. There was no conscious attempt to "keep" me from the the dangers associated with public school. Like I said, I lived my life, made mistakes, had friends, whatever. That's more or less my outlook on life. You have to get out there. Homeschooling is foreign to me.

But, nevertheless, I respect homeschooling.
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My parents are(were) not trying to "keep" me from anything. They wanted me to learn to think on my own, not be the typical cookie cutter version of kids that schools around here (note, I qualified that : ) are turning out. My mom drives a bus for the city schools around here, and she had a 17 year old who was complaining about a stupid law they just passed here (which would, of course, affect her doing something) she told the girl "Well, pay attention in your American Gov. class and learn what we do and how it works and vote people who make stupid laws like that out of office." No one ever told that girl that what she was "learning" actually had something to do with real life.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='missionseeker' date='Dec 13 2005, 10:00 PM']My parents are(were)  not trying to "keep" me from anything. They wanted me to learn to think on my own, not be [b]the typical cookie cutter version of kids that schools around here[/b] [i](snip)[/i] [b]are turning out[/b]. My mom drives a bus for the city schools around here, and she had a 17 year old who was complaining about a stupid law they just passed here (which would, of course, affect her doing something) she told the girl "Well, pay attention in your American Gov. class and learn what we do and how it works and vote people who make stupid laws like that out of office." No one ever told that girl that what she was "learning" actually had something to do with really life.
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here's another one.

[missionseeker]

[quote]1- Friday night football games.  Even in the snow cheering on a terrible high school football team because its the only time you can really hang out with your friends outside of class when you can't drive[/quote].

I do believe that if you pay, you can get in. I've done this. And no, the fun isn't "scaled down" or anything just because you don't go to that school.

[quote]]2- School dances, from freshman mixers to senior prom... [/quote]
Also totally possible. There are homeschool groups that have dances. And I could have gone to a prom at the local high school. And probly could this year, too.

[quote]3- Lockers, the rush of trying to get to class on time, talking with friends in the halls[/quote]

Now, [i]that[/i], you're right we don't have to worry about it. :

[quote]4- Those teachers that everyone hates but everyone has.  Or those 'yearly' projects; my freshman year it was the latin project, senior year the dreaded 25 page economics project[/quote]

I have yearly projects. One was own a business. A real one.

[quote]5- Sports, going to state, going to nationals with a close group of friends, letter jackets[/quote]

I thought you said he was in sports. And homeschoolers [i]can[/i] join public school teams (their parents pay taxes too, you know. )


[quote]6- Mass for 1,200 kids. amazing[/quote]
Been there.
[quote]7- School pep rallys...sometimes lame sometimes a lot of fun[/quote]
I haven't been to one since I quit school, so I don't know...


[quote]Hes not going to have the bad days I had either; feeling lonely sometimes, having too much work and sports interfering, getting involved in a nasty food fight!! [/quote]

You are soo wrong there. Homeschoolers experience all those things. (even the food fights, esp. if you have a lot of siblings. Of course, parents' wrath is a little more to be feared than a principle's.)

[quote]All in all it was worth every second of it and I feel sad that he'll miss it.[/quote]

I feel sad that you'll never know the wonderfullness of homeschooling.

[franciscanheart]

this is starting to make my head spin