If your child was being bullied in school, would you pull them out and home school them, send them to another school, or would you take the school they're already enrolled in to task?

Punishing bullies is the answer to bullying. Homeschooling is the answer to the school not doing it's job, both in educational and others areas. So if the school is essentially promoting bullying through their policies, yeah, I say homeschooling can be a great answer. But don't limit it to bullying. If my school isn't teaching my kid well enough, I say that's reason enough to homeschool them. I can almost always tell a kid on a TV program being interviewed who has been homeschooled. Contrary to the stereotype, they're usually a lot more sociable and intelligent than people would expect.

If you start kids in homeschool from the start, bullies generally aren't much of a problem, certainly not like when they're up in your face every day for 12 years. As for pulling them out later on to solve the problem, that one I don't know about. But I agree, the only real answer there is to bullying is actually do something with them INSTEAD of making it that the victims are just too sensitive and ignore them and it'll go away, how much longer are we going to condone that evasive bullshit that never works and can usually wind up with somebody dead or at least attempting it?

Ignoring bullying doesn't seem to end well. Maybe we need to start making bullying unappealing for bullies instead of enabling them.

Indeeeeed, now here's a thought, schools already have little regard to students' privacy, so why not install cameras so they can see who REALLY starts everything? Hard to dispute that when you're seeing it with your own eyes.

I think it has to be a case by case thing. Running away from the public by homeschooling isn't necessarily the answer. They need those socialization skills. The bullies need to be held accountable for their actions. The school loves a zero tolerance policy on everything else. They need to implement one for that too. Immediate & severe consequences for bullying.

CeCe wrote:

I think it has to be a case by case thing. Running away from the public by homeschooling isn't necessarily the answer. They need those socialization skills. The bullies need to be held accountable for their actions. The school loves a zero tolerance policy on everything else. They need to implement one for that too. Immediate & severe consequences for bullying.

I would be a fixture at the administrator's office if they didn't put an end to it.

It wouldn't be a solution for me. If my kids were being bullied, I would be at the school raising hell for something to be done about it. And the school was just that inept, I would at the most find another to send them to, but home schooling as a reaction to bullying is too much like running away from the problem, and wouldn't be the message I'd want to send to my kids.

I always did think the "they need socialization skills" defense of public school was off. Kids aren't given much time to socialize in schools these day. AND not only that, they CAN and DO socialize plenty in the homeschooling environment. And if anything, I think homeschooling actually improves one's socialization skills. (Providing you are homeschooled and not just locked in the basement. Yes people, there is a difference.)

So while I don't think homeschooling is necessarily the remedy to bullying (that's actually punishing the bullies), I think a reason to homeschool is the knowledge that the school system isn't truly interested in stopping bullying unless it's bullying against specific demographics. General everyday bullying flies under the radar everyday because we live in a society that enables people to do whatever they want unless it's politically incorrect. And the average bullying is plenty politically correct for the school system. So schools won't do anything about it. I think that's one reason to homeschool, definitely. (One among many, and growing daily.)

Home schooling isn't the answer to anything, IMO. If my kids were being bullied to such a degree that it got back to me, it's gonna be me and that principal....and those kids.

Homeschooling is the answer to failing schools.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

Homeschooling is the answer to failing schools.

THIS, or if it's a Big Brother school, you as the parents are so STUPID you don't deserve to know ANYTHING about your kids, the TEACHERS will decide everything for them, the male gym teacher will decide when your daughter needs to wear a bra, that's not YOUR concern, then yes I'd be rallying very much for homeschooling, it's only unfortunate it wasn't an option when my sister was in school and my mother had to have THAT talk with the teacher.

I just wanna know....if homeschooling is "supposed" to be the cure all of all the things that are supposedly wrong with the public school system......do propenents really think that the MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of children in the public school system can realistically be homeschooled? Like....seriously? There are NO benefits to public schools at all? What do you suggest should happen to the teaching profession if every child is to be homeschooled? Cause quite frankly, it's not like you can say "oh, only certain kids are privileged to get the best education, therefore homeschooling is the only option". Or is it?

It's not a cure, it's an alternative, and everybody knows that all parents don't have the time, money and know-how to do it, but for the ones who can, that's their right. Some students may find advantages to public schooling but the fact remains academics often takes a backseat to sports and other extracurricular activities which are not going to prepare the students for the real world unless they want to make that their profession; which is a very risky business because should anything go wrong, they have no genuine education to fall back on and so will not be hired for much outside of a minimum wage area.

This country has among other things a very HIGH illiteracy rate that ranges from grade to grade and it varies from partial illiteracy to completely; the majority of these millions of kids are being turned out by the public school system, despite all the funding going into reading programs, etc. All studies available find at the very least the home schooled kids are on the level with the intelligent public students, and at best they excel past the public statistics in the way of academics.

So since an education is what's needed to get a job and make it in the real world, and not football or cheerleading or prom, BUT a lot of schools make sure they always have money for sports and new outfits whereas text books can be outdated and few and far between the many students, I'd say it's highly questionable just what the public schools DO have to offer the students. Every year more teachers are laid off so there are fewer teachers to work with more students meaning nobody's going to have the attention paid to them that they need; so who's going to catch the ones who slip through the cracks and how are the geniuses going to get ahead, especially with NCLB still in effect?

If schools cut the flashy sports and used all that money to fund the schools for the academic side of it, to hire in more teachers who can better juggle the hundreds of students and their work, and to get in enough supplies for everybody to use so in that regard everybody can stay caught up with one another, I think that would be the beginning of a hell of a lot of necessary changes. But unfortunately that's not going to happen, so everybody just has to decide what the best option for their kid is; but all the time we're seeing that homeschooling is becoming more and more popular and you do have to wonder if the public system works so well, why is everybody who can trying to get their kids out of it?

Supernova wrote:

but all the time we're seeing that homeschooling is becoming more and more popular and you do have to wonder if the public system works so well, why is everybody who can trying to get their kids out of it?

"Because there's something wrong with them." That's always the answer.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

"Because there's something wrong with them." That's always the answer.

Wrong with the schools, or with the families? What I find odd is that homeschooling is treated the same way as divorce, a fairly recent thing and something that will bring shame to all involved, or should. When in fact it isn't, divorce was a popular item in Blanche Caldwell Barrow's home state when she was born, by 1911 it had gone up 600% in five years. And homeschooling, the schools we corresponded with, have been in business for over 100 years. But it seems only the last 20 or 30 years account for anything, why is that?

Supernova wrote:

Wrong with the schools, or with the families?

Since I was quoting, I meant the families, as in that's how the schools explain why people are leaving them.

Yeah some people have THE dumbest arguments for public schooling. Somebody actually told me once kids have to go to public school so they don't end up like Jim Jones, EXCEPT Jim Jones went to and graduated from PUBLIC school, but they wouldn't care to explain that one.

Supernova wrote:

Yeah some people have THE dumbest arguments for public schooling. Somebody actually told me once kids have to go to public school so they don't end up like Jim Jones, EXCEPT Jim Jones went to and graduated from PUBLIC school, but they wouldn't care to explain that one.

Yeah, go figure. lol I think the problem is that people refuse to accept that homeschooling can be anything but what it's stereotyped as. At best, your kid will be book smart but will have no social skills and be totally unable to communicate with anybody, at all. At worst, they'll end up locked in a cage and murdered by their crazy parents. People can't seem to separate actual home education from parents who just lock their kid up and abuse them.

Although I do admit, many parents probably should NOT homeschool their kids. If somebody is the type to defend public school, they likely fall into this category anyway.

Side note: Once saw this great video about the difference between homeschoolers and the home schooled.

I don't get why over 100 years into it, we still have to be the brunt of a joke. Whenever home schooling is mentioned in a movie, there is a catch somewhere, like they're trailer trash, or you think they're a bunch of dumb hicks and then later it's like *gasp* wait a minute, you're actually SMART? What the hell?

Supernova wrote:

I don't get why over 100 years into it, we still have to be the brunt of a joke. Whenever home schooling is mentioned in a movie, there is a catch somewhere, like they're trailer trash, or you think they're a bunch of dumb hicks and then later it's like *gasp* wait a minute, you're actually SMART? What the hell?

It's because we're outside the norm, the "comfort zone" of society. We're typically part of groups that are more freethinking and open minded than the societal herd. We're politically correct to make fun of. So while it's annoying, I DO get while we're the brunt of the jokes. Why should we expect anything less from society when it's the one promoting the failed school system? Of course it'd be hostile to an alternative proven to work better.

And yet that's the oxymoronic part because the people 'in the box' if you will, are the ones saying 'we're SO open minded'; their idea of open minded is they should be able to teach the kids ANYTHING they want and the parents are so stupid they don't deserve to know anything about what's going on with their kids and 'it'll just be our secret'.

Supernova wrote:

And yet that's the oxymoronic part because the people 'in the box' if you will, are the ones saying 'we're SO open minded'; their idea of open minded is they should be able to teach the kids ANYTHING they want and the parents are so stupid they don't deserve to know anything about what's going on with their kids and 'it'll just be our secret'.

Society today is definitely oxymoronic, and people wonder why the country's falling apart.

[quote="Supernova"]It's not a cure, it's an alternative, and everybody knows that all parents don't have the time, money and know-how to do it, but for the ones who can, that's their right. Some students may find advantages to public schooling but the fact remains academics often takes a backseat to sports and other extracurricular activities which are not going to prepare the students for the real world unless they want to make that their profession; which is a very risky business because should anything go wrong, they have no genuine education to fall back on and so will not be hired for much outside of a minimum wage area.

This country has among other things a very HIGH illiteracy rate that ranges from grade to grade and it varies from partial illiteracy to completely; the majority of these millions of kids are being turned out by the public school system, despite all the funding going into reading programs, etc. All studies available find at the very least the home schooled kids are on the level with the intelligent public students, and at best they excel past the public statistics in the way of academics.

So since an education is what's needed to get a job and make it in the real world, and not football or cheerleading or prom, BUT a lot of schools make sure they always have money for sports and new outfits whereas text books can be outdated and few and far between the many students, I'd say it's highly questionable just what the public schools DO have to offer the students. Every year more teachers are laid off so there are fewer teachers to work with more students meaning nobody's going to have the attention paid to them that they need; so who's going to catch the ones who slip through the cracks and how are the geniuses going to get ahead, especially with NCLB still in effect?

Home schooling is an alternative that everybody can't meet. First of all, there are advantages and disadvantages to BOTH public and home schooling. What I don't like from most home schooling proponents, such as yourself, are the blanket statements and ideas you get from A bad public school and you apply them to be the same for every damn public school system in America. I've worked in the school system and I know people who do so as well. Second of all....a lot of extracurricular activities such as sports, proms, dances, arts, etc do get cut because there isn't enough money. A lot, if not the majority, of school funding comes from property taxes. So these little ideas that you have in your head that schools are all about sports and the like and less about learning, the vast majority of the ones who do subscribe to that are the ones in the wealthier and well to do districts where the academics are also on par. Their PTA's, sponsors, fund raisers pay for those uniforms. They pay for those sports programs. So now let's get back to the fact why you have under performing schools. It's not because of the lack of curricular, it's not because of the lack of academics per se, and it's not because that there is more importance placed on sports.....it's the damn students. They don't want to learn shit. It's the parents who don't get involved in their education. Yes, it's also because a lot of schools get underfunded, but it's the students and parents too. Public schools have a lot to offer students, more the homeschooling does. I can guarantee you far more success stories from people who came from the public school system than from those that didn't.