I disagree about information. I think education is about critical thinking and creative thought. It's not about the fact that in 1845 some guy did this thing that isn't even relevant to your life. And I think that studying with others is a good way of getting new information and potentially changing your respective views.

On the down-side, the public school system seems to have forgotten this. But I don't like all the elitist talk in this thread. Home-schooling works for some, but it's not a golden solution. I went to a public school-- and as far as I'm concerned, I turned out pretty damn well.

I agree it's about critical thinking and creative thought, which is why I feel homeschooling is superior to public schooling. I don't feel learning with others in a classroom setting helps at all, and I am waiting to witness some contrary evidence because the people I know just aren't doing public schooling justice.

Nothing is a golden solution. Homeschooling seems to be the closest thing available right now for those who are able to do it. And BTW, plenty of homeschoolers actually learn with others too. I think the anti-homeschool mentality is considerably more elitist than this thread.

I especially don't see how public school is supposed to be SUCH a social setting when half of the elementary schools in the country don't have recess and a lot of them choose instead to keep kids in class all that much longer for the belief that playing in between makes them pay less attention than if they actually got a break.

And maybe I'm wrong, but I thought students talking amongst themselves during class when the teacher is talking was prohibited. So, the little kids don't get to go out and play in between classes, and they can't talk during class, that leaves the lunch hour to socialize during doesn't it?


I had friends who went to public school, and they never had to ditch school to come over and play with me, they did that...wait for it...wait for it...that's right, they came over to play AFTER SCHOOL. For some reason that's such a RADICAL idea to some people, like you can actually have a life outside of school? Since when? I don't get people like that.

^^^^^I agree Super.

Don't be so sure about lunch hour. Our school wasn't public but we couldn't talk much during lunch either. So it's no recess, no talking during school, and little talking during lunch or the in-between. Sounds like a social dream to me.

I know, God forbid kids talk to each other AFTER school is over.

Yeah really, and what about weekends? And how about the school breaks and summer vacation? What do they all do then?

^^^^That's why we're gonna take those away, so kids can socialize with each other more in the place that doesn't give them recess or let them talk audibly.

Really, I think it was last year or the year before, Obama announced plans to extend public school days to 7 o' clock at night, keep them open on weekends and shorten summer vacation. And note his own daughters would NEVER have to endure any of that being in private school, no, it's only all the other kids whose parents don't have as much money or influence as he does, what the hell is he thinking?

Forgiveness Man wrote:

Rockbird wrote:

Can we please not glorify home schooling for a minute?

With home schooling, you're at the mercy of your parent or private tutor (I'd prefer the private tutor). While the relaying of information is the operative goal, if your parent cannot teach you how to be a socially functional person, you're SCREWED. Which is exactly what happened to this one girl I knew. Had no clue how to function and interact with other people. And now? Well, now she works from home. I think being social is more important that most of the information.

I think public schooling needs a revamp, but I'm not very quick to trust home schooling either.

Why not glorify it? It can go toe to toe with any other form of schooling at least.

You're hardly at the mercy of a private parent or tutor. That's just not true. And as for teaching people how to be a socially functional person, who says school teaches you that? I was more socially awkward coming OUT of a classroom setting than I was going in. And you act like homeschoolers are total hermits. A large majority DO have friends and hang out quite a bit with people they don't live with. (Heck, most of the ones I know probably do it a little TOO much) And if you wanna go with personal examples, I know several people who also go to public school and who have fairly pathetic social skills compared to the very outgoing homeschoolers I know who can carry on intelligent conversations with adults. I just see NO proof that homeschoolers are any worse off than those who go to any other school setting. You'll have successes and failures in all of them.

So ultimately, I see no evidence that homeschoolers are worse off than anybody else.

In my experience, I absolutely was at the mercy of my parent. If you have an abusive parent, homeschooling is the absolute WORST situation for you to be in as a child. It makes your WHOLE life an inescapable prison where your abuser has complete control over you.

I do think that homeschooling can be great for some kids who have normal healthy parents, but I also believe that kids who are home schooled are more "at the mercy" of their parents than kids who go outside the home for school.

I think that there are public schools with serious problems, private schools with serious problems, and home schools with serious problems.

Whichever one you choose for your children, it's your responsibility as a parent to make it the best it can be.

When Tacoma public schools banned recess, the parents wouldn't stand for it. When there is a problem, parents need to step up and advocate for their children, where ever they are going to school.

I'm the VP of the PTO at our school, and when I hear about a problem, I talk to the principal about it, the principal listens and we work together to try to come up with a solution...

If parents just send their kids off every day and don't pay attention to what is happening at their school, then they have no right to complain about the way the school is.

I support every parent's right to home school, private school, charter school, public school, unschool...Whatever, with your kids. I do think that the COMMUNITY needs to step up and make the public schools a good place for kids though, because school districts are local institutions and local institutions depend on the community members to thrive.

^^^^You are seriously using abusive parents as a strike against homeschooling? Not every parent should be homeschooling, and abusive parents likely shouldn't even be keeping custody of their children. Rational people need to draw a line between abusive parents keeping their child in a prison and genuine homeschooling.

I was not at the mercy of my parents. (Kids who go to school are at other people's mercy anyway) I hardly think kids are at the mercy of their parents, especially in upper grades. I think that is really just a petty stereotype. It may have a small minority who prove it true, but that's all they are.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

^^^^You are seriously using abusive parents as a strike against homeschooling? Not every parent should be homeschooling, and abusive parents likely shouldn't even be keeping custody of their children. Rational people need to draw a line between abusive parents keeping their child in a prison and genuine homeschooling.

I was not at the mercy of my parents. (Kids who go to school are at other people's mercy anyway) I hardly think kids are at the mercy of their parents, especially in upper grades. I think that is really just a petty stereotype. It may have a small minority who prove it true, but that's all they are.

Just speaking from personal experience. I was pulled out of school to be home schooled and was at the mercy of an abusive parent. My experience with CPS and counselors exposed me to a lot of info about OTHER children who were pulled out of school so that their abuse would not be seen.

I hope you are right, that thats an extreme minority, but I'm here and it happened to me, so it does happen.

When you go to school, there are other adults that you can tell if someone is hurting you. If a teacher abuses you, you can tell your principal or your parents, or the school counselor. When you are home schooled, there is no adult that you can tell. IF that is not the definition of being at someone else's mercy, I don't know what is.



For the record I'm not opposed to home schooling.

^^^^^^Again, we can't use abusive parents as the rule for homeschoolers. I also don't think that pulling your kid out of school and homeschooling are synonymous. PLUS, in my state, you can't just do whatever you want in homeschooling. We had several people making sure I was up to par.

You CAN tell them but I think we know from recent history that the ability to tell is often overshadowed by intimidation. They may not be physically at the teacher's mercy, but they are emotionally at their mercy. Also, since most homeschooled kids are NOT abused, I see little reason to stereotype all homeschooled kids as being at their parent's mercy.

Our state has one of the most lenient home schooling laws in the US.

I'm not using it as the rule or I wouldn't support a parent's right to home school. But to say that public schools are "so violent" when domestic violence is the most common kind of violence in our culture it seems naive to think that there isn't violence in the home of many home schoolers as well.

All children are at the mercy of their parents and other adults in their lives.

^^^^Ours has one of the strictest

I am sure some face it. I just think it's more common in public schools.

If that last statement is true, then there's no reason to single out homeschoolers.

Some people think homeschoolers means nobody's doing any work and the kids aren't learning anything, and maybe depending on where you live this is true, but when I was in school, you had to prove to REAL teachers that you were doing the work. It was a correspondance course, the school would send the books and tests, and you had to take the tests and send them in to teachers at the school who would grade them and mail them back with any comments and/or makeup tests if necessary. I only had to take one makeup test the whole time I was in school because my mother made sure I got all of the material.

^^^^Wow, strict. We had to answer to the curriculum AND the state. So I wasn't at my parents' mercy at all.

I went to public school my whole life and nothing like that every happened. Outside of school, things like that did happen, but no in school. I could decide I never wanted to ride the buys and my kids should never ride the bus because of people who've been stabbed, injured, etc. on buses. I could decide never to walk down the street because people have been mugged or robbed while walking down the street.

Millions of children attend public school safely and while the public school system isn't perfect, neither is the home schooling system. Millions of children graduate form public schools and go on to be very successful. Maybe things are different in Canada. Most of the schools I've been in have been pretty good places, not cesspools of violence.

My experience with homeschooling was totally different than the examples posted. I did take one test during the 2-3 years I was home schooled, but it was the summer after I got pulled out of the 8th grade. That was it.

My brother was home schooled as well, and wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until he was 16 and my mom started working in a public school because of it.

In some states it may be different, but here, because we have such lenient home schooling laws (which I actually agree with) and because my parents didn't know what they were doing, it wasn't a great experience for me and I honestly believe that my brother would have been in treatment for his issues and maybe he would have a better life now had he been diagnosed earlier.


It's not a "strike against" home schooling, that's not my point. I'm pro whatever school that you want your kids to do, but it's not ideal for everyone any more than public school is.

Supernova wrote:

And I'm also thankful I don't have any children and if I did, that they wouldn't be in public school either.


I live in a small town, we don't have school shootings and stuff like that here, but my neighbor came home today and told me that in the lunch room at the high school today, a boy and a girl who had been dating for a year got into a fight and the boy stabbed the girl with a pencil and stabbed the teacher also, then he had the balls to blame the girl for it when he was arrested.

If I had kids right now, I wold be thanking God that they would be homeschooled and not having to face the possibility of that every day they went to school.

Maybe that has as much to do with the TOWN as it does the school. What if the kid who took the gun to school lived right across the street from you and hung out with your kid? The only way I would homeschool my kid is if THEY THEMSELVES were having trouble at school and there was no other school they could go to.

thepossiblepolice wrote:

My experience with homeschooling was totally different than the examples posted. I did take one test during the 2-3 years I was home schooled, but it was the summer after I got pulled out of the 8th grade. That was it.

My brother was home schooled as well, and wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until he was 16 and my mom started working in a public school because of it.

In some states it may be different, but here, because we have such lenient home schooling laws (which I actually agree with) and because my parents didn't know what they were doing, it wasn't a great experience for me and I honestly believe that my brother would have been in treatment for his issues and maybe he would have a better life now had he been diagnosed earlier.


It's not a "strike against" home schooling, that's not my point. I'm pro whatever school that you want your kids to do, but it's not ideal for everyone any more than public school is.

From what I can tell, it really does NOT sound like you were "homeschooled." (Although some may argue that you were a homeschooler. Saw a hilarious video on the difference. )

We can't use examples of parents pulling their kids out of school and basically doing nothing in regards to home education as accurate examples on the effectiveness of homeschooling.

Quote :

From what I can tell, it really does NOT sound like you were "homeschooled." (Although some may argue that you were a homeschooler. Saw a hilarious video on the difference. )

We can't use examples of parents pulling their kids out of school and basically doing nothing in regards to home education as accurate examples on the effectiveness of homeschooling.

The thing is, TPP wasn't generalizing all homeschooling situations. She was speaking of her own experience. She has expressed how awful her situation was, but hasn't been negative toward those who put all their faith in homeschooling.

RedBedroom wrote:

The thing is, TPP wasn't generalizing all homeschooling situations. She was speaking of her own experience. She has expressed how awful her situation was, but hasn't been negative toward those who put all their faith in homeschooling.

But her experience doesn't really sound like homeschooling at all.

Quote :

But her experience doesn't really sound like homeschooling at all.

It was her homeschooling experience. As she honestly stated, it wasn't a stellar one. But it was still her experience with it. Judging from how articulate and insightful she is from what I can see, I am guessing that even though the ball was dropped by adults in her life and whatever entity should have been testing her and her brother, she is an intelligent person, so she probably did a lot of learning on her own. Just because she wasn't tested, as she should have been, doesn't mean she wasn't learning on her own.
My son is turning out to be pretty talented with his trumpet. Now, say I pull him out of Jr. high to homeschool him so he can play hours a day, work with the best tutors money can buy, plus maybe learn another instrument or two. I do this because I am convinced he is going to be rich and famous some day because of his musical talent, so why waste time on other subjects when all he needs to know is how to play better and better each year, into his teens?
Per your logic, he should not label himself homeschooled one day when asked about his education. But in that scenario, it would be totally on me, not him, that he was not properly homeschooled. He would still have every right to say he was homeschooled.
Granted, this is really a debate on using the term loosely or not, but I care to make my point because TPP shared her story and shouldn't be discounted in anyway about her label of her experience just because is wasn't ideal, when she has been totally fair on both sides of the topic.

^^^^But my point is that it doesn't sound like HOMESCHOOLING at all. If something is far enough removed from the normal, one needs to start questioning if it really fits into the term. I'm not trivializing her abuse. I am not doubting her articulate skills either, BTW. (That would probably speak more to the uselessness of a high school education in general.) I am not discounting her story. I am merely saying that not going to a classroom school doesn't necessary mean that you are homeschooled. I agree she has been fair. But we can't just use terms to refer to everything; they have to meet at least some level of criteria. Maybe I am improperly remembering something she had said about her experience, and if so I apologize for that. But the more I hear about this, the less it is starting to sound like being "homeschooled."

Is taking private music lessons really homeschooling? It'd be no wonder that homeschooling would get a bad name if we start mislabeling it. That just comes off as distortion to me. To use your analogy, having a kid take music lessons at a piano teacher's house hardly qualifies as public schooling. Or to go further, going to the mall every day to buy stuff hardly qualifies as summer camp.

Quote :

But my point is that it doesn't sound like HOMESCHOOLING at all.

And my point is that it doesn't sound like proper HOMESCHOOLING at all.
I am not saying that it is fair that the successful homeschooled families deserve the bad wrap it often gets from those who don't do it properly. But the fact is, I could very easily (easily in that there wouldn't be a lot of hoops to jump through) homeschool my son in that scenario I presented. I couldn't go to the district and tell them in truth that I don't plan to focus on much more than his music, because then I wouldn't be allowed to execute the plan. The misuse of the term homeschooling would be on me, (and the entity not properly monitoring us) not him.