Oh! This is directly to the OP- where do you want to be when your kids are, say, 10 or 8 years old? Your dreams count too. If you have a life plan or wish, factor it in when planning your children's education.
Water at 55 degrees causes hypothermia btw, which a science teacher could have told you. Sure it will take about an hour, for an adult, but still.
It's true. Blasted fact checking can get in the way of things though so here's a handy link for all confused on it.
http://www.usps.org/national/ensign/uspscompass/compassarchive/compassv1n1/hypothermia.htm
If you want both sides of the picture, you might consider asking this question on the "Learning at School" board as well. I don't think you're going to find many people on the homeschooling section being gung-ho about school.
If you're just wanting validation that it's OK to homeschool your kids even if you live in a good district, that's one thing. If you're seriously considering public school, you should talk to people who do it.
I caution everyone (homeschoolers or not) against making judgments about a school based on reputation alone. Our kids go to a public school that many of the parents in our neighborhood (mostly middle to upper-middle class) avoid on reputation alone. Yes, the school's high poverty. Yes, it has a lot of English language learners. Yes, my children are getting a good education with amazing teachers. Personally, I think the teachers at our school are more skilled than the teachers at the neighboring school that a lot of parents transfer into. As a teacher, I know it's easy to teach to the top. It's reaching the kids who are struggling that's the measure of your teaching skill. Unless you've visited the school and talked to parents about a specific school, you don't know what it's like.
Furthermore, my kids are learning things about people and other kinds of families that I couldn't introduce them to. For many reasons, homeschooling would not work for our family (this includes personalities, my work, my husband's work and our value system --we see value in the public education system). I know this is the homeschooling board, but since this question involves school, I think it important to note that there are other sides to this issue.
All districts still fall under no child left behind.
So....yes. We have lived in places with "amazing" districts and we have continued to HS.
Our state (along with many states) just got a waiver. Furthermore, even if districts were under NCYB, the only schools that had consequences were the Title I schools (schools with more than 40% of children getting free/reduced lunch). NCYB was an awful law, but if it's a high income school, it's probably a moot point.
It was about having access to kids brought up very differently. Not wrongly, as you seem to imply about kids from the outside world. Why did you rattle off a list of jerks? These other kids weren't jerks. Different life styles, viewpoints, languages, cultures. Not just other home schoolers.
(Since when is an autistic child a jerk? And what's with the sarcastic golf clap?) You mentioned learning to deal with less than ideal circumstances as something homeschoolers might not learn to do, so I rattled off a list of less than ideal circumstances that my youngest kid has coped with in recent weeks. I was not trying equate these circumstances to school -- just providing evidence that homeschooled kids can learn the things you implied they couldn't.
You might be interested to know that I have one child in full-time high school, and two who have been part-time for 1-4 years and are moving to full-time in the fall. I fully support schooling as a valid educational choice. I'm not sure why you think I'm trying to make parents of school children feel lousy.
You've now raised a separate issue: of getting to know "children with different lifestyles, viewpoints, languages, cultures. Not just other homeschoolers." Again, I disagree that homeschoolers won't get those opportunities. Thinking over all the close friends my kids have had while homeschooling I would venture that far fewer than 50% of them were homeschoolers. Those who were have tended to be culturally, socio-economically and ethnically far less like our family than their school-going friends. In our area the mainstream kids typically go to school, and the homogeneity of the school population reflects that.
I get that your second-hand experience is with a form of cultural-isolationist religious homeschooling. But please don't generalize this to other styles of homeschooling.
And for what it's worth, my three elder kids have made wonderful, easy transitions to high school with just an unschooled background and no conscious attempt to "keep them at grade level" to prepare for the transition. I know of dozens of families who have transitioned from homeschooling to school with little to no difficulty.
Miranda
Water at 55 degrees causes hypothermia btw, which a science teacher could have told you. Sure it will take about an hour, for an adult, but still.
Thanks for your concern. Living near a glacier-fed lake in Canada, we're perfectly aware of this. The kids are all in wetsuits. I'll probably have photos on my blog in a couple of days if you care to double-check my facts. Sheesh.
Miranda
(Since when is an autistic child a jerk? And what's with the sarcastic golf clap?) You mentioned learning to deal with less than ideal circumstances as something homeschoolers might not learn to do, so I rattled off a list of less than ideal circumstances that my youngest kid has coped with in recent weeks. I was not trying equate these circumstances to school -- just providing evidence that homeschooled kids can learn the things you implied they couldn't.
You might be interested to know that I have one child in full-time high school, and two who have been part-time for 1-4 years and are moving to full-time in the fall. I fully support schooling as a valid educational choice. I'm not sure why you think I'm trying to make parents of school children feel lousy.
You've now raised a separate issue: of getting to know "children with different lifestyles, viewpoints, languages, cultures. Not just other homeschoolers." Again, I disagree that homeschoolers won't get those opportunities. Thinking over all the close friends my kids have had while homeschooling I would venture that far fewer than 50% of them were homeschoolers. Those who were have tended to be culturally, socio-economically and ethnically far less like our family than their school-going friends. In our area the mainstream kids typically go to school, and the homogeneity of the school population reflects that.
I get that your second-hand experience is with a form of cultural-isolationist religious homeschooling. But please don't generalize this to other styles of homeschooling.
And for what it's worth, my three elder kids have made wonderful, easy transitions to high school with just an unschooled background and no conscious attempt to "keep them at grade level" to prepare for the transition. I know of dozens of families who have transitioned from homeschooling to school with little to no difficulty.
Miranda
Bolding is mine. When you listed an autistic child among the trials your children have had to endure, it raised my eyebrows. And upset me a little, to be honest. (Autistic loved ones). I myself am an educator, have spent a lot of time in all facets of this field, and am not at all against homeschooling. I am not just exposed to religious homeschooling, btw, and don't think that religious homeschoolers are somehow lesser. My cousins both are working on their doctorates in very nice institutions. But there is a lot of misinformation floating around both schooling and homeschooling. Homeschooling shouldn't make people horrified at schools, perfectly nice schools, as I so frequently see on this board. It IS superior and smug.
I did say, quite clearly (which tells me you aren't reading what I'm writing) that it is not impossible to transition from homeschooling to schooling, just that it can be trickier. That's hardly an indictment of homeschooling unless you have done a seriously bad job of it.
The way you made schooling sound like an unnatural environment, oppressive, etc, is not only unfair, but a bit hypocritical in light of the fact that you send your children to school at least part of the time.
Schooling for all is quite a gift. A blessing. When people sneer at it I get annoyed. There are valid reasons to homeschool and no one in my family regrets doing it, but we've also learned how to word things respectfully for the other family members that don't/didn't homeschool.
When you listed an autistic child among the trials your children have had to endure, it raised my eyebrows.
You mentioned that school was necessary for your aunt's children to learn about "being flexible with co-workers." I was providing an example of learning flexible inter-personal skills.
Miranda
Even the best school districts require daily attendance, segment the world into grade levels and subject areas, take students out of the flow of family and community life, operate based on a mass education model with many children vying for rank and approval by of a limited number of adults who are in positions of authority, separate learning from living, group children by age, and so on. That's just the nature of schooling. We prefer our education, at least in the pre-adolescent years, to have a different nature entirely.
Miranda
The way you made schooling sound like an unnatural environment, oppressive, etc, is not only unfair, but a bit hypocritical in light of the fact that you send your children to school at least part of the time.
Please read again what I wrote. Where did I say any of it was oppressive? I just listed some of the administrative realities of school, that attendance is compulsory, that students are grouped by age, that students are graded and ranked relative to each other, that teachers are in positions of authority, that learning is divided into subjects. There's nothing inherently evil about any of that. It's just not what I want during their formative years, nor did my kids want it for themselves.
Miranda
Schooling for all is quite a gift. A blessing. When people sneer at it I get annoyed. There are valid reasons to homeschool and no one in my family regrets doing it, but we've also learned how to word things respectfully for the other family members that don't/didn't homeschool.
It is nigh on impossible to word it respectfully enough to please everyone all the time.
ETA: I've mentioned to folks that one reason that I like HSing is that we don't have to get up so early, we can learn when we're ready, we can run around when we need to, etc. And sometimes, some people I've spoken with react defensively, because these simple, fairly (seemingly) innocuous comments become for them a criticism of schooling.
Sometimes, the only way to talk about it is not at all, and that is just not helpful.
My 10yo daughter says "Heck, yeah!" she'd choose to homeschool over going to school. I'm glad that she agrees with me but even if she didn't I wouldn't send her to school ever.
We began homeschooling, almost 16 years ago, as a result of issues with the school but within the first year we saw the amazing benefits to our family relationships. We've never looked back. We homeschool because we don't want anyone else to raise our children. If we sent them to school (any school) the end result would be that someone else would spend more time around them than us and we're not okay with that. If you think about it, your kids sleep at least 8 hours a day. They go to school 7-8 hours a day. That should leave you with 8 hours but in all reality, much of that time is spent as a slave to the school, doing things like helping with home work, getting ready for school, winding down from school, etc. When, you add to that, hygiene, preparing and eating meals, it takes another big chunk of time. What do you have left? Not to mention that after spending all day, giving their best at school, what are you left with? You're left with the dregs of your child.
We have two older kids who attended school until the 3rd and 4th grades and two younger kids, who have never been to school. The oldest two are twenty-six and twenty-four-years old, now. My twenty-four-year-old daughter is severely dyslexic and also has ADD and Scoptic Sensitivity Syndrome. We don't believe in medicating that kind of thing unless it's with food or supplements. The younger two are almost fifteen-years-old and ten-years-old. They had some issues but those issues have been addressed either by time, diet or with supplements. If you have a child with learning issues, look up Dianne Craft. She put us on the road we're on now.
All through, the eight years that they homeschooled, the older two really struggled with Math. We tried different learning styles, different teachers, you name it we tried it. It was exhausting! They had a huge amount of trouble retaining what they were 'taught." My oldest two ended up at an HVAC company with an apprenticeship program, a year apart. Every year, the first quarter of "school" taught higher math like Algebra, Calculus and Trig. Both kids did well but my "learning disabled" daughter really shined. She maintained an A average during the time she attended.
What I got out of that experience was that if kids are interested, they learn better. If they desire to learn something, they'll retain it. If they have a need to learn it, they will. At this point, our homeschooling has evolved to a very child-led form of schooling. My younger kids love learning. They're constantly search out new things to learn. My younger son is a WWII buff. My younger daughter is horse crazy. I think the fact that they've never been to school has impacted that love of learning. They don't have any expectations about what learning is because they didn't have that forced on them.
A couple of the things that I've learned over the years:
A friend of mine used to say" she could let the school mess up her kids or do it herself. Then, she would add, ". . . at least I love my kids." No one at school will ever love your kids the way you do. No teacher, no matter how much they care, will ever care the way a parent cares. This is a better reason to homeschool than any other.
I used to worry about gaps in my children's learning. A friend of mine pointed out that all kids have gaps. From school to school, they'll have different gaps. When I really grasped this, 3-4 years into homeschooling, I realized that as homeschoolers we can choose which are the important things to focus on or in other words we can choose the gaps that we want our kids to have. I've learned that some things just aren't as important as other things.
I'm always horrified that when many people hear that we homeschool, they say things like: Oh, I could never spend that much time around my kids. I'd kill them. Why would you choose to have children, if you don't want to be around them? In my experience, the more time you spend around your kids, the better relationship you'll have with them.
So, the short answer is we'd homeschool no matter what.
I would consider it more but I'd probably still lean towards homeschooling.
I would need to know what an amazing district really means. If it just means above average test scores - I could care less about that. If it means an opportunity to be in a school with alternative methods that I agree with, where there are small class sizes with lots of parent involvement, special programs I was interested in, etc. then that would lead me to consider it.
My major (not only) reason for homeschooling is social. If I was in a district where I could trust -as much as anyone is able to- that my child would be safe both physically and emotionally from the negative influences of bullying it would make make me much more interested in sending her to school. I haven't found a school district who can even pretend to promise that so for us - homeschooling it is.
We were both homeschooled. My parents didn't want to put me in the public school system bc of all the junk that goes on in them. Till I was 12, that junk came mostly from my cousins. It was a SMALL district, so small there was only one bus for all the kids K-12 for each part of the county. Mom didn't let us play with certain cousins bc they were into drugs and all sorts of stuff, so she didn't want us on the bus with them either. She decided since I was born in Dec, she would start me a year early at home. If she "ruined me", she could send me to school the next year. She had already taught me how to write my name, letters, numbers and colors, so it was pretty simple. That was 28 years ago. This is her first year NOT homeschooling one of us. She never regretted it.
My in-laws were more for religious reasons I think. We're planning to HS our kids K-12 for basically the same sorts of reasons. I think most kids do better HS anyway.
As a HS child, I agree with the posters that "what works well now might not be what you do later." I really, really wish I had been allowed to go a high school (public or private). Homeschool was pretty isolating, and though I did have friends and activities to some degree, I had no real idea of how to study on someone else's timeline or deal with peer and professors (observing negative behavior is not the same). I could have benefited and gained so much confidence from the opportunities high school offers. Your kids might not be college-bound, or maybe they won't be interested in what the high school has, but I encourage you to just take it year by year and do what works for each year, and each child. I am not homeschooling my kids right now, (my DH is the SAHD, while I work FT), but if I were a SAHM, I might have considered it.
As I found out, this depends on the child, not the district.
We live in a sub par district with a local Charter School that offers a home school option. Being partial to the Charter philosophy I moved my children at the beginning of this last year. My 4th grade son did amazing, but my 7th grade daughter suffered. I put her back in the public school half way through the year and she just finished 7th with straight A's! I also moved my son back out of convenience and he finished the year with a B average after keeping straight A's with the Charter HS program.
Yes, yes, yes, we would and do homeschool even in an excellent public school district. For us, it's not a matter of schools being substandard, it's a matter of philosophy and principle: we have very strong views on how (and when and whether) young children should encounter formal education. Having lots of options and a great school district is still a benefit, though, because there are many programs homeschooled kids can participate in at our local Waldorf school and French-American school, and we will be offering our children the choice of attending a high school. But for right now, they are quite young, and not ready for schooling outside the home.
It is awesome that we have public schools in the US and that education is compulsory. But no matter how wonderful that is, the public school system is simply not capable of meeting the needs of every child at every juncture. Our family is doubly fortunate because we can afford the time to homeschool.
Absolutely! We live a five minute walk to the neighbourhood elementary school, which has about 80 students for K-6 - you can't get better student-teacher ratios in a public school than that. And the principal is a fantastic lady. But that doesn't matter. We love homeschooling - it's a way of life - we've been homeschooling for 7 years now. Our two children absolutely thrive on it - everyone always comments on what great, polite, bright children we have. They both are working way above grade level. I use what works for them and don't worry at all about what the local schools are doing - when it comes down to it, I am preparing them for college/university/profession/life, and we homeschool with that in mind. According to studies, nothing beats homeschooling - socially, academically, or for future career success and happiness.
Yes, absolutely. But I think your answer will depend on why you have decided to homeschool. We are not homeschooling because of we don't live near a "good" school. In fact, we actually live across the street from one of the best elementary schools in our area and we still homeschool. However, we chose this path because it's what feels right for our family and we feel like the school system as a whole is broken. I also think deciding to homeschool for high school is a separate decision to make. We are unsure what we will do for highschool at this point, but we have many years before we must decide.
We live in a "great district" and still homeschool because I fell that is what is best for my family now. However, it is real comfort knowing that if or we (or our children) decide to go to school they would end up with a good education. You could always HS in the beginning then send them. Do what you feel is right in your heart. As parents we must listen to our instincts, and those instincts may change with time and experience. Good luck with your journey.
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