Those of us who were not homeschooled

[Kleine Hexe]

If you went to public or private school are you glad you did? Would you have rather been homeschooled?


This question has nothing to do with my kids. I was just sitting here thinking how cool it is to see parents who were homeschooled now homeschooling their own kids. That got me thinking about my schooling/childhood. I can honestly say that I am very very glad that I was *NOT* homeschooled.

My mom (although she still is not 100% comfortable with homeschool) made the comment that she had no idea that homeschool was even an option when I was a kid. She said she might have considered it. That thought made me glad she did not know homeschool was an option.

My mom would not have been a good homeschooler. Let's just say that my mom has a few issues and was abusive at times. When I was home that was time I had to tiptoe around trying to be invisible when she was having one of her rage fits.

She simply would not have been able to teach me academics. Not her strong point. She was never able to help me homework. That was my dad's job. My mom lacks the knowledge base and she never had a desire to learn.

Now, it was not always bad in my house. She did have good moods. Now, she takes medication to control her rage and abusive fits. Although at times she still has them.

No, I'm glad I went to school.

[elizawill]

i would have been a great candidate for homeschooling in my younger years. in kindergarten i was the youngest in my class (my birthday was 1 day before the cut-off date for school starting). i still sucked my thumb & had a special blanket (which i couldn't take with me), i remember missing my mom SO badly. i went from being home full-time to attending a full day K program overnight. she taped a picture of her & my dad in my pencil box so i could stare at them when i was sad. even as elementary school progressed i remember feeling very sick to my stomach & simply dreading school the next day. as time went on, my mom would drop me at the bus stop and i remember chasing her car screaming. even in early middle school i wanted to be home with her. oprah had a show one time about kids with anxiety about school and honestly i was like THAT WAS ME!!!! i'm not saying i have no good memories of elementary school. i do! especially field trips!! ...but the bad memories are stronger, ykwim? but by 8th grade i started to really like school. i ended up being co-captain of my cheerleading squad in high school and really flourished in school activities. i have really good memories from high school & college.

[PGTlatte]

Public school was awful for me. Really, really, really awful.

Home schooling would not have worked because our home environment was not good. Also neither of my parents would have had the slightest interest in doing it.

I think a small private school would have been the best option for me, but that's water under the bridge. Or even a pleasant boarding school would have been an improvement

I feel SO BLESSED to have found my way to AP...it was not something I planned on...really I stumbled into it. And I'm so freaking glad !!!!!!! : The positive, affectionate, focused relationship I have with our kids just fills my soul There is such a huge contrast between this and what I experienced growing up. HS would not have been remotely possible in the household I grew up in. My mom is amazed and befuddled by us wanting to HS and me wanting to keep our kids this close to me. I think she can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

[lactivist]

My mom and I don't have the perfect relationship but I think I would have done much much better homeschooling. School never really fit me and fostered a lot of doubt in myself and my abilities. I never fit in and never really felt at home there. I have always thought that kids learn best where they want to be. I never wanted to be in school.

Wendi

[jimblejamble]

I went to public school and I remember BEGGING my parents in junior high and high school to withdraw me and let me do homeschool or even independent studies!

[Serendipity]

Originally Posted by llp34

Public school was awful for me. Really, really, really awful.

Home schooling would not have worked because our home environment was not good. Also neither of my parents would have had the slightest interest in doing it.

I think a small private school would have been the best option for me, but that's water under the bridge. Or even a pleasant boarding school would have been an improvement

I feel SO BLESSED to have found my way to AP...it was not something I planned on...really I stumbled into it. And I'm so freaking glad !!!!!!! : The positive, affectionate, focused relationship I have with our kids just fills my soul There is such a huge contrast between this and what I experienced growing up. HS would not have been remotely possible in the household I grew up in. My mom is amazed and befuddled by us wanting to HS and me wanting to keep our kids this close to me. I think she can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

i could have written the same exact post....

[onlyzombiecat]

I attened public school.
I think I would have been a good canidate for homeschooling but my parents might not have been good canidates for homeschooling parents. I don't think my mom would have felt that she could teach me. My parents weren't keen on doing things differently or accomadating individual learning needs.

[tankgirl73]

My mom and I don't have the perfect relationship but I think I would have done much much better homeschooling. School never really fit me and fostered a lot of doubt in myself and my abilities. I never fit in and never really felt at home there.

That's me. My mom has also said she wishes she'd known about homeschooling, she definitely would have done it with us. I dunno. Maybe that would have actually been GOOD for our relationship and would have countered a lot of the feelings of not-being-loved-quite-enough that I had.

Or, maybe she would have driven me crazy lol...

But, if I had the resources available to do stuff mostly on my own, without her "teaching" me necessarily, I would have really, really preferred that to school. I remember working through some textbooks we happened to have at home, all on my own. I enjoyed them and I worked hard at them and I remember them clearly... much more than any of the boring drudgery we did at school.

But I think I still would have wanted to go to high school. By high school, I was confident enough in myself to resist cliques and find my own types of friends. We had a good high school and I was able to take the advanced-level classes where I finally had interesting stuff to learn and wasn't just bored all the time.

For that reason, I won't say no if my kids decide they want to go to high school when the time comes.

[tallulahma]

Originally Posted by llp34

Public school was awful for me. Really, really, really awful.

Home schooling would not have worked because our home environment was not good. Also neither of my parents would have had the slightest interest in doing it.

I think a small private school would have been the best option for me, but that's water under the bridge. Or even a pleasant boarding school would have been an improvement

I feel SO BLESSED to have found my way to AP...it was not something I planned on...really I stumbled into it. And I'm so freaking glad !!!!!!! : The positive, affectionate, focused relationship I have with our kids just fills my soul There is such a huge contrast between this and what I experienced growing up. HS would not have been remotely possible in the household I grew up in. My mom is amazed and befuddled by us wanting to HS and me wanting to keep our kids this close to me. I think she can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

Originally Posted by granolapunk

i could have written the same exact post....

me too.

i love my relationship with dd1 and i love teachingg her and nourishing her soul.

I am so incredibly happy she will grow with a loving mother daughter relationship.

dh says all the time, "don't you wish we had ourselves as parents?"
it always makes me sad and happy.

nak.

[hippiemommaof4]

I wish I would have been homeschooled but there was no way I came from a single parent dad only home and I had an estranged mother. I had a horrible time in Public schools, I refuse to send my kids to them my husband feels the same way.

[LeftField]

I went to public school and to be totally honest, I did not get a lot out of it. And I was constantly punished for: daydreaming, reading ahead, eaves-dropping on reading groups, reading completely different things, etc. I think I would have done better with homeschooling because I could have followed my natural interests and also avoided lots of busywork. I think it would have been a much better fit for my personality.

I'm not sure how it would have worked out with my personal logistics, however. My mother was extremely involved with us but we butted heads a lot of times. Of course, a lot of that was because I wanted to show off in front of my school friends. I also had an appalling dynamic with my younger sister, much of which was fueled by age-ism and competition. Who knows? Maybe if we homeschooled, we would have all gotten along much better.

The short answer is that I wish I were homeschooled because I didn't get much out of school. As my non-radical husband once famously replied when asked why we spent all those years in school, "It was where they put us while waiting for us to grow up." I wish I had half of that wasted time back...When I think of all the time I could have spent drawing, playing or reading what I wanted to rather than doing mind-numbing stuff, I feel pretty sad. I remember staring out the window on sunny days and wishing I were out there. Gosh, if I could have 25% of that time back, I would be so happy. It was time-filler for me.

[tallulahma]

Originally Posted by LeftField

The short answer is that I wish I were homeschooled because I didn't get much out of school. As my non-radical husband once famously replied when asked why we spent all those years in school, "It was where they put us while waiting for us to grow up." I wish I had half of that wasted time back...When I think of all the time I could have spent drawing, playing or reading what I wanted to rather than doing mind-numbing stuff, I feel pretty sad. I remember staring out the window on sunny days and wishing I were out there. Gosh, if I could have 25% of that time back, I would be so happy. It was time-filler for me.

that bolded part is great!

i read somewhere... i forget where "public school = free daycare"

I was much like you, always day dreaming to be outside playing. I retained very little knowledge from school. I had "re learn" almost EVERYTHING in college. Which makes me think i never learned it at all. just memorizing facts. which i am REALLY good at.

:

i want so much more for both my dd.

[eilonwy]

I can honestly say that my time and energy would have been better spent locked in a closet than going to school. I attended private and public schools and neither was ever a good fit for me. While my mother's severe depression throughout my childhood wouldn't have made her the ideal teacher, I would have been a hell of a lot better off with a library card and a bus pass than I was in school. I certainly would have learned more and been happier. My mother did not know that homeschooling was an option, but she's inclined to agree that I, at the very least, would have been much better off as a homeschooler regardless of what she was or wasn't able to do for me.

[Kylix]

I would have loved to be homeschooled, especially in high school. I remember taking college classes during one summer of high school and really taking them seriously and feeling very responsible for going there and back. I felt capable when I was in charge of my education (I chose what classes I wanted to take). Public high school during the year seems now to have been a waste and I was very unhappy and felt very helpless.

I first learned about homeschooling my senior year of high school and I remember watching a tv special on a high schooler who was taking a college class, involved in dance, and just in charge of her other interests and studies. I remember watching her and feeling like she was so capable and that I would love that.

Kylix

[1growingsprout]

While i didnt like school i hated home more... so school was the lesser of 2 evils i guess. i would've prefered some type of independent study but that was not an option so i learned to keep my mouth shut and bide my time.

Also 20 years so HS isnt what it is today plus technology etc.

My schooling was confusing to me anyway,i did kindy at the local public school then transferred to a catholic school in the next town over for 1-4th then back to the public school for 5th on. If i had to pick a favorite school it was the catholic/private school. THey seemed to move at a quicker pace and when i transferred back to ps i felt like i lost about 18 mos or so and i was bored from there on out.

But to answer your question NO my house was not a place that i would want to spend every day all day long. So homeschooling was not something my parents would be capable of or that i would have wanted to do.

[frogguruami]

Originally Posted by Kleine Hexe

If you went to public or private school are you glad you did? Would you have rather been homeschooled?

I went to public school. The thought of my mother homeschooling me is going to give me nightmares tonight! Thanks

I am very glad I was public schooled!!!

HS was REALLY on the fringe 25 years ago so it probably didn't even occur to most people that it could be done.

[TEAK's Mom]

I'm with Rynna in that, had there been books in the locked closet, it would have been better than school. I library card and a bus pass would have been fine.

Honestly my mother would have been a great homeschooling parent. She just didn't know it was an option.

I'm glad that my kids are free to homeschool. : ('cause I've yet to use that smile)

[Ruthla]

I was absolutely miserable in school, literally had no friends in my school many years, until high school when I took a lot of abuse from my "best friend" because I had zero social skills and didn't know how friends were supposed to treat each other, or how to stand up for myself.

I would have been much better off being homeschooled.

[splendid]

I went to public school from k-12. My last semester of high school, I took correspondence courses with the school board to pick up extra OAC credits (I'm from Ontario), that last semester was the best semester of school I never attended. I was able to study at my own pace and in depth. I didn't have to skim over things and I got to research more.

I liked 75% of my school experience, but honestly I wish I had discovered the correspondence courses sooner in my high school career.

[bri276]

Neither parent was remotely capable of hs'ing. My father could have done a great job- but he was too busy doing a great job of being a surgeon. Except that I flourish in English/literature/languages and he's the opposite- a physics/algebra person. Which might have been a good thing in the long run. So I guess the answer is I wouldn't trade my elementary school years for anything, but I wish my dad could've dropped out of being a doctor to homeschool me for high school