Okay, I'm back here because I'm avoiding work for a little while...it's going to take a block of time & concentration, and I'd rather sit here typing and listening to my kid play one tune after another, including some that she learned by listening to recordings.
But I've been frustrated by this recently, even though it is absolutely none of my business. I have an online friend/acquaintance whose blog I've followed for years who has hit the "next" stage with her kids (that two of mine have already gone through). What they did was pretty unschooly in the early years, and then became more structured as time went on, so by the time the kids were in the sixth grade or so, they were pretty much doing school at home. I'm going to speak generally because I don't want to compromise their privacy, but basically their kids have pretty much followed the trajectory of my eldest, who was sent to public school as a ninth grader. Issues these kids have had include not completing online courses, breaking family computer use rules ("too much" video game play), giving the impression that they're working on school work when they're not, missing deadlines, refusing to read certain books, forgetting assignments.
The kids are borderline gifted (not the very top, but close). So homeschooling has been declared a failure after a poor fit of a kid to school, and draconian measure are being considered to get one back in educational line (military boarding school).
So I've been followed this whole thing as it unfolded, with eerie sense of deja vu. (I could tell that part of the story wasn't being shared, and because I'm who had "been there", I could pretty much guess what was going on.) This mom is actually going to give up spending time before the holidays marketing for a business she has started, in order to salvage something out of their homeschooling "failure", to get the kid back on track for the second semester of high school.
My kid, the one who acted just like these, graduates from college on Saturday. I think he's still recovering from his public school experience in some ways, but he's made the trip with decent grades and got a lot of new skills in addition to his history major/biology minor: he's been manager of the campus TV station, and also seems to be in the process of replacing his car bit by bit, as well as having assembled an impressive amount of computer equipment into usable systems.
By the standards listed by my friend, my son was a total failure following homeschool, the same label that's getting slapped on hers. I have a little something to say here: I see the cognitive advantages granted by homeschooling all the time. Of my kids' homeschool group, most of the kids (aside from one special needs child on the autism spectrum) and my mildly dyslexic youngest were academically ahead...way, way ahead. Neither my husband nor I are intellectual sluggards, but the variety of gifts, determination, curiosity, etc. our children demonstrate, all of them, are not solely the result of biology. There's an active element of nurture in there.
Her having borderline gifted kids demonstrates (to me) a "homeschool advantage"...and the fact that the kids haven't taken to formal education like a duck takes to water tells me that MAYBE there could be something wrong with the expectations.
"The focus on making learning fun with homeschooling for the earlier years and doing so much that was of personal interest (unschooling) or being able to select fun co-op homeschool classes seems to not have had a good effect...[my child] has not been held to hard deadlines and forced to read books that [my child] has little interest in...I am wringing my hands here...My husband has declared homeschooling as a failure and says he would not recommend it to anyone. I don't know what of this situation is about being a teen or being in the throes of puberty or being lazy or is apathy or what."
(I didn't share the list of corrective measures a counselor came up with for "a bright student lacking motivation", but I'm sure you can guess....basically along the lines of "the beatings will continue until morale improves"...but including a lot of parental/adult oversight.)
I've found watching this whole process very disturbing, for several reasons:
1) I knew the outcome, could have almost written her posts for the last few years. They're on the wrong track, beyond the scope of this post to explain why, but still...on the wrong track.
2) Articulate parents who have done their research cling to a very primitive understanding of what education is. These are not low IQ people; the dad's job requires substantial education & he makes plenty of money. People at that socio-economic level actually have a chance at influencing public policy...that "husband has declared homeschooling as a failure and says he would not recommend it to anyone" is just short of saying that homeschoolers should "be held to the same standards as public schoolers" and "should not be allowed". (My paranoia is sticking out here, I'm sure. On the flip side, I'm now in a book club that reads a lot of history and historical fiction, people of my age and old, who ALL seemed to think homeschooling is a great idea. I confessed to one that my 17-yo is just starting her higher math journey. The response? Perfectly okay.)
3) It perpetuates the myth that kids like mine are "accomplished" in spite of homeschooling, not because of it
4) And so on...
Okay, I've ranted and raved quite enough over here...I wonder what's doing in my political discussion group?
(Really, time to work.)
Deborah
p.s. And I almost feel like these kids are my own...I've watched them grow up. Now it's turned into a sort of terrible accident that one can't tear one's eyes away from. Military school? Ai yi yi...