Wonderful People!

Here are some more comments from that forum thread about homeschooling vs. private and public. These people just see it...the way I see it. Please, do not feel any pressure to be convinced. I only want to try and get my point across, and you know I am simply terrible at debating (I would never make a good politician...and I'm too honest for that profession, anyways):

-1-

I am homeschooled and have been homeschooled for seven years now. The majority of my friends are not homeschooled, but I have a large variety of friends who are. The reason most of my friends are not homeschooled are because I am not in an enviroment where I a subjected to other peers my age seven days a week.Therefore I have learned to be much more open minded to EVERYBODY. Adults, Children, the Elderly... hey are ALL m friends, and I visit them ALL often. Age is jsut a number, and I feel as though I would not have been able to gain that frame of mind if I had stayed in public school.This is my senior year of highschool, and mst of my friends are graduation homeschool style with me. I ahve never had social issues being homeschooled BUT I do feel the need to state that it all depends on the family.If you are going to homeschool your child and not allow them to be in co-ops, have tutors, go to football games, yoga classes, ect. Then you cannot expect them to be social butterflys and cope well in large groups. But if you socialize your child often, then they will probably end up better than average. I feel as though I am very open minded, th vas ajority of my friends are my age, but I love everybody not mattr how old or what race or religion, because I ahve learned that you really don't pick your friends like you are taught in public school, they choose you, and you jsut just have to love them to be happy, no matter who they are or what they do.I like public schools, but I do feel as homeschooling helps students to hold on to their indivuality more and to help them not to form to society and helps them cope with being different in life.The #1 problem I ahve had while being homeschooled was public schooled children. Because they do not know how to react to somebody different then they are, so they automatically jump to conclusions such as homeschooled kids are socially inept, too smart or not smart enough, and that they cannot face reality. They we are ALL "sheltered' and bake cornbread and wear matching jumpsuits and have 15 kids in evry family.Now there ARE some people like that.... but not all..... and homeschooling is NOT for everybody, but can be a wonderful wonderful thing if used correctly.


-2-

I went to a religious private school and hated it. I'm not sure I would have liked public school. I like the idea of homeschooling or unschooling and plan on trying that with my own (future) kids, but it probably would not have worked for me because I do not get along with my mother at all and being at home with her all day would have been torture. The best thing for me would have been to have either gone away for school or to have quit school altogether and gone straight to college or living abroad. I got my real education when I was in college, which I loved. High school was a huge waste of my time. For example, I spent twelve years in school studying a language and never learnt it. As an adult, I spent two years living abroad and learnt two languages. I always thought I was bad at languages, turns out, I'm good at languages, they were just bad at teaching it. The worst part for me is that now I have to watch my neice go to the same grade school that I went to and I have to watch them force knowledge and authority on her and her growing to hate it and there's nothing I can do (yeah, I guess I'm still angry).


-3-

Institutionalised learning, whether public or private, is almost invariably inefficient, grossly so. As a means of making sure people learn the basics, like literacy, when otherwise they wouldn't have - say with illiterate parents - it was fine, but as a means of learning as much as possible, as easily and quickly as possible, of the things that are most necessary, it's tantamount to a disaster. Teaching yourself is by FAR the more efficient method, with some mentor - whether a parent or teacher - helping out when you're stuck, giving practical opportunities to use the knowledge where it's useful, but that rarely happens until you get closer to college.
You can learn from a book in ten minutes the information that is put across in the average lesson by a teacher addressing the whole class. In addition, there is too much redundancy in what is taught, and assessed, and the pace rarely suits everyone. Any confusion a child may experience is rarely identified at the moment it occurs, thus causing more confusion further down the line. You could cover the same ground in a fraction of the time with much more independent study, and added up over the years...
As for the supposed benefits of socialisation, the people who are in most need are the ones most ill-served by such institutions. The people who socialise easily with those others tend to be on pretty much the same page; others who struggle do so because they're on a very different page, and exposure to the others doesn't automatically lead them to understand where others are coming from. You have to be in the ballpark to understand what would otherwise seem like irrational behaviours. If you're not in the ballpark, a confused misery is liable to result, rather than enlightenment.


-4-

If we call public school what it really is ... government school, then realizing the benefits of homeschooling might be a little more apparent.
"Government schools will teach children that government is wonderful." ~ Neal Boortz


-5-

Quote:Originally Posted by nextGENERATIONhippie Personally i think public school is better, children need to be taught social skills, and well as academics
Please explain to me which social skills, apparently learned only in an institution, you would like my children to be learning?
Let's see....
My kids socialize with each other, with me and my husband, with our landlady, neighbors, friends, and extended family.
My kids socialize at the many social gatherings we attend through homeschooling support groups.
My kids socialize at the supermarket, the post office, the vet's office, at cooperative learning sites, and the many other places we go.
My kids aren't limited to socializing with 20 other kids their own age. They have friends who are four and friends who are forty.
My kids aren't EVER told, "You're not here to socialize." I heard that a lot when I was in school.
My kids aren't ever made to eat their lunches in silence or be completely quiet while traveling places. The same can't be said for their publicly schooled friends. My 15yo's best friend is not allowed to talk on the school bus.
My kids aren't forced to get naked and shower with strangers. If they encounter a bully of any sort, they have the option of not interacting with that person anymore.
Yeah....I could go on and on. Basically, my kids are treated the way I'd like to be treated. They're treated as people.
I've seen the sort of "socializing" which goes on in public schools. I attended public schools, myself. I think it's sad that that is what's considered normal. I think we'll continue to live our abnormal, outside-the-box lifestyle. Funny how people always tell me how mature and pleasant my kids are.


-6-

Oh how it pains me to see the ignorance on this thread :/I am seventeen years old and I've adored home-schooling. I've attempted all sorts of schooling, a private academy, curriculum led home-schooling and public school. I think it depends mostly upon the child and their motivation-but I am a strong advocate for alternative schooling. I've always been incredibly self-motivated and public school left me stuck and frustrated. Everything moved too slowly for my liking and I hated the busy work. I agree that you must "learn how to play the game" by doing this busy work and being with less than enjoyable people, but it doesn't take long to learn. Public school is not the real world-I find that is the most common misconception among people who are against home-schooling. You are confined inside a building 7-8 hours a day doing busy work that may or may not help you learn anything at all. You do NOT learn social skills by being around a bunch of jello-eating sheep that are only your own age.I've had the opportunity to meet and befriend people of all ages and from all over the world-I'm certainly not anti-social or otherwise "weird".My education has been mostly self-led, my parents interfere only when I ask them to. I learn what I want, when I want, how I want-and that has worked well for me. I've studied the basics a bit, but the beauty of my schooling is that it allowed me to go in depth with things I really wanted to, such as my field of study now, Anthropology.I have a beautiful education and so many wonderful experiences I'm sure lots of kids in public school don't have time to experience while sitting in stuffy classrooms reading textbooks and copying definitions. That works well for some people, but I wouldn't trade my schooling for the world! There is also a high demand for home-schoolers in swell paying jobs because they have much more flexible schedules.I am also not hurting for college acceptances-I've been accepted to every school I've applied to and been offered many a scholarship.


-7-

I'm homeschooling my 8 yr old now. We pulled her out of public school last October when we found out her teacher was getting violent in class (knocking over a desk in front of a kid, yelling at the kids, intimidating them, not letting them go to the bathroom, etc.). The principal tried to minimize it and justify it and basically cover for the teacher, who we discovered has had a temper problem for years and had been allowed to remain in the school anyway.So I quit my job and began homeschooling her. Then in April we moved to a new area and thought we'd try the school here, which by the way was rated pretty high on the scale of best schools in the U.S. (yeah right). However after a few weeks it became apparent that in the 6 months or so that my daughter had been homeschooled she surpassed her grade level to the point that she HATED being there because it was so boring. In fact, she was way ahead in every subject. I tried talking to her teacher about it and asked if she could give her more challenging work but was met with cold disregard and some lame excuse that she can't alter her curriculum. Also we found out the school won't let her skip grades either. So basically our choice was to conform to a completely inadequate system or homeschool. We chose the latter. At this point, I doubt we'll ever try public school again. But... I do like to look at every situation as being unique, so if we ever move to an area that has a truly good public school, I'd consider it.As far as private schools, I guess that depends on the school too. Also, they tend to be pretty expensive.


-8-

I pretty much said f*** public school at 9th grade. Since then I've read nearly everybook under the sun. Public schools focus too much on repetition and memorization instead of actually grasping and understanding what is being taught at the time.
One famous auto-didact, Albert Einstein , had his own thoughts about public schools:
" Education is what's left after you forget what you learned in school "
" Any fool can know. The point is to understand "
and Frank Zappa offers up this gem :
" I never let school interfere with my education "