Personally, I think homeschooling is a bad idea in most cases. Some of the potential issues I see are underdeveloped social skills, difficult integration into larger society, and lack of a curriculum of subjects taught by highly trained professionals (stay at home mom teaching all subjects as opposed to specialized teachers sticking to their subjects).

Is homeschooling mainly a faith based push?

Is it gaining ground in LDS communities?

What are y'alls thoughts?

Where I come from its mostly people deeply rooted in their religion that homeschool.

In some cases, but not all, homeschooling is actually a good idea. Cases where it would be a horrible idea, is when a parent is trying to shelter their kid from the perceived evils of the public school subject matter. Sadly this is probably the most common reason.

On the other hand, a child who is learning disabled may benefit from the one on one time of a dedicated parent. Another case where it does a lot of good is with a kid who is prone to getting into trouble with his piers, if his parents are the kind who are willing to work with him.

Most home schooled kids actually do better on standardized tests then normal kids, and there are mandates that the parents have to follow, and specific text books that they must choose between. The kid just can't sit at home and read from the bible for eight hours.

That said, I agree, that most of the time a public education is better. We send our children to school not to learn simple facts, but to learn how to be functional adults who can support themselves. Social interaction is a huge part of that.

Same as N/A here. The majority of homeschooling around here depends on religion. In my branch there is only ONE (yes, one) family out of ten, who is NOT homeschooled and they are the only kids in the branch that aren't completely annoying at the church get togethers. Now, there are two families where the mothers have undergraduate degrees and their kids, while still socially awkward, are at least very well educated and very smart kids.

The worst for me though is this new wave of online schooling for kids at home. I'm all for distance learning, but only in the cases of nontraditional students who don't have the option of going to school due to working full time or having family obligations which almost all kids don't have.

I'm with you though on homeschooling. I'm not saying it is always true, but I have personally never met a homeschooled kid who wasn't completely awkward in social situations. The curriculums are seeming to be getting better, but I still don't believe parents should be allowed to homeschool their children unless they have, at a minimum, an Associate degree. It isn't that I think those with a college education are better than those who aren't or smarter as we all know that isn't the case at all, but people with a degree of some sort have, for the most part, at least shown they have the ability to understand the information they would be teaching their children.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2012 09:36AM by jah.

This is a touchy subject since perhaps some on this board have been home schooled. I have known some people in church growing up that were home schooled and they were always somewhat normal, but with a hint of oddness.

it's to do with the parents that are concerned about "evil" influences and concern over exposure to drugs, smoking etc. I don't get it myself. I know of some people that are in my ward that do this as well. We live outside the morridor, so a very small percentage of people at schools are mormon.

It starts with the parents who can be themselves quite odd (at least the ones that I've known). Their passing on their oddness to their children.

I feel that home schooling will not necessarily have its intended effect. Kids will likely rebel at some point, they'll be misfits, socially awkward. When they go in for their job interviews, they'll definitely stick out as odd, and not always in a good way. They can laugh uncontrollably and stupid jokes. Again, the ones that I've met so I apologize to those who may not be this way.

Anyway, IMO, home schooling is an all around bad idea. Let them be exposed to their surroundings, let them learn right from wrong. Let them screw up, let them experience "temptation" and peer pressure.

I have a feeling that if your kids don't have somewhat of a rebellious childhood and go hang out with friends and date girls etc, that they'll have a much more severe midlife crisis, in that they'll want to experiment with all those things much later on that they were deprived of as teens.

lol...I have known plenty of public school people who are a bit odd.

We homeschool. We live in one of the bottom ten states for education and the local high school has kids who are "doing it" (from a student who saw the deed) in the halls. If we lived elsewhere I would consider public school, but not here.

I tried not to generalize, I understand that there can and should be some exceptions. Yes, there are odd people all around, I agree. In my area though, the schools are perfectly well equipped to give a proper education, and no reason to home school unless it's an attempt to reduce exposure to outside "evil" influences. The people I've known that were home schooled took longer to graduate because of the lack of direction and leadership by the parents to get their children to graduate at the average pace. So I believe their quality of education, most of which was self-taught, from text books etc, was not the same quality that they would have received in a school. Probably not applicable in all areas however.

Mormoney Wrote:
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> Probably not applicable in all areas however.


We live in Honey Boo Boo land...

I would not have chosen it, but three of my (non-LDS) grandchildren are home schooled, and not for religious reasons. There are several home school umbrella organizations in town. They provide for social kinds of events like sports and music. I went to an end of term home school concert last Spring, and was very impressed by the talents and maturity of the students. My grandchildren follow an on-line curriculum at their own pace, so they don't have to be held back by students who are struggling. They also have music and dancing lessons, compete in local swimming meets and triathlons, and take part in local theater. DIL gets all the credit for making it happen.
A few years ago I was a judge in a regional science fair. One of the high school science teachers was complaining that his students had to compete with home schoolers.
Home schooling is a mixed bag, to be sure, but it is probably not a bad thing to raise a sprinkling of mavericks who have not been stamped out by the public Least Common Denominator school system.

My sister is homeschooling. She is very TBM. I regret that I ever suggested it, but I did. Her oldest daughter has grown up so differently than my sister and I did. We were very quiet children who learned easily and found school to be a glorified daycare.
My niece is an extrovert who really needs more kids around than her three younger brothers. She is already at 7, throwing basically a teen attitude around. Rolls her eyes at everything, adults are stupid... She needs to go into the wild animal den of school children to find her place. For my sister and I, it wasn't necessary, we could occupy ourselves with books and were very well behaved.

I'm not sure my sister is even aware of the different needs of extroverts, which is so odd since ours were rarely met as the introverts we are. Her daughter needs 20+ other kids like in a classroom. The eyerolling, snotty little attitude would either disappear quickly, or she'd rise to be the tiny queen bee and the attitude would increase exponentially. Personally, I think she needs the reality check of lots more little egos.

My sister needs a break, but she can't give herself time off by sending them to school.

Homeschooling is a good alternative to public schools, especially when you can't afford private ones. Many religious communities homeschool because they know that the public school system will undermine their religious teachings, which may be why it's popular among LDS. Afterall, despite being raised in a Southern Baptist home, I can't believe that the Bible is factual, I learned too much science in school. LDS families certainly can't approve when their kids come home learning that Native Americans came across the Siberian land bridge...

We homeschool because we live in Georgia, 49th or 50th in the national ranking for public schools. Even if my kids attend the state's "best" schools (as I did) they are still receiving a bottom of the barrel education with ever increasing budget cuts, teachers getting fired for sexual scandals with students, and an inability to study their favorite subjects to their satisfaction.

When my kids reach an age where I can no longer teach a subject adequately (which will be late high school math and chemistry for me!) they will have private tutors to help them. Socialization skills are easily handled, and my kids play with children in a wide range of age groups and regularly interact with adults of all ages, so for me this seems to be a better situation than the forced "socialization" I experienced in public school. Age segregation, limited adult interactions, asking permission to pee, no thanks :)

Homeschooled children typically do not have difficulty integrating into larger society because they have never been separated from it (of course some families are extremely insular, just look at the Duggars). The homeschooled child is out interacting with all of society while the institutionally schooled child is in a classroom with one or two adults and children of only their age. So they must be reintegrated after these years are over.

There are a wide variety of curriculums available. Many are religious but many are secular and can more than satisfy the requirements set forth in public schools. The average high school graduate stay at home mom can teach her children through middle school and beyond, teaching is surprisingly easy and mom can learn along side her kids on the subjects she is rough in. Teachers have certainly been trained in a specific subject, but they do not understand their students the same way their mothers do. Public schools have had to enact the no child left behind policy, but at home there isn't a sane mother around who would leave her child behind in his schooling. Homeschooling is typically a customized approach.

Of course their are duds in the homeschooling world but they are not the norm and the numbers on homeschooling results are very positive. But it's about so much more than the numbers :)

Those are some good points.

One of my coworkers is doing this with his 2 boys, and they are ultra fundy.

It makes little sense to me because they happen to live in one of the strongest school systems in the state. Makes even less sense when he tells me his wife is ADD and can't keep on track (and you trust her to put together a curriculum??). Makes even less sense when he tells me how they have to watch every penny to get by on his salary alone.

Fundy's do the strangest things.

I think that parents should certainly have the right to homeschool. No one should have to send their kids to schools that they object to. I think it's a bad idea for most kids though. My son is very bright and very introverted, and it would be extremely harmful for him to be at home all the time getting a half-assed education from his parents with no social interaction.

On the other hand, my niece has a learning disability that caused her to be unsuccessful in school. She was homeschooled for a couple of years by her grandmother, and it turned out to be very beneficial. She's now in high school and doing well socially and okay academically. Part of her current success is the after school programs offered by her high school. She dances in one program, and she is also in marching band. Both programs are crucial for her right now. It would be harmful now if she went back into homeschool, though it was helpful at one time.

ragingphoenix Wrote:
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> Personally, I think homeschooling is a bad idea in
> most cases. Some of the potential issues I see
> are underdeveloped social skills, difficult
> integration into larger society, and lack of a
> curriculum of subjects taught by highly trained
> professionals (stay at home mom teaching all
> subjects as opposed to specialized teachers
> sticking to their subjects).
>
> Is homeschooling mainly a faith based push?
>
> Is it gaining ground in LDS communities?
>
> What are y'alls thoughts?

1. social skills
kids from public school who are socially weird never have it blamed on the school, and there are plenty of them. I can say with certainty that there is basically zero benefit to the social side of school if you are getting bullied consistently, and some kids get bullied at every school they go to for whatever reason. There is little benefit for kids who bully other kids either. There isn't any actual evidence to suggest that homeschool harms social development, despite it being suggested so often.

I would also like to point out that the socializing environment in school is really artificial. There is no other time in life where you only associate with people your own age because they live near you. Usually social lives are made up of associating with all kinds of people because one actually prefers their company. There is also a lot of competition in schools (socially, academically, athletically, etc) that makes healthy relationships difficult to achieve. I would question how valuable schooling is in teaching social skills in light of all that- I think we all know people who learned social attitudes that served them well in middle school but haven't grown up since then. Were they socialized well?

2."highly educated" teachers
most teachers didn't major in the subject they teach. They majored in education. Is an expert teacher really required for people to learn, and is there any reason to believe that such a system is the best way to learn? Is there really reason to believe that a majority of adults cannot master k-12 lessons (and if they can't, why are we expecting everyone to learn this stuff if its proven irrelevant to how people actually live)? There is also this perception that learning something together via cooperation (like a parent and their kid learning something together) isn't as valuable as having knowledge dictated to subordinates by an authority, but there is no real reason to believe that. If anything I would think the extra lesson of cooperation would make the former more valuable as a learning experience. It would also show that adults keep learning too, that it isn't something that you stop doing when school is over.

You also need to know that most teachers don't get to make their own curriculum, the state does most of it, and standardized tests make it so they have even less control. Curriculum kits from learning stores AND online state approved curriculum are available for parents who want that information.

In general homeschooled kids do better than kids at public school (by all the conventional measures, anyway). This is probably because of the personal investment of parents combined with small class size.

My thoughts: I got to do homeschool for a year as a kid and it was awesome. I got done with the year's curriculum early and usually only did school for half of the day. I got to explore and make art and play outside and make my own lunch with the rest of the time. I didn't have to ask anyone permission to speak or to use the bathroom. I was treated much more like a person than I had ever been at school.

Actually, at least in Virginia in the 1990s, teachers in training did have to choose a regular major and then get a teaching endorsement. I graduated from a college that is very well known for turning out excellent teachers and remember that they had done away with the straight education major. People who wanted to teach, especially secondary education, had to major in whatever it was they wanted to teach. Then they took education courses to augment the major classes.

As for the value of homeschooling, I'm in the crowd that thinks it's a mixed bag. I know one Catholic family with seven kids who homeschool. Their kids are very bright and well-socialized. Both parents are graduates of an excellent and highly competitive Pennsylvania college and are committed to seeing that their kids are properly educated.

On the other hand, my husband's crazy TBM ex pulled their daughters out of public school to homeschool them. Ex was a high school dropout who later got a GED and, after 20 years of fits and starts, supposedly finished college. She worked full-time and put the kids in an online program. Both are now extremely radical Mormons with disturbingly black and white thinking. We know this because my husband's younger daughter has a very disturbing and revealing blog.

Despite the fact that homeschooling can be harmful for some people, I support parents' rights to homeschool if they want to. I do think that done properly and for the right reasons, homeschooling can be an excellent way to learn.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2012 11:00AM by knotheadusc.

+1
We are on the same wavelength. I was bullied from 5th grade through high school, and it got progressively worse with each year, to the point of absolute torment. I did not escape unscathed and spent the first few years out of high school self harming and dealing with a lot of rage. I've often wondered why the hell my stay at home mom didn't just pull me out of school and let me learn at home. She knew what was going on, mostly, but had this idea that homeschooled kids are unsocialized misfits with no college prospects and a mediocre education. So I was tortured because my mom believed what everyone else said instead of trying it for herself and doing what was best for me.

Homeschooling is what you make of it. If a child's parents are dedicated to learning, their child will thrive.

+1 to skeptifem I mean.

Well put--I had some of those same thoughts and now I don't have to try to put them into words.

One little thing though--when I was in college in Michigan in the 1990s, the students in the education program had to have a "teachable major." They did not major in elementary education, but majored in something like math, earth science, language arts, etc. and their Bachelor degrees were a specific Ed. degree with requirements for all elementary education (as opposed to a regular BS or BA that people in other programs would get.)

of the public schools in this country are truly awful. Additionally, homeschooled kids tend to be labeled as "socially awkward" but few people ever discuss the patent social awkwardness of the significant percentage of public schooled (and private schooled) kids who are equally socially awkward. Additionally, we live in a country where even the "socially astute" who have gone to the best schools lack real social skills. Take your average American politician/CEO/lawyer out of the country club and put him or her in a blue collar bar in Toledo. Who's socially awkward now?

Interestingly, my experience is that many of the kids who excelled the most socially in junior high and high school often struggle socially post-high school, while many "socially awkward" kids blossom in the more diverse social environment of college and the "real world".

I think most public school teachers do the best they can with the resources they have. But, there are a lot of bad teachers out there, and a lot more that simply aren't qualified to teach what they are teaching. Also, many public school teachers have little experience with real world application of the subjects they teach, which is not a big deal in elementary school but creates problems for high schoolers who are close to going to college or going out in the world and getting a job.

Personally, I've only known 1 well adjusted kid who is being home schooled. He's being home schooled mainly because he works in the professional theatre.

When I was working in a 'predominantly' LDS town in central Utah, there was a GP Dr in town who homeschooled their kids (mom was teaching them). One day, two of their daughters showed up at elementary school. I was surprised, and asked if they were now going to attend the public schools (where I worked). I was told, "No, their mother is sending them to school for two weeks as punishment because they weren't minding her."

The problem was, the kids appeared to really enjoy being there in school. I wonder how well the 'punishment' worked...

I had a homeschooled since 10 years old companion and he didn't know what sex was nor did he know the difference between shampoo and conditioner, and of course, a whole lot of other things. Don't ask me how, all I knew is that I genuinely felt sorry for the kid.

Yeah, that sounds simple enough, but when you consider the low availability of funds, and lots of students who don't want to be there and/or fit in and whose sole purpose for being there is to make trouble, then there's a good chance that public education isn't doing the job it should.

It's like going to a public health clinic as opposed to going to your own doctor's office. What's it like going to DMV?

I have few problems with teachers or curriculum; frequently I'm happy or impressed. It's the overcrowded and undercontrolled environment that bothers me.

Now.... the folks in the state board of education are idiots who have no image of reality and are simply furthering their careers by implementing unrealistic policies that in no way target the needs of our varied children.

During my years as inactive I decided to homeschool my kindergartener and 4th grader. It had nothing to do with religion.

We were in a very rural community and I was bored(in retrospect).
My daughter was the only 4th grader at her 1 room schoolhouse(No Ca, Siskiyou Co). She had prior testing done in Monterey Co and was considered "gifted". I felt she need more stimulation.
I introduced both kids to many things they never got in school.
I followed a curriculum provided by the county, I just added more. I consider their whole childhood as learning anyway so my school was always going.

My son(36) still talks about how I played HMS Pinafore and Oklahoma and would get him to sing. Both kids valued it.
After 1 full year I enrolled them again and Thanked the 2 teachers at their school. Our homelife had deteriorated.

It was a valuable experience for the kids and me. I am so glad I did it but it does tend to isolate the kids.

When my daughter graduated 8th grade she was the only 8th grader and the rural style bar-b-que the school threw was wonderful. They provided me the money to buy her a fancy dress with all the fixins. She was the star. (her nickname at 39 is Princess)

Homeschool is wonderful but the thought of zealous religious teachings scares the poo out of me. But, it is their right :/
I think about Plato's Republic.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2012 11:00AM by mindlight.

My mother was borderline crazy. She and I were polar opposites in most ways and I couldn't stand being around her from quite an early age.

I would literally have gone insane if I had been trapped with her for 18 years every day and at her mercy.

Obviously I think home schooling is a horrific idea.

DH is a teacher and has to pick up the pieces for kids who show up at school after years of it. They generally have NO skills, socially or academically.

Tsh. I know a whole family of Mormons who were all homeschooled. They are all very smart, and didn't have a hint of 'social awkwardness'. The only reason they were treated differently in our small town was because they weren't seen as often as you saw other school kids and such. While I would never homeschool kids, it seems to work for the very dedicated.

To those that say the public school system is a false representation of the "real world" and not a good place to learn social skills due to the quantity of similar aged people, I think that is a weak argument.

Universities, many workplaces and other groups that people join have a similar atmosphere. Learning how to socially function in such an atmosphere early on is very important in my opinion.

There are going to be asshole teachers, supervisors, co-workers and other students. Individuals are exposed to a wide variety of situations and perspectives even within a certain group.

If bullying is a problem at school, one can take action. If it persists then perhaps home schooling can be a better option.

This is only my opinion of course.

Nowadays, there are complete online curriculums, that if followed, can be better than the hit and miss of some public and private schools. The problem comes when the mom is disorganized, and doesn't follow through, leaving the kids to their own devices. Plus, there needs to be a program for some sports and social contacts. Let's remember to not malign it just because there are some lazy homeschooling parents. My son is now in graduate school at a prestigious university.

I homeschooled my son from gr.6 thru high school. He asked to be homeschooled thru high school. As a result he got a classical education a knowledge of world history as well as a chance to have a say in the course of study for electives. He chose to read Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith for a few semesters.

It is fairly easy to teach high school nowadays if you have a well-explained math text book/ science book.

He learned all about how the universe was formed from a book written by a scientist for laymen( cant remember the title offhand) I, too, learned lots off things because i had to read along side of him.

He ended up at Waterloo university doubling in Math and Economics.

OTOH, my daughter, 6 is in public school. Right now we live in the country and schooll is where she meets her friend. I also was diagnosed with ocd and right now i'm happy when she is in school and i have more free time from myself. What will happen as she gets to a gr. 6 level, i don't know yet. IF she wants, i will lhome school her. If she doesn't want, i will still be involved in her education at school.

The most important thing i think that parents can do to ensure school/ life success is to read to/ with their children and to have their children see them read and see that parents value reading as a recreational event, not just as something to do in school as an assignment. Good readers do well in almost all subjects (math being an exception, maybe).

OK, off my soap box about reading :)

Did i say my son was a brain in math? he was teaching himself physics/math by gr.12, using a Saxon Math text, one of the best in explaining math concepts to students so they understand the work.

I meant to say: it's fairly easy to teach high school with a good math and science book AND use of the internet.