Home School?

I'm with Uro on this, and the above sentence scares the hell out of me.

Early socialization is one of the biggest aspects of regular schooling (unless, of course, you plan on 'controlling' every aspect of their social lives forever) and I always found that the weirdest cats in high school were home-schooled previously. They did great on tests, but they were also pretty fragile when it came to other people.

C.

 

Uro decided to not stir the pot and deleted.

 

"We also like the fact that we can control their social life better by selecting the friends they make rather than them making friends with someone just because they are in the same zip code and in their class at school."

 

It's just too easy.

 

cmy was home schooled and look how he turned out !! spends all his time on f chat checking out my wifes cans, and changing images [ jimmies head on diff bodies ] and drooloing in the bikini threads. but i think hes feeling much better now.

 

I was home schooled my 8th grade year during Middle School. My teachers were so bad that year when I started that my parents actually pulled me out. It was a good experience for me!

 

Why exactly do you do this?

 

My partner in my building does this with all 3 of his kids (they are 12-16 now). And they score in the 90 percentile range on the mandatory provincial tests. He says he does it to remove them from the low standards and negative social influences often found in our schools nowadays.....as well as the political slant that is surrepticiously imparted in classes nowadays (I never saw "ANY" media articles about a US school teacher saying Kerry was bad or Kerry should be killed or Kerry's policies about foreign affairs are wrong....but I did see lots of articles about teachers in the US saying this exact same crap about GWB during the last election for example).

They seem like great kids to me.....

Good for you Frank !!....I've always liked your posts here but this one speaks volumes about your character regardless of your political leanings (and I don't know or care what those are).

 

Is this a joke? Controlling all social influences?


You're in for a rude awakening when they go to college and you can't oversee and control everything they do-- and I'm sure they'll have the same rude awakening when they find that not everyone in this world are what mommy and daddy deam acceptable.


Sorry Frank but I feel bad for your kids.

hahahahahhahahahaahh!!!!

 

Is anyone surprised by this? Sadly, I'm not.

 

The Iowa isn't exactly the best test of achievement. Go to the Texas Education Agency website and give them a released TAKS test for their grade level. It's pretty well normed to national standards, given who's the current president and all.
It's pretty easy to teach lower levels, but starting about junior high you really need to have specific skills both in the material and how to teach it. Most teachers I know at those levels have at least some graduate work, if not masters or better.
We get kids all the time where I teach from home school (or small private school equivalent) and parents are always shocked that they are behind("but my testing says they're a genious!?), especially socially. My high school changed demographics in a big way my freshman year and my folks offered to let me go to private school. I stayed and the exposure to all kinds of people was just as important as what I learned in class.

 

I don't know the educational envirnoment where you are, but I hope you are not "teaching towards the test". And if you are, at least teach towards standardized tests that matter much more - the SATs. Hopefully you're doing/ or going to do that.

 

I've always wondered what happens to these kids when they are finally away from home in college. What happens when a bully picks on them or some peers offer them some liquor or some pot. The real world is in front of them and mom and dad aren't there to hold their hand. The parents say that "my kids know better". Get a clue.
Also, when the parents "select" their kids friends, what is the criteria? Black or white, income level of parents, religeous beliefs, fat or thin?

 

A lot of my friends were home schooled. Many were involved with many "social" things but when they got to college they still had bad social skills and many were unable to make decisions for themselves. I know a few that have made it very far in life at young ages and they are doing great but are still having problems being independent.

 

Wow! I amazed at the harshness of some of the posts. I have experienced all three aspects of education (private, home, and public). I am now a senior in University and, as my professors and friends will attest, I do very well socially. The one thing I had to overcome was the immaturity of my peers. I was raised around adults, and thus acted like one. My teachers loved me. Even those who had biases against home-schoolers (I remember my freshman English teacher specifically) found that I was far beyond my peers in English, spelling, vocabulary, etc.... The one drawback I found to homeschooling is that the kid(s) gets more emphasis on what the parent is good at. That's why I was so good at spelling and vocab. That was my mom's strong suit. I did alright in Math...but that wasn't because of my parent's ability. That was because I picked it up well out of books. I was never "taught to the test" and I did well in both the ACT (28) and SAT (1200); not because of being guided by it, but by a good overall education.

I know I may be an odd case, but don't jump all over homeschoolers. With the right amount of socialization (and it IS up to the parents to control that), homeschoolers can turn out incredible. Its a challenge to homeschool, and I commend any parents who are willing to do so.

 

I hung out with Josh this evening, and I will attest to the fact that he very close to normal! Which is far better than the rest of us, who I would classify as "passing for normal."

 

Normal?? Huh? Uh...no. Don't quite think so. You just don't know me all that well. *evil chuckle here*

 

What does "taught to the test" mean?

I know kids of longtime friends who were intermittently home schooled and are doing fine in high school and college.

If I were doing it all over again and had kids I would probably be home schooling them, based upon:

--What I see when I drive past a public high school at 4 PM.

--Knowing that very heavy religious indoctrination is part of the curriculum in most of the private schools around here.

 

My 9 year old took this test a few weeks ago and only missed 1 question! 1! Not bad for a kid in public schools.

Both of my kids were in private school until the last year when I pulled them out. The reasons were many, but socialization had a lot to do with it. The private school class size was about 10, sounds great huh? Not so great when you realize that half the kids in the class are there because they have to be, they don't do so well in public schools. Also not so great when your kids best friend lives 20 miles away. It's kind of hard to set up afternoon play dates.

We are friends with a family that does home schooling, and some of the points brought up here apply to them. Their kids are not socially adept at all. They have 3 girls, and all three are so shy it's almost painful. They are very polite, and they speak when they're spoken to, but it's almost like they're not kids. It takes them an hour to warm up to my kids, even though they've known them their whole lives. Their social circle is so small, they don't do well when they get outside of it. At Easter all the neighborhood kids gathered for the annual egg hunt. My son was near one of this familys girls, waiting for the start. Another kid started bullying the girl, and she had no idea what to do. The bully wasn't even being that bad, but this poor girl froze. My son bailed her out and shooed the bully away. She's 10 years old and this looked like the first bully she'd ever seen.

 

I believe that some home schooled students do well because of it, some do well in spite of it. Some don't do well, just like in "regular schools".

The role of the parent is important, no matter which way you cut it