I used to ask myself that question...what are they doing in classrooms? How is it that a 4th grader can have 3 months of unfinished papers in her desk? What is the teacher doing that kids don’t finish class work?
I lived in a very, VERY rural area. The bus ride to school was 2 hours and the ride home was 2 hours. they caught the bus between 5 and 6 AM and they didn’t get home till 6 PM. When the older ones had extracurricular activities, I had to drive the 40 miles to town to pick them up because they often came in after the activity bus ran back up to our area. That means my kid didn’t get home till midnight or 1 am, had to do homework, and get up at 4:30 in the morning.
Guess what I didn’t do? I didn’t push the homework.
The district decided that the kids would go to school 4 days per week, for longer days, and be off for Friday and the weekend.
They didn’t care that the rural kids were only getting 4-5 hours of sleep at a time.
It also meant that the weekends weren’t theirs either. They had to spend the entire weekend with additional home work. During the winter months, they couldn’t even go outside and play for an hour after school before doing homework. By the time they got home and ate dinner, there wasn’t any time for homework. I let them do 30 minutes worth and that’s it. They could pick which subject, but I was not going to allow these kids to stay up all night doing homework.
The teachers just didn’t want to hear what these kids were going through. It’s not even a healthy work ethic to put in those kinds of hours. There has to be a healthy balance between sleep, work, and play(family time) whether you are an adult or a child.
I did end up homeschooling the youngest which was an excellent decision, and one that I never regretted. He caught up 2 grade levels in just a couple of months, and I didn’t work him all that hard. And that’s why I had to ask....what is going on in that classroom because they were not learning much, at all. The kids were all 2 years behind eastern schools...I could see why after home schooling.
I worked my boy 3-4 hours per day and he learned double in that time than his classmates were learning. He was off when school was out. His confidence rose like crazy and he exclaimed with delight one day...”Mom, YOU are the best teacher I’ve ever had!” That was a proud moment. I’m so glad I took the time for him. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t exactly hard, either. We just learned to work together as a team and that was wonderful.
If I had to do it today, no child of mine would go to a public school. I wouldn’t want to be robbed of the joy of relationship with my children. You get to know them at a totally different and exciting level when you homeschool.
Learning should be a life-long joy and pleasure. It shouldn’t be dreaded.
Good point about the home-schooling, though. A very rural area is perfect for it.
they are mainly managing the classroom... there is a big difference between teaching 30 9-year olds and 2 or 3 9-11 year olds... in our homeschool, we have experienced school with just us and school within a small co-op... 3-5 families a year... we had complete control over the days we taught... the length of the classes--which were 90 minutes... even for the Kindergarten-1st grade kids... it was wonderful... some years we met 2 days a week, some years it was 3 days a week... the remaining days were for the school work/homework, and individual learning each family chose for themselves...
two of the moms had been teachers... they both claimed that their experiences as teachers did not help them as homeschoolers...
last year i was working in NC while my family was in Calif... i Skype-schooled my sons... i went back 5 times during the year... this is not ideal, but better than sending them to government school--which was never an option...