Posted on 10/15/2004 11:41:53 AM PDT by cinives
Home schooling children provides advantages
What did you learn in high school? I ask this question to people who seem puzzled by our family’s decision to home school our children. Their answers are usually very interesting but not the kind of thing you would put in a campaign commercial touting increased funding for public education.
I never thought of myself as a home schooling kind of person until after nearly eight years of having a variety of teachers and other professionals trying to tell me what was wrong with my son, I figured out they were what was wrong with my son.
In the last of hundreds of meetings where a group of professionals would try telling me why my son, who everyone agreed was an incredibly smart kid, was failing classes, a teacher said the magic words.
“He will do great in college,” she said.
“Then why can’t he succeed in junior high?” I asked her.
The room was quiet.
That was when I decided I could do better.
When you have a child you realize there are a ton of magazine articles, books and other resources to instruct you how to be your child’s first teacher.
Television shows are lined up with experts preaching about how important a parent’s role is in educating their little rug rats.
But the moment your child turns five, you are supposed to hand over the responsibility of educating your offspring to complete strangers.
Most families I know don’t question whether public school is the best place for their children. They just follow the herd through the back-to-school aisle and make plans to leave their children to be raised by a government institution eight hours a day for the next 12 years. It was difficult to get outside the public school box. Public school is what we do in this country. It is what is normal.
Then I started breaking down the average junior high and high school experience and asking what makes it so normal.
Showering in a junior high locker room remains one of the most traumatic experiences of many people’s lives. Why do we take children at the most self-conscious, awkward time of their lives and force them to get naked in front of one another? The only other time in your life you will have to shower with a group of strangers is in prison.
Not exactly what I want to be preparing my children for.
Public schools group kids together by age. Sounds like a good idea until you realize your child is learning communication skills, cultural values and social norms from other 12-year-olds. Great.
If a college student tried to keep track of seven classes, extracurricular activities, a part-time job and maintain relationships with family, we would think they were crazy. But this is exactly what we expect from high school students.
More than a few people asked if we were home schooling for religious reasons. That is the common stereotype: a large, fanatically religious family home schooling their children to protect them from the evils of the world.
Even a flaming liberal like me, who practices open-option religion, can understand why there are a lot of families like that out there. Ten minutes of observing life in any public high school would scare most parents. The students’ wardrobes and topics of conversation in the hallway are a direct contrast to the watered-down history lessons, censored literary classics and politically neutered discussions of current events in the classrooms.
We chose to home school because we believed we could do better than a school system hell bent on making everyone conform into becoming the perfect politically correct members of the populous.
I do have to give the public school teachers some credit. They were right. My 15-year-old son is doing great in college.
He is a K-State freshman carrying nine hours.
Mary Renee is a senior in speech. Please send your comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.
If more people would homeschool or find a school to better fit their child there would be far less depression and use of Ritalin et al among schoolkids.
ping
Kerry/Edwards 39.2%
Bush/Cheney 59.3%
They're equal 0.3%
Don't care 0.7%
Total Votes : 21870
Private Tutors have always been the choice of those who could over Private Schools.
When you home school, you are being a nasty old elitist.
So9
Good article.
First mistake... ;-) It's amazing what happens when you start thinking and stop denying the truth.
The Democrats are fully aware that the only way a people can hold onto "freedom" is if they have an education.
That is why they want "public" schooling, to dumb down the population so they can remain "in charge".
Notice one thing about Kerry. You can sense it. The ONLY reason he wants to be elected is that he wants to be President and have the power.
Bush, talks about goals for children, and ownership society, etc.
Please God, liberate the school systems from the Governement, allow them to go back to their communities, and have the parents with kids in school foot the bill.
It isn't "fair" if your idea is the communistic "everthing the same for everyone", but is is very fair if you believe in "let those who will...win"
>>Then why can’t he succeed in junior high?” I asked her.
The room was quiet.
That was when I decided I could do better. <<
Such is the "Ta-Da" moment! It happened for me when my six year old was getting detentions for not finishing her work in class (eventhough she was allowed to play in freetime). I asked the teacher, "What can we do to keep her on task?"
This woman looked me in the eye and said, "I don't know."
Quick as a wink (and with the words of some great FReepers!) Dad let me begin homeschooling!
My angel will be seven on Monday (mommy types with a tear in her eye) and is four months away from finishing her Third grade curriculm.
What a waste of time that school was!!
The way it is set up if you want to send you kid to private school you have to pay twice, once for the public school system, and oncve for your own school. This is just plain criminal.
hmm...nice to hear from a liberal home schooler.
Dear Sof9,
"When you home school, you are being a nasty old elitist."
Why, thank you. I try.
sitetest
happy homeschooling mama BTTT
Homeschooling makes the "abnormal" into "normal". ;>)
Think of the mental health initiative making its way thru Congress now. All children will have mental health screenings. Be very afraid. If your kid is not in school, you escape the thought police.
Mine was when my dd's 2nd grade teacher used to page me at work because dd was breaking too many pencil points and needed to use the sharpener too much, resulting in detentions.
It turned out dd was so bored in class she had devised a game where she had "pencil people" living in her desk, a pencil people city. And, best yet, the broken-off pencil points were babies and children!
Her teacher was not impressed with the game.
liberal home schooler ? me ? nah, just a libertarian unschooler.
Kansas State University Ping!
Semper Fi
My kids have gone to both private and public schools. I'll take the public schools anytime. Of course, we are in Oklahoma and the kids can pray, sing Christmas carols and are taught phonics, real math, and must diagram sentences.
ROFL!!
Bump for pencil people.
I am happy to be one of those large, fantatically religious families who homeschools in conjunction with private school. Yes, to keep my children from the evils of the world.
Stereotyping welcome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.