I love that my 9 yo daughter can hug her best friends and hang out with them without being called gay or a lesbian. I love that she doesn't have to carry the burden of sexual knowledge she isn't ready for because she hears about it on the playground. I love that she and my 6 yo son invent new and more creative games every day. Last week they turned the playset into a Starship. (Yes, we are all Trekkies. All four of us.) I love that she can name her favorite Star Trek captains and episodes without being ridiculed by her peers because she isn't into boy bands and Hannah Montana. I love that I have the freedom to let my son go outside and play when I see he's had enough of sitting and doing schoolwork for a while. ADHD? Nope. He's just your typical little 6 yo boy. I love that when I see that our curriculum in a particular area isn't working for one of my kids, I can adjust it or change it entirely.
I love that we have TIME. Time for piano lessons, gymnastics, karate, a homeschool P.E. class, a dozen or more field trips a year, family travel, science classes, etc. TIME. Time to get to know each other, and time as a family. I am an “older mom”, and I know just how precious time is and exactly how quickly a 6 yo becomes a 9 yo in, what seems to be, just a moment.
I love that we can go to Disneyland any time we like. You'll never find us there during holidays or summer vacation! I love that we can turn just about any trip into an educational experience and go to the Grand Canyon when we're studying Arizona or geology. There's a depth and richness homeschooling can provide that no other school possibly can.
I taught in public school for 8 years and trained public school teachers for another 4. I know precisely what is out there in some of the “best” public schools. I used to think that all classroom teachers were like myself and my teacher friends: hardworking, creative, professional. Once I began my staff development career, I was shocked at the low caliber of teachers in so many classrooms. Some of the classes I visited epitomized the nightmares I had each year starting in August! (Fellow teachers will understand!) Yes, there are individual teachers and individual classrooms where good things are happening. The problem is the system itself that tries to fit every single child into the same mold. Read John Taylor Gatto if you haven't already.
Stephen Covey says that every organization is perfectly aligned to get the results it is getting. If you apply that to our public education, that's quite an indictment. We are getting the results, IN GENERAL, that the schools are set up to produce. I have two sisters still teaching. One of these threads I'll have to post some of what they tell me.
Is homeschooling for every family? No, but I do believe that every Christian and/or conservative family should keep an open mind about it.
well i understand about the star trek thing. I was one of the few (perhaps the only I can’t remember anymore) star trek fans in grade six. I liked some of the things everyone else liked but I won’t deny i had some classically ‘nerdy’ interests.
There were also some sad things about public schools. A girl i knew died of a drug overdose. I remembered thinking she was on an evil path a few years before she died because she listened to marilyn manson. I could just sense she was not right and was not surprised when she turned up dead.
There are some posts in this thread making a good case for homeschooling. However, I still think that it would probably make me feel better to send my kids to a traditional school
I am very interested in having a family someday but when I think about how I’d worry about my kids the idea is less appealing.
I have to continue on your I love theme:
I love how neither of my teenage kids have said they hate me because I have to make parent decisions that disappoint them.
I love how neither of my teenage kids are embarassed by their geeky mom and actually seek me out for advice and don’t just mind being seen with me in public, but actually plan outings for all of us.
I love that I have a peaceful home for all of us.
“I love that we have TIME.”
This, indeed, is one of the greatest blessings of homeschooling, especially when the kids are younger.
We thought initially that we were doing something wrong when we first started homeschooling our older son in first grade. My wife would be done by 10 am (they'd start at 8:30 am). But heck, they learned a whole bunch, so who cares if it only took an hour or two every day?
When we moved to our current neighborhood, my older son was in second grade going into third grade. At a party, one of our new neighbors expressed extreme skepticism that we could possibly educate our children properly in a couple of hours per day.
But my wife wasn't spending any time calling the class to attention, calling roll, waiting for each student in a class of 35 (the average class size at our local public elementary school) to read aloud from the reader, waiting for each child to get a drink of water, each child to go to the bathroom, etc. Nor were there any assemblies on diversity, questionable “history” topics, or sex ed.
You taught in schools, so you know that much of what teachers do is personnel management. And the good teachers do that very well. To effectively manage 20 or 30 or more young, energetic children takes skill. But it's still time- and resource-consuming.
Now that my older son is in eighth grade, the day takes much longer than an hour and a half or two. He takes one class at a local Catholic high school - and between that class and his homework for that class, that's about an hour to an hour and a half a day. The rest of the day takes three or four hours.
For the younger guy, our sixth grader, he generally works three or four hours per day, total.
So, as the years go on, the workload and time taken has increased, but we still have far more time than students who go to traditional schools.
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