Question to homeschool advocates

[Thoeting]

I have a question to homeschool advocates.

I teach English to students with learning disabilities in a small (500 students) middle school. I work mostly with 6th graders. These are students who are 11-12 years old.

This September, we had 6 students enroll who were previously home-schooled. Each set is coming into the public school system for different reasons. In 2 families, the parents have split up and both parents must now work. The others either just wanted to try it, or were tired of home. or moved from a large city. Of the 6, 1 enrolled in the school's gifted/talented program. Of the others, all 5 are coming in with deplorable skills. 2 of them (siblings) are unable to recognize all letters of the alphabet, and are also quite weak in math. They can count to 100, and do 1 digit addition and subtraction. Of the other three, 1 cannot recognize cursive, 1 can spell nothing beyond four letters, and the last one reads at about a 2nd grade level.

Everyone one of the 5 that I work with have "iffy" social skills. None are comfortable around large groups, and 3 of them are actually afraid of the other kids. All of them prefer to be with the adults.

I work with these 5 in an English class. Because of their discomfort with large groups, I requested to have only these five for this year. I enjoy their personalities greatly and I am thrilled every day to watch them grow. However, even though they are of normal intelligence, it is likely, that most of them will not learn to read at a 6th grade level before leaving middle school, which means they will continue to be behind considerably into high school.

I know that there is a large homeschool contingent that read FreeRepublic and I would like to know if anyone here has seen a situation like this before. Is there anyone out there looking out for kids to make sure they are actually being instructed? At what point do homeschool parents start to get worried? Is there any type of agency that oversees homeschool parents? As I have conferenced with these parents over the course of the year, NONE were aware that there was a problem! Yet some of these children were up to 6 years behind.

Please don't take this as a slam against homeschooling. Obviously something went wrong in these situations, but I think (or at least hope!) that the majority work well.

[Doctor Doom]

Exactly.

[Khepera]

It always comes back to that doesn't it. :)

[stanz]

Who the hell cares what you do? Don't you get it? I'm responding here on this thread just like you and everybody else. I couldn't give a rat's ass what you choose to do or not do with your children. It's MY children I'm writing about. Do yourself a favor, read the last couple of posts I submitted. They explain my position.

[Doctor Doom]

Amazing, isn't it? "Freedom for me, but not for thee."

[Doctor Doom]

I stated that how I homeschool my children is my business, and you responded with the vague reply "Mine too," which, given your other posts, left it pretty open to interpretation that you were saying that how I homeschool my children is your business as well.

More clarity next time and you will avoid these problems.

[netman]

I do agree they seem to socalize alot with the adults and do not mix tooo well with kids of the public school system. How tragic for the kids.

My children are growing into adults, thats what they will spend the vast majority of their lives ,so interacting well with adults will put them miles ahead of most public schoolers.

As for socialization,why would I leave the socialization of my children to other children,whose parents have instilled God knows what values into them?

Children socialize children. Thats reality.

Being a juvenile corrections officer I have some first-hand knowledge of which I speak.

[Sweet Hour of Prayer]

Your point is well made. However, I can demonstrate the same failures at public schools that I'm familiar with in Riverside, County California. There we will find dozens of kids, educated in the public school system ,in 6th grade that are reading at the 2nd grade level. What do you, or the state, define as acceptable social behavior? Many children are NEVER comfortable in a large group, heck, many adults aren't comfortable in a large group. Despite your disclaimor of no malice toward homeschoolers, it sounds like you have an agenda to prove. Homeschooling parents vary in capability much as public school teachers vary in their capability.

The Abeka program has been around for over 40 years, providing "distance learning" for children. In the earlier days it was primarily for missionary's kids. It's a different approach to reading than the miserable "whole language" reading that the public schools have bought into, and it has a long track record of success that can be proved.

What kind of monitoring system has worked in the public schools to keep kids from reading on a 2nd grade level in 6th grade? My main point is, the problem is not exclusive to homeschoolers.

[gueroloco]

Anytime! I can't sit still and let an obvious illiterate have the temerity ( that's "balls", Kephera) to dare question the education of a person who is able to construct a coherent sentence!! Not that I would question Kephera's "right" to prove himself "illiterate", mind you..

[Artist]

FYI bump.

[Artist]

#158 was a wonderful post. Thanks very much.

[Aquinasfan]

Looks like an aberation to me. It's pretty well established that homeschoolers test higher than both public and private school students and interact better with people of all ages. Among other things.

My homeschooled six -year-old is reading at the fourth grade level (proud dad alert) 8o) OTOH, my four year old seems to be a lot slower developmentally. So the individualized instruction of homeschooling should be a great benefit for her.

[Wordsmith]

Thanks! Homeschooler, happily married, or both? :^)

[Aquinasfan]

i submit that they dont teach this because they WANT us to be STUPID AND DEPENDENT

That's true. A perfect example is "whole language," that is, learning reading by memorizing entire words rather than learning reading phonetically.

John Dewey developed the "whole word" method. Why? He didn't want children to be able to learn independently. He wanted to make learning to read so painful that children would give up. He also wanted the children to work communally in guessing the meaning of words in trying to understand sentences.

[Kryptonite]

I always get an enormous kick out of the paranoia exhibited by homeschool parents and advocates on these threads. It comes through so unmistakeably clear every time that I have to wonder how much of that paranoia rubs off on their kids.

I personally believe that parents willing to make the effort to homeschool their kids deserve a tremendous amount of credit. It's the paranoia exhibited whenever a comment or suggestion is made that homeschooling is not the greatest thing since sliced bread that literally scares me. Relax homeschoolers...y'all are doing just fine.

[Kryptonite]

Well, that's a more healthy attitude indeed!

[Wordsmith]

Agreed, the paranoia can be a bit over the top. But, to be fair, "even paranoids have real enemies." Every time my wife and I hear of children being removed from their homes for things like "educational neglect" we get scared. If the State, under the direction of unsavory leadership acting in "the name of the children," ever turned its eyes on our children they could certainly manufacture reasons to seize them. Most of the time, I believe, child seizures happen for at least a somewhat plausible reason. But sometimes they don't - I'm thinking of the case in MD over a Catholic curriculum, the MA case about not submitting proper educational plans, the NC case about the little girl who ran out in to her yard naked. I don't know all the details, don't know if these all resulted in children being removed. But as a parent I certainly find nothing more frightening than the prospect of losing my children. And so, while I twinge at the paranoia, I can understand the rawness of the emotions involved as well.

[Artist]

Homeschooler, happily married, or both?

Both. :^)

I'll be keeping an eye open for your posts. They're a joy to read.

Thanks again,

[BibChr]

Don't let anything scare you. I can second-guess some of the most momentous, thought-out decisions of my life. Home-schooling is just-next-to THE BEST decision I've ever made. Every year, I thank God and my wife all the more that we're doing it.

And I started out opposed!

The whole thing is that it reflects YOUR relationship to your children. So of course, inattentive, irresponsible parents will do it poorly. But I'm assuming you love and are devoted to your children. No State teacher will love them or know them like you do! It is SO much better for them that you be intimately involved not only in their schooling, but in their socialization.

Socialization was one of my bugaboos, because the first HS family I knew were hothouse-types, too good for everyone else. But, as I now know, that's just them. We've done it for something like 9 years, and our kids have been involved in church, art classes, dance class, karate, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts... they're "out there" fine.

I hope that, and The Writer's thoughtful response, help.

Dan

[stanz]

I agree. As I just said to another Freeper, it's so much easier to "live and let live."

[Aristophanes]

Hey, my sons' parochial school regularly sends home letters and other official school documents with multiple misspellings. It irritates the hell out of me. (Just like those on FR.)

I was at the Y the other night for a kids basketball game and noticed two misspellings and a serious grammatical error on a professionally printed permanent sign.

We've become a nation of illiterate boobs.