Parents please don't home school your children. You are not helping them by cutting them off from the rest of the world. We have all known a few families that have pulled off the home schooling act, raising wonderful kids that are also socially capable. However, I believe that home schooling successes are few and far between. If you are a young parent who thinks you have great teaching skills, go out and get a teaching job. Don't experiment on your kids.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
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7 comments:
You are one of the most opinionated bloggers I semi-consistently read.
Which probably says something about the other blogs that I check.
If you were a woman, I'd do a whole explanation here about how this is more of a statement of my OWN opinion than an outright criticism, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way, and I find your opinions quite interesting even when I don't completely agree with them, etc., etc., etc.
Since you're a guy though, that's probably not necessary.
(I have no strong feelings either way about home schooling, incidentally.)
Thanks for the comment. I have been accused of having strong oppinions before. I think it comes out more in the blog because I don't post about things I'm neutral on.
By the way, I have known quite a few charming kids who were home schooled. There is a family at church who have very respectful, very well behaved kids. I hope they don't read this and think I'm talking about them. The successes just don't do enough for me to get over the saddness for I feel for the kids who go throughout life as socially incapable because they were removed from society during the critical development years.
In the end, maybe it has more to do with the parents that raise them than it does about where they learn geometry...
Amen, Charlotte.
My husband couldn't agree with you more. I actually think the kids can be better educated at home than at most public schools, but the cost to their little social lives is quite high. It seems to me that most parents in most school districts can achieve the same educational goals by simply being very involved parents and supplementing the at-school learning.
The idea of keeping all those bad influences totally at bay, however, is a strong one. I can see why some people do the home-school thing for just that reason.
Well, I am a homeschooler but like most homeschoolers I know (and I know a lot), I'm not cutting them off from the rest of the world. A visit to my blog should verify that we are rarely home. A huge majority of homeschoolers (with the few newsworthy exceptions who give the rest of us a bad rap), spend a huge chunk of their time and resources on socialization opportunities. Take our schedule from last year for example. Both of my kids took swimming lessons every Tuesday and Thursday with other kids. Both of them had gymnastics class every Tuesday, with other kids. My son had taekwondo lessons 5-7 hours a week, with other kids. My children participated in Awana every Tuesday evening, with other kids. We attended church Sunday school every weekend, with other kids. We frequently went on field trips with large groups of other kids. In between all those activities and our studies, we fit in play time with our closest friends and park days where we played with...you guessed it...other kids. I'm guessing by now you've gotten my point. It's not just my family that gets out this much. Most of the homeschool families I know get out at least 3-5 days a week to be involved in activities with other kids. There's even been blind studies done where psychologists were asked to pick out which children were the socially incapable homeschoolers in the group. They couldn't. Please consider doing some research before deciding that homeschooling should be illegal.
And in case you are wondering how my kids are doing academically with us being gone so often, here's how they're doing based on this spring's assessment testing. My 8 year old is officially entering 4th grade next year, reads at a 9th grade level, has language usage skills at a post high school level, and math skills at a 5th grade level. My 6 year old will be entering 2nd grade, reads at a 2nd to 3rd grade reading level, and tests at a 3rd grade math level. They are smart and socally capable. Imagine that!
Joann,
I absolutely agree that there are ways to give a home schooled child a proper and normal upbringing. I've just seen too many examples of where that wasn't the case to make me comfortable with the practice.
To suggest home schooling should be illegal is somewhat un-American on my part. I get that. Just think of it as my way of saying that I wish all home schooled children had a mother like you who obviously makes sure they are both smart and socially capable.
Thank you for stopping by my blog and your kind comments. The belief that I'm in the minority of homeschoolers who are conscience of their children's social development is false. It's actually the other way around. The huge majority of homeschoolers are just as conscientious as I in providing proper social development for our children. The socially incapable homeschooler is a very small minority; however, they usually get the most noticed by critics and the media. This, in turn, creates the false impression that homeschool children, in general, suffer socially from not being in school. Studies have shown that not only do homeschoolers tend to do better academically but they also do not suffer, in the slightest, socially. In fact, they often surpass their public-schooled counterparts in measures of social success. Here are a few articles covering study results on socialization from different perspectives.
http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Socialization.asp
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/144135.aspx
http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
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