Do home schooled kids actually have to learn something?

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Most parents who home school do so because we want our children to learn more than the schools are teaching these days.

Most people don't know that most home schooled children participate in social events and they have award events.

The one thing I noticed when attending these events, was how involved the parents were in their children's learning process. The whole atmosphere of the events was about a higher level of learning and helping the children with this achievement.

I have to admit that the social events were not what your average teenager would consider exciting, and they would probably dismissed them as nerds, but the youngsters always seemed to have a good time.

commenting only to revisit the thread....



I did the whole star/flag thingy too.

a reply to: Annee

You do understand you can say the same about public schooling? There are entire districts where less than 50% of the students manage to graduate with anything resembling minimal competency in math and many are functionally illiterate.

a reply to: Annee

Let's just ignore the failures and incompetent parents who didn't do things that were beneficial to their children or their education.

Are you talking about the failures and incompetent parents who don't do things that are beneficial to their children or their education in public schools or in home schools?

I think the number of those incompetent parents are greater in public schools since the number of home schooled children are smaller, so I am not exactly sure of what you are accusing me of.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: Annee

Let's just ignore the failures and incompetent parents who didn't do things that were beneficial to their children or their education.

Are you talking about the failures and incompetent parents who don't do things that are beneficial to their children or their education in public schools or in home schools?

I think the number of those incompetent parents are greater in public schools since the number of home schooled children are smaller, so I am not exactly sure of what you are accusing me of.

Please read the entire article --- then tell me what you think.

Stop Saying Homeschoolers Are Brilliant!

How does U.S. homeschoolers’ academic performance compare with other students?

Evidence regarding this question has been fraught with controversy because most of the studies that have received widest attention have been interpreted to say something they do not and cannot. We simply can’t draw any conclusions about the academic performance of the “average homeschooler,” because none of the studies so often cited employ random samples representing the full range of homeschoolers.

For example, two large U.S. studies (Rudner, 1999; Ray, 2009) are frequently cited as definitive evidence that homeschoolers academically outperform public and private school students. But in both cases, the homeschool participants were volunteers responding to an invitation by the nation’s most prominent advocacy organization to contribute test scores (on tests usually administered by parents in the child’s own home). The demographics of these samples were far whiter, more religious, more married, better educated, and wealthier than national averages. And yet these test score results were compared to average public school scores that included children from all income levels and family backgrounds. Not surprisingly, wealthy homeschoolers from stable two-parent families who take tests administered by their parents in the comfort of their own homes outscore the average public school child by large margins.

The simple fact is that no studies of academic achievement exist that draw from a representative, nationwide sample of homeschoolers and control for background variables like socio-economic or marital status. It is thus impossible to say whether or not homeschooling as such has any impact on the sort of academic achievement measured by standardized tests. - See more at: www.patheos.com...

Personal experience being what it is...

The kids I knew growing up who came to public school after being home schooled were usually behind in many areas and socially awkward. These kids a hard time fitting in and getting caught up.

But that's my subjective experience -- and I'm sure its not the "norm".

originally posted by: TheAmazingYeti
An all-republican Texas state supreme court is about to decide just where religious liberty and parental rights to educate their own children begin and end.

The McIntyres are accused of failing to teach their children educational basics because they were waiting to be transported to heaven with the second coming of Jesus Christ. Sauce

No, need for any of that learnin in heaven... Scary thing is that other states are allowing this to happen.

State lawmakers in Arkansas this year repealed a law mandating that home-school students take nationally recognized standardized tests, and Utah removed academic requirements from its home-school students in 2014. Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Hampshire and Minnesota have also recently moved to relax home-school standards. Sauce

Personally, relaxing these education standards is a mistake.

Yes! They need people skills.

a reply to: Annee
I am speaking from my own personal experience. No place did I ever say that every child home schooled is brillant.

What I did say is that the children that I was exposed to that where home schooled would have been considered nerds in a public school, and that they, and their parents were dedicated to learning.

These children would have excelled in a public school, but were able to advance much further because they didn't have the distractrations they would have had in a public school, and they had the support of like minded peers, and committed parents.

I also said that children that were lazy and that had no interest in learning, would not likely do well with home schooling, so I have no clue to why you take exception to what I posted.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
. . . so I have no clue to why you take exception to what I posted.

Some might think I was adding to what you said, not taking exception with it.

I thought your post seemed intelligent, so I posted an intelligent article that covered both what you said and what I said.

originally posted by: Annee
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

No bias there

You can find the stats all over. The truth is that home schooled kids do better.

Homeschooled Students Well-Prepared For College, Study Finds

New study confirms homeschoolers outperform public schoolers and unschoolers

Why Do Home-schooled Children Outperform? Their Parents

Home-Schooled Teens Ripe for College

Homeschoolers outperform public school students

Read 'em and weep. The truth is, home schooled students learn more and outperform their peers.

originally posted by: maria_stardust
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

It's the extreme cases which merit discussion.

I think that all forms of education are worthwhile from the public school system (my children) to homeschooling to unschooling. As long as our children are ultimately learning and are capable of demonstrating that, then that's the ultimate goal.

No effort is being made in this particular case.

This particular case is a rarity, though. Far more common are cases of students being abused in public schools, but most people don't talk about ending public schooling because of those cases. Those students aren't going to be learning as they should, either. Students in schools that lower their standards don't learn as much.

In this particular case, the parents made a decision with which most of us do not agree. However, it is their decision. It's their kids. They aren't doing what I would do, but their kids aren't mine, and I do believe parents should be the ones to determine such things. Most parents do want their children to learn, so I don't see this sort of case being a real problem for society.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

It bashes both homeschooling and the religious. I've noticed that for certain media outlets sensational child abuse stories like this one are far more likely to be highlighted at a national level if you can add some kind of bizarre religious twist into them. That this one has both religion and homeschooling is just gravy.

When you read the stories themselves, the difference between the average local child abuse horror story and these are really nothing, but these go national. The only difference is the religion connection in most cases.

And for a lot of people, homeschooling is till that thing bizarre Evangelical fundie parents do to avoid putting their children in normal school.

That's the crux of the issue right there!! The media, under serious prompting by the government, does everything possible to demonize home schooling, and Christian parents. When they get both, in a case like this, it's major news. Horrific cases of real abuse, they barely cover, but kids whose parents decide to make different decisions than most? Gotta attack that!!

We home school, and ours tried a year of public. They stated flat out that they were not learning as much, and didn't like it at all. NO issues, of course, getting along, as home schooled kids are far more socially adapted than public school kids. They actually have time to relate to real world situations, instead of the artificial age-group divisions of the public system.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes

Most parents who home school do so because we want our children to learn more than the schools are teaching these days.

Most people don't know that most home schooled children participate in social events and they have award events.

The one thing I noticed when attending these events, was how involved the parents were in their children's learning process. The whole atmosphere of the events was about a higher level of learning and helping the children with this achievement.

I have to admit that the social events were not what your average teenager would consider exciting, and they would probably dismissed them as nerds, but the youngsters always seemed to have a good time.

Most people only know what the establishment wants them to know, and that's all negative, and mostly untrue, when it comes to home schooling. Most do participate in such events, and enjoy them. Those that don't are still involved in activities outside the home.

You are correct on the learning environment as well. As a home schooling parent, I can tell you that we use most anything as a learning experience. Lessons can be found all over, and the kids are quick to pick things up on their own as well, since they are actually encouraged to think for themselves. I can tell you this, too; they don't miss much!! Fooling these kids would not be an easy thing to do! They absolutely LOVE to read as well. Books are vital in this household. The oldest still in school actually read her entire history book one year in a month, just because she found it interesting. They really love to learn, and are happy and well-adjusted.

a reply to: TheAmazingYeti

We homeschool our son.

Yes, they have to learn things.

Any other asinine questions you want to pose as titles to threads that I can answer for you?

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: TheAmazingYeti

We homeschool our son.

Yes, they have to learn things.

Any other asinine questions you want to pose as titles to threads that I can answer for you?

I think people who are not familiar with children that are home schooled with parental involvement, are mistaken about the process, and have a distorted view of what actually occurs. I know I did.

I had no say in the matter and I am so grateful I didn't. I am also grateful that I kept my mouth shut for once, when my sister-in-law announced she was going to try home schooling the boys. She worked from home, my Brother had passed several months prior, so she had he time and she was motivated. Personally, I thought it was a bad idea. I was wrong, very wrong.

The boys thrived with home schooling. They worked together, and the two older boys challenged each other. While I thought they catered to their baby brother way too much, and I felt they kept him a baby for longer than I thought was healthy, nature and basic instincts won out. In fact, as it turned out, he is the most clever of the the lot, almost devious, but his kind heart, so far, has kept him from crossing that line.

Children that are home schooled with structure and parental support, are encouraged to be free thinkers. They have the standard curriculum, but they usually breeze through it very quickly, and are than encouraged to take advanced studies. Nova provided workshops and question answer forums, for the children that were interested, and there are numerous support groups available.

Children in public school are labelled as more socialized and world ready. That is not always the case. Public school for some children is quite traumatic, for some more of a battle zone than a learning environment. The world that many of them graduate ready for, is not the productive world that fosters continued learning and careers. Many don't graduate ready to enter the world looking at a bright future.

Teachers are underpaid, poorly respected, and all it takes is one child to cause upheaval and disrupt learning in a classroom. Public school is not a one size fits all resource for learning. Some children do well, others don't. I am actually much more critical of home schooling, only in the fact that, it only works if the child is capable of functioning independently, or if you have a hands on parent to teach, supervise and motivate.

As LadyGreen Eyes posted:

Lessons can be found all over, and the kids are quick to pick things up on their own as well, since they are actually encouraged to think for themselves. I can tell you this, too; they don't miss much!! Fooling these kids would not be an easy thing to do! They absolutely LOVE to read as well.

Of course parental involvement is the key to success in both forms of schooling for the child that needs extra help. The independent child will do well in public school, but I feel they have an opportunity to excel with home schooling.

That is just my own personal bias.

Nm

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
Children in public school are labelled as more socialized and world ready. That is not always the case. Public school for some children is quite traumatic, for some more of a battle zone than a learning environment.

***Warning, I ramble on for a while, here***

If you were a hammer, you would have just introduced yourself to the nail head.

My son has Asperger's and ADHD, both clinically diagnosed, only one which can be helped by medication, but we choose not to go that route as it makes him seem disassociated and irritable (we tried it once for a two months).

But it was his experiences in school and the teachers' and administrators' seeming unwillingness (or inability) to work with his issues that made him feel noxious every morning before getting on that bus. His hyperactivity and inability to perform simple tasks like raising his hand before answering the teacher constantly got his recess taken away--the one thing that would have helped him get some of that energy and anxiety out.

His Aspy tendencies cause him to always want to touch things to make him feel grounded and safe, but in modern public schools, touching people or things is frowned upon. He can't "appropriately" stand in line, so he would get in trouble there. He would always forget to give his teachers his homework papers, even though they would ask for them as he walked in the door to class--that's the inability to focus and pay attention.

By third grade, we got lucky--we finally got a younger teacher who seemed to have a nice, gentle approach to gaining control in the classroom, and my son responded well to that and was actually starting to blossom as a student. But halfway through that year, I had to take a job where I work now, and we had to move up by Cincinnati from TN, and we, of course, got the oldest, rudest teacher at the school (or so we were told by people who have lived in the town of 3,500 people their whole lives). That was the last straw, as this teacher unraveled every ounce of progress that his previous teacher had made.

It was also at this point that we took him to a psychologist where he was first officially diagnosed with ADHD, and then a few months later after I was researching some of his behaviors, Asperger's on top of that (which seem to come in tandem quite a bit, said both psychologists that we've tried). The ADHD is possibly genetic...they both eyeballed me. Go figure.

Anyhoo, this really lit a fire under my wife to take that leap into homeschooling, which she had been researching for about a year. We've (well, mostly she has) been doing it ever since 2012, but while it has been great in some regards (he's super advanced in the sciences and reading), it's been disappointing in others (he's a few grades behind in math and writing, but much of that can be attributed to his Asperger's, not the homeschooling). We've tried a few different methods and curriculums, but we can't seem to get his drive to want to figure out the math going in him--he has the ability, just not the desire to learn it, which is frustrating. The writing part of it truly is Aperger's, as it's hard for him to translate his awesome imagination and vocal story-telling skills to paper, yet he is great at English and sentence structure and all of that. It's really odd and interesting at the same time to see, as it fascinates me how the brain can to one but not the other.

But we're at an impasse right now, as he seems to be taking advantage of the structure (or sometimes lackthereof) of homeschooling. We have told him that if he keeps wasting away all of the effort and time that we put into homeschooling him so that he doesn't have to experience massive amounts of anxiety and feelings of incapability that came along with public schools, he will be going back there next fall. But this isn't as a punishment--we have diagnosis and understandings behind the "why" of how he acts and responds in a school setting, and between ages 11 and 12, we have seen quite a decent amount of maturing happen in him. Also, we have been told that the new school system in which we now live has a really proactive approach to special-needs children, and they would have an adult able and willing to help him one-on-one if he ever started feeling anxious or overwhelmed or whatever, but we haven't verified that as of yet.

So it's a tough call at this point for us, and it would be a tough transition for him, but I think it would be a good one to help teach him punctuality and personal responsibility, but most importantly, I want him to realize that he CAN handle these types of structured, social settings and flourish in them if he is willing to put forth the effort.

Okay, sorry to unload my story, but you really hit a nerve with that excerpt from you comment that I quoted, plus I just want people willing to read this rambling understand that homeschooling is not a cake walk, and it's often done for the reasons in the example of my son and not always for religious reasons or because we think schools are not good educators (although I could easily argue that the public-school system is designed for testing and not actual education).

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Thank you for being so genuine. I know there are some schools that provide home schooling and still provide the structure of going into the classroom once a week to turn in their work and go through testing, and tutoring if needed.

I have 2 sons that I home schooled, and a daughter. My sons wanted to spend their day distracted too. And it became a frustrating experience. I felt like I found a balance when I went through the school systems home school program. They became accountable to an authority that wasnt mom, this actually worked much better for me.

If your school doesnt provide an alternative, and I would explain the situation, they may have away to help, (i doubt it though) the next thing I would try would be to join with a home school "club" where parents take turns being the another motivator, educator, and enforcer. Maybe just take turns with a few other moms.

originally posted by: misskat1
If your school doesnt provide an alternative, and I would explain the situation, they may have away to help, (i doubt it though) the next thing I would try would be to join with a home school "club" where parents take turns being the another motivator, educator, and enforcer. Maybe just take turns with a few other moms.

We're currently in a homeschooling "co-op," which is exactly what you describe. He used to not really like it, but the way he is acting this year has shown a level a maturing both in how he acts and his ability to adapt and embrace the social experience. This is why we are considering giving "normal" school another chance, because we all know better how to handle his anxiety and emotional meltdowns, and I think this school will better handle that possibility, too.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

but while it has been great in some regards (he's super advanced in the sciences and reading), it's been disappointing in others (he's a few grades behind in math and writing,

When they throw around the word normal, remember what it really means. It is simply reducing children to a mean, serving to establish a standard.

Every child is different. Not special, not odd, not superior, or inferior, just different. It is our societal need for an average or a normal, that forces us to try to push all children into round holes.

Sometimes it is not a matter of thinking outside of the box, sometimes you need to work from inside the box. Sometimes it is just as simple as asking a question. What does your child really like? Then create lessons around what they are already focused on.

If they like purple flowers, do away with the numbers and replace them with purple flowers, trains, or kittens; whatever has hold to their attention at the moment. Allow them to write their own curriculum and tweak it fit the goal.

If your child doesn't like writing but is good at English and sentence structure, try a good voice recognition software program. I used to like Dragon Speaks. The standard curriculum, is just that, a standard. Determine the goals of the standard, and devise what works for your child to meet that goal.

It can be challenging, it takes a lot of time, it can be frustrating, but there are many times when it is fun.

Don't worry about that ADHD business either. As old as I am, the VA tried to stick me with that label. The whole time I was growing up, I never knew I had ADHD, everyone thought I was just downright stubborn.