When I first saw this I was very excited to see support for homeschooling. But it saddens me that so many people automatically assume that homeschooling ruins a childs social skills. I agree though that homeschooling is not for everybody because not every parent is the same. You don't have to be a genius to educate a child but you do need patience. A lot of parents these days are always looking for ways to keep there child occupied because they are too busy with there own life or simply can't afford to be home. So it depends on your house hold situation how homeschooling will turn out. But homeschooling has been the best thing for our family. We gave public and private school a chance but it didn't work out. My son is happy to be home with his parents and is learning way more than he would in school. Also has lots of time to spend with his friends, YES friends my son has many of them. neighborhood kids, my friends kids, kids in the family, kids at his Karate class etc. More time to draw, clay making, make videos, tend to the garden, go to the library, the park, nature walks, the beach, the zoo, wherever our hearts desire to learn at. I think people should just respect peoples decisions. Also the school system can do better. But then again we are dealing with a new generation of parents, parents who are kids themselves, still clueless, or addicted to Facebook. So like I said homeschooling is not for everyone.

I think the parents who take on the task to homeschool are going to do a good job. Most parents use the time kids are in school to work, relax, whatever. My kids drive me nuts in the summertime. Teenagers.

I just retired from public school teaching. First year possible. "No Child Left behind" to administrators means no matter what kind of crazy behavior a kid exhibits he should remain in the classroom.

I was a Woodshop/Computer technology teacher. Some kids were just plain dangerous to themselves and others. I've had students that I had to spend 90% of my time with so they would not create havoc. I'm not talking about accidents. I am talking VERY dangerous intentional behavior that was constantly ignored by admin until I had to take the entire class out of the shop and do "Bookwork" These kids knew the system. They knew there would be no real consequences. Schools don't get funding for students who are not in the classroom. Finally, after almost an entire year sending a student to the office 22 times for dangerous, disruptive behavior, in April one of the administrators told me they had figured out a solution for one of these kids. "If he stays out of trouble all week he gets a reward on Friday"! Good Idea! That will fix him.

My strategy for keeping sane the last 10 years of teaching was to search out schools in excellent economic areas where most of the kids were raised by two fairly well educated parents. The majority of the students were
ok. Still that 5-10 percent of behavior problems took 90 percent of my time. The rest of the kids were often ignored.

"No child left behind" was taken from the Military. "No soldier left behind"

I was also in the US Army. Many did not pass the medical or written test to get in. Some dropped out of boot camp. Some committed egregious acts and were kicked out or sent to prison.

And if we were on a mission to an enemy locale and one of the soldiers was intentionally screwing up the mission not only would he be left behind we may have caused it. But that never happened because they were ALREADY gone.

Leave them behind! Please! Or homeschool them. When they are ready to learn they will learn.

Good luck with that next year!

Originally posted by Kharron

While some points you make are true, OP, unfortunately, most of the kids are better off being public schooled if the alternative is home schooling by apathetic parents, whose obvious lack of parenting skills has already left a mark on the generation.

I really don't want the average American to take a break from watching Jerry Springer or Oprah, or whatever tier of crap they have acclimated to, to teach the next generation the vast amounts of knowledge they're supposed to have in order to keep the society's wheel turning. Is home schooling bad? No, I don't think so -- but I just don't think American parents are up to it.

In fact, the more I think about it, having Americans home schooled from now on would probably be the beginning of the decline that would result in the society that the movie Idiocracy so humorously depicts.


Khar

Those pathetic parents of whom you speak got that way by being public schooled. Now the situation is self repeating. They are no longer capable of teaching their own kids. Those who are capable could not care less to do so because they are selfish, self absorbed and too materialistic.

Public schooling is a relatively new weapon in the war against the family. The purpose it to get kids away from mom and dad and fill them with ideals (or the lack thereof) that are of use to the state. To destroy the family. To demoralize individuals.

It is done and it is too late to stop the flood.

apres moi le deluge...but it probably will not wait that long

I dropped out of high school as a junior because of some personal matters at home and needing to work immediately. I took some time to finally take the GED, and when I did, and scored a 96, I had an even more hatred towards high school.

The GED is nothing more than 8th grade education. A high school diploma is completely useless. Like a previous poster said...high school is prison.

Exactly, send your kid to a public school so he can turn into those little monsters who were bullying their bus monitor....

THE ILLUMINATI CONTROL PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THEY ARE CREATING DROOLING, DRUGGED OUT ZOMBIES WHO ONLY KNOW HATRED.

I wholeheartedly agree with the "convincing 'bored' kids to 'behave' in class by giving them dangerous drugs" part.

One of my best friends who I have known since 1st grade was put on ritalin in 2nd or 3rd grade, which ended up making him "worse" so they put him on a smattering of other things until they hit the peak of Desoxyn (for those who don't know, Desoxyn is pure Methamphetamine) and kept him on that until he was in High School and he refused to take it anymore. Safe to say, it screwed his mental processes over a whoooole lot. Now he has no job, has a c--t of an evil GF who uses him for his money and as a free babysitter (well his parents' money at least, they're on the state board of medicine, and the kid is supposedly his although she told him she was pregnant with it ONE WEEK after they got together...), and has a completely trashed house in a decent part of town.

Long story short, I watched as my friend was destroyed by these "safe" drugs over the course of 12+ years...

Just for the record though, I agree with everything else as well. Public schools are a f'kn joke...

someone asked on the first page if you had children yourself, i didnt see your reply
if you dont have any children then you seriously need to stfu about it, and if you do then homeschool them or whatever and stop worrying about what the rest of the world wants to do with their children.

Originally posted by Covertblack
I agree with a lot of your points. The only caveat I would put forth is that home school kids need to be immersed with others their age. I can't tell you how many home schooled kids I have met with poor social skills. Later on in life some of these poor kids grow up and have no idea how to act around others. So barring that I agree.

I too went to school in Michigan, and to be honest it wasn't all that bad for me. Not trying to say it's the same for all.

edit on 25-6-2012 by Covertblack because: (no reason given)

Socialization is many parents' primary concern when considering home school.

But the socialization in public school is completely artificial and doesn't mimic "the real world" in any way, shape or form. At what other time in his life will your child work with 29 other individuals who are all his own age? honestly, a one-room-school would be a better preparation for a modern work environment, where you are employed alongside people of wildly varying ages and backgrounds...

Secondly, public school does a piss-poor job of socializing children. They follow the exact same model found in medium security prisons: the strongest individuals who have been institutionalized the longest form competing cliques from which they dictate the social order, crushing the will of any loner or rebel who speaks up or otherwise fails to conform.

Without the hours of homework to fill his afternoon, your child can join a host of organizations that teach civic virtues, from B'nai Brith to the Boyscouts. Many of these non-state-controlled bodies instill character and teach important life lessons and values. Programs like 4 H give specialized instruction, that public-school kids frankly don't have time for.

In most medium to large cities, you can find a homeschool association that hosts field-trips to museums and zoos, provides and rates competing curricula, and even helps prepare children to take any state-mandated tests.

In all honesty, speaking as a parent involved in homeschooling, your biggest headache may be your local public school---they will try to intimidate you into "coming back," because they lose federal dollars every time a child leaves their system, and there is a steady flow of kids out of the system already.

There are a number of national and local groups that can help. Most important is the Home School Legal Defense Association, which can help you find a lawyer if you live in a state where homeschoolers are harrased by school board officials.

My kids have all had some variety of homeschool. Some state education departments have actually become supporters of homeschool. In Oklahoma, their state's department determined that a child in public school only gets ELEVEN hours of actual instruction per week, and that the other 24 hours are filled with basically "standing in line and attending pep rallies." The document I read by the Oklahoma Education authority said that they thought most homeschool parents were not particularly astute educators, but that the kids easily made up for it because practically every kid got well over 11 hours of instruction per week, and easily achieved the 85th percentile, even without special assistance from "professional educators." That report went on to note that so many teachers hold only a "provisional certificate" that most college educated parents had as much schooling as many of the teachers refered to as experts by the unions.

I will never send my daughter to public school. She's never set foot inside of one. I'm sure that there are good teachers who care about children, but that's not tempting enough for me to put my child into the system.