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I had a very similar, if not identical, experience only I went to a fairly poor elementary / middle school and a good high school. I finished school with a D av

I had a very similar, if not identical, experience only I went to a fairly poor elementary / middle school and a good high school. I finished school with a D average.. and managed to still get into a private college on the strength of my test scores and writing sample. I've since excelled at college and graduate school. I spend a lot of time these days wondering if I should home school my children. I learned so much more at home than I did at school. I'd hate to give my children the type of experience I did in public school.

tokenadult 15y ago
I spend a lot of time these days wondering if I should home school my children. All four of my children have always been homeschooled until this week. My oldest is grown up, living on his own on his own dime while he finishes up his college degree program--or perhaps founds a start-up before finishing his degree. (He is an occasional participant here, mostly in threads different from the threads I post in.) My second son began attending our local public high school the day after United States Labor Day. So he is in his third day of classroom school as I type this. He commented last evening "I know it's only been two days, but I already notice that I can learn faster when I homeschooling than at school." He and my wife and I will continue to discuss what trade-offs are most important in making his educational plans. My third son was just driven by my wife this morning across our sprawling metropolitan area for a joint homeschoolers class on physics, taught by a Ph.D. physicist who takes time off from engineering and inventing work at a big corporation to teach the class. There are a lot of very interesting learning opportunities for homeschoolers these days. After edit: I just saw this response to the submitted article that opened the thread here http://www.parentatthehelm.com/6666/homeschooling-parent-responds-to-disneys-teacher-of-the-year/ http://www.parentatthehelm.com/6666/homeschooling-parent-res... from a homeschooling parent with even more experience than I have. Her perspective is her own.
jff 15y ago
I can't imagine withholding from my children the type of experience I had in public school. For 8 hours a day I was away from home, among dozens of people my age. I had access to a pretty good library, far better than my small town's public library. I played a school-owned bassoon (these would typically cost over $3000) in our concert band, learned bass drum for marching band, got to go on band trips. I learned leadership and co-operation with a variety of different types of people--ranging from straight-A Mormon girls to poor white kids to Mexican wanna-be gangsters--in class, in band (especially during band camp), and as the eventual captain of the cross country team. I took cooking courses, got to make nitrocellulose in our reasonably well-outfitted science department, dissected pigs, and build my own cluster as an independent study project. All in the public school of my little town of 2,000 people, with around 60 in my graduating class. Classes did not challenge me, but I buckled down, listened to lecture, did my homework in class, and read when there was nothing else to do. As everyone here is so fond of stating, if you're "too smart for school" you can teach yourself in the evenings or even during class--but don't rob your child of the opportunity to try new things, meet people, and for god's sake GET OUT OF THE FUCKING HOUSE FOR A WHILE.
- tseabrooks 15y ago
  I mentioned above, I went to a fairly good highschool. We didn't have classes on Thursdays in my highschool. Instead we were required to participate in an unpaid internships on Thursday. I volunteered at the local metropolitan "science center" where kids went for field trips and people visited. It was awesome... Almost every other volunteer was a home schooler. My best friend was home schooled (met in college) and he is a concert level pianist and extremely well rounded. Nationally home schoolers get together fairly often and have "home school reunions". You are speaking like someone with little knowledge of and/or interaction with the homeschool population. You seem to have some severe misunderstandings about the homeschool community. I think you should alleviate this large hole in your knowledge before you berate a lifestyle you aren't familiar with.
  - jff 15y ago
    I grew up in a small town, so you're right--there weren't many homeschoolers. I think there were two families in the area that homeschooled but later sent their kids to public school for high school. These kids were the stereotype of homeschooled kids: didn't really make friends, didn't interact well with people, got good grades. One was a very nice guy who I became friends with in cross country. Another seemed to be overtaken with the "preacher's son" thing, tended to do crazy stuff and act out once he finally broke away from the house. His sister was a strange, quiet girl who would wear her parka during indoor P.E. so she would get heat exhaustion and be allowed to sit down. The nearest towns to mine were all about 40 minutes away, and not even the largest one had more than 20,000 people--not a big population to draw homeschoolers from. In the case of the homeschoolers I met, I definitely got the impression that their lives had been pretty well isolated, outside of church--religion being the reason they were homeschooled in the first place. I appreciate the way public school throws you into a mix with a bunch of people you would not normally be around. Do homeschool kids sit in the back of the bus and have the weird dude show them how to make a marijuana pipe out of a pepsi can? When you're hanging with other homeschool kids, is there really that much opportunity to learn how to deal with macho cholo bullshit when all you want them to do is load the band truck? To me, it seems like it would generally be a very restricted community: deeply religious people who don't want their children polluted, and parents who are well-off and smart enough to do the teaching themselves. I probably could have learned more academically being homeschooled, but at least where I grew up, public school was the only social game in town, and looking back I am glad I went. When I have kids, there will be serious consideration to homeschooling for a while, but I strongly believe that their first year or two of school and at least some of the middle/high school years should be spent at a public school.

tokenadult 15y ago

I spend a lot of time these days wondering if I should home school my children. All four of my children have always been homeschooled until this week. My oldest is grown up, living on his own on his own dime while he finishes up his college degree program--or perhaps founds a start-up before finishing his degree. (He is an occasional participant here, mostly in threads different from the threads I post in.) My second son began attending our local public high school the day after United States Labor Day. So he is in his third day of classroom school as I type this. He commented last evening "I know it's only been two days, but I already notice that I can learn faster when I homeschooling than at school." He and my wife and I will continue to discuss what trade-offs are most important in making his educational plans. My third son was just driven by my wife this morning across our sprawling metropolitan area for a joint homeschoolers class on physics, taught by a Ph.D. physicist who takes time off from engineering and inventing work at a big corporation to teach the class. There are a lot of very interesting learning opportunities for homeschoolers these days. After edit: I just saw this response to the submitted article that opened the thread here http://www.parentatthehelm.com/6666/homeschooling-parent-responds-to-disneys-teacher-of-the-year/ http://www.parentatthehelm.com/6666/homeschooling-parent-res... from a homeschooling parent with even more experience than I have. Her perspective is her own.

jff 15y ago

I can't imagine withholding from my children the type of experience I had in public school. For 8 hours a day I was away from home, among dozens of people my age. I had access to a pretty good library, far better than my small town's public library. I played a school-owned bassoon (these would typically cost over $3000) in our concert band, learned bass drum for marching band, got to go on band trips. I learned leadership and co-operation with a variety of different types of people--ranging from straight-A Mormon girls to poor white kids to Mexican wanna-be gangsters--in class, in band (especially during band camp), and as the eventual captain of the cross country team. I took cooking courses, got to make nitrocellulose in our reasonably well-outfitted science department, dissected pigs, and build my own cluster as an independent study project. All in the public school of my little town of 2,000 people, with around 60 in my graduating class. Classes did not challenge me, but I buckled down, listened to lecture, did my homework in class, and read when there was nothing else to do. As everyone here is so fond of stating, if you're "too smart for school" you can teach yourself in the evenings or even during class--but don't rob your child of the opportunity to try new things, meet people, and for god's sake GET OUT OF THE FUCKING HOUSE FOR A WHILE.

tseabrooks 15y ago
I mentioned above, I went to a fairly good highschool. We didn't have classes on Thursdays in my highschool. Instead we were required to participate in an unpaid internships on Thursday. I volunteered at the local metropolitan "science center" where kids went for field trips and people visited. It was awesome... Almost every other volunteer was a home schooler. My best friend was home schooled (met in college) and he is a concert level pianist and extremely well rounded. Nationally home schoolers get together fairly often and have "home school reunions". You are speaking like someone with little knowledge of and/or interaction with the homeschool population. You seem to have some severe misunderstandings about the homeschool community. I think you should alleviate this large hole in your knowledge before you berate a lifestyle you aren't familiar with.
- jff 15y ago
  I grew up in a small town, so you're right--there weren't many homeschoolers. I think there were two families in the area that homeschooled but later sent their kids to public school for high school. These kids were the stereotype of homeschooled kids: didn't really make friends, didn't interact well with people, got good grades. One was a very nice guy who I became friends with in cross country. Another seemed to be overtaken with the "preacher's son" thing, tended to do crazy stuff and act out once he finally broke away from the house. His sister was a strange, quiet girl who would wear her parka during indoor P.E. so she would get heat exhaustion and be allowed to sit down. The nearest towns to mine were all about 40 minutes away, and not even the largest one had more than 20,000 people--not a big population to draw homeschoolers from. In the case of the homeschoolers I met, I definitely got the impression that their lives had been pretty well isolated, outside of church--religion being the reason they were homeschooled in the first place. I appreciate the way public school throws you into a mix with a bunch of people you would not normally be around. Do homeschool kids sit in the back of the bus and have the weird dude show them how to make a marijuana pipe out of a pepsi can? When you're hanging with other homeschool kids, is there really that much opportunity to learn how to deal with macho cholo bullshit when all you want them to do is load the band truck? To me, it seems like it would generally be a very restricted community: deeply religious people who don't want their children polluted, and parents who are well-off and smart enough to do the teaching themselves. I probably could have learned more academically being homeschooled, but at least where I grew up, public school was the only social game in town, and looking back I am glad I went. When I have kids, there will be serious consideration to homeschooling for a while, but I strongly believe that their first year or two of school and at least some of the middle/high school years should be spent at a public school.