Parenting Poll Of The Week – Homeschooling?

I’ve been hearing a lot about homeschooling lately. Frankly, I don’t get it. I’m a live and let live kinda guy, so I don’t mind if people want to homeschool their kids. Knock your self out. I just don’t get WHY anyone would want to in the first place.

I can see if maybe you live in the wilderness somewhere, and the nearest school is 50 miles away, it might make sense to homeschool. Or, maybe if you are, in fact, a teacher, and want to give homeschooling a go, I’ll buy it. But those cases aside, I simply do not get it.

Why would you think you could do a better job that an entire building of people whose job it is to teach? And, in the case of public schools, it costs nothing. Why is this bad, again?

I could do my own dry cleaning. I could make my own clothes. I could cut my own hair. I could plow my own roads. I could deliver my own babies. But I choose to let the professionals do it.

So, I pose the question to you…

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10 thoughts on “Parenting Poll Of The Week – Homeschooling?”

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  2. I know plenty of homeschooling families and the job they do is typically better than what a school system is able to provide.

    Much of this has to do with the fact that a parent is likely going to know better how their child learns than a school teacher would.

    While statistics show that homeschooled children generally score better on tests I think the reason parents choose to homschool has less to do with gaining a better education (this end up being a product of homeschooling) and more to do with curbing the influence the rest of the world has on their children when they are in sponge mode.

    Sorry to carry on. Thanks for putting the survey up.

  3. Public school is *not* free.

    You’re paying for it. You’re paying far more for it than you would spend in buying the best curriculums and going on field trips around the world.

    In my area, per pupil spending is more than seven thousand dollars per year.

    I won’t try to explain homeschooling to you, but many people try it because their child is not getting what they need in school, and end up staying with it because they love it.

    It’s working, and working well for more than 2 million kids in the U.S. alone, my family included.

    Do some research and find out why people choose this path. You might be surprised.

  4. I felt the same way as you until we started homeschooling. I don’t know if it is something so apparent until you’ve done it or known people well who are homeschooling.

    There are people certified in early childhood to run childcare centers…they are trained, educated and paid to care for small children. Does this make them more qualified to raise your children than you?

    Education is really only an extension of the parent-child relationship. It isn’t rocket science and there are all kinds of resources to help you.

  5. I’m not sure you should value the handling your dry cleaning, hair cuts and road plowing the same way you value the handling of your children for 12 years.

    If you get a bad cut, it grows out.

    If your shirt gets ruined, buy another one.

    If your child is bullied, molested, poorly educated, has self-esteem damaged…………then what?

  6. //But I choose to let the professionals do it.//

    The professionals fill a very specific role and are trained to deal with situations and an environment I, as a homeschooling mom, will never have to deal with. I could most definitely NOT do a professional teacher’s job better than a professional teacher. But I can do a very good job as a homeschooling parent. It’s a very different role and demands different skills. You check with teachers-turned-homeschoolers on this.

    I do want to invite you over to my blog. You can get a good sense of what we do in the run of a day and I link to some excellent blogs by other homeschoolers (and even teachers). The best way to find out about us and our motivations (which are different with each family) is simply to peek in on us! :)

    I’d like to invite you over to my blog

  7. I’m homeschooling my son the first 5 years of his life. After that, I am going to proudly drop him off at Kindy. It’s for the betterment (is that a word) for everyone!

    Look at it like this…you’re really homeschooling your boys right now. :)

    p.s. i loved the comments. i had NO idea homeschooling was this serious. i need to look more into this. or should i?

  8. Why not if you find it interesting? I think that even for parents who don’t intend to homeschool there’s a lot going on in homeschooling circles that they may find interesting!

  9. Coming from someone who has been homeschooled himself, I think homeschooling has many advantages.

    I was homeschooled for a year back in high school. What I liked best about homeschooling over traditional schools was that I was able to work at my own pace. If there was a subject that I already completely knew, then I could just blow through it in a couple of weeks. Why drag it out over a semester or even a year? And if there was a subject that was just difficult for me to understand, I could take as long as I wanted to finish the course. I didn’t have to force myself to learn such and such in a set amount of time and then take a test when I only knew half the material, like I would have to in a traditional school. I was able to take tests when I felt that I thoroughly knew the material.

    And adding to that, stuff happens. That’s how life is. You get sick. A family member dies. You miss school because of it. In traditional schooling, you have to make up whatever you missed, while trying to play catch up with the rest of the class on the new material. With homeschooling, you pick up right where you left off. Nothing is missed.

    Also, just because its someone’s job to do something, doesn’t mean they are good at it. I had many teachers in my days of elementary, junior high, high school, and even college, who, for lack of a better word, sucked. They just didn’t make learning interesting at all. And it wasn’t the subjects they taught, it was the way they taught the subjects. They had lack of enthusiasm, lack of motivation, amongst other things.

    The only downside I see to homeschooling is the lack of being able to socialize with friends as you would with traditional schooling. So for a parent considering home schooling for their child, I would suggest to get him/her involved in local activities. That way, he/she isn’t sitting in the house all day every day.

    Hope that provided some insight for you!

  10. Re: Greg’s comment “I would suggest to get him/her involved in local activities. That way, he/she isn?t sitting in the house all day every day.”

    To help with lessons, home schooling households take field trips sometimes more often than traditional schools ;-) so there’s no sitting in the house all day. Getting involved in local activities is a plus as well. Just had to throw that in.

    Now…

    I’m for home schooling although we probably will send our child(ren) to traditional schools. One of the reasons I would want to home school is because of what a lot of traditional schools have become. I’ve gone to schools full of bad influences and idiotic teachers. It just depends on the area that you are living in whether public school would be beneficial to your child or not which is the reason we will be very selective when choosing schools for our child(ren). If we have to home school, then we will. I will stop there because I don’t want to steal the spotlight from Greg ;-).

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