Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
What do you think of homeschooling?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on November 12, 2008, 02:14:49 pm ---However, I worked for 7 years at a museum where we did formal school tours as a big part of the museum's income, and these tours included small groups of homeschoolers as well as homeschool groups just visiting on an informal basis. I saw somewhere around 10,000 schoolkids a year and probably more homeschoolers than parents of homeschoolers see. And one thing that we all noticed was that overall, the homeschooled children were the worst behaved and had the least socialization. The problems that repeated themselves most often involved children who couldn't stand not being the center of attention every minute and children as old as 8 or 9 who were suspicious and fearful of adults outside their families and kids whom you'd describe as "13 going on 7."
--- End quote ---
Thanks for that insight, Marge. You've demonstrated from experience what I only suspected.
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on November 12, 2008, 12:25:15 pm ---Does anybody understand why teachers look the other way as people get bullied? Especially when the kids are little. How are we doing the bullies any good if we let them believe these tactics work beyond the few years they are on the playground? Shouldn't we start teaching them other options as early as possible? Especially since Columbine and other school murders seem to be the revenge of the bullied. We could nip two problems early. And if we are truly going to socialize kids, then let's do it and not just talk about it.
--- End quote ---
That's a good point, too, Clyde, and one about which I should ask a friend who teaches first grade. I can understand a reluctance in the upper or high school grades. A year or so ago we had a teacher here in Philadelphia who had to retire because he was badly hurt when a kid who was bigger than he was threw him against a wall. As for the primary grades, I'd be interested on some input into how teachers may be circumscribed in what they can and cannot do.
serious crayons:
I believe homeschooling should be an option, and I can understand why some parents choose it.
I have often been dismayed by the negative things I've seen my kids absorb from their peers in school: the commercialism, materialism, homophobia, shallow celebrity culture, disrespect for authority, etc. Not that my sons are innocent little angels corrupted by the other kids -- heck, they probably exert it on the other kids at least as much as the other way around -- just that those are elements in the society we live in that run rampant in schools and that I wish I could shield them from.
But I can't. I'm not sure I even want to, because they have to live in that society eventually, anyway, and I'm not sure they can fully deal with it if they haven't any first-hand experience with it. And while I have often been dismayed at the negative aspects of their peer interaction, I think it has at least as many -- well, more, actually -- positive effects.
And I wouldn't have homeschooled my kids in a million years. We would not all have made it through alive. My sons are academically gifted and I have often been disappointed in their schools' abilities to nurture those skills, but on a full-time basis I don't think I could have done it well myself. Without the teaching skills, and without the example of other, more obedient kids, it would have been really, really hard.
But if my kids were bullied, or if I wanted to try to take on the monumental task of raising a child who does not subscribe to cultural values I
oppose, I'd like to have it as an option.
Clyde-B:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 12, 2008, 03:14:29 pm ---I believe homeschooling should be an option, and I can understand why some parents choose it.
I have often been dismayed by the negative things I've seen my kids absorb from their peers in school: the commercialism, materialism, homophobia, shallow celebrity culture, disrespect for authority, etc. Not that my sons are innocent little angels corrupted by the other kids -- heck, they probably exert it on the other kids at least as much as the other way around -- just that those are elements in the society we live in that run rampant in schools and that I wish I could shield them from.
But I can't. I'm not sure I even want to, because they have to live in that society eventually, anyway, and I'm not sure they can fully deal with it if they haven't any first-hand experience with it. And while I have often been dismayed at the negative aspects of their peer interaction, I think it has at least as many -- well, more, actually -- positive effects.
And I wouldn't have homeschooled my kids in a million years. We would not all have made it through alive. My sons are academically gifted and I have often been disappointed in their schools' abilities to nurture those skills, but on a full-time basis I don't think I could have done it well myself. Without the teaching skills, and without the example of other, more obedient kids, it would have been really, really hard.
But if my kids were bullied, or if I wanted to try to take on the monumental task of raising a child who does not subscribe to cultural values I
oppose, I'd like to have it as an option.
--- End quote ---
How do homeschooled kids learn to think for themselves? Running into those negative aspects and discussing them back and forth with parents would seem to me to be good training for evaluating opinions different from their own. I wonder if home schooled kids wind up with similar attitudes to their parents and how they deal with it the first time somebody says, "You're full of shit!"
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on November 12, 2008, 03:26:06 pm ---How do homeschooled kids learn to think for themselves? Running into those negative aspects and discussing them back and forth with parents would seem to me to be good training for evaluating opinions different from their own. I wonder if home schooled kids wind up with similar attitudes to their parents and how they deal with it the first time somebody says, "You're full of shit!"
--- End quote ---
I don't know. I know when I try to impart my own values to my kids, they often respond with "You're full of shit!" Not in those exact words, but still.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 12, 2008, 04:26:25 pm ---I don't know. I know when I try to impart my own values to my kids, they often respond with "You're full of shit!" Not in those exact words, but still.
--- End quote ---
Fresh kids. ... ;D
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version