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I have to admit that I'm not all that familiar with home schooling. I'm kind of curious, though. I can understand parents teaching their kids to read or simple math, but I just don't know that many parents who can teach, say, advanced British Lit and Calculus 3/4. Heck, the teachers at our high school can barely do that. I'm sure there are some great PhD-class parents out there, but my impression is that many home school parents may not even have a bachelor's degree.

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - 11:04 am: Edit

While it is true that some states only require a GED or high school diploma to teach, I think that most parents do have college degrees. Even with advanced degrees, it sometimes becomes difficult to teach your child advanced courses do to your own lack of knowledge on the subject. I’ve heard many parents say that they learn right along with their child.

Homeschooling has come a long way in the last twenty years and is not restricted to just Mom teaching the children at the kitchen table. When parents find they can no longer be of much help to their child academically, there are several avenues they can take. Many try to oversee their children’s independent study of the subject or sign them up for courses taught by other homeschooling parents. Some enroll their pupil in a course or two at the local public high school. Finally, when these avenues are exhausted, they look for online private high schools or community college courses.

By Doubtful on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 10:38 pm: Edit

Interesting points, Nathan. Do you suppose that homeschooling works because parents and students that aren't committed and motivated, or simply lack the knowledge or ability, stop homeschooling before the challenges of high school? Seems like it would be a lot easier to cope in the elementary grades.

I've been in classes where the teacher seems to be one chapter ahead of the class, and the experience is usually a lot worse than one with a teacher who knows the stuff cold. I suppose there can be some compensation in a home school situation, where the student interacts far more with the teacher. Kind of the "learn by teaching" approach. I guess I'm still a bit doubtful.

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Thursday, September 06, 2001 - 06:01 pm: Edit

Yes Doubtful. I do think that those who lack the motivation to continue homeschooling, which is a major commitment of time and money, drop out after a year or two and certainly before high school. Elementary school is much easier to teach because you are only dealing with basic mathematics and language courses.

To answer your second paragraph, there are many parents who are “one chapter ahead” of their students. I know that my mother, when I was being traditionally taught, had a difficult time in the science and mathematics areas. She compensated for this by concentrating on one subject at a time. We would do history for a week for three hours, then do biology for a week, and so on. My father was the math teacher, and we only had that class once a week. This system worked out great for me and I learned a lot more than I had been learning in the public school system.

The key to homeschooling is knowing the student, knowing the teacher, and finding the best way to meet the needs of both while keeping it interesting.

By Doubful on Sunday, September 16, 2001 - 09:27 am: Edit

Another question - do homeschooled kids ever get athletic scholarships? I know that most high school athletes, even pretty good ones, don't end up with a free ride anywhere. Even so, if a kid is reasonably athletic it seems worth the effort to try. I'm sure homeschool kids can find ways to play many sports, but will they get recruited?

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Sunday, September 16, 2001 - 10:02 am: Edit

It is interesting that you would ask that question. Indeed, homeschoolers can get athletic scholarships. A friend of mine got a 3,000 dollars a year baseball scholarship (the maximum allowed for a Division Three school) . True, that is division three, but that is the type of school he was looking to attend. He apparently played AABC and on a semi-professional baseball team of some kind. It can happen.

By anonMA on Thursday, September 20, 2001 - 07:41 am: Edit

How can a homeschool athlete participate in team sports? Can they be a walk-on for other schools' varsity teams? My opinion is that if you're a good athlete, your chances of being noticed are nil if you are homeschooled. Is that true?

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Thursday, September 20, 2001 - 08:04 am: Edit

As I said in my post above, homeschoolers do get recruited, but it is rare.

Generally, homeschoolers are banned from participating in teams sponsored by the local school district. However, they can play on YMCA teams, as well as local teams that aren’t school sponsored.

By W23 on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 07:49 pm: Edit

Are there any h-s magazines or other non-"e" information sources out there? Do you subscribe to any?

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Friday, October 05, 2001 - 10:01 pm: Edit

If your a member of the HSLDA, you get a magazine. I think there is a magazine my mom subscribes to that is homeschool related. I personally don't know of any student-geared magazines.

By anonomom on Tuesday, October 09, 2001 - 08:06 pm: Edit

Nathan, what is a typical school day like for you? Do you have "recess," study hall, or any of the usual routines of public school students? Is your schedule pretty rigid or does it slip now and then due to local family circumstances? Thanks for the information.

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Tuesday, October 09, 2001 - 09:46 pm: Edit

Well, I'm not traditionally homeschooled anymore, but when I was, I generally had "school" from 9AM-12PM (unless we had an appointment, which cut into that time). I would then do "homework" after lunch until I was done. The schedule of course was flexible and varied regularly.

Now, the fact that I'm generally only assigned (on average) three assigments per day, I have a more flexible schedule. My parents make me start school at 9, but when I'm done with my homework (there is no "schoolwork"), I'm done. I am generally off by noon or one in the afternoon. I then have the option of working ahead or just doing something else.

By anonomom on Wednesday, October 10, 2001 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Do you think 3 hours per school day is enough to get a good education? Some critics of the public school systems think 180 days of classes that run from 8-3 aren't enough for the public kids. Is your approach to get through your curriculum as fast as possible to "get it over with," or does your phrase "working ahead" imply that you eagerly seek new challenges? (No offense intended by any of these statements!)

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Wednesday, October 10, 2001 - 04:58 pm: Edit

Well, my current curriculum is from an independent organization. What I didn't say was my school callendar for this year is 183 days long. As far as traditional homeschooling goes, it is just you and the teacher (your mom usually). So, there is little review of last year's material (unless you need it) and once you understand a concept, you aren't subjected to having to listen to a teacher explain it six other ways. One more thing-you don't have all the social distractions going on in homeschooling as you do in the publics. I think three hours for a student like me is plenty. Some need more, some need less, but my schedule works for me.

By Dadster on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 09:11 am: Edit

Yeah, if you add up all the time wasted in a normal school day it's easy to believe that three focused hours would be more than adequate to keep up with today's typical HS curriculum.

On the other hand, when I was in HS I probably spent that much time on homework, on average...

How do you spend the rest of your time, Nathan? Do you have specific "enrichment" time blocked out (e.g., museums, libraries, etc.?) Do you come back to your studies later in the day for "homework"? That is kind of a redundancy, I guess, but it might take advantage of what psychologists call distributed learning. (Multiple short learning sessions generally outperform fewer, longer sessions.)

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 11:19 am: Edit

I'm pretty lazy, actually. Many times, I do come back and do extra assignments (work ahead). Mostly, I just surf the web, watch tv, or read books (Jeff Shaara, religious texts, etc.) I try to do some outside learning, as I don't always take a lot of new information from my classes.

By Dave Berry on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 11:40 am: Edit

Dadster:

>>On the other hand, when I was in HS I probably spent that much time on homework, on average...<<

Was this during the same period when you had to walk seven miles to school through chest-high snow--uphill in both directions? LOL!

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 02:46 pm: Edit

LOL, Dave!

By Dadster on Friday, October 12, 2001 - 01:20 pm: Edit

>>Was this during the same period when you had to walk seven miles to school through chest-high snow--uphill in both directions?<<

How did you know I lived near Magic Mountain, where cars roll uphill? Unfortunately, I had to walk downhill both ways.

By N. Cole Canada on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 04:24 pm: Edit

I would like to ask the student here who answers questions if he or his parents have ever heard any of the following accusations or questions. I found these on a website while doing research. I'm trying to decide if homeschooling would be good or bad for my children. Thank you.

From the website:

- You're not qualified to teach.

- Taking all of the home school kids out has damaged the government schools.

- Home schooling children damages the government schools by taking away needed funds.

- What happens if your child wants to go to college?

- Your child's education will be inferior.

- Elementary school may be OK but you're not qualified to teach all of the high school material.

- It must be difficult to teach more than one level at the same time.

- Who will recognize their diploma?

- What about PE (phys ed.), Driver's education?

- What about them not having enough competition from other kids challenging them to do their best?

- How will you know you are teaching the right things and at the right times?

- How will you teach your kids the lab sciences?

- You can't possibly give the quality of education that is received by children in the government schools.

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 06:47 pm: Edit

Yes, I’ve heard a few of these directly, and have heard about most of the rest. I’ll try and answer these in short bits.

- You're not qualified to teach.
* If a parent isn’t qualified to teach his or her child, the state won’t allow him or her to teach. Most states require the parent to have at least a GED.
- Taking all of the home school kids out has damaged the government schools.
- Homeschooling children damages the government schools by taking away needed funds.
* There are only about one million homeschooling families in this country. The government has been hurt by private schools more than anything else. Maybe the lack of funding will force public schools to re-evaluate what they throw money at.
- What happens if your child wants to go to college?
* They do their research, and come to people like Dave_Berry, here at College Confidential, for help. Thousands of homeschoolers have realized their dream of a college education and have enjoyed their experiences.
- Your child's education will be inferior.
* This may only be the case if the parent is the only one who ever teaches the child.
- Elementary school may be OK but you're not qualified to teach all of the high school material.
* Again, if a parent isn’t qualified to teach, s/he won’t be allowed to teach.
- It must be difficult to teach more than one level at the same time.
* Yes, but it is done all the time. This should not be a deterring factor. If a parent has the time and is willing to work hard, then all the more power to him or her.
- Who will recognize their diploma?
* This depends upon the state in which you reside.
- What about PE (phys ed.), Driver's education?
* PE can be accomplished by participating in team sports, and recreation around the house. Driver’s education classes are not provided by many public schools.
- What about them not having enough competition from other kids challenging them to do their best?
* Many times, the only competition you can find in public school is who can score the most points in Chinese Football.
- How will you know you are teaching the right things and at the right times?
*Many states give guidelines as to what you should cover, and there are tons of pre-packaged curricula (text books, chapter books, work books, and lesson guides included) available to parents who want them.
- How will you teach your kids the lab sciences?
* Admittedly, difficult to do on your own without a heavy background in science. Many parents send their high school kids to outside classrooms for science.
- You can't possibly give the quality of education that is received by children in the government schools.
* Nothing can replace the one-on-one attention that a parent can give to his or her child. There are no outside distractions (re: Chinese Football playoffs), and the parent is able to teach to the child’s learning style.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! That’s what I am here for!

By N. Cole Canada on Saturday, December 01, 2001 - 07:11 pm: Edit

Wow, I just happened to check back here for a minute and found your great answers. I heard that answers come fast on this board, but I didn't expect mine to get here this fast. Thanks, Nathan!

Yes, I do have ONE question: What the heck is "Chinese Football"? (I hope I'm not being politically incorrect by asking that.)

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Sunday, December 02, 2001 - 03:20 pm: Edit

I don’t mind political incorrectness, so long as it isn’t out and out racism (and Chinese Football is not racist). I think people should be able to speak their minds, within certain limitations, without the thought police howling at them. I am not sure where the name originated from, but “Chinese Football” is an American football like game played on a tabletop. The “football” is usually a piece of paper taped in such a way that it forms a triangle. Hands form goal posts for field goals. You “kick” the field goal by teeing up the triangle and flicking it. Not sure about any of the other rules, but I think you’ll get the basic idea.

By Snowman on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 04:36 pm: Edit

Hi, Nathan. I thought about you and other homeschoolers last week when we had a heavy snowfall here. One of the big disadvantages to going to school at home is that you can never get a snow day, unless your parents just want to declare one--as in, "SHOVEL THE DRIVEWAY!" Too bad. :-(

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 07:40 pm: Edit

True, but the local district hasn't had any snow days thus far and I suspect they won't this year. Personally, I don't miss the snow days, as I've already taken too many days off this year.

By Dadster on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 12:43 pm: Edit

Following up on Snowman's post, Nathan, are homeschoolers prone to getting pressed into service whenever there is a need - e.g., baby-sitting for a younger sibling, mowing the grass, etc.?

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 01:22 pm: Edit

Oh, yes Dadster. I do my fair share of runs to the store to buy things. I often have to pick my brother up from school, drive him to work, or pick him up at night. I am a procrastinator, so it isn’t all that bad though.

By Lynn Walker on Sunday, January 27, 2002 - 04:40 pm: Edit

I homeschooled my two girls for over 10 years. Both are in public high school now, one a senior and one a sophomore. I am a credentialed teacher and now work supervising homeschooled student/families and teaching very part-time at an onsite Independent Study Charter.

Nate, you have answered the questions quite well. I do have to correct your unequivocal statement that homeschool parents have to have at least a GED. This is not the case in California, and there are some other states that do not have such a requirement. Unfortunately, I have known parents who, IMHO, do not have enough educational background/book knowledge to be teaching their kids at home. These would be the homeschooling families who give this form of alternative education a bad name.

This is an interesting forum. I'll try to drop in when I can to add my two cents, but you seem to be doing a good job of explaining homeschooling and don't need my help. I may be able to add a homeschooling parent's and teacher's perspective.

By Roger (Roger) on Sunday, January 27, 2002 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Thanks for dropping by, Lynn, and welcome to College Confidential. You sound like the kind of homeschool parent that could give the practice a GOOD name!

I'm curious, though. Why did you opt for a public high school for your kids? ECs & athletics? Or academic reasons? How did they adapt to HS after being home schooled? Did any of your fellow homeschool parents consider you a traitor?

By Lynn Walker on Monday, January 28, 2002 - 03:49 pm: Edit

I don't think they think I am a traitor, but some probably think I'm crazy. I've had the questions/comments: "How can you expose your girls to those awful kids?" "They'll pick up liberal ideas!" "What if they start hanging out with the wrong kids?" "Don't they teach SEX and DRUGS in the State Requirements class?" (These are just an sampling.)

My husband and I had a variety of reasons for wanting the girls in public high school. 1) We wanted them to hear other people's opinions and have the chance to discuss issues. When parents homeschool they have to understand that they have their own biases. That's okay when your kids are young--you undoubtedly want them to believe what you believe. This isn't just philosophical issues, but they should get a chance to discuss viewpoints of what they have read. In a good lit class, for example, a discussion is going to reveal things that perhaps your child didn't think about when s/he read the selection. They need to know that other people view things differently than they do. This broadens the mind, which I understand isn't something all homeschool parents are in favor of. 2) The high school has AP and Honors classes in science and language which we could not teach at home. Both my girls have taken math and German at the community college, but these subjects stick better when they go to class everyday (especially foreign language). Group classes that can't be offered at home are available in high school, such as drama, choir and marching band (my kids have been involved in all of them). 3) We wanted them to have typical high school experiences, e.g., dances, football games, cheerleading, school sports, yearbooks, clubs, drama productions, debate, etc. where they worked together with age peers rather than with adults (a common occurrence in homeschooling). 4) We wanted to make the transition from high school to college easier, paperwork-wise and otherwise. One of the things I've noticed in supervising homeschooled high schoolers is that they are used to individualized attention to the point that they can't figure out what they need to do to get a task done without being told. Perhaps I haven't stated that well, but they seem to need to be guided through everything. Having a recognized courseload of AP/Honors classes and a high school transcript makes the college admissions process easier. Homeschoolers are making great strides at navigating the college admissions process, but too many colleges are still asking the homeschoolers to jump through hoops before they will consider them.

My girls made an easy transition from homeschooling to high school. We gave them a strong moral compass at home and we continue to do so. They have chosen good kids for friends and there have been no problems with them picking up the "bad kids'" attitudes or habits. Both are straight-A students. My daughter who is a senior is a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist, Chief Justice of the Judiciary Council, plays bass drum in the marching band, has played varsity tennis and gymnastics, is on the Varsity Academic Decathlon Team, a Governor's Scholar, Principal's Honor Roll, Scholarship Federation, Academic Letter, and Secretary of Interact Club. My sophomore daughter is a cheerleader, has placed first in dramatic interpretation at regional debate tournaments, has one of the bigger roles in the upcoming spring musical drama production, accompanies the Concert Choir on piano, Scholarship Federation, Principal's Honor Roll, and is active in a several clubs. She also teaches piano, is a cub reporter for our local t.v. station, and is an advanced tap dancer. So, you see, transitions were easy for them. Keeping them busy is the key--no time to get into trouble even if they wanted to.

Now the question is: Would they have been as successful had they not homeschooled in their early years? Homeschooling certainly does give kids some extra time to develop lots of other talents.

By R Storm (Anonrs) on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 04:58 am: Edit

Hi Lynn, welcome aboard.

I was surprised with your observation that many homeschooled kids seemed to need to be guided through many things -- I thought that homeschooling was supposed to and did tend to develop, encourage and support an independent streak. I'm also curious about something that Nathan said that he has observed -- that many high school homeschool kids don't seem particularly interested in 4-year colleges (he wondered if perhaps they were feeling burned out from CC, etc?) Among your homeschool circle, have you found this lack of interest in college to be common? If so, what do you attribute it to?

Also, among your homeschool community -- what do homeschool kids who ARE interested in a 4-year college do for guidance / counseling? Who do they use for teacher recs? What do homeschool parents provide in place of the school profile?

By Dadster on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 10:39 am: Edit

Welcome, Lynn... I really appreciate your open-minded approach to home schooling and education in general. "They need to know that other people view things differently than they do" doesn't seem to be a common viewpoint among many homeschool parents, unless you add "and these other people are totally wrong" at the end of the sentence!

There was a discussion of open and closed minds in the Islamic Home Schooling thread. Needless to say, homeschool parents aren't the only concern - public and private school teachers, school administrators, textbook authors, etc. can all be guilty of presenting one-sided information.

By Lynn Walker on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 09:09 pm: Edit

This is an answer to R. Storm:

How independent a kid is in their approach to learning would depend on what approach the parent took when homeschooling that student. When I was homeschooling my girls, I spent some time working with them--more so when they were younger--but many assignments were just written down and they looked in the assignment book and completed their work. Often my assignments were open-ended which gave them the option of choosing how to approach the topic or to decide the emphasis or focus of the topic. As I work with homeschool families and in other families I knew when I was homeschooling, the parent does EVERYTHING with the child. This isn't a healthy approach, IMO. In a classroom, children cannot get the kind of attention that they get with individualized homeschooling being taught by Mom or Dad. A wonderful advantage of homeschooling IS the individualized curriculum, but parents need to give a kid some space, too.

At the school site where our homeschooled families come two times a week for core classes, the majority of the kids want constant reinforcement that what they are completing is "right" or "okay." They often need to be guided through every step of completing a task. I'm making general statements here. A couple of my families are wonderful about giving their kids room to learn on their own. I would imagine the child's personality plays a big role in this, too. Perhaps there is some correlation between certain personality types and homeschooling (but I rather doubt it).

My advice would be that, if you are going to homeschool, make sure that your child is given an opportunity to explore subjects on their own and that you give them independent projects that you refuse to look at until complete. This will force the student to be more independent. Imagine an adult who constantly has to run to a supervisor at work for feedback and reinforcement in the workplace? Not an amusing thought!

I'm not sure that my community is typical re homeschooled kids. That makes answering these questions difficult. No, the vast majority of homeschooled high schoolers in my community are not interested in attending a 4-year college. Some will go to our community college. Then again, the percentage of high schoolers in our public school (which is a large, regional high school) who attend 4-year colleges is also quite small. I live in a town of about 60,000 which is progressing toward becoming an urban area, but is traditionally agricultural. In other words, there hasn't been a big emphasis on education. That is changing and though the school provides many AP/Honors courses for college prep, percentage-wise, few take advantage of the opportunity. Were you to pose this question to a homeschool teacher/parent in a large metropolitan area, you probably would get a different answer.

And, finally, your question about guidance counseling. This is such a big issue with me! No, the homeschooled high schoolers are not receiving the guidance counseling they need. Perhaps, this is another reason there aren't more of them headed off to college. It takes either a motivated parent or a great counselor to help a good student navigate the admissions process as it exists today. As a matter of fact, this is such an issue with me, that I will be beginning my coursework to earn my certification in College Counseling through UCLA Extension online next quarter. One of my target groups will be homeschoolers!

By Lynn Walker on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 09:27 pm: Edit

Dadster,

There are definitely slants from teachers as well as textbooks, the media, college professors, etc. I think the real wonderful thing about exposure to other ideas in high school and college is what comes from the other students, not the teachers. The teachers should be there to moderate and guide those discussions--NOT enforce their opinions (though that does happen, unfortunately). Kids in their teens and twenties are thinking through their ideas and if they vocalize their thoughts, they can really get each other thinking deeply about life and other topics.

By Sam on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 10:22 am: Edit

Great attitude, Lynn, I agree completely. I think many homeschool parents don't WANT their kids to get ideas from their peers, or teachers, or anyone who disagrees with them. I think this is shortsighted and hinders development of critical thinking skills. It's far better to have an interplay of conflicting ideas than to be told "this is the only way to think about this topic".

I can understand their concern. If you were trying to get your kid to believe in creationism, and your primary basis was a belief system, you might not want the kid exposed to the massive weight of evidence that supports evolution. Eventually, though, the kids won't be sheltered, so why not let them work through these issues themselves?

By Nathan (Homeschool) on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Well, this thread is going very well. Welcome Lynn- it’s nice to have a homeschool teacher on the board finally. I do appreciate the help, as some of the questions I’ve gotten have been rather difficult to answer.

I have to agree with Lynn’s major points. Her reasons for enrolling her daughters into a public high school were the same reasons my parents had for doing the same with me. I’m glad your situation has worked out better than mine did. I also agree with her on the woeful college admissions process for homeschoolers. Frankly, the majority of schools need a major overhaul in their practices and requirements (if they have any set requirements).

Lastly, I agree that handholding seems to occur far too much in the homeschool community. If the parent supervises everything, then what is the point of homeschooling him? Put him back in regular school where a teacher can look over his shoulder ever two minutes! However an even balance needs to exist, as some students require the extra attention a one-on-one environment provides. I think it is up to the parents to figure out what is best for their student and to strive for that. Hopefully they will do a better job of that in the future.

By Sam on Friday, February 01, 2002 - 09:02 am: Edit

>>Put him back in regular school where a teacher can look over his shoulder ever two minutes<<

I'm not so sure about that, at least as relates to the typical public school. IMO there's not a lot of handholding unless the kid really seeks it out, or the teacher is unusually attentive.

By Carly_Corday on Saturday, February 02, 2002 - 01:38 pm: Edit

Three years ago I took my youngest (of 5) out of public school in the middle of 5th grade and started homeschooling. From kindergarten onward, teachers had been pushing us to "try Ritalin" - not because of behavior problems (my son is well-behaved, a sparkling, friendly, eager kid), but inattention. Every evening after school, the kid and I stayed up doing piles of school work he hadn't finished during class time, in addition to homework. We stayed up later and later as he got older, avoiding Ritalin, striving to do by the sweat of our brow what Ritalin would supposedly do easily. He developed sleep problems. I'd find him wide awake at two in the morning, complaining that he could not fall asleep. Mornings, he became almost impossible to rouse. Also, I found myself teaching him everything, every day, while he learned zilch in school. Time constraints made it impossible to actually keep up, however. His grades slipped finally from C's and D's to D's and F's. On school papers he brought home, I saw spelling and grammatical errors and illegible handwriting by teachers, even incorrect "facts" in geography. I gathered material to show the principal, explained that if I could have my son FULL-TIME to "do my part as a parent" instead of only AFTER time wasted sitting in school, I could catch him up to grade level. The man consented instantly, though I have a high school diploma only, a year of fun in college, have published several romance novels and used to contribute rants to the opinion page of our local newspaper with which the principal happened to heartily agree, hee hee.

I found while raising the other 4 that public schools expect parents to do a large part of the teaching anyway, without thought to what lack of education parents may have, how hard they work scratching out a living, or how many siblings there are in the family.

Home school has gone splendidly for us. It's brought back buried memories of how my father, not my school(s), taught me everything I've learned. I was the same kind of inattentive slacker in school that my youngest son is. School was a nightmare for me. Home is where the heart is. )

And yes, with us too, in many areas Mom learns along with Son. It's remarkably easy, a challenge, and enjoyable. Our hours are laid back. My son sleeps nights. He continues to socialize with kids he knew in school. Every weekend, the house is full or else he's away. Last night he went skating, this morning he went bowling, all by invitation from good friends who faithfully include him.

Here's a challenge: Ask any public school honor roll kid if the year 1492 means anything to him/her.

I've enjoyed these posts! Thank you, Nathan.

By Roger (Roger) on Monday, April 01, 2002 - 09:57 am: Edit

In case you are looking for the cost-related posts, I set them up in their own thread here: Costs of Homeschooling.

By Heartcross (Heartcross) on Friday, April 04, 2003 - 11:05 pm: Edit

I just found this board and can't resist adding my 2 cents...How can hsing work?--well, for us, very well. We're less than a month from graduating our oldest (we have five children). She's had a close walk with the Lord, a good education, many friends, lots of sports activities, is an idependent learner and has been admitted to the college of her choice on a nice scholarship.

We chose the "eclectic" route of hsing. We pulled from many different sources---college orchestra and other classes (she's Concert Mistress), private music teachers, ps sports, 4-H, state orchestras, outside jobs (she's a library clerk, runs a dog show, is a lifeguard, trains horses and is a private music teacher) and rec dept classes. She can run the household by herself if necessary, and yes, sometimes even gets drafted into running younger siblings around! She's currently off in another town, coaching the highschool boys' diving team. She will graduate our hs with over 30 hours of college credits. Am I bragging?--no, I just want to point out that the highschool years are what they make of them.

Another family here in town has gone the "unschooling" route. Their oldest is headed on sort of a world tour this year as he can fly for free (his mom works for a large airline) before he heads back to dramatic arts school where he spent last summer... His highschool years looked very different than my dd's, but they've both been successful. Neither of these children have been "spoon-fed", but have been exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. Probably one of the most important things a student can learn is where to find the information they need--books, other people, classes, whatever! Can I teach everything my children need to know? Of course not, but once to the highschool years, MY job is mainly to find resources for them. My dd's senior year has included a semester of college physics (to transfer next year) that she chose to take the second semester of--it was interesting--a semester of college biology, Latin (at home, on computer), college orchestra, highschool swim team, a madrigal group at the college, several jobs, history and writing at home. History consists of reading a large number of biographies, some textbooks, newspapers, magazines, speakers, etc.

Concerning guidance counselors---well, I remember getting NO help from my highschool counselor. Most hsing parents I've met, are putting in FAR more time and energy that our local fellow is. Oh, he's great if you're one of the three top students in the school, but there's nothing for the others...

I hope that parents and students that want to chose the hs route for their children do not become discouraged by the highschool years. These are the years we get to enjoy the hard work of the previous years! We know our children well and now is the time to appreciate the young adults they've become. I love hsing highschool and I'm looking forward to the next 3 years with my 14yo. And then doing it all over again with her younger brother and sisters.

By Eri (Eri) on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 03:03 am: Edit

Well, many students, like myself, have private tutors which allows them to study things in great depth and be able to receive actual credit for courses (if done through an accredited private institution).

I have to agree that many parents shouldn't homeschool their kids, because many of them wouldn't know where to begin starting in high school years. But a lot of students are able to be independent of their parents and buy textbooks online or in bookstores that allow them to learn on their own.

What I have found in my year of independent study (I don't call it homeschool because my mom doesn't teach me, I have tutors), is that because I was always such an independent student anyway, I am able to teach things to myself with little need for the tutor, which totally helps reduce tutoring hours (costs!). It's actually quite common in "homeschooled" students to become independent and take up intellectual interests of their own, which leads to checking out/buying books; which leads to learning a great deal about a subject.

Something I understand, but don't agree with, is unschooling. I find it very difficult to see how a child with no guidance whatsoever could ever begin to thrive in a college situation, if that is the goal. But I will give these parents the benefit of the doubt in their decisions.

HTH
Erika

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 11:51 am: Edit

As Eri indicated, the term "homeschooling" doesn't really fit many families' situations. It conjurs up an image of mom at the kitchen table "teaching" the kid something which she already knows. This is not the reality for many homeschooled kids, particularly teens. By the teen years, most homeschoolers are teaching themselves, taking college courses, working with tutors, doing internships, gaining life experiences, etc. The parents' role becomes one of finding appropriate resources and opportunities, and making sure that the teen is reasonably on track to accomplish their goals.

By Leia (Leia) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 12:30 am: Edit

I haven't had time to read all of these great posts yet - i'm hoping to set aside a few hours in the afternoon tomorrow amidst studying for APs {sg}. However, to give my thoughts on the original question..

Many encounter this problem, and one solution is, as has been mentioned i'm sure, online schooling. Schools such as Regina Coeli Academy and The Potter's School(both with Christian/Catholic affiliations) supplement the homeschooling process by helping out with specific high-level subjects the homeschooling parents may not be able to cover fully by themselves. One can take the full gamut of high-school courses offered, or take as many (or as few) as desired.

Regina Coeli/ISLAS info can be found at www.islas.org

The Potter's School can be found at www.pottersschool.com


Though i did not personally attend these schools for the full Sept - May school year(instead, i took two fantastic online summer courses) i know many, many students who have had great success with this route. It's basically homeschooling, but with a couple college courses (with a Christian/homeschooling focus) to supplement that which is difficult or impossible for the student to cover on his own.

I was homeschooled from 2nd - 8th grade, and the impact homeschooling has had on my personality, my education, and my whole outlook on life is...to understate, enormous. I'm just incredibly grateful that i was able to grow, learn, and become an individual, at home, with my family, independent of secular influences. Now that i'm in a public high school(a senior), i can make the right decisions for me without cowtowing to the mainstream and feeling dumb/stupid/embarrassed/guilty about it. In short, homeschooling helped me become my own person, and once independence was tasted, i never looked back. Even within the confines, the prison{sg}, that is high school, that vision, of sitting in my pajamas on the living room couch reading the Divine Comedy - where the appreciation for literature and the classics all began - was never lost. Basically, i learned how to learn on my own. I still do.

Always will.

Eek. Getting melodramatic here. Anywho, yeah, homeschooling really works for some people, and online schooling may be what you're looking for. :-)

By Yourlocalmayor (Yourlocalmayor) on Monday, May 12, 2003 - 06:55 pm: Edit

I was homeschooled from half way through 1st-8th grade. Great stuff. Blah, now I'm at UNC-CH, so screw all you haters out there!

By Magenta (Magenta) on Friday, September 12, 2003 - 08:55 pm: Edit

Erika, you likely won't see this as it was months ago when you posted, but all the same, I will note that unschooling doesn't mean "no guidance whatsoever" to most unschoolers, from what I can tell. I consider our son to have been more of an "unschooler" than anything else for a couple years before starting college at age 9 (prior, he was a "school at home" homeschooler using the Calvert School curriculum), and he has done very well at college (like at age 9 in a pre-med biology course, he was in the 99th percentile in a class where over 300 students registered and scored number 2 on the day of the final, and had he had the weighting of an honors section student - they had the same exact exams but discussion counted for more - our son would have been number one in the class; we often don't know his ranking in classes as the school has instituted a rule prohibiting the posting of grades in recent years, but professors have from time to time emailed him and told him he had the highest grade on finals).

Thanks for giving us the benefit of the doubt.

By Eri (Eri) on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 01:14 pm: Edit

no problem. I did write that a while back...

I think it is excellent that your son did/is doing so well. What I meant to say was that unschooling lacks the guidance necessary to go on to higher education IN MOST CASES THAT I HAVE SEEN OR HEARD OF.

I think if someone has the kind of will power to choose one's own educational path, then go for it; I think it's great when unschooling is done successfully.

I guess I could kind of be considered an unschooler in many ways, mainly because I chose my educational path, even if it was very similar to the path I planned to take at my old prep school.

Peace,
Erika

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 02:46 pm: Edit

I don't consider anyone who has had many years of Calvert OR parochial schooling to be an "unschooler" in any sense of the word. They are 180 degrees apart... more so than what passes for public schooling in most cases!

The Calvert curriculum which we used for our daughters K-8 and the parochial schooling that my wife was exposed to for 17 years (figure that one out...) are both conservative, tried and true, solid programs. Unschooling would have none of that. In many ways, public schools---with their shifting about with the tides and trying anything as long as it's new---is far more like unschooling than it is like Calvert or parochial education.

Just another not-too-humble opinion.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 12:06 pm: Edit

I agree that Calvert is 180 different from unschooling, which is why I wrote that *prior* to unschooling, he used the Calvert curriculum which is school at home versus unschooling. He didn't use Calvert for many years, though, just till age 6 or 7 (I'd have to check the exact date he finished the 4th grade, as that is when we stopped using a formal curriculum...our son asked to stop at age 6 while in 4th grade, I know, as he pointed out that he didn't understand why he should leave reading the college engineering textbook friends of the family gave him, where he was actually learning something new, to go do Calvert's 4th grade program, where he wasn't learning much that was new, and we did ask that he at least finish what was begun and finish the 4th grade, but I can't recall if he did that at 6 or 7). Granted, he started college soon after turning 9, so his "unschooling" time was less than his Calvert (what I would call formal - though not traditional in te form of a classroom being used - education) time. And thinking more on it, he even had *some* formal education right after turning 8 as he took a Hopkins distance learning algebra I class as well as for awhile being in a math class at an institute for gifted math students, but that was his highest level of formal math training before jumping into calculus at age 9 in college - and the year between algebra I and calculus in college was actually not even a year of unschooling in math, but no math (which I don't think really hurt him, but in retrospect, it was stupid to see his math SAT score at age 8 and react with, "Wow, you are farther ahead in math than we realized, so why you don't you just do math for a year" when we sure didn't look at his verbal score, also quite good, and say, "Wow, you are farther ahead in verbal skills than we realized, so why don't you not read any books or magazines for a year"). Teachers in traditional schools make mistakes, and home school parents do, too.

But back to Erika, I would actually expect the percentage of homeschoolers to have a college education to be less than that of traditionally educated students because they aren't followers who buy the line of typical society in general and so likely question more whether college is necessary like so many say it is. Or they might be more likely to get a college degree as a greater percentage of homeschooling parents have college degrees than parents of school aged children in general. If anyone can find the stats are to how many homeschooled people go on to earn college degrees, I'd be curious to see it. All I can find is a source (www.athomeinamerica.com/Article_4YearStudy.mv) stating that of the 53 home schooled adults University of Michigan could track down for a study, over 40% attended college (but it doesn't say if that means graduated from college or merely attended) and 15% had completed a graduate degree (which makes it seem like the over 40% was for completing a college degree, but again, it's not clear). I know in the general population, only about 25% of Americans have college degrees and I think 8-10% have a graduate degree (again, if anyone finds the exact figures here, share them). The truly (to me) interesting thing, though, is that these 53 people had an average age of only 32 and yet about two-thirds of them were self-employed. According to http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:tRNo0Y22ZP0J:www.labor.state.ak.us/research/trends/jul03selfemployment.pdf+Census+percent+self-employed&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
in 2000, only 6.6% of Americans were self-employed, and this means home-schoolers were self-employed 10 times as often as the general population! And these aren't people just doing crafts and working alone as it notes that most provided employment to others or worked along with family members (which suggests they *might* also have better family relationships as adults than those who were traditionally schooled, but I have not read any research about this, so it is just my guess).

I can also tell you the drop out rate for homeschoolers in college is nearly zero (don't have a citation for that, but learned this a few years ago from the state head of a homeschooling group who himself has been a high school English teacher for many years). The theory this man had on why the homeschooler drop out rate in college is so low is that homeschoolers have had more freedom to really learn their interests and what they want in life by the time they begin college. I have an additional factor I suspect enters in - that they have often no high school diploma and so the paper trail of a college diploma feels more important than for those who have high school diplomas. http://www.alligator.org/edit/issues/96-sumr/960718/b07dropo.htm
The above source shows 27% of students who start college in this country do NOT finish college.

According to http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:un-pu6xwlfsJ:www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200304/200304230.pdf+average+GPA+of+homeschoolers&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
the colleges which have compared the GPA of homeschooled students versus other students have found the homeschoolers have higher GPAs. So in sum, the homeschoolers seem to have a higher level of educational attainment, a lower level of college drop out, and a higher average GPA, plus are more independent in their earnings after college. I fail to see how homeschoolers are lacking the necessary guidance for anything, though I grant these studies do not (far as I can tell) separate out the unschoolers from the other homeschoolers, but the unschoolers are a large enough part of the pie that I would think they would be dragging down the overall picture if they were really not doing well.

I wish I could recall where I read about how employers and professors have noted that homeschooled students seemed more motivated, more self-starting, etc. than other students in general (I think one place I read this was in an artcile about how Stanford takes about twice as many homeschooled students of those who apply than private or public schooled students and their rationale for why this is).

By Eri (Eri) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 09:24 pm: Edit

ahh statistics....

Statistics are crap (if you'll excuse my use of the word). If you read a good number of scientific research papers over a long period of time, you will see that every single one has found some "statistic" to support its hypothesis/conclusion. There are statistics to support any and everything in this world, even opposing viewpoints. Two million, 1.2 million, 12,000....what do these numbers even mean?

bah. what a waste of time.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 09:55 pm: Edit

In general, I agree that there are two sides to most every statistic, but I challenge (yes, challenge) you to find just ONE statistic that shows homeschooled people to have lower academic scores of any sort, worse social skills of any kind, indeed anything negative at all about homeschooling from a scientific study on homeschooling (versus just someone's individual take given the homeschoolers they have in their area, i.e. subjective - to use your word - crap). Since every single one has found some "statistic" to support their hypothesis, you should have no problem finding a statistic to support your own. Go for it.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 10:38 pm: Edit

Why should she go for it? She has shown herself to be quite able to express her opinions without the support of statistics.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 07:33 am: Edit

Yes, but opinions aren't worth much if there is research on the topic and the opinions are supported by none of it, so just as statistics don't seem worth much to her, just opinions aren't worth much to me. I gave her BOTH my opinions AND stats. Presenting a side with *just* opinions is weak and if *she* wants to be successful in college, getting some practice by doing research and backing the opinions up with stats will be good for her.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 10:05 am: Edit

There are people who seem to delight in quoting a set of statistics that backs up whatever it is they believe at the moment. If their beliefs change tomorrow, so does their chosen set of statistics. Now I'm just wildly guessing here, but I'd bet that you and many of your friends make a living at supplying these statistics---to anyone with the inclination to read them. I would also bet that most people take such output with the smallest grain of salt.

There was great intellect in this world before statisticians came along and that intelligence will remain long after all the "ooohs and ahhhhhs" of the statistics crowd subside. I am just delighted that a bright young homeschooler has figured this out by herself. For you to threaten her chances of doing well in college by not following your suggestions is quite heavy handed---especially when the axe you are grinding is so eternally dull.

My own daughter did very well in a statistics course that I insisted she take during her first year at college. As I figured, it did help her in a science course she took the following year and is continuing to pay dividends. She does however have the good intelligence and basic grace not to whip out statistics whenever she is discussing a thoughtful subject. People that do that are... well.... er... boring----and much too caught up in something that the "rest of us" see as a very foolish sport.

I did not design this post to be a personal attack---and you are a jolly good fellow if you see that. My rant is against anyone who would use a science (and a pretty new fangled one at that) as a bludgeon in social conversation.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 12:27 pm: Edit

> I'd bet that you and many of your friends make a living at supplying these statistics---to anyone with the inclination to read them.

I don't think you would *really* bet here at all, and why? Because all you have is your "guess" and no facts, just the very issue we are discussing here - opinions with no substance. But if you really will bet, just how much are we playing for here?

> I would also bet that most people take such output with the smallest grain of salt.

And how would you prove your side to win such a bet? You sure couldn't use people working in marketing, engineering, physics, astronomy, and a bunch of other fields where facts and figures enter heavily into decisions being made.

> There was great intellect in this world before statisticians came along and that intelligence will remain long after all the "ooohs and ahhhhhs" of the statistics crowd subside.

I'd place a bet with you that statistics won't die before hell freezes over, but I know it's a bet I won't live to collect on, so won't bother.

> For you to threaten her chances of doing well in college by not following your suggestions is quite heavy handed---especially when the axe you are grinding is so eternally dull.

If it is true that anyone can find statistics to support any argument, than asking her to find statistics to back up that homeschoolers are not as well prepared to handle college as other students should be a breeze. How my suggestion is heavy handed I guess I am too dull to see as I don't see it.

> She does however have the good intelligence and basic grace not to whip out statistics whenever she is discussing a thoughtful subject. People that do that are... well.... er... boring----and much too caught up in something that the "rest of us" see as a very foolish sport.

First, you don't represent all people other than those who quote statistics, and if you truly think you do, you are far more foolish than anyone who gives statistics in support of a thought, but perhaps this was the reason "rest of us" was in quotes - you know you don't represent all the world other than those who quote statistics. I see people who can ONLY discuss topics without EVER backing them up with statistics beyond boring, but apathetic and/or unable to do basic research. There is no lack of intellect or grace in using stastistics - why should numbers hurt anyone? I am glad your daughter has intellect and grace - I haven't seen either of these in your posts (which isn't to say YOU might not have either, but your posts here haven't got them) claiming that stats are rubbish, assuming what I and my friends do for money, and using name calling like "boring" and *I* at least can admit when I am personally attacking someone, as I am now as I *am* irritated at the insults thrown under a cover of:

"I did not design this post to be a personal attack---and you are a jolly good fellow if you see that."

I am not a jolly good fellow. I am a happy person who is also honest, and if you didn't design your post to be a personal attack, your method of design failed as yes, I took it as one.

> My rant is against anyone who would use a science (and a pretty new fangled one at that) as a bludgeon in social conversation.

I was not using it as a bludgeon in social converstaion. I was stating *facts* to try to educate those working off of personal myths.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 01:47 pm: Edit

How utterly boring! At least you had the good sense to put some *__* around the word *facts* while you swing your bludgeon.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 01:59 pm: Edit

Those were ** and not quotes, in other words, meant to stress and not to weaken the word.

And I am starting to see the meaning in why "truce" is part of your name.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 02:25 pm: Edit

Not even close on "Truce"---but the story is at the 13th post down from the top (06:38 pm) on this thread.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 03:07 pm: Edit

Ah ha, so you can write posts with grace and intellect - loved the story on your name. And the crying face was rather neat - never seen that one before.

Knowing that you took your own children on quite the homeschooling/unschooling cruise of 13 months, I am curious what the reason is you are so upset over my stating studies which support homeschooling.

And you never did say if you cared to put your money (or current car or boat...whatever you want) where you keyboard is and truly bet on my selling statisitcs for money. Come on, don't you trust your instincts? ;)

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 04:49 pm: Edit

If I can get above the current wrangling, the discussion made me curious, so I did some research.

First, let me state that I would never homeschool my kid, but am OK with those parents that find that it works for them and their children.

The best thing I found was in the Journal for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Arizona: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/ by Lawrence M. Rudner of the University of Maryland.

Here are some statistics based on a large sampling of home school students:

For parents, 66.2% of the male parents of home school children have college degrees, vs. 24.1% of male parents of public school children.

56.7% of the female parents of home school children have college degrees, vs. 20.6% of female parents of public school children.

For 12th graders (they have similar stats for all grade levels, but I'll concentrate on these), here are the scores and percentile levels for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills/Test of Achievement and Proficiency (ITBS/TAP). The mean (50th percentile) is 280 for all nationwide students. For home school students:

Composite score: 326 (86th percentile)
Reading: 328 (92%)
Language: 332 (85%)
Math: 300 (66%)
Social Studies: 334 (84%)
Science: 331 (83%)

And here are some interesting quotes:

"Controlling for grade and parent education level, there is no significant difference in the achievement levels of homes chool students whose parents are certified (as teachers) and those who are not."

"(Home school) Children of college graduates outperform children whose parents do not have a college degree."

"At every grade level the mean performance of home school students whose parents do not have a college degree is much higher than the mean performance of students in the public schools."

"Students who have been home schooled their entire academic life have higher scholastic achievement than students who have also attended other educational programs."

The report did not give any statistics about college academic success, but I would imagine that the percentiles shown above would lead to a higher level of post-secondary achievement than the mean of all college students.

Anyway, I'm not proselytizing for home schooling; but here are some relatively unbiased statistics based on standardized test scores of a large sample.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Magenta,
So... you state studies which support homeschooling, the next fellow states studies which do not support homeschooling. Then you state more studies which support homeschooling, the next fellow states even more studies which do not support homeschooling.

Perhaps you find that sort of thing intellectually stimulating. It bores me to death. Life is precious and short. I find it better to do something and either profit from it or be hurt by it---rather than listen to a bunch of conflicting studies written by people with various talents, motives, and passions.

As I sit at my computer, I can look out this window to my right and spot six different things I have tried and failed at, and several things that work like a charm. But there is also a tree that is growing---that I planted purposely upside down! I have studied many statistics dealing with plant propagation---and have come away sure of only one thing: none of the people who wrote those studies would have ever thought to purposely plant a tree upside down. They were all much too busy planting stuff the "right way" and determining rates of successful propagation.

And yet: this tree grows!

-------

Is there some moral to this story? You decide. I'm way too busy building things, star gazing, trying to make everything work off of solar power, canning vegetables and fruit, caring for the hundreds of different trees I've planted, and listening to the wind. If I've missed doing anything interesting in this life, it won't be because I've spent any time sorting through various studies to see if I should bother trying.

As you might guess, I read my share of "how to" books. If someone has tried something that works, I'm nearly always interested---and it certainly does not have to be in a familiar field. If someone has studied something for the purpose of producing statistics, I would ask them to please share their data with someone who cares.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Digimedia,
The most commonly held opinion is that public education is best described by words like: ordinary and conventional. Likewise, the most common opinion of homeschooling is: radical and different.

Perhaps I'm off the mark a little, but not far.

The fact of the matter is that, for the most part, home schooling parents seek out "what works", has a long history of working, and yields steady progress in acheiving mastery of a subject. They are a pretty conservative lot---especially the ones that stick with it for many years.

Public education is much more likely to be "innovative",
willing to be a part of "studies" and to use the data to try new things, and totally ignore what has worked in the past. (I really don't know what goes on in teacher's colleges, but am not overly fond of what comes out----sorry... couldn't resist the editorial comment.)

This confusion between which system is conservative and which is radical, is what accounts for the conclusions you have noted. IMHO.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 09:59 pm: Edit

Morgantruse, you simply aren't getting it - there are NO studies against homeschooling as in NONE that *I* can find anywhere!!!!

This nonsense of "the next fellow states studies which do not support homeschooling. Then you state more studies which support homeschooling, the next fellow states even more studies which do not support homeschooling" is mindboggling to me. I am pointing out that while most everything indeed does have stats to support either side of an argument, here is one area where people who are TRYING to find stats to support their own views of homeschooling not being good academically or socially or for later success in life or you name it simply are coming up dry....so dry all trees would die in it. That's the dirt.

And we completely disagree on which mode of education is radical and which is conservative, too, but I won't even go there as I have gotten to find debating you dull as you simply don't *begin* to "get it" here. I know you can't be stupid - you got a boat a long way away and back again, but man, how you are missing the boat on this one is bizarre.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 10:02 pm: Edit

Digmedia, thanks for the input. That is a study (and those are quotes) I am quite familiar with as the study is still the largest on the topic, far as I know.

Out of curiosity, what is your reason for being so dead set against homeschooling? I was myself when I first heard of it, but after researching it, well, it became a no brainer to me that it was the way to go for parents with the temperment to be with a kid all day and kids with the temperment to be with a parent all day.

By Eri (Eri) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 10:27 pm: Edit

Morgantruce:

I like the way you think.

The story behind your name is very clever, and I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to sail for over a year...::sigh:: ...One day, perhaps...

----

And PLEASE people stop it with the annoying statistics talk. I didn't say statistics were crap for no reason. Debating about them only makes them seem that much more important.

Oh, and I also think it's funny how when someone (unnamed) says that something is meant to be impersonal, a person (also unnamed) still does everything in his or her power to take the comment personally. Oh, brother, sounds like everyone in Our Little Box (America, that is) likes to jump to silly conclusions. Thus, I have resolved that, quite simply, this is not the place for me.

I will await my chance for the next trip OUTTAH HERE.

::Sits patiently by the shore, checking the horizon for sails::

Peace,
Erika

By Eri (Eri) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 10:33 pm: Edit

::sighs HEAVILY::

For shame! and you still don't get it, after all that...

Say it with me, kids, one more time:

To be homeschooled does not necessarily mean being with a parent all day.

Good, good. Now, lather, rinse, and repeat; Allow to thaw, and serve chilled with wasabi.

Well done, grasshopper.

Peace,
Erika

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 11:00 pm: Edit

the problem is with the term "homeschooling". It's a misnomer, since homeschooling does not have to happen at home and it does not have to resemble or involve any kind of school. "Individualized learning program" is more descriptive, albeit cumbersome.

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 11:24 pm: Edit

magenta - There are three reasons that the people I know give for homeschooling their kids:

1. Religious reasons: people seem to want to "protect" their kids from the secular world. They want to educate their kids in a non-secular environment and give them a firm foundation in their religious beliefs which may conflict with *perceived* biases of public (and even private) education. I am not a fundamentalist Christian and this reason does not appeal. When I was faced with a school system that I did not want to send my kid to, I moved to another school district (in another state) which had schools I liked.

2. Some kids are having trouble adjusting to public schooling, feeling lost or overlooked. Homeschooling can give these kids an environment where they can learn, gain confidence, and set out later with that confidence. But my kid has none of these problems, so this is not a reason for me.

3. Some kids have either learning disabilities or physical infirmities that the public schools cannot adequately address. Some of these kids can flourish in a homeschooling environment, but again, I'm not in that situation.

It's interesting, but most home school families have strong religious beliefs (as documented in the study I cited). Even for those in situations 2 and 3 above, those families that opt for home schooling are deeply religious.

So anyway, while I don't dismiss the value of home schooling, it's not for me.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 11:36 pm: Edit

Magenta,
I only used the statements about homeschooling as an EXAMPLE. Now... kindly put homeschooling out of your mind as you move to the next paragraph.


It is the arguing back and forth about ANYTHING, anything at all---using STATISTICS as a tool----which I find annoying. You may not agree with that point of view, but... what is it about that statement (the one in boldface) that is so hard to understand?

-------
Change gears again.

I am glad that there are no studies against homeschooling anywhere!

I would be equally glad if there were no studies in favor of homeschooling!

You have encountered someone who simply does not like studies---especially when the statistics gained from them are used to argue against some other studies. I understand that you view this as heresy. I don't care if I am bound to lose many arguments with other people who are armed to the teeth with statistics. It doesn't matter to me. Yes, I understand that you view this as the ultimate heresy. I am simply too busy looking for interesting things to do to care about such things. I get that just fine, thanks.

Peace. (to quote our young friend)

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 12:07 am: Edit

I forgot my point about the last message above: of all the perople that I've known that have opted for home schooling, not one has said that the reason was so that their kid could learn more math or science or whatever...

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 12:08 am: Edit

Digimedia,
While your three examples are not at all stange sounding to me, nearly all of the families we know that homeschooled did not do so out of religious conviction, inability to adjust to public school, or disability. They simply started out homeschooling in Kindergarten and never looked back. We're all done now---at least with the K-12 portion.

My best guess is that none of these families felt that they would have been able to adjust to what the public school offered---so never even tried. All of the children are now off in interesting directions... that's what's important!

By Magenta (Magenta) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 08:30 am: Edit

Our son was homeschooled for the opposite of disabilities, actually. At 18 months of age, he was into magnets and given a magnetic set of the USA. He studied the set for 2 hours straight (rather unusual attention span for an 18 month old, especially one is not autistic) and then could name 30-some of the states later that day black magnet side showing (so no color cues) in any orientation being held up across the room (he even could tell the difference between Colorado and Wyoming), and soon after, knew the shapes of all 50 states (in addition to the shapes and locations of many countries). He also had started to read words all around town (happy, clean, closed, game, walk, edit, reading, etc.) and at 19 months was even reading things like a banner saying "Welcome to the neighborhood" (that last word not being an easy one for many 5 or 6 year olds). He also had social advancement at 18 months, saying "Excuse us" as he tried to get by people in the aisles of a store with me behind him and "How are you?", "Thank you", "Bless you", etc. unprompted as someone sneezed, passed him a plate, whatever the situation was that matched. At his 18 month check-up, the pediatrician (who is married to a college professor with two Ph.D.s and has smart kids, one now at MIT) urged us to homeschool. I questioned how she could tell us to homeschool when her sons were in the same school system our son would attend, and she said that her sons were bright, but not (our son's name), and in time, I would understand the difference. More on that in another post as I have to get to campus.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 11:57 am: Edit

So anyway, our son was first homeschooled due to being the opposite of disabled. We are not a religious family. My husband is an atheist and I am agnostic and rarely does religion come up in our house other than in the context of why people are at war, etc. We could probably have made our son a somewhat rich kid by taking up an offer by a relative to baptize him (the couple have many millions and it is quite common in our culture to give lots of money to Godchildren; our culture is also a little different in how traditionally the Godparents come to the parents asking to be the Godparents rather than the parents asking the Godparents to take on this role). We believed our son should educate himself on various religions and choose whichever fit his ideas of life, if any (currently, he is fond of Taoism and is looking into a study abroad program in Asia for next year).

Cover your eyes if you are reading, Morgantruce and Eri, as stastically speaking, Digmedia's personal observation of religion in the homeschooling group is supported by the data of scientific studies. Back in 1994, it was around *99%* of homeschoolers who self-rated as "very religious" - this had me concerned at first about homeschooling our son as I wondered if he would be shunned by them for not being in a religious family as well as by traditional school families for taking a different path; thankfully, we have run into no such problems. In any case, I don't recall what the percentage of very religious homeschoolers is now, nearly 10 years later, but it has become much more mainstream though still having more very religious people than the general population.

And now you know someone who homeschooled so that the child could learn more math and science - my family. Our son was doing triple digit math with negative numbers in his head at age 2, simultaneous equations with two variables, factorials, exponents, fractions, and more all mixed in at age 5 while strolling along the beach (he also did logs and anti logs in his head at age 5), and bought himself a calculus book at age 7 (he won the book certificate in a Multiple Sclerosis read-a-thon by being the top fundraiser in the state). He loved math and being able to do it at home as he wished worked well for him. As for science, he did things like Mad Science and a university physics program open to the public for three years starting at I think age 5. He attended homeschool classes on electricity and the physics of flight and whatever else. And he read quite a bit in the area of science and seemed to pick up things easily (he took a college pre-med biology class just after turning 9 and ranked 3rd when over 300 students had registered and had a higher score than the over 200 students in the other section plus would have been ranked number 1 in his own class had he signed up for it honors and had the honors weighting for discussion...the exams were identical for honors section and non-honors section students). At age 8, he was on a C-SPAN covered panel covering ideas for the next millennium as far as science and technology go (this was for the White House/Millennium Celebration and one of the other 4 panel members was a Manhatten Project physicist whom our son had breakfast with before the panel in the suite of another physicist who picked the panel members). He also was a member of a book discussion group with mostly scientists of various fields who had a minimum of a master's degree. He was getting a pretty decent science and math education, I felt. Indeed, I am not sure it was not superior to that which he is getting a his university now and have often noted that if our current society didn't put so much weight in a paper trail, I might not even be supporting his wish to get a college degree (or two, as the case may be).

Our son also has a friend who started college at age 11 after homeschooling prior and he had a perfect 800 on the math SAT I at age 10 and a perfect 800 on the math SAT II at 11. He graduated college at age 16 (highest GPA for anyone in either math or physics - his two degrees - for the time he graduated) and passed the qualifying exam for theorectical physics as soon as he entered the doctoral program at his graduate school (which is one of the top physics graduate programs in the nation).

I also know a Barry Goldwater Scholar (that's considered the most prestigious of the undergraduate honors for undergraduates in the math and science fields) who started college at age 9 and was homeschooled prior and he is majoring in a science and I believe was published before getting the B.G. Scholarship at age 12 (youngest ever to win this honor, BTW). And a gal we know at our son's university started college at 12 or 13 and was just published in a major science journal at age 15 (with a rather big name in AIDS research). Another homeschooler we know is the youngest ever to get a paleontology certification of some kind and has been on TV for her paleontology work even being just 10 or 11. Sho Yano was homeschooled and then started college at age 9 and graduated with all A's an one B in 3 years and scored a 40 or 41 on the MCAT (Harvard Med School's average is around 34, I think!) and perfect analytical and math GRE scores at age 12 and is now on a full-ride for the M.D./Ph.D. program in Chicago (a top 20 medical school). Closer to us, a friend of our son's started college at age 9 after being homeschooled and she is now 11 and doing well in a biology program (also planning on becoming an M.D.).

Now I am not sure that any of these families started homeschooling so that the kids could learn more math or science or whatever, but I would guess this was a factor in at least some of these families, and there are many more such stories. This doesn't mean all the homeschoolers you know were wanting their kids to learn more science or math or whatever, and I don't mean to imply the kids we know and I have noted here are run of the mill homeschoolers (I realize they are accomplishing more academically than the average homeschooler), but I suspect it could also be that they just don't mention wanting their kids to learn more math or science or whatever as a reason as they don't want to offend those who aren't homeschooling...it is perhaps easier for them to say they are doing it for relgious reasons or disabilities or whatever.

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 12:22 pm: Edit

magenta - With that story above, even you have to admit that your experience is so far outside the fold of the home school norm that it can't apply to the *real* world question of Why Home School? that most parents would ask. There are certain situations where the path to follow is obvious and the question need not be asked. If my kid were doing logarithms at age five, would I put him into Kindergarden? Of course not.

It's great that your son is a savant, but it's just not something that the rest of us can relate to or find any lesson in.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 03:44 pm: Edit

Magenta,
I find myself not envious (and yet in awe) of the situation you describe. The only parents I know of that HAD to become so involved with such a huge set of unique problems---are parents of a severely disabled child. I'm certain that you relate to such parents in a very special knowing way.

Our daughters were bright and delightful, and had to be sheltered a bit from people who would tend to toss around the words "so smart" a bit too loosely to suit my sense of responsibility for their welfare. But that all pales by comparison to the responsibilities loaded on you.

While most parents hope that their children will contribute to the next generation, you are dealing with a child capable of changing the next generation. I would think that dealing with such thoughts over a period of time would tend to budge you away from agnosticism---and I am not a very religious person either!

By Magenta (Magenta) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Digmedia, while I did note that I realize our son and numerous of his friends are not the typical homeschoolers, I do think they help to answer the general question of "Why Homeschool?" Because it helps a person be free to be who they are, not to be beat up or teased for being who they are (there is another early to college kid who was NOT homeschooled prior, but went to public school, where classmates threw him out the window in 5th grade, causing him a head injury that forced him to relearn the alphabet and basic math and most everything else, but he still graduated from college early and was making good money as computer programmer at age 15). Granted, not all kids (smart or otherwise) are beat up or teased in traditional schools, but far too many are for this not to be indeed a *general* issue. Homeschooled kids have higher level of self-esteem and have a record of less mental health visits, less teen pregnancy, less drug abuse, less juvenile deliquency, no welfare usage I've read about to date, and other things which in part could be due to religious upbringing but I suspect are more a factor of not feeling they needed to escape their situation or mold themselves to a clique (do drugs, have sex, whatever) to feel they are worthy to be on the planet and loved. Again, not all traditionally educated people have these issues, but once again, these *are* common enough problems in today's youth that these are factors to be considered.

While we *began* homeschooling because so many people (including many traditional school families) were telling us we should due to our son's intellect, we came to appreciate homeschooling for far more than its academic benefits.

Morgantruce, I haven't seen our situation as full of problems overall, and the number of problems have been far less than those of families with children with average or lower intellects and the kind of "nice problems to have" (like whether to go to MIT - a college with no merit scholarships at all - and accept a $15K/year scholarship from a mentor to defray costs, perhaps leaving our son feeling indebted to work for the man for years after finishing college or DURING college, or whether to have him go to the state U where he got a scholarship, or whether to allow a 9 year old to fly first class across country to give a presentation or call the conference organizer and have us all bumped to coach as a 9 year old shouldn't be spoiled with first class). To say our problems are like parents of severely disabled kids is to not understand the feelings of those parents. I don't worry about our son supporting himself let alone being able to manage a household if he inherited money, as parents of severely disabled kids must contemplate. I don't have to deal with not being invited to parties or weddings because people don't want my child around (no joke, my aunt told me that we were the FIRST to invite their mentally retarded son to a wedding, and the son was then in his 30's, I think!)...we have just the opposite (people inviting us to black tie dinners for the National Medals of Science and Technology, Intel STS, $500K MIT-Lemelson Award, etc. just because they feel our son would enjoy these affairs and to inspire him). Parents of severely disabled children have to worry about them being used and abused more (like one woman I know has twins where one is profoundly gifted and started college at around 14 and the other is profoundly retarded and was taken from the school bus area and raped). They have to deal with people looking at them and their children with pity or them avoiding looking at them; our son looks very normal and people rather like looking at him in his eyes. These sorts of differences go on and on.

Now I am not trying to say our situation is always a picnic. Our son has always had to deal with people feeling he is morally obligated to do something great for the world (and he from age 2 on has wanted to do this), and we have always had to tell him he is no more morally obligated to use his brain to do great things for society than is a gorgeous person morally obligated to go into movies or TV or modeling or whatever so society can enjoy that lucky gift or a person with the genetic code to be 7 foot tall obligated to spend hours each day practicing the sport of basketball. Our son has so far dealt very well with the insane comments (often uttered by rather sane seeming and very successful people, which only makes them harder to ignore) such as, "You'll be a billionaire by age 19," "The question isn't IF you will win a Nobel, but WHEN," "You're going to be president of the United States someday," "You will cure cancer or AIDS, just watch." No matter how successful he is in life, people will feel he has been a disappointment in this and that way. I don't think this will be easy for him as an adult and can only hope he continues to feel as he did when the university president wanted him to switch majors to try to cure AIDS or cancer..."Never doing these things won't bother me as they are OTHER people's dreams and not my own. I'm not going to care about whether I fulfill other people's dreams. I only care about fulfilling my own."

And we realized very early on that no matter what we did as parents, people would in time think we screwed up as again, no matter what our son does, it will be a let down for many. But in the meanwhile, life has been VERY enjoyable. You may not be envious of our situation (and that's good), but lots of other people have told us they are (and to me, this is quite understandable; we have had an incredibly lucky life in health and much more). How often do you think the parents of a severely disabled child have others telling them, "Gee, I wish I could be in your shoes" or "What I wouldn't give to have a kid like yours"?

I don't think much about our son being capable of changing the next generation (other than when people like one of his mentors bring this up), and I think the odds of that rather small even for the smartest, most socially savvy, wealthiest, luckiest people around as even in such a group with all those qualities, the odds of changing a generation are very small, so small I don't even see them worth contemplating (but I am a numbers person, remember, and so here is one of many areas where being one helps to keep things in perspective). Indeed, the poor who had tough childhoods (abusive parents, illness as a child or in the family, a father dead before the child turned 12, etc.) are far more likely to "inherit the earth" than is someone like our son who has lived one of the more charmed lives around and thus doesn't have the anguish which leads to great novels or the lust for money that can come from having grown up poor (my mother had that and it indeed did very well by her; she was, BTW, a fantastic stastician...first female to graduate from the National War College and first GS 17 at the Pentagon back in the 70's and on the first SES group). The middle class also often lack the discpline of hard work (Ben Franklin, remember, worked hard in a candle shop and a printing shop as a child, among other things), especially when they have the intellect our son does and don't have to do so much as take class notes or read things more than once to have them in memory. You hate statistics, but I can't help but interject another here - only 10% of eminent people (those who "change a generation" or at least add to a field in some significant way) come from the middle class, and the middle class is often said to be over 75% of the population. Since you like to bet (in posts if not for real), I would NOT suggest you bet anything on our son or any other individual changing a generation...the odds will always be against you (this includes, need I note, you wanting to bet on a poor kid whose father died when the kid was under 12 and who was abused, etc. - odds are low for anyone who even possesses are the correlated items here).

As for my agnosticism, I learned the more I learn, the less I know, and this includes what form of "controller" or "controllers" or "higher life forms" there are in the universe. I considered myself a Christian before seeing my mother's slow and ugly death. After that, I couldn't see where any creature with decency and control over the world would allow such a tragic demise over a person who was a very fine individual in mind, heart, and more. If I knew a doctor could have prevented that sort of end and sat by and did nothing, do you think I would honor and pray to that doctor after he let her die in such a way? This is how I felt about God. Yes, yes, I know she was needed in another world for bigger projects or God was just letting her come to a better place or whatever, people like my brother like to think. I just can't see it. At the same time, I don't like thinking God would be like humans not only in looks, but in being both good and bad and getting kicks out of torturing innocent women and children and yes, also men. Were I as intelligent as our son, maybe I'd have made sense of it all by now, but I find I only grow more confused as time goes on (indeed, our son adds to that confusion as my husband and I don't deserve a child as sharp, loving, happy, etc. as our son is and I have sometimes wondered if God's plan is just to make him ill someday to punish my husband and me for not worshipping him all these years).

I've gone so far off topic that this post will likely be deleted now. Should have submitted the response to Digmedia separately. Oh well.

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 06:31 pm: Edit

magenta - I just read my last post and see that it looks snippy and unfriendly; didn't mean for it to sound that way, so apologies.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 07:40 pm: Edit

Digmedia, I didn't take your post as snippy or unfriendly, but it's sweet of you to apologize on the off chance that it could have been taken that way.

And I need to apologize for my reply (thoughtful or no) being so long. If I could change anything about myself, it would be to have filters (both to be more tactful and to share less and save people time in receiving my thoughts).

And I like how you did my name in the color. My son is good at HTML and stuff like that, but I am completely ignorant of the ways to make crying faces like Morgantruce did in another thread or colored words.

By Momof2 (Momof2) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 10:00 pm: Edit

Magenta - I certainly relate to your losing your mother tragically too soon. Mine died of chronic lung disease when my son was 5 wks. old and I have really REALLY missed her advice all these years. But (now we may all get edited) my response to her loss was the same as I feel to the question "Just where was God when all those people were trapped in the Towers?" I believe - in all those firemen and rescue personnel rushing UP the stairwells into the danger. It helps me to believe that God is among us during dreadful times, even the Holocaust, although we don't often get plucked out and rescued. (reference to the OT fiery furnace story, if you know it) Anyway, FWIW, this is one of the things that keeps me going each day.

Best wishes to you and your son - you sound as if you are doing a terrific job! I would like to pass along one of my mom's sayings, as I have to my own sons: It is very good to be very smart, but it is more important to be very good-hearted.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Not sure what the firey furnace story is, though I suspect it is a metaphor for hell?

Sorry about your mom. I was 17 when my mother died (ovarian cancer) and so she never got to see our son or any grandchild, nor did she see her son graduate from medical school (in 3.5 years and with lots of honors) or get his graduate degree in EE, land his number one choice neurosurgery residency, get patents, marry, etc. Naturally, she never saw me graduate from college (I was only a freshman at 17 - wasn't like I started college at 9!) or graduate school, nor get to see me marry. She missed out on a lot, but at least she also got to see a lot (world travel, relatively healthy children, etc.).

I am glad you have religion. Morgantruce is going to scream like an Edvard Munch painting, but I'm going to share that I'm glad you have it as not only does it help you keep going each day, it should make you have more days to live as (stastically speaking!) believers live longer.

I agree with your mom that it is more important to be very good-hearted than very smart. I can't say I have an unusual brain or heart, but our son has both. At age 5, he spent hours fundraising for MS and got about 50 sponsors and raised about $1,400 and he visited someone with MS (in later years, we learned, ironically, that his guardian in our will has MS). He got even more sponsors (and more money raised) the next two years he volunteered for MS. He also started visiting hospitals on Christmas Eve at around age 5 or 6 to donate wrapped new books for children who were stuck in the hospital (he wanted a Santa suit, but I couldn't find one that size and don't sew...last year, a friend's son played Santa in a school play and told us our son could borrow it for his annual hospital run, but at age 11, our son felt it would be a little silly to wear a Santa suit!). At 7, he wrote a letter to the library suggesting that they consider a program where kids read to seniors rather than just grandparents reading to tiny tots (he also noted that their program where 10 and up read to tiny tots didn't seem right as any kid who can read should be able to read to tiny tots and was then called and told he could read to tiny tots at the library, which he enjoyed doing). When the library didn't do anything with that suggestion, he volunteered to read to seniors at a retirement home after doing a handchime concert there, and he's been visiting residents there ever since (not just reading, but chatting and playing musical instrumets, etc.) and was even asked by the daughter of a woman who died to give a eulogy, which he did quite touchingly. He's also volunteered for a community safety committee and is a senator in his university's SGA. I'm not saying the kid is the most giving person alive, as he's not that, but he is quite good-hearted, and it is times like when he jumped out of his seat mid-bite at Boston Chicken when he was 5 or 6 to open the door (not near our table, mind you) for an old man approaching with a cane that I have been most proud of him. Interestingly, his academic type stuff really hasn't made me feel proud because I feel that is all just who he was born, and so I shouldn't feel proud when he shows a good heart, either, as it's mostly just how he was born and rather than anything we have done.

And ironically, one of the sayings my mom told me that I most often quote is also on the topic of intellect and heart, but with a less uplifting meaning..."There's only one thing worse than an evil person and that's a smart and evil person."

By Momof2 (Momof2) on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 11:47 pm: Edit

Hmmm - my mom knew that one, too - maybe they knew (know?) each other?? Actually, mine was away at college during WWII, so that may have been a common train of thought. Nowdays, it would probably be amended to include an evil person with good media/PR connections...

My husband and I, too, are most warmed when our sons make simple, kind responses without any forethought - gives us hope for the future and all that....

A quick note and then to bed - in the OT, 3 guys were thrown into a fiery furnace because they wouldn't worship the king's idol. When the king looked in, there were four men walking around, not three, so he let them out - unharmed. I think it's near Daniel and the lion's den, same theme. Strange story, but it always makes me feel better because I'm sure they were terrified, they weren't "rescued" and neither are most people. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the Towers go down and realized how many rescuers had entered. End of sermon - 'night, all.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 10:36 am: Edit

When I said that I was not a very religious person, I did not mean to include myself in the ranks of heathens. I probably should have said that I am not nearly as observant as I was growing up---and never as observant as those that I grew up amongst. I never have felt uncomfortable being around devoutly religious people---as long as their fervor is directed in some Other direction than my salvation, if you catch my drift. Don't ask me why I'm posting this---no one should care.

By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 11:30 am: Edit

Magenta,I have so enjoyed reading your posts on many subjects and learned a lot from them. I think though that there is an aspect of homeschooling that just is not addressed enough.
The up sides of homeschooling are broadcast everywhere. Calvert's newsbulletins, new articles, anecdotal stories galore. And the unusual kids, the prodigies, the celebraties, I do not believe for an instant that they did not benefit enormously from homeschooling.
I also believe that homeschooling is an important option and can benefit many different kinds of situations. In my particular case, it was life changing, though I did not enjoy the experience. The results where positive and I doubt I would have gotten them any other way. Particularly in that short time period.
The problem I see is that some people, a lot of people see it as a panacea. They don't realize how much work it can be and the risks. Particularly homeschooling a highschooler. The situation I face are kids who are homeschooled very successfully, almost all with Calvert, who then enter the highschool scene and fall apart. These are not brilliant students nor are they below average or even what I would call average. They are bright kids who have earned their parents' trust and respect by excelling and taking responsibility over years of home study.
Then adolescence and highschool subjects enter the scene. I am seeing too many of them not doing what they should be because they are not getting the materials covered they should and no one is monitoring them as closely as they need to be. I tutor for AP and SAT2 subject exams and have been appalled at what I have seen. I am currently working with a few kids that I am trying to salvage. They have no grades, per se,They have incredible portfolios. But their test scores are abysmal and when I work with them they have no base. And I have tutored hundreds of kids from all sorts of backgrounds. It makes no sense to me. When I looked into a few of these homeschooling clusters that I was familiar with and frankly envied at one time, I found most of these bright kids are going to local school and community colleges instead of highly selective schools. Now I am not posting statistics, I'm just tellling you what I see. And a pattern is developing. Many start supplementing their highschool studies with community college courses and outside seminar and events. Which is wonderful. But then they start using them in place of pure grunt study of the academics. And though I have heavily used community college resources and benefited from them, they cannot replace a solid high school curriculum. Also these kids need some checking on their work regularly and strictly. They may be great writers at 8th grade but a junior in highschool has different standards and only someone who knows those standards can really teach these kids what they need to know.
This is by no means a knock on any successful homeschooling parent. Just a warning for those in the process or contemplating it for high school. I have seen almost pure success in the pre highschool endeavors. It's highschool where I am seeing an alarming number of problems. It is not the same thing when you are teaching teenagers college prep subjects.
Now with your child, you sailed beautifully into uncharted waters. But he/she is quite unusual. I am talking about bright but within a year or two of age level in accomplishment. Kids that would do well in an age level, college preparatory environment. And I am not saying, "it's the wrong thing to homeschool these kids". I am just saying beware and be aware of the pitfalls because the consequences are more ornerous in highschool. I am working with a few families who may end up keeping kids at home who are really hoofing and pawing to leave the house and would benefit everyone by leaving. And they are staying home because they are not academically prepared for college. To be perfectly frank, the reason is those kids were cheating themselves in going through the curriculums and not applying themselves because no one was watching closely enough. So now they are 17-18 and are barely hitting 1000 on the SAT1 and can't do well on the SAT2s, never mind the APs. In several cases, when I told the parents who wanted just a few preparatory tutoring sessions that the kids where no where near prepared, they were furious. Look at their work, they said, showing me wonderful notebooks, A's on community college papers, contest awards. Then they got back the scores and were quite humble. Tutoring touch ups could not even begin to address the work they had not been doing. I know one bright young girl who can recite more Shakespear than anyone I know, sonnets, you name it. Can't do a literary dissection to save her life. Doesn't know the literary terms, can't even define a sonnet. She did not learn the material, somehow she bypassed it and no one caught her.
Please do not take my comments on homeschooling as diatribe against the concept. I'm just hoping to alert anyone contemplating the project that homeschooling highschoolers is a lot of work for most people and what to watch out for. Many of us cannot adequately check high level highschool work and properly assess it. I can only because it has been my business for years. And even then there are subjects I won't touch because they have not been my area of expertise for so long that I do not trust my abilities and knowledge of them.
But congratulations on raising and educating such a fantastic child. What is he/she doing now? My close friend's daughter who graduated from a highly selective college at age 16, just finished law school, a month short of her 19th birthday. She cannot take the bar exam until age 21 so she is studying voice at a conservatory ( a dream she has had for a while) until she is of age. She is a lovely, poised, well adjusted young lady. Her parents did well helping her through the last 6 years which she enjoyed profusely and productively. Though they did outright home school--she was always in a school, I know that much of her learning came from home. I think she will contribute much to the world in her lifetime and hope your very gifted child does the same.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 07:47 pm: Edit

I addressed the issues you raised on homeschooling in another thread, I believe, but will address them again here. Before I do, I quickly want to say that I enjoy your posts as well.

I noted in the other thread that I am not surprised many homeschooled kids can't use the proper literary terms to critique sonnets as most homeschoolers likely realize this is NOT a basic life skill nor one used in the majority of occupations available to people. Trust me on this, 99% of the people in America who are making over $200K a year couldn't critique a sonnet using the proper literary terms, either, even if they DID once know how in high school and not a one of them will say they care...if you find this incorrect, let me know....seriously, find a board for neurosurgeons or the like and ask if they will frankly answer if they feel they could critique a sonnet using proper literary terms and if they care about having this skill or not. When you take the salary range where English teachers reside, the percentage might become more like 90%, but I sort of doubt even that high there.

So honestly, the only reason I suspect most homeschoolers can see bothering to learn how to critique sonnets is if this is something they or their children truly enjoy. There is an infinite amount of information to be tasted and enjoyed in life and there is no one set of what must be known to be educated (beyond what is understood by most to be the basics and is covered in books like "What Your X Grader Should Know" and tests like the ACT), so going by whatever traditionally schooled children are doing makes little sense unless they plan to re-enter the traditional K-12 scene. By the college level, they can already be rather specific in choosing what they wish (as a certain history is NOT usually required, but a choice is given, for example). I don't have stats on this, but suspect most homeschooled kids can test out of freshman English without ever studying to do so (our son did easily and he was a rather little kid when he did so). Knowing how to critique a sonnet isn't covered in any freshman composition courses anywhere, I don't think...it's a different topic that is not usually considered a basic. I can't see the need to force kids to learn that skill; I'd feel requiring kids to know how to change a flat tire (got one just yesterday morning) a far more useful skill, and yet I graduated from high school and also graduate school with not a single course teaching me how to do that (still don't know how - thank God for men who still bow down to ignorant females in distress or I'd be lost on the side of the road every now and again, not that I let strangers change my tire - I just have them call my husband for me, and they do).

Also, many homeschooled kids can pick up new things rather easily (not all, but a good share) and so even if they have "gaps", they can quickly fill them in as needed. One need not know it all, just how to learn what's needed to get where one wants to be (including perhaps an intellectual, which will mean having fewer "holes", though likely as many in tires over the years, so knowing how to change a flat would still be helpful here! ;]).

I also noted in the other thread that the SAT and ACT averages for homeschoolers are well higher than for traditionally schooled people and so what you are seeing in your area is unusual. Why it is you're seeing so many low SAT scorers in the homeschool population around you, I can't say other than to guess it's because you are hearing from students who are coming to you for help, i.e. not the people who are learning fine on their own. All I can say is that what you are seeing it is the exception rather than the rule nationally. The scores I have seen from our son's homeschooling friends have been rather impressive (like a perfect 800 on the math SAT I at age 10 and a perfect 800 on the math SAT II at 11 and while the kid's verbal wasn't so exceptional, a 500 verbal from an 11 year old is not all too bad), but I also realize people likely suspect our son's scores aren't too shabby (we don't share actual scores, but they know it was higher at age 8 than the average for his university and his university has one of the higher SAT averages for state universities and they know he has a scholarship at a university which doesn't take age into account when granting them so it's not like a younger kid can get one with lower SAT scores than older scholarship kids have), and so if they don't have kids getting pretty high scores, they are likely not going to tell us their own children's scores, so we have a slanted view, too, which is why I use things like the *national* average and the largest state umbrella group's average (which is in the 1200's).

As for how much work it can be, I seriously don't think it is more work than having a kid in public school. I have seen no studies on this, but look who is more stressed out from reading posts online on all sorts of boards....traditionally schooled kids are the ones complaining (on this board I have seen this stuff, not just others, so just read enough here) about not having dates to homecoming (and being too traditional, in the girl's own words, to ask a guy out...hello, this is 2003, is it not?), never having enough time to sleep or do stuff they'd like to do, worrying "what their chances are" here and there, etc. This all (I feel) contributes to why traditional schooled kids have higher teen pregnancy rates, higher levels of drug addiction, more mental health issues, and other "social" issues. My guess is that the majority of parents stressed out over college applications for their kids are also of the traditionally schooled in high school group and not the homeschooled for high school group, but this is a guess as again, I have no research here and am just going but what I see around *me* and online.

And there is NO doubt in my mind that overall, homeschooled parents after year two or three (if not before then) are FAR less stressed out than traditional schooled group of parents....I see this in person and online ALL THE TIME. Homeschoolers might have a gripe with a portfolio reviewer or be ticked when a school won't award an AA degree to someone because they are under 16 and can't take a GED first, but these are once in a blue moon sorts of things (that often get more mouth time than those of us where all goes swimmingly as somehow, it is societally more acceptable in America to announce when things such than when all is going your way, likely because people don't want others to feel jealous or like they got a raw deal or whatever). Meanwhile, the parents of traditional schooled kids are so often complaining about teacher's not grading papers fairly, not giving proper accommodations for this and that, insulting their kids, etc. Every single day I hear of complaints from parents of traditionally schooled kids, and it's not like I know more of them because I tend to hang out on boards where lots of homeschoolers are (today's most interesting complaint was that the principal of her child's school announced that all highly gifted children commit suicide in time...how informed is THAT, and how nice to scare children and parents with such a "assured destiny"!). Frankly, I think I'd be a basket case if I had to put up with the amount of cow dung I see flung around at so many schools, from both other kids and faculty and staff. Granted, there are great schools with very happy kids (my brother's two kids are doing very well to date, for example, and I even know someone with an 8 year old son with an IQ is in the 200's whose public school has done an incredible job in working with the kid by bringing in college level math tutoring, etc., so there ARE success stories in the traditional school sector to be sure, but again, I am looking at a broader picture and overall, the homeschoolers are a much more relaxed group). I am thinking someone should study the lifespan of both homeschooled people AND the parents who homeschooled them versus the traditionally schooled people and their parents. You can guess my theory on what the result would be, though the study would have to take into account such things as that most homeschoolers are still white (and whites live longer on average than blacks, for example) and that the average homeschool family makes more than the average traditionally schooled family even though the former usually has just one salary and the latter has two and that the homeschool parents have a higher educational level on average still than the traditionally schooled group.

Now, for where our son is. First, I can't accept the congrats, kind though they were, for raising and educating our son. He was born very much who he is. At age 2, he was already correcting my spelling and suggesting more precise words for my business letters. He was overall self-educated, even though we used Calvert for K-4 as a paper trail (honestly, other than for history, he knew almost all the material before it came up in the Calvert program just from his own reading, playing games of all sorts, going to museums, etc.). I can only pat myself on the back for doing things like not responding, "You are too young to learn that" when he took out his father's scientific calculator from a basement office desk and asked what the log key was for when he was 5, and for responding when he asked questions at age 7 like "What are the practical implications for 'i' {as in the square root of negative one, not the letter of the alphabet as the library guy thought our son must have meant when he pointed to the children's section of the library in response) and "Do the people onboard the Concord hear the sonic boom, and if so, wouldn't that hurt their ears being so close to it?" or what the diagram of each atom on the periodic table of elements looked like...well, that I honestly didn't know, but I bet he could find out if he looked for people in 3D or online who specialize in such topics as math, engineering, physics, and chemistry. Again, this was EASY for me to do. Far easier than telling a teacher, "Look, a kid really should NOT have to do 30 math problems of the same concept if the kid gets it with far fewer, so what is the deal with this waste of time other than to make things easy for YOU?" No, what other parents have to deal with seems far tougher to me.

Okay, so where our son is...he is in his fourth year of a double major in computer science and math at a state university (which I don't name as there have been creeps threatening other young college boys, even following them around campus and calling their homes and grabbing a photo from somewhere and making it their computer's wallpaper and we don't need those sorts of problems). He had mentors who wanted him at MIT. One even flew our whole family to Boston to meet with admissions, and admissions after meeting with us very generously set us up to have dinner with the youngest they have known to grace the halls of MIT (a kid who started at 14 and was a 17 year old senior when we met him), but I actually was NOT game to go into what seemed to me unchartered waters as while our son was the youngest to ever go to his university, it was only a state university and so to me no big deal AND there were already a friend of his who started at 11 and had done fabulously so it did not feel like unchartered waters to us, but being the youngest ever at MIT (far as admissions knew) we suspected could cause national press that we didn't want - we've had a hard enough time getting media people to leave us alone as it is at a state university - and we further did not see MIT for undergraduate school as the necessity the one mentor did (the other mentor said so long as our son came to his lab for graduate school there, it wouldn't matter in the long run which school he went to for undergraduate school). We could regret this choice later, and knew that when we made it. That was the toughest choice we have had to make as a family to date. But we really suspected that the money being spent on things like travel (the travel abroad programs our son is looking into for the coming summer alone could run us over $40K, thanks to my having to tag alone since he will only be 12, and that cost is more than a year at MIT if we were footing the whole tuition, which thanks to a generous mentor, we wouldn't have had to do) would be more useful and cherished to our son in the long run (but again, we could be wrong here), and we also felt his having time for kids his age (like tonight he had tap and now is at magic club) is important (as is time for things like special talks, like he went to on campus before tap today, and time to spend with adult friends, as one had lunch with him and spent a couple hours chatting about her own art and an art exhibit they went to after lunch today) as is also time to just read what you like (rather than required reading for college - most college kids I know at our son's university complain that they have no time for leisure reading....so far, our son has had at least some time to read like a bunch of magazines and one book for fun a week, which is at least something, small though it is) and use his scooter and whatever that I suspected he wouldn't have if he moved to Cambridge to go to MIT. So he is one of the homeschoolers who did not opt to attend an elite school for his undergraduate education. As I say, only time will tell if he feels he made the right choice here. I know he's been having a very good time overall, and that means a lot *to me* and my husband and I think also to our son, who realizes he got super lucky in so many ways to have been born in a country with so much to offer and to have been given so many opportunities of various kinds.

As I also wrote already in this thread, I don't know how much our son will contribute to the world and suspect the odds are acutally against it being as much as others are thinking, but I don't care so long as our son is able to support himself (and a family if he opts to have one), is happy and healthy (both physically in ways such as not smoking and mentally in ways such as not being a stressed out mess), and is what I consider moral (for example, isn't robbing like the glorified characters in "Ocean's Eleven and "The Italian Job" and so many other good films, nor cheating on his wife like so many American presidents, nor fudging data - ha, you can guess how I'd stand here as I am seen as "Ms. Statistics" - to sell a product as happens far too often in places where most would never even guess it). My brother tells me I don't have very high standards, and that is perhaps true. It is also perhaps why I am happy and my brother is not. He is always wanting more (he built a big custom house on a wooded 3 acre lot and no sooner did he move in than he was already planning an addition the same size as the house with a swimming pool, club with dance floor and bar bigger than in his current home, home theater, etc. and he admitted finally that no matter how much he does or has in life, he will always feel he should do a little more or have more...I, meanwhile, happily drive around in cars we bought in 1986 and 1987 and am happy just to create more happy memories vacationing with my husband and/or child, but was ALSO happy before we had the money to do more than vacation with relatives and friends and would likely be happy even if something came up where we could never vacation again). My brother told me he saw a poster on a business trip in CA about 10 years ago now that read: "Success if getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." He felt it explained why he was successful and yet not happy, and I was happy and yet not (in the traditionally used in America sense of the word) successful. Ideally, people have both success and happiness, but if I had to pick just one for our son, it would certainly be the latter as I am a selfish person and would rather my son be happy that the world be improved (so long as his being happy isn't adding some new pain to the world, like is the case for people who are only happy when they are killing like Ted Bundy).

Wow, how I ramble. So sorry again. You all just put my head in a long spin cycle (be glad I am not a washing machine or you'd be paying a fortune here!).

By Magenta (Magenta) on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 07:56 pm: Edit

Morgantruce, loved your comment "Don't ask me why I'm posting this---no one should care." It sums up the complete feeling I have in my answering questions in this thread (like why would anyone care where my son is now, at least in the detail I answer the question posed). But my guess is that you share this to feel better understood by those who don't know you in 3D (which I am guessing is all here on this thread, though I have no *stats* on this...man, I am going to be using that one forever now, just because it makes me chuckle and I hope you can bare with me!). I know that is why I am often sharing things like, "I am not gifted" and other things some take to be insulting myself when I see as merely factual (you know how I am just cold and factual!) and not insulting as I see nothing shameful in not being in the top 2% of the intellectual "bell curve" (in quotes as it really isn't a true bell curve like most people think), just as I see nothing shameful about not having the looks of some hot fashion model. I am happy being who I am and just want others to understand who I am to understand from where I come (i.e. since I am NOT gifted, people indeed should question my beliefs, but they should ALSO realize *many* not gifted people have insights that many gifted people somehow miss and so not necessarily discount my thought without first giving them some contemplation).

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 10:01 am: Edit

"...."it makes me chuckle and I hope you can bare with me!"

Not only does that make me chuckle too, but I must admit it's the best offer I've had in a while!

"Gifted" is mostly relative. Being in the 6th percentile looks pretty hot when you are in the 63rd. I also doubt if Stephen Hawking sees himself as being at the absolute head of the line. While I see a very large part of the human race between him and my place in line, I certainly don't spend any time worrying about it---not that it would do any good.

Contrary to the common opinion, most of what could be discovered still lays ahead. We don't know very much at all. Gifted people have an advantage in---not a corner on---chipping away at the rest.

By Magenta (Magenta) on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 11:11 am: Edit

Glad I caused you to smile, Morgantruce.

I understand what you mean about being "gifted" being relative, but I tend to use the top 2% definition when speaking about intellectually gifted. I think there are some people who feel they are at the absolute head of the line (or want others to think they are, like a young kid whose name I won't share as he is a minor with issues, but his mother *made* him fudge an IQ test and then go all around giving talks saying he was the smartest person on earth; she understandably lost custody of the child after he had a mental breakdown at age 8 and I'm not sure what has happened to the poor kid now). In theory, there should be one individual who is the most intelligent, just like there is a human who is the tallest or the heaviest, but I just don't think it makes much sense to think about it as people have different areas of intellect in addition to an overall "g" factor and unlike a scale or measuring tape to measure things like weight and height, there isn't a scale reliable enough to separate out the many people with IQs over 200, I don't feel. And I certainly agree that it doesn't do much good to worry about where on the scale one is. I went through a mini crisis years back when so many people insisted I was in denial about being gifted and that this would negatively impact our son; I didn't like the idea of my not knowing where I am in some regard perhaps harming our son, but have come to feel it is highly unlikely (both that I am gifted and just not seeing it *and* that if I were, this would injure our son in some way) and so moved on in worrying about who I am in this respect. I know who I *feel* I am and share that openly, and if others have a different opinion, so be it.

I also agree that gifted people have an advantage in chipping away at what is yet to be learned and not a corner on it, and that most of what is to be learned is to come.