home schooling

@littlek,

this weekend we learned from a friend that people who perform best in life (in terms of jobs and salaries...) are girls that went to all-girls schools. I wonder why that is.... IF it's true indeed. Perhaps some pre-selection already (they would be from rich families with ambitious parents)...but what would be the rest of the equation?

1 Reply

@OCCOM BILL,

Of course generalizations aren't ideal. Just stick a 'sometimes' or 'depending on the situation' in there to suit your needs. Really, O'Bill, how else are we supposed to talk about a general question asking for our own opinions?

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@littlek,

My apologies if I sounded like I was complaining. I was only pointing out the empirical evidence I've seen was enough to obliterate my preconceptions, that just happened to align with yours. On the whole; I would suspect a great many home-schooled kids probably suffer from poor social skills. My point was simply that home-schooling alone is not the culprit.

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@OCCOM BILL,

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Homeschooled Sheltered. I thought the same as you until my Sis (and four shining undeniable results) proved otherwise. What I learned is that, as usual, sweeping generalizations just don't work very well.

What was your sister's motivation for home schooling?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

.I was only pointing out the empirical evidence I've seen....

Anecdotal evidence Bill, not empirical.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

What was your sister's motivation for home schooling?

Her first child was very clearly brilliant early on, and she didn't want to limit his desire to learn. She felt compelled by a sense of responsibility. Now she's seeing the same characteristics in her youngest; and all 4 are bored out of their skulls at the snail's pace the schools move at. She and my Bro-in-law are lifetime students themselves... think Soz and Nimh (Actually, Soz and her man know them both from school).... and think of her oldest as a young you. Each day’s lessons began with “what would you like to learn about today?” She’d narrow the choices if subjects were avoided too long, but outside of some steering guidance; they each chose their own poison most of the time. Works very well.

Robert Gentel wrote:

Anecdotal evidence Bill, not empirical.

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@OCCOM BILL,

We lived with them, didn't know them from school per se.

And yeah, the kid seemed smart even when we knew him -- 2 or so? (E.G. is trying to claim credit by the way... I told him about valedictorian/ Harvard and he said something like "my influence, obviously." Very Happy

)

(Just reading along, littlek and Stormwatch are saying what I think quite well and I've said what I think umpteen times by now...)

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@OCCOM BILL,

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Her first child was very clearly brilliant early on, and she didn't want to limit his desire to learn. She felt compelled by a sense of responsibility. Now she's seeing the same characteristics in her youngest; and all 4 are bored out of their skulls at the snail's pace the schools move at. She and my Bro-in-law are lifetime students themselves... think Soz and Nimh (Actually, Soz and her man know them both from school).... and think of her oldest as a young you. Each day’s lessons began with “what would you like to learn about today?” She’d narrow the choices if subjects were avoided too long, but outside of some steering guidance; they each chose their own poison most of the time. Works very well.

That sounds, to me, like good motivation to teach kids at home, but what's the motivation to keep them from a school? Why not have them go to school as well as teaching them from home?

What I'm looking for, is a valid motivation for a parent to keep their kids out of school, beyond just a desire to educate them differently. I've yet to see any parents express a motivation to keep their children out of school that I didn't think was unhealthy. I'm sure it exists (very sick kid, special needs etc) but I've yet to see one example of it in home schooling.

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@dancerdoll,

Home schooling is much to be preferred over resorting to an institution,
IF the job is actually carried out. The citizen who is home schooled
will be spared the inconveniences of trudging back n forth to school
and of putting up with (some) unpleasant people there.

However, I know of at least one case in which an allegedly home schooled boy
of around ten was simply left ignorant by his mother. It was so bad that he
coud not even tell time using a digital watch.

David

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

What I'm looking for, is a valid motivation for a parent to keep their kids out of school, beyond just a desire to educate them differently. I've yet to see any parents express a motivation to keep their children out of school that I didn't think was unhealthy. I'm sure it exists (very sick kid, special needs etc) but I've yet to see one example of it in home schooling.

IMO, school is designed, at least partially, to be a baby-sitting service for working parents.

What five-year-old needs to spend a full day at school? And part of that is for nap!

Ask folks why they send their kids to Kindergarden, and they say to prepare them for school. Ask folks why they send their kids to pre-school and they say to prepare them for Kindergarden. Er... WTF? These people are missing the point, IMO.

The stereotype that home-schooled kids are parented by religious kooks is passing quickly by the wayside.

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@Stormwatch,

I also worry about the socialization aspects.

I've long been an advocate of 'half-schooling'; that is, send your kid to school for half the day and homeschool the other half. That way they will get some socialization, and you don't have to be an expert in every subject in order to make sure that your kid gets the education they need.

Cycloptichorn

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

IMO, school is designed, at least partially, to be a baby-sitting service for working parents.

What five-year-old needs to spend a full day at school? And part of that is for nap!

I'm a lot more worried about a home schooled 16 year old than a home schooled 5 year old.

1 Reply

@dagmaraka,

quoting dagmaraka,
this weekend we learned from a friend that people who perform best in life (in terms of jobs and salaries...) are girls that went to all-girls schools. I wonder why that is.... IF it's true indeed. Perhaps some pre-selection already (they would be from rich families with ambitious parents)...but what would be the rest of the equation?

I went to an all-girls academy, as they didn't have mixed gender catholic high schools back then; I've no idea if they have them now. My father was unemployed probably three out of those four years, so there was much scraping of coin dishes to keep me there, the primary motivation for which was religious.

As many here know, I've been reactive to that inculcation, but I'm not sure my schooling there was generally a poor choice. Pretty good for the academics that were taught (no trig, much less calculus, no physics - that was in the fifties, but still, those were taught in other places, probably including the boys' high schools), and not so good for fostering questioning and exposure to others.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quite simply, Robert, why would you want your kid to spend a 35 hour week learning what he could in one day? Why not let him use that time several times more efficiently? My nephew was the nutcracker, soccer player, etc along with the public school kids at the same time, so it's not like he didn't learn about jerks, bullies, good friends, bad friends, girlfriends and every other social set that comes with public school. He went to camps for various sports, music, a barbershop quartet camp (yes, there is such a thing :wink:) and meanwhile his test scores earned him invitations to places as far away as Japan. Do you really think he’d have been better served spending the extra 25 or 30 hours covering the obvious (to him) instead of learning something more? Strange position, that.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I think you can often get a great education,
while failing to get the most important thing out of school: the social experience.

I must dissent from the concept
that the social experience is " the most important thing out of school ".
I went there for the INFORMATION. This was long before computers.

According to the reasoning that the social experience was
"the most important thing out of school" people who did not attend school
before the compulsory education laws of the late 1800s or 1900s,
did not get "the most important thing out of school".
Is there EVIDENCE of any problem of our ancestors resulting from this ?
I don 't believe that there is.

The most brilliant man I ever met in Mensa,
an engineer-mathematician who used to work on the most advanced,
cutting edge weapons systems during the 3rd World War a/k/a the "Cold War",
told me of his passionate hatred and repugnance of the educational system.
He is slender and about 7 ' tall; he was the butt of ill mannered jokes and social torment
for many years. He complained of chronic insolence from students and teachers alike.

He wished that learning on line by computers had been available for him.

David

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@littlek,

littlek wrote:

I fear that home schooled children do not face enough diversity or challenges to develop a solid resiliency to further challenges.

That's interesting, because that would have been one of my main arguments against the public scholls I was in. (Standard disclaimer applies: dangerous to overgeneralize from personal experience, yadda, yadda, yadda.) We basically had one level of challenge that was the same for every kid. Sometimes, when the level was targeted to the average student, it worked for them, but the smarter students were bored out of their mind, and the not-so-smart students were stressed into frustration. Other times, the challenge level was targeted at the not so smart kids, and everyone but them was bored out their minds.

By contrast, If I tought my own kids, I could give each a level of challenge appropriate to it -- no?

I'll grant you, though, that this problem could be fixed within the public system, perhaps by ending the now-standard practice of segregating children by age. That's where my very first point in this thread comes in. The differences within each category of schooling probably outweigh the differences between the categories.

littlek wrote:

If a child doesn't learn how to deal with an obnoxious classmate, how will they know how to deal with an obnoxious coworker as an adult.

By learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow members on their sports team, or by learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow boy or girl scouts, or by learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow church members or .... There is plenty of other social settings for practicing these skills, and I don't see how school is in special among them in any way.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I'm a lot more worried about a home schooled 16 year old than a home schooled 5 year old.

Like I said, sometimes the best classroom is a log with a teacher at one end and a student at the other.

As I've stated in other threads, "no child left behind" = "no child gets ahead." Used to be classes focused on the average kids, and the advanced kids had special classes, and the poorly-performing kids got special help. Now the focus is too often on getting kids just to pass the standardized tests.

Let me state that this is not a complaint about teachers. Teachers work within the restraints that are imposed on them from above.

Kids sitting in classrooms all day with no exercise, no music, no art, no shop class, no hands-on science; this is what you want for kids? 'Cause this is the direction things are taking.

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@ossobuco,

Adding, on homeschooling, I'm somewhat unsure. I'm in general agreement with Sozobe and others, agree with those who say that its working depends on the parents, agree with all who mention socialization. I agree re the socialization because even in the best homeschooling situation, one is living a bit of an elite life and not dealing heavily daily with the mix of humanity.

Adding that I agree with DrewDad re the way he describes schooling now.

1 Reply

@OCCOM BILL,

Quote:

Quite simply, Robert, why would you want your kid to spend a 35 hour week learning what he could in one day?

Well, one of the points being made here are that there is more to learn at school than just reading, writing and 'rithmatic. A lot more.

One of the big things we learned in grad school is that a very significant percentage of the knowledge we emerge with at the end of our schooling is incidental knowledge. That's the stuff OTHER than what we learn when a teacher is teaching us. It's important in Deaf education because it's what mainstreamed deaf kids miss out on if all they're getting (via an interpreter) is what the teacher is teaching. It's what we learn from our peers, either directly or indirectly -- at recess, when the teacher is working with someone else, or just by osmosis, in a social environment (when we have access to the information, anyway).

I believe your sis is doing a good job, and I think a good job can be done.

But I think there are a lot of dangers, too.

I sent my kid to preschool to prepare her for the school experience, in general. They had an article up on their wall about how social skills when a child enters kindergarten predict future academic performance better than any other measure. Again, as littlek and Stormwatch have said, "social skills" are too often thought of as, like, please and thank you. They also include knowing how to deal with adversity -- how to react when an obnoxious kid throws sand at you, for example. When it's appropriate to try to solve a social problem yourself rather than bringing in adults. When it's important to bring in adults. Etc., etc.

Sozlet ended preschool with a love of learning and an interest in going to school. Her preschool taught her that school is a great place, where fun and interesting things happen.

She is currently jumping out of her skin with excitement as she waits for second grade to start. (After spending the summer reading a couple of shelves of books at the 4th through 10th grade levels.)

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@Thomas,

Quote:

By learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow members on their sports team, or by learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow boy or girl scouts, or by learning how to deal with obnoxious fellow church members or .... There is plenty of other social settings for practicing these skills, and I don't see how school is in special among them in any way.

The time involved, mostly. You just won't spend as much time with your soccer team as with your classmates.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

Again, as littlek and Stormwatch have said, "social skills" are too often thought of as, like, please and thank you. They also include knowing how to deal with adversity -- how to react when an obnoxious kid throws sand at you, for example. When it's appropriate to try to solve a social problem yourself rather than bringing in adults. When it's important to bring in adults. Etc., etc.

There are lots of places to learn these things, though.

1 Reply

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