You are getting so many wonderful (and accurate) responses. I really do hope this is helping. I used to assume I would NEVER homeschool (or be a foster parent - I've now done both! doh!).

My daughter attended public school last year after we moved to a new town. I can definitely say that she is not suffering socially - AT ALL! :) She has just as many sleepovers. She hangs out with just as many friends. She knows every kid in the neighborhood. She hangs with kids from church. She makes new friends at sleepovers and starts playing with them on a regular basis.

I'm sure there are social hermits out there (some who homeschool and some who don't). However, the kind of family and parent that you already are is what you will be when you're homeschooling. How much you love or don't care for people is not going to change.

Sunday we went to a restaurant. A woman came walking in that taught my kids at church last year. That hadn't seen her in several weeks. They all ran over and just chatted her to death. We had to make them come back to our table to order. That's just one example. I could go on and on. I think the social aspect is the biggest concern for many people, but the reason homeschoolers get so defensive is because we just haven't seen it. We live this every single day, and our kids aren't suffering. They have friends - good friends. They have other adults in their lives, that make a tremendous impact on them.

For every family I know educating at home, there are as many different schedules, curriculums (or lack thereof), time spent daily, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Here is what our day looks like: http://christinemoers.blogspot.com/2007/08/our-daily-schedule.html Yet, I've never met anyone that does it exactly like we do. That's the amazing beauty of homeschooling. It can perfectly fit every home, every kid, every parent.

My kids don't miss out on any of the mess: bullies, popularity, cliques, moral dilemmas. They do step outside of our house, after all. :)

Christine

www.christinemoers.blogspot.com

Time is less in homeschooling because you don't have to take into account anyone else. Just how much time do you think is spent in an geometry class actually teaching per day? Let's say my objective today is to explain the Pythagorean (sp?) theorum? It might take me 10 mins, if that one-on-one.

In class I'd have to spend time taking roll, settling the class into learning mode, teaching it, going over it again, sharing examples, asking for class input, assigning homework, reminding of upcoming tests, etc. Additional people add additional time. If I were a teacher and not a homeschooling parent, I'd alot the entire class hour to do this, and even if it didn't quite take it up, I wouldn't have time to go onto something else.

Compare it to asking an SEO guru to tell you how search works or spending an hour in a SEO class? Would you learn more which way? Which would take the most time?

I've done both, and am currently NOT homeschooling, but 2.5 hours was sufficient for us. And, yes it does take roughly an hour now for homework for my kids from school. Some is, honestly, just busywork.

My kids are active at church, in rec league sports, etc and with or w/o school they interract with kids. I don't ever want to send my kids to school so they can get social skills. I've seen very little I want them to emulate there.

I've seen non-social homeschooled kids and I've seen non-social school kids. I find it difficult to make the connection there. School is such an arbitrary social system. I mean, when else in life will they be surrounded by 30 people that are their same age. Not realistic and isn't really preparing them for the real world, imo.

Food for thought from a former homeschooler (and one that would still be doing it if she didn't need the money that full-time work brings).

Or did you read other blogs - I mean really read them? You say you did but I am finding it hard to believe. It's fine for you to think that homeschooling isn't right for you and to reflect positively on your own "at school" experience and to question all aspects of child development and education but homeschool bloggers have answered your questions for ourselves and our children. And that, is that.

I can't figure out what your agenda is here and I don't have any agenda at all. There will be no benefit to me or my child by answering you and I certainly don't want to change your mind about homeschooling. I'm more than happy to have you send your kid off to school if/when the time comes. Your life, your child, your decision. But, because I'm in a good mood, I'm going to give you three minutes more minutes of my time and answer some of your questions. Believe the answers or don't. Luckily, we don't have to impress you or prove ourselves to you.

Michelle knows what the real world is like. She lives in it. She's faced hard situations alone and with her friends and family (I question your belief that facing hard situations alone is somehow mandatory for adulthood, by the way. How many of us EVER face any hard situation completely alone?). She has more self-esteem than most adult women I know. She is more independent than any child I know (sans my other two older children). She is brave. She is determined. And umm you won't find a more open-minded 16 year old. In fact, she's a lot more open-minded than you appear to be since you keep asking questions about homeschooling in a way that makes it sound as if you don't believe homeschooler's answers or don't trust us to make decisions that are best for our own children and our own families.

Going to school appears to have been right for YOU, but that does not mean it is right for EVERY child or that every child is going to have the same experience that you have.

And, homeschooling may not be right for you - or for everyone, but it is right for some of us - whether you understand it or not.

~Denise

I don't homeschool, but I have had plenty of friends that do/did. You must remember that the school/classroom construct is a relatively recent one, as in the last 200 years. Until then, other than University Students, most schooling was done at home. That was great if you had parents that could teach you or afford to hire a personal teacher for you. Schools were a way of bringing education to the masses and making it available to all levels of society. The advent of schools didn't make education better, it just made it more availble.

My son is very smart. He already knew everything his Kindergarten class would be learning the entire year before he even started the first day of school. Who taught him that? Me...my husband...and his own curious mind. He is in first grade now and at a 3rd grade reading level, in large part, because of the one-on-one time that we poured into him when he was young. His younger brother is four and already following the same path.

The only reason I don't homeschool has less to do with how great public school is, and more to do with his strong personality and my strong personality. I thought I might go crazy if I tried to assume total responsibility for every aspect of his schooling. However, I would not hesitate to homeschool him if I felt that his education was suffering or the influence of the public school was having a negative/harmful impact on him.

Trust me....Homeschool is the way to go for a lot of people and not taken lightly by those who do it. They pour a lot of care into their kids.

Terri

Thank you so much for responding to my blog! You're right, and made good points. I guess I just never looked at things that way. I'm happy that you're children are bright and doing very well in school. Once again thank you for your insight and good luck to you and your family :)

Spend 24 hours a day with your children for several days at a time.

Justify homeschooling to family and friends who oppose your decision to learn at home.

Be very patient with your children when it seems they aren't learning anything at all.

Deal with the frustrations of sometimes being "behind."

Spend more money on your children's education than you're accustomed to.

Get out of your comfort zone to learn how to homeschool effectively.

Encourage your children even when you don't feel like it.

Seek advice from other homeschooling parents when you encounter problems you're not equipped to handle.

Research a few curriculum programs before you find one that works for you and your family.

Put forth more effort to find children with whom your children can build quality relationships.

Your questions are all excellent and worth considering. However, there is one question you are not asking. And that is "Why do you want to educate your child?" Forget for a moment the method or location of the education but think for a moment about WHY want your child to know anything about anything. Why do you care that your child knows Geometry, Physics, how to read a book, or speak in an articulate way? What's the point of an education?

It's not as easy a question as you might think.

This is the starting place we all should begin. You see all education has a purpose. The public school has a purpose in educating your child. You have a purpose in educating your child. Your child will develop a purpose for why they want to know things? Will they be the same? If yes, then the public schools may work out just fine. But know that they have a goal and it may not be your goal or your son's goal. What then?

If you talk to anyone in education these days, the goal of education is to train workers to compete in the global economy. That's their goal. But is the ultimate goal for your child's education a good job? Does personal happiness have a place in that?

And is the goal of education just personal happiness and success? Would you feel that you have successfully educated your child if they had a great job and were filthy rich but ignored family life and you, when you are old and gray. How much value would the education be then? If your child travels the world but never stops at your front door. So there are values associated along with the academics.

The point of all this is to determine the goal of education before determining the method. Who do you want your child to be, NOT just what do you want your child to know. Don't just assume that your goal is the same as the public school or even your neighbor.

That's where homeschooling has worked out best for our family. We can work with the children to tailor the learning to their goals an the goals we also have for them. Homeschooling enables my children to reach their goals unemcumbered by someone else setting the agenda for them. Together we are all learning to become the people God intended us to be for His purposes.

Does that make sense?

I don't want to spam your blog, but I have devoted my blog to talking about homeschooling. There was no spot to enter the website so I'll just give it to you here.

www.spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com

I'm not a parent yet, so obviously I don't homeschool my children. But I hope to be a parent one day and I haven't made up my mind yet about how I hope to educate them.

On the one hand, I believe in public education. I believe all kids ought to have access to resources and teachers that help them learn well, and I believe it's our responsibility to help schools be those kinds of places. I believe there's value in being thrown into a classroom with other kids your age with whom you may or may not have anything else in common. I went through public schools myself and am the child and grandchild and niece of several public school educators. I've campaigned for levies and school board elections, I've helped out in the classrooms, etc.

On the other hand, I've seen enough of various kinds of education that I can't quite believe it's the only reasonable way. I've seen kids from public, private, and homeschooled educations excel both socially and academically, and I've seen them fail both ways. Part of that has to do with the kids themselves. I can't imagine my brother learning as successfully at home as he did at school (we both went through strong public schools). He's a naturally social learner, and he flourished in the school system. He learned what he needed to learn, and it's prepared him excellently for college and work.

I learned a lot at school, too, but not everything I learned there was something worth learning. I learned more calculus and physics in high school than I would have with my parents - though one thing I've learned is that parents aren't the only educational resources for homeschoolers. I also learned to hold myself back in order to fit in. I learned that it wasn't acceptable for me to know more than my classmates and certainly not more than my teachers, rather than learning how to deal politely with knowing more than my peers or superiors. Since starting college, and especially in grad school, I've had to unlearn a lot about not being too smart or enjoying learning too much. I've also had to learn all the things that I had once started to pick up on my own (like how to adapt the Rules of Writing to actual writing) but that got smacked out of me because I learned them ahead of the curve. (Don't divide paragraphs the way actual writers do - you must write a five paragraph essay all the way through high school and then simply spring away from it in college.) I learned about other cultures, but I often learned it in a patriarchal or patronizing way that hasn't necessarily helped me to be less racist or sexist - and certainly not to be less heterosexist or classist. I learned a breadth of things, but never had the opportunity to go particularly deep into an area that I was interested in. And this is all from someone who really had a pretty decent experience in the public schools.

I have two friends who have been homeschooled very well, and my experience is that the older one, at age 19, is more articulate, has a better sense of himself and relationship to his family, is more self-directed, and has a wider group of friends than most other 19 year olds I've known. The younger one, at age 12, still has the freedom to play, but also cooks her family's meals and maintains their garden and cleans the house (because these are things she enjoys doing); still adores her parents, but is also extremely independent; and isn't punished because she relates better to adults than to kids her own age - instead, she has plenty of friends ranging from age 8 to age 68. Both have developed in very age-appropriate ways.

This is all just to say that I think the issue is way more complicated than it first looks to many people. Both schools and homeschooling can help or hurt kids, no matter how well or how poorly you do either.

I used to be quite skeptical like you until I decided to play around with homeschooling during my daughter's last PreK year, thinking what could it hurt?
The results were incredible. Homeschooling is amazingly efficient. We homeschooled for @ 2hrs a day a few days a week, and lest you think I was a slave driver with a 5 year old, most of what we did was lots of art, music, nature walks, hands on science stuff etc. I used no curriculum or workbooks other than interesting library books and taught my daughter to read in 10 minutes a day of laptime, reading real books. We did 'math' with lots of games and jumping chalk numberlines on the driveway, cooking etc..
The problem was, she became way ahead and was reading fluently at a 3rd grade level and begging to learn more. Was I supposed to then send her to K and risk her spacing out and being bored? (not that she is any whiz kid or anything- I think any kid could thrive with this kind of 1:1 approach). I can definitely see the merits of the homeschooling approach academically anyway and I can also see why homework is unnecessary, at least in the elementary years.
Think of homeschooling like tutoring. The tutor knows right away whether the kid gets it or not and can immediately adjust the approach. A teacher of 20-30, however, really has no idea whether her lesson has hit home unless she gets the kids to do homework. Homework becomes concrete feedback for her. For a certain number of the class, the homework is redundant because they already 'got it' in class, and also for a certain number, the homework is way over their head and causes them to feel defeated and discouraged.. A homeschool kid may also be stumped sometimes and not 'get it' right away, but then the tutor slows way down and keeps at it until the light goes on. This may take a while, but then mastery is achieved. A teacher does not have that luxury, because a certain pace is required to keep the class on track for the rest of the year. A homeschooler usually catches up at some point when he quickly gets a concept later on and can proceed at his or her own pace. Some public school kids may proceed from grade to grade with only a shaky understanding of certain concepts. This can add up to disaster later for some of them.
I think the social aspects of homeschooling are harder to judge. Some kids seem to crave more social interaction than homeschooling can provide- perhaps they are more extroverted by nature and there aren't a lot of homeschoolers in their area, etc. If the area schools are safe, then perhaps that child should try school. It is really quite individual. I have also known some homeschoolers where there seems to be a personality clash or discipline issue between parent and child(that was there prior to the beginning of homeschooling). Sometimes homeschooling can help this relationship, sometimes it just makes it worse. In that case, I think some space would be helpful for both parent and child. I think for some children, homeschooling in the early years and school in the later years is a good solution, others the opposite.
You are right about many friendships and role models being found in the school environment. That can be a good thing. However, in many cases, what sets in is peer dependency where the child's entire existence and reason for breathing centers around peers to the loss of family relations and prior interests. A smart kid who loves reading and playing classical cello(for example) may feel enormous pressure to dumb himself down and drop the 'nerdy' instrument in favor of 'fitting in' and achieving conformity. Again, I think the tendency of a child to become peer dependent and lose their sense of self is quite individual. Some kids are more resistant to this than others and do just fine in the school environment. I think a lot depends on what kind of history of social successes a child has had. A child who has experienced a lot of rejection or ridicule may not have the self esteem to remain true to himself in the face of peer pressure. A lot of homeschooled kids, however, have been protected from a lot of negative influences early on and hopefully been in situations where they have experienced social success enough that they usually do Ok self esteem-wise if they reenter school.(the amount of social successes a homeschooled child has is in large part determined by the committment of the parent to place them in appropriate situations).
I also think parents that homeschool have to be realistic about what social opportunities are available for their kids and may have to be active advocates for finding social outlets. In our community, we organized our homeschoolers and now have a thriving group that pools our talents and offers many types of enrichment and social opportunities. If I didn't have this group, I may have to concede that at some point my child may be better in some type of school environment. So, my point is, I really think homeschooling is not a clear cut issue with a definite right or wrong answer as many people would like to make it. And so I take it one year at a time!---Carolyn

This has been interesting reading but I think part of the problem you are having is that some of your basic premises are flawed.

I'm wondering why you would assume that the artificial environment of a classroom is the best way for a child to gain exposure to the "real world?" Good heavens, where else in life are you segregated by age and (in some cases) ability, working under people whose goal is to avoid failure on your behalf and reward you for every tiny faux accomplishment whether it deserves to be rewarded or not?

As a homeschooler (and I was one for about five years), you aren't confined to books, pre-approved presentations and lesson plans. You can use the entire community and all that modern telecommunications has to offer as resource material for your children. Schools also routinely underestimate the intellectual curiosity of children and many homeschoolers find that their kids can learn a lot more than teachers permit them to attempt.

The result is that, if you choose, you children will be exposed to more diversity of viewpoint and more depth of instruction than they would be in a classroom. And that increases the chances that they will be more open minded, not less.

Also, you write as if it is impossible for children to develop relationships with their peers outside the classroom. That "what about socialization" question was the one that always annoyed me the most, because it was so nonsensical. Homeschooling parents do not, as a rule, lock their kids in the house and there are dozens of venues in most communities for children to interact with other children. If anything, homeschooling has a socialization advantage over regular schools because children often have more opportunities to interact with people who are not their peers -- a situation that is actually much closer to those they will face as adults.

I can't speak for anybody else but my homeschooled children are highly independent, they have the confidence to think for themselves, they are much less susceptible to peer pressure and, when they finally entered the public school system, they were much more thoroughly educated than most of their peers.

Hope this additional input helps.

Cheers!
Dawn

The Journal Blog
- where business and politics meet the mind of a wise-ass