Don’t even get me started on ADD/HD.
Once again, I’d like to bring up that homeschooling isn’t always with the parents fully teaching their children. Perhaps that is the standard, but honestly, with the exception of my first year, my entire homeschooling has been correspondence based. I’m sent the textbook and course material, and either fill iun the modules and send them in for marking, or, as most of my courses are, Complete them on computer and e-mail them. My parents have no involvement in the teaching process. I learn the same curriculum that any other student would learn, and take the same exams. I just do it from home.
Though i think i possibly have to agree more with the comment that, while not a bad idea, is not for everyone. Some kids simply aren’t motivated to do the work on thier own and need a classroom setting.
I would like to add that a home schooler can have a social life if s/he participates in other group based activities like Scouting or a sport like Basketball.
One of the things that I went though back in my home schooling days was that every so often my famliy would go on a field trip. Sure public schools also have this notion of field trips, but those trips usually involed to the local box factory, the local chemical treatment plant, and the local sausage factory with an on site slaughter house. The places I went to thanks to the power of homeschoolling were the Mayflower II, Mount Vernon, New Orleans(before it sank), Mount Rushmore, a whole shit load of rest stops, and many more… (I will admit that some of those trips were Scout related.)
My point is that bigger isn’t always better. Sure you may have your clique back in Hazard County, but I can definitely tell you that the rest of the world isn’t comprised of dirt roads and wrecked General Leo’s.
Ultimately, its all about 1 simple fundamental fact: the vast majority of schools and classes on the pre-university level is by all means and purposes day care. The vast vast majority of people do not spend their time doing work and being at the school has a highly negligible educational value. Ultimately, it is an area where tests are dispensed at specific intervals as dictated by a given curriculum. The rest of the time is a mostly social experience, except for those who choose to not make it one.
People that choose to take their kids or themselves out of the system either don’t like the pre-defined curriculum, usually for fundamentalist religious reasons, or recognize the problems with the social setting their child faces. Either way, society’s reaction is to shun individuals that choose not to join the masses for valid and invalid reasons.
I wish school was more like daycare.
and the local sausage factory with an on site slaughter house.
What a blessing this would have been! Unfortunately, I moved out of the Chicago area at a young age.
I fully intend on putting my kid(s) in private school - at least until the seventh grade.
I was a troubled child. I was moved around many schools before it was decided that I would be home schooled. Over here in Australia, you can’t just take your kids out of school and teach them yourself. You need to use an authorized program; We ended up using ACE and it was okay.
The system I used involved doing an initial testing to see what level your were at for various subjects and it also required the “Parent” to undo a minor teaching course, so they know how to assist in teaching and the best way to deal with some situations.
We then ordered the books and I’d have a certain requirement for the end of the month. I’d have to finish X amount of work to be sent off to be evaluated and such, but how we got there ended up being left to the “Parent”. Ultimately, it really helped me. I was at a year 3 level in English and a year 7 level of Maths, so using this system really helped me catch up and such.
We didn’t just do all the course work, however. We did a bit of cooking, gardening and just a bit of practical skill stuff. They were fun days. What was also good was setting up my course work so that I could have every Friday off or the times where I’d fly through my work in the morning (8am start) and finish at 11am, having the rest of the day free to do as I pleased.
I only ended up doing it for a few years, allowing me to catch up with other people my age and such. I was finally sent to school when my mother noticed I was having a bit of trouble socially and such; I ended up being really comfortable around family and friends, but anyone I didn’t know I ended up freaking out about. By the end, I was so scared of “other people”, I couldn’t go to shops without a friend there with me. That was when I was slowly being sent back to the standard school system, starting on the core subjects (Math, English, Science ).
I’m still a bit of a social retard and was a late bloomer sexually, but I think the home schooling did me quite well.
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Just for my own curiousity, mind informing me of your views there? (PM works if you don’t want to derail the thread).
The problem of “rampant” ADD/ADHD lies in the criteria for diagnosis, nothing else. I know this wasn’t the main point of your post, but i thought i’d point that out anyway.
Much as I hate to(given the horrible reality of our education system), I agree with Sinistral on his point that high school exists to keep people busy. That was, in fact, its original intent - any historian can explain to you that mandatory education(aka high school) first developed in the mid-to-late 18th century because of the rampant immigrant children running the streets of America. High school evolved to keep teenage boys off the street - period. Or in other words, school was invented so that teenage boys wouldn’t commit crimes.