Homeschool testimonial: I was "almost totally isolated from the outside world, except for church"

[Anonymous]

Didn't anyone watch the Dianne Sawyer special interviewing two to the Turpin kids?!!!!

This was "homeschooling" at its worst. Father registered a home school. Completed paperwork annually. Nobody ever checked to see if the kids were learning anything and/or whether they were being abused.

It's just too easy. Yes, the vast majority of parents who homeschool are good parents, but too often, nobody checks on the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

[Anonymous]

Well I went to public school and also had abusive parents. No one at school ever looked into it because our family “looked normal” and the abuse took the form of violent, angry spankings (with a belt) and emotional abuse. We were also trained to hide both our bruises and our terror from others.

Meanwhile, I’ve considered homeschooling my kid because our local school district is deeply dysfunctional and she has some special needs that I think could be best addressed in a small group learning environment (which is how the homeschooling collectives I’ve looked into operate, so not isolated).

OPs link is a horrifying story of abuse but don’t assume attending school would have addressed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

I don’t homeschool but have a good friend that does. It’s not the her kids are only learning 2 hours a day. It’s that only a couple hours a day are focused on sitting in a chair with books or worksheets and getting direct instruction. The rest of the school day is generally focused on experiential learning that most public school parents would love to see at their school— a hike where the kids find and identify types of bugs or birds and plants, and then write a poem inspired by Robert Frost or Mary Oliver based on what they’ve seen. And then in the next week those science, literature, and creative writing lessons will be reinforced through additional study and assignments.

Trips to museums, local farms, even local businesses. It’s basically like a progressive private school. She coordinates with other homeschool parents on areas where she feels like her instruction might be weak. It’s amazing.

But yeah, only about 2 hours a day at a desk. Which honestly isn’t that different than most elementary school kids. Between recess, lunch, specials… how much time do you think a 3rd grader spends receiving direct instruction at school? Four hours, tops, and they aren’t taking three field trips a week, spending tons of time outside, or doing as much independent work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

In the lower grades, you certainly can accomplish daily lessons in 2 hours. Homeschooling and one on one educating is extraordinarily efficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

In the lower grades, you certainly can accomplish daily lessons in 2 hours. Homeschooling and one on one educating is extraordinarily efficient.

I have homeschooled preschool through middle and here’s my take: Kindergarten takes no more than 2 hours at most of direct instruction and that’s pretty generous. You can accomplish a significant amount and your child will learn far above public schools and become very literate at a very rapid pace. Same with first grade. My older elementary children work about 3-4 hours. Middle schooler about 4 hours. And they are getting a tremendous amount of academics because there is no wasted time, no busy work, etc. I have three older children back in public school and I’ve seen a huge regression in skills, which is disheartening. My younger two will homeschool until 4th grade when reading and writing skills are better cemented. There’s a serious misconception that homeschoolers do less and are isolated from others. While it’s true my kids that are currently homeschooling aren’t around other children all day long each day, they do lots of extracurriculars, attend a co op and see friends during the school day.

I also agree that there will be a national movement to cast homeschooling in a negative light to try and get kids back into public school for the funding. Maybe if they worked harder to provide high quality education, then it would be easy for people like me to send our children in the first place. And I’m not religious, just a mom who is dismayed with her local public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

The fact that you are even asking this question slows that you didn’t have elementary aged kids in “virtual school” last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school enrollment declined and homeschooling exploded as a result of the pandemic. I expect we’ll see more articles that cast homeschooling in a negative light as part of an effort to either discourage additional parents from pulling their kids out of public school or lure some that tried homeschooling back, or both. There’s too many dollars at stake for public schools not to fight to regain the lost enrollment.

Agree. I've been on forums, blogs and facebook groups researching homeschooling. I've seen more than enough comments saying schools only takes 2 hours.

How does school only take 2 hours?

In the lower grades, you certainly can accomplish daily lessons in 2 hours. Homeschooling and one on one educating is extraordinarily efficient.

Agree. The 2 hour “estimate” is for early elementary aged children. The time commitment increases as children get older. By junior year of high school age, you could conceivably have your children enrolled nearly full time at NVCC under their homeschool dual enrollment program. They’ll have two years of college credit by the time they complete high school level courses, and transcripts for entry to name brand colleges, if that is a consideration.

[Anonymous]

I think there are families like this but it’s not all like this.

First off, Abeka which I use to supplement our public education has a strong math component. My kid is in 2nd grade and they are already doing multiplication in the pull out worksheets. My MIL is is a liberal and a public school psychologist for 40 years, read through our books and was impressed at the content. She had a preconceived idea.

I did homeschool last year and used this curriculum. The science portion was also strong. The only thing is creationism obviously because it is a religious curriculum. But everything else, food groups, states of matter are definitely in there. I can’t speak to later grades and climate change but for early elementary it’s better than public school on my opinion. Our teacher asked me how he knew so much from last year. He is in gifted now and I can attest it’s to this program.

My cousin who is also a liberal in Colorado homeschools his teacher. I don’t know what curriculum they use. His wife was bullied a lot, had an eating disorder, and she didn’t want her daughter to suffer issues from this. They isolated her from a lot of things until now teen years and she’s involved in a lot of sports, listens to hard rock and colors her hair, typical teen. She also has friends in a homeschool group. If there was abuse it could be almost the same thing as isolation.

The major thing to me about this is abuse. And abuse knows no political persuasion, class or school curriculum.