I'm hoping this situation makes people view homeschooling in a better light

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are now a lot of parents who are exploring homeschooling as an option. It seems like many are opting to homeschool rather than deal with Distance Learning or partial in-person schedules. I'm hoping that they will help make it clear to non-homeschoolers that people who homeschool are not kooks, that there are legitimate reasons for homeschooling, that there are plenty of nice and normal people homeschooling their kids, that there are a ton of interesting resources and approaches to make homeschooling a good experience, and that doing it well takes a significant amount of work. I've been impressed on various forums by how kind, encouraging and helpful many homeschooling parents have been toward others in the past few months.

Why do you care what others think about that you do?

It's more likely to have the opposite effect, BTW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ummm ... it’s the exact opposite.

+1 Most parents are realizing that it's very, very difficult if not impossible to teach your kids everything they would learn in a school environment from real teachers at your house. I used to think that with enough effort (lucky) homeschooled kids could get all of the academics done, but would still miss out on socialization. Now I realize the academics are probably not getting done either.

I say lucky because I personally know several homeschool moms who brag every month or so about how all 4-5 of their kids got "All As Again!!" in grammatically nonsensical FB posts, so I don't trust that those kids have a shot in hell in the first place. But with an educated, dedicated parent, and fewer kids to teach, it seemed possible.

I’m sorry you’re friends with uneducated people on FB. I’m also sorry that you fail to realize that homeschool parents put a great deal of time and research into providing the best curricula for their children to succeed academically. When you are forced to make difficult decisions because of a pandemic is not the same as making a well thought-out rational decision, especially when it comes to educating you child(ren).

[Anonymous]

Homeschool is one of the best options for 2e kids especially in middle school. By high school they can take dual enrollment classes at community colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homeschool is one of the best options for 2e kids especially in middle school. By high school they can take dual enrollment classes at community colleges.

I have a 2e and this is why I homeschool and I gave up a successful career to do so. This was not part of my life plan but we tried public and specialized private school and they all failed to meet my child’s needs. Regular school just can’t provide the level of support the way homeschooling can and I can provide accommodations without having to fight during dreadful IEP meetings etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, home schooling was for a long time close to 100% freaks. I understand it’s gotten much better and is now more like 70%. And yes with mass migration to HS driven by COVID that number may go down to like 40% or 50% because of the influx of rich families that otherwise participate in society.

But let’s not pretend that in “normal” times HS doesn’t attract a wildly disproportionate share of extremists and oddballs of all stripes. Not all malicious or “bad”, though a good chunk of that as well.

This has been my experience as well. Although, I fully recognize that my sampling size is not huge.

The homeschoolers I have meet fall into 3 categories:

1. religious zealots.
2. crazy conspiracy kooks
3. people with a bunch of (like 5,6,7,8) kids. From what I have observed, there is NO way all those kids are getting their academic needs met in any kind of a rigorous way; but, it IS a great childcare setup.

I readily admit I do not have a high opinion of homeschoolers in general based on my experiences with these kinds of people. Im sure there are good ones out there, and some situations like special needs kids where it makes sense. I can honestly say I am not a fan or supporter and unlikely to become one, but it effects me not at all so carry on.....

Most of the homeschoolers I've met are military families that move a lot or non-military families but the parents have jobs that have them move a lot. Parents and kids were perfectly normal. No third eye or green skin. Kids were smart, were being educated and were in general, better behaved.

Sure a large part of them felt religion was important but they were far from being zealots. And if you stop to think about, church (or some kind of community group) will play a bigger role in homeschool families, especially if they move a lot. It's the easiest way to find friendly people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, home schooling was for a long time close to 100% freaks. I understand it’s gotten much better and is now more like 70%. And yes with mass migration to HS driven by COVID that number may go down to like 40% or 50% because of the influx of rich families that otherwise participate in society.

But let’s not pretend that in “normal” times HS doesn’t attract a wildly disproportionate share of extremists and oddballs of all stripes. Not all malicious or “bad”, though a good chunk of that as well.

This has been my experience as well. Although, I fully recognize that my sampling size is not huge.

The homeschoolers I have meet fall into 3 categories:

1. religious zealots.
2. crazy conspiracy kooks
3. people with a bunch of (like 5,6,7,8) kids. From what I have observed, there is NO way all those kids are getting their academic needs met in any kind of a rigorous way; but, it IS a great childcare setup.

I readily admit I do not have a high opinion of homeschoolers in general based on my experiences with these kinds of people. Im sure there are good ones out there, and some situations like special needs kids where it makes sense. I can honestly say I am not a fan or supporter and unlikely to become one, but it effects me not at all so carry on.....

Let me give you a perspective on large families.

I’m a nanny who homeschooled 7. These are (some of) the gems that happen with multiple ages (preschool through high school) in the same area:

1. 9th and 7th were doing a high school (typically 11/12th) unit on the constitution. With no understanding of why representation is so important (because their opinion has always been taken into consideration, whether they voiced it or not), they were struggling to understand why the colonists fought so strongly for independence. After making a preschooler king for the day, all 6 of the other kids, including 4 who weren’t doing the unit, understood.

2. The same two girls (for the same unit) researched various ways that the amendments applied to their lives, no bias from me. They convinced their father to switch from a handgun (for protection) to a rifle for hunting and protection. They also managed to convince him that people with documented mental health issues (hospitalization for mental health during a certain time period preceding the desired sale, no agreement on how long the time period should be, nor agreement on seizing weapons temporarily from those who are hospitalized before they return home) may not be stable enough to be trusted to make responsible decisions and anyone convicted of (one argued for anyone arrested for, pending trial) a violent crime has proven they can’t be trusted with a weapon. For religion, one argued that she was of an age to be able to explore other options and the other argued that she should be allowed to attend as many services as she wanted per week, provided that she arranged transportation herself. Both argued for freedom of speech, father argued that his duty to teach and protect the younger children superseded their right to swear, so they compromised with no consequences provided that the younger kids were asleep or elsewhere. Both argued for freedom of the press, father argued for protection of all of his children, compromise was that the younger children must be asleep and anything questionable must be viewed with dad there to watch with them and question/comment as he felt necessary.

3. I started a unit on Cartesian plane with 3rd through 9th. My 2nd grader listened, understood negative numbers immediately and explained the significance of coordinate points in the third quadrant (from a young child’s perspective, while explaining to the kindergartener).

4. By the end of a year, my 3yo (who was very lightly involved in school) was running around annoying the other kids with sing-song verbal games HE DESIGNED for rhyming, roots and affixes. He was also reading random words (I wrote them on the white board for the older kids) and working on sounding out words, with no direct instruction. By 4, he was reading.

5. The 3yo was able to list characteristics of the five classes of chordates, identify why they are all chordates (backbone!) and then sort animals into the correct class. (The activity had been set up for my second grader who came back to me confused when it was done. I had thought he was doing puzzles next to the activity. At that point, I verbally questioned him to ascertain whether it was luck or understanding.)

6. My 3rd grader taught himself to multiply multi digit numbers in his head. He also listened to units on fractions, decimals and percents that I did with the 5th grader and taught himself. He’s a math whiz, capable of perfect scores on state tests, but he would have had the exposure to math outside of his grade level in a traditional classroom.

7. My 5th and 7th graders did a unit on geology using a ninth grade text. Not only did they enjoy it, they ran their own experiments. They did a unit on ecology and wrote a letter to the local government about conservation, water runoff and erosion. When some of their ideas were implemented and others weren’t, we did a combined unit on elections, government and finance.

8. My 3rd and 5th graders were very reluctant readers with much higher comprehension than reading ability and no desire to write, learn vocabulary (unless it dealt with science) or improve their spelling. So we separated comprehension from reading. All spelling, vocabulary and writing prompts came from audio books (fiction and nonfiction) that dealt with their interests, and all reading was functional. By the end of a year, they had progressed sufficiently with comprehension, were no longer reticent about writing (as long as it was on a subject of interest) and understood why vocabulary (related to subjects of interest) and spelling were important. The best to come out of it was 2-3 years of improvement in reading capability.

I don’t pretend that each child gets direct instruction all day at their grade level. Not only is it not possible, it’s not necessary, and it’s counterproductive. My goals are to have each child learn to love learning, take charge of their own education (continuing as an adult), and learn to manage their time effectively. When they can do all three things, the rigor of the education someone else provides to them makes no difference, because they will seek more challenging (and interesting) material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ummm ... it’s the exact opposite.

+1 Most parents are realizing that it's very, very difficult if not impossible to teach your kids everything they would learn in a school environment from real teachers at your house. I used to think that with enough effort (lucky) homeschooled kids could get all of the academics done, but would still miss out on socialization. Now I realize the academics are probably not getting done either.

I say lucky because I personally know several homeschool moms who brag every month or so about how all 4-5 of their kids got "All As Again!!" in grammatically nonsensical FB posts, so I don't trust that those kids have a shot in hell in the first place. But with an educated, dedicated parent, and fewer kids to teach, it seemed possible.

I’m sorry you’re friends with uneducated people on FB. I’m also sorry that you fail to realize that homeschool parents put a great deal of time and research into providing the best curricula for their children to succeed academically. When you are forced to make difficult decisions because of a pandemic is not the same as making a well thought-out rational decision, especially when it comes to educating you child(ren).

Most homeschool families focus on mastery over grades for k-8. I’ve never, in all the years that I’ve tutored and homeschooled, run into a homeschool family who bragged about As for 4-5 kids. I have run into it with kids who attended brick and mortar schools, typically while I was trying to assess gaps in their education. “Well, I just want to be sure Susie Q is ready for high school. She’s always had all As!” “I don’t care what grades she had. She needs to work on the following gaps in her education, to make sure that she doesn’t falter in high school.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn't important what the general public thinks about homeschoolers. Their opinions have absolutely no impact or influence on how homeschoolers educate their children. A few of the negative comments on this thread betray the ignorance of the general public. They have no clue what it is homeschoolers do nor how we do it. One poster, in particular, would benefit from a course on critical thinking.

Unfortunately, you are wrong. It's incredibly important what the general public thinks because they are the ones who vote for the people who make the rules and regulations. There are very few regulations in my state. I love being able to homeschool my SN kid in a way that is most beneficial to him, and I do it quite well (I'm a child psychologist). But without a doubt there are some kids who need to be protected, and with increased numbers of homeschoolers I predict some policy changes will be proposed. I think a few tweaks would work but it's hard to convince outside people of that when the most vocal posters in Facebook groups spew their conspiracy theories and hate speech. Their solution is to vote for the pandemic science denying candidates because they were homeschooled. It's not a good look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now a lot of parents who are exploring homeschooling as an option. It seems like many are opting to homeschool rather than deal with Distance Learning or partial in-person schedules. I'm hoping that they will help make it clear to non-homeschoolers that people who homeschool are not kooks, that there are legitimate reasons for homeschooling, that there are plenty of nice and normal people homeschooling their kids, that there are a ton of interesting resources and approaches to make homeschooling a good experience, and that doing it well takes a significant amount of work. I've been impressed on various forums by how kind, encouraging and helpful many homeschooling parents have been toward others in the past few months.

Why do you care what others think about that you do?

It's more likely to have the opposite effect, BTW.

DP posting again. Because they vote for the people who make the homeschool laws. Kooks hurt all of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Homeschool is one of the best options for 2e kids especially in middle school. By high school they can take dual enrollment classes at community colleges.

I have a 2e and this is why I homeschool and I gave up a successful career to do so. This was not part of my life plan but we tried public and specialized private school and they all failed to meet my child’s needs. Regular school just can’t provide the level of support the way homeschooling can and I can provide accommodations without having to fight during dreadful IEP meetings etc.

This has been our experience as well. Do I spend my energy fighting with the schools for services and then need to help them
With 5 hours of homework in the evenings or do I do it myself? Smaller income (i’m Part time), but better quality of life this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Homeschool is one of the best options for 2e kids especially in middle school. By high school they can take dual enrollment classes at community colleges.

I have a 2e and this is why I homeschool and I gave up a successful career to do so. This was not part of my life plan but we tried public and specialized private school and they all failed to meet my child’s needs. Regular school just can’t provide the level of support the way homeschooling can and I can provide accommodations without having to fight during dreadful IEP meetings etc.

This has been our experience as well. Do I spend my energy fighting with the schools for services and then need to help them
With 5 hours of homework in the evenings or do I do it myself? Smaller income (i’m Part time), but better quality of life this way.

This, but not only this. Better actual education that doesn't begin and end with what's on the SOL.

[Anonymous]

I never viewed all homeschooling in a bad light. In some ways I always knew there were certain parts of homeschool that would be so much better for my child than public school. However, there were also aspects of public school that I thought were better for my child than homeschooling. The pandemic has tipped it so that I think homeschooling would be better on all aspects vs public school distance or hybrid learning, and I really wish I could homeschool now. But with my DH and I both working FT I cannot pull it off. I have friends who homeschool and it seems like an enormous FT job by itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me give you a perspective on large families.

I’m a nanny who homeschooled 7. These are (some of) the gems that happen with multiple ages (preschool through high school) in the same area:

1. 9th and 7th were doing a high school (typically 11/12th) unit on the constitution. With no understanding of why representation is so important (because their opinion has always been taken into consideration, whether they voiced it or not), they were struggling to understand why the colonists fought so strongly for independence. After making a preschooler king for the day, all 6 of the other kids, including 4 who weren’t doing the unit, understood.

2. The same two girls (for the same unit) researched various ways that the amendments applied to their lives, no bias from me. They convinced their father to switch from a handgun (for protection) to a rifle for hunting and protection. They also managed to convince him that people with documented mental health issues (hospitalization for mental health during a certain time period preceding the desired sale, no agreement on how long the time period should be, nor agreement on seizing weapons temporarily from those who are hospitalized before they return home) may not be stable enough to be trusted to make responsible decisions and anyone convicted of (one argued for anyone arrested for, pending trial) a violent crime has proven they can’t be trusted with a weapon. For religion, one argued that she was of an age to be able to explore other options and the other argued that she should be allowed to attend as many services as she wanted per week, provided that she arranged transportation herself. Both argued for freedom of speech, father argued that his duty to teach and protect the younger children superseded their right to swear, so they compromised with no consequences provided that the younger kids were asleep or elsewhere. Both argued for freedom of the press, father argued for protection of all of his children, compromise was that the younger children must be asleep and anything questionable must be viewed with dad there to watch with them and question/comment as he felt necessary.

3. I started a unit on Cartesian plane with 3rd through 9th. My 2nd grader listened, understood negative numbers immediately and explained the significance of coordinate points in the third quadrant (from a young child’s perspective, while explaining to the kindergartener).

4. By the end of a year, my 3yo (who was very lightly involved in school) was running around annoying the other kids with sing-song verbal games HE DESIGNED for rhyming, roots and affixes. He was also reading random words (I wrote them on the white board for the older kids) and working on sounding out words, with no direct instruction. By 4, he was reading.

5. The 3yo was able to list characteristics of the five classes of chordates, identify why they are all chordates (backbone!) and then sort animals into the correct class. (The activity had been set up for my second grader who came back to me confused when it was done. I had thought he was doing puzzles next to the activity. At that point, I verbally questioned him to ascertain whether it was luck or understanding.)

6. My 3rd grader taught himself to multiply multi digit numbers in his head. He also listened to units on fractions, decimals and percents that I did with the 5th grader and taught himself. He’s a math whiz, capable of perfect scores on state tests, but he would have had the exposure to math outside of his grade level in a traditional classroom.

7. My 5th and 7th graders did a unit on geology using a ninth grade text. Not only did they enjoy it, they ran their own experiments. They did a unit on ecology and wrote a letter to the local government about conservation, water runoff and erosion. When some of their ideas were implemented and others weren’t, we did a combined unit on elections, government and finance.

8. My 3rd and 5th graders were very reluctant readers with much higher comprehension than reading ability and no desire to write, learn vocabulary (unless it dealt with science) or improve their spelling. So we separated comprehension from reading. All spelling, vocabulary and writing prompts came from audio books (fiction and nonfiction) that dealt with their interests, and all reading was functional. By the end of a year, they had progressed sufficiently with comprehension, were no longer reticent about writing (as long as it was on a subject of interest) and understood why vocabulary (related to subjects of interest) and spelling were important. The best to come out of it was 2-3 years of improvement in reading capability.

I don’t pretend that each child gets direct instruction all day at their grade level. Not only is it not possible, it’s not necessary, and it’s counterproductive. My goals are to have each child learn to love learning, take charge of their own education (continuing as an adult), and learn to manage their time effectively. When they can do all three things, the rigor of the education someone else provides to them makes no difference, because they will seek more challenging (and interesting) material.

Thank you for sharing this window into how homeschooling can work effectively and, frankly, enviably, in a large family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me give you a perspective on large families.

I’m a nanny who homeschooled 7. These are (some of) the gems that happen with multiple ages (preschool through high school) in the same area:

1. 9th and 7th were doing a high school (typically 11/12th) unit on the constitution. With no understanding of why representation is so important (because their opinion has always been taken into consideration, whether they voiced it or not), they were struggling to understand why the colonists fought so strongly for independence. After making a preschooler king for the day, all 6 of the other kids, including 4 who weren’t doing the unit, understood.

2. The same two girls (for the same unit) researched various ways that the amendments applied to their lives, no bias from me. They convinced their father to switch from a handgun (for protection) to a rifle for hunting and protection. They also managed to convince him that people with documented mental health issues (hospitalization for mental health during a certain time period preceding the desired sale, no agreement on how long the time period should be, nor agreement on seizing weapons temporarily from those who are hospitalized before they return home) may not be stable enough to be trusted to make responsible decisions and anyone convicted of (one argued for anyone arrested for, pending trial) a violent crime has proven they can’t be trusted with a weapon. For religion, one argued that she was of an age to be able to explore other options and the other argued that she should be allowed to attend as many services as she wanted per week, provided that she arranged transportation herself. Both argued for freedom of speech, father argued that his duty to teach and protect the younger children superseded their right to swear, so they compromised with no consequences provided that the younger kids were asleep or elsewhere. Both argued for freedom of the press, father argued for protection of all of his children, compromise was that the younger children must be asleep and anything questionable must be viewed with dad there to watch with them and question/comment as he felt necessary.

3. I started a unit on Cartesian plane with 3rd through 9th. My 2nd grader listened, understood negative numbers immediately and explained the significance of coordinate points in the third quadrant (from a young child’s perspective, while explaining to the kindergartener).

4. By the end of a year, my 3yo (who was very lightly involved in school) was running around annoying the other kids with sing-song verbal games HE DESIGNED for rhyming, roots and affixes. He was also reading random words (I wrote them on the white board for the older kids) and working on sounding out words, with no direct instruction. By 4, he was reading.

5. The 3yo was able to list characteristics of the five classes of chordates, identify why they are all chordates (backbone!) and then sort animals into the correct class. (The activity had been set up for my second grader who came back to me confused when it was done. I had thought he was doing puzzles next to the activity. At that point, I verbally questioned him to ascertain whether it was luck or understanding.)

6. My 3rd grader taught himself to multiply multi digit numbers in his head. He also listened to units on fractions, decimals and percents that I did with the 5th grader and taught himself. He’s a math whiz, capable of perfect scores on state tests, but he would have had the exposure to math outside of his grade level in a traditional classroom.

7. My 5th and 7th graders did a unit on geology using a ninth grade text. Not only did they enjoy it, they ran their own experiments. They did a unit on ecology and wrote a letter to the local government about conservation, water runoff and erosion. When some of their ideas were implemented and others weren’t, we did a combined unit on elections, government and finance.

8. My 3rd and 5th graders were very reluctant readers with much higher comprehension than reading ability and no desire to write, learn vocabulary (unless it dealt with science) or improve their spelling. So we separated comprehension from reading. All spelling, vocabulary and writing prompts came from audio books (fiction and nonfiction) that dealt with their interests, and all reading was functional. By the end of a year, they had progressed sufficiently with comprehension, were no longer reticent about writing (as long as it was on a subject of interest) and understood why vocabulary (related to subjects of interest) and spelling were important. The best to come out of it was 2-3 years of improvement in reading capability.

I don’t pretend that each child gets direct instruction all day at their grade level. Not only is it not possible, it’s not necessary, and it’s counterproductive. My goals are to have each child learn to love learning, take charge of their own education (continuing as an adult), and learn to manage their time effectively. When they can do all three things, the rigor of the education someone else provides to them makes no difference, because they will seek more challenging (and interesting) material.

Thank you for sharing this window into how homeschooling can work effectively and, frankly, enviably, in a large family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Homeschool is one of the best options for 2e kids especially in middle school. By high school they can take dual enrollment classes at community colleges.

I have a 2e and this is why I homeschool and I gave up a successful career to do so. This was not part of my life plan but we tried public and specialized private school and they all failed to meet my child’s needs. Regular school just can’t provide the level of support the way homeschooling can and I can provide accommodations without having to fight during dreadful IEP meetings etc.

+1