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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.....[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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