Reply to Fihmgured out why honeschooling bothers me so much

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[quote=Anonymous]I have seen it go both ways.  In situations where it works well, the parent is usually highly educated, contentious, and seeks out extra help (homeschooling co-ops, community college classes, online correspondence classes, doing research on developmentally appropriate textbooks, etc.) rather than just allowing things to go with the flow it tends to work out better.  Also if there is a medical or LD reason, rather than just because, I think it's more justified.  One of my friends and her brothers are all dyslexic and the local schools were not meeting their needs and they were slipping through the cracks, and so their parents pulled them out so that they could learn how to read/learn at their own pace while they figured out coping strategies.  They all went back to regular public schools in high school and were very high achieving in college and beyond.  Another family friend of ours has Chron's disease and the school district was not set up to deal with children with chronic illnesses, so they pulled her out and home schooled her, using an online correspondence program. These situations make sense to me.

I have also seen people who have some weird ideas about public schooling.  I had a friend whose mother was afraid she would get teased for having an unusual name, and homeschooled her, but her education essentially consisted of reading fantasy novels.  She didn't learn how to write, how to study, and she had a complete lack of proficiency in math.  She went to public school for high school and basically crashed and burned.  I don't think in that case homeschooling did her any favors.  Occasionally there is the exceptional child who thrives in a completely unstructured environment, but those are the exceptions to the rule.  A good friend of mine from college grew up in an "unschooling" family (parents are total hippie types who run an organic farm) and he went on to do well and college and go to a competitive graduate school, but his brothers are all subsistence farmers, and basically he is just exceptionally bright, driven, creative, and intellectually curious and that is an inherent part of his personality.

I think barring LDs and health issues, in general parents are far less equipped to handle educating their children than school systems are.  There are always exceptions, but a lot of homeschooled kids end up being very deficient in certain areas, especially math and writing.[/quote]

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