Homeschooling vs. Public Schooling

Lighthouse

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kmoney said:
Again, I used to agree with you, but having talked with homeschoolers on here I don't really think that anymore. Talk to Nori, :jessilu: is getting a pretty broad education. She's getting anything she would be able to get in public school.
And more!
 

Lord Vader

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Joe Roberts said:
An education is what you make it, you can home school and learn a lot (I just don’t think it happens to often.) It’s sad that you didn’t take advantage of an opportunity given to you.

Then do the research and find out. Did growing up inside a school teach you to speak from ignorance? College admissions officers actually seek out homeschooled kids. I guess they're all incompetent boobs who are trying to wreck their colleges. Notre Dame just recently started accepting them, and they don't take anybody! Homeschooled kids consistenly outscore their schooling counter parts on aptitude tests (and they aren't even interested in achieving such a thing). There are more of them every year. Homeschooled kids are renown for their poise and maturity. There are ten million websites and books for you to look at. It may sit well with your sensibilities, but that's too bad. Your sensibilities are weak.
 

No Worries

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kmoney said:
Again, I used to agree with you, but having talked with homeschoolers on here I don't really think that anymore. Talk to Nori, :jessilu: is getting a pretty broad education. She's getting anything she would be able to get in public school.

Yeah Ive talked to Nori before mate. It sounds like she's playing a blinder with homeschooling her daughter. The problem Nori had is one that I can sympathise with. No decent public school....Ive said before that if it were so bad then Id have chosen to homeschool in her situation too. Best of a bad deal. I still maintain that if my child were a natural at music, foreign languages and certain sciences then I couldn't do them justice. The standard response to this is hiring a tutor. But thats three or four tutors just there. Like I said if you're going to pay for half a dozen tutors you might as well get some other parents involved and set up your own school. I could provide the width (teach all subjects) but not the depth (in those subjects which I have little experience in), I could provide the depth (in subjects in which I have experience) but not the width.

And in addition my previous post regarding social interaction with peers in a work environment still stands.
 
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Mustard Seed

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Lord Vader said:
Unnecessary made up and contrived jargon and wordiness is the hallmark of the school teacher.

Where have I "contrived" jargon? Where have I "made up" words? If you are going to make accusations then back them up with demonstrable proof. You are the one keen to neologism and the use of such fanciful phrases as "corporatocracy". If anyone's coming close to 'making up' verbage it would be yourself.

I'm also curious as to why you take issue with a larger vocabulary. My experience has been that a more capable thinker, communicator and learner is someone that's ready to increase their capacity to communicate. Whether in learning new languages or in improving their grasp on their own language. I find your assault on the idea of one using their native language in the best way they can as being something inherently wrong as rather disturbing. I mean do you think it's GOOD that the average college graduate today leaves school with such a horribly small vocabulary? Are you advocating a minimalists aproach to communication? Is it best to just have everyone resort to binary communication?


College text books used in teachers colleges are bursting with them. It's actually comical to browse through one. They take "wordy" to a whole new level. It's like a little kid trying to sound like a chemistry text book!

Would a chemistry book be effective if it never endeavored to gain and use a level of jargon more apt to addressing routienly referenced concepts, ideas, objects and exercises? Can you imagine a chemistry book in which it had to forever give it's instructions in laymans terms? It would be like having to perform multiplication without using the format or terms standard to multiplication. Instead of 4x3 they'd have to write out 4+4+4 or 3+3+3+3. I mean the inanity (stupidity) redundancy and absurdity of such a view is agrivating and silly.

You think that by freedom I mean, "release someone into the woods and abandon them". :dizzy:

When you refuse to actualy clarify things yourself, when all you do is try to insult and demean efforts others make to understand your points more clearly, you end up with such opponents stating what they see your point to be. Your option now is to decide to clarify your view, that means more clearly defining what you've said, or you can role your eyes and make a statement like the one above. The statement effectively demonstrates the inanity of the proposed view of freedom, but does nothing to really distance yourself from it. You don't give any alternate view so, despite your presentation of such as absured, we have no other reference to what your true view is, and no substantive reason to believe that it is significantly different from the posited view as to warrent any less disdane.



On the planet I live on, people watch as their babies learn to crawl and then learn to walk - it's this process they do on their own.

So you don't think furniture, baby walkers, parents holding the hands of their childeren as they attempt to stand, availability of sustainable walls to lean on, examples of other walking humans, are items that should be utilized to aid in the development of this skill? Babies would learn to walk just fine even if all other adults around them only crawled?


There is no curriculum. There is no homework. There are no exercises or drills or grades. Just kids playing, parents playing with their kids, the scenario I thought every last human being was familiar with! Some ppl. attempted to employ "walkers", teaching them to walk before they learned to crawl, but that was revealed to actually be harmful, just as making a left handed person write with their right hand, and vice versa, actually harms the nerves of their arms.

Put another way, there is no coercion involved.

So you conceed outside intervention, parents. I think it's interesting that you find walkers to be potentialy harmful. To be true ANYTHING in incorrect proportions or applications, can be harmful. Parents can be harmful. Food can be harmful. People not learning to do things that do not naturaly come to them can be harmful. I'm not sure if you're aware of the fact that a good number of citizens in the world think it's just fine to releave themselves whenever and just about wherever they feel like it. A friend of mine that worked for som time in Taiwan noticed a young woman in a culturaly normal dress, as naturaly as she could, squated down close to the ground for a few seconds, got up without any fanfare or care from those that were all walking about and proceeded to walk away from her just deposited pile of solid human waste. Now there's freedom. No artificial restraint from some outside coercive force. Freedom. And boy did it teach my friend that witnessed it alot. I guess you are correct. Freedom does breed "learning". But all that comes from the fact that, in much of chinese culture, they've simply never seen public, random, defication, as a problem that's needed to be remidied. Many babies, in many areas in China, are dressed in clothing specificaly designed for ease in defication. No mass coercive use of those damned restraining diapers! No sir. FREEDOM (and learning!) Yes freedom from having to ever change babies diapers or purchase them or clean them (yes some people in the world still have to use cloth!). What knowledge enducing freedom from mass coersive measures. Brings to mind the cursing of one ficitonal Homer Simpson--"Stupid lack of public urinals!"



I use the word, "supportive". It takes a lot less time to type. What do unschooling parents do? They're supportive. That's all. It's natural. When someone needs your help, you help them. Isn't that easy enough to intuit? I feel like if I left you to unschool, after telling you that there isn't the coercion of schooling, that you'd sit by and ignore a kid who can't reach the faucet, smarmily commenting that "you're learning in freedom now, you're on yer own" leaving the kid to mutter to himself, "dumba**".

Ahh yes. I'm sure the kid learned the term "dumba**" from the "supportive" friends that help him when he asks for it but otherwise leave him be. Sounds like some gangs I've heard described. Kids get sick of their parents wanting the best for them to the point of "coercive" means of education so they turn to a slightly less, in their short sighted perspective, "coercive" group. Heck, no one telling them when to go to bed, what to watch or not watch. Yes, a libertarian dream, plenty of learning in those liberal centers.



Wow. That's what you think the phrase, "learn in freedom" means!

As I mentioned, your refusal to fully engage in constructive discussion demands that I'm left to guessing what you mean by using powers of deduction. You be more willing to provide clarification rather than unsupportable attempts at denegration and we might get further.


In other words, kept inside a school building all day.

I never said that nor is it what I advocate. But a kid who thinks he never has to commit to an unpleasent location and task for extended periods of time never really has a prayer at developing skills needed to survive and thrive, so regardless the morality of their actions they will be weeded out via social darwinism---unless there's enough of them--then you have a society similar to the arch-typical old Russian commune--forever free and equitable yet never acheiving any type of marked prosperity.


Unless it's the kind of society that requires most of all that you obey orders; which is the only thing you learn how to do in school.

That's all simple minds learn to do whether they're left at home to "freely learn" or if they are placed in some governmental entity. The truth is that those who are, and strive to be, truely wise will grow and learn despite the inherent trends found in they're current environments.


But employers don't want that - hence the impetus to offer classes, CLASSES, in critical thinking skills! How do you turn someone off of something?

I'll be the first to admit that the current paradigms used in most of public education are not terribly wonderful motivators or purveyors of the stated intended purposes. I'd direct you to the following for a reference to the problems that have often, and greatly, infected learning and administrative endeavors from the dawn of humanity. I think you'll find much of this to be agreable to your view of education. Here's an excerpt from the article, it's talking about the difference in society between managers and leaders.


The leader, for example, has a passion for equality. We think of great generals from David and Alexander on down, sharing their beans or maza with their men, calling them by their first names, marching along with them in the heat, sleeping on the ground, and being first over the wall. A famous ode by a long-suffering Greek soldier, Archilochus, reminds us that the men in the ranks are not fooled for an instant by the executive type who thinks he is a leader.7

For the manager, on the other hand, the idea of equality is repugnant and even counterproductive. Where promotion, perks, privilege, and power are the name of the game, awe and reverence for rank is everything, the inspiration and motivation of all good men. Where would management be without the inflexible paper processing, dress standards, attention to proper social, political, and religious affiliation, vigilant watch over habits and attitudes, that gratify the stockholders and satisfy security?

"If you love me," said the greatest of all leaders, "you will keep my commandments. "If you know what is good for you," says the manager, "you will keep my commandments and not make waves." That is why the rise of management always marks the decline, alas, of culture. If the management does not go for Bach, very well, there will be no Bach in the meeting. If the management favors vile sentimental doggerel verse extolling the qualities that make for success, young people everywhere will be spouting long trade-journal jingles from the stand. If the management's taste in art is what will sell--trite, insipid, folksy kitsch--that is what we will get. If management finds maudlin, saccharine commercials appealing, that is what the public will get. If management must reflect the corporate image in tasteless, trendy new buildings, down come the fine old pioneer monuments.​


http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=125


Force them to do it. Hence the loss of interest in math and science, and oh, look, America is having an increasing problem with science illiteracy.

An even greater problem to the promotion of science and math is that we are trying to keep kids "free" from the worries and stresses of global competition. They live a life provided by many a scientist, engineer, and analytical mind, yet they are not permited to see the real obsticals that are heading toward them. They are given the illusion that they are intitled to things, they blur the line between 'freedom' and entitlement. They think that certain things are freedoms when they are really just socialist cushions that blind them to the fact that their current good life is more a result of a mortgaged future than it is simply a manifestation of the 'freedoms' they're 'entitled' to. Kids think that they can just sit at home and be "free" to "learn" whatever they "feel like" learning. Thus their false sense and conseption of "freedom" inherently leaves our kids entering the worlds work force thinking that they are as good as the rest of the world when they are generaly woefully behind it. In India and China kids are motivated by the fact that they are not "free" from the inconveniences of economic reality. They are restrained in their search for, and work in, obtaining an education. They are not free and they know it--so they work for it. Americans think they are free, so they do not work for it. Our real problem with a lack of motivation is not the forcing of kids to do math or reading, it is disconecting such from it's real future implications. If kids were shown what they could expect in the globalized market place when the socialist nets finaly fail they would have all the motivation they would need to actively try and learn on their own.


Unless we become as regimented as, say, Japan, we won't be able to compete. But first we have to shed our "Americanness"; that left over sense of liberty from Thomas Jefferson, before we can become complete robots (a society stricken with porn addiction -like manga- rampant alchoholism, child and teen and adult suicide... but quite economically formidable with all the other robot countries).

You fail to see what made Jefferson great. You are distorting Jefferson's views as to what is and isn't the best for learning in the same way that the French distorted the views of what a proper, and productive, revolution would concist of. I doubt you yourself would last more than a week in the America that Jefferson visualized.


Businessmen see the easy way out, making a society of robots - and people forget that America became the most advanced nation the world had ever seen in under 100 years after it's birth because people were free, not because they toiled like automatons in factories and education centers. That's not the recipe for innovation and real work.

The people were free from delusions about what freedom really is. They were freed from the concept of freedom as being the forced egalitarian "brotherhood" that the likes of france envisioned. They realized that freedom meant working WITH the limitations of nature rather than merely ignoring them. They realized that a CAPITALIST system was the only, despite it's grand problems and vast deficiencies, waste, unfairness, and conflict, that could produce a surpluss. They fought for freedoms, nor freedoms FROM nature but freedom to SEE nature and to intellegenly respond to such. To design systems that would ever increase efficiency, productivity etc.. Sure it's produced some counter productive things, technological, ideological, or beurocratic "lock in". Sure we've had times, especialy now, when much of the system has, at the moment, lost sight of it's original aims and gotten stuck in the mantra and motions of mere self perpetuation. Does that mean the whole system, capitalism, socialy demanded universal access to at least some degree of education, are entirely wrong? You need to discern between the true enemy and the misdirected, bias induced, anger at the concept of mass coercive education.

What you don't seem to see is that America became what it is because of the fact that some americans did work, in some way or another, like robots. Hard work and work of some concistancy and value are what helped to make America what it is. The capacity to combine both hard laborious work and the occasional gift of inspiration are what enabled us to go forward, not just one or the other.

Too much too soon?

Of what? Inanity from you? Possibly.
 

Mustard Seed

New member
Dread Helm said:
I'll give you a just a few reasons.

  1. Better Education.
  2. Better Teachers. ;)
  3. Better Friends.
  4. My parents are my main influence, not the godless system.


I'm curious as to whether or not you have had any other teachers beyond those from homeschooling? Do you think there could ever be anything learned from a poor teacher? Do you think you can live your whole life without any significant influence from any of the godless systems? I've personaly found that being simulataniously receiving instruction from home and the public realm has enabled me to receive a far better balance of an education than either one could have provided alone. It's one thing to remain seperate from the world, it's quite another to try and act like it's not there or doesn't ever need to be a significant aspect in ones life. Homeschool is excellent in many cases. I have many good friends that were home taught for much of their lives. But the idea that utterly staying out of public institutions of learning is going to provide you with the capacities you need to make it in the world is living in a pipe dream. I think you should love and cherish the benefits of homeschooling, but when it becomes your creed or your god, or if you think those raised in public schools are forever your inferiors because of the system they were in, then you are on a demented path indeed.
 

ebenz47037

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No Worries said:
Yeah Ive talked to Nori before mate. It sounds like she's playing a blinder with homeschooling her daughter. The problem Nori had is one that I can sympathise with. No decent public school....Ive said before that if it were so bad then Id have chosen to homeschool in her situation too. Best of a bad deal. I still maintain that if my child were a natural at music, foreign languages and certain sciences then I couldn't do them justice. The standard response to this is hiring a tutor. But thats three or four tutors just there. Like I said if you're going to pay for half a dozen tutors you might as well get some other parents involved and set up your own school. I could provide the width (teach all subjects) but not the depth (in those subjects which I have little experience in), I could provide the depth (in subjects in which I have experience) but not the width.

And in addition my previous post regarding social interaction with peers in a work environment still stands.

:chuckle: This is so funny. I didn't tell you my own school history, No Worries. When I was in elementary school, they actually had gifted classes! So, if you were smarter than what they considered normal, they would put you in those. You guessed it. I was in those classes. I learned to speak fluent Spanish in the fourth grade. We were the only non-hispanic family living in our neighborhood in San Diego, CA. Of course, like most kids, I learned the curse words first (and used them constantly until my mom and step-father learned what they meant). :chuckle: I was doing math and science three years ahead of my grade at that time. My reading and grammar (writing, mostly) were off the charts for that time period. And, I've been very much into music since I was in second grade. On top of all of that, I have an IQ of 148 and a photographic memory. And, another note about my being into music, I sang professionally (C&W, opera, and 80s rock) between the ages of 18 and 21 (when my daughter was born, I quit singing to devote more time to her).

Does it sound like I may be capable of teaching my daughter, now? Because of how I was allowed to learn, to my heart's content, I believe very strongly in allowing a child to learn as much as they can handle. :jessilu: taught herself to read at age two; and I'm talking about the newspaper and encyclopedias, not Dick and Jane books. The same year, she also took apart my alarm clock with a phillips head screwdriver and put it back together, missing only one piece. Those two incidents told me that I may have problems with her in school if they didn't have gifted programs.

She went to a private school for kindergarten and first grades. Her teachers, even there, were complaining about how she was not doing things at grade level. She was tested in the first grade for her reading level and scored at a tenth grade level. By the time she was in second grade, public schools where we lived in California were phasing out gifted programs to keep the status quo. The teacher would complain to me that :jessilu: was going ahead in her books. I told the teacher to put her in the gifted program, then. The teacher said that they don't allow anyone below third grade in the program. So, I told her to put :jessilu: in the third grade. She said that she couldn't do that because the other kids in the class would get jealous. Then, she suggested that I homeschool :jessilu:. With the exception of a semester in the fourth grade (right after Steve died and we moved to Indiana) and a semester in the sixth grade (I was teaching Spanish in a Christian school), we haven't looked back.

As you've heard from Lighthouse, my daughter is far from under socialized. You can ask DearDelmar, Yorzhik, ShadowMaid, Elaine and Christine, and Crow. All of them have met :jessilu: and know that she is a very social person. In fact, right now, I'm dealing with her tying up my phone everyday from three to eight pm talking to her friends who attend public school. :chuckle: But, what do you expect from a 16 year old girl?
 

No Worries

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Great so how many parents have a photographic memory, an IQ of 148 and all the rest of the goings on you have (and additionally you have external teaching experience too)?..... if my dad were Albert Einstein and my mom were Emily Bronte I'd be wanting home schooling too. Certainly in math, science and English anyhow. I listed the things which I would have weaknesses in teaching; namely music, foreign languages.

Please dont take this personally. I'm not gearing this at you. But I still maintain that there will be a better coverage provided at a good school. I assume you aced high school science but you didn't mention studying science at college. Assuming that your daughter is as intelligent as you but were to have been focussed in say physics then a high school level of education in physics just wouldn't cut it even you aced it back then for the simple fact that she'd be asking questions beyond the highschool level. Put that scenario in a 'good' school and the physics teacher can provide a level of education that suits drawing on extended graduate expertise, and yes I too believe in fast tracking.

And thats not to say that one can't teach their child as well. I have an English friend that lives in Germany with her German husband. Her kids were brought up speaking both German and English at home...they studied it in public school too. I dont see it as an either or, but a both.

And I still maintain that exposure to a working environment amongst one's peers is still important.
 

ebenz47037

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No Worries said:
Great so how many parents have a photographic memory, an IQ of 148 and all the rest of the goings on you have (and additionally you have external teaching experience too)?..... if my dad were Albert Einstein and my mom were Emily Bronte I'd be wanting home schooling too. Certainly in math, science and English anyhow. I listed the things which I would have weaknesses in teaching; namely music, foreign languages.

I accepted long ago that I was far from average, No Worries. :chuckle: I didn't mention that I also learned Portugeuse the same way I learned Spanish. :chuckle: And, I'm learning German and Italian now by visiting people who speak those languages in nursing homes (needless to say, it's rubbing off on :jessilu: ).

I also didn't tell you that :jessilu: was fluent in American Sign Language before she was a year old. Although she could speak clearly (Her first words to me were, "Momma, I'm hungry. Please fix dinner."), her babysitter at that time (I was working parttime while my ex was in school) was deaf. It was funny watching her talk to him and him correcting her few signs that she did mess up.

Please dont take this personally. I'm not gearing this at you. But I still maintain that there will be a better coverage provided at a good school. I assume you aced high school science but you didn't mention studying science at college. Assuming that your daughter is as intelligent as you but were to have been focussed in say physics then a high school level of education in physics just wouldn't cut it even you aced it back then for the simple fact that she'd be asking questions beyond the highschool level. Put that scenario in a 'good' school and the physics teacher can provide a level of education that suits drawing on extended graduate expertise, and yes I too believe in fast tracking.

Believe it or not, I didn't go to college. I wouldn't let my dad put a third mortgage on his house to send me. That's not saying that I quit learning when I graduated high school, though. I still pick up college books at the second-hand bookstore, in town, whenever I can. I still love learning.

And, speaking of science, I almost joined the US Navy when I graduated high school because I wanted to take nuclear physics. The recruiter told me that they had to put a freeze on recruiting women into that field because they only selected ten people a year in 1987. That's why I was singing. I thought I would have a better career as a nuclear physicist than a singer, even though music is and always has been my first love. But, since I couldn't get the education I needed to do it, I went back to my first love. Even now, my family tells me that I'll never make money at it. I did for a few years; not a lot, but I did make money.

And thats not to say that one can't teach their child as well. I have an English friend that lives in Germany with her German husband. Her kids were brought up speaking both German and English at home...they studied it in public school too. I dont see it as an either or, but a both.

I don't think that it's an either/or situation, either. But, you have to realize that the parents are the first educators that a child has. It's up to the parents to instill a love of learning in their children. If you push too hard, your child will feel over-stressed. If you don't push hard enough, your child will feel bored. My parents didn't care about my education (mom and step-father, dad wasn't in the picture until I was 17). In fact, my mom told me that girls aren't supposed to be smart. :nono:

And I still maintain that exposure to a working environment amongst one's peers is still important.

I say it is important for some people. A lot of people do much better on their own than with a group of people. My daughter and I were lucky enough to be able to do both. In fact, my daughter asked me today to send her to a prep school so that she can really push hard for the next two years to prepare for college. I told her that if I can afford it, I will send her. I just hope that she wants the same thing after I go through all of the application process for her. She's a teenager. She changes her mind everyday. :D
 

No Worries

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ebenz47037 said:
I accepted long ago that I was far from average, No Worries. :chuckle: I didn't mention that I also learned Portugeuse the same way I learned Spanish. :chuckle: And, I'm learning German and Italian now by visiting people who speak those languages in nursing homes (needless to say, it's rubbing off on :jessilu: ).
Yeah you've obviously got one of those minds thats just adept at languages. French was the one thing that I had to really study for, Latin was easier as it was just really a case of learning pages of vocab and memorising translations of entire passages. Not having to write it or speak it in the exam was a plus. Translation was pretty much a case of spotting verb endings and putting a sentence together that fitted. Remembering arguments and facts was always my strong point which is why history was a naturally an avenue for me to go down. When I talk of a teacher being able to push a student beyond the remit of a certain education level by drawing on college experience I know I profitted from this in history. My brain just doesn't want to know when it comes to foreign languages though....I get shutdown.


I also didn't tell you that :jessilu: was fluent in American Sign Language before she was a year old. Although she could speak clearly (Her first words to me were, "Momma, I'm hungry. Please fix dinner."), her babysitter at that time (I was working parttime while my ex was in school) was deaf. It was funny watching her talk to him and him correcting her few signs that she did mess up.
:) That would have been sweet to see. I did a couple of lessons in sign language too (I did some work for the National Deaf Children's Society and 'Sense' another disabilities charity). Again it never took off, largely because I didnt actually know any deaf people, and because it is another language so 'shutdown' was a common occurence, but I can still swear like a trooper in sign which is pretty cool and I can still remember my alphabet.

I don't think that it's an either/or situation, either. But, you have to realize that the parents are the first educators that a child has. It's up to the parents to instill a love of learning in their children. If you push too hard, your child will feel over-stressed. If you don't push hard enough, your child will feel bored.
I completely agree. Its one of the reasons why I beleive home school kids do so well in comparison. By and large they'll come from homes where the parents actually care enough about the kids education to make sure it is progressing. I think these kids would generally out perform others regardless of whether they went to public school or were hometaught.


I say it is important for some people. A lot of people do much better on their own than with a group of people. My daughter and I were lucky enough to be able to do both. In fact, my daughter asked me today to send her to a prep school so that she can really push hard for the next two years to prepare for college. I told her that if I can afford it, I will send her. I just hope that she wants the same thing after I go through all of the application process for her. She's a teenager. She changes her mind everyday. :D
I would argue that it would be equally important for the people that dont deal with groups as well to actually be made to work with groups as it is a precious quality in later life to work well within a group. Again I believe in streaming students. Put the smart kids in one class and let them progress as fast as they can. Put the shy kids in another with smaller classes than usual. Put the boisterous kids in another class with a teacher with plenty of personality and make them do sport first thing every day. Put the not so academic kids in another class so more time can be spent on each topic and progression can be slightly more steady.

But it sounds like your daughters got her head screwed on properly and that she realises that prep school will push her harder and further. In addition I dare say you will still be teaching her at home too and watching over studies. We agree its not an either or situation and both is obviously preferrable. That said I can remember being 16 and I never really knew what I wanted to do so it sounds like she's at least one up on me already.
 
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JoyfulRook

New member
Mustard Seed said:
I'm curious as to whether or not you have had any other teachers beyond those from homeschooling?
You mean besides my parents? Yes, I have and I do.
Do you think there could ever be anything learned from a poor teacher?
But much better and more important things can be learned from a good teacher.
Do you think you can live your whole life without any significant influence from any of the godless systems?
In these years of my tender childhood, my parents would like to shape me, not the godless education system.
I've personaly found that being simulataniously receiving instruction from home and the public realm has enabled me to receive a far better balance of an education than either one could have provided alone.
It is the story of my life. :)
It's one thing to remain seperate from the world,
I hope that isn't the impression I gave you...
it's quite another to try and act like it's not there or doesn't ever need to be a significant aspect in ones life.
I've never tried that.
Homeschool is excellent in many cases. I have many good friends that were home taught for much of their lives.
:thumb:
But the idea that utterly staying out of public institutions of learning is going to provide you with the capacities you need to make it in the world is living in a pipe dream.
That's not what I'm doing.
 

thelaqachisnext

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Joe Roberts said:
It's just that most homeschooled kids I know sit around the house all day and do nothing.
I know one lazy woman who used the system to rob her children of an education while she lived a selfish, self centered life, staying in bed til late in the morning and never cooking or caring for her family.Unfortunately, she was married to a dear man who could do nothing about her, for when he really came to know what she was -the damage was done. Her kids are horribly unprepared for life, and someday the cost of what this woman has done will be known. I am related to the former husband of that woman. It has been a nightmare to live through, watching her destroy her family, but that is a most rare kind of thing.

That said: I homeschooled five of our seven and the last one is a high school choir teacher in a private, fully accredited school, and she also teaches international students English as a second language along with US history and cluture. She also gives private voice lessons. She never went to a public school a day in her life and her schooling beyond high school was all self directed, and in areas she wanted to learn, taught her by hired, private teachers, who knew their subjects and who could teach others 'one on one'.

The next to the last one went to community college the first two years, getting his AS, with which he was easily able to get into a state university.He wanted to be a dentist from the time he was in the eighth grade, so I geared his studies so that he would have no problem getting into dental school. After he earned his BS from the state university, he volunteered in a native dental clinic in Alaska for one year. After that, he had no trouble getting into dental school at a state school -known as a hard one to get into. He's been in practice as a dentist for four years, now, and does well.

The one before him is a legal secratary, who was trained by a family friend who went into private practice when he left working for the state. She makes a good salary, sets her own hours, and leaves work if she finishes what they gave her to do before the business closes its doors each day. She also works only four days a week, by her choice, as she "has a life outside the doors of the law firm"..

The one before her got her AS at the local community college and then went into a missions program, where she met and married her husband. She is a stay at home mom of four, and has homeschooled all four of them from the first. Her oldest is now 14 and yongest is 8. She does a good job and I'm proud of the citizens she and her hubby are raising.

The one before her went to the community college but because of mono, did not finish his credits and never took the time to repeat the classes he needed. I think he only needed one credit or so; nevertheless; he got a job as a recreation director at a burrough in Alaska and after five years, was offered the job of Parks and Recs Superintendent of the burrough, which position he held for several years while he oversaw the building of a new rec center. He is now in sales and owns his own business of supplying tourist items for resale to businesses in Alaska.

When I needed a tutor, I was usually able to hire a friend who could teach the subject, like Algebra or Spanish, for instance. Other tutors were hired as needed, over the years, and none 'broke' us, as they were usually one at a time for one class at a time -and all were in our home or theirs, making life easy. The last one did a full year of Biology and then Chemistry in a private home with a group of six to eight other students, where the teacher had an excellent lab set-up that was better than the local high school. She also used college textbooks for the courses

Going across the country by car during the school year to visit relatives in far away places was a fun way to teach about America's geography and history.
On state history, BTW, two of the girls volunteered as tour guides at the state capitol, for a school year -for one day a week.

There are so many ways to school your family that are fun. I only wish that I had been able to school all of them this way, but it took years to get hubby to agree, so the first one was in the last tri-mester of the tenth grade when I began to school him at home to save him from the social downfall he had gotten in at the public school -though he was a straight 'A' student, he was falling through the cracks, socially, because of peers. It saved his life.
He did get to do sports at the high school with his twin bro, however; but if I had it to do over, I would not allow the boys to do sports at the public school. No good fruit came from it, though they were idols of the schools for their abilities and did well in all they did.
If I had it to do over I would have a farm and ranch and keep those boys so busy that they'd hone those muscles handling livestock, weeding, and swimming in the lake for fun!

Fun things can be done with homeschool friends -and sports don't have to be idolatry, but can be just done for fun with a group of friends.
When my first two entered community college I learned that the 101 courses were the same things they had already had in high school! In fact; I learned that the first two years of college are now the same things that used to be taught in high school, years ago.
I do not respect the public school system nor the kinds of 'citizens' they turn out, in general, and found that the 'liberal' courses were total indoctrination of social dysfunctionism.

One only learns what they teach themselves in public school, IMO, anyway -that is; if they have an interest in learning.
 
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Lord Vader

New member
1) Practice what you preach
2) Look up Jefferson's University of Virginia, the one he started to build
3) You haven't shown that coercion is necessary for anything
4) these schools seem to work just fine without coercion: http://www.sudval.com
 

Mustard Seed

New member
Lord Vader said:
1) Practice what you preach

I do.

2) Look up Jefferson's University of Virginia, the one he started to build

I'm well aware of it and what he planned for. It was a grand vision but it wasn't perfect or entirely feasable.

3) You haven't shown that coercion is necessary for anything

I don't need to. It's obvious that a person needs motivation to do things in life. One must be made to learn many things before they can gain a self perpetuating desire to sustain them in learning. Coercion, while not a mainstay, is not an item that's never needed in education. Whether through capitalist, paternal, governmental, or via other means, various aspects of education demand certain kinds and levels of coercion to aid in the propegation of wisdom and knowledge.

4) these schools seem to work just fine without coercion: http://www.sudval.com

That school couldn't have existed without previous systems of coercion. The very existance of the internet is tied to "mass compulsive governmental education" without the existance of the governmentaly subsidized education systems the internet would not have come into existance when it did. The very concept of an education based entirely on student curiousity fed through an information nexus would be impossible without the internet, and the governmental, education, and military industrial complexes, and yes, even all those despised corporations that you seem to try and paint in the same sinister color across the board.
 

Huff

BANNED
Banned
I wish I could home school my kids, but it’s just not possible at this time in my life. I also don’t think I’m intelligent enough to teach them much.
 

Lighthouse

The Dark Knight
Gold Subscriber
Hall of Fame
I was smarter than any of the teachers I had in public school. Trust me Huff, you're smart enough to teach your children.
 

JoyfulRook

New member
Huff said:
I wish I could home school my kids, but it’s just not possible at this time in my life.
For some people it just isn't possible.
I also don’t think I’m intelligent enough to teach them much.
You could do it! The right curriculum and you can learn with your kids!
 

Huff

BANNED
Banned
Lighthouse said:
I was smarter than any of the teachers I had in public school. Trust me Huff, you're smart enough to teach your children.


Even if I was smart enough, I'm a single parent and I have to work.
 

Mustard Seed

New member
Lighthouse said:
:idea:Night school!

Yeah!!! That brilliance is shinning through. Sacrifice a good portion of those last five or six hours of sleep he/she might be getting currently. THAT's 'intelligent'!
 
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