what does people think of homeschooling ... is it a good option or not ?
349966
It's nonsense that the children learn no interaction or social skills! The children are NOT locked up in their home and allowed no interaction with their peers. It irritates me so much when people who have no idea about what they are talking about, make that claim. Home schooling is a very positive thing for children. They have one on one teaching, they are allowed to progress at their own level instead of being held back until the rest of the class is at the same level, their scores are higher than public school children, they are normally at a higher grade level than their age, they get more "hands on" learning, meaning field trips etc. and they learn social skills and interaction just as well as public schooled children. One of the biggest advantages is the fact that home schooling can concentrate on the basics so that the home schooled child can read, spell and do math at a MUCH higher level than public schooled children where the emphasis is no longer on the 3 R's. Social skills and peer interaction is introduced through sports, hobbies, activities and through attending Charter School activities. Home Schooled children are NOT Hermits who will never come into contact with their peers! Home Schooling is a lot of work and takes a dedicated parent or parents to make it work. There are good sites on line that can help you to start your Home School. You can also talk to your public schools and find books at the library on the subject. Learn what your state requirements are and plan your curriculum around the requirements. It takes discipline on both the parent/teacher and the child/student. Make sure you get your child tested to see that they are at or above grade level each year.  It is a very rewarding experience! Don't let the uneducated people on home schooling scare you off!!  Good Luck!\n\n\nAgain, home schooled children DO work with their peers through attending activities at Charter Schools and also through sports and other activities. You will notice that the ones claiming that public school is so much better do not have a very good grasp on spelling etc. There are no studies that show that public schooled children fare better in adult life than home schooled children. Many public schooled children have to fear what the other children will do to them and their concentration is more on trying to fit in and not be a victim to bullies etc. Public schooled children have far more problems concentrating on their schooling due to their peers. Home schooled children don't drop out of school nor do they get suspended from school. They get school type activities such as parties and school dances through being a part of a Charter School and through the parents making an effort to make their education even more fulfilling than a child who attends public school.\n\n\nemilyrose..........There are public schooled children who face just as many risks as home schooled children, maybe even more. Home schools are subject to inspection and have to produce proof of schooling. I don't think you can truly believe that public schooled children are never abused or neglected by their parents or that it doesn't go unnoticed by our public school system. Many times abuse goes unnoticed by our public school system. That threat is there no matter whether they attend public, private or home school. I agree that it takes a good parent to teach home schooling. Good parenting is becoming a lost art these days. Both parents generally have to work outside the home and the children are left to take care of themselves. When the parents get home it is time to fix dinner and then get ready for bed. The children fall to the wayside because the parents don't have the time to parent the way they would like to be able to do for their children. Children are raising themselves a lot now and they aren't doing a very good job. All in all I believe that the advantages of home schooling outweigh the perceived disadvantages. \n
703600
I am homeschooled because my parents think that I would do much better at home working at my own pace instead of sitting in class getting distracted by other students who don't care to learn.  I love it and I plan on finishing out my highschool years being homeschooled.  I get almost all A's in my courses I take online and some B's but nothing less, In public school from 1st-9th I did horrible I got NO A's OR B's I only got C's(if i was lucky) D's, and F's!!!  I got into a lot of trouble because of my peers and the pressure but now I have a new group of friends and thanks to other peoples help on Yahoo Q:A I have volenterred to help at the local senior citizen center:).
51122
I took American School. Its in illinois and is through the mail. But its a top notch school and they know what their doing. I worked at my own pase and im 16 and in college. Also, With being able to work at your own pase, you can keep your social life. Dont listen to what people say about homeschool. Most people have never given it a try and just jump to conclusions about it. Good luck finding a school to go through with!
1140393
I was homeschooled from 2nd to 9th grade and went to a Catholic high school in 10th grade til graduation. We tried to get me in for 9th grade but there wasn't room, so they guaranteed me a space the next year.  There were two of us who were homeschooled and entered at the same time/year and both of us did very well academically and socially.  There were no issues related to homeschooling at all. The real issues are about parents and their perspectives about education and relationships, and that affects kids no matter where they go to school.\n\nI did go to the first semester of 8th grade in a public school, and it was so irrelevant and frustrating (because home schoolers are with adults so much that they don't get into a lot of typical middle school stuff) that I asked my parents if I could come home again.  I recommend a higher-performing school or a more nurturing community school if you decide to put your kids in junior high. Everything people are saying here about the crud of middle school was my experience and I didn't need it.  \n\nHowever, the one thing I realized after I entered the corporate workforce in my late 20's, was that I hadn't learned what I call "playground politics" in school (they weren't kidding when they said that "all I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten"), and so I had to be a quick study of how petty politics of personality work (Ironic, huh? I didn't need this in high school but I did need it in the San Francisco workforce!). I'll never be an expert at playing the game but I think it's also because I'm a more straightforward and optimistic personality and had not really experienced the brunt of passive-aggressive tactics before.  \n\nAlso I think it's very important to know the social players in your environment and your kid's environment, and talk about it with them. Make them aware of what's going on around them and teach them to network and have lots of different kinds of friendships, from the loose aquaintances to the tight-knit. My parents didn't teach me that and I graduated from a high school full of the kids of Silicon Valley millionaires with no clue of what was going on around me.  Also have them do a skills/career options inventory early on so they know what they might be good at or interested in doing with college/career and can be thinking about it before they have to make choices in college.  That doesn't have much to do with homeschooling but sometimes more relaxed families don't think about it. \n\nBottom line: homeschooling spared me a lot of grief, allowed my personality to fully develop, and allowed me to read more than my peers, so I have better reading breadth and comprehension, and my mom taught me phonics and grammar so I can spell and write better than a lot of the teachers I had! I had time to enjoy competitive horseback riding and I had to give that up when I went to school. Homeschooling is great when you have friends to do it with and plenty of interaction with the community.  High school is great for getting ready to go to college and it's at the developmental stage where a child is discovering and defining their individuality. It's a good time to go.
985266
I think I can answer this. We never used desks, but I definitely had a very rigorous curriculum, lots of homework, and I practically killed both my son and I with worksheets and homework our first year of homeschooling. He was busy doing lots of work, and I was spending hours planning and grading work as well. \n\nWhy? Because I felt so much pressure the first year of homeschooling to be the perfect teacher and to teach him everything, and not to miss teaching anything. And the truth is you can't teach everything, and you especially can't teach a child everything in one year, and especially I just kind of figured out at some point that I was just trying to do way too much. Plus I had scheduled my ds for half a dozen social activities, lessons, and sports because I wanted to make sure that he was getting plenty of socialization. I was just feeling so much pressure that I had put on myself not to screw this up! I wanted to make sure my ds was getting 100% of his socialization and academic requirements. But in trying to be the perfect homeschool mom, I was actually really messing up. So towards the end of my first year, I started loosening up. \n\nThank goodness, and homeschooling became so much easier for my son and I, pretty much all the rocky patches were gone. I worked on making homeschooling more fun and enjoyable and pleasant, and started tailoring our hs curriculum to my children's interests. The children have more free time now to just goof around, and we're not just rushing around to homeschool activities all the time. We just choose a few of their favorite activities; instead of half a dozen.
599845
Ripped jeans are hot.\n\nSeriously, what do you think of being homeschooled??
134767
of course it is. and especially now that there are more ways for a parent to stay home and work (telecommuting), and more ways to access education (virtual schools and the net), there are fewer and fewer reasons not to.\n\nthe oft-repeated socialization question has long since been put to rest by actual studies of real children:\nhttp://familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,58-17910,00.html\n\nchildren who are homeschooled are often more creative, more relaxed, more self-motivated, and better educated than children in schools. and any teacher who's not trying to defend his/her profession will admit that nothing beats one-on-one attention for a good education. it's just something they cannot provide.\n\nthe main motivator behind those who are against homeschooling is a desire for conformity to tradition and a financial stake--school districts who lose students to homeschooling suffer the loss of cash from the state/feds. \n\nunless your purposes are to shield a child from the world and its evils, homeschooling is of great benefit to families as a whole.
147149
OK, it's not free, but it is a SUPER program.  www.readinga-z.com.  I homeschool my 5 year old and have been incredibly impressed with his progress.  You can check it out for free.  The cost is pretty steep (like $80/year), but it is SOOOO worth it.  Reading is necessary to every other discipline (science, history, even math).  Get behind in reading and you'll have a tough time keeping up in everything else.
851898
If the parents are of average intelligence and are mentally stable, the benefits of homeschooling far outweigh the benefits of attending a public school.\n\nI'm sure there are some parents who are below average intelligence and/or mentally unstable who attempt homeschooling, so the answer is YES.
788724
Yes, as others have explained, unschooling is child-directed learning. I think in theory it's an interesting way to do teaching and homeschooling. One problem for example is the way children don't have much of a say in what they learn in school. I was teaching in a new school to which the 2nd grade teachers were told they were to cover the theme of "weather" for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, most of the children had already extensively studied weather in 1st grade and visited a weather station, met the weatherperson, etc. and were totally bored by the topic. I was being supervised and observed, too, so I don't know who it was worse for: me or the children!!! Anyway, my point being that I think children really appreciate learning about things they really want to learn about and haven't already learned about before and with 30 kids, and with the planning constraints of schools, it is difficult. \n\nWith unschooling, you let your children help you plan your curriculum by using their interests. For example, currently my son loves Greek mythology which is a fantastic topic. We are reading both fiction and nonfiction, current mythology and fiction and the original Greek mythology of course. He also loves Greek mythology computer games (sims) of which there are some great ones. That is also educational, they recreate Greek times, and one of them for example had a 200 page instructional manual which he read which was written at about an 8th grade level which he read, very challenging, although he was only 6th grade.\n\nMy dd is currently interested in dragons, the human body, and animals so we have been reading a lot about those topics. This week she developed a sudden interest in learning about water, so we have been reading about water and doing experiments using water. \n\nFor me, the most difficult topic to unschool with is math, and I do not consider myself an unschooler in the area of math. I do use a math curriculum. I think you could unschool with math quite easily if you are creative and go down the list of topics that you would need to cover, you could make available a lot of math games and cooking lessons and probably cover most of the topics you would need to cover, but I do use math curriculum because I feel I am not overly creative, am a worrier that I might miss important topics, and feel that it is OK to allow myself to use math curriculum, although that is not unschooling of course. \n\nI also use the computer quite extensively, sites like www.headsprout.com and www.starfall.com, but since my dd asks for these sites each day, I suppose that would still count as  unschooling.
681579
I agree, and the school issues you mention are one of many reasons I plan to homeschool.\n\nscary link.
671773
My husband and I made the choice to homeschool before we even got married. Then, when we found out our first child had autism, it just cemented our decision. Here's the reasons why we chose to homeschool.\n 1. Saw my sister successfully homeschool her kids, even caught a learning disability in her first that the school had not caught, which is typical.\n 2. All the families in our church except one homeschool, their kids are WONDERFUL, smart, funny, mature, silly, normal kids. \n 3. Too much school violence, we didn't want to have to worry about our kids making it home from school. His nephew was kidnapped on his way home from school, 15 yrs ago, they never found him.\n 4. We are Christian, there's no room for Christianity in school anymore, and we wanted ours to be the influence most of the day, not a Godless school.\n 5. We don't agree with certain things that are being taught in schools that have no place being taught in schools. Moral issues that should be taught by mom and dad, at home.\n 6. Public and private schools don't allow the student to work independently, to be behind of they don't get something, or ahead if they get it faster than the other students. That's why so many kids fail. Homeschool allows the child to be at different levels in different subjects, depending on their ability.\n 7. Too much emphasis on passing tests, working on a school schedule, instead of emphasis being on retaining what they are learning. It's only common sense that if you pick a topic, read about it, maybe watch a video on it, go on a field trip to where you're studying about, take your time learning about it, you're going to retain it better then being introduced to something on Monday, being tested on it on Friday, and never seeing it again until finals, which by then you've forgotten it. \n 8. Yes, school is a good place to socialize. Unfortunately, for most students these days, that's all they think school is for. Emphasis from the students is on things it shouldn't be on at their age, such as dating, having sex, NEGATIVE peer pressure, drugs, etc. etc. Most kids in schools these days don't care about being there to learn. We don't want that kind of socialization until our kids are mature enough to know right from wrong. I don't want my kid when he's in 1st grade asking me some explicit question about something someone from school told him about. I want to decide when he's ready to learn about life, not some kid. Our kid's socialization will come from kids at church, people they see when we go on field trips or to the store, neighbor kids that we approve of, and sports or band, if they chose that, reading groups at the library, things like that. A more positive environment.\n 9. Finally, our decision to homeschool was based on wanting our kids to grow up believing in family first, nurturing values that have died in the past few generations. I know from when I went to school, your priorities shift from family first to friends first, and that's not right. That's why, we believe, there's so much disrespect for authority, for our elders, and we want to go back to the basics and teach that. That's just not realistic, for most kids, when mom and dad only see them for 3-4 hours a day after school before they go to bed. A person is going to be influenced by those that he spends the most time with.
877583
My schools kinda different. I'm homeschooled and I love it. And yeah its cool. It gets harder every year. Only 2 and a half more years of it though... well then theres college.
408626
hey, thats really cool! i was homeschooled all my life! dont you hate when other ppl say you dont have a social life? i had a friend a few years ago, and all she ever did was make fun of homeschoolers.
897004
Homeschool for sure.\n\n1)My kids get to socialize with all races, ages, religions and gender on a daily basis.  They don't spend 8 hours a day with ONLY people their own age.  \n\n2) They can go to the bathroom whenever they want, and they don't have to ask permission from a teacher who may or may not give it. (I had a teacher in second grade who wouldn't let me go to the bathroom because it was "rest time" and I peed all over myself.  I was known as pee-pee girl for the rest of my elementary years.  Funny, I had forgotten all about that until I read this question) What does all that have to do with schooling? Well, when I had finished my public school years, and entered the working world, I wasn't sure if I needed permission to go to the bathroom....\n\n3) A homeschooled child gets more social time than public schooled ones.  In public school, you get 5 minutes between classes, and if you're lucky, 20 minutes of recess.  Homeschooled children get most of any given day.\n\n4) You get more than 15 minutes to eat your meals when you are homeschooled, and you don't have to spend the rest of the day with indigestion.\n\n5) You don't have mountains of homework when you are homeschooled.  You learn everything set aside for you in a few hours, then your school day is done.\n\n6) You don't spend half of your day waiting when you are homeschooled.  You aren't waiting on 26 other kids to sit down and shut up so you can start learning.\n\n7)  You learn more when homeschooling.  You can take any given subject as far as you want, you don't have to stop when government mandated outlines say you do.\n\n8) You don't have to worry about "fitting in" when you are homeschooled.  If you don't have Tommy or Gap clothes, so what.  Whereas in public school, you get snubbed if your clothes come from Target.\n\n9) When you are homeschooled, you KNOW  your teacher cares about you.  \n\n10) The only real negative to homeschooling is having to listen to, and be snubbed by, public school advocates who don't have a clue what goes on in a home education environment.
236982
I was homeschooled for all but three of my school years.  I have known many people who were in the same situation that it sounds like you're in, being fed up with the school district, etc. and went to homeschooling.  Being in high school, you might find it to be a bit of a hassle to drop out of the school without them giving you a lot of trouble about graduation requirements and various other little things.\n\nHomeschooling is a very good alternative, if you're willing to keep on top of things.  Depending on what state you live in, you might have a harder time switching to homeschool than in some other states.  You'll very likely have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get out of the school system.\n\nYour parents are going to have to commit to helping you in this, because if you're just going to do it by yourself, you'll find it much harder to get the school district to allow you to leave.  You need to really talk it through with your parents, and make a decision about whether this is really the right choice.  Make sure you won't regret doing this a few weeks after you start homeschooling.  \n\nA great organization to check out while you're thinking about switching to homeschooling is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.  They can help answer most any question you might have, and have a lot of expertise on this subject.  I would check them out, and their website also has a lot of very helpful links to other homeschooling organizations.  Good luck in this possible change!
575509
I went to homeschool.com\n\nThey have a getting started kit, that includes a book with guidelines for the laws in every state and information on the different options you have for homeschool education - working with a local school, interenet curriculums, unschooling, you name it. \n\nThere are lots of these types of organizations out there to help our growing population of homeschoolers.  In my state, California, they even have a California Home School Group\n(http://californiahomeschool.net/default.htm)  You might have something similar in your area.\n\nPeace!