Homeschooling

[Elizabeth]

Is it bad schools, or is it the influence of peers that causes kids bad behavior? Even a homeschooled kid needs a social life, and you'll need to consider that as well. If all the kids in the neighborhood are like your neighbour's daughter, then really moving away to a safer and nicer location is best for your kid(s). At a certain point, you loose control over who your kids associate with, and long distances will be the only way to correct it if she does start down the wrong path.

Or it could be that the schools are simply overwhelmed and teaching to the middle. Which isn't wrong but what happens to the child who isn't IN THE MIDDLE? Like my daughter who ended up bored because she was smart and they were teaching below her level. But thanks to budgets, even putting her in the accelerated classes didn't help. She aced those as well. We lived in an excellent neighborhood, the schools were highly rated but just couldn't teach each child to their own abilites. They teach to the middle child. The ones on each end get left out.

 

[GofD]

Is it bad schools, or is it the influence of peers that causes kids bad behavior? Even a homeschooled kid needs a social life, and you'll need to consider that as well. If all the kids in the neighborhood are like your neighbour's daughter, then really moving away to a safer and nicer location is best for your kid(s). At a certain point, you loose control over who your kids associate with, and long distances will be the only way to correct it if she does start down the wrong path.

Or it could be that the schools are simply overwhelmed and teaching to the middle. Which isn't wrong but what happens to the child who isn't IN THE MIDDLE? Like my daughter who ended up bored because she was smart and they were teaching below her level. But thanks to budgets, even putting her in the accelerated classes didn't help. She aced those as well. We lived in an excellent neighborhood, the schools were highly rated but just couldn't teach each child to their own abilites. They teach to the middle child. The ones on each end get left out.

There's a lot of truth to this, and you know it to be true, Peter. Your son is highly intelligent and bored in school. You and your wife aren't about to let him stagnate socially, so when are you going to put up or shut up? (Sorry! Couldn't resist!) Seriously, though - have you given more thought to pulling him out of school since we talked last?

 

[Onimua]

I've always been a "gifted" child since I was young. I loved that when I was in elementary school in one of those classes for kids of higher learning skills, a teacher told me I had no imagination. Yep, great way to encourage the youth.

Told my mom, and didn't go back to that particular teacher again.

 

[zappaDPJ]

I look forward to hearing from anyone who has done this, ideally from the UK but all input is welcomed.

I considered it very seriously twice but eventually rejected the idea on both occasions. I think it's important to question your motivation for taking this option. Is it to protect your child from undesirable elements or is it to try and give them a better education? I think both present major hurdles. We all want to protect our children but keeping them away from everyday life is not necessarily going to do them any favours in the long run. They need to learn to cope with their peers and the society they live in without being unduly influenced by the rougher side of it. I'm not sure that can be achieved if they are isolated from a major part of it.

Only you know if you have the time, dedication or resources to home tutor. I would have made the time by giving up work but the stumbling point was that I came to realise I could only go so far with certain subjects. In the end I decided that there the risk of social isolation coupled with my inability to teach beyond a certain level made it a non-starter for us. However that wasn't the end of it.

We found that the teaching standards at my daughter's school to be sub par to put it mildly. In the end I found it necessary to spend at least an hour or two a day, five days a week trying to supplement her eduction with my own knowledge. It was hard work for us both but it paid off with 7 A* GCSE exam results. The school she attended was rough but she chose her friends carefully, has stayed out of trouble and is now studying for her A levels at a better school.

There's nothing wrong with home schooling and I admire the people that can pull it of successfully but I think there's a lot to consider before taking on such a monumental task. For my part I'm glad I decided to send my daughter to school but I'm also glad that I put the time and effort into helping her learn and perhaps more importantly teaching her how to cope in a pretty rough environment. I wish you the best of luck whichever route you decide to take

 

[José Guedes]

I know, I might be the youngest around this forums, I'm just 16 years old... but I would have loved to be a homeschooled kid... at least fot the first 2 years of my school life... In my oppinion it would have helped me so much with my current situation...
If I had been homeschooled, I wouldn't have missed a year because I was too lazy to do whatever it was...
The teachers on my primary school didn't push enough for my skills... instead they bullied me and made me seen not normal to the other kids... and kids on those ages are mean to each other, specially if they get your weak spots...
I was just bored of the same thing over and over the again... and I still am, now on a professional course, for programming languages and computer related stuff, I could have gone better, if I wasn't that lazy and tired of the same stuff all over again...
For example, now in one of my classes, we are talking about Networking, I have a Cisco ICD1 Certification... Seriously? What am I going to do all this time? Learning what I already learned in a week?
Oh please...

 

[Elizabeth]

I know, I might be the youngest around this forums, I'm just 16 years old... but I would have loved to be a homeschooled kid... at least fot the first 2 years of my school life... In my oppinion it would have helped me so much with my current situation...
If I had been homeschooled, I wouldn't have missed a year because I was too lazy to do whatever it was...
The teachers on my primary school didn't push enough for my skills... instead they bullied me and made me seen not normal to the other kids... and kids on those ages are mean to each other, specially if they get your weak spots...
I was just bored of the same thing over and over the again... and I still am, now on a professional course, for programming languages and computer related stuff, I could have gone better, if I wasn't that lazy and tired of the same stuff all over again...
For example, now in one of my classes, we are talking about Networking, I have a Cisco ICD1 Certification... Seriously? What am I going to do all this time? Learning what I already learned in a week?
Oh please...

You are an example of what I was just talking about...you are on the end of the scale...and they are teaching, in your case, to the beginner. But in order to get thru the classes, YOU have to go thru it regardless of your outside cetification.

 

[José Guedes]

You are an example of what I was just talking about...you are on the end of the scale...and they are teaching, in your case, to the beginner. But in order to get thru the classes, YOU have to go thru it regardless of your outside cetification.

Thats why for me, school is boring... I just need to learn once and practice twice, and from me we could continue on the learning... Not making the same thing over and over again and then make a test about the thing, and my only satisfaction is that I got the best mark of the class...

Example, on Information Systems classes, we were learning MS Access since December, I paid attention to the first classes, paid attention to the new stuff, practice once or twice, while the others practiced 9 or 10 times, and stop giving a damn to the class, then on the test time, I got the best mark on it.

 

[John]

We have home schooled our two daughters since the beginning of their formal educations...going on 9 years now. Best decision we ever made. Lot's been stated here but I'll add one more thing for you to think about: "Turning your children over to total strangers and having those strangers work on your child's mind...it's a mad idea." ~John Taylor Gatto. Bottom line - do you want to be in control of how your daughter is educated not only intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually, or do you want to abdicate that to the state? Believe me, with the way public "education" is going these days, that is exactly what you will be choosing. You would be amazed at how few rights you have as a parent once you let your child walk through those school doors.

 

[José Guedes]

We have home schooled our two daughters since the beginning of their formal educations...going on 9 years now. Best decision we ever made. Lot's been stated here but I'll add one more thing for you to think about: "Turning your children over to total strangers and having those strangers work on your child's mind...it's a mad idea." ~John Taylor Gatto. Bottom line - do you want to be in control of how your daughter is educated not only intellectually but emotionally and spiritually or do you want to abdicate that to the state? Believe me, with the way public "education" is going these days, that is exactly what you will be choosing. You would be amazed at how few rights you have as a parent once you let your child walk through those school doors.

I agree with you, but Also I would like to point that We (students) don't have many rights and if teachers usually do anything bad, to us to complain about it, most probably we wont even be heard, of if we are, its too late... our future is already ruined because someone wasn't competent enough to teach us how to do this and that that we should know for our other classes.

For example this year on Maths, we had a teacher in the beggining, assigned to our class, but he got ill in the end of the last year with a cancer, so he could not give us classes, so we waited one month and a half for a new teacher.
When we got that new teacher, result, the teacher was not in condition to even teach, she was always missing classes, and arguing with students... This continued till the end of the 1st term (December)

Now, in March, we have a new teacher... lets see how it goes this time...

 

[turtile]

If you are mainly worried about the other students having a bad influence on her, I'd say no to homeschooling. She's going to end up around them regardless and it's important that she learns to deal with them and not emulate them. Most kids go bad because their parents don't care about them, they try to be their friend, or they give up enforcing their kids to do the right thing. If you shelter her, she'll be much more likely to get pressured into doing bad things to fit in.

 

[Steve Machol]

We pulled our two youngest out of school and home-schooled them for two years until they entered High School. It was the best thing we could have done for them, and by 'we' I mean my wife who did almost all the schooling since I was working full-time and traveling about 25% of the time.

Of course laws are different nation to nation and even within each of the individual states, so you do need to check which laws are applicalbe to you and make sure you follow them to the letter.

The only uncomfortable thing was that in the U.S. when you home-school someone most people assume that you are doing it for religious reasons and don't want your child exposed to the 'dangers' of critical thinking, scientific methodology, and of course the dreaded blasphemy of 'Evolution'. This is because most parents that do this in the U.S. are, in fact, doing this for those reasons. Therefore we did not have any other parents around that we could share this with.

It did work out best for the kids though. However be prepared for a lot of work if you want to do this right.

 

[GofD]

The only uncomfortable thing was that in the U.S. when you home-school someone most people assume that you are doing it for religious reasons and don't want your child exposed to the 'dangers' of critical thinging, scientific methodology, and of course the dreaded blasphemy of 'Evolution'. This is because most parents that do this in the U.S. are, in fact, doing this for those reasons. Therefore we did not have any other parents around that we could share this with.

@Steve - Exactly the same issue we have with it - being in a rural, very 'religious' county, we're kind of floating alone. Doesn't mean the kids don't have friends and interactions with the other kids, it's just hard to explain to others that we're not homeschooling because we're fundamentalists (because we're most assuredly NOT), but we're doing it to ensure our kids have educations tailored to them individually, and that they don't have the love of learning beat out of them.