Public School vs Homeschool (colleges, dental school, pay, MBA)

[thedwightguy]

Originally Posted by JennieAmber

I know awhile back homeschool was almost a dirty word because everyone freaked out over their opinion of it being a non-social environment but now with public schools becoming more and more unsocial and unsafe every day (my opinion), has the opinion of homeschooling stayed the same or are there more people who would be inclined to homeschool their kids? If you have kids, did you end up homeschooling them when you thought you wouldnt? For those who dont have kids, would you be into the idea of it?

What do you think are the pros and cons for homeschooling and public school? Which is better in your opinion?

At some point in time the kid going to have to walk out into the real world. While there are some brilliant successes that were homeschooled (what's that kid on Roseanne that just adopted/) I think socialization is missing as a homeschool ingrediant.
At public school I sat next to a Nobel Prize winner in Journalism and a nice guy that apparently the Secret Service wants to talk to, real bad. They apparently want to give him a nice small room for several years, with free food, and a one way ride in a government car. How can you have this kind of socialization being homeschooled?

[soanchorless]

Originally Posted by stepka

I have worked with many special needs kids in several different schools and none have been bad programs--not excellent and probably just average. Based on my experience, if I had a special needs child I would probably choose to homeschool with maybe a parttime program to relieve me for a day a week or something, b/c I have noticed that none of our kids got the individual attention they needed.

I agree. I worked as a special ed para, and unfortunately, in the school system I worked, the care and instruction was poor for these students most of the time. I worked for an excellent teacher, but she just had way too many students and was overwhelmed with paperwork. She had a high turnover rate for paras, so most were poorly trained and didn't know what they were doing, including myself at many times. One year, I was thrown into doing speech therapy for several children with literally 20 minutes of training. I ended up doing ALL of those children's speech therapy sessions during that year because the speech therapist simply never showed up to do it. The teacher I work for complained to administrators, but nothing changed for a long time. And then the school billed medicaid for speech therapy as if the children actually got speech therapy from someone trained and licensed to do it! Anyway, if that's what it's like in other schools, parents are better off teaching themselves to deal with the needs of their children.

[soanchorless]

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

At public school I sat next to a Nobel Prize winner in Journalism and a nice guy that apparently the Secret Service wants to talk to, real bad. They apparently want to give him a nice small room for several years, with free food, and a one way ride in a government car. How can you have this kind of socialization being homeschooled?

Get involved in groups and activities that attract those types of people? Your chances of sitting next to a Nobel prize winner in public school and real life are pretty close to the same...and the chances are slim, especially if you live in a less urban area.

I met the writer of the hokey pokey in a stroke unit of a hospital. That's the most interesting person I've met...lol...all those years of public school did not introduce me to anyone exceptionally fascinating.

[AnotherTouchOfWhimsy]

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

At some point in time the kid going to have to walk out into the real world. While there are some brilliant successes that were homeschooled (what's that kid on Roseanne that just adopted/) I think socialization is missing as a homeschool ingrediant.
At public school I sat next to a Nobel Prize winner in Journalism and a nice guy that apparently the Secret Service wants to talk to, real bad. They apparently want to give him a nice small room for several years, with free food, and a one way ride in a government car. How can you have this kind of socialization being homeschooled?

Um... you do realize that the "unsocialized homeschooler" thing is really outdated, right? The problem most homeschoolers have with socialization is that there's too much of it and hard to pick which activities to do and which to sit out. With all of the many homeschoolers there are now, chances are great that at least one of them will win a Nobel Prize in something, and then all of the kids in his homeschool group from way back when can say, "I knew him when he was just a kid!!" LOL!

[ukiyo-e]

Well, my son took AP Calculus in 10th and 11th grade and AP statistics, AP Physics, and AP Music Theory in 12th grade, and got two scholarships, one academic, and one in music, for college. I have a graduate degree in biology and could have homeschooled him up to a certain point, but there's no way I could have given him the education he got in the excellent public school system we had available to us. I barely remember my college calculus and I took a lot of chemistry, but no physics. And his music training in bands and orchestras for 7 years led to him attending graduate school in music starting last fall. He's still close friends with many of the kids he went to high school with - a fantastic bunch of well-behaved, high-achieving kids who I really enjoyed having in our home when they worked on the school projects together. I don't think homeschooling would have prepared my particular child for college and beyond as well as the local school system did.

Also, his dad and I taught him a tremendous amount about natural history in our travels around the world with him. So it's not like we didn't teach him - we just taught him about the subjects that we're actually experts in.

[Hedgehog_Mom]

My 5th grader goes to virtual school. Her school is part of one of the larger school districts in the state. They provide the curriculum. Her lessons generally consist of several videos, several pages of reading in the textbook, workbook assignments and then a short online quiz in each subject every day. She has "live lessons" a couple of times a week with the teacher using a webcam, and the kids able to communicate with each other in a chat pod.

For us, it's a good compromise. Public school did not work out for my daughter after we moved (she broke her arm at school, then the next year another girl threatened to stab her and bullied her all year, then the year after that she was sexually harassed by the boys in her class, both verbally and physically). I went to some very small private schools growing up, which were always short of resources and in buildings in poor repair, so I was leery of the charter schools in the area, figuring they'd be about the same. At the same time, my mother is a teacher and is strongly against homeschooling, so she had raised me with the (wrong) idea that homeschoolers were religious nuts whose children were totally unprepared for the real world. I was also afraid that I would be unable to get my daughter to sit down and learn. Virtual school provided a solid curriculum and a teacher to answer to.

So far, virtual school has worked out well for us. My daughter does about half of the work on her own. I help her with math and science, and she does language arts and social studies without me. Next year, her younger sister will also be going to virtual school. The girls still have friends in the neighborhood who they socialize with. There are also lots of homeschooling groups in my city, so it's easy to find people to socialize with (it's harder to find people we actually like though).

[tercel95]

Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom

My 5th grader goes to virtual school. Her school is part of one of the larger school districts in the state. They provide the curriculum. Her lessons generally consist of several videos, several pages of reading in the textbook, workbook assignments and then a short online quiz in each subject every day. She has "live lessons" a couple of times a week with the teacher using a webcam, and the kids able to communicate with each other in a chat pod.

For us, it's a good compromise. Public school did not work out for my daughter after we moved (she broke her arm at school, then the next year another girl threatened to stab her and bullied her all year, then the year after that she was sexually harassed by the boys in her class, both verbally and physically). I went to some very small private schools growing up, which were always short of resources and in buildings in poor repair, so I was leery of the charter schools in the area, figuring they'd be about the same. At the same time, my mother is a teacher and is strongly against homeschooling, so she had raised me with the (wrong) idea that homeschoolers were religious nuts whose children were totally unprepared for the real world. I was also afraid that I would be unable to get my daughter to sit down and learn. Virtual school provided a solid curriculum and a teacher to answer to.

So far, virtual school has worked out well for us. My daughter does about half of the work on her own. I help her with math and science, and she does language arts and social studies without me. Next year, her younger sister will also be going to virtual school. The girls still have friends in the neighborhood who they socialize with. There are also lots of homeschooling groups in my city, so it's easy to find people to socialize with (it's harder to find people we actually like though).

I'm sorry to hear your daughter had such a rough time in public school. Your approach seems very reasonable and not at all what I perceived homeschooling to be. I really wouldn't even call that homeschooling, more like online school.

I really do think public school helps you develop socially though. In that it teaches you how terrible people are. Really its no different then any office or restaurant I have ever worked in. Well especially restaurants and other blue collar jobs, dudes are brutal there. People are just more tactful with their abuse as they get older.

Anyways, I went through a great public school system that provided me with more opportunities than I could ever take advantage of. It was very safe and low crime in general. There were no cameras or full-time police, there was one officer for all 4 high schools in the county. At the time it was the best school in the county and ranked favorable against all public schools nationwide. I realize not all public schools are like this but there are public schools that provide a solid education option.

[JennieAmber]

Originally Posted by tonylu

I was home schooled in sixth grade. For me I liked that I could do everything in the comfort of my home or in the park or wherever. That and I didn't have to worry about bullies.

There was a bit of socializing with my home schooling because we did it through a program that other people were involved in. We'd meet every week for things like P.E. and other activities. The bad part is that students aren't interacting with each other every single day. Because of this their social maturity might suffer.

I also liked the opprotunities of not having to do schooling in one setting all the time. And I also enjoy doing schoolwork at my own pace.

I think it depends on your homeschooling group and the public school/library/student centers and workshops around you at how much socializing you can put your child in. You just have to research things around you and see what you can find.

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

At some point in time the kid going to have to walk out into the real world. While there are some brilliant successes that were homeschooled (what's that kid on Roseanne that just adopted/) I think socialization is missing as a homeschool ingrediant.
At public school I sat next to a Nobel Prize winner in Journalism and a nice guy that apparently the Secret Service wants to talk to, real bad. They apparently want to give him a nice small room for several years, with free food, and a one way ride in a government car. How can you have this kind of socialization being homeschooled?

As someone who has been homeschooled, I had a ton of socializing. I went to groups, I was around people, I feel pretty well rounded. I think a lot of people get this idea that homeschoolers are just these weird kids who stay in their houses all day from the movies. lol

We aren't like that! We get socialized. We talk to people. If you have come across someone who does stay in their house all day and doesnt have a bit of socializing then it's the parents fault for not getting them in groups and sports and workshops. We have the world at our fingertips and public school isnt the only way to get to it. Also, there are plenty of up in the world type people who have been homeschooled and did just fine.



I do have a question though, why is being "socialized" so much more important than being smart? You may have a ton of "social" skills, but not much brains. Seems to me that wont you get you where you should be, at your full potential.

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by AnotherTouchOfWhimsy

... and that would be one example of homeschooling no longer working. If the child is not getting unique opportunities, then it's no longer working.

Ah, I see. You are going to change definitions when proven wrong got it.

NO homeschooler can be provided the experiences we provide, HENCE the term "unique".

Meh, you seem pretty biased against homeschooling, so my guess is that the majority were average, just like public schooled kids. How below average could they be, after all, if they were in your classes of gifted students?

Clearly you wish to pigeon hole me instead of read what I actual wrote.

Second, lets be clear. There are three major areas in which a student can be classified. Intelligence, skill set, and content knowledge. Homeschoolers are no less intelligent on average, than my other students and I never said they were. What they are as a group is below average in skill set and far below average in content knowledge.

I see that you clarified lower in your post that you have taught fewer than two dozen students in the past eight years. Since you have met an average of 2.5 students per year that have been homeschooled, I feel pretty sure that you're not very familiar with homeschoolers in general. Universities have a lot more experience with homeschooled students, and they seek them out.

More pigeon holing. BTW I prefaced all of this with the most important of concepts "IN MY EXPERIENCE" clearly your reading comprehension is such you likely should not be teaching that to any child.

And of course universities are going to take your money, duh. They also actively seek out my public school students and just last year gave our 75 graduating seniors over 2 million dollar in scholarships. I am sure you could take any 75 homeschooled high school students and do the same thing right?

I think that the premise here is that homeschooled students actually sit at the kitchen table and learn everything from mom, which could not be further from the truth, most of the time.

Wait you just automatically know what MOST homeschooled children in the nation do? How is that? Oh wait because your anecdotes are FACT. LOL

Obviously I would not be teaching my kids all of their classes. I already said that they'd be doing some community college courses, could take virtual classes, could even take classes at the local high school.

They cannot take classes at this local high school. All the rest are great, good job, whatever. They are still not replicating the experience of the very best public schools like the ones in my district.

They could do independent studies or take classes held by other homeschool parents with experience in each subject. Just like you as one teacher do not teach every single subject, neither do homeschooling parents at the high school level. It really should be termed "world schooling" or "real life schooling" and not homeschooling.

Ah, I see you have parents who own their own full equipped functional research vessels, and have their own state of the art biotechnology labs, etc. Got it

Okay... so obviously that one student that you know is the norm for all homeschooled students?

Again, try reading for comprehension, maybe slower. "In my experience" means what exactly?

You undoubtedly know that 20 homeschooled kids in eight years of teaching is really not a very large sample.

Ok, are you going for irony here? This is getting sort of funny. Just in case you are not...

Again, try reading for comprehension, maybe slower. "In my experience" means what exactly?

And yes, homeschoolers will be both smarter (as in, they can procure and apply knowledge more easily)

Maybe in your "homeschool" that is what constitutes "smart" out here in the real world "procuring knowledge" is just another skill set and the notion that they can "apply it more easily" is a completely unsubstatiated opinion. You do know that it is hypocrisy to deny me my own fully acknowledged opinion and then present your own opinion as fact right?

than public schooled kids and also behind on what you consider the important or relevant content, because they have not been learning the same nuggets of information. They are ahead in content in some things, just not the things that your students have been learning.

Maybe, I can admit I do not know. But you actually have no idea and are presenting your opinion of MY students as FACT. I am sure the irony of that goes right over your head.

I think all homeschoolers know that and are fine with it. My sixth grader knows a lot of things that the public sixth graders don't know, and he doesn't know some of what they know. So what? He knows how to find the information he needs, which is what is important. I bet I know things you don't know, and you know things I don't know. Which of us wins? Or is it, I don't know, not a contest as you go through life?

Your inability to have a rational conversation about this is hugely telling. You have had to make up definitions, ignore facts, state your opinion as fact, etc. just to try to get past the following: In my experience, the majority of homeschooled students are lacking both content knowledge and skill set compared to their public school peers.

Nothing you have said changes any of that.

[AnotherTouchOfWhimsy]

Originally Posted by lkb0714

Ah, I see. You are going to change definitions when proven wrong got it.

I gave no definition. I said "for whatever reason." How was I proven wrong? When you decide to homeschool, you're not committing for life, any more than sending your kid to a public school or private school is committing for life. Generally, people who are happy with their kids' schooling are not going to change it if they can help it. People switch schools and schooling situations all the time... because the original situation is no longer working. If it were working, and it was the best option, then they wouldn't switch.

NO homeschooler can be provided the experiences we provide, HENCE the term "unique".

Well, I guess no one in the world can have the exact same experiences as my kids in our homeschool, so their experiences are also unique. And actually, no one in my district or in my state can get your school's unique experiences, either. So I guess you win on all counts there.

Clearly you wish to pigeon hole me instead of read what I actual wrote.

Second, lets be clear. There are three major areas in which a student can be classified. Intelligence, skill set, and content knowledge. Homeschoolers are no less intelligent on average, than my other students and I never said they were. What they are as a group is below average in skill set and far below average in content knowledge.

All content? Or just the content that your particular students have already been taught? You do realize that anyone can learn what your students are learning, right? Even if they don't go to your particular school? They might not know it today, but they can learn it if they want to or need to. I'm perfectly fine with you saying that homeschooled kids don't have the knowledge of the content that your students have been learning for the past 12 years. They simply have learned other content and focused on different things.

More pigeon holing. BTW I prefaced all of this with the most important of concepts "IN MY EXPERIENCE" clearly your reading comprehension is such you likely should not be teaching that to any child.

I'm sorry, I actually thought (due to my message board experiences) that it was a given that the anecdotes given here are always "in my experience" and "in my opinion." I could go through and write that in front of every sentence, but in my opinion, that would be redundant.

And of course universities are going to take your money, duh. They also actively seek out my public school students and just last year gave our 75 graduating seniors over 2 million dollar in scholarships. I am sure you could take any 75 homeschooled high school students and do the same thing right?

I have no idea. Are we comparing all homeschooled kids with all public schooled kids, or all homeschooled kids with your particular gifted students? If it's the former, my guess is that it's fairly equal. If it's the latter, then you're comparing apples to oranges. Not all homeschooled students are gifted or college bound, any more than all public school students are gifted or college bound. But yes, when compared with public school students in general, homeschooled students do well on tests like the SATs and ACTs, and yes, they do get college scholarships. Here's some info on that topic: HSLDA | Homeschooled Students Excel in College

Wait you just automatically know what MOST homeschooled children in the nation do? How is that? Oh wait because your anecdotes are FACT. LOL

In the sample of homeschoolers that I know personally, which span over a couple hundred families in several states, most do not sit and do all of their learning at the kitchen table throughout middle and high school. One of the first pieces of advice that homeschooling parents hear from other homeschooling parents in support groups and on message boards is, "Use the whole world as your classroom! Homeschooling does not mean that you must teach all classes in the home." In my experience, of course. I suppose that they could all be total outliers and that the twenty students you know that have come from one district and who are pursuing a gifted school are more representative of the nation as a whole. Did all 20 tell you that that is how they learned, or is that just the mental picture that you have when you hear the word, "homeschooling"?

They cannot take classes at this local high school. All the rest are great, good job, whatever. They are still not replicating the experience of the very best public schools like the ones in my district.

I, along with 99.99% of homeschoolers in the nation, do not live in your district and cannot attend your school anyway, so this is a moot point.

Ah, I see you have parents who own their own full equipped functional research vessels, and have their own state of the art biotechnology labs, etc. Got it

What are you talking about? I did not say that any parents had these things... being taught by other parents was one of the many options that I presented. I'm thinking that you must have skipped the rest of that paragraph?

Again, try reading for comprehension, maybe slower. "In my experience" means what exactly?



Ok, are you going for irony here? This is getting sort of funny. Just in case you are not...

Again, try reading for comprehension, maybe slower. "In my experience" means what exactly?

Yes, when someone responds to each of your silly points, go for the reading comprehension digs. I assure you that my reading comprehension is just fine.

Maybe in your "homeschool" that is what constitutes "smart" out here in the real world "procuring knowledge" is just another skill set and the notion that they can "apply it more easily" is a completely unsubstatiated opinion. You do know that it is hypocrisy to deny me my own fully acknowledged opinion and then present your own opinion as fact right?

You are absolutely allowed to have your opinion based on the 20 homeschoolers that you have met over the past decade. And I am allowed to have my opinion based on the hundred or two homeschoolers that I have met in person over the past decade, as well as the others that I've corresponded with on message boards. We both obviously have our biases.

Maybe, I can admit I do not know. But you actually have no idea and are presenting your opinion of MY students as FACT. I am sure the irony of that goes right over your head.

You have no idea that you know things that I don't know, and that I know things that you don't know? Or that each of the homeschooled students that you have met knows something that one of your gifted students doesn't know? I'm pretty sure that you could apply that to any two people in the world. In my opinion and experience no two people know everything about everything. Everybody is good at something. These are truths that we teach very little children. I don't need to preface that with, "in my opinion," because it's something that everyone recognizes.

Your inability to have a rational conversation about this is hugely telling. You have had to make up definitions, ignore facts, state your opinion as fact, etc. just to try to get past the following: In my experience, the majority of homeschooled students are lacking both content knowledge and skill set compared to their public school peers.

Nothing you have said changes any of that.

Except that you don't work in a regular public school, you work in a school for the gifted. So you're comparing the twenty homeschoolers that you know with kids who have been in the system for X number of years (so they have been taught what your district deems important content) AND who are gifted. And your experience is extremely limited. It would be like me saying, "In my experience, half the trees that people have in their yards are palm trees." Then when you come and point out, "you live in Florida. Palm trees don't grow in New Jersey," I say, "why are you disregarding my EXPERIENCE? I walked around my block and counted the trees in 20 yards! Half are palm trees!" We both know that that statement is ridiculous, but I'm insisting that my limited experience is telling for everyone. I'd say that's pretty irrational, no?