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Okay. I don't pick who homeschools, and I don't pick out our neighborhood children any more than you do. Within a specific school, especially neighborhood elementary schools, the demographics between the students are similar. I belong to both a religious and a secular group, and let me tell you, the parentage runs the gamut: we have lesbian mothers, single mothers, and several homeschooling dads. Homeschoolers are not as homogenous as you may think. I think you are overestimating the amount of time kids interact with one another in school, as well. The majority of the time is not spent "interacting," but listening to the teacher, and being told to "stop whispering!"
I don't know whose real life you're referring to here, but many, many people's "real life" does not include working in groups of people the same age and discovering which roles they would like to have. If you work in an office, you are assigned a role. If you are a teacher, you work on your own most of the day. If you are a stay at home mom, you basically work on your own. Electricians work on their own. Doctors work on their own or in a practice with patients. Relatively few careers include time for people to sit in groups and do whatever the teacher asks them to do.
Uh huh, this happens in homeschools/families/co-ops regularly. There is usually no stigma associated with a 10-year-old asking a six year old for help reading a word, or with a teenager explaining something to a five year old.
Again, homeschoolers do not exist in a vacuum. They do not sit home all day with mom. They are out in the real world, living real life.... they don't have to practice for real life, because they are actually living it. I konw that for us, bookwork is finished most days by lunchtime. We then have the rest of the day to be out in that real world.
She can't hear you. I may be on ignore, but it is the whole notion that anything could possibly be as good or better that she cannot hear, regardless of the source.
Clearly, homeschool kids only deal with other homeschool kids; age diversity has no relevance, etc.
It is important to learn to cheat, sure that everybody else is doing it, and to learn to bully or be bullied. It is important to wonder whether any of your classmates is carrying a gun. <SARCASM>
The irony of somebody whose daughter changed schools when faced with "diversity" of instruction then insisting that she didn't "pick the group" her children associate with is rich.
Parents choose where they live, often based on the public schools they will be enrolling in. They often avoid as much 'diversity' as they can.
She can't hear you. I may be on ignore, but it is the whole notion that anything could possibly be as good or better that she cannot hear, regardless of the source.
Clearly, homeschool kids only deal with other homeschool kids; age diversity has no relevance, etc.
It is important to learn to cheat, sure that everybody else is doing it, and to learn to bully or be bullied. It is important to wonder whether any of your classmates is carrying a gun. <SARCASM>
The irony of somebody whose daughter changed schools when faced with "diversity" of instruction then insisting that she didn't "pick the group" her children associate with is rich.
Parents choose where they live, often based on the public schools they will be enrolling in. They often avoid as much 'diversity' as they can.
But myths will persist.
I think this is key. My kids play with the neighborhood kids all the time. I didn't hand pick them. We live in a working class area with a fair amount of diversity. There are a lot of single parents. There are several families who speak Italian at home. There are a lot of kids who live with a step-parent. None of this really makes any difference, though... kids play, ride bikes, talk, play hopscotch, collect worms, make ant farms, rake leaves, throw snowballs, etc, etc, etc, with no regard for any of that. Whether the kids in school are black or white, or if they live with just their mom or their grandmother, what does it matter? Kids are kids. How could the neighborhood schools be any more diverse than the neighborhood surrounding the school? Some people choose to live in 99% white, upper class areas... do you think those schools are "diverse"? Some people live in 99% black inner cities. Are those schools "diverse"? Of course not.
I think this is key. My kids play with the neighborhood kids all the time. I didn't hand pick them. We live in a working class area with a fair amount of diversity. There are a lot of single parents. There are several families who speak Italian at home. There are a lot of kids who live with a step-parent. None of this really makes any difference, though... kids play, ride bikes, talk, play hopscotch, collect worms, make ant farms, rake leaves, throw snowballs, etc, etc, etc, with no regard for any of that. Whether the kids in school are black or white, or if they live with just their mom or their grandmother, what does it matter? Kids are kids. How could the neighborhood schools be any more diverse than the neighborhood surrounding the school? Some people choose to live in 99% white, upper class areas... do you think those schools are "diverse"? Some people live in 99% black inner cities. Are those schools "diverse"? Of course not.
How does one keep the undesirables from moving in next door?
Sorry, I can choose where I live but so can everyone else. I don't control the demographics of my children's school by any means. Whomever wants to move here can move here and they will not ask my permission before doing so.
How does one keep the undesirables from moving in next door?
Sorry, I can choose where I live but so can everyone else. I don't control the demographics of my children's school by any means. Whomever wants to move here can move here and they will not ask my permission before doing so.
That was the point, Ivory.
You're claiming that the public schools are diverse. The other poster was pointing out that the schools are no more diverse than the neighborhoods they are in - and that homeschoolers have that, as well.
How does one keep the undesirables from moving in next door?
Sorry, I can choose where I live but so can everyone else. I don't control the demographics of my children's school by any means. Whomever wants to move here can move here and they will not ask my permission before doing so.
I'm going with "purposely obtuse" on this one.
Theoretically, one cannot control who moves in next door. However, on a macro level, people do this every day-- by moving into neighborhoods with strict HOAs, by choosing to live in neighborhoods that are uniformly one ethnic group, by buying houses "those kind of people" aren't likely to be able to afford or by buying so far out in the 'burbs that access to ethnically-tied services (Mexican groceries, Korean-language businesses, the Hindu temple, whatever) is somewhere between difficult and impossible. Or conversely, a multitude of services aimed at one group tends to attract. You don't need redlining or a history of segregation to keep your neighborhood a certain micro-group (though both of those are of course effective). All you need is inconvenience. And local reputation based on past history (e.g., Brandon isn't gay friendly, but Old Southeast and Gulfport are) helps perpetuate the status quo.
That totally leaves aside the way development (or redevelopment) is engineered to create and attract a certain-- if I may borrow a tired and overused term-- demographic.
You can tell yourself you're regulating behavior, not people, all you want-- but the result is the same.
You're claiming that the public schools are diverse. The other poster was pointing out that the schools are no more diverse than the neighborhoods they are in - and that homeschoolers have that, as well.
Homeschoolers, in fact-- much like private school families-- have the latitude to pick potentially more diverse living arrangements, because they don't depend on the concept of "good schools". We could pick up and spend a couple years rehabbing a house in a depressed neighborhood, or living on a goat farm in North Florida, or any of a number of other options more easily than someone who's focused on making sure Matthew has access to AP Spanish and little Katelyn's school has whiteboards and a nice playground.
While I agree with aconite that homeschooling frees one from having to be concerned about the "quality" of the schools in one's neighborhood (something I have serious problems with, anyway), I also agree with Ivorytickler that no one can control who is moving into their attendance area. The burbs are not what they were in the 50s, monolithic, white areas with no diversity. There is a Hindu temple in Erie, Colorado of all places. There are Mexican groceries in Lafayette, Colorado, and Asian restaurants all over the metro area.
Theoretically, one cannot control who moves in next door. However, on a macro level, people do this every day-- by moving into neighborhoods with strict HOAs, by choosing to live in neighborhoods that are uniformly one ethnic group, by buying houses "those kind of people" aren't likely to be able to afford or by buying so far out in the 'burbs that access to ethnically-tied services (Mexican groceries, Korean-language businesses, the Hindu temple, whatever) is somewhere between difficult and impossible. Or conversely, a multitude of services aimed at one group tends to attract. You don't need redlining or a history of segregation to keep your neighborhood a certain micro-group (though both of those are of course effective). All you need is inconvenience. And local reputation based on past history (e.g., Brandon isn't gay friendly, but Old Southeast and Gulfport are) helps perpetuate the status quo.
That totally leaves aside the way development (or redevelopment) is engineered to create and attract a certain-- if I may borrow a tired and overused term-- demographic.
You can tell yourself you're regulating behavior, not people, all you want-- but the result is the same.
Just because a neighborhood is one way today doesn't mean it will be tomorrow. Both neighborhoods I've lived in since becomming an adult have switched within years of my moving in. I didn't move into them for the ethinic mix so I don't care. Neighborhoods are always in flux. It just depends on who is moving in and who is moving out. That is not something I control. I could move again but what's to stop the next neighborhood from changing? Nothing!!
Neighborhoods just aren't stagnant if you're anywhere where there is any diversity. There are no signs hung out that say certain ethnic groups won't be sold a home in a particular area. People who are selling houses really don't care who buys. They just want to sell.
What does a strict HOA have to do with who moves somewhere? They can't set rules for ethnicity.
I'm legally blind, and a retired teacher. By legally blind I mean I cannot see further away than 2 inches in front of my face. I retired from teaching at 35 when I had my first and only child. He had medical problems that required that I stay at home with him. He had two stomach operations for tumors at 2 weeks of age, and again at 2 months of age.
They connected my son's stomach back together with a wrap and a tube. If he were to ever be hit in the stomach even by accident he could bleed to death internally. As a result of this, I decided to homeschool.
I'm a single parent now. I have my own business which I run in the afternoon from home after I've finished school with my son for the day.
He's actually doing better in school than most of the other kids his age that we know from church that go to public schools. Not all children that homeschool have the benefit of having a former teacher for a parent. Having said that, the quality of the education a child gets depends solely on the knowledge of the person educating them regardless of whether it's in a public school, private school, or homeschool setting.
First, I'll admit that I didn't read all 31 pages of this thread, but I did read the first 16. I think someone asked about where to find more information about why and how people home school. I was curious about this myself and have some books from the library on the subject. For the record, I'm not biased one way or the other about public/home schooling. I got the books because I wanted to learn more about how people home school their children, what the children take away from it, and how I can use the good ideas I might find to enhance my public school child's education.
So here's the list of what I have right now:
What the Rest of Us Can Learn from Homeschooling: How A+ Parents Can Give Their Traditionally Schooled Kids the Academic Edge by Linda Dobson. This book is what started me on the subject because it tells about how parents can augment their child's education. For example, (loosely translated from the book) if your child is studying the civil war and grandma lives near Gettysburg, take a trip there and let the child experience a bit of history. Or get out a map of the country and point out the different places you've visited or lived, even explaining some differences like what the trees were like, the weather, facts about the state or city, etc. Read a fun book about pilgrims when the child is studying the facts of that era in school. Basically anything you can do to give that little bit of extra information to keep the child engaged and have a frame of reference for the facts and figures.
So You're Thinking About Homeschooling: Fifteen Families Show How You Can Do It! by Lisa Welchel. I'm most of the way through this one and it is comprised of stories of 15 different families and the how and why they homeschool. It's interesting that the families contributing are not necessarily doing it for the reasons I might have thought. It presents a good overview of what brought the families to homeschool and the different ways of doing it.
The Homeschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith. I haven't started this one but it seems to be a starter book for anyone even considering the idea of homeschooling. It includes legal regulations, community resources, homeschooling networks, and the financial costs of homeschooling.
Homeschool Your Child for Free by LauraMaery Gold and Joan M. Zielinski. I haven't read it yet but the cover says it has more than 1,200 smart, effective, and practical resources for home education on the internet and beyond.
Additionally, I have a friend who is a stay at home mom and used to teach 8th grade biology. She recently began teaching a couple of biology classes for homeschooling students because some local homeschooling groups were looking for that sort of thing. Apparently biology labs are not something that most homeschooling parents are prepared to teach since labs require specialized equipment like microscopes, petri dishes, etc. So because many homeschoolers operate in a co-op environment, it works out well for them to use an outside resource for some specialized areas. It the parent does not know how to teach a subject, they find someone who can.
From my research so far, it seems that homeschooling is not necessarily a re-enactment of the classroom, but more of a free form learning opportunity wherein children learn from their environment, museums, nature centers, etc. All of which public school parents could do as well and really play a big role in their child's education. That's my two cents.
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