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adeneo1, I applaud your decision to homeschool, now that my son is in HS I wish I had not inflicted government schools on him and apologize regularly for it. Where I currently live every one of my neighbors homeschools and their kids seem to be the happiest,well adjusted kids I have seen in quite a while! They don't complain about being bullied,insulted or being bored with school. They interact with each other and their respective churches so they do socialize. I find it telling that the ususall winners of the spelling bee are home schooled and you don't hear about home schooled kids shooting up the classrooms or drug use being rampant... Congrats again on your and others bravery!
It is somewhat confusing to me as to why you're not considering public schools in TN. As with almost any state, TN has adopted a more agnostic style of dealing with religion. You say the pledge of allegiance and that's it. Even when I was in High school years ago, religion was not mentioned in the classroom other than for social studies for various cultures.
I guess I'm curious because TN schools are rated very favorably, score well, and have highly tenured teachers. My whole family has taught school for 150 years, my mother for 35 years alone.
I think you need to take some serious visiting here. You seem like the many people who visit with a somewhat oxymoron type of perspective where you seek liberal in a mostly conservative area and make extreme efforts to avoid the "locals", yet you must think TN is somehow more natural when in fact many metro areas will look almost exactly like Florida- Applebee's and all.
I am not trying to discourage you, but I tell anyone that moves here that they need to be accepting of the existing culture and be open minded. Put your kids in public school. We all turned out just fine.
I am not being argumentative here, but I have to disagree when you blanket all TN schools as being more agnostic. In both Jefferson Co and Greene Co schools when my children went there ( all within the last 10 years, Greene Co. being 3 years ago) they all said a morning prayer and all said a public prayer before eating lunch.
Thanks for your comments AprilFamily and JMT. Raw milk - you are so lucky. My best friend growing up lived on a farm and there was nothing better than the fresh milk from her cow.
You got that right! Plus, the health benefits of drinking clean, pure, raw milk are amazing. My cholesterol count actually got LOWER once I started drinking raw milk--yes, with all that delicious cream!!
In Tennessee it is against the law to sell raw milk for human consumption, so you have to find a dairy farmer who will sell it to you--wink wink--for your animals.
Once again, I will clarify. I am NOT taking up an issue over whether homeschooling or public schools are better or worse than one another. Whether you send your kids to public school or homeschool them will require an equal amount of work on part of the parents. Many of you probably moved from Florida, CA, or wherever because you couldn't afford to live a lifestyle where one of the parents stay home to school your children.At the same time, parents in many places also contribute money towards their local public schools in order to make them better. The community I live in now has such a situation. Some districts cost more because the schools are better. Again- these are personal choices that people will make on an individual basis. I get a sense from reading many of the posts in this topic that homeschooling is seen as superior to public schooling, which is something I completely disagree with. There are good attributes of both, and ultimately every child is different and will require different environments.
Secondly, I find it a little hard to believe that this is all about the possibility that your child might haver to say two words at the start of a morning: " Under god" during the allegiance. Again- many of you are moving away from areas that probably lacked the religious fervor that is so obviously loathed.Perhaps you should have weighed this option if it is so terribly important to you. I myself am not what you would call particularly religious. But we're living in a a world where what your kids see on TV, books, magazines, and even their cellphones exposes them to every culture, every religion, every language, and every kind of food. To say the least, your kids will need to make their own decisions, from an early age, and from an increasingly international perspective. I seriously doubt that if your kids say: " Under god" during the prayer, they're going to turn into right-wing religious conservatives as a result. It is their world and in my opinion, if parents attempt to dumb down what they think they can 'protect' them from, then trust me- they've already seen and heard way more than you can possibly imagine.
I will retract my statement that ALL TN schools are great. But out of the many states I have lived, TN schools are very admirable. You have to understand that in some of the states I lived in, just being able to go to a public school period is a privelage.
Where I live now, you have to put your child in a LOTTERY when they turn 3 so they can get a seat in kindergarten. Otherwise, either fork over the money for private school, or have one off the parents stay home and school them, which in an expensive place like this is almost unheard of and financially impossible. In many ways, part of the attraction to states like TN and NC are that they still have fairly healthy school systems. The Nashville public school system is praised nationwide for being one of the best. Again- you have choices and there's not one choice that has superiority over the other. I am not personally attacking anyone over their educational beliefs.
I will end this comment by saying that my family has been teaching school since the 1850's. Perhaps that is why I feel so strongly about it, so I apologize if I said anything that couldd have been taken in a bad way.
Yes. We have school prayer in Tennessee. We have the nativity put up right in the foyer of schools during Christmas. We frown on Halloween. There are no parties for that. Kids do go and pick pumpkins, though. Schools celebrate Easter.
Do I have a problem with that, coming from Florida and originally Massachusetts?
Well, I don't go to church. I work on Sundays. My daughter does not go to Sunday School, although I would like her to go. I just don't trust strangers picking her up and bringing her there, otherwise I would send her.
I was brought up to go to church every Sunday. My mom reads her Bible everyday, but I often feel that she is a bit misguided.
Let's just call me a skeptic.
But I've seen the other side.
I'd rather have my daughter in a school that celebrates Christmas and sings "You're a Grand Old Flag" every morning than in a school where drugs and indifference are rampant.
Just wait. I bet that all falls by the wayside once the transplants start complaining about the separation of church and state.
Mark my words.
And no, I am not homeschooling. I believe that children need to be exposed to other people. Having them belong to a few homeschooling clubs does not constitute that. Having to get up every morning and be somewhere is important training, as well as exposing them to other's opinions other than my own.
Do I have a problem with others homeschooling? Of course not, it's their business. But I will say that the first mother that I met in Tennessee, who happened to be Baptist, felt that I was very irresponsible for not homeschooling my child.
Yes. We have school prayer in Tennessee. We have the nativity put up right in the foyer of schools during Christmas. We frown on Halloween. There are no parties for that. Kids do go and pick pumpkins, though. Schools celebrate Easter.
Do I have a problem with that, coming from Florida and originally Massachusetts?
Well, I don't go to church. I work on Sundays. My daughter does not go to Sunday School, although I would like her to go. I just don't trust strangers picking her up and bringing her there, otherwise I would send her.
I was brought up to go to church every Sunday. My mom reads her Bible everyday, but I often feel that she is a bit misguided.
Let's just call me a skeptic.
But I've seen the other side.
I'd rather have my daughter in a school that celebrates Christmas and sings "You're a Grand Old Flag" every morning than in a school where drugs and indifference are rampant.
Just wait. I bet that all falls by the wayside once the transplants start complaining about the separation of church and state.
Mark my words.
And no, I am not homeschooling. I believe that children need to be exposed to other people. Having them belong to a few homeschooling clubs does not constitute that. Having to get up every morning and be somewhere is important training, as well as exposing them to other's opinions other than my own.
Do I have a problem with others homeschooling? Of course not, it's their business. But I will say that the first mother that I met in Tennessee, who happened to be Baptist, felt that I was very irresponsible for not homeschooling my child.
To each their own.
If the schools that we have had our son in had been the way you describe I wouldn't be apologizing to my son for sending him. With all of the above you mention also comes the big D word which is disipline. That is what is sorely missing in a lot of schools today. I think taking christmas out and making it a "winter break" and the easter bunny "spring solstice bunny" and removing the pledge usually goes right along with loss of disipline. I don't think that anyone is irresponsible for the school choices they make, it is not mine to judge. I do think it is a brave thing to take on schooling your child knowing how I would most likely like to strangle mine by the end of the day
Hey Guys, we liberal minded homeschoolers do not have a problem with prayer in school, or the pledge of allegiance, or christmas etc. My kids belong to a track team that says a prayer before and after every practice and that is an awesome, positive thing to do. However, I search for non religious groups because I like to be in a nice diverse group of people. I am currently friends with christians, jews, muslims, and agnostics. I love that my family has such a lovely balance of people in their lives. Some of the religious homeschool groups would not be accepting of my friends because they do not follow their religion. Not all religious homeschool groups are that way, but some are. Also, hiknapster, my kids do SO much more than "go to a few little homeschool groups." Most of the activities that they participate in are not related to homeschooling at all. That is in fact the reason we will be in Knoxville, they are competing with the best track and field athletes in the country at the Jr. Olympics. Please try not to paint all of the homeschoolers with the same wide brush. I do not stereotype all public school kids, most of my children's friends do go to public school and they are great kids.
Unfortunately it's a common stereotype that homeschoolers don't spend time with anyone but homeschoolers. My children have many, many friends and most of them don't homeschool. At my daughter's 12th birthday party I had to force her to whittle down her 40+ person guest list. Only 2 of those homeschool. And trust me, they are exposed to many different opinions. It's impossible in this day and age for anyone not to be.
Now, I would agree with you, Hiknapster, that one thing lacking is the discipline of having to get up and be somewhere each day. I would say that many homeschoolers struggle with imposing deadlines on their kids. So that is one area where homeschooling may fall short.
But...I have two happy, healthy, polite kids who are able to be friends with kids of all ages (when other than in school are you segregated and only socialize with people your own age?), who look for opportunities to help other people, and who are respectful and loving to their parents (not very common for middle schoolers).
Now, that's not to say that all of this is something unique to homeschoolers. Of course, these qualities could be found in any child, based up on the parents' parenting style. But I would say it's more likely to come from a homeschooler, simply because they aren't becoming peer-dependent on a mass of kids their own age. But the simple fact that my children are homeschooled does not mean they are socially inept, sheltered children.
I believe that being exposted to different people in different social formats is necessary to becoming a well adjusted adult.
I believe that children should work be able to engage with peers on a consistent level, as well as people of all age groups.
This is why I am homeschooling my kids. I beleive that they receive more socalization.
The average student spends 7-8 hours a day in school with peers, an additional 8-20 hours, depending on their age, socializing with peers in structured things suxh as sports, dance, as well as just hanging out.
At a minimum of 50 hours a week with peers . . . there is not time for them to have true family time when you add in homework, sleeptime, etc.
When I first heard of homeschooling I thought it was insane, then I began reseaching it, and once we started homeschooling, the whole family environment changed, and my kdis are better socialized than they used to be in public school.
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Congrats again on your and others bravery!
