"I wish I could have been homeschooled."

[Luanne]

I really wish I could have. I am trying to make up for the not-so-good public education I received. I am not a social person to begin with, so I know sending your child to public school will not automatically make them become social (working at Wal-Mart for 3 1/2 years might help) LOL.

 

Anyway ... I think I could have put together a better education for myself just using the library than the schools here did for me.

 

Where do you stand on this?

[Night Elf]

Nope. I wouldn't have fared well as a homeschooler at all. I didn't feel self motivated until college when I had to set a study schedule for myself so I wouldn't fail out of the classes I was paying for with my own money! And my mom was a single mom and worked overtime every day just to make ends meet. And knowing her, I cannot even begin to imagine her as a homeschooling mom. Yikes!

 

School wasn't great, but home would have been worse for me. I like homeschooling now that I'm old enough to appreciate an education. :tongue_smilie:

[Prairie~Phlox]

I wish I hadn't had to have the peer pressure and bullying that comes along with school. When kids realized my last name rhymed with dorky, man it was all over. I really hated the way I was treated, but then realize there were people treated much worse than I was and I wonder how they feel today, because it still leaves me with self esteem issues, even though I am an outgoing person, I always wonder in the back of my mind if others like me, or what they think.

[Luanne]

Also, if you have a parent (most likely a mother in our generation) who is motivated or at least is willing to put something together. I was motivated and was shut down by the schools.... with things like "you are only allowed to do one page of math today so don't write on the next page". I hated that. I also would have read a lot more, but we didn't have time apparently.

[justamouse]

I wish I could have been home schooled--but not by my mother. Her sending me to school was the best decision. ;) Education is definitely not her strong point.

[Tarreymere]

I would have very much enjoyed being homeschooled, except that my mom was Evil Incarnate (a very malignant narcissist).

[celticmom]

I now realize that when I was in school I learned far more from my independent reading than I did in the classroom. The only classes that were remotely challenging were the AP courses that I took in high school.

[Kathryn]

Yes, I would have loved it.

[UnsinkableKristen]

My mom always wanted to homeschool and I think she would have done a wonderful job. My dad was VERY against it (funny enough, he is now my biggest supporter!) and so she didn't. However, if he would have been on board, I think we would have had a great education.

 

As it was, they still took us on educational vacations, we read ALL the time, and had a lot of exposure to awesome things. So even without homeschooling my parents definitely lit a fire for learning in me.

[Luanne]

and I was very very bored most of the time. I don't even know what would have happened had I asked my mother if I could stay home and school myself. She most likely would have said "no" because she wouldn't have wanted to do any work toward it. She really is a nice person, just not greatly motivated.

[edelweiss]

I wish I could have been home schooled--but not by my mother. Her sending me to school was the best decision. ;) Education is definitely not her strong point.

 

I agree with this. I would have loved to be homeschooled, but the thought of my mother homeschooling me is :eek: . Wow! That would have been really bad!

[earthyfamily]

I begged to be homeschooled. My Catholic prep school was just too much pressure for a person like me. However I'm so glad I wasn't. My brother was 'homeschooled' but my mom faked it and he didn't really do any school and he's not the brightest crayon in the box now-a-days. My personality type is the perfect candidate for thriving in a homeschool environment....however I LOVE to learn and learn I would not have done at home with my mom in charge.

[cindergretta]

No. School was a break from my crazy (toxic) mother. <sigh>

 

My education was Ok. It wasn't stellar, but I was an avid reader. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on and I think that made up for a lot! ;)

[athena1277]

No. I did well in ps. I didn't hate high school. I have many happy memories of those years. Back then homeschooling was very rare. The friends and opportunities would not have been there. I think I would have had a very hard time overcoming being a shy child.

 

Does that mean I want my dc to go to ps? Nope. Homeschool and traditional schools are neither one what they were when I was growing up.

[Parrothead]

As a painfully shy introvert I would have been the perfect candidate for a gentle homeschooling in the early years. The bullying in middle school would not have happened either. Nor would the high school cliques that I never fit into.

 

I can't say my life would have been better, but it would have definitely been incredibly different.

[regentrude]

No.

I had a very good public school experience in Germany. I learned a lot, the social climate was pleasant, I made lifelong friends. I am an extrovert, and school fulfilled my need to be surrounded by people.

I doubt I would have become fluent in two foreign languages had I been homeschooled. I still prefer to take classes in an actual classroom to self study.

[MiniBlondes]

I wish I could have been home schooled--but not by my mother. Her sending me to school was the best decision. ;)

 

:iagree: Same. My mother has anger management issues. There's no way she'd have been able to do it.

[jessicalb]

I wish I had been either ignored and left to self-educate or homeschooled by nice people (not my parents).

[nmoira]

I wish I'd received a far more rigorous education than I did, but I'm glad I wasn't homeschooled. My mother was unstable (understatement) and I spent every second possible away from the house.

[Farrar]

I think it would have been great and my mom would have been a great teacher. She briefly even considered it, but it was SO out there back then she decided not to - she couldn't find anyone actually doing it and had only heard of it through a mention in (of all places) the Whole Earth Catalog. On the other hand, with the exception of about 5th-8th grade, my education was pretty suburb. Private kind of hippie, kind of traditional school in the early grades, sucky public middle school, amazing magnet high school with a classical style humanities program. So I can't complain too much about the fact that I wasn't. School wasn't terrible for me or anything.

[Lisbeth]

Yes. It took me years to get over:

 

1. the fist fights, including teachers who were left bloody on the ground, the terror of not being able to go to the bathroom because you were very likely to get jumped in the hall

 

2. the lazy habits I formed because the curriculum was SO BAD that I could've done it at about age 4.

 

3. the I-have-no-brain-and-can't-spell-my-way-out-of-a-paper-bag teachers - it took me years to not think of all teachers as blooming idiots.

 

4. the PC nonsense I was fed as a daily thing

 

Honestly, I love my parents but the public schools they put me in for gradeschool were violent and bad, and I can't believe they did that to me. I think they were incredibly naive.

 

At least they wised up by grade 9 and put me in private schooling.

[VeganCupcake]

Hmm, not sure. I got a reasonably good public school education in Canada in the 80s and my parents were very good about enriching my experience with a lot of reading and some travel. I was also able to do a summer college program in the humanities when I was 16--that was quite rigorous.

 

My mother doesn't have a lot of patience for teaching, so I'm not sure she would have been the greatest at homeschooling. But maybe she would have developed her patience. I can only hope I will be able to develop mine!

[bettyandbob]

I like the idea of homeschooling. I'm a person who does best with a lot structure. My mother could not have provided that. My father would have had too much structure and would have killed any interest in learning. It was due to my father that I did not read for pleasure from sixth grade through college. He tried to dictate all we read, so I stopped reading altogether. I did enjoy some assigned novels in high school, but I never chose to read. Additionally, I was out of college before I could even look at PBS. The experiences of having my father pick out documentaries I had to watch were painful--literally, I remember sitting in a chair in front of the TV for one of these shows and being pullied to get a beating. I also remember my mom saying "maybe she doesn't know what she did wrong" . I never learned what I did wrong sitting there watching the assigned documentary at age 7 or 8 (not older because it was before we moved).

 

So, no with my parents I would not have wanted to homeschool.

[Paige]

I would have liked homeschooling but I don't know if my mother could have helped me. My mother was not a good student and never could help me much with any of my subjects. I was a very advanced student and outpaced her quickly. I think I would have loved homeschooling if I would have been allowed to do it myself and she had the resources to get me what I needed to self learn or find mentors. I was very self motivated and school was boring and so easy that I became a straight A underachiever who was always praised for minimal work.

 

On the other hand, in school, I had a lot of fun, a lot of friends, and met people who influenced me a lot. I would have been a different person without it, and I wouldn't want to change it completely.

[jelbe5]

I voted for other. I hated my elementary school the most because of incessant teasing (would be called bullying today).

 

I loved it when I was sick (with asthma) for a week or so at a time and could do my work at home. I always completed the work and then had plenty of time to learn about what was interesting to me or read whatever I wanted to read. More than anything I wanted an encyclopedia set (as an adult I just recently picked up a beautiful WorldBook set from a library sale!).

 

But I would not have wanted my parents as my teachers. I liked learning on my own . . . so I guess I would have been considered an unschooler.

[GoVanGogh]

I would have loved to have been unschooled or allowed to self-educate at home.

 

My mother was a witch when I was younger, then left when I was a young teenager.

 

I begged my dad to let me drop out of school and get on with my life.

 

Twenty-five years later, my dad apologized for making me stay in school and told me how much he regrets his decision.

 

Why his change of heart? After raising six kids, he was fed up with our hometown school system and allowed my step-brother to drop out of high school. My step-brother took the same path I did: enrolled in community college, then transferred on to a 4-year university and graduated with honors. My dad now realizes that dropping out of high school is not the end of the world like he always thought it was.

[angela in ohio]

No. I had parents who instilled a great love for learning, but we didn't have the best relationship. I went to a fabulous small town public school with Latin, grammar, and lots of literature in my honors classes, not to mention field trips and outside classes and clubs. My teachers were almost all very caring and kind, and they went out of their way to help me learn. Honestly, if I could go *back* to that time and place, my dc would be in school. :001_smile:

[delaney]

I clearly remember sitting in first grade sneaking another book in my desk at reading time because I was so bored and then getting in trouble. I would have been a great classical student.

[Ibbygirl]

I had to go with "other". I wish I had been homeschooled, just not by MY parents. :p hehe

[Caitilin]

Other. I WAS homeschooled. I was never gonna do it myself.:tongue_smilie::lol::lol:

[AdventureMoms]

Well, I do wish I had been homeschooled, but my mom has always worked full-time so I don't think it would have been a possibility as a young child. I think I could have self-educated at least as well as my middle and highschool educated me though. And avoided a lot of the drama.

[Desert Rat]

I think I would have graduated high school with less emotional scars. Maybe. The incidents that haunt my childhood the most all happened at school.

I was also self-motivated and a "pleaser". I would have done fine on my own, with help with math and science.

I did enjoy my friends at high school. I hated the academics though. I even transfered to another school that was better known for academics.

My senior class English teacher gave me an F on a paper about Elizabeth Browning because of all the typos. What were those typos? It was a biography so until she married Mr. Browning, I had written several times her maiden name which was Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.:tongue_smilie: After I brought in 3 sources, she amended my grade.

[SonshineLearner]

I was... due to resistance on my part I "unschooled" from 7th on. I was homeschooled with A Beka for 6th... I did Saxon... but hated it :(

[Sara in AZ]

No. I did well in ps. I didn't hate high school. I have many happy memories of those years. Back then homeschooling was very rare. The friends and opportunities would not have been there. I think I would have had a very hard time overcoming being a shy child.

 

Does that mean I want my dc to go to ps? Nope. Homeschool and traditional schools are neither one what they were when I was growing up.

 

:iagree:

 

This sums up my feelings very well. My mother probably would have been great at homeschooling (if she could have averted her eyes from how much messier her house would have been and moved past that!) However, I went to good schools and feel like my education was very solid. I might have enjoyed being homeschooled through the three miserable years of Jr. High, but I had a wonderful time in high school. I didn't know of any other homeschoolers at the time and I think I would have had a hard time socially.

[mytwomonkeys]

i'm glad i wasn't. my mom would have been a terrible homeschooler, lol. i enjoyed school, friends, etc. no regrets. i equally have no regrets with the fact that my kids have never stepped foot in a public school. we love homeschooling!! they aren't missing a thing.

[Rebel Yell]

probably should have voted "other"

 

Homeschooling would not have worked with my parents, especially given the time (graduated '87) and limited resources for homeschoolers then.

 

however, i think if I had an individualized education by a private tutor or had been in a very small specialized school I would have thrived. That's not even taking into account all the rotten mess i had to put up with in school from my classmates. Speaking only from an academic perspective, "homeschoooling" would have been great for me.

[DawnM]

Oh goodness no! My mom has some issues and my best friends in the world were in my school. They are still my best friends. Sure, I was a bit insecure in high school, but I still loved it. I am VERY extroverted.

 

It still surprises me that my kids are mostly introverts and beg to continue to homeschool.

[Element]

I wish something would have been different, but I'm not sure what. Maybe I wish I could have just skipped high school. I actually really liked high school, but high school and cc were pretty much exactly alike. I think I could have gone straight to cc. Okay, I've got it now: I wish I could have been homeschooled from K-4, public school from 5-8, and then unschooled from age 13 to 17 (:lol: Yeah. That would have gone over swimmingly with my family full of ps teachers!) FTR, my mom would have been a fantastic homeschool teacher... but I would have been an awful student!

[Alte Veste Academy]

Nope. My parents never even knew who I was (and homeschooling would not have helped). They still don't. I loved school. It was my refuge.

[bluemongoose]

I would have loved to be homeschooled and would have had a better education than I got in PS, IF I had also had different parents:tongue_smilie:.

[Garga]

IWhen kids realized my last name rhymed with dorky, man it was all over.

 

My first name rhymes with wacky.

 

I would have made an awesome homeschooled kid. I think it would have solved a myriad of social issues I had. I started off a bubbly and happy 3rd grader, but after the bullying began, I became remote and terrified. It wasn't until I was about 26 that my bubbly happy self came back, and it wasn't until I was 36 and had counselling that I got over the deep emotional pain the bullying had caused.

 

And if I had a teacher actually hold me accountable for my work, I would have become a stellar student. Now that I'm a grownup and have learned how to motivate myself, I love learning. But I hated it back then.

 

Without trying to sound melodramatic, my childhood was wasted. And I blame school for it.

[Firefly]

I voted other. I'm sort of ambivalent about it; it might have been fun to homeschool, but my experience at traditional school was very positive.

[Way2blessed]

Absolutely not. My mother taught kindergarten at a church school. I was in her class for half of the year...until she kicked me out because we couldn't get along.

i loved school and couldn't stand summer breaks.

[ryyans]

I would have loved to be homeschooled and would have had a better education than I got in PS, IF I had also had different parents:tongue_smilie:.

 

Same here.

[Luanne]

if my parents weren't such cool people. I've never had any major issues with either of my parents. Nothing bad ever happened in elementary school, but I really learned very little. Junior high was horrible (bullying, drugs being passed across the classroom, etc.) and high school was ok, but again very little learning actually occured there.

[Mrs Mungo]

I wish I could have been home schooled--but not by my mother. Her sending me to school was the best decision.

 

Same here, but for different reasons.

 

I voted other.

[Impish]

No.

 

My mother is a sociopath. The idea of being completely at her mercy is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.

 

And I *did* have bullying at school. Constantly. Still preferable.

[Alte Veste Academy]

Absolutely not. My mother taught kindergarten at a church school. I was in her class for half of the year...until she kicked me out because we couldn't get along.

i loved school and couldn't stand summer breaks.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

My dad kicked me out of my Brownie troop!!!!!! Wanna form a support group? :lol:

[LibraryLover]

No. I was on several sports teams, in drama club, was a writer for school newspapers etc. I would never give that up, even if my mother was me. lol

 

There would have been nothing available to me as a hser, in my area, at that time. I am sure I would have driven my poor mother crazy.

 

That said, I did hate Jr High, and I think it would have been better to unschool and read all day long. I would not have missed a thing. Jr High is horrible.

Edited August 29, 2012 by LibraryLover

[Loudwater School]

I think if I hadn't been homeschooled, I would probably be one of those saying, "Yes, I wish I could have been, but not by my parents!" Only they did decide to homeschool me and we got on okay.