Excelsior! Academy Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Please share your experiences. What did you love and what could have been done differently? Did your experience contribute to how you school your children today? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I would have done more formal writing. My siblings were unschooled for math (I wasn't) and I think it was a terrible idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicAnn Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Can I comment for my husband? He would have preferred a more rigorous, formal education. He was allowed to slack off and he wasn't pushed to his full potential. He wished he had a stronger foundations in the basics, particularly English/Grammar. He wished he would have been pushed to pursue his interests. He was very interested in computers, but was discouraged from doing anything with it. He is now starting a computer career, 10 years later than he should be. His experience is what we based our whole homeschool around, really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.Ivy Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I'm very thankful for having been homeschooled. My mom started out sort of classical. But as time went on she got kind of bored, I think, and burned out. I wish she had more of a social life and more hobbies. As I got older, she became strongly influenced by the Moores, so she backed off on more formal curriculum and focused a lot on reading good literature. She did spelling Charlotte Mason style (although she never heard of her) and that didn't work for me. In fact I hated all dictation; it stressed me out and so I don't do it with my kids. We do a lot of copywork instead, and spelling workbooks. Somehow the Moores convinced my mom that she had ruined my eyes and caused me to need glasses because she tauht me to read when I was 4 years old. So she lived with that guilt to the day she died and it was BS. Now that I'm a mom I can understand that almost anything can cause false mommy-guilt, but still it bothers me that she felt like that. She consequently delayed my younger siblings' reading lessons until way too late and one of them never really caught up to the rest of us. But I think some of that was due to her having burn-out and not putting in the effort to teach that she did wirh me. We used Saxon math for high school and back then there weren't any videos to go with it or anything. I wish she had out-sourced math or used different books, because Saxon doesn't work as an independent study guide. I was able to do well on tests, but I had NO CLUE what I was doing or why, and didn't retain anything after a couple of month out of the textbooks. Most of our language arts was done with McGuffey readers. That worked well, except for spelling which I mentioned. We did Artes Latinae for latin in high school, which worked well. And we did the Learnables for Spanish. Science was pretty dismal until one of my younger siblings got the first Apologia textbook for highschool. I was pretty jealous that I was graduated by then, haha.... but at least now I get to learn decent science with my kids! He best thing about homeschooling was that we always got to investigate with my mom, we all love to learn new things. The worst thing was that my mom needed more supportive friends and more fun in her life. sorry for the typos, I'm on a mobile and it's super hard to edit. Eta: I wished we had better grammar instruction than just copywork and dictation, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Strawberry Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was afterschooled. I felt overwhelmed by it. I knew from a very early age that I would do one or the other but not both. My education was entirely adult-driven. I had virtually no say in what I learned. I keep my kids in the loop on curriculum choices, topics of study, scheduling. I have the final say, but I do care about their interests. I believe strongly that the reason homeschooling is so natural is because I was taught at home. I *know* parents can teach their kids. I went to school for socialization (where I was continuously in trouble for talking. Eyeroll). My parents did teach my well. They were both college students when I was a child. They weren't afraid to handle things that were way above my grade level like teaching me to work Punnet squares to explain why I have red hair ( got into trouble for teaching my 4th grade class that), or explaining political and economic theory when I was 5. I had almost unlimited access to books of all levels. We had 3sets of encyclopedias. I read all of them. We frequented used book dealers. We were signed up for book clubs. There were always so many books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abba12 Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 ETA: Woops, this got long... I guess it turned into a bit of a vent because these are current issues being dealt with for us. The TLDR version is our parents screwed up, DHs majorly, but we both absolutely believe in homeschooling anyway, just very differently. Sorry for the vent, but there's no one I can really say all this to and DH needs me to listen to him, not vent to him, so it's nice to talk about it with people who might 'get it' Husband and I both were, for different reasons. I experienced severe bullying at schools (multiple) and was gifted, but never challenged (their idea of dealing with the gifted kid was having me tutor the LD/ADHD kids after I finished) Homeschooling happened in between public school enrollments, for about a year each time before dad got antsy about our 'socialization' and had us re-enrolled, and then after a certain incident our family began homeschooling permanently from the end of grade 7 onwards. (I was the eldest, so at this time there was also a 5th grader, a 1st grader and a 4yo). He has also now done a total backflip regarding the socialization issue and fully supports me homeschooling my kids. I loved the freedom, and finally having some challenging work when it happened. I loved the masses of time without homework or busywork to allow me to study my interests and hobbies. I loved that it allowed me opportunities, such as work and volunteering, that would have otherwise been unavailable. I love the family closeness, the relaxed and simple days, the self motivation and responsibility. I loved the option to finally only spend time with people who were kind and caring and not being forced into an extreme bullying situation day after day (I was self harming in childish ways at the age of 8, and constantly suicidal by the age of 10. Other factors came into it later on as my pre-existing issues made me a target for some unkind people, but the early issues were almost exclusively bullying related.) I loved being able to be who I was and develop without excessive peer pressure and expectations, and do things other kids couldn't. Unfortunately, my mum was never happy with any method or curriculum, and almost seemed to take their faults personally. Instead of adjusting and tweaking what she didn't like, we changed curricula completely on almost a yearly basis, and switched between eclectic, distance education, private charter type home schools, etc etc. Sometimes curricula need to change, that's fine, but the way and the frequency with which she did it meant I ended up with MASSIVE gaps. An obvious example would be that I studied middle ages asian history at least 3 times, but never once covered WW1 or 2 because each curricula switch had a different sequence. I studied Japanese language for 5 years, but because of school and curricula switches, I never got beyond halfway through a 2nd year before having to begin again. Mum also had some major hormonal issues during my 8th grade year which eventually resulted in her having a complete meltdown and divorcing my dad and disowning me and one other sister, but during my 8th-11th grade years she gave me the books then absolutely refused to have ANYTHING to do with my schoolwork whatsoever. I was entirely on my own from age 13. But I also wasn't given any choice, for example I wanted to switch history curriculum because my 10th grade curricula, another new one that year, was completely fact memorization with no cultural or biographical information, just places and dates. But she insisted that is what history IS and wouldn't hear a word about switching. Still, I fared better than my siblings, who, during that 4 year period, had NO social outlet. At all. No church, no scouts, no coop, no playmates, no park days, no swimming lessons, nothing. At least I had teenage friends and wasn't reliant on mum to facilitate social events. My sister was 8 years old and still had her imaginary friend who had been a real friend at preschool, because she truly had not played with another child her age in 3 years. After mum moved away with the youngest two kids and her new boyfriend, she placed the kids in school where they have stayed since. As much as I believe in homeschooling, I am very thankful they were sent to school when she moved. But even despite her many failings, I could see enough to see the opportunities and the lifestyle homeschooling allowed, and the ability for a child to develop and mature without the school environment and with adult role models instead of exclusivly peer relationships ------------------------------------------------------------ My husbands family homeschooled for religious reasons, they believed they were solely responsible for their 8 children and handing them off to the school would be neglecting their biblical roles. The problem is, they used what they called a hybrid between the 'better late than early' theory, and the Robinson curriculum, along with a huge dose of blind obedience. What this meant in practice was that the kids did no schooling until they could basically teach themselves to read because their mum was a busy mum of 8 (one was 10 before he began learning because of family drama pushing him to the side). (I am not anti-large family btw, just against how this one was managed. I know plenty of mums of 8 who manage to school their children decently) Once they could read they were given saxon math and some literature and told to do school. They were expected to work almost completely independently from that point on (FIL says he wanted to teach them to learn whatever they wanted). Then, when the oldest 4 hit about 14 or 15 they finished school so they could work a 60 hour week in the family business. They were not encouraged or guided, their parents had no interest in their interests. DH was massively into robotics, so his dad bought him a couple of books from the thrift store, and that's about it. The only discussion that happened was on topics which interested FIL, so mostly chemistry which DH had no interest in at all. The kids would never have dreamed of just not doing their schoolwork, so some work was done, but one student devoted half his time to mythology to the exclusion of all else, while another completely flunked math because he didn't care about it, but did study botany. A third once looked at me in complete confusion when I talked about plants and oxygen. The younger kids are now in a distance ed school due to circumstances, and DHs parents insist they hate it because the kids are wasting time learning stupid things they don't need (like, what photosynthesis is, and an overview of history, and a concept of healthy food which is different to their essentially vegetable-less diets. Yes, these are the real examples of the supposedly 'pointless' work). One of the girls almost definitely has an undiagnosed learning disability, and never grasped fractions (MIL would not move from saxon, insisting it WOULD work. When she finally gave up, she just taught that daughter how to cook, figuring that was the only fractions she would need anyway. I don't think she ever progressed further in math) They tell DH that they wanted him to be able to learn anything he wanted... the thing is, we aren't sure WHEN he was supposed to learn these things since he was working a 60 hour, 6 day week, and then got married and had kids as he was raised to do and now does not have time to study the basics of history or science. DH was not allowed to do an apprenticeship in the family business because it was too much paperwork for FIL, so he is now stuck, fully qualified in his field (working for a different company) but with absolutely no paperwork and no way to get any paperwork to prove anything. NO ONE works in this field without being apprenticed, so he has no way to get qualifications formally. FIL has no issue with this and has no shame stating DH did not have any high school education. He almost seems proud, because DH can supposedly teach himself whatever he wants now, right?! You know, in between being a sole breadwinner (which he was raised to be since women stayed home in their beliefs) and an active father to toddlers and caring for a disabled wife and everything else (oh, yes, that's right, that's our fault because FIL told him not to marry me with my disability because I'd be too much work. We never did get his blessing) All of the boys have left the family business, and it is slowly self destructing. No suprise there. DH desperately wanted to go to university (college) but was told he could only do so if all the customer deadlines were still met (though he had no control over deadlines or workloads). Nonetheless, he did try, but simply couldn't maintain a 60 hour week and study at university online at night. Now it's simply too late, I can't work and we have young kids. It is what it is, but I can't help but blame FIL. DH even asked to have saturdays off when he was 16 and move to a 50 hour week so he could have a day to himself (sunday was church). His dad said no. Quitting was never an option because DH felt responsible for his fathers mortgage (eldest son). In all honesty, the GFC which forced FIL to fire DH was the best thing that ever happened to DH in hindsight. DH has come a long, long, LONG way since then. The change in 5 years has been amazing. He is even teaching himself math through khan academy during his lunch breaks at work. But there are a lot of struggles and disadvantages. He looks at my plans for the kids, and the amazing curriculum I show him (he thinks Art of Problem Solving is absolutely fascinating and All About Spelling is mind blowing) and sees the time and thought and research I put in and it hurts. Now DD1 is beginning formal schooling he is just starting to realize how unusual his experience was (they were among some likeminded families, he didn't think it was that strange until I began reading him threads from TWTM forums to give some perspective) Nonetheless, he absolutely believes in homeschooling, even moreso now he has seen the type of education I and others here have planned for our kids. He is more excited than me at the opportunities our kids will have which he did not, he can't wait until they're old enough for him to take over some of the subjects (he doesn't feel comfortable with early learning, but the reason he is studying math is so he can handle math and science once they hit algebra, since he is an engineer of sorts.) He also loves the family lifestyle and culture homeschooling fosters, and it fits perfectly with his extremely hands-on fathering style, so very opposite of his own dad. He wants our kids to have the basics, and then be able to study their interests, and take them further than he ever could. Given a different family and childhood, I think DH would be working in robotics or AI right now. He is a CNC machinist and there is some room for progression, so it isn't like the ended up stuck flipping burgers, but it's not what he wanted. We spent a couple of years trying to make a career change, and DH learnt a lot about himself and the world in that time, before we finally decided that, for this season of our life, we needed to just take a job for the sake of a job, work on some ideas and opportunities on the side, and focus on other aspects of life. DH is doing well with it and mostly enjoys his work, this company does much more interesting work than his dads did, but it took a long time to get him to the point mentally where he stopped seeing his job as defining who he is, and seeing it was ok to do a mediocre job and focus your energy on life outside work, even if a fulfilling career is a common goal in society today. So we are a bit of a mixed bag over here, learning from our parents mistakes, but both extremely passionate about homeschooling, and completely confident in it's results when done by a parent who is even vaguely invested in it academically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I came home from 7th grade not too far into it and said I was never going back. I got the Declaration of Intent form and had my parents fill it out and I didn't go to school again until 9th grade. I was 12 when I decided this. I can't decide if my parents were wise or neglectful to let me just up and decide that. At the time my dad was a 50 something year old college student and my mom was taking some community college classes. We lived in family housing on the campus of the school my dad attended and worked at. My mom was disabled and had dropped out of school herself in the 6th grade so I wasn't really formally homeschooled at all. For 2 years, I spent most of the day at the library and then babysat for neighbors and worked at a daycare. I played softball during the softball season and went to church. That was my life. I got up and I walked to the library. At lunchtime, I went next door to this cafe and ate a bagel with jelly or a bowl of minestrone soup paid for from my babysitting money. Then I went back to the library until it was time to walk to my job. On the days the library was closed, I stayed home or went to the park. My mom was usually at school or her volunteer stuff and my dad was usually gone all day too and I felt better at the library than I did at home. I did a typing program my mom found and at one point worked though maybe 1/2 of a math book with some help from my mom. When I went to 9th grade I was not at all behind academically. I think on the whole my parents made the right decision to let me stay home. Not that I would have gone if they had made me. I was not really ever very great at doing anything I was told to do, LOL. Middle school can be a terrible experience for many and I skipped most of that. The school I walked out of was a cesspool of bullying and chaos. Also, I wasn't home watching TV all day. I read a lot of books, everything from Dickens to Dostoyevsky to delicious twaddle like Sweet Valley High. I read the newspaper cover to cover. I learned a lot about working- I had my first on the books job at 12. Also, my situation was a bit different in that I had been extremely traumatized at age 11. I definitely got a head start on healing by being on my own the way I was and not having to process all that while being constantly on edge at school. If I had a do over I don't know that I would change anything. Had I not been very subdued from my trauma, a small private school might have been a better fit but given my particular situation, the cocooning on my own probably did me a lot of good. ETA: By "came home from school" I mean I walked out in the middle of a class, in the middle of the day, didn't sign out in the office or anything and walked home. It was a science class and the person behind me was being really annoying and I just thought "screw it, I'm not going to stay here and deal with this." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I may as well have been homeschooled, since I missed so many days of school - there were huge gaps in attendance, especially in the years leading up to high school because we moved every year. If I didn't feel like going to school, my parents didn't seem to mind. On the days home, I would read stacks of library books. It was more of self-education than homeschooling, come to think of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Now I'm worried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang!Zoom! Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was absolutely after schooled by my mother. It was different times then, and I thank her everyday for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I should not have read this thread. I am now feeling completely inadequate and feeling that I am ruining my children's education forever. They will only have ME to blame should they fail. GAH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssavings Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I had a wonderful homeschooling experience. My parents were rigorous and academic-focused. I had a classics-driven education. If anything, I would have preferred to have a bit of a less-intense experience... to have had time to explore rabbit trails a bit. The homeschool groups we had, the friends my parents chose, created similarly intense experiences for their children. It was a very college-prep focused, academic group. Extracurricular activities generally revolved around french tutoring, or dissection classes at the science center, or academic field-trips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSOchristie Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I am trying to read this horror story with the balance of my own personal (public school) education. I was at the top of my class (10 out of 369), so not someone who was overlooked and passed through academically. I never learned any geography. Ever. When I learn it with my kids it is brand new information. I never was given any sort of historical overview, so none of it stuck longer than a test. I moved three times and didn't have fractions until fifth grade, like I was not presented with the information because I somehow missed it in each move. It was only through a very special AG teacher that I learned to write well, most of my peers were a train wreck in that department, she taught us to diagram and write really well. Most people I knew in school had to have intense after school training to be able write for the AP exams. So I am trying to keep in mind that whatever I do has to be at least as good as that...right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Cornelia Snook Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 After reading this thread, I'm really motivated to hire house cleaners again, so I can focus more on homeschooling my kids! Thank you for the â€kick in the pants†that I needed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Now I'm worried. Yeah, me too. I keep thinking 10/15 years down the pike! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Perhaps I'm arrogant but reading these stories I'm not worried, the common theme of disappointment seems from educational neglect and/or controlling parents. I'm not either of those. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes though. I am however making sure their education is at least adequate and don't keep my head in the sand as to what is a decent education. We work hard on relationships as well. If my children have regrets or make different choices that is ok. My kids using ps wouldn't be some betrayal of me or our hs'ing, I don't think hs'ing is the only good choice. All I can do is my best as a parent and I do. I also know there is always room for improvement and I keep an eye towards being a better teacher and mom every day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AimeeM Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled for a couple years in elementary school (grades 2-4, I think) and I honestly do no remember any of it. It's as though there's a gap in my life from the time I left my private school, until years later when I was enrolled in a public school for grade 5. I was "homeschooled" again later in my teen years and pretty much just left to my own devices <---- I resent that; I wish my stepmother had been more intentional about it. I was pulled because I was becoming quite the troublemaker and lacked any motivation, so why she thought I would just take initiative on my own, I have no clue; I was clearly troubled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
history_junkie Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled and it was great! As the oldest, I was definitely the guinea pig for some things and my mom is doing very different things now with the younger set. Mom used a largely classical approach and I loved it. I loved being home, I loved the focus I was able to have on history. and I loved the classes she put me in during high school. My weak area is math, and if I had something to do differently, I would have pushed myself harder much earlier so that I didn't end up so behind. I was still able to get a college degree and it all works out: I married a math professor :) Our kids should be fine. I graduated in 2008. Anyone that graduated before that had a much, much narrower selection of curriculum and options and far less support. It was hard to know what homeschooling should look like. I will do a lot of the same things my parents did. Different curriculum choices, definitely, but my parents have changed too as the options have become available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Hmmm.... As background, my mother went to Catholic school as a child, as a time when nuns were teaching out of charity, and some of them apparently hated kids. My mom had a cleft palate and some reading issues, so her experience at school was terrible, maybe even borderline abusive. One of my earliest memories as a child was my mother crying when she explained that when I "got older" I'd have to leave her every day to go to school. Yeah, I think there were some leftover issues there. Nonetheless, I went a Catholic preschool for a year (my family was actually Baptist at that time, but I guess my mom liked the preschool???). And my brother went to public 1st. I remember this year that both me and my brother were pretty happy. Even so, my mother found out about homeschooling, I think through Dobson and/or people at our Baptist church. So the next year we started homeschooling. I remember the first and second years of that being pretty fun. Being inside all day on those dark, grey, Ohio days got tedious sometimes, but once winter was over we spent plenty of time outside. However, my mother also started getting involved in Gothard. And then she started having my younger siblings. That was all right at first, until it wasn't. Schooling around the dining room table stopped happening. I spent a lot of time just reading in my room. My mother wasn't much of a reader, and had never heard of "twaddle" so most of my reading was in the twaddle category, even though I was capable of reading actual literature. I remember there being days when my mother would just sit on the couch and cry. Maybe she was overwhelmed or depressed. Probably was feeling incredibly guilty and inadequate because of all the crap Gothard was telling her. But I didn't know that then, it just made me feel bad, so I hid in my room. Theoretically, I did my school work "independently" by 4th grade. Reality was, I passed those dark, grey, Ohio days alone in my room just reading twaddle and speaking to hardly anyone. My mother did organize some "play dates" with another family with a girl my age for a little while - but then it turned out they weren't good enough or something, and they stopped. My mother wasn't good at LA, so when I ran into a problem with parsing in, I believe, Abeka English 4, we just stopped LA as a subject. My mother would often tell others that because I read so much I was smarter than her, and could just teach myself. Yeah, except that I hated math, and got stuck on the chapter for long division (I believe that was in BJU 5?) for months, maybe a year. We never had enough money, so my curriculum choices eventually were just a hodgepodge of donated materials. I picked some things that looked interesting, and sort of got them done. Eventually, my dad noticed, and said something needed to change. He was never really into Gothard (at all), but I think that was one thing he made an executive decision about. My brother and I enrolled in a local Christian school as part-time students in both English and Math, that was the middle of my 8th grade. I bombed my first tests - my first English test was on diagramming. Eventually, I pulled together a decent enough education by following my older brother's lead to salvage what we had left. I eventually graduated from public HS, and went on to get a BA and three grad degrees. My brother never got a HS diploma (our mom never even made him a homeschooling one), but went out and pulled his life together anyways. I guess on the surface we're both real homeschool success stories. Ha! So, when I had my own kid, no, I did not think about homeschooling him. But then later we got some homeschooling friends, who weren't crazy. I first heard about CM and Classical concepts from them, but I always just kept that at arm's length. I didn't hate the homeschooling idea, but I wasn't keen to talk about it. Eventually, one of my husband's friends insisted that we read WTM ("At least afterschool Latin!!!" lol). I went and picked up the book a homeschooling friend of mine had talked about, When Children Love to Learn, which assured me that if I homeschooled I could also love and respect my child, and not have to "beat the devil out of them" like Gothard said. I read WTM and had a road map to assure me that if I homeschooled I wouldn't give my child major gaps in his education. And when my sensitive and abstract child had issues in K, it gave me the reason to finally pull the trigger and do it. So, by the grace of God, here we are. And the way I homeschool my kid looks nothing like how I was homeschooled (I hope! lol). I avoid anything that reminds me of Gothard like a plague, so no Abeka or BJU, and certainly no Character Sketches. And no scary stories about snakes or idols either! Sometimes I feel tired in the mornings and wonder about taking a day off, but then I feel nervous, and just start stacking everything that needs to be done that day on the table. My husband and I constantly worry about providing enough social outlets for the kid. We constantly re-evaluate whether we are meeting his needs the best, or if another form of schooling would be better. I have some idea about where I want to go with curriculum if we continue to homeschool, but right now we are just taking it one year at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Perhaps I'm arrogant but reading these stories I'm not worried, the common theme of disappointment seems from educational neglect and/or controlling parents. I'm not either of those. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes though. I am however making sure their education is at least adequate and don't keep my head in the sand as to what is a decent education. We work hard on relationships as well. If my children have regrets or make different choices that is ok. My kids using ps wouldn't be some betrayal of me or our hs'ing, I don't think hs'ing is the only good choice. All I can do is my best as a parent and I do. I also know there is always room for improvement and I keep an eye towards being a better teacher and mom every day. That's exactly what I was thinking. I think these sorts of stories should be a wake up call that not "anything you do" can be awesome just because it's homeschooling. And I'm sure there's a chance that I'll mess something up with my kids. I figure that no matter what you do there's a chance your kids will resent you. Many people resent their school experiences too. But I'm doing the best I can, I'm not neglecting academics, I'm open to change when needed, our lifestyle is pretty steady and even. We're not perfect and I don't know that my kids will ever be the poster children for how homeschooling works wonders or anything, but I'm sure my kids won't be a horrible homeschool fail story down the line either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Some of these stories are awful. If that was all I knew about homeschooling, I would be dead set against it. I am sooooo glad that we are heavy into academics as many of these stories involve parents who aren't homeschooling at all. They're just keeping the kids around and tossing them a book every now and then. And here I was worried that my kids aren't independent learners yet. When we do grammar, I am right there teaching it (diagramming and all.) When we do math, I am right there teaching it. They don't do much of anything alone. I am right there on top of everything as their teacher. I've thought maybe I was too involved, but now I'm thinking it's ok to be involved. These stories in this thread are the reasons people oppose homeschooling and want someone to step in and fix it (government, perhaps.) Ugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I came home from 7th grade not too far into it and said I was never going back. I got the Declaration of Intent form and had my parents fill it out and I didn't go to school again until 9th grade. I was 12 when I decided this. I can't decide if my parents were wise or neglectful to let me just up and decide that. At the time my dad was a 50 something year old college student and my mom was taking some community college classes. We lived in family housing on the campus of the school my dad attended and worked at. My mom was disabled and had dropped out of school herself in the 6th grade so I wasn't really formally homeschooled at all. For 2 years, I spent most of the day at the library and then babysat for neighbors and worked at a daycare. I played softball during the softball season and went to church. That was my life. I got up and I walked to the library. At lunchtime, I went next door to this cafe and ate a bagel with jelly or a bowl of minestrone soup paid for from my babysitting money. Then I went back to the library until it was time to walk to my job. On the days the library was closed, I stayed home or went to the park. My mom was usually at school or her volunteer stuff and my dad was usually gone all day too and I felt better at the library than I did at home. I did a typing program my mom found and at one point worked though maybe 1/2 of a math book with some help from my mom. When I went to 9th grade I was not at all behind academically. I think on the whole my parents made the right decision to let me stay home. Not that I would have gone if they had made me. I was not really ever very great at doing anything I was told to do, LOL. Middle school can be a terrible experience for many and I skipped most of that. The school I walked out of was a cesspool of bullying and chaos. Also, I wasn't home watching TV all day. I read a lot of books, everything from Dickens to Dostoyevsky to delicious twaddle like Sweet Valley High. I read the newspaper cover to cover. I learned a lot about working- I had my first on the books job at 12. Also, my situation was a bit different in that I had been extremely traumatized at age 11. I definitely got a head start on healing by being on my own the way I was and not having to process all that while being constantly on edge at school. If I had a do over I don't know that I would change anything. Had I not been very subdued from my trauma, a small private school might have been a better fit but given my particular situation, the cocooning on my own probably did me a lot of good. I went to very low performing middle schools but was advanced so I think I pretty much learned nothing at school between grades 5-8. I devoured books and spent a lot of time at the library since it was a couple businesses down from my mother's business and so learned a ton that way. By the time we moved and I was in high school in a better school distract, I got into honors and AP classes and did excellent. My reading level / Lang was accessed at college entry level my freshmen year. However my math and science skills were always weak. I wasn't homeschooled. Just thought I didn't feel I really learned much in the middle school years at school and was fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSOchristie Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 And for the record, I was not hs'd and read quite a bit of twaddle, as well ;). I got my hands on a copy of Flowers in the Attic the summer after fourth grade while spending the summer at my grandmother's house. Now THAT was an education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.Ivy Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Public school can also be great or terrible. I know a few functionally illiterate adults who have a high school diploma from a public shool. My own husband was public schooled and was gifted. He learned to read early and then they said he couldn't sit atill so they kicked him out of he gifted program. He read ONE book from first grade throuh high school. ONE. When I met him he could hardly speak a complete sentence. He self-educated and taught himself how to speak by repeating audio recordings of sermons from the 1800s. And he taught himself to read by getting a KJV Bible and a dictionary and spending several hours a day studying words. Now he is brilliant. I have another friend who graduated public school, who never read anything besides romance novels, and no math skills beyond 6th grade level, and knows NOTHING about geography, history, science, or grammar. When I was a teen I spent a year assisting in a public school kindergarten class. The colossal waste of time in these kids' lives was what cemented my decision to homeschool in the future. My youngest sibling who was taught late and didn't catch up with academics still had time to develop other skills that are hard to find nowadays. There are parents who care about their kids' education and put them in public school and they get a good education. There areparents who care, and homeschool. There are parents who don't value academics, and some use public school amd some homeschool. But you're not going to read a lot of the public school horror stories on the internet because these people can't spell, type, or earn enough to have access to the computer. And they have no interest in sharing their stories, beacause they're so common. That's why stories of bad homeshool parents don't scare me away from homeschooling. Some families value adacemics and some don't. And that's not something public shool can necessarily fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I went to very low performing middle schools but was advanced so I think I pretty much learned nothing at school between grades 5-8. I devoured books and spent a lot of time at the library since it was a couple businesses down from my mother's business and so learned a ton that way. By the time we moved and I was in high school in a better school distract, I got into honors and AP classes and did excellent. My reading level / Lang was accessed at college entry level my freshmen year. However my math and science skills were always weak. I wasn't homeschooled. Just thought I didn't feel I really learned much in the middle school years at school and was fine. I used to think that this was entirely because the schools didn't do much in middle school and now, seeing how discombobulated kids are as they enter puberty I wonder if it isn't also a function of the limitations of the stage/age. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa R. Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I'm not sure that the best way to defend people who homeschool badly is to bring up public schools who educate badly. "Well, even though you didn't receive a good homeschool education, I didn't either at public school." This *never* excuses parents who take on the responsibility to education their children and don't take it seriously. What does taking this responsibility seriously mean? IMO, it means making sure they are given a solid education in the 3Rs, access to enrichment activities (field trips, well-run homeschool classes, or private lessons) and adequate social time with others. Parents can make excuses for reasons why some of the above is unnecessary or why their child doesn't need this or that (i.e. "my child is an introvert and is happy at home without friends or we can't afford a math tutor but I didn't have one either and I turned out ok..."). However, I think that if parents aren't willing to make these sacrifices to provide a well-rounded educational experience, might find their kids writing things we've just read above in a forum like this. Now that I've seen a group of homeschooled kids grow from K to young adults, I've observed one important thing. That is, when kids are smart enough, motivated, and hard working, they can overcome (mostly) an education that was deficient. We also see that in cases of public schooled kids that also had gaps in their education. There is a group of people who are just smart enough and resourceful enough to overcome these deficiencies. On the other hand, I've also seen kids who had significant gaps that weren't able to overcome. They had the desire but just weren't able to get the higher education they wanted. Or, they would've desired certain degrees but the math and science requirements were not something they could conquer due to the deficiencies, so they settled for a different, easier degree. (Science and math, in particular, are very hard to get up to speed in once behind. These are often the subjects most likely to be neglected with homeschoolers.) There's a website called Homeschoolers Anonymous that contain stories from home educated children that will curl your hair. Yikes! Many of these stories are from kids who grew up in homes with parents that seemed to have untreated mental illness. It is just heart-breaking. These kids had no escape or refuge from the craziness in their home. They had little to no opportunity to have a great education. Homeschooling can be done well. I've seen it. To have a successful story, though, it involves a solid education, a solid home life, a balanced social life, and good college/career counseling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 When I was a child I never knew any homeschoolers who were not extreme in some way. I suppose I was "unschooling" but it's not like that was a term I was familiar with. On the church side of my life the homeschoolers I met pretty much fell squarely into the archetype of the deeply religious homeschooling family heavy on dogma and authority and light on academics. On the my parents were hippies side of my life the homeschoolers were in the better late than early camp of no-schooling. I watched how in high school that better late than early idea blew up in many of my peers' faces. So I entered adulthood with zero interest in ever homeschooling. Zip zilch zero. Never gonna happen. And then 2 years of public school here with a 2e kid convinced me that there had to be something I could do better. Homeschooling failure stories don't wig me out because I am not in the category of homeschooling as a badge of honor or best way but more the category of a good means to an end. ' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I used to think that this was entirely because the schools didn't do much in middle school and now, seeing how discombobulated kids are as they enter puberty I wonder if it isn't also a function of the limitations of the stage/age. Obviously an aside, but this is something I constantly wonder about and swing back and forth on. I have taught middle school and I thought I had an answer, but now watching my 4th graders barrel toward this age, I am not so sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenangelcat Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Technically I was for a little while anyway. I didn't really think about it that way at the time. I was sick a lot as a kid and it eventually combined with increasingly debilitating social anxiety. In my second semester in high school I was missing a lot of school and even though my grades remained high I was told by the vice principal that I should just leave school all together and do the Ontario correspondence courses. So I left and ordered the first course. It was extremely boring so I didn't do it and instead spent the next year or so going to the library twice a week and picking up piles of non-fiction books to read. My mom is not the brightest bulb in the box so she had zero input on the entire thing. I didn't think about it as homeschooling until I started reading homeschooling boards way back before I had my first child. I wish I had been homeschooled by a competent parent from the beginning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyBC Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 One of my best friends in grades 11 and 12 had been homeschooled up to that point. Her parents isolated the children because of religious beliefs; her attendance at our private school was a last-ditch effort to deal with their resentment. Her parents were teachers and she had a solid education. She got a degree and has a successful career. She has no plans to have children of her own and was horrified that I was homeschooling. While I can't forestall my children forming their own opinion of our parenting choices, I've tried to be sure they had at least some access to their peer group, based on my friend's experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.Ivy Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I'm not sure that the best way to defend people who homeschool badly is to bring up public schools who educate badly. "Well, even though you didn't receive a good homeschool education, I didn't either at public school." This *never* excuses parents who take on the responsibility to education their children and don't take it seriously. What does taking this responsibility seriously mean? IMO, it means making sure they are given a solid education in the 3Rs, access to enrichment activities (field trips, well-run homeschool classes, or private lessons) and adequate social time with others. Parents can make excuses for reasons why some of the above is unnecessary or why their child doesn't need this or that (i.e. "my child is an introvert and is happy at home without friends or we can't afford a math tutor but I didn't have one either and I turned out ok..."). However, I think that if parents aren't willing to make these sacrifices to provide a well-rounded educational experience, might find their kids writing things we've just read above in a forum like this. Now that I've seen a group of homeschooled kids grow from K to young adults, I've observed one important thing. That is, when kids are smart enough, motivated, and hard working, they can overcome (mostly) an education that was deficient. We also see that in cases of public schooled kids that also had gaps in their education. There is a group of people who are just smart enough and resourceful enough to overcome these deficiencies. On the other hand, I've also seen kids who had significant gaps that weren't able to overcome. They had the desire but just weren't able to get the higher education they wanted. Or, they would've desired certain degrees but the math and science requirements were not something they could conquer due to the deficiencies, so they settled for a different, easier degree. (Science and math, in particular, are very hard to get up to speed in once behind. These are often the subjects most likely to be neglected with homeschoolers.) There's a website called Homeschoolers Anonymous that contain stories from home educated children that will curl your hair. Yikes! Many of these stories are from kids who grew up in homes with parents that seemed to have untreated mental illness. It is just heart-breaking. These kids had no escape or refuge from the craziness in their home. They had little to no opportunity to have a great education. Homeschooling can be done well. I've seen it. To have a successful story, though, it involves a solid education, a solid home life, a balanced social life, and good college/career counseling. you're right that there's no excuse for a homeschool parent to give a bad education. But putting your kid in public school shouldn't mean you're off the hook, either. I don't like homeshool parents being held to a different standard. A kid graduates homeachool with a ho-hum education and everyone criticises the mom for not providing the best. A kid graduates public school unable to fill out basic forms, and unable to tell you what continent she lives on, and the mom is off the hook because she gave the responsibility to someone else. I don't think that's fair. I know some of the people that have posted their stories on HA. They are still sheltered and they don't know it. They are comparing their lives to their friends in college. I don't deny that they suffered, and there is no excuse for it. But I am surrounded by people in my family and neighborhood that had terrible lives and they're too illiterate to get on the internet and "share their stories." The idea hat you can escape an abusive family situation by simply going to public school would be offensive to many of these people. Public school may have fixed some families that homeschooled instead, but I don't think it would NECESSARILY mean a better education, if your parents don't value academics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Obviously an aside, but this is something I constantly wonder about and swing back and forth on. I have taught middle school and I thought I had an answer, but now watching my 4th graders barrel toward this age, I am not so sure. Maybe. I think I just transitioned very quickly I to the dialectic stage by say grades 3/4 and was already in the dialectic by grade 5 and so was just waiting until everyone caught up. If I had been in a school that offered more then I could have done the more advanced classes in middle school but it wasn't an option. It was a largely migrant community where 70% of kids were ESL learners and kids were typically at 2 grade levels behind, so the best teachers could do was try to give grade level work to the ones who could do grade level work but it didn't make sense to offer advanced classes. I am not bitter towards the teachers but I think I might have been better off doing self education at home. I was very self motivated so might have made an excellent unschooler, lol. But I went to Catholic school for preschool - 4th and had a very solid foundation on the basics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustEm Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was schooled at someone else's house for 4th grade. It was very much like school in that we sat in desks and the teacher lectured but there was freedom and room for impromptu class outside or field trip to the park that was never available at school. We also had a million breaks throughout the day where we all just played outside. My only regret is that I convinced my parents' to let me attend Catholic school (since public school was not an option at all.) I feel like I ruined my own education by going back to a normal brick and mortar school. That is why it is just not an option for my children at all. It never will be. We'll certainly consider outsourcing some classes at some point but I do not feel like brick and mortar schools will ever be the best choice for our family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I am not against homeschooling in any way. I am very much *for* it. But as a result of my experiences, I am very much against unschooling or seriously delaying (past 2nd grade or so) reading (basic literacy, not literature) and math. A child who has learned to read and understand what they read can learn most topics on their own, and catch up if there ARE holes (and there will always be holes -- remember, holes are opportunities for learning) and a child who has learned both can learn/catch up in just about anything. I do bring this up every time someone mentions unschooling math, especially because my siblings who did not receive math education are so very unhappy with their homeschooling experience. Both of them are in the 'ban it if possible' camp, even though they are successful in their careers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 Wow. I am glad I asked the question. The replies have been fascinating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled in high school. I loved it. I wish my parents had started homeschooling me earlier. Really, all that would have made it better was if there were more option for curricula like there are now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ndGenHomeschooler Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled from 2nd grade all the way through high school. My 7 younger brothers and sisters were home schooled all the way through (except the youngest who has 2.5 years left). For 2nd grade my parents used a Beka and Bob Jones, basically just picking up with what my private Christian school had been doing. For 3rd grade up until 2 years ago, they were enrolled in Bill Gothard's ATI program. Yep, I just said THAT... There are A LOT of problems in that organization and with the curriculum itself. There's a lot of terrible stuff coming out now that we never knew and that my parents still don't know. There are also a lot of misconceptions. As with any other form or style of schooling, a lot of the children's success comes from the approach the parents take. A lot of parents in ATI used it as an excuse to not teach their children academics and just focus on "character". Many of them use it to isolate their children from the rest of the world and tend to get stuck in a patriarchal mind set the is unfair to their children. Many other parents used it as basically a Bible curriculum (however flawed) and were very strong on the academics. The "Wisdom Booklets", the primary curriculum of the ATI program, are basically unit studies built around the verses in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Each booklet is designed to be done for a month and consists of what they call "resources". There are Bible, Science, Vocabulary, History, Math, Law, Medicine, Writing, etc. resources. Some have weird names like "Insights Through Investigation", and "Power Through Precision" - I think those were the language arts and math ones. Each resource was basically an article to read. The parents had planners with extra projects for each resource divided by age group. Some of these projects were Bible/character based, some were academic. We would read the resource together as a family and then my parents would assign projects for each of us. Like I said, some families used on these Wisdom Booklets as their sole curriculum and others used them mostly for Bible and then added in other curriculum for all other subjects. As an example: The first verse is "And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain." We would do a Bible study on this verse with cross references and learn what the greek words were and meant. We would learn synonyms, antonyms, and related words to "see", math would be multiplication and large number place value ("multitudes"), science would be the anatomy of the eye and how a mountain would allow for natural amplification for preaching to a large crowd, history/geography on mountains and mountainous regions of the world. Some people would actually take academic route and learn about the eye and mountains. Others would focus on "spiritual" vision and the importance of people being able to hear Jesus' message. We were supposed to relate everything we learned to God's Word and include Bible verses in every paper. My parents were more middle of the road. We did the Wisdom Booklets in addition to math books from BJU. They tended to choose academic projects for us and we did a lot of research and wrote a lot of papers. My parents usually chose our projects/papers based on our individual interests. Three of us took some of the extra classes offered through ATI but we never met Bill Gothard personally or worked for him. My parents didn't feel it was necessary to take many of classes and my dad couldn't see the point in paying someone else for the privilege of working for them. In the end we got a decent education but not perfect. Two of us took the SAT our senior year. I got a 1260 and my brother got a 1280 - above average back when a perfect score was 1600. A big focus in ATI was learning to think in analogies. I got a perfect score on that section of the SAT. Many of the other kids taking it that day said they didn't even try to answer them because they had no idea what they meant. They took that section out several years later. I still think it's a good skill. I have successfully taught piano lessons since I was 15 years old. My parents were on the fence about the idea of college when I graduated so I never went but ended up meeting my husband and getting married a week before I turned 20. Certainly not what I had planned! I had planned to convince my parents to let me go to nursing school (probably wouldn't have taken that much work) and then have a career before getting married closer to 30. My next brother owned his own business for a while and is now a successful roofing salesman. The next brother went to tech school and is now an aircraft mechanic and supervisor. My sister cared for an elderly woman for several years until she passed away a few months before my sister's wedding. Now she stays home with her two little ones. My next brother was a volunteer fire fighter, painter, worked for Teen Challenge, and is now married and working with a cement crew, and we all expect him to end in a paid fire position eventually because that's his passion. The next two brothers work and take college classes, and our youngest sister is still in high school. I say all this to point out that we weren't "ruined" by our exposure to Bill Gothard's program. Those of us who are adults are successful and happy in our chosen fields or at home caring for our own children. That being said, I decided long ago, while still in the program, that I would homeschool my own children but NOT with the ATI program. At that point, it was primarily because I didn't like the education. That was more due to the unit study approach than anything. I hated that history was not taught chronologically and was about missionaries half of the time. Not that I didn't want to learn about missionaries because I enjoyed the stories, but because I felt that there was a lot of history that I was missing. It makes no sense to me to learn history out of order either. The science was over our heads most of the time because it wasn't taught with foundational information first. I still learned about both subjects and as I've gotten older I've realized that I know as much, if not more, than my peers about these subjects - probably just due to the fact that I read a lot. This is more a complaint against unit studies in general though. I just think they're too disorganized to use as a sole curriculum. I think they're fun occasionally but as a supplement rather than the core. The longer I've been out of the ATI program, the more problems I've found outside of the weak academics. There are a lot of problems Biblically as well and many false teachings. I don't fault my parents though. They were doing what they thought would help them raise their children to be successful, strong Christians. And we are. But due to what they taught us and not due to a program. We girls wore skirts when we went out in public, we did Wisdom Booklets, listened to only classical or conservative sacred music, and didn't watch much TV, but my parents didn't buy into all of it and us kids were always allowed to express our opinions on things and make our own decisions as adults. We had a TV that we watched sometimes, we wore pants at home, had the occasional sleep over, and went to amusement parks. We had friends that we saw regularly, we took outside classes (swimming, music, 4H, baseball, etc) that weren't connected to ATI. My experience wasn't that bad but I know it wasn't like that for everyone. That makes me incredibly sad. I know that many parents took things to an extreme and did exactly what Mr. Gothard said and then some and their kids suffer for it into adulthood. With all the new information coming out, I hope that the ministry is eventually dismantled and these families are able to learn the truth and heal. As far as what I do differently in my homeschool....well, no unit studies here! Actually we did one a couple of summers ago on the summer Olympics. It was a fun and I think the kids learned a lot but I would never count on that to be our core for "real" school. I teach history chronologically and I plan to emphasize science more in high school. Not just jumping around like we did but an actual science program. We still do Bible and we try to see God's hand in history and science but I don't push it like ATI does. Math is just math. Language Arts are important because we need to be able to communicate with the rest of the world in a variety of ways. I don't over spiritualize everything we do. (I guess some people would think we do but I guess it's all in your perspective.) I know this is really long but there has been so much posted lately - in many places, not just here - about Bill Gothard's home school program. It's all negative and I feel leaves the impression that all parents who were involved are evil and controlling and cared nothing for their children. And the children are all ruined for life with no social skills or education and will never be able to recover. It wasn't true in my family. I'm not saying that because it didn't happen to us that it must not have happened to anyone. I have no trouble believing the stories that are coming out. My heart breaks for those who have gone through such terrible things and are still struggling now. I'm sad for those who are still trapped in it and the children who aren't being prepared for the real world. I have no intention of ever using any ATI materials in my home (or Vision Forum either for that matter). I'm just saying it wasn't all bad. I have great parents who loved us and did what they felt they should to raise us - including homeschooling in the 80's when it was very unpopular, widely looked down upon, and without support or materials available. I have awesome brothers and sisters who are happy and successful. I'm grateful to my parents for what they did - even though I do it differently. In the end, I think it comes down to what parents do. Homeschooling can be good or bad - if the parents take the time to do it right. Homeschooling can be great - depending on the parents. Public and private school can be great too - if the parent are involved. It all comes back to the parents and how they use what they've chosen for their kids. They have to chose the best thing for *their* kids, and then do it well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AimeeM Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled in high school. I loved it. I wish my parents had started homeschooling me earlier. Really, all that would have made it better was if there were more option for curricula like there are now. Off topic, slightly. Sorry. May I ask you a question? You enjoyed homeschooling in high school. Were you a particularly social child? What did your parents do for you that allowed you to enjoy it as much as you did? My daughter is currently, after being home for a few years, attending a private school that goes through grade 8. After that, we really have no option for her other than homeschooling again (public school simply isn't something we're entertaining right now; she's dyslexic and we're Catholic, so that limits our private school options). She is very social and sincerely hated homeschooling in the early preteen years (enjoyed it more in elementary). I want homeschooling high school to at least be tolerable for her - it would be great if she could even enjoy it. Unfortunately even the university model school is a no-go as there is a SOF that we cannot sign - a shame because that would be the ideal compromise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Off topic, slightly. Sorry. May I ask you a question? You enjoyed homeschooling in high school. Were you a particularly social child? What did your parents do for you that allowed you to enjoy it as much as you did? I was very social. I actually went to high school dances at two of the local public high schools with my friends. My parents let me hang out with friends, go to the mall, talk on the phone, etc. pretty much whenever I wanted. I was taking college courses full time by the time I would have been a senior in high school (and that's when and where I met my husband lol). My parents let me do a lot of learning what interested me (provided the stuff they assigned that I had to do was done first). They let me choose how I did my work, though. Like I finished a year's worth of math in 2 months once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clear Creek Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled through 6th grade, then went to public school from 7th-12th. My parents used Abeka (there were not many other options in the late 70's/early 80's). My first two years of public school I coasted; Abeka was so far beyond what the public schools were teaching at the time that I had already learned what my classes were covering. I was so happy when I started 9th grade and I started learning again, lol. My parents never wanted us to go to public school, but my mom got burned out teaching seven kids with Abeka - the complete curriculum, graded by correspondence, so every single thing had to be done. As a result (and because I remember using it, lol) I will not touch any Abeka materials. What did I love? Not much, honestly. I hated the fact that to complete the entire year's work we had to school year-round. I was *so* jealous of my friends who had summers off. I was disappointed that I never received any art or music instruction - public schools taught those up to sixth grade, after that they did not offer any classes in the basics. As a result, I never learned to play an instrument and I never learned how to draw beyond a stick figure. This wasn't related to homeschooling so much, but I was raised in a highly dysfunctional family, so being in that environment 24/7 was not a good thing. Looking back I can see that my family would have been dysfunctional whether or not I was homeschooling (it did not get any better when we all started public school). In order to homeschool my own children I had to accept that homeschooling does not cause dysfunction in a family; they just coexist rather poorly. Correlation does not equal causation, and all that :001_smile: Most of my siblings have not figured that out and are rather distraught that I homeschool my kids. Because of my own experience being homeschooled, I give my kids the summer off (with the exception of math and Latin, which will be forgotten if not studied several times a week), I make it a priority to give my kids instrument lessons (and as soon as I find an art instructor in my area they are all getting art classes), and I do not hold myself a slave to any one curriculum provider or publisher - I decide my own educational goals for my children, pick the tools that I think will best teach them those goals, and use what I want of those tools. I don't know if my kids will look back on homeschooling with fond memories, or even say they enjoyed it, and I don't care - I didn't enjoy being homeschooled or sitting in a classroom. I teach them so they get an education. My goal as their mother, though, is for them to have happy memories of our family. To me, that is so, so much more important than making sure they enjoy learning or have fond memories of sitting at the table doing math. School is school - you learn, and you get on with your life. Family is different, that is where you are supposed to be loved and nurtured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 I was homeschooled, really mostly unschooled, through second grade, as were most of my siblings. The best memories of my childhood are from those years. Both my parents read aloud to us a lot, we all took music lessons from a young age, and my mom made sure we knew how to read before putting us in school. Beyond that, however, there weren't a lot of formal academics. We had a lot of time to play, explore, build, draw, write poetry... We also traveled quite a lot as a family, my dad in particular wanted us to know the world beyond our small home town. I started school in grade three, and while there was some catching up to do, within a couple of months I was at least on par with the rest of the class. In some areas, particularly reading comprehension and conceptual thinking in math, I was and remained well ahead of most of my classmates. I have always felt that those rich but largely unstructured years gave me a great foundation from which to build. I have tried to model my homeschool after what I felt worked well in my own education, with rich experiences but limited formal schooling during the early years followed by more formal and structured schooling starting in the upper elementary years. I'm hoping I can emulate the positive aspects of my years in brick and mortar school without most of the negative aspects (I felt like there was a lot of wasted time, and some years were pure misery socially). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momma2three Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 This has been so fascinating to read. So many experiences, and I love that people are honestly sharing good and bad experiences. I was homeschooled for 1 year. My school situation was really bad, so my parents pulled me out. We moved the next year. I was pulled out with no notice and no planning. We had never met anyone who homeschooled, nor did we have any way to meet anyone who homeschooled. We "borrowed" the textbooks I had been using at school, but I don't remember really using them. My father worked long hours and my mother was a graduate student and didn't have a lot of time to research or plan. I mostly remember spending that year reading. My mother had me write essays on some of the books, and really taught me to write a mean essay. We did a bunch of history too, because that's her thing. I think we did a bunch of science by using the Janice van Cleave books, or something very much like them. I did basically no math: I didn't want to learn it, and my mother didn't feel able to teach it to me. I know that this is such a different experience from everyone else who has posted on this thread, whose parents homeschooled for longer periods of time for ideological reasons. My family was the blind leading the blind. When I went back to public school the next year (we moved to another district, that was supposed to solve all our problems), I was very well prepared for essays, but waaaay behind in math. I basically skipped pre-algebra, and then the guidance counselor at the new school was not particularly impressed with my homeschooling experience (as well he probably shouldn't have been, frankly) and put me in the non-college-track classes. And it took my parents a year to figure that out, and so I hit 8th grade having basically skipped 6th grade and doing really basic remedial work in 7th... basically having skipped the 2 years of honors-track work before. It wasn't great. I think if my parents had advocated for me in 7th, it would have been okay, but that's neither here nor there... they trusted the guidance counselor's terrible advice. My primary take-away is that I want 1) a plan, and 2) for them to be at the "right" place if they ever go to public school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 These stories are fascinating. I am tempted to ask my kids to write up their experiences, but quite frankly....I am not sure I am ready to hear their take on it. All my grown kids say they are thankful. We homeschooled them and it gave them a chance to figure out who they were and to develope their passions. They all were sort of freaked out that we were planning on sending our younger kids to public school. They asked us to do whatever we could to avoid that. I think my kids sometimes still feel like the oddballs out, but for the most part, they are ok with that. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Our family also homeschooled. My experience goes against all advice and experience on this forum, but I'll type it out anyway, I guess. This was in the 90s, BTW. One of my sisters homeschooled high school. My parents did not "do schoolwork" with her. In fact, I'm pretty sure they never bought a curriculum or textbooks, etc. I think my sister basically went to the library a lot, volunteered at a nursing home, started working when she was 16 at a movie theater and then took community college classes. At one point, my dad told her that she needed to get her GED, so she did. She has a GED. She went to a community college for a while, made really good grades and was offered a full-ride at a local university. She turned it down (stupid, I know!!), because she wanted to go to the same university I was going to (in another city). So, we moved in together and both went to college. When she graduated, she was offered a partial scholarship at a law school in California. She went to this law school for about a year (?) and then applied to a really well-known, 1st tier law school. She was accepted, transferred there and graduated from that law school. I'm pretty sure that when she graduated, they said that she was the youngest in her graduating class. So, she is now an attorney licensed in two states. My other sister did something similar, but I'm really fuzzy about the details (I would need to ask my mom). She homeschooled in middle school and then was accepted into a private high school. I remember my mom buying her textbooks, but I don't think my sister used them. During her interview to get into the high school, the lady wrote some math problems down and asked my sister to solve them. My sister couldn't and the lady said something like, "That's what I thought." So, apparently, my sister was behind in math and the teachers expected it (because she homeschooled). She went to the high school for a couple of years and then my parents pulled her out to finish at home. Here's where my memory is really fuzzy. It seems like she also got her GED. She did a bunch of different things - like she worked pretty much full-time as a patient care tech at a hospital. She did end up going and graduating from nursing school. She was an emergency room nurse. She joined the army and is getting ready to go for Captain. So, she's currently a nurse in the army, just earned her midwife certification and is looking into going for nurse practitioner. I went to a public school until I was a sophomore (?) and then I did some home study thing through the school district. A substitute teacher came to our house like once every couple of weeks or something. It seemed like she gave me homework, but I don't remember doing it or even what it was. I do remember the lady saying something like, "There's not much I can teach you." I think the school district was just jumping through hoops to keep everything official. I think I spent most of my day running around outside, honestly. At some point, I started taking community college classes. When I was 16, I went before the school board and petitioned the state for a high school diploma. So, I had to stand up in front of the school board and give a short speech about why I thought I had fulfilled all of the state's high school requirements. Well, they gave me the high school diploma. By the time my actual high school class graduated, I had already been in the army for about a year. I remember the other people in the barracks making fun of me when I told them my high school class just graduated. They would say things like, "Does your mommy know you're not coming home for dinner?!" LOL! Anyway, that was our experience. *shrug* Edited to add: I guess I really didn't finish my story. I was in the army from age 17 (like 10 seconds after I turned 17) until I was 21. I also ended up going to college and I have a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences. I was applying to graduate programs when we had our first child and decided that I couldn't handle parenting and grad school simultaneously. We have four now (ages 12, 11, 9 and 6) and they homeschool. I'm going to grad school later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Did your experience contribute to how you school your children today? I am very laid-back with the kids and don't really want to do school-at-home. I'm OK if they read for hours, build models or catch spiders outside. I try to let them have as many experiences as possible. I'm ok with dropping history to go fishing, hiking, etc. I don't do standardized testing and I try not to worry about what the ps kids are doing. Despite my *ahem* laid-backness...my kids are huge overachievers and (probably too) competitive. My 6th grader just started algebra and we're probably equals in math now. My 12 yro and 11 yro are in an activity (trying not to give away too much of their info here) where they are student teachers. So, they spend about 8-10 hours a week at this activity and several of those hours are teaching other kids. Next week (if all goes well), my 6 yro is going to be the youngest black belt in her Tae Kwon Do school. One of her forms has almost 100 moves. I can't believe a little kindergartener could memorize so many things. All 4 of my kids are in a sport (hard to say this without giving out too much info about them) where they are competing to place in a district level this spring, so they can move to compete at a state level this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Great story! Thanks for sharing. How do you feel, looking back on your education and childhood.? We're you happy? We're your sisters happy? When they look back, is it with fondness and good memories, or with anger or regret? These are the things I wonder about with my kids. Homeschooling really is the best option here. If there was a better choice, I would have made it. Our family also homeschooled. My experience goes against all advice and experience on this forum, but I'll type it out anyway, I guess. This was in the 90s, BTW. One of my sisters homeschooled high school. My parents did not "do schoolwork" with her. In fact, I'm pretty sure they never bought a curriculum or textbooks, etc. I think my sister basically went to the library a lot, volunteered at a nursing home, started working when she was 16 at a movie theater and then took community college classes. At one point, my dad told her that she needed to get her GED, so she did. She has a GED. She went to a community college for a while, made really good grades and was offered a full-ride at a local university. She turned it down (stupid, I know!!), because she wanted to go to the same university I was going to (in another city). So, we moved in together and both went to college. When she graduated, she was offered a partial scholarship at a law school in California. She went to this law school for about a year (?) and then applied to a really well-known, 1st tier law school. She was accepted, transferred there and graduated from that law school. I'm pretty sure that when she graduated, they said that she was the youngest in her graduating class. So, she is now an attorney licensed in two states. My other sister did something similar, but I'm really fuzzy about the details (I would need to ask my mom). She homeschooled in middle school and then was accepted into a private high school. I remember my mom buying her textbooks, but I don't think my sister used them. During her interview to get into the high school, the lady wrote some math problems down and asked my sister to solve them. My sister couldn't and the lady said something like, "That's what I thought." So, apparently, my sister was behind in math and the teachers expected it (because she homeschooled). She went to the high school for a couple of years and then my parents pulled her out to finish at home. Here's where my memory is really fuzzy. It seems like she also got her GED. She did a bunch of different things - like she worked pretty much full-time as a patient care tech at a hospital. She did end up going and graduating from nursing school. She was an emergency room nurse. She joined the army and is getting ready to go for Captain. So, she's currently a nurse in the army, just earned her midwife certification and is looking into going for nurse practitioner. I went to a public school until I was a sophomore (?) and then I did some home study thing through the school district. A substitute teacher came to our house like once every couple of weeks or something. It seemed like she gave me homework, but I don't remember doing it or even what it was. I do remember the lady saying something like, "There's not much I can teach you." I think the school district was just jumping through hoops to keep everything official. I think I spent most of my day running around outside, honestly. At some point, I started taking community college classes. When I was 16, I went before the school board and petitioned the state for a high school diploma. So, I had to stand up in front of the school board and give a short speech about why I thought I had fulfilled all of the state's high school requirements. Well, they gave me the high school diploma. By the time my actual high school class graduated, I had already been in the army for about a year. I remember the other people in the barracks making fun of me when I told them my high school class just graduated. They would say things like, "Does your mommy know you're not coming home for dinner?!" LOL! Anyway, that was our experience. *shrug* Edited to add: I guess I really didn't finish my story. I was in the army from age 17 (like 10 seconds after I turned 17) until I was 21. I also ended up going to college and I have a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences. I was applying to graduate programs when we had our first child and decided that I couldn't handle parenting and grad school simultaneously. We have four now (ages 12, 11, 9 and 6) and they homeschool. I'm going to grad school later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 I am very laid-back with the kids and don't really want to do school-at-home. I'm OK if they read for hours, build models or catch spiders outside. I try to let them have as many experiences as possible. I'm ok with dropping history to go fishing, hiking, etc. I don't do standardized testing and I try not to worry about what the ps kids are doing. Despite my *ahem* laid-backness...my kids are huge overachievers and (probably too) competitive. My 6th grader just started algebra and we're probably equals in math now. My 12 yro and 11 yro are in an activity (trying not to give away too much of their info here) where they are student teachers. So, they spend about 8-10 hours a week at this activity and several of those hours are teaching other kids. Next week (if all goes well), my 6 yro is going to be the youngest black belt in her Tae Kwon Do school. One of her forms has almost 100 moves. I can't believe a little kindergartener could memorize so many things. All 4 of my kids are in a sport (hard to say this without giving out too much info about them) where they are competing to place in a district level this spring, so they can move to compete at a state level this summer. I think the issue is not relaxed or vigorous academics to where your kid feels punch drunk. You sound like you are an interested mom. I think the issue with kids having bad homeschooling experiences is the same as kids with bad public school experiences.....disinterested teachers. Not meeting kids where they are at. Sounds like you are doing a great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Great story! Thanks for sharing. How do you feel, looking back on your education and childhood.? We're you happy? We're your sisters happy? When they look back, is it with fondness and good memories, or with anger or regret? These are the things I wonder about with my kids. Homeschooling really is the best option here. If there was a better choice, I would have made it. My sisters weren't very happy with their childhoods, but it wasn't because of the schooling. We had relatives who were just wreaking havoc in our entire family and that was most of it. The homeschooling part was fine. I think one of my sisters (the one who became an attorney) was kinda mad at my mom for not doing more with her. I don't think the other sister cared. We did have a ton of free time to explore...I used to follow creeks with my friend for hours. That's actually my happiest childhood memory. My sister got to take art classes, etc and that seemed like a lot of fun (mildly jealous here). My sisters went really far with their careers (and they're only in their 30s), so I don't think their homeschooling hindered them at all. I wonder if not telling our kids our reasoning/intentions behind why we do things doesn't contribute to questioning later. We just went on a really relaxed school schedule, because the weather is really nice and I want them to enjoy themselves outdoors for awhile before it gets hot (we're in Texas). I told them why we're doing this, because I don't want them to think I'm wishy-washy about school or that I'm neglecting them. I've told them that when their competitions are over and the weather warms up, we'll buckle down with school again. I don't want them burned-out. I think if my mom would've been more communicative about why she did things, my sister wouldn't have been mad about not doing stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 My sisters weren't very happy with their childhoods, but it wasn't because of the schooling. We had relatives who were just wreaking havoc in our entire family and that was most of it. The homeschooling part was fine. I think one of my sisters (the one who became an attorney) was kinda mad at my mom for not doing more with her. I don't think the other sister cared. We did have a ton of free time to explore...I used to follow creeks with my friend for hours. That's actually my happiest childhood memory. My sister got to take art classes, etc and that seemed like a lot of fun (mildly jealous here). My sisters went really far with their careers (and they're only in their 30s), so I don't think their homeschooling hindered them at all. I wonder if not telling our kids our reasoning/intentions behind why we do things doesn't contribute to questioning later. We just went on a really relaxed school schedule, because the weather is really nice and I want them to enjoy themselves outdoors for awhile before it gets hot (we're in Texas). I told them why we're doing this, because I don't want them to think I'm wishy-washy about school or that I'm neglecting them. I've told them that when their competitions are over and the weather warms up, we'll buckle down with school again. I don't want them burned-out. I think if my mom would've been more communicative about why she did things, my sister wouldn't have been mad about not doing stuff. I think that is partly due to personalities as well, some really thrive with structure, that would be me and my daughter. My son needs a routine but can be very self-motivated as well (although he is at the still needs assistance stage). DD1 is also very, um, sensitive, dramatic, etc whereas my son and dd2 are very laid back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abba12 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 To those parents who read these stories and find themselves worrying, don't! What has been suggested by others is quite right, the poor situations we have come less from what was done and more from why and how it was done. I have met very successful unschoolers who had less formal teaching than DH, but far more interested parents. I have seen kids given their books and told to do school like me, and excel with it because the family environment and mindset was different to mine. As a previous poster stated, they even managed to get a decent education out of ATI! Method and resources has much less to do with it than intentions and attitudes. Those of us posting stories obviously don't blame homeschooling for what happened in our childhoods, since we are all now homeschooling/planning to homeschool ourselves. The very fact you are on a forum like this, reading a thread like this, tells me you almost certainly will not make the mistakes our parents did because you care enough to research, plan, and connect with other families. You open yourselves to ideas and homeschooling differently to your own theories. My mum decided she knew exactly what she was doing, and was more interested in her non-conformist theories than in actually seeing to our education. She would not connect with other homeschoolers because they were either 'never home to actually do school' (because, you know, they attended a once-a-week homeschool group and that was too much socialization for her) or because they were too religious (funny thing is, a number of these religious families were more thorough than she was). My husbands family came up with a theory, one which allowed the least amount of work from the mother because she was busy with so many kids. I see women here busy with a large family who still find the time to connect with their children and their educations daily because it's a priority for them, but it wasn't for DHs family. Once they had that theory, nothing else was worth considering. They are like this today, they have their opinion, their opinion is absolutely right, everyone else is stupid, and don't bother talking about other ways of doing things in this household. Their major failing was believing a child should be completely self motivated without anyone with interest or encouragement around them. My husband has realized that the difference between the interests and hobbies he actually studied and stuck with, and the ones which were dropped, had nothing to do with his level of interest in them or their potential for career or future. It had everything to do with which ones he could find someone, anyone, to connect with about, and the ones his father would acknowledge/encourage or ignore. Most unschoolers who will give kids books about topics of interest also care enough to ask about them once in awhile or offer supplies for practical working of the concepts, or will drive the child to a group, or in other ways encourage the interest. My DHs parents gave him a book on robotics and absolutely no opportunity for anything else, expected him to become an expert, and when he didn't, berated him for not being able to stick with anything long-term and assumed it wasn't really an interest, just a fad. Funnily enough, after DH and I began dating, my mum and his mum met each other and we realized we had gone to the same homeschooling group for awhile when mum had allowed us to attend. My DHs mum was the only woman in the whole group my mum could get along with, and was someone she had regretted losing contact with! (that changed pretty quick, since mum left with her boyfriend not long after this time) but I do find it curious. We were also the two families closest with the host family of the group, who were, and still are, complete nutters who made our families look normal (they are currently traveling Australia in their caravan with their 5 adult children who have no intention of moving or marrying because the apocalypse will happen any day now and they don't want to make close connections to anyone or foster 'meaningless' things like marriage with the end times so near... yeah, we actually caught up with them a couple of years ago... The kids are happy I suppose, because even as adults their parents control every aspect of their lives, so they still know no different.) In short, if you care enough to worry you are screwing this up, then that in itself means you probably won't. Regarding gaps and public school failings, I know gaps are totally normal, I never expected to be taught everything, but I suppose I see some things as foundational, and I also see that the gaps were not a matter of accidental neglect, our parents fully recognize the gaps and have no regrets whatsoever, they still, honestly believe we received brilliant educations placing us miles ahead of our peers, and have no interest in hearing otherwise from anyone. Plenty of kids graduate public school with poor educations, and those parents are to blame as well, but I think there is a difference between a parent who is completely disinterested in their childs education, and a parent who claims high interest, who claims success, and made the decision to take over their childs education completely instead of the status quo, and then chose to handle it the way they did. Public schools and disinterested parents have a lot to answer for, but at least they didn't actively cause the issues, and they don't claim to have done a wonderful job, they just don't care either way, and that is somehow less painful to me than having to accept my parents, or particularly my DHs parents, actively chose this path for us. I don't blame someone who takes public transport for the bus having an accident, I blame the driver and the system. But if someone chooses to take on the responsibility of driving their own car, and does so badly, they will receive much more blame from me. Maybe not a perfect analogy but I hope the message gets through. When we choose to do something we also take on the responsibility for that thing going bad, whether it's being a bad doctor vs not being a doctor at all, or being a pastor as opposed to not, by choosing the benefits of those decisions, you also take on a lot more responsibility than someone who does not choose them, and a lot more blame if you fail. Good on you ladies for choosing to give your kids a great education, and choosing to do so well. It doesn't matter if you're an unschooler or a school-at-homer or a living books family, what matters is your dedication, your openness to new ideas, and your time and work in trying to provide the best for your kids. You'll notice the common theme between those who loved their homeschool and those who didn't is, in most cases, the amount of time and effort the parent put forward. Even a bad education done with the best of intentions and effort is better than disinterest, and that's why I know our homeschooling family will end up very differently to the one I grew up in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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