Article about home schooling (very positive IMO)

[Lanny]

I read this article on my phone this morning 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/parents-biggest-misconceptions-homeschooling

[Scarlett]

It was fairly positive.  There are still a lot of misinformed people out there. 

[Clarita]

I find it interesting that people who are or were previously teachers (in classrooms) are the ones who are telling me what a good idea it is. I know it's partially because of the child I have. Then there is also this other side where you have a dedicated personalized education, which they would love to provide for all the children in their classes, but they got 30 of them and can't. 

I also find some people compare homeschooling with the $40,000+ amazing private school where school age children are taught each of their subjects by a subject expert, class size is < 20 (with 3 supervising adults), where the school is constantly looking at best practices at educating children and providing teachers with proper up to date training.  

[thewellerman]

I do think socialization can be an issue.  My kids (prepandemic) were involved in all kinds of things, but they still didn't understand the way people move in groups.  They can talk to anyone, etc, but socialization is more about understanding social mores surrounding authority and movement and expectations of behavior in groups, imo.  It is noticeable even in the little things, such as I've experienced a lot of homeschooled kids pushing through to use the slide on a farm field trip, but the public schooled kids automatically get in line and wait their turn. My kids are going to several camps this summer, and we have had a lot of conversations to prepare them to operate within the expected structures.  

[HomeAgain]

I really disliked the headlines for other articles embedded within.  No, the article didn't knock homeschooling, but there was definitely propaganda woven into it.

At this stage in my life I'd find it refreshing to find an article that balanced the pros and cons in a thoughtful manner, along with different ways to handle them. 

[Arcadia]

@Clarita my kids are asynchronous accelerated so the only public school that could easily accommodate is the online CAVA. DS17’s teachers all tell us to send him to private or homeschool.  
 

In our area, sending two children to a private school for $40k++ is still lower than a typical technician pay. For families who are dual income when they buy their first homes, it can be hard to pay mortgage on one income without refinancing to longer than 30 years. So it is not surprising that many of my neighbors compare the cost of homeschooling with putting their kids in private schools for k-12th. Many put their kids in more affordable choices like Straford, Challenger, Basis versus Harker, Neuvo.

[Arcadia]

@thewellerman my DS17 actually learned lord of the flies behavior after attending kindergarten. He learned to be first in line for anything with activity handouts because there may not be enough to go around. He learned to grab seats near the front so that he can get a clear view of any demos by the teacher.  I chaperone the six field trips my kid went to in kindergarten. Behavior is random. My kids went to YMCA summer camp when elementary school age and you can’t tell which kid were from public schools, private schools or homeschool.

[Clemsondana]

52 minutes ago, thewellerman said:

I do think socialization can be an issue.  My kids (prepandemic) were involved in all kinds of things, but they still didn't understand the way people move in groups.  They can talk to anyone, etc, but socialization is more about understanding social mores surrounding authority and movement and expectations of behavior in groups, imo.  It is noticeable even in the little things, such as I've experienced a lot of homeschooled kids pushing through to use the slide on a farm field trip, but the public schooled kids automatically get in line and wait their turn. My kids are going to several camps this summer, and we have had a lot of conversations to prepare them to operate within the expected structures.  

Homeschool kids have to be reminded to form a line rather than a gaggle when walking down a hall sometimes, but we have mostly seen a better ability to get along unsupervised.  During breaks at co-op, the homeschool kids can entertain themselves with a few board or card games, while groups that are mostly public school kids (like at church) the kids seemed to need closer supervision and planned activities so that it didn't get chaotic.  When we have attended some 'Old-time days' at a farm, the homeschool kids ususally stood and listened to the demos about weaving or whatever.  My kids both stared, big-eyed, at public school kids running around and not sitting or getting off the stage or whatever hteir teachers were asking them to do.  Although the Mennonite kids, who stood in a line and watched various demonstrations until the adult in front said 'Come, children' and they'd all walk to the next activity, were most memorable.  I do remember that, after our first 'Old-time days' trip, my kids were adamant that they never wanted to go to a public school.  

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

I find it interesting that people who are or were previously teachers (in classrooms) are the ones who are telling me what a good idea it is. I know it's partially because of the child I have. Then there is also this other side where you have a dedicated personalized education, which they would love to provide for all the children in their classes, but they got 30 of them and can't. 

I also find some people compare homeschooling with the $40,000+ amazing private school where school age children are taught each of their subjects by a subject expert, class size is < 20 (with 3 supervising adults), where the school is constantly looking at best practices at educating children and providing teachers with proper up to date training.  

Part of how we got started homeschooling was that my preschooler's Sunday school teacher, herself a public school K teacher, pulled me aside and asked what we were planning to do for school.  We were planning a move and I said that I was considering homeschooling for logistical reasons - we'd be in an apartment, then move to a house once we bought one, and I didn't want kid to change schools midyear.  She was relieved, saying that kids who could already do advanced stuff (reading, math) mostly got ignored in K classes because the teachers had to focus on getting everybody up to grade level, and she didn't want that to happen to my kid.  Our co-op has a lot of moms who were teachers before they had kids.  

[shawthorne44]

I've always thought that would be a very interesting study.   Deep dive on former or current public school teachers who homeschool.  

[Lucy the Valiant]

13 minutes ago, shawthorne44 said:

I've always thought that would be a very interesting study.   Deep dive on former or current public school teachers who homeschool.  

There are quite a few of us here. 😉

[Ting Tang]

Mostly positive.  I do hate that there are still misconceptions about it.  I see certain people get very defensive of public education, and then homeschoolers get very defensive---we do not want to see homeschool freedom diminish. 

The main reason I continue to homeschool is I live in a very bad public school district.  I am not quite ready to spend the money on private education when we do need to think about sending them to college---so if I can do this for as long as possible, it is for the best.

I agree socialization is hard.  I am dishing out the bucks for my kids to have "socialization."   I know we could get it for free in certain ways, of course.  

I will always support the freedom to homeschool.  But I do resent that our local school is horrible, and there is nothing I can do about it.  The same few families run the school via school board seats.  Teachers leave for this reason.  Parents have pulled their kids out because they saw the same writing on the wall as we did...  

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Ting Tang

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

She was relieved, saying that kids who could already do advanced stuff (reading, math) mostly got ignored in K classes because the teachers had to focus on getting everybody up to grade level, and she didn't want that to happen to my kid.

I had a lot of my close friends who taught pull me aside for that talk when I told them my eldest knows how to read at 4. Mostly in my area people are more shocked that we have a stay at home parent who can homeschool, more than the question of you are depriving your child. 

3 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

I will always support the freedom to homeschool.  But I do resent that our local school is horrible, and there is nothing I can do about it.  The same few families run the school via school board seats.  Teachers leave for this reason.  Parents have pulled their kids out because they saw the same writing on the wall as we did...  

I live in a bad school district too (all we are missing are the metal detectors). The district blames the students, but in reality I can point to decisions they've made which don't help.

[Ausmumof3]

It’s nice to see you around Lanny. Great to see an article that’s mostly positive about homeschooling.

[Scarlett]

5 hours ago, thewellerman said:

I do think socialization can be an issue.  My kids (prepandemic) were involved in all kinds of things, but they still didn't understand the way people move in groups.  They can talk to anyone, etc, but socialization is more about understanding social mores surrounding authority and movement and expectations of behavior in groups, imo.  It is noticeable even in the little things, such as I've experienced a lot of homeschooled kids pushing through to use the slide on a farm field trip, but the public schooled kids automatically get in line and wait their turn. My kids are going to several camps this summer, and we have had a lot of conversations to prepare them to operate within the expected structures.  

I am pretty sure there is a line in WTM that says that is the one thing public schools teach.  How to stand in a line.  I did not find that a difficult skill to teach my son.  

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, Clarita said:

I find it interesting that people who are or were previously teachers (in classrooms) are the ones who are telling me what a good idea it is. I know it's partially because of the child I have. Then there is also this other side where you have a dedicated personalized education, which they would love to provide for all the children in their classes, but they got 30 of them and can't. 

I also find some people compare homeschooling with the $40,000+ amazing private school where school age children are taught each of their subjects by a subject expert, class size is < 20 (with 3 supervising adults), where the school is constantly looking at best practices at educating children and providing teachers with proper up to date training.  

Within school classes there also seem to be kids that don’t understand or don’t choose for form lines etc. there’s always those kids that are bouncing a basketball while everyone else is queueing up for class. I think that’s a bit higher with homeschool kids but in part I think that’s because locally I think most people come to homeschooling because their kids struggled with that stuff already and school didn’t work for them. My kids have figured out lines by going with me to bakeries, checkouts, cafes etc. 

[Ting Tang]

2 hours ago, Clarita said:

I had a lot of my close friends who taught pull me aside for that talk when I told them my eldest knows how to read at 4. Mostly in my area people are more shocked that we have a stay at home parent who can homeschool, more than the question of you are depriving your child. 

I live in a bad school district too (all we are missing are the metal detectors). The district blames the students, but in reality I can point to decisions they've made which don't help.

That's too bad. I feel like the students in our district are the least at fault. They cannot help their education is not being prioritized or that nobody thought to test the water for lead after they were feeding the kids the toxic metal for years....  Some say we shouldn't be running away from the schools, but a lot of the community rallies around the school board.  We are ranked the worst in the whole area for scores, equity, etc.  I thought one of the older teachers had retired. It turns out she went to a different district.  

[Happy2BaMom]

I dunno. I put both of my kids in public school for high school because the local homeschool community/ies was/were actively pulling my kids down. And parts of public school have definitely sucked, but with one graduated and the other headed into the junior year, I can definitely say it was the right choice.

Fox is known for pushing a conservative agenda, and this is a pro-homeschooling article. It does not reflect my experience of homeschoolers in general (in two states in different areas of the country).

For the record, I'd definitely still hs K-8 again. I don't think there's much that's healthy for kids in public school now, esp in middle school. But there are large swaths of homeschooling that have hit the skids the last 20 years and I'm so tired of the pretense that it hasn't.

[Sneezyone]

I'm glad I had the opportunity to homeschool through elementary and part of middle. I was involved with education for many years prior, not as a classroom teacher, and never wanted to subject my children to the kinds of education they'd receive in the places we were stationed without forwarning and forearming. I was (and remain) deeply concerned about the tendency to circumscribe content, always for the benefit of the white children *eye roll*. If we'd been able to stick with our kids' private school through grade 12, we probably would have. DD has a friend from kindy who's graduating from there this year but that wasn't possible. I hate tracking and white nationalist English/history instruction with a fiery passion and felt the need to inoculate my children before they could be harmed by (vs. informed about) it in school. No regrets there. Things have only gotten worse in that regard so no regrets. In this region, there are TONS of black homeschoolers, an active and supportive community. We didn't have that when we started and it would have made all the difference WRT longevity. Did no one else notice that the families featured were black and from parts of VA and NC that have robust homeschooling communities? That does not represent the nation. At all. And if they'd actually asked *WHY* the homeschool the answers may be less palatable.

From what they say today, my kids don't have any regrets about their time at home. DD says I was a lot tougher than her teachers in school. DS doesn't care, just aims to do what he's told. If expectations are high, he'll do well. If expectations are low, he'll do that too. DD needed the much-maligned socialization of PS even if her academics suffered. She's the kind of adult who will rise to the top because people genuinely LIKE HER and she fits in everywhere. DS, who has autistic traits, needed school too for life-skills reasons. He would never, ever, have developed the kind of relationships (however superficial they may be) he has without full-time schooling with kids his own age over several years. There are girls crushing on him and telling him he's cool now (not that he shows any outward interest). For DS, that's AMAZEBALLS.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Dmmetler]

2 hours ago, Scarlett said:

I am pretty sure there is a line in WTM that says that is the one thing public schools teach.  How to stand in a line.  I did not find that a difficult skill to teach my son.  

When someone brought that up to me, I told them I’d take L to Disney World. Lots of queueing practice there :).

[Brittany1116]

8 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

When someone brought that up to me, I told them I’d take L to Disney World. Lots of queueing practice there :).

Right? I took my oldest to EPCOT fall 2019 for Food Festival. Geography, cuisines, and line formation all in one field trip.

[Heartstrings]

52 minutes ago, Ting Tang said:

That's too bad. I feel like the students in our district are the least at fault. They cannot help their education is not being prioritized or that nobody thought to test the water for lead after they were feeding the kids the toxic metal for years....  Some say we shouldn't be running away from the schools, but a lot of the community rallies around the school board.  We are ranked the worst in the whole area for scores, equity, etc.  I thought one of the older teachers had retired. It turns out she went to a different district.  

I always hate when people say that.  I did fight the school, for 4 years, before we decided to homeschool.  My child suffered, really suffered, during those 4 years.  I can't believe that leaving him in school for 9 more years while I "fought" would have have been best for my child.  I only get 1 chance to educate each of my kids, they don't get a do over and I neither do I.  I can't sacrifice my children, can't actively harm my children, while I try to fight a huge bureaucracy and a ton of parents who are perfectly happy with how it works.  I try support the schools in other ways, but they can't have my children. 

27 minutes ago, Happy2BaMom said:

I dunno. I put both of my kids in public school for high school because the local homeschool community/ies was/were actively pulling my kids down. And parts of public school have definitely sucked, but with one graduated and the other headed into the junior year, I can definitely say it was the right choice.

Fox is known for pushing a conservative agenda, and this is a pro-homeschooling article. It does not reflect my experience of homeschoolers in general (in two states in different areas of the country).

For the record, I'd definitely still hs K-8 again. I don't think there's much that's healthy for kids in public school now, esp in middle school. But there are large swaths of homeschooling that have hit the skids the last 20 years and I'm so tired of the pretense that it hasn't.

I'm curious as to what you mean by hit the skids.  Not disagreeing, just interested   I'm also curious what you mean by the article not reflecting your experience .  I thought it was pretty bland and generic.  

Edited June 14, 2022 by Heartstrings

[Scarlett]

9 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

When someone brought that up to me, I told them I’d take L to Disney World. Lots of queueing practice there :).

For sure.  When people talk about knowing how to stand in line I always wonder if they never go to the grocery store or McDonald’s etc.  so many of these things people learn naturally from just living life with their parents.  

[shawthorne44]

10 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

In this region, there are TONS of black homeschoolers, an active and supportive community. We didn't have that when we started and it would have made all the difference WRT longevity.

I had been shocked when we first started and saw that.   We are white but the first homeschooler I meant was a black lady I worked with over the summer as a teen.   First impressions have a big impact.   It was around that time that I decided I wanted to homeschool my future kids.  
 

[Happy2BaMom]

13 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

 

I'm curious as to what you mean by hit the skids.  Not disagreeing, just interested   I'm also curious what you mean by the article not reflecting your experience .  I thought it was pretty bland and generic.  

I don't have much time to write, so this will be brief.

IME, a lot of hsers have adopted the philosophies of: "Anything is better than public school" and/or "kids are learning all the time anyway" and/or "studies show how well hsers do on standardized tests!" and/or "don't worry about LDs - kids learn on their own time" or similar other things.....and then proceed to live out a life of low academics and low expectations, esp if their state does not require any yearly testing for hsers. This has been my overwhelming experience & observation, other than very small handfuls of religious classical hsers. There have been threads about it on the board over the years, so I know I'm not alone in this experience(s).

Re: the article..I don't have time to detail it, but the article focused only on the positives of hsing, and not a single negative. It paints the picture of an idealized hs world, one the I certainly never experienced ("experts" teaching a coop class that "works out beautifully"....every coop I've been in was sometimes/usually good for socialization but was a joke academically). Etc.

Just ME. YMMV.

[Clemsondana]

58 minutes ago, Happy2BaMom said:

I don't have much time to write, so this will be brief.

IME, a lot of hsers have adopted the philosophies of: "Anything is better than public school" and/or "kids are learning all the time anyway" and/or "studies show how well hsers do on standardized tests!" and/or "don't worry about LDs - kids learn on their own time" or similar other things.....and then proceed to live out a life of low academics and low expectations, esp if their state does not require any yearly testing for hsers. This has been my overwhelming experience & observation, other than very small handfuls of religious classical hsers. There have been threads about it on the board over the years, so I know I'm not alone in this experience(s).

I've taught the same class at the same co-op for 10 years, and I've seen changes, too.  But, I'm seeing it go in both directions.  I've got more students acing tests, using other resources to add to what I teach, taking APs or DE, etc, and I've also got more students struggling to do things in a timely manner, cheating, and not turning in work.  I've written about it in other parts of the forum.  I think that tech has had a huge impact, with it now being easier for people to plop their kids in front of something and assuming they'll learn or thinking that the online schools that they advertise on PBS will be easy and kids will DIY it, when at one point people knew that they needed to choose materials and teach, or arrange tutors, or specifically choose content written to the student, which they then checked.  But, for parents who still do the choosing and supervising, they have so many good options and resources now and their kids can do very well.  

[Clarita]

Maybe the biggest misconception about homeschooling is that it is in general either fantastic or horrible. The reality is that there is a spectrum and it all depends on the parents running it. (Just like a brick and mortar school public or private.)

[HomeAgain]

5 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Maybe the biggest misconception about homeschooling is that it is in general either fantastic or horrible. The reality is that there is a spectrum and it all depends on the parents running it. (Just like a brick and mortar school public or private.)

And it depends on the day. And the year.

I'm really not a fan of homeschooling late 11-early 13yos. 😂

[Heartstrings]

30 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

And it depends on the day. And the year.

I'm really not a fan of homeschooling late 11-early 13yos. 😂

I’m not a huge fan of parenting that age 🤣.   It’s the hardest age, I think. 

[kbutton]

On 6/13/2022 at 2:12 PM, thewellerman said:

I do think socialization can be an issue.  My kids (prepandemic) were involved in all kinds of things, but they still didn't understand the way people move in groups.  They can talk to anyone, etc, but socialization is more about understanding social mores surrounding authority and movement and expectations of behavior in groups, imo.  It is noticeable even in the little things, such as I've experienced a lot of homeschooled kids pushing through to use the slide on a farm field trip, but the public schooled kids automatically get in line and wait their turn. My kids are going to several camps this summer, and we have had a lot of conversations to prepare them to operate within the expected structures.  

I have seen a little of this--one kid I encountered (at church, no less) was pretty gleeful about this kind of behavior (though my examples would be different). His parents are messed up though. The type that are nice to their people but not everyone.

On 6/13/2022 at 3:14 PM, Clemsondana said:

Homeschool kids have to be reminded to form a line rather than a gaggle when walking down a hall sometimes, but we have mostly seen a better ability to get along unsupervised.  During breaks at co-op, the homeschool kids can entertain themselves with a few board or card games, while groups that are mostly public school kids (like at church) the kids seemed to need closer supervision and planned activities so that it didn't get chaotic.  When we have attended some 'Old-time days' at a farm, the homeschool kids ususally stood and listened to the demos about weaving or whatever.  My kids both stared, big-eyed, at public school kids running around and not sitting or getting off the stage or whatever hteir teachers were asking them to do.  Although the Mennonite kids, who stood in a line and watched various demonstrations until the adult in front said 'Come, children' and they'd all walk to the next activity, were most memorable.  I do remember that, after our first 'Old-time days' trip, my kids were adamant that they never wanted to go to a public school.  

Yep, this too. With some exceptions for some kinds of families. 

18 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Within school classes there also seem to be kids that don’t understand or don’t choose for form lines etc. there’s always those kids that are bouncing a basketball while everyone else is queueing up for class. I think that’s a bit higher with homeschool kids but in part I think that’s because locally I think most people come to homeschooling because their kids struggled with that stuff already and school didn’t work for them. My kids have figured out lines by going with me to bakeries, checkouts, cafes etc. 

Yes! We are one of those families. 

The article is a little rosy; I wouldn't have always felt it was overly optimistic, but the pandemic has revealed things. I feel like it's hard to capture all the different things going on in home education right now. I both agree with the idea that not all teaching requires expertise (or that it can be learned by the parents), while at the same time, I am very cognizant that an attitude of scorn toward experts is a problem in our society. We've recently had a hard knock up against experts that didn't listen too in another sphere of life while they blew off knowledge of our kid and some expertise we had...it's just complicated.

[Wheres Toto]

The article was okay.  I didn't feel like it said anything new and, like a PP, I felt it was pretty bland and generic.  But definitely optimistic about homeschooling without going into any of the downsides.  

I did find the sidebar ads and the linked ads on the page very annoying so I read through the article pretty quickly.   I was surprised by the racial diversity shown in the pictures considering it was on the Fox News site.  

I think more homeschool articles are going to be shared especially now that Kurt Cameron's movie is coming out.  

[Clarita]

27 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I think more homeschool articles are going to be shared especially now that Kurt Cameron's movie is coming out.  

Right now I feel like I'm in this bliss of not having to explain my choice and I'm kind of nervous about the feelings of homeschooling coming from that or the headlines of that. Not that I totally care what people think just that I don't really like hashing it out all the time. 

 

[EKS]

The socialization one experiences in school is not the same as socializing.  It drives me crazy when people claiming to speak for homeschoolers confuse the two.

Given that school is a huge force for the socialization of children in our culture, a homeschooling parent would be stupid not to realize that their children will be missing something if they don't experience it.  It obviously isn't a deal breaker, and in many ways missing it can be a positive thing, but a person who never went to K-12 school and never experienced a reasonable stand in is not going to have that thing in common with the the vast majority of people they encounter in society.

So, like everything else, there are trade offs.

ETA:  To be clear, when I say socialization here, I mean the the process by which individuals acquire the values, habits, and attitudes of a society.  Schools play a huge role in this.  When I say socializing, I mean social interaction.  Obviously the terms are related, and tend to be used interchangeably.  But when talking about schools, it's important to make the distinction.

Edited June 15, 2022 by EKS

[bookbard]

3 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I’m not a huge fan of parenting that age 🤣.   It’s the hardest age, I think. 

Thank you for that - it's where I am now, and I feel like I'm back with two kids under two, crying in the carpark. 

[Terabith]

I loved homeschooling, and I feel like it was the best academic education my kids got.  However, while we have active Classical Conversations communities here, there aren't a lot of resources for people who don't do CC.  There were no non CC park days.  I would have loved a secular group; the religious and political affiliations of people in our area are very one sided, and while we are Christian, we're mainstream Episcopal/ ELCA.  The socialization worked okay when my kids were little enough that anyone they played with was a friend, but by third grade or so, we really had issues finding friends, because they needed to see the same peers more than once or twice a week, and they needed more diversity.  Our homeschooling experience really ended because I could not meet my kids' social needs, honestly, despite working very hard at it and spending a lot of money in pursuit of that goal. 

The other struggle we had with my kids was that they truly didn't believe that other people had to LEARN skills.  They both somehow believed deep down that all other children just knew stuff and didn't have to work to learn new skills, and they were offended and angry at me personally that I forced them to work and learn.  When they went to school, they came home and were genuinely amazed that other kids had difficulties learning things sometimes, too.  

What I see in our area among homeschoolers is profound arrogance, and a lot of times it really isn't deserved.  Even among people who we were friends with when we were homeschooling, the kids and parents pretty much uniformly believe that the kids are all getting phenomenal educations and that they are incredibly gifted and that college will be a breeze.  And honestly, it's just not always true.  Even among the folks who are die hard Classical Conversations users.  I have worries that some of these kids who think they're going to go to college and major in engineering are going to have a rude awakening when they get to college.  Math, especially, has not really been taught well.  Latin is awesome, but it really isn't a sufficient education alone.  

On the other hand, public school has also been not awesome academically.  My kids have had good social experiences, even my kid who went to public school in middle school.  Our public schools really excel at fine arts offerings and career type electives.  And there are a handful of great teachers.  But mostly, public school has been kind of a waste academically.  I haven't seen either public school or the larger homeschooling community teaching non white nationalism, which is really annoying at our very diverse public schools.  But....Virginia.  

5 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

And it depends on the day. And the year.

I'm really not a fan of homeschooling late 11-early 13yos. 😂

Honestly, I LOVE 11-13 year olds.  I absolutely adore middle schoolers.  It's so exciting when you can first have real conversations about things that matter with kids.  I feel like middle school is when they really start to be able to think about things in a critical fashion.  Ages 8-9, however, were filled with a ton of screaming at our house, and that was really hard.