Homeschooling Failures

[Renee in NC]

When choosing a math curriculum I had several hsing friends strongly recommend Abeka. So I took dd(then in 5th gr) to one of the Abeka hotel sales to have her look over the materials. At that time she was halfway through 5th gr., and not in an accelerated math class, etc. She looked through the Abeka books and we found that she'd already done the work up through the 7th gr. book. So to have her working on new material she would have to have used the 8th gr Abeka book! (Abeka was 2 1/2 years behind PS math!) My heart sank when I realized this. Not because it was a problem for us, but I have dear friends who faithfully use Abeka and I worry about their children. How do you tell a friend that they might NOT be doing the best thing for their dcs?

 

That's the first time I have ever heard anyone say that Abeka is behind! LOL;)

 

However, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. You can use Abeka at the grade level they specify and get through Pre-Calculus in the 12th grade. What does it matter if at the 5th grade level it is less than some other book? They all end up in the same place at the end!

[elizam]

That's the first time I have ever heard anyone say that Abeka is behind! LOL;)

 

However, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. You can use Abeka at the grade level they specify and get through Pre-Calculus in the 12th grade. What does it matter if at the 5th grade level it is less than some other book? They all end up in the same place at the end!

 

 

ITA with you--what does it really matter who "gets there first"? You know, I consider myself educated, have a degree in education, got honor roll all through high school.....but I HATED math and always felt like I didn't really understand what I was doing, even when I could get a decent grade. I took Pre-Algebra in ninth, Alg. 1 in tenth, and Geometry in eleventh. That was IT! No more math for me....and I still got into college with no problem. I took Alg. 1 in college and had some trouble with it. So I got a tutor. That helped a little, but not much! I am just not a math person!

 

Is all of this because I was homeschooled? Absolutely not--I was PSed all the way. Now, I have homeschooled my kids and my ds went to PS for 7th grade after using Saxon 2-6th. He always hated math, but at least with the Saxon I felt like they explained it in a way I got it and he did, too. SO it took him a little longer than his genius friends doing Horizons...oh, well. He read chapter books in second grade...not all kids can do that! But the SHAME we all felt when he went back to PS and oh, horrors....he had a different math text (GLencoe, which I hated too), and suddenly he was BEHIND. I should be so ashamed, right? It's all because I HOMESCHOOLED him and used the WRONG math curriculum..........

 

Puhlease...................:rolleyes:

 

I now have a younger ds who is really great with math and stinks at reading. It must be because we are homeschooling failures, using the WRONG reading curriculum!

 

Oh, wait...it's because we homeschool, period! :eek:

 

I just talked to a mom whose dd used to be in private school and always made honor roll. She is now at the huge high school my ds attends. She is in all honors classes and Algebra 1. My ds, btw, is in Intermediate Alg. which is shameful when you consider there are kids in Geometry Honors, right?? :rolleyes: Well, his teacher says more kids take Alg. 1 and bomb or really struggle and wind up back in her class...this girl we know is struggling, her mom says....guess what her grade is??? A LOW A. Wow.....and it is because she used ABEKA in her private school....doesn't that just prove right there that PS is superior to even private schools, when this formerly honor roll student can't even get into Geometry HOnors and is only making a LOW A in Alg. 1??? And then there is my "homeschooling failure" ds...who is in Intermediate and now making a C due to ADHD organizational difficulties and careless mistakes on tests...I only WISH he did as well as Miss LOW A.

 

My point? I don't know...I am rambling and dripping with sarcasm, but my heart is heavy. People need to understand that every kid is different. I read somwhere that we expect all kids to excel in everything if they want to be considered smart (honor roll, for example), when in reality, not all adults are good at everything and no one expects us to be! How unfair is that? And no one asks where I went to school or if I made the honor roll....

 

I don't think we should walk around with our heads down because we homeschool and people are always looking at us thinking we arebehind. Behind whom? In what ways??? It is all relative.

 

One more thought. This mom of Miss Low A rattled off all her dd's accomplishments since she started Huge PS High School....honor roll, honors classes, trying out for cheerleading, chorus, spring musical.....I said, "Wow, that's great she is transitioning so well! She must really like it!" to which her mom replied, "no, she dreads almost every day...she used to love school...all the bad kids, the s*xual stuff they talk about...the l*sbians in her classes....it's really so different and she doesn't like it."

 

We can hope that when our kids are exposed to the bad they won't like it....but what if they do? What if they are successful in all the worldly ways but lose their innocence and sell their souls in the process? Doesn't morality count for anything anymore? Is is possbile to go to PS and not be forever changed? Does it really matter if we are good at math or "behind" someone else????? The saddest moments for me are not when my ds beings home a bad grade, but rather when I see how his heart has changed, or how he is cynical, or how the administrators and teachers treat them as though they are all cut from the same cloth, because there are so many bad apples in the bunch, they all get treated like bad ones.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Wow, Elizam, I really liked your post. It really brought a lot of things together for me.

[lv2sing]

I think these are the questions that all US citizens need to be asking themselves and being ready to intelligently discuss in a legislative setting in the coming months and years. Thanks for a thought provoking post.

[swellmomma]

I have seen my fair share of educational neglect from homeschoolers. As a teen there was a samily that lived behind us that had an only child they homeschooled. They kept her very secluded. we would see her on occasion if the family went for a walk, we would say hello, and her parents would tell her not to respond because we were "of the world" etc.

 

Other families I know say they are unschooling but I have seen no indication they are doing anything, kids ages 10-12 that can not read at all, kids 10+ who can not write a sentence, do basic addition, etc ones that have kids that either do nothing other than play video games and/or play outdoors(this is based on what the parents have told me not just passing glances), families who tell me they are radical unschoolers and NEVER introduce an idea for fear they would be then "coercing" etc.

 

So while I agree that the vast majority of homeschooling families are very conscientious of the choices they make for their kids, I know many that are not, who are not educating their chlidren at all, and/or are keeping the child locked away.

[Tweed]

I try not to tell anyone that we are home schooling because it seems that they often have an home school horror story or they have a friend who knows someone who knows someone...

 

One thing that I've seen that has me concerned about home schooling is this idea of home schooling because the mother feels like they should because of some pressure, usually religious. I do not know a ton of home school families, but the two I know who do it because "God wants me to keep my kids at home" are very lazy and ill equipped and don't have the fire in their belly, so to speak. I think home schooling is something you want to do and not feel pressured into doing. When people ask me about home schooling, I tend to discourage them because I feel like I only want people home schooling who are really going to get in there and do the reasearch and hard work, even on days when you don't feel like it. I don't sugar coat it. Otherwise, the lazy ones are going to ruin it for everyone who is working very hard. Hopefully this is just my personal experience and not something that is wide spread.

[Kathy in MD]

So ar, our experience from what we have learned from other parents is that the school's response to kids having trouble with reading is to set them back a grade or two. .......

 

This varies from system to system, school to school and even teacher to teacher. I have no idea how long it would have taken me to realize my ds had severe problems if his teacher hadn't spoken to me. At the same time, she spoke to the mother of a classmate of my ds. (the mother told me). But the other mother and I reacted very differently. I immediately started looking for help (beyond what the school could provide). I even had my ds's OT observe the other student at the same time she was observing mine in the classroom. But the other mother let things drop.

 

So how often does the school try but the parent fails? This isn't always the case, but parents who send their children to school need to see their children's education as a partnership.

 

There does not seem to be ANY means for homeschoolers in our area to find out about learning disabilities, be tested for IQ, etc. The schools will not test them and there aren't any other resources. So that is the parents' fault since them homeschool them? I just don't know anymore what to think. :(

 

Unfortunately many LD's that children have are rooted in medical problems, so even the public schooled children wouldn't receive those tests from the schools. And all of my ds's tests for the *causes* of his LD's and all his therapies were partially covered by our medical insurance. Yes, we have good insurance, but do we want the schools to start duplicating health insurance?

 

However, it would be good if your school system did provide the same services for your homeschooled students that they do for their own students. Other school systems do.

[Bee]

I've never met anyone IRL who has failed at hsing.Some people have decided to send their children to school for various reasons;children wanted to go,divorce,death,etc.But no one who simply couldn't or wouldn't educate their children.

[PinkTulip]

I'd never thought about the impact of teachers on so many children. Though I've often heard parents with kids in p.s. say, "Oh, Johnny has a horrible teacher this year. But he'll get a better one next year, I'm sure. We'll just ride it out and hope he learns how to deal with people like this." That argument always sets my teeth on edge. It seems like a whole 9 months with a teacher like that (and probably a few more over 12 years of schooling) would still have a major impact, even if all the other teachers were gems and masters at their craft.

 

Yes! This is the very reason why we started homeschooling! When my ds was in ps 1st grade and I was asking about the second grade teachers, every parent I talked to said something to the effect of, "all the second grade teachers here are terrible, they don't learn anything this year at all, but the third grade teachers are incredible!" I didn't feel, that at age 7-8, my son had an entire year to waste! It is such an important age, as far as their minds being like sponges, and I wanted to get as much in there as possible! So we started homeschooling and loved it. For a variety of reasons (long story), my kids are back in ps (different, better school), but I am still a homeschooler at heart, and an active afterschooler. My kids still do Saxon math every day, FLL, Writing Strands, SOTW, Rosetta Stone German, and a pretty rigorous science curriculum. When there is a homework assignment that I think is pointless or stupid, I essentially share those feeling with the teacher and then we do our own thing. I'm sure I drive their teacher's crazy, but 99% of them are thrilled to have such a proactive parent. Like this summer, all my kids came home with a math packet from school they were to complete by August. The only thing, is that it was WAY too easy, so we're doing Saxon that is appropriate to my kids' ability: at least one grade level ahead.

 

I guess my point is this: I think there can be educational failures on both sides of the fence. However, I think that the vast majority of homeschoolers, by virtue of what they are doing (taking control of their children's education), are ahead of the game, because as other posters said, they know exactly where there kids are in terms of ability, where they need extra help, and where they can move on beyond where their peers are.

[Kathy in MD]

I become quite upset when people say homeschooling is always better than public school. It's obvious that it's not always better when parents decide to send their children back to school because the parent(s) haven't been able to teach their children to read or do math or.....? Thank goodness there is the public school system for these parents to use as back-up. And thank goodness these parents have the courage to to admit homeschooling wasn't working for them and take corrective action.

 

Homeschooling takes more than the desire to do it, or the fear of the alternative. It doesn't take a college education or fancy curriculum. What it takes more than anything else is self-discipline for the PARENT to do what it takes to teach her/his children. And not all parents have that.

 

An earlier poster said it best, there are failures in both homeschool and public school.

[Lolly]

What is the number one factor to having a child have a successful experience in public school? A great teacher...no. A parent who cares and makes sure their child learns...yes. The homeschooling parent who isn't doing a very good job would be a parent of a child in public school who doesn't do very well. I've taught in ps and watched which children tend to succeed. A child whose parents don't care 99% of the time will not perform well in school. There are exceptions. A child whose parents don't care in a homeschool will usually not do well. There are exceptions to this also. Even the best teacher cannot overcome a poor home situation. I suspect that as more and more people homeschool, the numbers of children who don't do well in homeschool will most likely start to become more in line with the numbers from public school.

[Robin Hood]

I'm w/ Ellie.

I think there are at least as many public school failures as homeschool failures. As such, you then can't say that homeschooling is the problem :-) More of a "parenting failure" i think.

 

I'd be interested in seeing a study on how many inmates were homeschooled vs public schooled. Now THAT is a failure in social skills, lol.

 

I had a 5 hour drive today and I got to thinking while driving about the recent article about the boy that died and how the writer added that he was homeschooled. I was trying to figure a way that all stories about people should include that little tidbit of info toward the end, weather or not the person was home schooled or public school. I think we'd get a better picture of our society. We might even get better stories since the competition level would be raised.

[Robin Hood]

Yeah, I have to agree here. People who are very linear (as soon as we do this, then we'll do the next thing) sometimes find it hard to understand those who are more uneven. When my oldest was 13, she did nothing. Well, she played with sculpey for 3-4 hours a day and read a lot, but that was about it. I nagged and cajoled and then I gave up for about six months. She never really did what amounted to 8th grade or an official Freshman year of high school but jumped into upper level material. She never did American History or Science of any sort at home. But when she was 14, she took a 300 level course in German Civilization at the local university and scored an A-. She once went 18 months with no math at all, but is now taking Calc III as a senior in high school. I don't know what she was doing in those months of sculpting, but it seems to be something akin to cocooning. It may have looked like educational neglect (and if you had read any of her essays, you would have worried about her academic future), but it all came together in the end. I'm proud to say she just got word she's a National Merit Scholar, so we did what was right for her..

 

Barb

 

Are you telling the truth?! If so, I have to talk to you!!! That is a huge temptation for me to try. I have one of those non linear kids and I am amazed at what she comes up with when I do nothing compared to the cojoling. Tell me right now....is this the truth? Because I want to be a real mommy again and clean like I used to and make cookies again and great meals, and sew fun things and work in the garden and even weed and iron; you know, be domestic. But this one kid of mine.....I am so tempted to stop and see what happens...are you telling the truth? For real?

[summer]

I think there is a good chance that these people are making it up. I have noticed that someone will say they knew of a person on their block who did this, but it turned out, they did not know the person, they were making assumptions. If someone was really keeping their children caged up inside, how would the rest of the world know? I had someone once tell me I never allowed my children contact with the outside world and that I needed to allow them to see and speak to other people. That person was not aware that I was only homeschooling 1 out of my 4 children at that time, and had put in over 20,000 miles on my minivan during the school year alone driving to ice skating, ballet, gymnastics, science, visits with friends, etc etc etc. You get the idea.

[Brindee]

My son? He's different. He still cuddles us (at 8 1/2 for gads sake!) and in public, too. He plays games by himself -- really imaginative, full-storied games. He doesn't even know any swear words for his body parts! He doesn't think like the local kids. He doesn't talk like them. He doesn't act like them. Most of the time I think "thank gods for that!" but then other times I wonder if he's going to hate me for making him into a freak and we'll have one of those strained-to-nonexistent relationships once he's grown and gone.

 

To me, he's precious and marvelous and I don't want someone else to have him 7 hours a day and ruin who is is on his own. But... he doesn't "fit in" and I know it, yet do next to nothing about it.

Do you want him to neccessarily "fit in" with all the others? Is your point for homeschooling to fit in with everyone else, or to be a special and unique person?

 

I don't WANT my kids to fit in with all the other kids! I don't want my kids to think and act like all the other kids!

 

My ds is 14 and STILL hugs my AND dh--and in public sometimes too! My oldest is 17 now, and he tells dh and I, his parents, that he loves us. He tells kids he knows about the neat dinner mom made, and how good his dad is at fixing computers. DD11 HATES the snitty, stupid, mean and rude way girls act, and refuses to act that way. She's actually NICE to her friends!If that's diferent than the others, then I am THRILLED my children are different--and they're very happy, and not angry at us for "turning them into freaks"! We praise them a lot, and encourage them to do their best, and help them volunteer and be good citizens.

 

You are proud of your son--you consider him precious and marvelous. You want the best for him. You provide him with a lot of your time, the love and amazement you have for him as your son, a good hom, education.....how could he hate you for turning him into a freak? Do you think he's a freak? Does he think he's a freak? Are you instilling in him a good self-confidence with your love and care? I tend to think so! Anyone who grows up with the love of their parent(s)/family and is encouraged to be a strong, caring, good person, has a VERY high "chance" of becoming a strong, happy, caring individual who is not put off by teasing or bullying, and who has a healthy love for his parents who raised him as well as they could!

 

ETA: At that age my kids didn't know swear words either. They also the "the 's' word" was stupid. I LIKE it that way, and let it continue for as long as it possibly could! :)