Homeschooling Pros & Cons

[pogofish]

That is not true. You do not need their permission. IIRC, the parent informs the school and the school then informs the LEA. A parent might inform both at the same time.

Looks more like it has been clarified. Taht was certainly the line most authorities took when I was working in schools & I'm afraid the courts backed them in it.

 

[thought]

We have a two year old who will be home schooled.

There are many reasons for our decision to do this.

1. The goverments dictatorship of what teachers must have time to teach. Thus reducing the amount of time for children to learn about things which interest them.

2. Actual teaching time with the school day is limited due to the amount of none educational / social / goverment targets / hoops which schools have to meet.

3. I want my daughter to learn about life, the world around her and things.. Not about bullying, swearing and stuff.. which I learnt in school.

4. The school dosnt not put enough pressure on familiy time. I belive familiy and community are the most important thing for any child below the age of 7.

5. PLAY is the most important part of childhood. It is not a waste of time but a usefull and exciting part of child development. Asha is just over two and can play on her own happily for long periods of time. She will also sit and "read" on her own.. She will also play with her friends quite happily...
Her social skills are great. I dont think forcing her to sit in a class will improve this... Having time to do activites out of school... Will. After all she wont have to get up for school the next morning if she is tired after brownies will she!

 

[Schmetterling]

Looks more like it has been clarified. Taht was certainly the line most authorities took when I was working in schools & I'm afraid the courts backed them in it.

That's scary!
It is how I proceeded prior to the change in 2006 and I believed it to be the law and was certainly advised so by EO.
In no way wanting to offend you but unfortunately it is often the HEdding parents who know the law more than the LEAs do. It's a mystery how the courts could have backed that up. Not accusing you of lying though.

 

[volpone]

Hi again, heres some quotes Ive found about education,


John Taylor Gatto was a New York school teacher for 26 years, and in 1991 he was named New York State Teacher of the Year.

According to Gatto, it only takes around 100 hours to teach the fundamentals of real education to people eager to learn (which children naturally are until the joy of learning is beaten out of them).


Alvin Toffler is perhaps the most important social critic of the last 50 years.

he points out that the purpose of the schooling system is to train children to become industrial workers.

ie the 3 main lessons are - punctuality - obedience - repetitive skills


Julie Webb, a researcher who examined the lives of homeschooled students, found that their socialization skills were often better than those of their peers. Her findings were published in 1989 in Educational Review, which is hardly a propaganda unit for the homeschooling movement.


and finally a quote from.....

It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.

Albert Einstein


But the scariest thing Ive read about education is how the banks and industrial corporation, took control of the school system 50 odd years ago to turn out nice little consumers, and to dumb down society to increase empoyment.
ie if they taught everyday skills, plumbers, electricians, mechanics etc would be out of work.



books to read
John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down
anything by John Holt (old but still very relevant)

 

[Gmart]

I was teaching a home schooled child today - in that she had been until she failed her GCSE's and came to the CFE.

What worried me was that I teach maths and she has NO knowledge of maths at all. In fact she is anti-maths in that she has already made up her mind that she is rubbish and can't do it.

I was told that her parents just didn't teach her maths because they didn't like it. She seems to have picked up this attitude, and is now highly unlikely to get the all important maths GCSE - which means no Uni and great difficulty getting a job.

It is really sad - she is only 17.

Home Schooling is great in principle and can certainly work (see here), but it is a whole lot harder than you think...

 

[Schmetterling]

It does not mean 'no Uni'. It means she will have to travel a different route to Uni.

 

[_angel_]

I was teaching a home schooled child today - in that she had been until she failed her GCSE's and came to the CFE.

What worried me was that I teach maths and she has NO knowledge of maths at all. In fact she is anti-maths in that she has already made up her mind that she is rubbish and can't do it.

I was told that her parents just didn't teach her maths because they didn't like it. She seems to have picked up this attitude, and is now highly unlikely to get the all important maths GCSE - which means no Uni and great difficulty getting a job.

It is really sad - she is only 17.

Home Schooling is great in principle and can certainly work (see here), but it is a whole lot harder than you think...

Oh come on you also get plenty of kids in school who completely give up on Maths/ get told they are crap at it.

You can't use that one example of how all home edding is 'bad'. I'm sure there are good and bad experiences of it, just like there are with schools.

Like you can't get to a university without a GCSE Maths -- that's completely untrue as well.

 

[kyser_soze]

GM - could this kid do arithmatic, rather than mathematics? Not that it's a good thing she doesn't have math either way - her parents have substantively reduced the potential number of careers she could have - architecture, engineering, loads of science and not just because she doesn't have a math GCSE, but because of the attitude her parents have given her.

But at least if she can do arithmatic she'll be able to count change...

You can't use that one example of how all home edding is 'bad'

No, but it does show that parental attitudes to specific subjects can limit a child just as badly as state education.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I am an early years teacher in the state system and a parent of a nearly 16 year old

i know a number of people homeschooling

some do it cos they have really rubbish experiences of school and want to protect themselves and children from that

others belive they have really positive experiences to impart and homeschool for that

some are offering their children some great teaching through real life experiences others making a more formal system work at home and some are out to lunch (minority that i have met)

in researching parents and eductionalists working together i came across some families and schools making part time school work which was useful for all concerned

some people i know have homeschool for some of the time and then transferred their child into say the secondary system or even started their own schools up in rural places

I pay a maths tutor for my daughter and if I had homeschooled her I would have done this anyway - GCSE maths is now beyond me.

I had a brief stint at homeschooling my daughter and a friends daughter when they were 7 and my friend employed me as nanny/tutor when working abroad
we had a great time researching real life things and then going to see them that day. eg paintings in the Prado or drawing maps to local places. we were in Madrid and they also, given free choice, chose to do a project on bull fighting because they were appalled and fascinated

 

[kyser_soze]

In fairness, at least homeschooling is an option in the UK - unlike these poor folks in Germany,

 

[zenie]

In fairness, at least homeschooling is an option in the UK - unlike these poor folks in Germany,

Oh crumbs! Mind you they could have put their kid in steiner, pretty sure you dont have to pay for it in Germany like you do here

What about Austria's way of doing it though?

In Austria parents are entitled to homeschool during a one year trial period, after which the authorities decide whether the parents are allowed to continue homeschooling or not.

I'm sure the Authorities are only trying to protect the children in all of this.

 

[kyser_soze]

Altho having read many of the comments on that thread about why people are homeschooling, it's not so good:

To give our children over to ungodly teaching that could permanently pervert their thinking and turn them away from God rather than to God is a crime far worse than disobeying an unjust law imposed by a country.

I know the brainwashing the liberal establishment subject the students to, and I won't let my three daughters be taught that sex is merely recreational, that marriage is outdated, and that abortion is not murder

Interested no one's commented on my remarks about how parental choice/subject prejudice can impact on a child's choices as much as a bad school...

 

[_angel_]

In fairness, at least homeschooling is an option in the UK - unlike these poor folks in Germany,

We so do not want their system:

Last Thursday the German police arrested Katharina Plett, a homeschooling mother of twelve. Yesterday her husband fled to Austria with the children. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany since Hitler banned it in 1938. The Plett family belongs to a homeschooling group of seven Baptist families in Paderborn. We wrote about their case last year.

The highlighted paragraph says it all. Why the authorities want to get their hands on kids and not allow their parents the say to keep them at home.

You'd have thought someone might have repealed it, though.

 

[kyser_soze]

But also look at socially progressive Sweden - homeschooling is illegal, and there are about 100 homschoolers in a population of 8 million. Spain as well. So while the comment is apposite for Germany, it doesn't 'say it all' about Spain or Sweden.

 

[_angel_]

Altho having read many of the comments on that thread about why people are homeschooling, it's not so good:





Interested no one's commented on my remarks about how parental choice/subject prejudice can impact on a child's choices as much as a bad school...

Of course it can, that's why I said there were plenty of bad schools that fail their students all the time, however GM decided to selectively highlight one instance of a home edder being bad. You know how many school kids fail ALL their GCSE's never mind just one...

...So there's at least one example of a home taught kid being rubbish ---- of course there are going to be some parents who hand down a negative attitude to their kids, just like teachers in schools do.

Btw her attitude to Maths could change, with the right input.

 

[_angel_]

But also look at socially progressive Sweden - homeschooling is illegal, and there are about 100 homschoolers in a population of 8 million. Spain as well. So while the comment is apposite for Germany, it doesn't 'say it all' about Spain or Sweden.

That they want the state in charge firstly of their kids and parents second. It doesn't surprise me that Sweden would be authoritarian about this. After all they were still practicing Eugenics until about the 70's.

 

[kyser_soze]

At 17? Long haul up a mountainside by that point.

 

[_angel_]

At 17? Long haul up a mountainside by that point.

Certainly long way from impossible.... know people much older who have got their Maths GCSE since then.

 

[chico enrico]

My boss' kids were both home schooled, and they're... well, a bit weird. You can tell they don't have the social skills you learn by dealing with 100's of peers on a daily basis. They're very clever though.

what, like that freaky kid with the curly hair in the blue velvet suits who knew all about antiques? haha.

anyone seriously thinking about 'home schooling' is a fucking idiot. school is not just about learning. in fact it's nothing about learning. it's just about having a laugh and if you're going to deprive a kid of that you may as well go all the way, like Josef Fritzl, keeping them in a cellar, feeding them dog food and shagging them.

 

[kyser_soze]

It's not about just doing the GCSE tho, is it? She's got an issue with maths as a whole subject - thinking maths is 'stupid' is up there with thinking learning to read is 'stupid' - it's an inculated attitude toward the subject, rather than simple inability of her parents to teach it.

What if it had been that her parents were math geeks who thought literature was 'stupid' and 'boring'?

 

[_angel_]

what, like that freaky kid with the curly hair in the blue velvet suits who knew all about antiques? haha.

anyone seriously thinking about 'home schooling' is a fucking idiot. school is not just about learning. in fact it's nothing about learning. it's just about having a laugh and if you're going to deprive a kid of that you may as well go all the way, like Josef Fritzl, keeping them in a cellar, feeding them dog food and shagging them.

Home school is for when the state system won't offer anything suitable other than a great big fuck off.

It's usually a last choice.

 

[_angel_]

It's not about just doing the GCSE tho, is it? She's got an issue with maths as a whole subject - thinking maths is 'stupid' is up there with thinking learning to read is 'stupid' - it's an inculated attitude toward the subject, rather than simple inability of her parents to teach it.

What if it had been that her parents were math geeks who thought literature was 'stupid' and 'boring'?

yes and plenty of school kids get the exact same attitude as well...

 

[kyser_soze]

Ah, but we're talking about home schooling here, and how it's supposed to take that kind of pitfall away from schooling, no? Give kids freedom to learn and expand their minds - that's what pogofish and co were talking about in posts 1-40, not how the state system produces those results.

 

[_angel_]

Ah, but we're talking about home schooling here, and how it's supposed to take that kind of pitfall away from schooling, no? Give kids freedom to learn and expand their minds - that's what pogofish and co were talking about in posts 1-40, not how the state system produces those results.

God, no one ever said that every single parent was some kind of shining angel and not get it wrong/ be crap.

It just seems a little hypocritical to point to the odd example where the attitude of the parent has been crap, when the state system fails kids as a matter of course.

A lot of people home edding more now because of lack of adequate special needs provision (special schools closing) and kids not being able to cope entirely within mainstream.

Those parents that want to home ed to push some fundie religious/ weirdo lifestyle are not what I'm talking about..

 

[kyser_soze]

Well, those quotes from the Brussels Journal article on that German family show up some quite appalling attitudes for bringing kids into home schooling - in both cases quite clearly there's a religious element in it, and it's aimed at restricting the kids' potential future outlook.

All I'm saying is that parental attitude needs to be assessed as well.

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

It does not mean 'no Uni'. It means she will have to travel a different route to Uni.

Indeed. Im completing a degree this year. I got into university without any A levels whatsoever- I had alternative qualifications..
Oh and guess what I was state schooled and failed my GCSE maths- I got a D.
Nobody at university was remotely interested in whether I had a Maths GCSE at C or above, they look generally at your higher level qualifications and whether they are relevant.

 

[_angel_]

Indeed. Im completing a degree this year. I got into university without any A levels whatsoever- I had alternative qualifications..
Oha nd guess what I was state schooled and failed my GCSE maths- I got a D.
Nobody at university was remotely interested in whether I had a Maths GCSE at C or above, they look generally at your higher level qualifications and whether they are relevant.

Bet you could pass now with a few lessons, though.

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

Well, those quotes from the Brussels Journal article on that German family show up some quite appalling attitudes for bringing kids into home schooling - in both cases quite clearly there's a religious element in it, and it's aimed at restricting the kids' potential future outlook.

All I'm saying is that parental attitude needs to be assessed as well.

why does it? by whom?
Nobody 'assesses' a parents suitability to home educate and nor should they.
Its the parents responsibility to ensure their education, either by placing them in a school or 'otherwise' ( ie at home or using tutors, at outside classes/education centres etc)

Its nobody elses business how children are educated so long as it doesnt forclose their options in later life... you can sit qualifications whenever so the likelihood of them being forclosed is practically impossible

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

Bet you could pass now with a few lessons, though.

IM sure I could I just dont need to, so wont.
I managed very well with all the maths I do know, in fact I believe much of the mathematical content taught to children in schools as part of the GCSE syllabus is completely irrelevant to most of them in later life

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

what, like that freaky kid with the curly hair in the blue velvet suits who knew all about antiques? haha.

anyone seriously thinking about 'home schooling' is a fucking idiot. school is not just about learning. in fact it's nothing about learning. it's just about having a laugh and if you're going to deprive a kid of that you may as well go all the way, like Josef Fritzl, keeping them in a cellar, feeding them dog food and shagging them.

It shows just how little you know or understand about home education or peoples reasons for chosing to do so.
You are really an offensive ignorant bloke arent you?