Superspeller- “pier pressure”-is that what you get when the boat pushes against the dock? Two things jumped out at me in all this back and forth. Our two main adherents complained of being exposed to “anti conservative rhetoric” and “too many extra curricular activities.” I believe that is “nuff said. Good luck with your experiments.

Slamfist,

Could you please define “anti conservative rhetoric”? I don’t recall complaining about that, so I’m curious what you are talking about.I don’t know about Dave, but I want my kids to know “the rest of the story”,as Paul Harvey says. I’m not terribly politically savvy(more like bored and disgusted at this point), so I’m just learning about some of the terms(insults?) that seem to be used to pigeonhole people on these blogs.My concern with too many(say, more than two,depending on what they are) extra-curricular activities would stem from knowing parents who run themselves ragged carting 2 or 3 kids to baseball/soccer/football/swim team/basketball,etc. I actually know a guy whose three sons are doing all this , plus honor roll, and I can’t help but wonder if that is healthy for anyone.It really sounds like spreading oneself too thin. And for the record,homeschooling has been around a lot longer than public schools.

green- “…anti conservative rhetoric” was a term used by superdave in his posting of the 9th. You’ll have to ask him but it may refer to his unusual fear of Karl Marx and socializing. As I noted earlier, Karl Marx was also home schooled until the age of 13 so his fears are unfounded. I wish only the best for your kids and sincerely hope all turns out well. As far as the extra curriculars go, I know what you mean but I see a lot of parents, especially dads, who seem to be living vicariously through their sons year round jock-related activities.

Bean:

I don’t read GGIC’s comments as self-serving. And I think in his family’s situation, everyone appears to benefit from their home-school program. But I work with kids all the time (at least 10 a day) who are underdisciplined and undermotivated, and virtual/homeschool programs would likely not work in their cases. They require structure and oversight. And many can “tolerate” school if and only if there are excurricular programs available to them which allow them to pursue personal interests beyond “school”: band, orchestra, debate, gay/straight alliance and other support groups, football, baseball, underwater basket weaving–whatever. These opportunities are not AS AVAILABLE to home-schooled kids.

Every kid is different, and his needs vary accordingly. We’re blessed as parents when our kids “fit the ideal mold”, but there are few among us whose kids do.

VIrtual Schools are certainly the wave of the future.

Ryan,
I am fearfull of a country that refuses to fix its problems, instead it has this mind set that if its not the way I’d do it I’ll take the ball and go home.Superdaves failure to want to work to fix the problems our schools face is the cux of the problem. It would be great if everytime my kid faced advesities I could influence good decision making(oh wait I aleady do I’m a parent), Oh well they will all probably end up fighting in a war created out of lies and deciet (I wonder if thats being taught in their history plan)? Anyway thanks for helping the kids even the ones that aren’t yours.

crux…..I’d hate to get lambasted for a mis-spelling.

“Socialization” is the process all of us go through when we learn how to interact with others in society. It has nothing to do with Karl Marx. I guess all of the “Karl Marx” comments are really “red herrings”.

Education has never been about “facts” per se, but more about how to learn and understand. This has to be done in certain increments simply because a 4 year old, unless a true genius, is not going to be able to handle the same level of complexity in reasoning that a 12 year or 20 year old can. Having a daughter who actually is a genius, I can say safely that “virtual education” would have only given her more worlds to conquer.

My main concern in “Virtual Education” and just about all modern education is, regardless if it is in a public school, charter school, or, “home” school and with the emphasis on passing tests, there is very little reasoning or reflection happening.

Ryan,

Actually ,it’s “she”, mom of three.For some reason, people seem to think I am a guy alot on these things!LOL!I thought I mentioned having a husband at some point, but that might have been on a different blog.My kids have the opportunity to learn many of the things you mention,too.My son used to be in baseball and football, and played basketball regularly, although not in an organized team, just pick-up games with friends.My daughters are into horses, so they get to ride in parades and horse shows.We have piano that they are playing around on, and we will eventually get them lessons if they want to learn more,as neither of us is in the least musically inclined.When we had problems with the Cahokia schools, we did first try to fix the problems,all the way to the Illinois Board of Education.Since it was a charter school, it was pretty much untouchable unless there was documented abuse.We decided that having a good life was more important than waging an uphill battle with the administration and seeing our son suffer the retribution(not very mature of them, but it happened), so we reluctantly decided to homeschool,depite the obstacles.Our lives are much less stressful now(still very busy),so it has been worth it.As for the kids you work with, do you think their early home life might have created ongoing problems? I ride the train to work, so I have seen some people who couldn’t raise a dog properly, much less their kids.Sad, but true.You need a license to drive a car, but anybody can pop out a kid.Please don’t think I’m saying we need to regulate that, but parenting classes or something…They may be a minority of the population,but it has lowered the bar so much and had such a negative impact on many other areas of life.I wish there was a way to fix that problem, then maybe many others would fix themselves.I know my kids seem to have an insatiable curiosity about so many things,but then so do I. I have always been interested in behavior and psychology,and have done dog and horse training(including the canine equivalent of the kids you work with, I think,LOL),so I know how environmental factors can impact behavior for better or worse.Socialization is important to training animals,too, to make them more confident in a variety of surroundings.That was what was happening with my son(only in a negative way), so the solution was to remove him from that environment(the school).It seemed to work,so we kept doing it.I would not say we are better or more dedicated parents than anyone else,just maybe more focused.It didn’t hurt that my sister had been homeschooling her kids for years, so I had a built-in resource.I also have a job with excellent benefits,fairly generous vacation leave, and a great boss who lets me flex my hours,not to mention a great husband who is a tremendous help in every way.Lucky, sure, but I also feel that expectations can be self-fulfilling.If you expect a crappy life, that’s what you’ll get.I expect good things, work to make it happen, and it usually turns out ok.Otherwise, homeschooling would not be possible for us, either.

Strangely enough, I don’t recall learning about Karl Marx in MY public school education,although that was a long time ago :).I ‘ll make sure to include him with our lessons at some point. My sister told me about Major General Smedley Butler,one of two Marines who recieved Two Medals of Honor for heroism.Ever heard of him, Jane? Apparently wars based on lies and deceit have been around longer than we have.He gave a speach in 1933 called “War is a Racket”,in which he compared his role in 33 years in the Marines to that of a “racketeer, a gangster for capitalism” as “a high class muscle-man for Big Business,for Wall Street and for the Bankers.” I just learned about him recently, but be assured he will come up when we are on history of the early 1900’s.I want my kids to know pros and cons so they can eventually make good decisions on their own, even if they have to do some digging to get all the information needed to do so.Of course, in my opinion, parents should be doing this whether they homeschool or not.

RHarnack,

I totally agree.I teach for mastery and understanding of a subject, not to pass a test,except for spelling.Of course, that is much easier with my smaller”class size”.There is also the fact that some people do well on tests, some people choke.We also have a lot of discussions.I am less hung up on exact dates ,as those can be found later. It is more important to me that they know why the Civil War occurred,where it falls on a historical timeline, what was the outcome and who were the respective players, than the exact date of the Battle of Bull Run.I would have been much better educated if the internet was around when I was growing up,too.It is like the old saying about give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll eat forever(I’ve also heard you can get rid of him for the weekend,but that was on a t-shirt,LOL). If you teach a kid how to learn effectively, a teacher’s job is much easier.In this sense, I mean anyone a child learns from , not schoolteachers specifically.The problem is how to get more parents involved in teaching their kids to love learning so much that they are more self-motivated, as apparently your daughter,and my daughters, and superdave’s, are.Nobody get the idea our kids are paragons, at least not mine.We battle daily over cleaning their rooms, among other things.To me, a love of learning, or lack there of, is at the heart of any discussion about any form of education.The rest is just methods to use.