Homeschooling in the Tech Community
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@s.hackleman said:
Is there a major downside to homeschooling? I know everyone always goes on about the social aspect, and it is clear that that can be solved. Do you find there is anything else missing in the homeschool environment?
My biggest downside as the main "teacher" was losing my mind some days
The way we chose to do it due to financial restraints was putting together curriculum and lesson plans etc. and spending less than $100 a year. So that meant lots of time on my part. But I will never regret having done that. I am now at the seeing the results. Are there things I should have done differently? Yes, should have spent more structured time on few subjects. Should have moved out of my state before I started, so I didn't have to teach the same thing over and over by law. Should have stayed with the same science curriculum from the start instead of changing so many times.
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@Carnival-Boy We are never going to be in one place long enough to enroll our kids in a foreign school. We will only be in Spain for 2 months. We aren't actually "moving" there, so aren't subject to their education laws, but still subject to our home state of Texas. In an ideal situation, it could be interesting for the kids to attend schools in other countries, but I've read enough on the subject to know that often its traumatic for kids to be enrolled in a school where they don't speak the language. First of all, never having been to school, they would have to learn how to be a student - how to be quiet, stay in your seat, stand in lines, etc., things other kids learn in kindergarten, so that would be pretty rough. Living in a small village and being totally immersed in the Spanish language and culture is going to give them all the benefits of living in a foreign land, without disrupting their lives and routines to a stressful degree.
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Big upside.... I'm sitting here writing this sitting at a table with my children. They want to visit their cousins down the street today - but they can't because their cousins are all in school. We are kidding family time right now while discussing the benefits of family time with the kids
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I just wouldn't want to spend that much time with my kids (and vice versa).
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Thinking back to my own school days, this is what my day primarily consisted of:
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Getting ready for school at an unnaturally early hour that made my sleep unhealthy and unproductive. This included needing to wake up, get moving, figure out what I needed to haul around for the day, shower, pick out clothes that would conform to school rules, etc.
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Wait for the school bus while standing outside (sometimes is pretty brutal weather.) This could be as little as ten minutes and as long as two hours (the longer waits were normally in the worse weather.)
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Sitting on a school bus for at least half an hour.
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Arriving to school fifteen minutes into the first class because the bus was always late. So I never knew the context of what was going on for my first class for the first nine years of school.
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About two hours of "moving between classes" where we would arbitrarily stop "learning" one thing and spend logistical time moving to the next one or doing things for the teacher or whatever.
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Spend tons of time in each class waiting while the teacher explained things that I already understood to other students. (This happened to other kids when I needed help too.) This not only makes classes slow but disrupts interest.
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Regular beatings from the principle for not being able to sit still and quiet all day. (Aspergers can be beaten out of you?) Yeah, that made it easier to learn.
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Standing outside again for 30+ minutes for the school bus.
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Riding the school bus home for two hours or more (for 2.5 hours total, average, per day bus time not including time spent waiting for bus every day. I had roughly an equivalent of a three hour commute each day!!)
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Coming home to loads of busy work so that teachers could pretend that they were doing something.
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I just remember school as being hilarious. I was miserable for some of time, for sure, but the highs were magical. I never liked the lessons that much, but the football, the girl chasing and the messing around and getting in to mischief were some of the highlights of my life.
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@Carnival-Boy Yeah chasing skirt is basically the only thing I enjoyed or did well in school, until college.
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@tonyshowoff @Carnival-Boy Well gee, boys, stellar reasons for us to stop homeschooling and get the girls into public school, lmao.
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My daughter is doing homeschool right now. She just finished her first math book (she is six) and loves her math class. She even said that she loves it just today and she can't wait to start her second book.
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I've always thought homeschooling to be a tad extravagant but lately I've noticed that I was exceptionally lucky to get a good run of teachers. It'll be something to consider should I ever have offspring.
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@MattSpeller said:
I've always thought homeschooling to be a tad extravagant but lately I've noticed that I was exceptionally lucky to get a good run of teachers. It'll be something to consider should I ever have offspring.
It certainly takes a huge investment, but what is worth more investment than your kids? It's not just about giving them a better education but also controlling that education (avoiding cursive, not letting them skip programming), getting more time with them, safety, freedom to travel, etc.
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My daughter says that she is excited about having me teach some more programming this evening.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I just remember school as being hilarious. I was miserable for some of time, for sure, but the highs were magical. I never liked the lessons that much, but the football, the girl chasing and the messing around and getting in to mischief were some of the highlights of my life.
High School were some of the best times for most kids. Even if they didn't realize it at the time
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@IRJ said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I just remember school as being hilarious. I was miserable for some of time, for sure, but the highs were magical. I never liked the lessons that much, but the football, the girl chasing and the messing around and getting in to mischief were some of the highlights of my life.
High School were some of the best times for most kids. Even if they didn't realize it at the time
Or some of the worst. Really depends on the kid.
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That being said, It really doesn't matter once you get in your 20s
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@Minion-Queen said:
@IRJ said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I just remember school as being hilarious. I was miserable for some of time, for sure, but the highs were magical. I never liked the lessons that much, but the football, the girl chasing and the messing around and getting in to mischief were some of the highlights of my life.
High School were some of the best times for most kids. Even if they didn't realize it at the time
Or some of the worst. Really depends on the kid.
Yes I agree with that. I would guess that some of the kids that had a hard time in HS probably had a hard time socializing in general.
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@IRJ said:
High School were some of the best times for most kids. Even if they didn't realize it at the time
Although I've always wondered, is this because of school or because of the age? Will homeschooled kids say the same thing? Will high school traveling the world and not having to sit in class be more fun than highschool? Maybe, maybe not . It's something I've actually wondered about.
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@IRJ said:
@Minion-Queen said:
@IRJ said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I just remember school as being hilarious. I was miserable for some of time, for sure, but the highs were magical. I never liked the lessons that much, but the football, the girl chasing and the messing around and getting in to mischief were some of the highlights of my life.
High School were some of the best times for most kids. Even if they didn't realize it at the time
Or some of the worst. Really depends on the kid.
Yes I agree with that. I would guess that some of the kids that had a hard time in HS probably had a hard time socializing in general.
Each kid is very different. Having a child who is not a social butterfly (ok well he hides most of the time). High school would have been torture. However being allowed to socialize at his own pace and learn at his own pace made him love learning and he just does on his own now that he is done with school.
I was a social butterfly but HATED school, the learning part. As a kid that was labeled as learning disabled school was torture. Who knows if someone would have taken the time to actually teach, what I could have learned.
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@IRJ said:
Yes I agree with that. I would guess that some of the kids that had a hard time in HS probably had a hard time socializing in general.
Although tons of people who struggle with socialization in high school excel with it outside of high school because adult socialization is so drastically different than school socialization. And conversely, we all know the story of the high school popular kids who become the grocery store baggers with no friends and no future. Often what makes high school fun and successful cripples you later in life (later meaning very soon.)
