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I've Been To Over 20 Homeschool Conferences. The Things I've Witnessed At Them Shocked Me.
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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So, my stepkids (now: boy 12, girl 11) were falling behind in public school and were being passed on to the next grades despite the fact that they were almost a full grade behind in math and reading.
My now-wife decided to pull them out of public school and home school them to try to get them caught up. In our county, we have an AWESOME "public school at home" program where the kids are home schooled, but still go into a school one day a week for socialization and tutoring by licensed teachers. It was a fuck ton of work for her, but in ONE YEAR in the program, not only did the kids catch up, but they're actually almost a full year ahead now.
But... that was with the full support of a county school system and a full-time investment in her kids. This wasn't a "throw a computer at them and let them figure it out" and it certainly wasn't a "summer is different from winter because Jesus said so" program. It was a guided program designed, administered, and overseen by actually licensed teachers. There were performance goals to hit, regular checkins, and available tutoring for things my wife wasn't capable of teaching correctly.
This year, since both kids were so far ahead, we gave them a choice and let them decide whether they wanted to continue the program now that they're caught up. My stepdaughter wanted to go back to regular school. My stepson wanted to stay in the program. He's in middle school as of this year, and middle school begins to be more self-guided. My wife starts nursing school in the spring so she can't dedicate the 8-ish hours necessary to take both kids through the program beginning next semester. So we let them each do what they wanted. My stepson finishes his mostly-self-guided school day in three hours or so then has the rest of the day to do with as he wishes and is still ahead of where he should be. My stepdaughter is miserable because each day is an 8 hour slog and the curriculum moves too slowly for her now, plus the other kids are dicks to her (as kids tend to be). She's considering going back into the program next year when it will be mostly self-guided for her as well.
But this success story is more about my awesome wife and this particular program. It's been a crazy amount of work and a full-time job for my wife to take both kids through this program, and that's WITH the support of a full teaching staff in a county-run program. It's no surprise to me that other programs are more-or-less a joke. If you're not willing to put in the work and/or your idea of education is "It's that way because the LORD said so now stop asking questions and write Jesus on every line," then you're dooming your children to failure and ridicule.
Not trying to piss on your parade, you've done awesome, but this story of yours tells me less about how great homeschooling is and more how badly US education sucks
Homeschooling is so common in the US because the education system sucks. It's literally a 'fine, I'll do it myself'
Went to look up how many kids are homeshooled and it is much higher than I expected. Just over 5% of kids apparently. I would have guessed 1-2%. It looks like home schooling has been on the rise as it was closer to 2% in 2000.
Also Covid. Can’t speak for everywhere, but that whole debacle had a LOT of people switch to home schooling (my state has an excellent licensed online program available). Many have since gone back, but enough have stuck with it that all the “kid services” (extra curriculars) providers in our area have added home school sessions during the middle of the day.
I have a suspicion is related to either:
That's not why they do it, though. They do it because they hate anything resembling woke and it's been that way for decades longer than that word has been around.
You don't know what the motivations are for everyone. You only hear about this topic on the rage bait side of the internet
I know a family that lives full-time on the road, so they, of course, home school (RV school?). He's medically retired, she still works remotely. I don't know exactly how they do the schooling.
So that's a scenario where it's more about how they want to live than any particular issue with a given school.
That's why my parents did it.
I have brothers who went down the Facebook MAGA rabbit hole and never came back. They complain all day long about how schools are corrupting children and that everyone should home school. In my experience, religious and political intolerance is the basis for most people doing this.
In my experience it isn't. I guess till either of us find studies we're at an impass.
Edit:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/tgk/homeschooled-children#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20was%20a,academic%20instruction%20at%20other%20schools.
I wonder how much of the 15% who were dissatisfied with the academic instruction were dissatisfied due to it not having religious instruction, but didn't want to indicate it outright by choosing the specific choice for that.
You gave yourself as an example affirming what I said but suddenly we're at an impasse? This isn't adding up.
Found it after writing the comment originally.
Do you count safety drugs and negative peer pressure as religious? I was counting that and academic rigor as the schools being bad. And religious reasons I was counting as religious.
Problems with schools really come down to a choice by the middle class. That choice was that they wanted to keep their money rather than live in a good society. Schools have suffered as a result. This is by choice, not by design.
Sure. But that doesn't change that people homeschool because the schools are bad. I absolutely agree that schools should be better.
100% agreed.
But also keep in mind that this was a county program, run by the county school system.
So the potential IS there. We just need to stop hamstringing our teachers with bullshit restrictions, financial burdens, and NCLB bullshit.
This is the point that I've observed to be a tricky one.
Other kids are dicks, but that also holds true for adults. Perhaps the most valuable thing I got from school is navigating that very scenario.
Also, I was at least somewhat to blame, by being an arrogant, insufferable, cringy little guy. If there were one thing that could have been better is if a trusted adult had me confront my own attitude earlier rather than just letting me think the problem was all with other folks.
I learned to recognize situations I didn't want to interact with, how to avoid acting in a way to get dragged into such situations, how to engage amicably when I had to, and how to recognize and engage with groups that are more keeping with my tastes.