Why I Homeschool...this will be rantish in nature.
So hokay, the awesome bootlicks asked me why I'm homeschooling, and I thought I'd just post it in case anyone else was wondering.
My desire to homeschool started when I was in kindergarten. LOL
Seriously, going to school was one of the most scarring and traumatic things to happen in my life. And I went to private school, public school, vocational school, and University and it all fucking sucked. Didn't matter what type of schooling it was. Although, I have to say that the private Christian school was the worst. I've never met meaner, more judgmental, cruel people in my life (pentecostal) and that includes the adults.
Anyway, I went to University to get a degree in teaching so that a child would NEVER feel how I felt during school--at least while they were in my classroom. And I do believe that there are teachers out there that LOVE their job and their students and what they do. I've had a few of those teachers, but they are far and few between.
Basically I think the public school system sucks because:
1. They are made to give a large group of students general knowledge on certain subjects. They give you enough information to learn to read, write and understand basic math...Basically enough to learn how to fill out a job application at McDonalds. It's a factory and a daycare rolled into one.
2. I don't think they pay the teachers enough, therefore, you're going to get teachers in there that are under qualified. They don't pay them enough to make it worth a person to go through all the schooling necessary to have an excellent teacher in the classroom. Again, the few good teachers that are out there, do it because it's something they feel is important and they're less concerned about their wages. They tend to put the children's well being first. Again, I feel that these teachers are rare. If they were to offer higher wages for the teachers and make the certification system more stringent, then we would have better teachers.
3. The classrooms are generally overcrowded, don't have enough supplies, and the teachers end up paying out of pocket for a lot of the stuff they use in the classrooms. This becomes tiring for them VERY fast, and you end up getting a bitter person as a teacher. Again, these are generalizations.
However, the MAIN reason I decided to homeschool is that I feel that NO ONE will understand how my child learns best. Even if they had an uber fantastic school out there where all the teachers were exceptionally qualified, loved their jobs and the school was extremely wealthy...etc. I would still choose to teach Lorna at home.
In the public schools, children fall through the cracks. It's a terrible system. The smart students either succeed with little or no help from the teachers OR they get bored and flunk while the teacher helps the students that are struggling. The kids in the middle are just that--in the middle. They do okay enough that they don't drain the teacher for attention and extra help, but they're not doing so horribly that the teacher needs to take time out to help them. The students that struggle either get a ton of attention because they are flunking, or they fall through the cracks because the teacher doesn't have time to work with them because they've got 32 other kids to deal with. It's basically the idea of: Get as many through and passed onto the next grade. Let the next teacher deal with them and get them graduated and out of our school. They don't actually care about the child LEARNING anything.
Aside from feeling like I know Lorna best, she gets one-on-one attention at home and most people learn best when they have a private teacher or tutor because they're working just with that person and they know how they learn--their strengths and weaknesses...etc.
The other reason I choose homeschooling over the public school system is that I don't like the way they teach. There is something called the Multiple Intelligences. It talks about the different ways in which people learn. Some people learn best by hearing, some by seeing it, some by feeling it...etc. A public school system is not set up to cater to the varying needs of every single student in their classes.
I myself am a Naturalistic, Musical, Introspective learner.
It seems so far that Lorna is a visual-spatial, naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic learner. Now if Lorna learns best by touching something and while outside, she's not gonna get that in a classroom. She'll most likely get chided for being a fidget and disruptive. Very few people can learn by sitting in desks and listening to a teacher babble on in the front of the classroom.
For example, for Lorna to understand how plants grow, it helped her to hold the plant, put it in dirt, water it and watch it grow (not that schools don't do the whole bean in the cup thing). But she learns by touching and holding things. Holding a block in the shape of the letter A helped her retain it better than it would have had someone just said "this is what A looks like and write it 50 times on this piece of paper." She is allowed to rearrange blocks of letters and see and feel and hear what happens when you rearrange them.
I homeschool because I feel I know how my child learns best and she can get one-on-one 100% of my attention. She's also not restricted to certain books or a clock. If she's really into counting and learning about money and she's understanding it and flowing with it, and then I say "Okay bell rung. Stop. Switch your brain to history now" she's gonna be less inclined to retain history once I start in because her brain was REALLY into working on the money. People learn best when they're interested in the subject. In homeschooling, if we want to spend one whole day on just reading or writing, we can. Then the next day we can focus all on math and numbers. We're not restricted to a schedule in that way. Also, she can learn about dinosaurs by going to a museum and actually seeing them up close. She's not restricted to just a book. Again, not that schools don't have field trips. But as my bumper sticker on my car says "The world is our classroom."
I also prefer homeschooling (and this is why I didn't go into teaching) because I can pick the curriculum. I can pick and choose any book I want for my child to learn. I don't have to have someone shove a list under my face and say "Okay, you can only teach 5 of these 10 books off this list this year." What if one of the books I wanted to teach her wasn't on there? Fuck that. That's also what I didn't like about being a teacher. I didn't like the restrictions it put on me. What if I wanted my kids to sit in a circle out on the grass and learn about Slaughterhouse Five? I don't think the school would have stood for that.
And fuck recess nowadays. That shit's going out the door and the kids are losing time to de-stress their brain. And music and art are dying, if not already gone in most schools--which is just horrible and sad.
Now, that's not to say that I'm not open to public schooling or Lorna going to a private school if she wants to at some point.
That's the other problem I see with public schools: To much pressure is put on ONLY the teacher to educate the child. It's the job of the parent and teacher to educate the child. Most parents think that they can drop their kid off, the teacher is solely responsible for all their education and that's it. They come home at 2:30 and they don't have to do a goddamn thing. And as a teacher, that's frustrating as shit!
If at some time Lorna wants to go to public school and experience that, I'm open to it, but I will be supplementing what I feel she's not getting and helping in her education still.
I know the first and major question people say about homeschooling is that "What about her socialization?" And my question to them is "What did you learn in public school?" I learned about cliques, that there was a pecking order among freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. That sports and cheerleaders get treated better and special "passes" with some shit because they're representatives of the school.
Homeschooled children are generally more well socialized than public school children. They generally interact with children of varying ages, as well as adults. Lorna is more than capable of talking and playing with a 3 year old just as much as she is having a conversation with a 60 year old or an 18 year old. She's not afraid of people of varying ages because she's never been separated from them. There isn't just her interacting with kids of ONLY her age. So the idea that homeschooled kids are socially retarded is out the window.
Now just like anything else, you can get terrible homeschooling as well, depending on what kind of parents you have. Homeschooling has it faults too, but that lies with the parent and the state not checking in enough with the parents.
To me, learning has to be a cooperative, group effort. As parents we have to help her. If she has other teachers or tutors, they work with her. Honestly, I don't think the state or government should be held solely responsible for my child's education.
The public school system needs so much help, money, and time poured into it. But like I said before, it still can't give my child one-on-one attention and help them learn the way that's best for them. Only I can decide that.
I don't understand geometry fuck all. But you better be sure as hell I'll get her a tutor that helps her understand it and learn it.
When I was in high school, I had a private tutor to help me pass geometry and I actually understood it, but then when it came time to do an assignment or test, I'd fail (I have test anxiety). If he gave me the same test at home and I had ample time to do it and my notes and book to refer to, I'd pass just fine. Didn't change the fact that I still got an F in Geometry. :/
And how does a person like that go through school? What if they have test anxiety? They don't get special help. They just suck it up and stress and take the test like everyone else--and do horribly and not really prove how much knowledge they do have.
And lets be honest here...what are the purpose of quizzes? The purposes of tests and quizzes *should* be to see HOW the students are doing and where they're having trouble. They shouldn't count for a fucking grade! Period!
I had one teacher in high school that gave quizzes and tests just so that he could see where his class was struggling and where he needed to spend more time on something and the quizzes and tests didn't count towards a final grade. That is how it should be. We only had one test at the end of the year on what we learned and it was essay, multiple choice, fill-in...etc. Totally comprehensive and his students ALWAYS did very well.
So there is a VERY long answer as to why I homeschool.
My desire to homeschool started when I was in kindergarten. LOL
Seriously, going to school was one of the most scarring and traumatic things to happen in my life. And I went to private school, public school, vocational school, and University and it all fucking sucked. Didn't matter what type of schooling it was. Although, I have to say that the private Christian school was the worst. I've never met meaner, more judgmental, cruel people in my life (pentecostal) and that includes the adults.
Anyway, I went to University to get a degree in teaching so that a child would NEVER feel how I felt during school--at least while they were in my classroom. And I do believe that there are teachers out there that LOVE their job and their students and what they do. I've had a few of those teachers, but they are far and few between.
Basically I think the public school system sucks because:
1. They are made to give a large group of students general knowledge on certain subjects. They give you enough information to learn to read, write and understand basic math...Basically enough to learn how to fill out a job application at McDonalds. It's a factory and a daycare rolled into one.
2. I don't think they pay the teachers enough, therefore, you're going to get teachers in there that are under qualified. They don't pay them enough to make it worth a person to go through all the schooling necessary to have an excellent teacher in the classroom. Again, the few good teachers that are out there, do it because it's something they feel is important and they're less concerned about their wages. They tend to put the children's well being first. Again, I feel that these teachers are rare. If they were to offer higher wages for the teachers and make the certification system more stringent, then we would have better teachers.
3. The classrooms are generally overcrowded, don't have enough supplies, and the teachers end up paying out of pocket for a lot of the stuff they use in the classrooms. This becomes tiring for them VERY fast, and you end up getting a bitter person as a teacher. Again, these are generalizations.
However, the MAIN reason I decided to homeschool is that I feel that NO ONE will understand how my child learns best. Even if they had an uber fantastic school out there where all the teachers were exceptionally qualified, loved their jobs and the school was extremely wealthy...etc. I would still choose to teach Lorna at home.
In the public schools, children fall through the cracks. It's a terrible system. The smart students either succeed with little or no help from the teachers OR they get bored and flunk while the teacher helps the students that are struggling. The kids in the middle are just that--in the middle. They do okay enough that they don't drain the teacher for attention and extra help, but they're not doing so horribly that the teacher needs to take time out to help them. The students that struggle either get a ton of attention because they are flunking, or they fall through the cracks because the teacher doesn't have time to work with them because they've got 32 other kids to deal with. It's basically the idea of: Get as many through and passed onto the next grade. Let the next teacher deal with them and get them graduated and out of our school. They don't actually care about the child LEARNING anything.
Aside from feeling like I know Lorna best, she gets one-on-one attention at home and most people learn best when they have a private teacher or tutor because they're working just with that person and they know how they learn--their strengths and weaknesses...etc.
The other reason I choose homeschooling over the public school system is that I don't like the way they teach. There is something called the Multiple Intelligences. It talks about the different ways in which people learn. Some people learn best by hearing, some by seeing it, some by feeling it...etc. A public school system is not set up to cater to the varying needs of every single student in their classes.
I myself am a Naturalistic, Musical, Introspective learner.
It seems so far that Lorna is a visual-spatial, naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic learner. Now if Lorna learns best by touching something and while outside, she's not gonna get that in a classroom. She'll most likely get chided for being a fidget and disruptive. Very few people can learn by sitting in desks and listening to a teacher babble on in the front of the classroom.
For example, for Lorna to understand how plants grow, it helped her to hold the plant, put it in dirt, water it and watch it grow (not that schools don't do the whole bean in the cup thing). But she learns by touching and holding things. Holding a block in the shape of the letter A helped her retain it better than it would have had someone just said "this is what A looks like and write it 50 times on this piece of paper." She is allowed to rearrange blocks of letters and see and feel and hear what happens when you rearrange them.
I homeschool because I feel I know how my child learns best and she can get one-on-one 100% of my attention. She's also not restricted to certain books or a clock. If she's really into counting and learning about money and she's understanding it and flowing with it, and then I say "Okay bell rung. Stop. Switch your brain to history now" she's gonna be less inclined to retain history once I start in because her brain was REALLY into working on the money. People learn best when they're interested in the subject. In homeschooling, if we want to spend one whole day on just reading or writing, we can. Then the next day we can focus all on math and numbers. We're not restricted to a schedule in that way. Also, she can learn about dinosaurs by going to a museum and actually seeing them up close. She's not restricted to just a book. Again, not that schools don't have field trips. But as my bumper sticker on my car says "The world is our classroom."
I also prefer homeschooling (and this is why I didn't go into teaching) because I can pick the curriculum. I can pick and choose any book I want for my child to learn. I don't have to have someone shove a list under my face and say "Okay, you can only teach 5 of these 10 books off this list this year." What if one of the books I wanted to teach her wasn't on there? Fuck that. That's also what I didn't like about being a teacher. I didn't like the restrictions it put on me. What if I wanted my kids to sit in a circle out on the grass and learn about Slaughterhouse Five? I don't think the school would have stood for that.
And fuck recess nowadays. That shit's going out the door and the kids are losing time to de-stress their brain. And music and art are dying, if not already gone in most schools--which is just horrible and sad.
Now, that's not to say that I'm not open to public schooling or Lorna going to a private school if she wants to at some point.
That's the other problem I see with public schools: To much pressure is put on ONLY the teacher to educate the child. It's the job of the parent and teacher to educate the child. Most parents think that they can drop their kid off, the teacher is solely responsible for all their education and that's it. They come home at 2:30 and they don't have to do a goddamn thing. And as a teacher, that's frustrating as shit!
If at some time Lorna wants to go to public school and experience that, I'm open to it, but I will be supplementing what I feel she's not getting and helping in her education still.
I know the first and major question people say about homeschooling is that "What about her socialization?" And my question to them is "What did you learn in public school?" I learned about cliques, that there was a pecking order among freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. That sports and cheerleaders get treated better and special "passes" with some shit because they're representatives of the school.
Homeschooled children are generally more well socialized than public school children. They generally interact with children of varying ages, as well as adults. Lorna is more than capable of talking and playing with a 3 year old just as much as she is having a conversation with a 60 year old or an 18 year old. She's not afraid of people of varying ages because she's never been separated from them. There isn't just her interacting with kids of ONLY her age. So the idea that homeschooled kids are socially retarded is out the window.
Now just like anything else, you can get terrible homeschooling as well, depending on what kind of parents you have. Homeschooling has it faults too, but that lies with the parent and the state not checking in enough with the parents.
To me, learning has to be a cooperative, group effort. As parents we have to help her. If she has other teachers or tutors, they work with her. Honestly, I don't think the state or government should be held solely responsible for my child's education.
The public school system needs so much help, money, and time poured into it. But like I said before, it still can't give my child one-on-one attention and help them learn the way that's best for them. Only I can decide that.
I don't understand geometry fuck all. But you better be sure as hell I'll get her a tutor that helps her understand it and learn it.
When I was in high school, I had a private tutor to help me pass geometry and I actually understood it, but then when it came time to do an assignment or test, I'd fail (I have test anxiety). If he gave me the same test at home and I had ample time to do it and my notes and book to refer to, I'd pass just fine. Didn't change the fact that I still got an F in Geometry. :/
And how does a person like that go through school? What if they have test anxiety? They don't get special help. They just suck it up and stress and take the test like everyone else--and do horribly and not really prove how much knowledge they do have.
And lets be honest here...what are the purpose of quizzes? The purposes of tests and quizzes *should* be to see HOW the students are doing and where they're having trouble. They shouldn't count for a fucking grade! Period!
I had one teacher in high school that gave quizzes and tests just so that he could see where his class was struggling and where he needed to spend more time on something and the quizzes and tests didn't count towards a final grade. That is how it should be. We only had one test at the end of the year on what we learned and it was essay, multiple choice, fill-in...etc. Totally comprehensive and his students ALWAYS did very well.
So there is a VERY long answer as to why I homeschool.