Home Schooling (split off from Early Retirement thread)

This sounds absolutely insane.
Any parent who does this, IMO, needs their head examined.


...but then again, I'm against private schools and homeschooling.
Public schools are best.

Why are you against homeschooling? There is so much research coming out now that shows homeschooled children are excelling at their studies.

I'm against most schooling actually. To think, we fit 30 students in a room and teach them for 12 years what we think they should be taught and then spit them out at the end as worker bees.

I wonder if anyone here, learnt their investing information at school?

I've worked with many Asian students in different educational settings. The focus was solely on academics.
 
Why are you against homeschooling? There is so much research coming out now that shows homeschooled children are excelling at their studies.

I'm against most schooling actually. To think, we fit 30 students in a room and teach them for 12 years what we think they should be taught and then spit them out at the end as worker bees.

I wonder if anyone here, learnt their investing information at school?

I've worked with many Asian students in different educational settings. The focus was solely on academics.

Homeschooled children would be more socially insulated, even more than private schooled children, from the "real world".

From a merely educational standpoint, they may be further ahead. It would depend upon the teacher, I guess.
Private schooled children only deal with other "privileged" children, who's families can afford the tuition.

Schools should be teaching more relevent studies in school.
More emphasis should be on life skills.
a few would be:
How to prepare and balance a budget.
What are some the scams to watch out for.
Different ways to survive in a modern downturn in the economy...how people survived in the Great Depression.
 
Why are you against homeschooling? There is so much research coming out now that shows homeschooled children are excelling at their studies.

I'm against most schooling actually. To think, we fit 30 students in a room and teach them for 12 years what we think they should be taught and then spit them out at the end as worker bees.

I think home schooling creates an unhealthy dependence on the parents as that is their sole source of interaction with other people during the day. Helping kids with homework at home / tutoring them is completely different as it is an addendum to proper schooling rather than being a substitute.

I've worked with many Asian students in different educational settings. The focus was solely on academics.

I am from that typical high academic achieving background (not imposed by my parents, even though both went to medical school) but I find a large focus on it is, in hindsight, probably a good thing as it gives you good grounding. Interaction with others as a teenager is very important but without a solid educational background you simply can't develop into a confident individual when you mature into an adult. I personally think the university/early working years are far more formative for personal development than high school studies.
 
There's a whole lot of baseless assumptions going on about home schooling here.

My family lived on a farm some distance from the nearest school. As such my elder brothers and I were schooled at home via the Correspondence School of NSW so I don't really count that as "home schooling".

However, my 8 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters were "home schooled" by our parents. Every one of them that chose to apply to university was accepted to the university of their choice even though they had not completed the HSC or equivalent. One was accepted on full scholarship to Princeton university to study aerospace engineering then obtained full scholarship to complete his PhD at University of Texas and went on to work for NASA and now a German research company. Other degrees include IT, paramedic, nurse, horticulturist, MBA, journalism, archeology and geology. Furthermore I have met many other families who have home schooled their children, for a variety of reasons and not just because of distance, most of whom have gone on to university level studies. So I can attest to the academic credibility of home schooling.

As for the "insulated from the real world"(whatever the heck the real world is), that is utter nonsense in most cases. Most home schooled children are exposed to a wide variety of situations, people, experiences and circumstances. One of the main staples of most home schooling situations is excursions to experience and learn about what is being studied. These situations require the children to learn to interact with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of social circumstances. Most home schooled children I have had contact with are exceptionally well adjusted, confident and socially aware people.

From a social experience "real world" perspective, there are only a few things home schooling doesn't teach children;
1: How to interact, in a very strictly controlled and artificial way, with a group of people who are all within a year of being the same age of each other. It's debatable just how useful this skill is in any situation other than school.
2: How to be submissive enough to an authority figure who is not related to the child to avoid punishment. Again, debatable as to just how useful this skill is.
3: How to cope with forms of social pressure, stigmatization, *******ization and bullying when the system and those in charge of providing some form of protection from such behaviour doesn't do anything about it. Probably a useful skill to have but can be learned from other situations.

Just my 2 cents worth but I felt the grossly and demonstrably false generalizations needed to be balanced out with some information from someone who has had some actual experience with home schooling.
 
I'm not an advocate of home schooling. However, coming from an education which had very few group assignments, I found it quite difficult to adapt to a normal working environment where people had to work together with each other rather than against each other.

The few group projects I was involved in always had a few hard workers and a few coasters- which may be true to life, but it's easier to pick the slackers in a work envronment where the progress of work is seen, and not just the result.
 
From a social experience "real world" perspective, there are only a few things home schooling doesn't teach children;
1: How to interact, in a very strictly controlled and artificial way, with a group of people who are all within a year of being the same age of each other. It's debatable just how useful this skill is in any situation other than school.
2: How to be submissive enough to an authority figure who is not related to the child to avoid punishment. Again, debatable as to just how useful this skill is.
3: How to cope with forms of social pressure, stigmatization, *******ization and bullying when the system and those in charge of providing some form of protection from such behaviour doesn't do anything about it. Probably a useful skill to have but can be learned from other situations.

What you described is EQ.

Home schooling prohibits your EQ too much. Unfortunately unis only assess you on your IQ, which is why so many high IQ people get in to high-powered courses and make so little money.

I was in the cohort with the highest IQ in the state, you can think of it as the top 20 people in a state, and I reckon half the people in that cohort has lower EQ than a cow.
 
From a social experience "real world" perspective, there are only a few things home schooling doesn't teach children;
1: How to interact, in a very strictly controlled and artificial way, with a group of people who are all within a year of being the same age of each other. It's debatable just how useful this skill is in any situation other than school.

Im gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the single most important skill in life. Human interaction and knowing how / when / what etc
 
What you described is EQ.

Home schooling prohibits your EQ too much.
And you base this claim on what evidence exactly? Besides your assumption that home schooled people sit at home all day interacting only with their parents and siblings in an emotionally stunted way?
 
Im gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the single most important skill in life. Human interaction and knowing how / when / what etc
Actually interacting with a moderately large group of people who are all the same age as yourself in an artificially constructed environment with strict and supposedly enforcable rules under the supervision of an authority figure most of the time is not a very useful skill at all. It is one that will only be useful for a short period of ones life, ie: during the primary and secondary school years.

I grant you that "Human interaction and knowing how / when / what etc" is a vitally important life skill. However that skill as applied to general life situations likely to be found out of the schooling environment is not what is learnt in the primary and secondary school environments.
 
As for the "insulated from the real world"(whatever the heck the real world is), that is utter nonsense in most cases. Most home schooled children are exposed to a wide variety of situations, people, experiences and circumstances. One of the main staples of most home schooling situations is excursions to experience and learn about what is being studied. These situations require the children to learn to interact with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of social circumstances. Most home schooled children I have had contact with are exceptionally well adjusted, confident and socially aware people.
Most of us agree that academically, you may be ahead

From a social experience "real world" perspective, there are only a few things home schooling doesn't teach children;
1: How to interact, in a very strictly controlled and artificial way, with a group of people who are all within a year of being the same age of each other. It's debatable just how useful this skill is in any situation other than school.
Schools have a range of age groups. Age groups within your class, will show you how to deal with other peers. What you think is normal, may not be when you interact with others.

2: How to be submissive enough to an authority figure who is not related to the child to avoid punishment. Again, debatable as to just how useful this skill is.
Might be the one skill you need to know to save your life. Fight or flight instict. Arguing you are "right" to the wrong person, may have devastating consequences

3: How to cope with forms of social pressure, stigmatization, *******ization and bullying when the system and those in charge of providing some form of protection from such behaviour doesn't do anything about it. Probably a useful skill to have but can be learned from other situations.
You always hear about children brought up in a strict environment rebel...minister's daughters and all that.Funny, there was man at the Roadhouse yesterday, mid 40's, who said he was mesmerized by the tv in the bar, because his wife doesn't allow tv in their home

Just my 2 cents worth but I felt the grossly and demonstrably false generalizations needed to be balanced out with some information from someone who has had some actual experience with home schooling.

I think parents are doing a disservice to homeschool children. How can children have a debate, when they only hear what their parents teach them? (as one example)
 
Actually interacting with a moderately large group of people who are all the same age as yourself in an artificially constructed environment with strict and supposedly enforcable rules under the supervision of an authority figure most of the time is not a very useful skill at all. It is one that will only be useful for a short period of ones life, ie: during the primary and secondary school years.

Disagree. It provides the basis for all future human interaction. And there aren't too many enforced rules in school playgrounds. Teachers often try to let the kids sort it out themselves, for better or worse.

As you were one of ten, you would have had this interaction at home anyway. It would be much different, say, for a home schooled only child.
 
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Might be the one skill you need to know to save your life. Fight or flight instict. Arguing you are "right" to the wrong person, may have devastating consequences
Well if you want to talk extreme examples anything one learns from any source might just be the one thing they need to save their life!!!!!!

So I guess no schooling is any good because no matter what you are going to miss out on certain experiences one way or another and are never going to learn everything.
kathryn d said:
You always hear about children brought up in a strict environment rebel...minister's daughters and all that.Funny, there was man at the Roadhouse yesterday, mid 40's, who said he was mesmerized by the tv in the bar, because his wife doesn't allow tv in their home
I'm not sure what your point here is? Are you suggesting all home schooled children are brought up in a strict environment and might well rebel later in life?

I guess I'd have to once again ask what evidence you have for this or is it simply another assumption based on nothing?
kathryn d said:
I think parents are doing a disservice to homeschool children. How can children have a debate, when they only hear what their parents teach them? (as one example)
Again, I ask what you base the assumption that "they only hear what their parents teach them" on? Do you have any evidence?

I can speak from personal experience along with having met many many other home schooled people in saying that, in most cases, you are simply wrong in the above assertion.
 
Disagree. It provides the basis for all future human interaction. And there aren't too many enforced rules in school playgrounds. Teachers often try to let the kids sort it out themselves, for better or worse.

As you were one of ten, you would have had this interaction at home anyway. It would be much different, say, for a home schooled only child.
I don't know of too many situations in life that are based on a group of identically aged people interacting within a strict environment with enforcable rules punishable by disciplinary action and overseen by an authority figure. Maybe I live a wierd life though.

As for teachers letting kids sort it out for themselves I would have to disagree when you hear stories of schools banning hugging, high fiving, any teacher/pupil physical contact at all along with many forms of physical expression such as cartwheels, running and other things.

Having said all that, I guess if people are basing all their future human interaction on what they learned from primary and secondary school socialisation that would explain why there seems to be very little in the way of personal responsibility, honour, integrity, compassion and selflessness exhibited by the majority of people. However, I would argue that perhaps this is not something that should be held up as an example of what is good about our public school system.
 
Back off topic...

I don’t have any personal experience with homeschooling so my opinion is pretty moot, but a while back I spent a few days researching homeschooling out of sheer curiosity, mostly because I’m rather critical of mainstream education, and I was surprised by just how well-adjusted many homeschooled children appear to be. Many of the stories I read, from both the parent and the student’s perspective, mirrored much of what OKFFW has said.

There’s a perception of homeschooled children being coddled and spoon-fed but it seems many homeschooled children are independent, critical thinkers who have been encouraged to take control of their own learning and think more laterally than their public/private school counterparts. Homeschooling also allows for a more in depth approach to study.

So far as the social interaction goes, so far as I can tell, most parents of homeschooled children take particular care in ensuring that their children are not socially isolated and are exposed to a range of social situations.

So, they’re not toughened up by the often cruel nature of the playground… Honestly, for each child who is ‘toughened up’, another is left emotionally damaged. It can go either way and a regular school environment is in no way necessary to develop as a stable, capable human being. In a historical context, we’ve been ‘homeschooled’, though our learning was of the practical rather than academic variety, for most of history and we didn’t all turn into a pile of emotional illiterates. In fact, we’re now more emotionally ‘soft’ than ever.

Personally, I found primary school unchallenging and fairly soul destroying. The one size fits all approach did not fit me and even at the time I found most of the activities to be dross. By the time I reached later primary and early high school, I’d completely given up on learning and rebelled. There was also a general attitude of ‘bully or be bullied’ in most of the schools I attended.

Oh, and I suspect many of the homeschooling stereotypes (strict, sheltered, indoctrinating, etc.) can be linked back to the Evangelical-style homeschooling which is more popular in America than here.

There will always be homeschooling horror stories, but there are plenty of horror stories within the mainstream education system.

If I have children, homeschooling is definitely on the table. Of course, if they really wanted to attend a mainstream school, I’d find it hard to refuse.

But, like I said, I wasn't homeschooled so my opinion is moot.

*pointless off topic rant over*
 
OKFFW,

I'm glad homeschooling worked out for you and your siblings.


amazingly...this is one of the few topics dan c and i agree on :)
 
I think parents are doing a disservice to homeschool children. How can children have a debate, when they only hear what their parents teach them? (as one example)

I know quite a few home schooled children, and I would suggest that it is a mistake to think that the only place they are 'educated' is at home. The kids I know go to different houses so different parents can teach different subjects.

My oldest godson was home schooled, and got a first round offer into medicine at Sydney, which he took. He's now finishing 4th year.

It's a classic case of horses foor courses. Some kids thrive in school, some don't. Some thrive in home school, some don't.
 
Start another thread for home schooling mods?

Lets get back to the topic, really interesting reading.....

Since the topic is early retirement without a fortune, we would be including younger families with school aged children in this group.

Homeschooling would be a frugal choice, as it would not require uniforms, school bought lunches (where applicable).The peer pressure "gadgets", such as ipods,iphones,etc would most likely be lessened. Homeschooled children, from what I have read, are usually limited in the amount of tv they are permitted to watch, thus reducing their influence from the commercials for toys.

Debating whether it would be a good choice, if expenses are the concern would need to weighed against whether it is good emotionally for the child/ren.

It may be good to have a thread solely devoted to this topic, but it is just a slight deversion from the general theme.

Next least expensive choice would be public school, and then of course private schools.
 
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