I have started an ongoing and ever growing list of what people say to me when I tell them we homeschool (let's call them for the sake of argument, homeschool myths), and a small bit of opinion on each...
Wow, I don't think I have the patience for that... me neither. Turns out you don't need unlimited patience and super powers. Just a love for your children and a desire to see them become successful people in the world. And maybe a little bit of reverse psychology hid up your sleeve doesn't hurt much.
What about socialization... Really I think this one is ridiculous to even touch. Who has not grown up hearing this... You are not here to socialize, you are here to learn! Seriously I don't remember who said, in order to improve my homeschooler's socialization, we make her walk down the hall a few times a day and we knock her over and call mean things to her as she goes by. I know there are plenty of kids who enjoy school. But why not ask them if they wouldn't prefer hanging out with their friends outside of school? School is not where you learn to socialize, life outside of school is.
I am not smart enough to teach my child everything she needs to know... My sarcastic side says, why can't you just teach your child what YOU learned in school, because that is all YOU needed to know. But we all know that we didn't learn much of what was taught except when it interested us. So I say, don't teach your child what she needs to know. Just make learning fun and she will learn what she needs to know without too much help from you. Also... drum roll please, I had a son who was quick learning languages, and I couldn't keep up with him. You know what I did? I went to the local college and got him a tutor. And it worked beautifully! So many classes out there for kids now-a-days. Not school classes, but just classes for kids with inquiring minds. Classes and co ops and online courses and the History Channel and the Discovery Channel and NOVA and Google.........
You homeschool? With the way kids are now a days I think that is great! My kids are still kids now a days, even though they homeschool. They aren't sheltered from the "kids now a days". Some of those "kids now a days" are my kids friends. One way that homeschooling has benefited my girls is that not being IN the school, they can see things from the outsider view. Things look a lot different when you are not caught up in a situation, but rather can watch it from farther away. My kids get more opportunities to do that. I think it gives them a different perspective on friendships then kids in school.
How do you know if your kids are learning at the level as the schools? A couple things on this one. First, who the hell cares what the schools are doing? They aren't bringing home better success rates than me. And all the schools are doing basically the same thing. Look at what comes out of there? Some good, some bad. What fun is that. Let's do something different. Let's learn a different history and a different literature than the schools. Let's learn ethics and morals. Let's learn how to survive in the wilderness without other people. Let's learn to cook and take care of ourselves, because lots of people come out of school with no idea how to carry on their lives after school. Just for the fun of it. Because the schools have yet to prove that they are better than home. I have no interest in what the schools are doing. Two of my kids went back into the public schools, one as a Junior in high school, and one as an eighth grader. He graduates this year. They both passed the OGT's in one try. And a ton of their classmates who were in school all this time didn't. Let's just say that I put one of my kids in school and they struggled... for whatever reason in a topic or two like maybe math and history. So I guess my kids at home didn't do worse than the kids at school all this time. The schools have a bunch of kids struggling too. School is the one place in life where things are not like life, you don't have the same rights as everyone outside of school. Teachers, other students, and the faculty have more control over your body than you do. You aren't free to do and say what you please. People will touch you when you don't want them to, teachers will bully you if they want to, you can get punished for things you didn't do without due process. I have seen all these things happen to kids in school as recent as this year. Why would I want to keep up with that? Socially or educationally? No, I don't. Sure, the jury is still out with my kids and their education. Well the jury is already in with the schools and its not always good.
How do you keep the kids up with technology and education growing and changing so fast? Yea, I don't really care about any of that. My kids are up on all the technology. Personally I would prefer for us to be without it. I had a big conversation in the car the other day about how much kids miss when their faces are stuck in their phones. God provided us these beautiful sights and smells and touches and tastes and sounds. There is so much going on. And people aren't seeing it. They aren't stopping and whatching the ants carry food into their ant hole. In fact they can't see much of anything past their friend's txt which is about 5 inches to one foot beyond their face. Technology is great, but 1. don't think I will miss it much if it is gone. 2. don't think the schools are teaching it. 3. the kids will learn it without school.
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