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Homeschooling debate

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rocketman;1109434; said:
If the community you live in has terrible public schools and limited access to good private schools, then I am all for home schooling.

I grew up in a very affluent community which had stellar public and parochial schools. I just think in my community (which seems to be the exception, not the norm nowadays) parents are putting their kids at a significant disadvantage if they home school them. They seem to be doing it to protect their kids from "bad experiences" - i.e. peer pressure, bullying, etc.

Obviously we all come from different backgrounds, but that's just my 2 cents.
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My take is kind of the opposite to that. Most of the world isn't made up of affluent, refined, and enlightened people. The Shaker Heights or Indian Hill demographics are not the norms in most of the world. I think we have a greater responsibility to participate in communities where things are "terrible".

Most of the world is comprised of people who do what they can to get by; are, for the most part functionally illiterate, and suffer (through no fault of their own or some inherent evil) from actue functional and social disorders.

In (sadly) more and more places around the world, with the spread of war and poverty, more and more people, if they were desperate enough, would rob, scorch, mame, and even kill you if their survival was at stake.

We, here in the US, are not immune from these horrors. These are the same conditions that prevail in an increasing and overwhelming proportion of our public schools.

So... we have a choice. Are the conditions that our kids get exposed to in Shaker Heights (or whichever other 99th percentile demographic community you choose) more "real" than those at Glenville?

I'm not saying that we ought to celebrate the fact that our public schools are having problems or revel in the news that inner city schools are failing at an alarming rate. What I am saying is that, as you say, "if the community you live in has terrible public schools and limited access to good private schools, then I am all for home schooling", I would suggest that in those cases where the community has terrible public schools we have an even GREATER responsibility to engage and participate. In those cases, imo, we need to check and temper the survival instincts (as parents) which are screaming in our ears and trying to scare us into retreating back into the safe confines of our homes.

Why do I take this stance? Because if our children don't learn how to deal with these prevailing conditions, learn how to succeed in the face of such challenges, and develop into the leaders of tommorrow who can hopefully turn this tide around, then I say I fear for their tommorrow more than I fear for their today.

In other words, would you rather have your kid learn from the example of a Troy Smith, for instance, or [plug in your choice of the name of some failed person who was an Ohio State quarterback hailing from an affluent background]?
 
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Just for the record, although I am very pro-homeschooling in terms of respecting and wanting to support those who do it; when I have children, I do not plan to homeschool unless my wife would want to take the lead in carrying out the activities. A major reason for not taking the homeschool option is because of the socialization aspect, which my wife and I are probably not the best people to facilitate because of our own inclinations to isolate ourselves--I guess my public school and her public and private school educations didn't do a good job with us. :biggrin:

This being said, we will be very active in our chidren's education and there will be an element of homeschooling in that we will be teaching them many things beyond what their school curriculum provides and also teaching them to question and to challenge what they are learning from their teachers.
 
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What I find interesting is that in the College of Education where I am a student, the majority of the professors training our future teachers have decided to homeschool their own children! What do they know that we don't? :paranoid:
 
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