Purplehood wrote:RottenApple wrote:Purplehood wrote:I would never voluntarily home-school my youngest or send him to a private-school.
I pay way too much in taxes for school and I want my son to learn how to grow up and cope with society.
If I don't like what is happening, I tell someone about it and make noise.
What makes you think that homeschooled or private schooled kids don't "grow up and cope with society"?
There are hundreds (if not thousands) of homeschool support organizations in Texas alone that help to provide a community and social atmosphere for homeschoolers. My 2 are homeschooled and they have functions that range from field trips, to book clubs, to sporting events, etc. Every type of extracurricular activity that is available in public schools is available through these organizations. There are even other organizations, such are the Jewish Community Center, that sponsor sports teams that compete with public school teams.
My ASSUMPTION is that homeschooled kids do not gain the same degree of social interaction and exposure that a kid going to public school would. That is my OPINION. I may be misguided and someday my opinion may change, but after sending a total of 5 kids through the public school system I still feel that they receive the better end of the bargain.
Faulty assumption --the old Teacher's Union primary attack on homeschooling, the myth of the well socialized public school student. They're "socialized" all right, but not in the way I think your statement intends. While our kids were homeschooled one expressed an interest in attending public school. A local teacher and friends who were attending public school tried to dissuade him. Since he'd never set foot in a classroom, and he was 16, we decided to have him take some classes at the local junior college. He got a B of S and BA at UT Austin in four years, with a 4.0 GPA, and was admitted to Harvard Law school. He's been all over the world, including Asia, Europe, and South and Central America, as being homeschooled, the family traveled with me when I traveled. He speaks, reads, and writes in Japanese and Chinese. He has studied, lived, and worked in China and Korea.
His brother tutors public school children. He's the only tutor in the place without an education degree (B of S in Biology, and two year degrees in English, History, and Nuclear Technology) and every other tutor there is a teacher with not much good to say about the public schools. Their biggest criticism falls under the category of "socialization" --the imparting of a phony sense of self-esteem based solely on the fact that they exist rather than on what they achieve. My son tutors kids all the time who can't write complete sentences or do basic math, but they all think they're going to be doctors or some other highly paid professional because the message in the public school system is that you're automatically wonderful no matter what you do or don't do. He was the impetus for homeschooling because we saw how 1st Grade was destroying his lust for learning.
Strangers often approached us to tell us how well mannered and well behaved our children were, and how mature. I went to the public schools. It was easy, non-challenging, and pretty much a waste of time (in the sense that half the time was wasted on nonsense). Just about anything worthwhile I learned on my own, until I got to college. The military did a far better job of "socializing" me than attending public school. I'll put my kids up against any supposedly socialized product of the public school system.