I've had a number of acquaintances who homeschool their kids. Their kids all seemed very smart and well-adjusted, polite and confident - and above all, very practical. I admired them, I wish I had felt so grounded and practical as a child/teen. They were avoiding the potential pitfalls of being bullied or facing non-academic stresses of peer pressure to get involved in sex/drugs/alcohol, and they were allowed to be unique - they didn't have to socially conform to fit in with the "cool" kids. They could also get a more individualized education and often they were done very early in the day and could go on cool field trips and do creative activities that weren't as do-able for an entire classroom full of kids. All of my friends kids were involved with other homeschooled kids in classes and activities, so they seemed socialized.
And then....I got a closer look that revealed some cons.
Yes, the kids were being socialized amongst themselves, but that usually meant with other kids and families who all held the same beliefs, values, practices and most of all, insular mentality. They seemed to naturally believe their way was better, but without understanding or having direct experience of the outside world in a significant way - instead, they were just absorbing and parroting off their parents's beliefs. Their parents may have had strong beliefs, but they were able to form them independently in contact with the rest of the world, so as much as they might express their strong beliefs, their hearts and minds are also modulated by the knowledge and experience that comes from being around different people and having had different life experiences. Their kids don't get that benefit - instead they just come off as provincial and opinionated about things they have no experience in. On the one hand, they are being taught we must have love and compassion for everyone - on the other hand, you can't do that without actually getting to know those other people - instead, you'll have judgement and see them as the foreign "other".
The parents are sometimes so focused on sheltering/shielding their kids from the "bad" outer world that they don't prepare their kids to actually live and work side by side with that other world - i.e. the rest of society that we are supposed to be a part of. The point should be to make kids stronger - not weaker. And yet when they are overprotected, they seem very fragile. And what is scary is that all the blame often goes towards the "evil" outer world - it's because it's so sick out there that our kids can't cope....rather than, hey, your kid is way too fragile to deal with life now, you'd better teach them to cope.
Insularity of the world - I think that is the biggest problem. I think homeschooling can be great, but the insularity is the weakness. Here's what I mean - there is not enough outside accountability or other factor to adjust for whatever beliefs are being cherished within that insularity. So homeschoolers who are really behind in teaching their kids can just be told it's okay, not a big deal by other homeschoolers who are having the same issue or just don't see the big deal anyway. In a regular school system, there is an outside standard to tell you where the kids measures up to (I do realized there can be issues with their standards, but just having the parents's own standards being the only thing that matters is a whole other issue). If a kids can't cope with peers, the other homeschoolers can say, oh, it's that awful outside world, what do you expect! I'm not saying all do this - but just that it is a real thing.
Lack of academic rigor. Where I am, there is no requirement for homeschoolers to have a teaching certificate. So they may not know how to effectively teach. Some of the homeschooled kids I have known just aren't retaining anything their parents have taught them - and their parents aren't ensuring mastery or repetition or memorization. They just assume, hey, we went over that - we had several lessons on that, they understood, so they've learned it. I heard one say she doesn't even test her kids, because she can tell if they can do something on their worksheets. But a test environment is very different from a homework environment, and performance can really differ. And, just being able to do something while that is the focus doesn't mean your kids will retain or be able to apply that info later or in a different situation. Some of the kids I met seemed to think note-taking and studying were wrong - that it implied the teacher wasn't doing their job. They also seemed to think learning about something was the same as learning the information. But it's not. Learning about nouns and verbs is not the same thing as being able to give me examples. Learning about the idea of math is not the same as being able to perform the calculations - and without hand-holding. I've found some of the kids have gotten really good at knowing how to get their parents to give them the answers, and some of the parents just want to see their kids "succeed" and get on with the lesson.
So I don't write this to say homeschooling shouldn't happen - I think it's great, but I think the point should be to make it an even better learning environment than traditional school - and I think the insularity can really throw a monkey wrench in that process, so it's just something to be watched out for. If this seems very out of the blue (well, of course it would), it's just that I had been so enamored of the idea of homeschooling, then recently I was asked to help a friend homeschool, and it was pretty shocking too see what some of the issues were - as well as the parent's resistance to addressing it. The idea that it "wasn't a big deal". I'm realizing now also that what I had mistaken for maturity in these kids was more to do with them repeating what their parents tell them.
In general, I don't like the brainwashing of children, and there seems to be a degree of desire to control their children's beliefs and attitudes and knowledge that I find disturbing. In regular schools, this is counteracted by contact with other people and ideas.
Hope I'm not ticking anyone off - I'm not writing this to accuse anyone, this blog is really just a place for me to unload random things that have been percolating in my brain. Again, I think homeschooling is a great option and can be done really well, but I was just recently disturbed by some of the pitfalls just because I hadn't even been aware of them.
Just a last thing I noticed......some of the homeschoolers don't really care if their kids go to college or not, if they have professional careers or not - they are happy, or even happier, if their kids stay home with them until they get married and then become housewives and homeschooling moms. The problem with that is the teacher does not have the motivation to make sure their kids are mastering the subjects and mastering study skills well enough to cope with college if they choose to go. They aren't teaching them to value a higher education and also setting them up for failure if they choose to go. I think that's unfair - I think that is unfairly taking away the choice from their children.
And then....I got a closer look that revealed some cons.
Yes, the kids were being socialized amongst themselves, but that usually meant with other kids and families who all held the same beliefs, values, practices and most of all, insular mentality. They seemed to naturally believe their way was better, but without understanding or having direct experience of the outside world in a significant way - instead, they were just absorbing and parroting off their parents's beliefs. Their parents may have had strong beliefs, but they were able to form them independently in contact with the rest of the world, so as much as they might express their strong beliefs, their hearts and minds are also modulated by the knowledge and experience that comes from being around different people and having had different life experiences. Their kids don't get that benefit - instead they just come off as provincial and opinionated about things they have no experience in. On the one hand, they are being taught we must have love and compassion for everyone - on the other hand, you can't do that without actually getting to know those other people - instead, you'll have judgement and see them as the foreign "other".
The parents are sometimes so focused on sheltering/shielding their kids from the "bad" outer world that they don't prepare their kids to actually live and work side by side with that other world - i.e. the rest of society that we are supposed to be a part of. The point should be to make kids stronger - not weaker. And yet when they are overprotected, they seem very fragile. And what is scary is that all the blame often goes towards the "evil" outer world - it's because it's so sick out there that our kids can't cope....rather than, hey, your kid is way too fragile to deal with life now, you'd better teach them to cope.
Insularity of the world - I think that is the biggest problem. I think homeschooling can be great, but the insularity is the weakness. Here's what I mean - there is not enough outside accountability or other factor to adjust for whatever beliefs are being cherished within that insularity. So homeschoolers who are really behind in teaching their kids can just be told it's okay, not a big deal by other homeschoolers who are having the same issue or just don't see the big deal anyway. In a regular school system, there is an outside standard to tell you where the kids measures up to (I do realized there can be issues with their standards, but just having the parents's own standards being the only thing that matters is a whole other issue). If a kids can't cope with peers, the other homeschoolers can say, oh, it's that awful outside world, what do you expect! I'm not saying all do this - but just that it is a real thing.
Lack of academic rigor. Where I am, there is no requirement for homeschoolers to have a teaching certificate. So they may not know how to effectively teach. Some of the homeschooled kids I have known just aren't retaining anything their parents have taught them - and their parents aren't ensuring mastery or repetition or memorization. They just assume, hey, we went over that - we had several lessons on that, they understood, so they've learned it. I heard one say she doesn't even test her kids, because she can tell if they can do something on their worksheets. But a test environment is very different from a homework environment, and performance can really differ. And, just being able to do something while that is the focus doesn't mean your kids will retain or be able to apply that info later or in a different situation. Some of the kids I met seemed to think note-taking and studying were wrong - that it implied the teacher wasn't doing their job. They also seemed to think learning about something was the same as learning the information. But it's not. Learning about nouns and verbs is not the same thing as being able to give me examples. Learning about the idea of math is not the same as being able to perform the calculations - and without hand-holding. I've found some of the kids have gotten really good at knowing how to get their parents to give them the answers, and some of the parents just want to see their kids "succeed" and get on with the lesson.
So I don't write this to say homeschooling shouldn't happen - I think it's great, but I think the point should be to make it an even better learning environment than traditional school - and I think the insularity can really throw a monkey wrench in that process, so it's just something to be watched out for. If this seems very out of the blue (well, of course it would), it's just that I had been so enamored of the idea of homeschooling, then recently I was asked to help a friend homeschool, and it was pretty shocking too see what some of the issues were - as well as the parent's resistance to addressing it. The idea that it "wasn't a big deal". I'm realizing now also that what I had mistaken for maturity in these kids was more to do with them repeating what their parents tell them.
In general, I don't like the brainwashing of children, and there seems to be a degree of desire to control their children's beliefs and attitudes and knowledge that I find disturbing. In regular schools, this is counteracted by contact with other people and ideas.
Hope I'm not ticking anyone off - I'm not writing this to accuse anyone, this blog is really just a place for me to unload random things that have been percolating in my brain. Again, I think homeschooling is a great option and can be done really well, but I was just recently disturbed by some of the pitfalls just because I hadn't even been aware of them.
Just a last thing I noticed......some of the homeschoolers don't really care if their kids go to college or not, if they have professional careers or not - they are happy, or even happier, if their kids stay home with them until they get married and then become housewives and homeschooling moms. The problem with that is the teacher does not have the motivation to make sure their kids are mastering the subjects and mastering study skills well enough to cope with college if they choose to go. They aren't teaching them to value a higher education and also setting them up for failure if they choose to go. I think that's unfair - I think that is unfairly taking away the choice from their children.
