Salon: Home-schooled and illiterate - for some kids it means isolation with little education

[laundry_queen]

29. I vehemently disagree.

I didn't learn any of that crap on the playground. Most of it I learned from my parents or from adult relatives or from the parents of my friends. Children learn those things from being around many adults, not by being around 30 kids of the exact same age. Children need more guidance from adults and less "Lord of the Flies" which was pretty much how our playground operated. As someone said upthread, school itself is a bubble. It creates an artificial social atmosphere that does not mirror real life.

I agree that homeschooling can, at times, be used as a tool of abusers to keep their family under their control. I also agree there are some really, really horrible homeschoolers out there. I will state that I have never met a homeschooled kid that was awkward in social situations. My daughter's babysitter was homeschooled and has a 2-year post-secondary diploma and is currently working on her BComm online. In fact, we were discussing taking online courses, because I'm also in university right now (I was public schooled here in Canada) and I mentioned that the only thing I disliked about online courses was trying to figure out concepts on my own, sometimes having to read the text over and over again and then google the concept because I don't understand. I said it's much easier for me to have a teacher explain the concept to me. She replied she prefers it that way because she's used to figuring out the concept on her own and it helps her remember it for exams. She's also really good at self-motivating and setting her own deadlines, where as I seem to have no intrinsic motivations for finishing homework and wait until the teacher's deadline. So our fundamental way of learning is vastly different because of our experiences. I think she's likely to do much better than me in post-secondary because of it.

I also have many friends who homeschool (all are non-christian based) and all make sure that the kids have plenty of opportunity to hang out with their peers. School is not the only place for peer interaction. Activities such as dance, soccer, hockey, baseball, swimming and so on are all great opportunities for a homeschooled kid to find friends of the same age. Many homeschoolers belong to associations that organize field trips for homeschoolers once a week. In our community there are homeschooler's swimming lessons at the pool, during the day when the other kids are in school. The opportunities are really endless. Public school isn't the only place kids see other kids.

I think it's important not to paint all homeschoolers with the 'crazy christian abuser' brush. Many homeschooled kids are getting a far superior education. It depends on the parents, their dedication to their kids and the curriculum they are following. With the internet now, the learning that is done outside of a public school is just as high quality as the stuff done inside of a public school setting. And it's the wave of the future in post-secondary as well. It wouldn't hurt kids one bit to homeschool in that manner.