Homeschooling - Thoughts as a parent or child with experience?

Xordium said:
You are presuming they will make the same mistakes as you.
You presume making mistakes is not a learning process in itself.
You still show no cognition of the current actual learning process.
You've history for making really bad judgement calls for your current child.
You don't listen to anyone else consistently attributing a position to them that you dislike rather than the one they have.
You obviously have never had to really be responsible for yourself and others and have subsisted on the gifts of others.
You stick your thumb up against a society you don't understand because that society or someone else has always had your back and you don't actually even comprehend how lucky you are.

Moreover, I would really love to know what aspects of living my life you feel I would have missed out on and that you have fully experienced. And I don't class sitting at home playing computer games living life.
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This is a pretty great post.
 
LateX'Dog said:
You don't teach like this, you teach to how the child wants to learn.
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What if how the child wants to learn isn't the best way of actually learning the subject? Of course your AFL strategies can help identify that and provide the right level (and interval) of feedback to help guide them in the right direction...

If you don't want to worry about exam technique, then no problems, but your child will then get less than they are capable of, possibly dropping a grade or two.

If you (or they if you let them) choose to do a subject that has some level of controlled assessment (e.g. All four of the recognised UK computing GCSEs) then surely knowing what the exam board is actually going to mark is somewhat worthwhile?

Unless of course you are going down the route of not having them take the recognised qualifications but that may make life somewhat more difficult for them if they decide that joining Daddy's alternative lifestyle outside of "mainstream" society isn't for them.

One massive positive about home schooling though is it does allow you to isolate your child from dangerous ideas that you disapprove of. Possibly why it is so popular in the US amongst the religious conservatives.
 
Xordium said:
You presume making mistakes is not a learning process in itself.
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This is actually massively important, you want a learning environment where mistakes are OK, in a subject like Computing for example you learn more from them than perfectly executed code.
 
I have literally skimmed this thread so my opinion may seem out of place.

If you have the financial means to home school your child, that money is probably better invested in sending them to a good private school.

I can't think of any real benefits of home schooling verses a decent private education, which both cost what the average person would earn in a year near enough.

So if you send your kid to private school and you yourself get a job you should be quids in if my maths are right, along with the kid having a nice name for Uni on their CV.
 
I'm not overly keen on the standard of education my 9 year old daughter receives at her school- there have been school reports littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and at the most recent parents' evening a teacher had corrected my daughter on a spelling which my daughter had got right.

It would be impossible for me to teach her at home- aside from not having the knowledge myself to teach her properly, I need to earn a living.

Therefore I set aside around 10 hours a week going through her work with her, and would hate to deprive her of the social interaction with her peers and adults she only gets at school.
 
RDM said:
What if how the child wants to learn isn't the best way of actually learning the subject? Of course your AFL strategies can help identify that and provide the right level (and interval) of feedback to help guide them in the right direction...

If you don't want to worry about exam technique, then no problems, but your child will then get less than they are capable of, possibly dropping a grade or two.

If you (or they if you let them) choose to do a subject that has some level of controlled assessment (e.g. All four of the recognised UK computing GCSEs) then surely knowing what the exam board is actually going to mark is somewhat worthwhile?

Unless of course you are going down the route of not having them take the recognised qualifications but that may make life somewhat more difficult for them if they decide that joining Daddy's alternative lifestyle outside of "mainstream" society isn't for them.

One massive positive about home schooling though is it does allow you to isolate your child from dangerous ideas that you disapprove of. Possibly why it is so popular in the US amongst the religious conservatives.
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You seem to be mixing up the principle of "How" you learn with the principle of "What" you learn.

Teaching in a style which keeps a particular child interested in learning is, in most cases, going to be a more successful way of teaching than using the accepted "best" teaching delivery method.

Schools are set up to, first and foremost, make sure all children are afforded a bare minimum level of education to take in to adulthood - hence the trend for teaching reading using Phonics despite its detrimental effect on the better reading children. And the measurement of schools being based upon getting as many pupils as possible to attain a C-grade or above.

Children who are outliers, sitting apart from the main group at which teaching is aimed, are particularly poorly served. I've been there - being top of the class with little effort really eats away at your motivation until you get to the stage where the work does actually require some effort (A-levels), but you can no longer put effort in.

Home schooling should, in theory, allow tailored teaching which should be a huge benefit. It needs to be performed correctly, though.

As for the social issue, I agree with the need for children to spend time among their peers, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we fail to recognise the harmful environment schools actually incubate with the sort of bullying and unhealthy peer pressures which impact upon many children. We call it "character building" but, frankly, I'm not convinced it builds character in a good way.
 
Skidder said:
I agree but it is extraordinarily arrogant of home schooling parents to assume that they can provide a better education than a school.
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Why?

If I claim to be able to build a better PC than PC World, does that make me arrogant?

If I claim to be able to build a better bookshelf than Ikea, does that make me arrogant?

etc
 
cheesyboy said:
Why?

If I claim to be able to build a better PC than PC World, does that make me arrogant?

If I claim to be able to build a better bookshelf than Ikea, does that make me arrogant?

etc
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I presume as well as being good with your hands you are an astounding polymath? When your child decides to focus their interest on physics, ancient Greek, Spanish, pottery, linguistics, English literature, ancient history, drama etc. you, as an individual or couple, are as able to provide as a team of teachers. To home school, a person must be stating that as an individual they are inordinately superior to the education system and the whole gamut of teachers available in any given location. That's arrogant.
 
Skidder said:
I presume as well as being good with your hands you are an astounding polymath? When your child decides to focus their interest on physics, ancient Greek, Spanish, pottery, linguistics, English literature, ancient history, drama etc. you, as an individual or couple, are as able to provide as a team of teachers. To home school, a person must be stating that as an individual they are inordinately superior to the education system and the whole gamut of teachers available in any given location. That's arrogant.
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My point was, that presuming to know that parents are NOT as good at schooling their children is surely arrogance in itself. You simply can't know.

Unless you overcome your arrogance and do some research, of course;
The results show that 64% of the home-educated Reception aged children scored over 75% on their PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1% of children nationally. The National Literacy Project (Years 1,3,5) assessment results reveal that 80.4% of the home-educated children scored within the top 16% band (of a normal distribution bell curve), whilst 77.4% of the PIPS Year 2 home-educated cohort scored similarly. Results from the psychosocial instruments confirm the home-educated children were socially adept and without behavioural problems. Overall, the home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and good social skills.
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http://www.pjrothermel.com/research/Researchpaper/BERAworkingpaper.htm
 
Good lord, you're a bit *****ly.

edit: Not a sweary a pointy, thorny thingy

It is obvious that hot-housing a child through reception can gain results, but to what end? Reception has a strong focus on socialisation, play and getting a grounding in literacy and numeracy. Yes, most functioning adults can read and write well enough to coerce a 5 year old into exceeding KPIs.

That in no way proves that home schooling is a superior method of teaching. My point, which you ignored, was that it was arrogant to assume a single individual or couple can provide a complete and broad education to suit the child over the longterm and to believe so is arrogant (on their part, you note I was talking about homeschooling parents, I have no idea if you are one or not and neither do I care). Ancient Greek is not really part of the curriculum during reception, or any of the other subjects I mentioned, so clearly my focus was on the longterm benefit, or in my view the likely negatives.
 
I've recently had cause to spend quite a lot of time studying aspects of child development and the ramifications to that child if they are unable to develop certain 'skills' at an early age. If the child is unable to develop skills at a basic level, like interacting socially with other children, trusting other children, learning boundaries of ownership, then it becomes very difficult for them to develop the more finer aspects of social interactions, like behaving responsibly and developing healthy platonic and sexual relationships later in life.

I'm not convinced that a home schooled child going to a pre-arranged meeting with other like minded children a couple of times a week is going to test that childs social developments as much as a child spending eight hours a day, five days a week in the company of people other than its parents.
 
There are health issues as well. A child is exposed to a variety of germs/bugs/viruses in school so they build up immunities that prevent nasty complications later in life.
 
cheesyboy said:
My point was, that presuming to know that parents are NOT as good at schooling their children is surely arrogance in itself. You simply can't know.

Unless you overcome your arrogance and do some research, of course;

The results show that 64% of the home-educated Reception aged children scored over 75% on their PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1% of children nationally. The National Literacy Project (Years 1,3,5) assessment results reveal that 80.4% of the home-educated children scored within the top 16% band (of a normal distribution bell curve), whilst 77.4% of the PIPS Year 2 home-educated cohort scored similarly. Results from the psychosocial instruments confirm the home-educated children were socially adept and without behavioural problems. Overall, the home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and good social skills. 45% of these home schooled children would, in adult life , become social reclusive and/or serial killers/sex offenders.

http://www.pjrothermel.com/research/Researchpaper/BERAworkingpaper.htm
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Skidder said:
Good lord, you're a bit *****ly.

edit: Not a sweary a pointy, thorny thingy

It is obvious that hot-housing a child through reception can gain results, but to what end? Reception has a strong focus on socialisation, play and getting a grounding in literacy and numeracy. Yes, most functioning adults can read and write well enough to coerce a 5 year old into exceeding KPIs.

That in no way proves that home schooling is a superior method of teaching. My point, which you ignored, was that it was arrogant to assume a single individual or couple can provide a complete and broad education to suit the child over the longterm and to believe so is arrogant (on their part, you note I was talking about homeschooling parents, I have no idea if you are one or not and neither do I care). Ancient Greek is not really part of the curriculum during reception, or any of the other subjects I mentioned, so clearly my focus was on the longterm benefit, or in my view the likely negatives.
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It quite strongly proves that home schooling is better for primary age children (tested in year 1, 3, 5).

The reality of home schooling is that it is not one or two parents acting within a bubble. Groups of parents share often their expertise, there are teaching resources tailored to home education, and expertise in the form of tutoring is brought in as required.

Ancient Greek and some of your other subjects aren't taught in state schools anyway. Only 900 people nationally took Ancient Greek GCSE in 2011.
 
BigDannyO said:
I've recently had cause to spend quite a lot of time studying aspects of child development and the ramifications to that child if they are unable to develop certain 'skills' at an early age. If the child is unable to develop skills at a basic level, like interacting socially with other children, trusting other children, learning boundaries of ownership, then it becomes very difficult for them to develop the more finer aspects of social interactions, like behaving responsibly and developing healthy platonic and sexual relationships later in life.

I'm not convinced that a home schooled child going to a pre-arranged meeting with other like minded children a couple of times a week is going to test that childs social developments as much as a child spending eight hours a day, five days a week in the company of people other than its parents.
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You must have missed the bit in my post addressing the "social" myth of school;
cheesyboy said:
The results show that 64% of the home-educated Reception aged children scored over 75% on their PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1% of children nationally. The National Literacy Project (Years 1,3,5) assessment results reveal that 80.4% of the home-educated children scored within the top 16% band (of a normal distribution bell curve), whilst 77.4% of the PIPS Year 2 home-educated cohort scored similarly. Results from the psychosocial instruments confirm the home-educated children were socially adept and without behavioural problems. Overall, the home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and good social skills.
Click to expand...
http://www.pjrothermel.com/research/Researchpaper/BERAworkingpaper.htm
Click to expand...
 
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