This is the part that really confuses me- how do you make the assumption that she is missing meals and a large portion of family life if she’s sleeping an extra 3 hours to 11 am? My son misses all the “family life” that occurs in our house between 8:30 pm and midnight because he has to be in bed for an early school day. On weekends and in the summer he sleeps until 10:30/11 and then gets to stay up until midnight with us. He’s getting the same amount of social and family interaction under both scenarios.
It’s such a stretch to me to assume every family is up at the crack of dawn and in bed with the crickets.
It's unlikely that the whole family sleeps 'til noon everyday -- jobs and life interfere -- and my point is that the girl in question needs to spend time with family, not to sequester herself in her room. Especially since the girl has been bullied, I maintain this is a reason for concern.
I'd hazard a guess that the previous poster is referring to those homeschoolers who withdraw their kids from school in order to protect them from ideas that conflict with their own. Typically, they're fundamentally religious in one way or another, and see it as a matter of either protecting their children's innocence or else inoculating them against the belief systems of the broader, secular world.
Yes, while some parents are certainly serious about homeschooling and are doing a great job, it's also true to say that some parents are pulling their kids out to "protect them" from ideas that don't match those of the family -- an idea that's bound to backfire in the long run. And still others take their kids out because they want to protect their kids from any type of failure, yet they don't do much to build their abilities either.
I am quite sure wide diversity exists among the homeschooling community.
Me, I think public schools are incredibly valuable and important and a benefit to society.
Absolutely. The majority of parents would not homeschool well. As a public school teacher, I am frequently amazed at just how uninvolved the average parent is with his or her child's education.
Homeschooled kids often find the answers themselves. There are all kinds of lessons, videos and classes that teach just about anything online. There are also groups, other homeschooling parents and children, tutors, etc.
Well, they find the answers IF they (or their parents) are aware that the questions exist. As someone else said earlier,
you don't know what you don't know. As a language teacher, I'm very aware of grammar and style in writing, and I frequently note that the pro-homeschooling contingent tends to be rather lax in this regard. If
your only teacher doesn't understand how to use paragraphs or commas, you're not likely to become aware of their importance.
I taught 9th grade for years, and I taught perhaps 35-40 students who were entering public school for the first time -- some had been in private school for elementary /middle school, others had been homeschooled. I saw a number of generalities in terms of their English-Language Arts knowledge:
- The majority of the homeschoolers came to us having read novels (but not poetry or drama) and informational texts, and they were strong in terms of recalling plot; they enjoyed making charts and artwork based upon their novel reading, and they were good at writing summaries of their reading. However, they were weak in terms of analyzing and discussing anything below the surface.
- A few of the previous homeschoolers I taught were obsessive readers, but they tended not to be wide in their scope; that is, they didn't tend to have wide experiences with a variety of literature. Rather, these obsessive readers tended to have focused heavily on one writer or one genre -- I'm thinking of one boy who could almost quote the Redwall series -- but they were not particularly well versed in analysis either. They had the love of reading but not the instruction in literature.
- The majority were poor writers; teaching writing is not easy. (Sure, Christopher Paolinis are out there, but they are few in number.)
- The students from the large Christian school nearby were extremely well-versed in the Bible but had read essentially nothing else. They were also excellent at completing grammar worksheets.
- Most of the homeschoolers and private schoolers entered public school with the firm expectation that they would be head-and-shoulders ahead of the rest of the students. The reality was that their abilities varied widely (the public schoolers were more homogeneous in their knowledge, which I suppose was to be expected). I never encountered any who shot to the top of the class, but I saw many who were strong students in one or more subjects. I also saw a number who were moved to lower, remedial classes because their basics were weak. What these kids were not: average. That is, their abilities did not tend to group towards the center of a bell curve.
So what if her parents are giving her As, maybe she deserves them! My kids got As homeschooling and they get As now that they are in a brick and mortar school.
If she's completing work that is age-appropriate, is moving through a well-rounded curriculum, and is receiving straight As,
good for her. On the other hand, we could just as easily be talking about Vanity Grading or the Magic Red Pen; that is, grades that're gifted to the student to enhance a kid's self-esteem or grades that're given because the parent just doesn't know what's age-appropriate for that subject. None of us here have any idea what type of work the student in question is actually doing.
My oldest was homeschooled all the way to 12th grade. He did some dual enrollment before graduating, and then did about 45 community college credits (including this semester), he has just been accepted into the school of his choice, along with a decent scholarship. They didn't even want to see his HS transcript and didn't ask where he went to high school. He has proven he is a good student.
Of course a university wouldn't want to see the high school transcript of a student who already has 45 community college credits. They wouldn't need an SAT /ACT score either.
My children both entered college with dual enrollment credits as well; most public school kids with upper-level academic abilities do these days. "Back in the day" country kids like me didn't have access to such things, but the internet has been a boon in terms of accessibility.