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Originally Posted by Phunkie
Nice list. But what's it supposed to tell us? I can also produce thousands of names of succesfull/wise/famous/etc. people that have gone to public schools. And many of those names on your list are pretty old (e.g. Mozart) and the education system and public schools have changed since. Besides, Mozart wasn't actually a social wonder according to history books. Should we say that homeschooled kids do after all lack the proper social skills? Your list proves nothing. Talented and succesfull people come from public schools as well as from homeschool environments.
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As I said, public school in America has only been around for the past 100 years or so. In the end, I think my list would be much larger than yours simply because I've got a longer time-span to draw from. My point with the list is to show that these people who have really built our society certainly didn't suffer intellectually, educationally, or socially from being homeschooled.
Quality of education.
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And so what if homeschooling used to be the norm. The society has changed a little bit from the time of Aristotle, so I would leave him alone.
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Again, I'm illustrating that homeschooling is not a new idea. Rather than answer attacks from the teachers' unions, school administrators, and every other vested bureaucrat in this leviathon of a government funded waste, the public school system should have to be answering questions about why Johnny can't read and why Billy finds it necessary to gun down his entire school. Certainly these point to problems in education and socialization?
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Ok, it may be that in the US if you want to get a proper (and safe) education for your kids you have to teach them yourself. But this does paint a pretty gloom picture of the American society. The lack of proper education would also explain why so many voted for Bush.....
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Couldn't agree more.
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The pressure can be pretty intense, that I'll admit. But I believe that if you have raised your child properly, he will have nice values and will be smart enough to choose his friends carefully. The basic values are, after all, quite hard to change. This is of course a generalisation, but still more or less true imo.
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To be sure, most do. Still, I'm betting that it's harder to do (haven't gotten to that point with my kids yet). Children here enter school at about 5 or 6 years old, so you get 5 years with them to teach them how to make decisions. Then you're sharing their attention with their teachers and other students for the next 13 years. Before they get a chance to be comfortable making their own decisions and confident in who they are they are sent off to "group-think".
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And this does not apply to children going to public schools? Sounds like the myths travel both ways...
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No, it doesn't apply to public schooled children. They are segregated into their own age group from the get go. The majority of their waking hours are spent with, and trying to fit in with, children their own age. At work, do you work with only people your own age? Are your friends all the same age? Why would you expect children who have been cooped up with kids the same age to be more socially adept than children who have interacted with ALL age groups?
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This can all be achieved also without homeschooling. The above described situation should exist in every home. And what has a sense of being needed has to do with what school the kid goes to? Do homeschool homes have also more love in them?
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Of course it can, and there isn't necessarily any more love in a homeschool home than a public school home. But we were talking about whether a homeschooled child gets the proper socialization. My point was to show that they do and how they do. Adult interaction can and does occur in a public school child's life. How often, and what quality is really the question.
Consider this, I can't recall the last time a homeschool child murdered his entire family. And if he did, I'd question the homeschool environment (if his parents weren't astute enough to see that coming then they probably weren't doing a very good job teaching). But not a day goes by where a public school child doesn't beat-up another public school kid. Not a week goes by where a public school kid doesn't manage to get a gun or a knife into school intending to use it. Not a year goes by where a public school kid isn't murdered by another public school kid, sometimes these attacks are mass murders. You see, in a public school system, you don't have to worry whether
your child is getting enough love at home, or whether
your child is properly socialized - you have to worry that every other parent in that district is doing their job. And how realistic is it that they ALL are?
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Ok, there are a few studies. So let's say the results of those studies are accurate (that homeschooled kids are more succesfull than publicly schooled kids). Does the studies take into account the difference in the amount of pupils in public/homeschools?
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How do you mean? Every one of these studies estimate between 800,000 and 1.2 million homeschooled children or about 1% of the school age population. Why would that matter?
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And do they exclude the possibility that there may be many other variables affecting these kids.
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There are two different kinds of studies. The questionnaires did gather demographic data from the respondents. Most were white and conservative (the Bible thumpers were the first to start homeschooling). The average income was nearly equal to the public school average.
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Maybe the kid from a homeschool environment would've done exactly as well in life had he gone to a public school?
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Maybe. Certainly we will never know. But again, I'm in a position of defending whether or not children in a homeschooled environment have the same educational and social prospects that a public school child does. Though my bias comes out in my replies, I'm not here to say that homeschool is better than public school.
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Shouldn't children be able to create their own dress code? Do you also determine the type of music they are allowed to listen to?
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I think they should pick their own clothes. No, I don't determine the type of music they play, the video games they play, or the movies they watch (except graphic sex, not ready for that conversation yet). The only condition is that they watch the movies, listen to the music, and play the games with me.
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And whether you want to decide about their clothing or not, they still live in the society with MTV and all the trends. They will see them in the streets, in tv etc. and make opinions based on this.
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Sure, but by the time it's important to them they'll be comfortable making their own decisions about it (and they'll be paying for it).
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Brian D. Ray, the author of the book is the President of NHERI (National Home Education Reseearch Institute), so I wouldn't call this study very objective. That's a bit like me doing a research on my amazingly good looks. You do know that studies can be manipulated in many ways to show the desired results?
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Well, there's nothing I can say to counter that. You can accept the findings or not.
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I didn't say homeschooling couldn't work for anyone. Did I? Well, didn't mean to. But you make it sound that homeschooled kids are absolutely smarter
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They score better on standardized tests than public school children.
Well, I never said that (I think).
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have better social skills
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They score better on accepted socialization tests than public school children.
You asserted that they didn't have the same socialization opportunities that public school children have. I countered with all of the options that they have.
Don't think I said that. Grisu did, and I would tend to believe his first hand experience.
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It may work for some but I don't believe that it's a miracle factory from which every kid comes out as a potential nobel prize winner.
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And I didn't say this. In fact, I said just the opposite.
I started the whole thing with carefully hedged pros and cons. You chose to debate those opinions.
Homeschooled kids have performed better at standardized tests and just as well, if not better, on social skills tests. Whatever arguments you want to make about bias in the tests can also be made from the other side.