 Re: Homeschool | |
I don't homeshool now, but I did for a year. Actually, what I did wasn't really homeschooling, it was public schooling at home. My husband was serving in Kuwait/Iraq and we weren't sure when he'd be home, so we worked through an online school program that year. That way I knew we could spend a lot of time together when he got home.
What I liked about it was that there was a principal and teachers to call on if we needed help, but my daughter was able to work at her own pace. She's motivated, so it worked well for us. Someone else who used the same program had a lot of trouble with it because they just didn't do much work most days, so they were always trying to catch up at the end of a quarter. For me and my daughter, we finished early.
My husband travels, and when he came home we would travel with hiim if it was relevent to what she was learning. You wouldn't believe how often we managed to go places that related to her studies. It was pretty cool and enriching.
For the most part, parents often purchase a curriculum for homeschooling, at least the ones I know of. They like it because their children can work at their own pace and they don't have to deal with bullying. With homeschooling, the school districts are required to allow the kids to still attend things like band that they can't get any other way. Homeschoolers often score very high on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT.
Some people homeschool because they don't like the values being taught. Personally, I like it when my daughter is exposed to differences from our beliefs because it gives us more opportunity to talk about why we believe what we do.
Public schools work well for average students. As one parent pointed out in another post, they are now also gearing more and more towards special needs students. If you have an above-average child, though, there isn't nearly as much, at least not in the earlier year, or at least not in our school system.
I loved the versatility. I loved the opportunity to supplement. In addition, my daughter misses some school for migraines, so I love that with online schooling she would just start later in the day or work a weekend day if she had a migraine. There was no worrying about what was missed.
Still, for her, she needs the social life that school offers. Despite the bulllying (and it's been awful!) she has made friends, and that's important to her. For her, I prefer what we are doing. For some, homeschooling is clearly the best way to go.
Any homeschoolers out there with more to say? I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of the reasons people homeschool. |