Public, private, homeschool, or no school?

[Nords]

My favorite is the Goth girl that used to wear a necklace that ostensibly held a vial of her boyfriend's blood.

Phew, that brings a whole new level of commitment to the phrase "putting out"...

 

[haha]

I know several families who home school their kids in order to protect them from the big bad world.  I find it very inconsistent that when these same kids get into "high school," their parents have no qualms whatsoever about sending them to the local Community College to take classes such as chemistry, French, and calculus.  If their primary motivation was to shield their babies, they're blowing it---there is alot more "junk" available at the college than the high schools.

I disagree with this. Both my kids were home-schooled. In fact, John Holt was a friend of mine, and I worked hard to get a reasonable home school law in this state. Many home schooled kids call it a day about age 16, and go on to college. Mine did. They are more than ready, many of them are already earning money at skilled work, and they want to get out into the world.

All the worst elements in high school drop away long before college. And community colleges are especially good IMO for younger kids, because most everyone is motivated. I went to an expensive private college, and a lot of people were there for 4 years of partying.

OTOH, when I took my son to Bellevue CC for orientation, I was very happy to see all the Asian parents with their sons and daughters. People there were looking to succeed. And the faculty seemed quite respectful of the serious purpose brought by the students.

A side note on schools- recently a flap has arisen in this state because we now have a statewide test- I think for seniors- if you don’t pass, you don’t graduate. Parents and teacher groups are bringing pressure top dumb down the test, so the uneducated students can still get out and go on to their next resting place.

Our governor, Christine Gregoire, said today (more of less) “Our students are not in school to learn to compete with the kids form Idaho, or Montana, or Oregon or California. They need to compete with students from Ireland, and India, and China.” At least I think that is what she said- I was driving, and my reception was not great.

Welcome to the real world, American students and parents.

Ha

 

[JWV]

The barb is directed at those who just can't let their kids go to school. I know parents that compulsively manage every aspect of their kid's lives    

Gee, I miss a lot while I'm at work.

So, by this statement, are you saying that this doesn't happen in public/private schools?  I have to disagree.  I know many unschoolers/homeschoolers and many public and private school families.  It would seem to me that the compulsive micromanagement can happen anywhere.  I know people who have every moment of their child's time programmed from preschool on.  Gymboree, play group, music lessons, cheer, gymnastics, soccer, karate, art, on and on and on.  We chose to homeschool, in part, to give our kids time to be kids and to get to know themselves without others telling them what to do and when to do it.  Kids are raised with decisons for  every moment of their waking hours made for them.  How can we then expect them to make intelligent choices when someone else has always chosen for them?  They need to be able to make desicions and fail or succeed, ON THEIR OWN.  I would much rather they fail at the little things in life (bad clothes choice, spending their money on things that go out of style next week or break after an hour, stupid hair, not learning algebra) than on the bigger things (drugs, career, mate).  I think kids who are tightly controlled get angry and make stupid choices, no matter if they are homeschooled or go to the best private schools.

Our experience has been that our kids, now 16 and 12 (13 next week) have needed much less direct attention from us as they have gotten older, in part I believe, because they have had a lot of access to us.  They haven't had to demand attention in a negative way.  Have "bad parenting moments" happened?  Sure, but not at the rate that I hear about from other parents at work.   Also, they are very comfortable around adults, and guess what?  They will be adults for a lot longer than they will be children.

I don't usually discuss this alot  because we read and talked and thought alot about our decision to homeschool and many people don't think much about the education of their children.  They do what is convenient, what is considered the norm, what is expected.  I think this crowd is a bit different.

My experience in public school was that I spent 12 years trying to be the person I thought "they" wanted me to be and then had to spend the next 8-12 years figuring out who I was.  I wanted to give my kids the opportunity to figure that out much earlier.

I know several families who home school their kids in order to protect them from the big bad world.  I find it very inconsistent that when these same kids get into "high school," their parents have no qualms whatsoever about sending them to the local Community College to take classes such as chemistry, French, and calculus.  If their primary motivation was to shield their babies, they're blowing it---there is alot more "junk" available at the college than the high schools.

I don't know a lot of Christian Fundie homeschoolers, and maybe that's whom you're referring to, but in our case, our impetus is to give them a firm foundation before they are placed in a situation with large numbers of people for extended periods every day who might be making bad choices.  And a lot of those bad choices are made out of anger (having no control), boredom (tedium of schoolwork), need for attention of any kind.  But remember, I'm not the official spokesperson of homeschooling.

I think the movie Office Space is a great analogy for school.

Judy
Thanks, Nords for the apology..but I've been on this board long enough not to take it personally!

 

[JWV]

. In fact, John Holt was a friend of mine, and I worked hard to get a reasonable home school law in this state.

You knew John Holt?? How, totally cool!! 8)

Judy

 

[dusk_to_dawn]

We considered private school when my son was finishing kindergarten. Problem we found was most were very religious. One particular school proudly told us that they wanted to produce god fearing young men and women. DW and I sat down and I said, 'Do we really want Mark (our son) "fearing" god? Is that good?' We researched the schools and the public schools were on par with the private. I have my issues with the public schools as well, especially in terms of excessive insistence on political correctness. In the end, we decided that raising a child was more than just the school, it was the whole environment. You know, the "it takes a village mentality". Except we believe first it takes good parenting, then good schooling, then a good village. Responsibilities for the childs outcome fall in that order. So we moved to a college town with great public schools that is also a great place to raise a family. But we still review our son's school books, reading assignments and homework to make sure he is on the right path. In the end, every parent has to make their own decisions about how to raise their kids. We believe that doing everything we can to raise a good person is one of the most important jobs we have. It even ranks above FIRE.

 

[justin]

I have my issues with the public schools as well, especially in terms of excessive insistence on political correctness... So we moved to a college town with great public schools that is also a great place to raise a family...

The fact that the school system is in a college town probably makes the k-12 schools more politically correct.

 

[dusk_to_dawn]

The fact that the school system is in a college town probably makes the k-12 schools more politically correct. 

Good point. Got to take the good with the not so good I guess. Fortunately this is historically one of the more conservative public universities. That means that when someone like VP Cheney comes here to address student and faculty, he doesn't get food thrown at him.

 

[justin]

Good point. Got to take the good with the not so good I guess. Fortunately this is historically one of the more conservative public universities. That means that when someone like VP Cheney comes here to address student and faculty, he doesn't get food thrown at him.

"conservative public university" - I thought that was an oxymoron

I spent three years living in Chapel Hill while going to Univ of NC. I think it is fair to describe it as the polar opposite of a "conservative public university" (maybe the east coast version of UC Berkeley). The public school system was extremely PC, based on what I saw from newspapers, friends that experienced it first hand and knowing a few teachers in the system.

 

[dusk_to_dawn]

"conservative public university" - I thought that was an oxymoron

I spent three years living in Chapel Hill while going to Univ of NC.  I think it is fair to describe it as the polar opposite of a "conservative public university" (maybe the east coast version of UC Berkeley).  The public school system was extremely PC, based on what I saw from newspapers, friends that experienced it first hand and knowing a few teachers in the system. 

'one of the more conservative public universities' - to me this means that it doesn't lean so far to the left that it is flatlining.