Comments on: 5 Stupid Reasons Not To Home School (and Do Public School Instead)

By: Rey

Rey — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:16:00 +0000

Yeah, someone else gave me a good contextually dependent reason for 3 combined with 1. They’re missionaries in Belgium and they’re trying to incorporate the kids into the culture. If they keep them at home they’re not getting the kids to become part of the culture there by keeping them within their own American Culture. It winds up being literally true that they can’t handle homeschooling and they can only get them to socialize within that culture by sending them to public school.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:40:00 +0000

#3 is contextually-dependent. If you’ve got a kid who needs full-time focus from a single person all day to get any education done and for safety reasons, then it’s physically impossible to homeschool if you’ve got other kids, especially if one of the others is also special-needs. We simply couldn’t homeschool unless the government paid us enough money to live on, and we’d need to get the local school system to supply the special education services anyway. It’s hard enough to get one kid to do homework who not just won’t but can’t do it unless you stand over him helping him to focus while the other parent tries to keep the other kids occupied given that one wants to distract the one doing the homework, one is a baby with constant need for supervision, and the third needs constant watch for safety reasons. If the other kids had to be educated too at the same time, it would be impossible without another adult or two, and there wouldn’t be time for earning any income. So it’s literally true that we couldn’t handle homeschooling.

By: Rey

Rey — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:44:37 +0000

I know what you mean anna. I personally don’t know any people that have become “socialized” by being placed in a social environment.

By: anna

anna — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:17:41 +0000

Hi, great series on homeschooling, i’ve been enjoying it. About the socialization thing, that is often the biggest argument for public school that I have heard. however, just going from my own experience, i went to about 46 years of public school and i was not “socialized”, if anything public school just made me really misanthropic. and i know i am not the only one either.

By: Rey

Rey — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:25:45 +0000

Daniel, that’s pretty funny because I can easily imagine the same thing happening in the circles I’m part of!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:20:27 +0000

Very good prelude.

I once heard the “salt and light” argument from a pastor (no less!) who used said argument as one of the justifications for rejecting homeschooling. I asked him how many of his children were baptized, and none were. When I asked why, he replied that baptism ought to follow a credible profession of faith. I put the inconsistencies of those two ideas before him, the first that he didn’t want to baptize his kids until he was certain they were actually Christians, and the second that he justified sending them to public school to share the gospel, but he didn’t see the inconsistency of such a thing.

Good posts.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:41:11 +0000

Great thoughts man.

By: Blaine

Blaine — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:04:15 +0000

Excellent! We have homeschooled our five boys, and it’s not a choice for the faint of heart, to be sure. It takes a serious level of commitment to get it done properly, but the rewards are outta sight.

We are convinced that we know our kids and their learning styles better than anyone ever could or ever will. Also, because we’ve had them at home, we have relationship ties with our kids that I think a lot of folks miss out on.

I always love the “socialization” argument. Like you, my kids are involved in many activities with their peers. Another aspect I see to this topic is, why would I think that my 9 year old sitting in a class with 20 other 9 year olds is helpful to his growing in maturity? All of our kids are very comfortable around adults: they are polite and even conversant.

I have observed the other end of the spectrum, where a family homeschools for one reason only: to keep their kids out of public school, because public school is “evil.” This has been a disaster for them, because the parents had no commitment to really teach their children anything. These same kids are now IN public school, learning how to read and trying to catch up.

Again, homeschooling is not for the faint of heart, but it is sooooo worth it. We wouldn’t trade our experience for anything.

By: David Kjos

David Kjos — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:06:23 +0000

My thoughts exactly.