Yep. Which is a strong reason why many parents choose to homeschool.
That’s up to a parent to decide…not the government (aka, public school system).
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Yeah. That’s what I feared. That’s very dangerous, IMHO.
That’s a scary viewpoint, too.
I guess it depends on whether you believe in such a thing as “society”.
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@sanstitre_has_left_the_building Each state has different regulations, none of which have any impact on learning. Also, “appropriate” is in the eye of the beholder, and no one seems to agree (speaking from the perspective of an Air Force brat who moved many times and attended many different schools). After homeschooling for 25+ years, and having a background as a school psychologist, it’s hard to answer this question without going into way too many details. I’ve written a how-to guide to homeschooling that would help you to understand it, though. Would you like the title of it?
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I’m going to define appropriate as exposure to a wide range of ideas. There is a danger, for example, that I wouldn’t address religion as a subject at all with my own children. Or, worse, that I would only teach them my views on religion. I don’t think that’s good for anyone.
My interest is theoretical, as I don’t have children. And, as a teacher, I think I’d hate to home-educate!
And those parents aren’t homeschoolers, and aren’t homeschooling their children. They’re saying they are in order to cover up their abuse. It wouldn’t be prudent to create laws on parents who are actually homeschoolers.
Really? That’s a pretty libertarian statement!
Not unless parents lock their children in a closet and don’t allow them to interact with anyone. Homeschoolers actually have more time and opportunity to engage with people of all ages, from all walks of life, on a day-to-day basis. While public school children are locked in with 25 same-aged peers for somewhere around 180 days a year who really, really try hard to make them feel “less than” if their beliefs, opinions, and way of life don’t match everyone else’s.
I think you’d be surprised at how much you’d love to learn with your children. You’d understand that learning is a lifelong journey, not a race, and you’d feel privileged to be able to take that journey with them. It’s been an amazing, wonderful experience for me and my children. And, there are many teachers (ex-teachers mostly), who homeschool their children. And many others who wish the schools operated like homeschooling does (without the bureaucracy, paperwork, testing, etc.).
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And my book would still help you to understand homeschooling, if only theoretically. 
Congrats! And Go Blue! I had an amazing 4 years there and still return for 1 football game each season.
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I don’t doubt that it has been. And i’m not opposed to homeschooling per se. Nor do I think public schools are all terrific learning environments.
Which is why I’m now a private tutor rather than a school teacher. All the good stuff (teaching) with none of the nonsense.
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Just like public school! But when will anyone use that stuff in the real world?
How do you keep up with high school level Math and Science? For example, I took a year of Calculus in high school and another year in college, but I can’t imagine trying to teach it to my kids when they are high school age as most of my knowledge has been lost over the years. And beyond the basics, my chemistry and physics knowledge has departed from my brain. I have no plans to homeschool, but am curious how one keeps up with the more advanced courses in order to teach them at home.
Kindly give yourself a hard slap. I would do it, but I can’t reach you from here.
Not directly, but those courses (if taught right) teach analytic and critical thinking skills that can be applied in the real world.
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I will, but only because i want to, not because you told me to. I’m an engineer who minored in math just for the fun of it.
I use math literally every day! Algebra, trigonometry, calculus — the whole lot!
Yes, but what about outside of your Disney planning?
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So, the misconception with homeschooling is that you actually have to TEACH it. See, when you start homeschooling when the kids are young, you actually are teaching them how to learn on their own as much as possible. By Junior High and High School, several subjects they actually study on their own, including Math and Science. But I am there to oversee it. In a practical sense, what that means is that when they run into anything they don’t understand, or if they take a test and don’t do as well on it as we’d like, I will step in and actually go over the material with them directly. If my daughter, for example, gets an 85% on a Math test, then I’ll go over the problems she got wrong with her until she understands them. No point in moving on unless you grasp the material, etc.
So, in many ways, we are teaching them how to be self-learners rather than strictly being teachers. (Some subjects, this isn’t the case, however.)
As far as Math and Science, we go through Precalculus at home, and they they would take Calculus and beyond at the local community college (even if they are still in high school). So, my math abilities only need to be kept in my memory through that. But even then, sometimes I’ll have to look over the chapter to remind myself how to do something if I’ve forgotten. Since I went all the way through Calc 3 and Differential Equations in college, it generally isn’t a problem. But even if I had only gone through Pre-calc, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Science is rarely an issue. While I’m very scientifically minded, I don’t remember everything…at all! But that’s okay, because if they don’t understand something, we go through together and figure it out. This is rare, however. Usually if they are getting something wrong it was due to laziness…meaning, they didn’t bother doing the practice problems, etc. Which is entirely different issue!
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