In the past couple of weeks, I have noticed a bit of a trend with regards to postings on my email lists. I belong to several lists, most being homeschool lists. I mostly lurk, often not even reading the messages. Lately, in the messages I have been reading, I’m noticing a LOT of posts saying “I just started homeschooling this year, and am apalled at how little my children has learned in their years of public schooling.” And these messages are getting responses from many other people who share their experiences, and report further disturbing experiences, like not only do their children not know much, but their children do not know how to learn. They don’t know how to question, research, or work.
Boy can I relate – that is my exact experience with Jess when I pulled her out in the 7th grade. Between homeschooling her in Kindergarten and resuming homeschooling in the 7th grade, I had lost her. She didn’t know how to learn. To her, education was something that was given to her, rather than something she worked for or sought out for herself.
A year or two ago, the trend I noticed was that a lot of people who choose homeschooling for their children had been teachers in either the public or private school system…and even from that vantagae point – within that system, they knew that they wanted different for their own children.
Amen, sista! In my (very biased and opinionated) mind, it’s not really about hs’ing being *another* sort of education, but really it’s about it being an education. I do think that select children of select personality types can take what is offered in school and turn it into a good education. But it is the *child* that does that–not the school.
G