Very well said, Vantage. Your point makes sense. On the other side, many teachers have had negative experiences with homeschoolers once they returned to regular education and may do the exact same thing.....bulk them together which is certainly not right.
Welcome, Teacherguest! I think you bring out some valid points. My fil was against homeschooling when we first started. He was the accountant for a Christian school, and saw the kids returning from homeschooling behind. My husband pointed out to him that the kids he saw were the ones who were "failures" at homeschooling. They gave their parents too much grief, or the parents weren't dedicated to it, or whatever. The successful ones he doesn't see. (Now that's not to say that there are those who return their children to a "regular" classroom for other reasons! Sometimes kids excel at homeschooling, but for a variety of good reasons, the parents decide against it at some point!) I am a former public school teacher; my husband currently teaches in a public high school. One reason we homeschool is because of what we see happening in the classroom. I know the majority of teaches are dedicated, hard-working folk who don't get the credit they deserve. But they are up against a wall. Parents scream about wanting their children to achieve, but won't make sure homework gets done and then fuss when their child doesn't get a good grade. Administrators are under pressure from the board to raise the number of passing, and press teachers to pass students regardless. (One told my dh that any kid who shows up to class should pass, simply for being there, regardless of how well he knows the material!) It's no-win, and there's no easy fix without a major change in the culture.
I totally agree. Makes no sense to bash something then get all upset when they bash you. That is pretty contradicting, no matter what position you are in. "Do unto others". That is why when I hear "blanket-statement bashing", I usually say something.
I'm related to a teacher- my mom lol. We are no longer homeschooling since we moved and live in an AWSOME school district. But while living in VA, she wasn't really supportive of it and always had things to say like "I always know the homeschooled ones when they come in, they want to be the center of attention and aren't used to having to share my attention with 20 other students." I'll have to say while dd LOVED going back to school the last month we were here. Her teacher said that her coming in at that time of year was not condusive to the classroom and it was very disruptive to the classroom routine that had been developed over the year. Dd had a very hard time with just what my mom said- not being the center of attention. In the end though, it was for the best and she will be going this fall and is really excited. We homeschooled in VA because of the lack of an education in the public school system- they are a good 6 months behind the schools in this district. And there was nothing in place for kids who were advanced or gifted till 3rd grade. I had no problem telling the school the reason for pulling her was because of a lack of challenge in the classroom when the teacher and I had met several times to talk about how we could challenge dd more in the classroom because she was bored. Nothing was every done and I let it be known that I wasn't happy about it. FUnny thing, by end of the school year 2 other kids had been pulled - one from dd's class and one from the other K class. I find that very interesting. One ended up homeschooling and the other ended up going to private school.
Most of the teachers I have spoken to believe homeschooling works. They are not only public school teachers but homeschool parents themselves or they have stopped working to homeschool their children. My daughter's fifth grade teacher homeschooled his daughter. He didn't want his daughter in the district he taught in because he could see where the district was failing. On the other hand, I have run into teachers, or public school employees, who were against homeschooling and were more than happy to share their feelings.
My DSD does have an issue with always wanting to be the center of attention. It comes from being the only grandkid and hanging around her family where she IS the center of attention and not friends her age, who don't put up with that. In PS when she didn't understand something she would goof off get in trouble. As a result she wasn't really learning AND getting other kids in trouble. She needs one-on-one guidance to keep her focused. We have her signed up for a lot of activities including gymnastics, swimming and karate. What else can we do to help her learn that while is is unique and special, she is not more important than anyone else?
I taught for 4 years and subbed for 8 years. I agree that what I learned in college was for a group of kids, classroom situations, group activities, controlling the classroom, teaching each subject to kids of different levels. I heard nothing about homeschooling at all in college, and never thought of it until my oldest had problems in 1st grade--he wasn't being challenged and was bored literally to tears, and frustrated that he was being given work way below what he was capable of! That said, I LOVED the teacher, she was great if you were middle of the road, but if your were advanced or slow, she wasn't sure how to deal with it, so didn't! After we started homeschooling, there were remarks made within my hearing to make SURE I heard! It was actually funny....One of the remarks made by the superintendent (this was a small private Christian school where my ds went and I still helped out and subbed there for years afterwards) was this, "If these people who are HOMESCHOOLING would put their children back in the Church school and support it AS THEY SHOULD, we would be in much better financial shape!" or "It'd be so much better if these homeschoolers would just put their kids back in school already!" She honestly felt we were "playing school" and needed to hurry up and get it overwith and get our kids back into their school! So, while she was in office, I dealt with those comments a lot. I wanted to discuss with her what we were doing, and how we could work together, but she only wanted to talk "when" we decided to put our kids back in school. However, the lady that was my son's teacher was VERY supportive of us homeschooling. She felt he would excel with the one-on-one and with us able to work on his level! I appreciated that support. I asked her questions off and on, and she helped me. She also invited us to different things the school was doing. When I subbed there for another class, she would offer to take my kids to her classroom! As a teacher, I was frustrated with not being able to work one-on-one with each student! Some would have benefitted immensely from that. I talked to their parents about setting up a little program for their child, but it required the parents participation, and most of them would not do it! Being a teacher in a classroom can be very rewarding! But it can also be a huge challenge, especially when those in charge have you teach to the test so they can record higher grades for their school. It's also hard because you cannot discipline the students anymore, and they know it! The parents are too busy to follow through with discipline, and often don't support the teacher anymore, as they used to in days gone by! So really, comparing the two is not fair. They're totally different. Saying I can't teach my child is not right. It's my child, I love that child more than anyone, and know what's best, and have enough knowledge to do what I can and seek help for what I can't. Saying all teachers are bad is not right either. That's so not true, and I think most of us know that. There are results of sending my child to school that I don't like: daily peer pressure without first being grounded in our own belief system, more access to negative things (I won't expound on that), etc., etc. There are many reasons to homeschool if it works for you and you are serious about it. But saying everyone should homeschool isn't right either, because they wouldn't be serious about it, and wouldn't do their kids a service at all! but saying that all homeschoolers will not be socialized or know anything because their parents don't have teaching degrees, or because they've seen homeschool failures come back to school in bad shape---well, that's wrong as well. What it boils down to is choice. I am so very thankful there are choices and that people can choose what they feel works best for their family!
This is a very interesting discussion. Honestly I have a lot of respect for MOST teachers. Most teachers really are trying to do the best job they can with 20-30 kids in a class, no funding for supplies, materials and books that are sometimes many years old and falling apart, and little to no support from the parents. I don't believe that the teachers are the problems with our public schools....I firmly believe (and yes I know this is a very unpopular opinion) that in MOST cases the parents and lawmakers are the ones to blame for the problems in schools today. Parents need to be more involved in their child's education and not just see it as a glorified day care! Parents need to be taking an active role in looking at their children's work each day, and helping the child with areas of difficulty. If parents would do this it would go a long way toward improving schools, unfortunately anymore parents just can't wait for their children to start school so they can get away from them for 8 hours. THe other part of the problem is lawmakers assuming that all children are created equal and therefore should all be able to do the same things...this is just not the case as we all know. I think that teachers take offense to homeschooling because they feel like the parents are blaming them for the problems of public schools instead of placing the blame where it belongs with the uninvolved parents, and the ill-informed lawmakers. Teachers are over worked, under paid, and in many cases expected to finance their classrooms themselves, which explains why classrooms are no longer fun, educational places. A teacher simply can not teach a class of 26 with only 12 pairs of scissors, and 3 boxes of crayons. It can't be done! So while I understand the teacher's frustration when we pull our children out to homeschool, I simply can not and will not at this time send my child to a school so he can get lost in the system. I do try to make this clear when someone asks me why I chose to keep my son from school, We have several teachers at our church and they all understand why I do what I do and they support me in it...Our pastor's wife even gives me tips now and then and she'll look over the boys work once in a while to give me pointers on how to fix little "problems". So I do understand why teachers get so upset because so many homeschoolers blame the teachers but really they have no more control over their classroom than I do! It's sad really.
I always just mention that no one can ever love my son as much as I do. :love: No one is willing to make sure that he gets what he needs like I am. I taught him to eat, to potty, to get along with others. I am his God-given teacher. I don't think my son thinks he's the center of attention, but he would be very discouraged in a classroom situation. He has LOTS of questions, and I definitely believe in answering them. How many questions (learning questions) does each kid in a classroom get to ask each day? How many actually get answered? This isn't because teachers are bad. It's just the simple logistics of being in a classroom situation vs. being in a 1-on-1 situation. I think we're too hard on teachers. (I was one.) Give them the impossible task and then bash them because they can't perform it? Not fair. It's not the state's job to educate any child. It's the parents' job. Always. If a parent chooses to delegate that job and send a child to school, it's still the responsibility of the parent to make sure the child is learning. If parents would step up to the plate, maybe teachers could do a better job. Sorry about the RANT.
I agree with this! There are many children in the system that are very inquisitive and have a thirst for knowledge. But as you said, how many questions actually get answered. This isn't necessarily a "homeschooler" problem or an "only child problem". I see it on both sides of the fence. It isn't even a teacher problem. Personally I think it is a system problem. It has become "wrong", for a lack of better words, for a child to ask too many questions in school. If the child is homeschooled then placed in the public school, the child's questions are blamed on being homeschooled. Granted, there is a big difference in the learning environment of the public school and a homeschool setting and it does take time for the child to adjust. I believe children in the system would ask more questions if they had the time and the okay to do so. But I also understand that in a public school setting, the test needs to be covered more than the questions from 25 students or more. My nephew is one of the students who is corrected for asking too many questions in class and he has never been homeschooled.
You're peeking in the staff room here. You're seeing rants and posts about letting off steam that most of us save specifically for this board and DON'T carry out with us when we're in the general population. It's the stuff that goes on in teacher staff rooms, in employee lounges, anywhere where a group of people with a common complaint gather. My sister works at a daycare. The same kind of talk goes on about 'idiot' parents when she gets together with a few co-workers. I don't take it too seriously because I know she actually likes most of the parents she's in contact with and the generalizations are just a method of dealing with frustration. Most of our lives are lived outside this board where we interact with teachers who are friends and family and for whom we have a lot of respect and admiration. The better judgement of what we think about teachers lies out there, rather than in here where we use shorthand and stereotypes to purge frustration. We understand that a lot of the talk that goes on here is not appropriate outside this group. The fault of the teacher friends of the OP is that they didn't have the grace to realize the same thing.
I suspect there's selection bias there. The homeschoolers who send their kids back to school are often the parents for whom homeschooling didn't work. The teachers in question only see those and not the ones for whom it's successful, the ones who never go back to school. Of course, the same is true for us often. Parents who pulled their kids from school to homeschool often saw the worst of schools and teaching.
I haven't had any bad experiences with anyone about homeschooling. I'm sure I will eventually! I can see how a teacher could feel offended if it felt like the only reason someone was homeschooling was because teachers are bad. It would be interesting if they could understand all the reasons we homeschool. And actually none of my reasons have to do with teachers. I'm sure my kids could get a good education from a public school teacher. I'm not worried about what my kids would learn in the schoolroom, I'm worried about what they would learn on the playground. And also I want my kids to go at their own pace, whether fast or slow. I also think it's best to never generalize about a whole group at once. Many of us have had bad experience with teachers but I'm positive that none of us hate all ps teachers! Amy
dawninns, you were just quoted four times in a row!!!! You go girl!!!!! LOL Seriousy, you pointed out some important truths.
LOL It's stuff that I've been turning over in my mind for awhile, partly because I've got so many teacher friends that are supportive of homeschooling and yet I do the generalizing rant thing. Sort of wanted to know what that was all about myself.
Okay....I confess to not having read all of this! I would say 90% of my friends who homeschool are former teachers. They all agree that teaching in a school is so different than homeschooling. I think that in general - neither side understands the other in terms of what they experience, how, etc. I don't think I ever said I can do a better job than a credited teacher - I can do a better job than the public school system though. I need to say, for the record, I do not think that it's TEACHERS that are the problem with the public school system!!!!! The fact that their hands are tied, and are only allowed to teach certain things - even if they might disagree - only allowed to get so involved in kids lives etc. I mean just 20 or so years ago when I was in school, I had a horrible home life, if it weren't for a couple of my teachers, I don't know that I would have made it. They were there for me, listened to me. There was nothing improprietus about their relationship to me - they were both women. As a matter of fact, I was the only student invited to one of the teachers' weddings when she got married and I rode there with the other. I think we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't admit that there can be flaws in the Homeschooling community as well - and I'm not talking socialization issues either! I know some lazy homeschoolers....which amazes me in PA they get away with it b/c we're so regulated. Anyway....my .02 for what it's worth! LOL
