Hellobee Boards

Honestly I don't think so! I don't think they would listen and stay focused. But my kids are only 1 and 3 so maybe it's hard to tell since they are so young and don't listen in general.

Yes. Absolutely. Homeschooling is really so organic. You can't think of it as formal lessons like in a school room so much as learning that takes place as you live life. That's how I see it anyway! Of course my kids wouldn't want to sit and listen to me lecture about something but there are so many way to integrate studies without it seeming formal. My Mom was successful in doing this and it really set me up quite well for college.

My son just turned two in June and already knows all of his letters and the sounds they make and is beginning to understand how sounds form words. Again, he's only two. He's never been in a formal program -- this is just stuff he's picked up as we've gone about our day and played games. He knows his colors, shapes, and numbers. It amazes me how much he just picks up without having to sit through anything or go to a preschool program.

All that to say I'm quite confident we could provide a quality education at home for our kids -- at least for the early years!

i think i'd have to really reset my expectations of what "school" looked like. i feel like i excelled in a really structured environment so school was pretty easy for me. i did what i was told when it was assigned... i wouldn't want to be that for my kids and the parts of homeschooling that are appealing to me are the parts where you get to get your work done without the busy work and still open up space to learn... but i don't know how that works! ha.

To the "will they listen?" concern: In my experience, my son's willingness to listen is aided considerably by the flexibility homeschooling affords. If we find ourselves in a situation where he isn't listening, we have the time and flexibility to identify the problem, solve it, and then return to what we were doing. Sometimes the problem is with what we were working on, and in that case we make the necessary adjustments, but more often it's as simple as taking a break or a nap.

@gingerbebe: what great insight!

Well, I plan to homeschool, so I really hope our temperaments work well together. A bit hard to tell at 3 months. But I also lean strongly towards unschooling. If she goes for that, I think we'll divert (divert? I'm not even sure what I typed that autocorrect went there) well. But the sequential part of my personality should be able to provide whatever level of structure she might prefer as well.

I know that I could because I'm a teacher. For my future LOs, I don't know. I have considered home schooling, but I probably won't. There are flaws with structured school and homeschool. They all have positives and negatives. I think it really is your comfort level and temperament. For me though, I feel fine guiding learning but I don't know what my LOs will be like yet.

@mrbee: This is a loaded topic that I'm willing to answer with a bit of trepidation, but I'll do my best. Disclaimer: this is my opinion and may not be true for all schools/scenarios. This is based on my experience as a teacher in 3 different public schools and several homeschool families that I know.

I feel the flaws of structured school systems (public, private, charter, or parochial) are: lack of individualization (both on a learning style level and meeting a student's needs level), high strain on teachers leading to their focus to be on objectives other than student success, and a broken system of teacher effectiveness through standardized testing.

The long versions behind the flaws of standard education: Your child is valued by their teacher, but they are one of many. The squeaky wheels get the grease. The students who really struggle or really excel get the attention. The middle of the road average student will "do fine". It's true. We are only human after all and can only attend to so many kids and things at once. Homeschooling is great for that because nobody knows your child better than you. I may have to teach the planets, the water cycle, and the parts of speech. Your child may not be ready for that or may be way beyond that. That's what we have to teach anyway because we have to work with the standards (what the state tells us to) and the majority of the students will probably need that particular instruction. If most of my students can't write a complete sentence, the kid who is writing whole paragraphs will get bored. The system of teacher effectiveness is what I consider to be broken because it's all about standardized testing. I'm all for holding teachers accountable for what goes on in the classroom, but creating unrealistically high standards, testing students on those standards that they aren't developmentally ready to master, then punishing schools for not reaching them isn't the way to go about it. I could write a book on that, but I'll spare you.

Flaws in homeschooling include: lack of socialization, it's a hard lesson to learn as an adult that it's not all about what you want to do, and it's very dependent on the parent if it's a good experience or not.

I know that socialization can and will occur when homeschooled children go out into public for field trips and sports, but there is something to be said about being forced to spend the whole day with other people that you may not like. It prepares your child for the workforce when they will probably have a coworker that they won't like and have to deal with all day. As students, children can learn effective ways to deal with people they clash with. They can make mistakes (yelling at others, hitting, etc.) without adult consequences.

If you are homeschooling, you are likely basing at least some of your instruction on your child's interests (as you should, really). Rely on that too much though and it could be challenging for your child to transition into a work setting when their boss won't give them choices of projects to work on. Also, these are more rare situations, but I have experience with families who just aren't cut out for teaching. I have seen parents who do all of the child's work for them. I have seen parents who aren't concerned that their child isn't progressing. This is the exception rather than the rule in my experience though.

Finally, I am not an expert on everything, especially when it comes to the high school grade material. I am terrible at advanced math and I've always struggled with science. I feel as though my child would be better off with a teacher who has focused all of their energy and schooling into being a good math or science teacher than me who is barely fumbling through it. I feel as though I would be doing them a disservice if I taught them their higher level math courses.

Most of my concerns are with long term homeschooling rather than short term though. I'm sure your children would be fine in the short term no matter what you did, to be honest. Homeschooling is perfect for some families and structured school is better for others. They're your children and you know what's best for them more than anyone else. Best of luck!

Interesting responses! The idea is pretty appealing to me, at least for the elementary grades. Not sure it would actually work though - my son learns a lot from me on our walks around town, but I totally hit a wall when it comes to getting him to draw something or sit through a book. No idea why, because everyone in day care says he's a great learner and has a good attention span. So homeschooling probably wouldn't work for us even if I didn't have to work.

And then there's the social aspect of elementary school. In day care there aren't that many kids so the teachers can make sure everyone more or less behaves and isn't horribly mean to the other kids. That's not going to happen in school. I hate the idea of throwing the kids into that environment, but it's probably better to give them an introduction to it in elementary than in the older grades when kids are even meaner

@mrbee: How does he do with you when you are doing homework? That could tell you how things will go!

@Mrs. Peanut: thanks for writing all that up, I really appreciate your perspective!

I think Mr T and I would do a decent job homeschooling but thankfully it doesn't need to be in the cards for us

@mrbee: oh wow! nice!