if you don't have anything nice to say, say it on Diary Land
So, I begin:
The sad thing about the video classes is this may be the only way for some of the kids to learn. Most people I know that are home schooling (and I know a lot) are doing it for all the wrong reasons. We have neighbors who think to highly of their kids, people at church who are afraid of the outside world and my Aunt who refuses to believe her kids are (below) academic average and doesn't want them around black people.
My problem is that being a 'teacher' is a lot more than being an 'instructor.' As a special education teacher I can also honestly assert that there is a difference between the outcome you get sitting alone with one child or a small group of children and when children are in a large group. Unfortunately life isn't one on one, it's whole group - teachers (good teachers) proctor kids in the lab of life that school really is. It goes much further than pencil to paper, noses in books.
My problem with home schooling runs past academics and right smack into the other things that school teaches that home can never teach. Life is a jungle. From working with Youth Group, coaching and teaching kids freed from Home Schooling and sent to school I've noticed there is a learning curve on social skills and interaction that home schoolers are behind on. The worst is encountering the opposite sex for the first time. If it wasn't tragic it would be comical. The other problem they almost always have is, "Mom is right, the world is wrong." Most people, I'm sure you'll agree, home school for the most bizarre reasons and if we psychoanalyzed (sp) the parents and their motives we'd find something more than, "the public schools don't do enough for my children." I will assert that every home schooled person I know in real life has an insular view of life, an unwillingness to consider other people's view points (the disagree with what their mother told them) and huge gaps in their academic knowledge base. I will also accept that fact that my personal experience isn't scientific but that's something I can do because I was exposed to other children and their worlds as a child myself.
Every adult I know who is home schooling is doing it because, after close observation and analysis, they don't want to give up control of their children to anyone else their reasons are each unique and perverse. Additionally, most home school kids I know don't do a lot during their school day. I took a year off of teaching and I saw kids who were supposed to be at 'school' at the mall, the grocery, the facimile Wal Mart and any other retail or fast food venue you can think of. I do a lot of cultural things, I've never seen home school kids at a museum, gallery, monument, concert or lecture. I know there are learning activities to be done at Wal Mart, I've done them with kids. They weren't doing these.
Finally, there is a lot more to teaching than imparting academic facts. We proctor 'the lab of life' as I've mentioned before. We're there when our students are figuring out how the world works. During that time we're police officers, councilors, judges, friends, coaches, and many things to children that they need to get from other adults than mom and dad for their own mental health. I would contend that 95% of home schooling parents could never do my job, not for a day, week or year and I have the easiest teaching gig there is, hands down.
That was my point, sorry it wasn't concise. My spelling and grammar are also out of control this morning.
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