Comments for sursumcorda.salemsattic.com/post/50_reasons_for_homeschooling

Comment #436

2006-09-22T09:31:04Z

Time: I don't know. I wonder if my classmates felt like they didn't have enough time. At one point, my high school principal held a breakfast for the parents, and he stated that all high schoolers should have an hour or two of homework a night, and college-bound upperclassmen should have two to three hours. He then went around the room and had all the parents estimate how much homework their child got on average. My mom guessed probably 15 minutes on some days. The principal was flabbergasted, and sent the superintendent to find out if that could possibly be true. The superintendent sometimes monitored classes, so I didn't notice when he showed up in the first two of my classes. We did get homework in my English class that day, which was really odd, and the teacher apologized for giving it to us. Later I realized the superintendent also showed up at gym class, but he just stopped by briefly to look at my grades and ask the teacher if we were getting any homework (we didn't find out about that until later).
At break time, my band teacher found me and remarked about my escort for the day, and when I said I didn't know what he was talking about, realized that perhaps no one was supposed to know about that, although all the teachers had found out somehow, and so I got homework in every single class that day (except gym).
It turns out that right around the same time, another parent had called the school asking why her son (who I would guess got fairly low grades, I don't remember if he graduated or not) didn't have any homework, and the answer was, he does, but he isn't doing it.
So, the story got out that my mom had called complaining that I didn't have enough homework, and so the rest of the school had to suffer. Which the second part was true, because all the teachers assigned homework that day, and I had hours of work to do - probably the only time in my entire school career that I had that much. But, the principal was satisfied that the school really was giving out lots of homework, and in one case, I had forgotten to do the homework the night before, so the science teacher regretfully showed the superintendent that I hadn't done it that night - again, probably one of the only times that happened.
Various conversations happened because of this, and our other valedictorian (0.01 GPA apart) mentioned that she did always have hours of homework, and we had mostly the same classes, although I would guess that the classes we had that were different would likely have more homework.

Suspensions/Mandatory schooling: If the fundamental assumption is that kids belong in school, then suspensions are not going to be used as much. Generally, out-of-school suspensions were for really big things, like bomb threats (until kids figured out that was the easy way to get classes cancelled for an hour or two, and get sent home for a week, then I guess they must have changed what they did, or threatened sending them to juvenile deliquency or something), or hitting a teacher or maybe carrying drugs or weapons into the school. At some point, people weren't supposed to have guns in their trucks, even if they were going hunting, or coming straight from hunting. I guess that probably sounds crazy now, when kids probably aren't allowed to bring sharp pencils to school any more.

Comment #435

2006-09-15T03:41:20Z

It's only fair for a long post to have a long comment. :) And LifeType handled it just fine. Many thanks -- I LOVE thoughtful comments and I know it takes a lot of time to write them.

I should have made it clear that these are not necessarily the 50 reasons for homeschooling I would write now, after all our experience. They were a stream-of-consciousness list that obviously reflects more of our dissatisfaction with schools than the joys of homeschooling, which were still in the future. My list now would be yet more negative about school, but mostly in contrast to the great things about homeschooling.

And let me hasten to say, once again, that I realize other people's experiences are different, and no one educational choice is right for all people. It's just hard not to be enthusiastic because our experience with homeschooling was so positive, and because we didn't see most of the negatives about institutional school until later; we had actually thought our kids' schools were quite good at the time.

Your school system was quite unusual, I think. Actually, I'm pretty sure your parents had a LOT to do with your positive experiences, but the school seems unusually helpful, too. I've never before known of a public school that allowed parents to choose their children's teachers.

What I really don't understand is how you managed to have so much time in your life. It wasn't just Heather and Janet who were swamped; that was the most common complaint I heard from parents. I remember one youth group parents' meeting at which the leader asked us, "What are the top stresses your children face?" He clearly was expecting to hear about drugs, sex, peer pressure, social problems, etc. In fact, he was so prepared for those responses that he spoke on them, anyway, ignoring the parents' number one issue: time pressure. This discrepancy was also reflected in the fact that the youth group leaders were always planning activities to keep the kids busy, which only exacerbated the problem.

I understand your point about the problem with suspensions is that the kids see them as vacation time, but I am of the unorthodox opinion that if they don't want to be in school, they shouldn't be there.

Comment #434

2006-09-12T20:19:44Z

wow. I think that's the longest comment I have ever seen. (:

Comment #433

2006-09-12T03:21:25Z

Reading this does make me realize why you are more against the public schools than I am.

Some of this is similar to what I experienced, but not very much of it.

The ones that were true in my school:
point 7: though since I played basketball and ran track all through middle school and high school (I did decide to drop track my senior year when I was offered the lead in a drama production - I was getting bigger, taller and most importantly, slower, so running track wasn't as fun as it was in the earlier years when I could place in the top runners...)

Point 9 was true for me, but it seems like the school did the best they could - putting me up a grade for different classes here and there. I was learning from Ben's homework in kindergarten, I am not sure if it would have been possible for the school to teach me any faster. I did always make it a challenge to do the work in a shorter and shorter amount of time, so that made it more challenging, and I learned think very quickly in those early elementary school years.

I don't know if I have problems with the low expectations/point 10. Certainly, most of school was trivial, but it also didn't take very much time, as I could read, get out of classes and do other stuff (granted, the stuff I chose to spend my time on wasn't all that great, but the option was there).

It helped having Dad teach at the school prior to me going there, because then he knew the teachers, so I could go to the high school (same building) for computer classes instead of joining the regular math class, and I got to try out all sorts of experimental math books for the teachers, again - how fast can I whip through a year's curriculum. Also did tons of logic puzzles (4th grade) as a supplement or replacement to whatever everyone else was doing. Plus taking classes with the high school students offered me all sorts of opportunities to be held upside down above the trash cans until I offered to help them with their programming homework.

I don't remember too many movies (point 12) - we probably had a couple party days at Christmas (I am old enough to have Christmas parties - I think it was high school when the band and choruses started having "holiday" concerts).

Point 13: I don't think we ever played music at school, and while I walked to school, I am pretty sure that wasn't allowed on busses either.

Point 14-16: Yes. middle school was a bad influence on me. There are plenty of conversations that still come up in my memory occasionally that I wish were not there.

Point 17: I guess it depends on what changes you are trying to make. I remember Mom and Dad coming in to do different things in our classes. Dad did some programming, maybe I helped too, to make some spelling tests easier for kids to take pre-test sorts of things, in kindergarten, they didn't have computers yet, so we brought in our own. I wonder if that was the first time I got to tutor someone else - I have always liked tutoring small groups of people, more than teaching large groups.

Point 22: The school did grow tired of me by middle school or so, and Mom was tired of fighting for things too, so I did have some wasted time in math in middle school. And the curriculum changed in the middle of high school, which meant I "had" to take an extra math class, which did limit my choices a bit.

Point 26: This one I just don't understand how this could happen. We had so much time available to us. Ben and I both got a paper route (various good educational things about that) and then we all played various sports, and played in the band, sang in the chorus, played on the church handbell choirs, sang in the church choirs, church youth group, private trombone lessons, piano lessons, math team, Granite State Challenge, Senior Steering Committee, National Honor Society, tiger/cub/boy scouts, computer programming with Dad, Nintendo and computer game playing, dream about (and start implementing) underground forts - it is hard to dig into ground covered in roots) and some TV. I think school was over at 2:30ish, so we would be home shortly after that, and we were supposed to do our homework right away, and then go play, but that order didn't always happen. We sure had plenty of time to get into trouble...

Point 29: In high school I heard about the younger kids having backpacks that were so heavy it was causing back problems, and tons of homework, etc. but I assumed they didn't get any more than I did.

Point 30: I think we might have only regularly planned the meals and cooked during the summer, I can't remember. Christmas gifts were a good time (sometimes frustrating, making 14 of the same thing can get tiring) to do sewing projects when we were younger, and then wood projects with Dad when we were older. We probably worked on those for a good bit of the fall.

I also took a couple cooking classes in middle and high school, and also one or two night classes through the community education or whatever that was called. I don't know if your middle school had (what I think is regular) to have a quarter of each: woodshop, music (in addition to band), sewing, cooking, art every year. (hrm, there aren't four, so probably sewing was one year, and cooking was another year)
I think in 7th and 8th grade, we had a special "activity" period, where once (or maybe twice) a week, we would have a special class that we had to sign up for (each teacher would volunteer to teach some subject, and we had to sign up for something, but it could be whatever we wanted), and probably the classes went for 8 weeks or so. This was during school, so they must have shifted classes around to make that work. I didn't sign up for the hot-air balloon making - the students sewed together a hot-air balloon, and got their pilot's(?) licenses, and actually flew the balloon - it took longer than the 8 weeks, I think they must have stayed after school to finish it, but I hadn't realized that they were going to actually build a balloon at sign-up time, as opposed to just taking the classes to learn how to fly one. I signed up for a camping one, which we ended up not being able to camp, due to rain or something, but we set up the tents in the cafeteria at the school, and got to spend the night and cook in the cafeteria kitchen, which was pretty neat. We camped so much with our family, I am not sure if I learned anything during that class, but it was a unique opportunity, at least. Some people learned different languages. I think there was a printing press one, maybe made a couple issues of a school paper (which didn't normally exist in our middle school). Probably a yearbook class, I don't know if that is normal either - the students always designed, took the pictures, and laid out the material for the yearbook each year.

Point 32: computer education, yes, the computer classes had all but disappeared by the time I got to high school. Everyone used to leave our high school programming BASIC, but by the time I got there, they just had to be able to type, and align margins in Microsoft Word. A quote from the typing teacher, "Who needs programming? My husband works with computers every day, and he never programs, he adjust type faces in Word, and calculates formulas in Excel." I guess that proves it - programmers aren't needed. But, fortunately, I was able to sneak in and test-out of the computer literacy class by taking it a semester early with a teacher - an old friend of Dad's, who knew that I had already taken the class in 4th grade, so wasn't too worried about me passing the test.

Point 37: now I would agree about religious instruction - I did go a couple times to the "adult" sunday school classes, but never really fit in, so didn't do it that often.

Point 39: Yeah, there were some books to read - it seems like Ben had more assigned reading than I did. I also read tons, somewhere around a book every day or two, so having to read a couple extra every once in a while didn't really affect me all that much, I think.

Point 40: Yes, I do agree on this one.

Point 41: Yes, I think typical school probably does this. It helped to do my homework during class, so I was learning a lot of it on my own, and teaching other students, and so wasn't spoon-fed as much by the teachers (at least in some subjects). I wasn't ever that interested in history. Biographies are better, but I am still not that excited about them, and still have a horrendous knowlege of our country or world's history.

Point 42: There definitely were some good field trips - and those probably were the ones where we were able to go off on our own, or in small groups to explore; I am currently thinking of the science museum, and the trips to the ocean to wade around in tide pools, etc.
The whale watching trips were neat as well - seeing the immensity of the animals that close. (and of course, rolls of film of ocean water, since I neer could get the picture snapped in time)

Point 43: I think my parents did a pretty good job of this - I hope to do this more than they did.

Point 46: I wasn't that interested in languages in middle school - I did think it was kind of neat (but not enough to pursue it myself) that some of my schoolmates were learning German, Latin and French "early", the former two not taught in our high school at all.

Point 47: Yes. Mom did certainly get worn out of fighting the same battles with each child, and the "guidance" counselors being better prepared with different answers for each child too...

Point 48: Group punishment, yes, that probably happened more often than individual for me. I did get a couple detentions, some fairly deserved, some not. I think the problem with suspensions are that some kids don't want to be there, so they would be happy to leave and wander around town. It causes problems for the parents if the kids are supposed to be home, but they have to go to work, etc. Our school started doing "Saturday school", which I think worked better than the out-of-school suspensions (there were in-school suspensions, but the teachers hated that, since whoever had a free period was supposed to do their planning work while baby-sitting kids in a room somewhere). Saturday school was maybe 4 hours on a Saturday morning, and you had to bring homework (so I am told...) and basically sit and be quiet - I think you could get some studying help if you needed it. It seems like that was a decent alternative - helped you get your work done, which the same crowd that was acting up probably needed the extra time, and it certainly wasn't fun - no one wanted to be in it. I heard rumors of one teacher letting the kids play basketball, that probably made him popular with the students.

Whew. I wonder if LifeType will let me post such a long comment.

Comment #432

2006-09-11T09:46:35Z

The Indian Princess program was an absolutely wonderful idea, sponsored by the YMCA. You may have heard of the Y Indian Guides for fathers and sons; this was the equivalent for father and daughters. Unlike Girl/Boy Scouts, this was not a "drop your kid off" program -- the idea was for fathers and their children to work/play together. They had meetings, outings, and campouts, lots of fun.

I believe the YMCA still has something of the sort going, called "Adventure Guides," and it's probably just as much fun. It can't be the same, though, as the "Indian" part of the name was very important. Teaching knowledge of and respect for Native Americans was part of the program, and here at least we had a relationship with the local American Indian organization (that's what they called themselves, not "Native American"). Going to their yearly pow-wow was one of our favorite outings. But clearly the national YMCA organization bowed to "political correctness" pressure at some point.

Comment #431

2006-09-11T01:45:58Z

i don't have time right now to finish reading this post, but i'm eager to do so! but in the meantime...what is/was the Indian Princess program? :)
~liz