I think I am pretty well versed with the universe of homeschooling.
It isn't so intuitive.
First of all, intuition is an important part of teaching but very little about teaching is intuitive.
Secondly, teaching is one of the most exhausting professions there is. I would not have said that three short months ago. However, my student teaching has been a major wake up call. During the first two weeks of ST, for the first time in my life, I would fall asleep in my chair come 5 PM. By comparison, when I was a road trips with friends, I was always the one who drove the night shift because they knew I would be the only one who could stay awake. During my ST, I struggled to say up past 9 PM. There is a reason why teachers burn out in the first 3-4 years of teaching. Its a tough profession with few financial rewards. And the ultimate irony and coup de gras, teachers are very disrepected in this culture. I hope Obama changes that attitude because it does need changing.
Thirdly, teaching is an emotional rollercoaster when you are dealing with teenagers who are extremely hormonal. Within an hour, they can hate and love you several times.
Not that I am suggesting that homeschooling is easy.........I suspect its not. However what makes it easier is because you are dealing with one on one whereas a regular teacher has to deal with 150 kids during the course of the day and 30 at any given moment during a period.
For kids who have an interest in learning for its own sake, homeschooling can work very well. For kids who want to be typical teenagers, it can be a disaster. For the rest, well, it depends. It depends on the kid, it depends on the parent(s), it depends on the phase of the moon and how you hold your mouth.
Exactly. Most kids at the school where I ST were more into being loved then taught. For the most part, they come from low income, broken homes. Where there are two parents, both parents usually work. I have never been in a school where so many of the kids hang out after school is over. They don't want to go home.
Ted can probably give you many cases where homeschooling was an abject failure.
Most homeschoolers I've met tend to be social misfits who struggle to fit in with the rest of the kids and who may be strong in one subject but abject messes in another, reflecting pretty much the strengths and weaknesses of their parents.
Outside of camo kids or unschoolers, I can't in my personal experience.
I don't know what are "camo kids".
Most of the homeschooled kids I have known can do things like correctly identify when the War of 1812 was fought. Or who is buried in Grant's Tomb. But they aren't so hot in flexibility. Math and inductive reasoning is a very weak point. Spit back, they do very well.
Good observation......flexibility is not a strong suit for these kids.
Too often parents give up on homeschooling because they reach a point where they are unable to motivate and control their children. So they send them to public school hoping there they will get the motivation and discipline they were unable to give them at home. |
