Homeschooling -- what do you think about it?

Yup, you are right. Ultimately, it depends on the people involved in homeschooling.

Exactly what I thought! Thanks for the response. :)

Actually I think it is difficult even for highly educated parents as they tend to specialize as do teachers in schools. I was trained to be a secondary school teacher and I think it is difficult to home school children in every subject they need to know. Schooling at secondary school is a highly specialised intensive system. The students spend an entire day at school doing nothing but learning and then they have lots of homework to help to enhance and practice what they learned in the classroom. By the way I said trained not am. I have worked as a teacher since I did my course because I always had the wrong subjects and you need 2 subjects that the school wants before they will employ you. To ask a parent to take on the roles of numerous teachers and to spend all day teaching then all these subjects and still manage to do all the other things they have to do is asking a lot. I would not want to do it. You say that people with little education can teach their children at home but what level are you talking about? Primary school or secondary school? I might be able to handle some primary school maths but nothing beyond that. The maths they do at school now is like another language to me. I am also hopeless at languages. My area of expertise is history so I could possibly teach that but still that does not mean that I know the history that is being examined or taught at the moment. As for your comment about teachers having all the answers, no one has all the answers. But teachers are taught to design curriculum so that they structure what they are teaching that year and then they have to fit what they are teaching in with what others are teaching. It helps to reinforce some teaching across subjects when they can. There is nothing wrong with instilling a love of learning into a child and every parent should do that but if you want your child to go to university and have a career that requires an education then you are going to have trouble trying to do it all yourself. That is why secondary schools have one teacher for every subject because it requires people who specialize in one or two areas at most. I was educated at both public and private schools. I learned well in the public school, I did not do well at the private school. In fact I had a stupid teacher at the private school who failed me so badly I wanted to quit school. My parents sent me to a tutor instead who said that I would have passed the exam. The teacher when challenged said it was to encourage me. She was a fool. I failed my year 12. Then I went to work and went to night school and I passed my year 12. I went on to uni and got an honors degree in history then I did a did a post grad year to qualify as a teacher. It is like teachers doing a 4 year degree. I did 5 years. My point is that public schools are fine as long as the child wants to learn. You will find stupid teachers anywhere. Private schools are not always the best and my parents could not have home schooled me in a million years even if they had wanted to. My father was an accountant and never bothered with me because I was a girl and my mother was too busy with everything else. I was the youngest. I doubt I would have learned enough or had the application if I had not gone to school.

It might be easier for "extremely well-educated" parents to teach information to their children than it is for those with less education. However, it does not require a PhD to instill a love for learning in your child. If you don't know the answers, you and your child can seek out the answers and you both learn. Do public school teachers have all the answers? Are all of them extremely well educated? No, of course not. Some may be more knowledgeable about one subject than another subject, but they don't have all the answers. Did you know that just because someone is a virtuoso pianist, it doesn't mean he/she will be the best piano teacher?

You are right, gabs! Schools are becoming a terrible place to be in nowadays. :) Cheers!

I'm not sure about all but in a lot of areas the 'homeschoolers' try organizing social events; football games, picnics, things like that and our friends had their kids involved in other activities like dance and hocky but none of it replaced knowing all the kids in the neighborhood and just being 'kids'. My oldest son took care of that for the neighbors - he was always hauling the 2 boys out to do stuff and it continued on into adulthood. They are still all good friends including being in each other's wedding parties and when my #2 son got married the other 'boys' drove from Michigan to South Dakota for his wedding.

Critics of homeschooling do mention the social life aspect of it. I have wondered about that too. :) Thanks for the response.

Studying at home can be fun, I agree! :)

Hey, that sounds really great. :) Cheers and happy mylotting

Well, it does save on tuition fees. But it is sad about kids having to beg or work, isn't it? We have so many such kids in India too. Cheers!

Hey wow!! You sound like you had a great time. If homeschooling is anything like that, I would love to get home schooled too. But I guess I am too old for it now. Cheers and thanks for sharing!

Hehehe you are right. There are always two sides to it. :) And I am finding myself agreeing with everybody here. :)

Yup, that's right! Public schools do make a child tougher. :)

That's a great input. Thanks!

Yup, it could happen. Unless home school students are given ample opportunities to mix with others and socially interact. :) Cheers and thanks for the input.