<p>Okay so I'm not homeschooled but my cousins are. I think that not being connected to the real world has really hurt their college success chances. They've had a strict Bible upbringing and they aren't even allowed to watch movies. I've seen the way the older ones react in the real world and it's not good. Someone convince me that Homeschooling doesn't destroy young people's sense of reality. Please.</p>
<p>I kind of think this too. I know I'm wrong, but everyone I know who's been homeschooled either hates or regrets it. Not academically of course, but just because you can't be homeschooled through college can you? yeah. done. :p</p>
<p>My cousins went to public school. They both work at Pizza Hut now.</p>
<p>There are so many kinds of homeschooling that there is no way you can generalize about what it is like or how the kids turn out. A very few homeschoolers are raised the way you mention, Jus, protected from the "outside world." Most homeschoolers are more connected to the real world than most public schooled kids, unless you think the real world is 7 classes a day, segregated with kids of your own age and ability, with a teacher telling you exactly what to do. Many homeschoolers take outside classes, either through homeschool groups or at community college (or even public high school). Most are involved in community groups--Scouts, 4H, sports, volunteer activities, internships, etc. Many colleges are actively recruiting homeschoolers, because they find homeschoolers often adjust more easily to college, being more used to working on their own without a teacher always there to help.</p>
<p>I homeschooled both of my sons up to high school and halftime through high school. (Both decided to attend public high school part-time for classes that were hard to do at home, such as lab science and band. They later took some community college classes, as well.) My older son just graduated from Stanford. My younger is a freshman music major at Indiana University. Both are quite at home in the real world and doing fine. And my younger son has said he hopes his kids (someday) can be homeschooled. So he apparently does not regret it.</p>
<p>I've had AMAZING homeschooling experiences. I want to homeschool my own children someday. My only regret is that I didn't get to homeschool for the majority of my life.</p>
<p>Ditto to gavroche! I do not regret it at all!</p>
<p>I do know 3-5 out of several hundred homeschool familes who teach that way, but the majority do not. We did have less TV growing up, but once we hit teenage stage mom and dad figured we were old enough to have descretion and removed the restrictions. Not to indicate that we spend alot of time with TV now though, the time without tv taught the value of the oudoors. </p>
<p>When only 1 half hour program was allowed on schooldays, we did alot more outdoors. I treasure that. It seems that with a bit more allowed, so to speak, at home now, my younger siblings don't develop their imaginations as much as we did...We (me and the 3 sibs closest to my age) did all sorts of wacky stuff, built lots of things, and made all kinds of games. As such, I know how to amuse myself and am never bored. </p>
<p>It does depend a bit on the parents as to how much "reality" the kid gets (my parents have always placed a high priority on being prepared for "normal" life so to speak, we utilize many EC activities) but the majority of kids, from what I have seen, get quite a bit. And the percentage who don't, equates to most school systems. If you send your kid to school all day, and lock them down at home, you have the same thing. </p>
<p>In the end, I think there are much more physcologically damaging effects you could encounter at school than at home as far as your everyday atmosphere. Those kids will enventually adjust, some teens I know, from public school, who have been bullied from 3rd grade through highschool, have inborn depressions of horrendous feelings of negativity about themselves. They have years of struggles ahead of them. I am not saying that all public school will do that, but you have pros and cons in both, and for homeschool the majority, I believe, do not adopt an alter-reality.</p>
<p>I was homeschooled for several years and enjoyed it much</p>
<p>I think there is probably a difference between "normal" homeschooling and "religious indoctrination" homeschooling. Pardon my generalizations. I knew some parents who pulled their kids out of schools so they could receive the proper "religious" training. Those kids suffered a little. But then on the otherhand I know kids who were homeschooled their whole lives and loved it- ended up perfectly fine. One of them graduated from Brown a couple years ago. It all depends. </p>
<p>There are several types of schools that are detached from reality. My cousins go to a Waldorf school. They don't learn to read until about 4th grade and parents are encouraged to not allow news or anything, to shield the children from the horrors of the real world. Also they have very small classes with the same kids every year and the teacher goes the entire K-12 with them. I think thats a little crazy.</p>
<p>Our kids received "religious indoctrination" homeschooling and they are doing fine. We didn't think of it that way, of course. We just wanted to pass on our faith to our children without having to "unteach" the worldview that was presented in the public school.</p>
<p>Our oldest is a live-in nanny of 6 children. She spent several months teaching English as a Second Language in S. Korea and is now a live-in nanny of 6 children. She is intelligent and fun to be with. We see her 2-3 times a week and enjoy her company very much.</p>
<p>Our next child is a freshman at a state university. He just finished a successful 1st semester and plans to be an officer in the U.S. Air Force after graduation. </p>
<p>Our "baby" is 16. He is an aspiring filmmaker and just qualified for the state YMCA Youth & Government judicial competition.</p>
<p>Our children have all grown in their faith in a way that would have been difficult if they had been in public school. They aren't weirdos. They are delightful, intelligent people who know what they believe and why.</p>
<p>I agree with that. But there are some families who take the religious schooling to an extreme. I doubt you are one of them. But I used to live in the bible belt and saw it all the time. 8 year old kids learning about why all the homosexuals should die, why its okay to bomb abortion clinics, etc.</p>
<p>i know two middle school girls. one of them started homeschooling in 7th grade, now in 8th grade. she's really smart, too. the other's still at school. the first girl's lookign forward to going to a private school in east coast, and the second one's average C and B. the second one's mom totally babys her and she wasn't even allowed to watch harry potter because it's 'violent'</p>
<p>you decide. :)</p>
<p>Homeschooling and sheltered unbringing are two different things. Don't generalize about hsing when it is the blindered approach to the world you have a problem with. That can come with attending a certain kind of parochial school, as well as a public school in the Bible belt or one that will allow parents to object to particular materials. Heck, we don't live in the Bible belt, my son went to public school through 8th and then to a private school in high school (where he took AP biology) and my daughter was in public school up through 7th grade (when I started homeschooling her) -- and neither one got a SINGLE WORD about evolution in any class. The teachers always "ran out of time and couldn't get to that chapter." Yeah, right. </p>
<p>Further, the high school texts are censored from both the left and the right in this country. The history texts seem to be uniformly bad. By homeschooling, I was able to skip all that and use decent college texts. I was also able to assign works that NO WAY would an institutional high school assign, like the Decameron.</p>
<p>I've never seen any proof that there are more fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers than there are in the population as a whole, despite the usual stereotypes. The best indication I ever saw was a poll as to the reasons people homeschooled. You could pick all that applied. Only 45% listed religious reasons, or essentially the same proportion as there are young earth creationists in the US. (But I've also talked to homeschooling families that are Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, pagan, and atheist, so the religious reasons category could include some of them).</p>
<p>Yes, there are areas where nearly all homeschoolers are fundamentalist Christians. But these are the areas where most of the population is as well.</p>
<p>My daughter is at Brown. I don't think she would have gotten in if it weren't for homeschooling. So again, don't criticize homeschooling when this isn't your real concern.</p>
<p>OK, my rant is over.</p>
<p>DianeR, that wasn't a rant. It was a very informative post with some excellent points. Thanks!</p>
<p>Amazingly the Admissions office of Princeton University were able to find six members of the Class of 2009 who did not display a
[quote]
destroyed sense of reality
[/quote]
and thankfully one of them happens to be my son:)</p>
<p>Answering these types of posts hopefully will enlighten some whose view of home-schooling has been formed while observing only a handful of students.
Of course not all homeschooled kids will go to Ivy League schools but on the other hand not all of them end up with social problems.</p>
<p>I am noticing that the homeschool forum's got the yellow light on everytime I'm here. Right on!</p>
<p>Wow, six in the freshman class at Princeton. All Brown could tell someone who called and asked about their 2009 class is "at least one" homeschooled. Naturally, I chose to think it is my dd this person is remembering.</p>
<p>BTW I'm a fairly inexperienced poster on CC. How does one get the quotes set off in boxes?</p>
<p>you put what you want to write in between [ quote ] and [ / quote ] and remove all of the spaces.</p>
<p>I got those numbers by actually scanning through the printed copy of Princeton's 2009 facebook as it lists the high schools attended.
I might be off by one student, but there were five minimum.</p>
<p>My S was also one of three who were admitted by Columbia.
He visited their pre-frosh days and while registering they asked what HS he went to. When he said that he was homeschooled the person said "you're one of the three".
She even remembered what he wrote about on his essay.</p>
<p>As for Brown I am certain they admitted more than one but possibly some did not matriculate. Joyce Reed a former Brown admissions associate was a homeschooling mom and from what I have heard made Brown more homeschool friendly.</p>
<p>I wish people would stop acting as though all homeschoolers receive the same cookie-cutter education when we have the freedom to learn in an endless variety of ways. It's just an unfathomably limited and stifling perception to have.</p>
<p>I am sooo grateful that I have had the opportunity to homeschool, and I am far more worldly and have been exposed to sooo many more things than I would have been had I chosen to pursue a traditional education.</p>