Would your child choose to be home-educated?

[emkana]

I read an article about home ed today and I find the idea in many ways very appealing. Dd1 started school in September and I think she would be horrified if I suggested to her to take her out of school. She is totally in love with her teacher and she likes being with her friends all day.

But if things change and she becomes unhappy I would take her out, I think.

Socialisation doesn't always come into it -last year my daughter had no social peers at her very small primary school. I taught mine at home (necessary due to travel) for a year -standard much higher than at school. It has really made me see the limitations of our village school. You'd be amazed how many teachers/ex-teachers do HE. I teach myself and am very unhappy with the lack of general ability in so many primary teachers.

Oooh - I'll have to come back to this thread tomorrow when I'm not so sleepy!!!

I was wondering if someone would start a home schooling thread!

Later

bsg - lots of home schooled kids socialise with other home schooled kids - at least they do in NZ. They do swimming, or art or other stuff together as a group.

I teach a home schooled kid and he is lovely. His sisters go to school and they are lovely too.

I consider myself qualified to teach ds - I have a masters degree and years of experience of teaching children. I teach him stuff every day, and he's only 2.

However I probably won't want to home school him - but please don't ever suggest that I couldn't if I wanted to.

I had two friends that home schooled their children. One did it as she couldn't get a place in the interbational school here and didn't want her child going into a foreign speaking school as they were due to leave the country within 18 months. She struggled to keep the childs attention and she had a younger dd who would interupt obviously and want to play with her and her dd. The other friend said they she set aside two hours per day for teaching in the morning 4 days a week. I would however see her on many occasion out with her dd's in the morning. (she wasn't very committed).
I would never say that children shouldn't be home educated but I don't agree with it and I think I am entitled to my opinion. I wouldn't expect people to question why I send mine to school but would answer any questions they had and accept their view and opinions on the subject.
How long do people home educated their children for ?
Do you teach them all subjects?
As they get older do you teach them other languages?
What form of PE do you do with them?
How are they tested?
Where do they sit their exams when they are older?
Does the goverment aknowledge these results?
Have any children you know that are home educated successfully entered into college or university?

I am truly interested to know the answers to these questions and I am not being judgemental when I ask them.

Teaching doesn't just have to done sitting at a desk though - when you say you saw your friend out and about, what was she doing? Trips to shops can teach about money/maths, food/nutrition/geography, trips to parks can be completely social.

I would consider home ed as a temp measure in the circumstances of your friend who couldn't get her child into the school she wanted but ultimately I would prefer DD to be at school for the majority of her education. But much as she'd like to try home ed, she loves school, her teachers, and thrives on it.

The friend that couln't get her daughter into the school here has since moved back to Australia and her dd is now in school. The other one I am afraid wasn't doing anything constructive unfortunately.

Think my son would prefer HE. He likes to just concentrate on one thing for ages, and would not like the way everything is broken up at school. Don't see why socialisation is a problem.

We will probably send them to kindergarten til they are 6 1/2 then take them out. Then play it by ear. Round here, the Steiner kindergarten is a feeder school for home-educators.

We're also (now) members of Education Otherwise and I also recomend them for info. There's a good Yahoo list.

As it happens we have 2 masters degrees, a PHd and 2 first class honours degrees between us. All 4 grandparents are teachers. I don't think any of this has helped at all, the skills we have used to help the kids learn have been life skills.

I remember your thread Spidermama. Has it all worked out?

"I would never say that children shouldn't be home educated but I don't agree with it and I think I am entitled to my opinion"

Your 10.03 post:

"I totally disagree with with Home Ed. All children should go to school."

[confused emoticon needed at this point)

I disagree with Home Ed and do personally believe that all children should go to school. If a personal friend asked me my opinion this is what it would be, however I would state that it is my opinion and I would never tell her that she shouldn't Home Ed even though I disagree. I hope you no longer need the [confused emoticon]

bsg why do you think every child should go to school?

"There are not two sides to the argument. Please explain the advantages of home schooling."

ROFL why would I bother to do that when you have already made up your mind? I'll save my time for people who are genuinely open to and interested in other people's views.

Going to school is part of life. It is where children get to interact with other children their own age. They learn as part of a group (they will do group projects) which will help them when they seek employment as they will be capable of working as part of a team. They will be taught by professionals. They will have the chance to have real friendships they they make, not friendships with our friends children. They have outings, scholl plays/performances. School holidays (abroad) with teachers and peers. It gives them some independance. They have the ability to learn many different subjects. As I previuosly stated anyone that is Home Ed will you teach then different languages? Teachers are qualified in usually one or two specific subjects, to be Home educated, the parent has to be educated to teach in all subjects, all sciences, english, maths, geography, history, business studies, french, spanish, german, Religious Education, Child Development etc etc. I can't believe that a parent can provide all this.

DS would definitely choose it, but I would go bonkers. I considered it for about five minutes, but would only do it if the other educational options open to me were totally unacceptable.

You are not open to my opinion are you? If you were then you would answer my questions. I am happilly replying to the "why do you think all children should go to school" questions. I think maybe you also have your opinion and do not wish to hear the other side.Harpsi.

No I am not open to your opinion, bsg, which seems to be that you have told us all we are wrong for even considering it, but now want to interrogate us as to our beliefs. Sorry, not interested.

My post of 10.58. It should have said there are 2 sides to the argument please explain the advantages of home schooling. If I had meant to type there are NOT two sides then I wouldn't of asked for your opinions.

Is everybody supposed to agree with everyone else then. If we all came on saying "oh Yes what a lovely" idea even if we disagreed it would be very false. Apologies for having a different opinion to you. When someone comes on here and shows me that children benefit from Home Ed I will read and accept their opinion. Nobody seems to want to do this though!

as it happens I did want to her our opinion bsg, which is why I asked you.
thanks

sorry - "hear your" opinion

Sorry Harpsi that wasnt to you it was to IsawFranny. Thankyou for asking me my opinion.

I live abroad and where I am I do not know of anyone doing Home Ed except the two english mums that I spoke of. Are there a lot of children being Home educated in the UK now? I don't know.

Bsg, in the UK many primary school teachers have done a BEd, rather than a BA or a BSc in a particular subject. So they are not subject specialists, and have to teach everything - literacy, numeracy, science, humanities ... even very specialist subjects that they may have no knowledge of such as music, dance, and - in the government's latest initiative - languages

Many parents are perfectly well-equipped to HE their children, certainly at primary level.

As a qualified teacher I no not feel up to the job of home educating my daughter. I just don't know ennough about all the different parts of the curriculum to give her a full abnd varied education, and certainly not as she gets older.

Also I don't think I could provide all the social elements of learning - friends, other children to socialise with during the day/week. Maybe there is a local HE group - but I don't know.

However, if for any reason school did not work out for my daughter (only due to start next Sept so long way in future) then I would reconsider. But I would try her in school first. If for some reason the first school didn't work out I would try at least one other alternative before taking this massive leap. But if all else failed that I would consider doing this - if it was in best interests of my child. It'd take an awful lot of research and studying on my part - I wouldn't be able to go into it half heartedly and not fully planned (my teacher training still there I guess). And I would still wand DD to get qualification to help her get on in life later - GCSEs, A Levels whatever so if she wanted to into university or some career she'd be able too.

It's a hard one.

I did a BEd (secondary) but I do have a specialist subject area.