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Anyone is or was? I myself think it is a great system that allows parents to teach the Gods word to their kids. Anyone have any thoughts on it.

Homeschooler here. Teaching God's Word can be done without being homeschooled just as well. Good for the 1 on 1 attention. Bad for people's ego (tends to make it bigger).

Quote from: AJ on March 04, 2014, 08:57:13 AM

Anyone is or was? I myself think it is a great system that allows parents to teach the Gods word to their kids. Anyone have any thoughts on it.

Homeschooler here. Teaching God's Word can be done without being homeschooled just as well. Good for the 1 on 1 attention. Bad for people's ego (tends to make it bigger).

Depending on your area. It's hard to find good  Christian schools now since a lot of them close down because they do not get enough money to keep it going.

Homeschooling is the best.

Totally agree. 

I was homeschooled m'self until fairly recently. The reason being I got into college!

I was homeschooled.

Quote from: AJ on March 04, 2014, 05:06:08 PM

Quote from: Westy on March 04, 2014, 11:59:38 AM

Quote from: AJ on March 04, 2014, 08:57:13 AM

Anyone is or was? I myself think it is a great system that allows parents to teach the Gods word to their kids. Anyone have any thoughts on it.

Homeschooler here. Teaching God's Word can be done without being homeschooled just as well. Good for the 1 on 1 attention. Bad for people's ego (tends to make it bigger).

Depending on your area. It's hard to find good  Christian schools now since a lot of them close down because they do not get enough money to keep it going.

Who said teaching God's Word had to be done in a school setting?

If your child is in a public school and surrounded by sinful behavior it will be harder for them to grow in Christ there are things being taught in public schools I cannot post on these message boards. It is easier to teach your children the word of God if they aren't in school system full lying,bullying,false teaching and tons of other bad things.

a girl from my senior year class was expelled for getting pregnant

That is sad to hear. Christian societies place so much pressure on females, why wasn't the guy expelled too? What a horrible thing for a school to do.

It just goes to show that Christian schools are not necessarily a better environment overall, and in some ways can be a worse place to grow up/learn.

Quote from: Westy on March 05, 2014, 12:42:23 AM

Quote from: AJ on March 04, 2014, 05:06:08 PM

Quote from: Westy on March 04, 2014, 11:59:38 AM

Quote from: AJ on March 04, 2014, 08:57:13 AM

Anyone is or was? I myself think it is a great system that allows parents to teach the Gods word to their kids. Anyone have any thoughts on it.

Homeschooler here. Teaching God's Word can be done without being homeschooled just as well. Good for the 1 on 1 attention. Bad for people's ego (tends to make it bigger).

Depending on your area. It's hard to find good  Christian schools now since a lot of them close down because they do not get enough money to keep it going.

Who said teaching God's Word had to be done in a school setting?

If your child is in a public school and surrounded by sinful behavior it will be harder for them to grow in Christ there are things being taught in public schools I cannot post on these message boards. It is easier to teach your children the word of God if they aren't in school system full lying,bullying,false teaching and tons of other bad things.

For full disclosure, I am a product of the NC public school system.  Also, I have hesitated on commenting on this subject because it is hard to accurately communicate all that I feel in a couple paragraphs that you guys will read, but when you made the above comment...I couldn't be silent.  You are right that I had to deal with all those things as a Christian.  However, I have found that those things still exist as an adult. 

As a parent, I have a lot of friends who home school their kids and they wonder what I would do since I'm a pastor.  I chose to put my kids in the public school system for a variety of reasons.
  1. I agree that the Word of God is to be taught at home and not a part of school curriculum.  (Similar to Westy's point)
  2. As broken human beings, sin is everywhere. Satan (or his minions) are not confined to a school building (see browarod's point)
      Also, another good example is the movie "The Village"
  3. Jesus calls us to be salt and light. (Matthew 5:13-16).  We are not to be hidden, but let our good works shine before men for God's glory.
  4. More than school subjects can be learned at public schools.  My kids learn how to interact with sinners...how our faith interacts with the world's leading philosophies.  As a parent, I'm responsible to apply God's Word to all areas of life (Deut. 6:20, 11:18-20)
  5. It gives me the opportunity to teach my kids how to face temptation, and stand up for their faith and what's right DESPITE overwhelming pressure to do otherwise.  It allows my kids to act on the faith that I give them (I have lots of examples of this.)
  6. It builds good favor with the school and people of my community.  We are a voice in the system.
  7. It prepares my kids to face the same circumstances and people as adults.  (You will run into sinful people eventually.)

These are only 7 of my reasons why I value the public school system.  Are they perfect? No.  Do they need Christians amongst them? Yes.
  My friends respectfully disagree on most of my points...some even agree with me, but they want to try/do something different with their kids because of extenuating circumstances and that is their right.

I disagree with bashing a system because of sinful choices, because sin is everywhere.  We live in a broken world.  Educationally speaking, each system has its pros and cons which in my mind make them all equally valid.

I am homeschooled, but I have plenty of contact with public school children. Mostly, it is fine, but other times, I don't like what I see. Also, I am in a christian homeschool group, so I have plenty of social contact. Some people with very social temperaments that I know have chosen public school after being homeschooled so that they will have more contact with people.

All the Christian schools I have been to have been amazing and have helped me in my walk with God .I think it depends on the school some are bad and some are good and you are right there is sin in Christian schools but at least kids have good Christian fellowship outside of church which I think is very important for our kids to converse with their Christian brethren on a regular basis instead of once a week church. Is good for our kids to say to their peers " hey brother I was reading in Peter the other day and I Found this verse i thought you would like since your going through a tough time". In a public school your peers say "to you hey man you should totally watch this R rated movie " . That is why I want to homeschool or put my kids in private school but this is only my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own.

I'll point out that when you're home schooled you don't have access to a music program or organized sports... I mean I wouldn't be a Music Major if I was home schooled.

That's not totally true. I was involved in the middle school music program up through eighth grade, when I dropped out because it sucked and instead joined a regional honors band and took private lessons. Piano was my main instrument, and that's completely not in the school system.  I also participated in soccer through my Junior year, both in the high school and summer soccer.

I'm not sure how it works, but it works.

I'll point out that when you're home schooled you don't have access to a music program or organized sports... I mean I wouldn't be a Music Major if I was home schooled.

I am in a youth orchestra, and I play trumpet. There is also a homeschool basketball team and cross-country team nearby.

I guess I stand corrected then lol... I just have never met someone who was home schooled K-12 and has taken advantage of these programs.

Almost everyone I know who has been home schooled end up doing K-8 and go to a public school their last four years before college.

I have a huge bias against homeschooling and this thread hasn't helped

Why? What's wrong with parents teaching their children? Some kids learn at a different pace. When I was 8 years old I had alapatia where you start getting bald spots due to the stress of school about half way into my first year of home school I had a full head of hair and no stress one of my best friends was home schooled their hole life and loved it every kid I've ever talked to has " your home schooled wow I wish I was " IMO homeschool is an amazing way to teach people.

My experiences at a Catholic Middle School are a large part of what led me to become agnostic and I'm just going to leave it at that.

I'm very sorry to hear that (that you had horrible school experiences, not that you're agnostic; I am as well)

What's wrong with parents teaching their children? Some kids learn at a different pace. When I was 8 years old I had alapatia where you start getting bald spots due to the stress of school about half way into my first year of home school I had a full head of hair and no stress one of my best friends was home schooled their hole life and loved it every kid I've ever talked to has " your home schooled wow I wish I was " IMO homeschool is an amazing way to teach people.

one of my best friends was home schooled their hole life and loved it every kid I've ever talked to has " your home schooled wow I wish I was " IMO homeschool is an amazing way to teach people.

hole life
your home schooled
...
IMO homeschool is an amazing way to teach people.

Pro tip: if you're going to advocate for homeschooling (or anything else), check your grammar and spelling first.

As for Olijar's apprehensions, it's probably because he knows me. I'm basically the worst.

Time to get real though.

The main issue is once you get to a certain level, parents can only do so much, and you end up teaching yourself most of the information. While this is a useful tool in life, there are a lot of problems with it. I was very fortunate to have a sister who was willing to help me with my math, for example, because my mom didn't understand things like Geometry. Now I'm really good at math, but if I didn't have my sister as a tutor, I would have been screwed. I scored much lower on my ACT scores than my friends did, even though we're intellectually on a similar level, primarily because schools are focused on those sort of things. That's pretty crucial for getting scholarships and getting into college.

Speaking of scholarships, I'm pretty sure you're more likely to get them if you're not homeschooled.

Homeschooling can also seriously inhibit social interactions. I'm sure I wouldn't be as introverted as I am if I wasn't homeschooled. Being an introvert isn't a bad thing, but not knowing how to handle yourself is social situations is. I'm certainly not the worst homeschooler at it, but I do feel out of place in many social settings. Sometimes I wish I had the desire to go to college events, but I would simply prefer to stay in my room, watch movies that you probably wouldn't, and play Pokemon. I've never been on a real date, and at this point I really don't know how to get one. The blame certainly can't rest solely on Homeschooling, but I'm sure had I been schooled differently things would have been different, and I have regrets about that. Sure, I can change, but at this point I'm past that part of my development in life and would rather not. Sure, I have friends (most of whom live in other states from me), and I can conduct myself like any other person, but there's a level of comfortability that just isn't there.

Homeschoolers are generally arrogant too. Stereotyping, yes, but often true (hence my first post regarding ego). They think they're the hottest stuff around because statistically they're smarter, and blah blah blah. Hate that.

They're also completely ignorant about other things. There's no question that being taught that evolution is wrong will create a bias against it.  Closing yourself off to an idea before researching it is going to effect your conclusions for obvious reasons, and homeschooling can foster that sort of thought more so than public school, which is a mixture of all sorts of cultures and tends to promote openness. Sure, they're also more open to sinful things as well, but I'm talking about disadvantages right now, so I'm not going to expound on that.

I'm also bad at evangelizing. I haven't had much practice in that area, other than a mission's trip to Denver, but that's not the same kind of evangelizing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy with my life and wouldn't change it, but I definitely see some things in my life that would be different for the better had I not been homeschooled.

Now I'm going to college at a Christian institution and hear more F-bombs daily than I hear in any movie. I've even had teachers drop some language. A friend of mine told me how he was going to smoke weed on his drive home to visit his girlfriend, and they're probably sleeping together based on some of his word choice.
That's the real world, and I'm just now beginning to understand it.

Gentlemen, please be gentle and don't correct errors. It comes off as very arrogant and rude, and some of the people on the boards may be dyslexic or younger teenagers - please remember this.

That being said, your story is exactly why I'm more against homeschooling than I am for it.

Marti I am with you however when some is making statements like "homeschooling is the best" and stating how it can benefit your education and they have punctuation errors as well as spelling errors it seems reasonable to comment on it. I personally considered it a couple of times but refrained. Mostly I chose to refrain because I do a lot of posting via my phone and that tends to create a lot of errors in my own posts.

Quote from: Westy on March 06, 2014, 01:22:54 PM

Homeschooling can also seriously inhibit social interactions. I'm sure I wouldn't be as introverted as I am if I wasn't homeschooled. Being an introvert isn't a bad thing, but not knowing how to handle yourself is social situations is. I'm certainly not the worst homeschooler at it, but I do feel out of place in many social settings. Sometimes I wish I had the desire to go to college events, but I would simply prefer to stay in my room, watch movies that you probably wouldn't, and play Pokemon. I've never been on a real date, and at this point I really don't know how to get one.

From experience, Westy, you can attend a public school your whole life, be on sports teams, play in the orchestra, etc. and still always feel out of place at any social event.

I'm not saying; I just saying.

Fair enough. I was among the more social homeschoolers in our little group, but I want something to blame.

Gentlemen, please be gentle and don't correct errors. It comes off as very arrogant and rude...

Then my point is made, even if it includes myself.

I went to Christian school and I feel like that kid still to this day.

I'm not saying this to advocate throwing your children headlong into the real world right away, but I feel like public school provides a better dynamic for comparison than Christian schooling or homeschooling do. They go to school, they see people doing this or that, they come home and you can explain to them what it is, why they're doing it, and whether or not it's something they should be doing, too. Whereas when you home school them or send them to Christian school, they might have some exposure to that but it's warped or shielded from the way it should be displayed so they are likely to not recognize the same thing when they see it out in the real world and be unprepared for facing it.

There are, of course, exceptions from each schooling environment, but I feel from my personal experience as well as the experiences of people I've dealt with in my adult life, that generally the ones more prepared for adulthood and the challenges, and temptations, it brings and who are more likely to stay strong in their faith are people that were educated with those things around them and whose parents taught them the differences between what they see and what the Bible teaches as right.

I went to public schools, and they were the worst years of my life. I was physically and emotionally abused (even by a couple of teachers) from elementary school all the way through graduation from high school. I was quite frankly suicidal, but thankfully God had different plans for me, albeit not until I was in my 20's.

This thread can continue with all the stories of which type of schooling worked (or didn't work) for us individually. But what is best for any individual child is solely the discretion of the parent. I would never send my kids to public school, not only because of my own personal experiences, but because I've been teaching in public schools for over 10 years so I know that the "social" aspects of public school do not outweigh the rest of the educational experience. The other key factor, of course, is the quality of the schools that children would be zoned for. So another parent's choice to put their kids in public school may be the best option for them, where they are.

My son may need to learn some social skills that he is not getting from homeschooling, but his strengths in other areas will make up the difference in the long term. He scored in the 90th percentile on the PSAT, so I think he will be just fine. My biggest problem has actually been trying to keep the college-aged girls at our church from asking my son out on dates. I told him that 15-year-olds should probably start dating other 15-year-olds to start with. It just doesn't help that he looks like he is 18 already. 

I think the main point is that no one way is perfect. Each system has its pros and cons.

Also that high school stinks.

Amen, and Amen. Middle and high school are hard, no matter where you come from and what you're doing.