CyberSchool, revisted: 1)School Shootings 2)Staph Infections 3)Teacher Sexual Misconduct..still so critical?

Question

When I proposed the idea of enrolling my daughter in public cyberschool, the preponderance of opinion on Yahoo was that she'd be socially isolated (which she's not because she takes private lessons and still meets with her friends) and that it wasn't good for her.

She's been taking it for 2 months now and has received more attention from teachers in that time than she did cumulatively before in regular school.

Before the industrial revolution, the norm was self-teaching, not classroom teaching. Abraham, George Washington, etc., etc., learned to read and then self-taught.

So, is it just that herd-teaching is the only method we are accustomed to, so any deviation is automatically criticized?

Answer 1

To Rachel et al who believe school is some sort of preparation for real life: AAAAGGGGHHHHHH! Talk about generalising.

Going to school would be as far away from any semblance of real life (either now or in the future) for me and my siblings as one could possibly get....without firing ourselves off into space and doing our growing up on the dark side of Mars!

School may be a preparation for real life if you plan on spending your adult life as one of society's drones...but some of us, either through good luck or good birth, grow up knowing our's will be a very different sort of future and a future that no conventional school, no matter how good, could ever hope to prepare us for.

Oh and to the original poster, good on you for taking your daughter out of school and enrolling her in cyber-school. You shouldn't take a scrap of notice of any of the naysayers. All the time your daughter is happy and learning and thriving, you should be confident you've done the right thing by her.

Incidentally following on from Janis' comments: more and more public schools here are actually enrolling their students on courses provided by the state's own cyber school. And increasingly schools are inviting those parents with knowledge of a particular subject or topic or way of life etc in to teach classes.....much like what happens in homeschooling co-ops in other countries.

Answer 2

I feel alternatives to public education are good options. Parents can teach their children their own values. However, I do feel parents need to expose children to the fact that their values vary from other's and give children ways to observe the other options. There are other ways to give children socialization opportunities other than public schools, like church, 4h, girl/boy scouts, etc.

Answer 3

All that you say is very, very interesting and, seems as though you have made a lot of choices > one must add that as long as you have peace in your heart about what you are doing > it really does not matter what others think > although it is good to ask questions about what you are doing > if only to see what others out there are thinking and doing > yet we must all remember that without Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior > we really can not do anything > so let us all learn to pray about everything and be specific in our prayers > the written word of God states > before you ask I will answer and while you are yet speaking I will hear > commit your ways unto the Lord (Jesus Christ) and your thoughts shall be established. 1+1+1=1.

Answer 4

The best thing about public/private "herd" teaching is that it prepares the kids for the real world.  High school is, in its own way, a tiny replica of the world.  The only difference is that most mistakes are forgiven by graduation.  Academics are only one aspect of the school experience.  Kids not only learn how to deal with the stresses of academic responsibility, they learn to conduct themselves appropriately around their peers.

While homeschooling is safe and sanitary and academically better than most public schools, I don't think it exposes children to reality enough.  The real world isn't safe or sanitary and you have to compete with other people to get the attention you need from bosses/college professors/etc.  It might not be the nicest thing, but public school hardens kids for the world in a way that a safe, clean home environment can't.

Also, if you plan to send your daughter to a university, do you really think she'll be able to handle the sudden and complete shift in her environment?  From what I saw in college, it was always the really sheltered kids who ran wild and got into trouble with drinking, s*x and drugs.  

When you say school isn't safe because of the risk of school shootings or sexual misconduct, you have to understand that such events are rare and over-sensationalized by the media.  In reality, your daughter is at greater risk of being injured in a car accident or struck by lightning than of being the victim of a school shooting or sexual abuse by a teacher.

Staph infections are, again, over-sensationalized by the media.  This is nothing new, it's just that the media is only now latching onto the idea that public places are covered in germs.  Yes, they are and they always have been.  Send your kid to school with a bottle of hand sanitizer.

Anyway, by sheltering your daughter so much, you're only displacing your own fears about the world onto her.

Answer 5

To the first poster:

High school isn't like the real working adult reality in anyway possible. When do adults ever have to ask to use the bathroom? Be quiet during lunch? Pass tests to continue on?

Not to mention, there are so many home business', working at home (more and more jobs are doing this), small offices and flexible schedules in the working world. None of that applies in high school.

Homeschooling, cyberschooling, public and private schooling are all OPTIONS because it allows parents to choose what works best for their very own family and children.

We do not all fit in boxes made of ticky tacky and we are all not just the same.

Step out the box and do what works for your child. That's what I think more parents should be doing. Don't go with the herd because you think you have to. You don't.

Answer 6

Yes, I agree that the "herd-teaching" is what we are accustomed to and therefore alternatives are frowned upon by many people. I don't believe it is harmful to home teach, and I don't believe kids are socially inept when they are not schooled in a public or private school. Your examples of other home/self-taught individuals are well put. I homeschool my two kids, 13 and 16, and they do fine when talking with other people, kids and adults alike. No more or less problems "socializing" than their public/private school counterparts. They are learning to teach themselves now that they are older, which is a valuable skill in this world in general, but in college also. In college courses that I've taken (and I have a 2 year degree plus more classes I'm taking now) much of the classes consist of reading and putting that to use in assignments. Class discussions add little to my education. So basically I pay to sit in a class and teach myself most of the material. As long as the kids have other outside activities, there is no danger of them becoming too isolated. To the people who say that school teaches them how to get on in the real world, I say no. It teaches them how to get on in a world of pecking orders, sometimes learning that you need to do bad things to fit in and sometimes need to do bad things to succeed. It also puts them in a situation where their education is endangered because school is a big popularity contest, and the focus lies more in (negative) socialization rather than actually receiving a good academic education. I dare say that employers would rather have intelligent, hard working, self motivated employees rather than people who have learned to bully, cower, flirt, horse around, etc. which is all the stuff that the pecking order school experience teaches people. Yes I am generalizing, but if you actually look back to your own school experience and others' then you will see what I mean.

Answer 7

Good points but I have a couple too.  She is not going to be able to develop socially correctly.  You need interaction with peers.  You have a better chance of socializing with someone than them shooting you or giving you staph.  What happens when she enters the workforce and needs to communicate with colleagues?  Unless she is going to look into working from home on the computer I think you may have a problem.

I also think the point you made about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington being self taught was very irrelevant.  I highly doubt Georgie and Abe knew how to do calculus (which I am learning now in high school)

Answer 8

The public schools are realizing that what they are doing is not working for every student.  Many schools are offering alternate ways of learning.  Teaching our son at home is the best way for him to learn.

  I work in the school as a classified employee, and our local school system is not a bad system.  

The teachers who I talk to on a daily basis, are very open minded to home school.   They are there in the class room and they know the everyday problems that they face, and their students face.  School students have very little social time.  The students in our school have 20 minutes for lunch and a few minutes between classes to socialize.  

I predict that more schools will offer  home classes through the internet.  They are losing students to private and homeschools.  They are losing students because they must expel them for behavior problems.  They are losing students who drop out because they choose not to be part of  the herd. (I like that term.) They are losing students who cannot learn in classroom situation.  It would be better for them to learn in their own way than to give up on themselves.  Most students who quit at legal age, have actually quit years before.  There bodies are there but not their minds.

I got on my soapbox, sorry.  

Yes, it is not logical for people to continue to argue against home school when it is a great way for many students to learn and families to live.  

It would be great for parents to be able to go into the public school system and see what their children face everyday.  If they did, I have a feeling that  we would have a mass exodus into private and home school.

Answer 9

I know you must have gotten a lot of negative opinions of homeschooling before, but in actuality most of the nay-sayers on Yahoo Answers just don't have much to base their opinions on.  They base their judgment on a preconceived notion of homeschoolers, or on the example of one family they've met.  In actuality homeschoolers do quite well in the "real world" when they grow up.  They do have to go through a time of adjustment when they enter the workforce, BUT SO DO PUBLICLY EDUCATED KIDS, anyone who has hired a teen for their first paying job knows that.

Homeschoolers are usually better prepared for the environment of college, where you are expected to do research and take responsibilty for your education.

As far as school shootings, staph infections, and teacher sexual misconduct... well I chose homeschooling before Columbine, before most people had ever heard of MRSA, and while I am sure it happened, I had not heard of many cases of teacher sexual misconduct.  Those things had nothing to do with my decision.  I chose homeschooling so my children could get an education.