Home schooling is good only for Child gifted with special talents. Do you agree?

Question

Some one has written that "I have homeschooled my kids for the past almost 5yrs now. My kids are ages 9 and 7. My oldest is a high schooler this year academically and is taking local state univ classes part time for high school credits. We live in CA and I do homeschooling as an independent homeschooler. My younger one is doing middle school math and sciences. We are unschoolers with a lot of child led approach of learning. I can go on and on about how we do things. But I am also aware that my case is a unique one where both my kids are profoundly gifted, yet in different ways. My oldest chose this pathway of attending part time univ because she was longing for some intellectual peers and needed some interactive classes. She got tired of unit studies and online lessons and mere discussions. Plus she went beyond what I can cope up with respect to math. She does math research with some faculty here in the univs.We never ever followed any curriculum and managed with all that I could get "

Answer 1

No

Homeschool works for about 70-80% of students.

The AVERAGE homeschooler is 2-3 grades ahead of brick school by the age of 9.  That's the mean average or 50.1%

Some do much better, some do worse or just average and yes, 10-25% do poorly and when they fail it's usually miserablly.

So homeschool has a mean average above normal and two radical extremes.

On one side kids do far, far better and are Ivy school ready by 15 or 16 or 17

On the other side they never open a book, never take a test, never do a paper and become functionally illerterate.

Those are the one's that can't homeschool, unless they are truly dysfunctional medically.

The schoolers who don't open books, would be better off in a brick school where at least they will absorbe 10% by sheer osmosis.

Answer 2

Absolutely not. Since when has a good quality education only been applicable for the "gifted"?  Abraham Lincoln wouldn't have been considered gifted by today's standards, rather poor and with parents who didn't "pay attention" and yet look what he did because of homeschooling. This type of thinking is thinly veiled intellectual snobbery.

Answer 3

No,  I don't agree.

HSing is good for the gifted & talented, however it's fine for the average child too. If that is what a family wants to do, and if it's working, there's nothing wrong with it.

I think that homeschooling is most beneficial for kids with problems-- developmental delays, learning disabilities, etc., because these children can really use the one-on-one attention, the custom-tailored program, and the opportunity to learn at their own pace without distractions, without  being given negative labels or having to compete with others when really what they need most is to focus on their own accomplishments.

Answer 4

No I don't agree.

Also everyone is gifted in something, sometimes it takes homeschooling to figure out what each child is gifted in.

Answer 5

My oldest (9) is a normal kid. She wants to not do any school and just watch TV and play. She is by no means dumb but just unmotivated as of yet. 3 years of public school ruined her love of learning and we are slowly getting that back.

My son (5) is developmentally and mentally behind by this I do not mean handicapped in any way just a little slower. Probably due to his time at birth in the hospital. He spent 2 months in NICU and during that time 10 days on ECMO. We are lucky he's not mentally handicapped from that machine. He has a genuine love of learning and wants to be doing school just like his older sister.

My opinion is that home school is good for kids of every ability and age! Home school is better for most kids than a public school system that forgot how to educate. They system is more concerned about how they will get the latest funding from NCLB. They are more concerned with test scores than real education. My oldest was in second round of second grade at the time I pulled her and could barely subtract. The previous year she would come home with practice for the IOWA test they give here as homework at least once a week. She would have hours of home work that I would have to reteach because they didn't explain it well to her in class. If a student doesn't understand they move on and hope for the best. Education doesn't work that way you must understand the basics before you can move on to the harder stuff. This was a valuable lesson I learned in 7th grade here the teacher let us learn certain subjects on our own. In Math I finished the text book and was truly prepared to move on 6 weeks before school let out. I learned that kids need to learn at their own pace not the board of educations!

Answer 6

No, I don't.  I have a "twice gifted" child - one who is several years above grade level, but also dyslexic - and homeschooling is wonderful for him.  I have a friend whose son is autistic, and another whose son has Aspbergers - and homeschooling is just the thing for them.

However, I know close to 200 families who homeschool "normal" children.  They each have their own interests, and their own giftings, though they are not "off the scale" in any one area.  They're normal kids who are allowed to learn at their own pace and in an environment that allows them to be who they actually are - not who the "crowd" wants them to be.  Homeschooling is an incredible choice for them as well, and one that they wouldn't give up for anything.

Answer 7

No,I wonder if every child should be homeschooled for half the day, andhalf a day at school.  But a lot of parents could not hold up their end of the deal for whatever reason, in which case they should be held accountable for at least assuring that their kids do recreational reading at home.  

Otherwise, their kids will just get behind, because reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition are just so essential for doing well in school and because kids don't read at home, they don't acquire these skills to a very great extent.  Then the idiotic and lazy parents scream that the 'schools are failing our children'.  No, dear, you are failing your children, because you won't even assure that they do fun reading at home so they will be competitive for jobs later on in life.  Schools can only do so much, what about the leisure reading that has to happen before a child turns 8 and acquires negative attitudes toward recreational reading.

Answer 8

Homeschooling is good for all children, unless the parents are unable to cope for some reason.  With homeschooling, special talents have a chance to flourish.  There are many more gifts than just academics - homeschooling isn't a competition, after all, it's a way of educating our children so they can reach their potential and be positive, constructive adults contented in their lives.  

We home educated for nearly ten years, and in that time my sons did develop talents (musical and dramatic, mainly) which would have been much more difficult to discover if they had remained in school.  Being at home gave them more freedom to experiment with their gifts, no negative peer pressure to discourage them, and plenty of time to explore ideas and subjects that went well beyond a typical school curriculum.

Answer 9

One of my sons has special needs that hinder him in some areas academically, and he did very well with homeschooling -- even though he is probably not "profoundly gifted."  I think homeschooling can be appropriate and a great choice for any family that is comfortable with learning outside the modern-day, group instruction model and enjoys spending time together discovering the joy of learning subjects on an often much deeper level than can be explored in the group context.  

We are now in the process of forming a homeschool cooperative in Ventura County, California.  More information is available at groups.yahoo.com/group/vcch

Answer 10

In my opinion, all children are gifted in some way or other.

Homeschooling allows a child to find their special interests and talents and spend time learning in that particular domain.

I know you mean "exceptionally intelligent."  

Regardless, I think that a person's "IQ" is only one dimension of who they are and what they are capable of accomplishing.  Again, homeschooling allows a parent to help a child develop more holistically than can typically be accomplished in an institutional setting.

My son was considered "gifted" in the public school.  The truth, however, is that he is exceptionally conscientious and hard working and it is those two traits that help him excel.

There is also a phenomenon known as "twice gifted" (goodle it!)... This is a term I picked up from one of the talent search programs.  It is common for "gifted" children to also have what is commonly considered a disability (e.g. ADHD, social anxiety, etc.).  I wonder how often the reverse is true?  More often than is recognized I bet.

It does not take exceptional intelligence to excel as a homeschool student.  It takes committed and involved parents, hardwork, and a willingness to let learning be fun rather than always a chore.

Answer 11

No, I disagree. Homeschooling works for any family that is willing to make it work. The average child can do well, the below average child can do well, the above average child can do well. It all depends on how the parents go about it.

Answer 12

No.  It's for anyone who has discipline and loves learning.