How do teachers feel about homeschoolers?

Question

Every few years, an editorial written by a member of the NEA gets circulated among homeschooling communities. I'm wondering how individual teachers feel about homeschooling as a whole. Of course that editorial was only the opinion of one man. He basically said that amateurs have no business educating children. He compared teachers teaching children to car mechanics working on cars... the average joe will do more harm to a car without proper training, and the average parent will do more harm to a child without proper teacher training.

If you are a teacher, do you agree with this? What about your colleagues? Does the topic come up in general conversation, in the teacher's room or lounge?

Thank you for sharing your opinions!

Answer 1

I'm a former teacher and now homeschool my kids--I think homeschooling is great when done within a good family.

My husband is a teacher and also thinks homeschooling is great. ;)

I've met teachers who were completely opposed to it and met other teachers who really approved of the idea. One that comes to mind in particular was my supervising teacher for my final teaching practicum. I went to see her a few years later, with my daughter, and it came up that I was planning on homeschooling. She said, "Good for you. If I had kids today, I'd never put them in the school system." My husband also works with a teacher who did homeschool her own kids for a while. I know a number of former teachers who now homeschool.

As for the comparison you shared, it's absolutely ridiculous. And the author on some level knows it or would have taken the statement to its most logical (yet still not logical) conclusion that parents will do more harm without proper parenting training. It's absolutely ridiculous to propose such a thing yet is far more accurate in his comparison than using teacher training.

Answer 2

We had great support from teachers when we decided to homeschool.  All of their opinions were made privately, however, due to their fear of union reprisal.

Answer 3

When I pulled my kids out the secretary told me that my kids would be back in school by the end of the year!!!

I simply laughed and said my kids would never step back into that (beeped out) school again!

Her response was their are kids here you can't use that language!

My come back these kids are saying worse in your halls! This was an elementary school.

My son's preK teacher told me I wasn't qualified and he need to be on ADHD meds.

My daughters year long substitute (the teacher quit to teach music at a better school) told us Good Luck and it was the best thing I could do for her!

3 people 3 different attitudes.

Answer 4

Yep that's the article written by a janitor. I guess he's so invested in schools for another reason besides the welfare of the child. It's called job security. That's what NEA is about, their purpose is to keep teachers in jobs.

I know many teachers. I was very close to most of the teachers in the school my children attended, and most of them were very positive about homeschooling. Most told me that I was making the best choice possible. Very few mentioned to me negative things, mostly the principal, who definitely was invested in keeping my two special ed kids enrolled for the cash, she even offered me homebound education, in which *I* do all the work and *they* receive all the money. Handy, eh?

My cousin is a teacher, and not a very good one. She also has been very negative about homeschooling. However, considering what rotten, spoiled brats her kids are, I'm not impressed by her arguments. Also the fact that she makes nearly $4000 a month and can complain about how little teachers make is amusing. I am not a teacher, I will grant you that. I started the teacher training after pulling my kids to homeschool. The classes were a joke, how to make charts, how to direct group discussion, how to apply tests. How to create 'hands-on learning tools' ie construction paper cut outs. None of those are necessary in home instruction, because we can do what our kids need to have to learn.

And the argument that the average parent would do more harm to a child without proper teacher training? Oh puleeze. So for the first five years of their lives we're destroying them intellectually and emotionally? What bullshite. Parents are MEANT to raise their children, and until the industrial revolution were allowed to do so without government repression. The idea was that we needed to reduce the work force, and that children should be out of it to open jobs for adult men....oh, and to 'protect kids' who shouldn't work so much.

Answer 5

I have received two different answers from teachers I know.  

Some have told me that homeschooling is the best thing I can do for my children.  Others have acted as if my homeschooling is a personal dig against them.

Answer 6

I can answer for my wife, a conservative, highly respected teacher.

She has found homeschooled kids to be very likely to perform far below their grade level.

Some are "homeschooled" for their first few grades, then are placed into junior high, where they struggle.

EDIT EDIT

You folks just go on stroking each others ego

with your "bright kids".  I know when you take them to public school in junior high that 3 of 4 will be below grade level and social misfits.

Answer 7

Honestly - I know several teachers (university level as well as elementary through high school level) who not only love home schooling families, they themselves home school their kids because the public school system is just awful.

It was suggested to me to home school my children, and I thought about it for a good 6 months before I finally did it.  Our child was having difficulty in school and the counselor suggested home school and the teachers agreed.

You need not be a teacher to home school your kids - between you and your spouse you need a minimum of 2 years of college in our state.  I have that and I have business school and other knowledge as well as my husband has over 2 years of college education he can share with our kids.  We know our children better than any stranger, so that alone makes us better qualified to educate them.

My children are tested every year and they are a good 2 levels above where they'd be in public school.  They are free to learn what they want, when they want at home.  We have books, videos/dvds, field trips, computer work, work with other home school families for outings and get together time as well as some even trade off tutoring.

What's sad is the schools see a child not doing well and still push that child along with no help ... I can name at least 5 instances, all from different schools, in different areas where the teachers simply didn't give a d**n.  One teacher simply refused to work with the mom of a kid, a 7th grader, saying it was not the responsibility of the parent to get involved!  WTH?!!

My Opinion ... Personally, I will take the on responsibility of raising and educating my children myself, rather than hand them over to some teacher who may be one that simply doesn't care.

Answer 8

Different teachers think different ways about homeschoolers and no one can answer that unless they are a teacher or they know a teacher and ask that teacher that question.

Answer 9

I loved YSN's response!

I, too, was going to mention the article was written by a school janitor, but I see others beat me to it. :-)

I'm a HS'ing mom, but do you know whose idea it was (more than once) for us to HS our son?????....The public school system!

DS was 4 and in a public preschool program and the teachers knew there was NO WAY the district could handle him for Kindergarten.  The state did not allow kids to skip Kdg - they had to be 6 or 7 for 1st grade.  So they told us not to enroll him in their schools.

Three years later, we had the same district test him (He was 1st grade, 8th month in age).  The school psychologist, the district gifted program director, and the principal of the local elementary school all agreed that HS'ing him was the best option for him - that they had nothing to help him.  They were blown away by his IQ & achievement test scores.

So, at least in our case, public school teachers and staff recommended HS'ing.  They must know it works and, for some kids, is a much better option than their own schools.

Answer 10

I am not a teacher but a father of 5 home schooled children and I can tell you what the teachers thought when we pulled out children out of public school and yes there was a HUGE scene.

Their teachers thought we were making a big mistake because we were not "trained" to educate our children.  And this is where the scene started during the middle of a school day.  It was a VERY heated speech that I gave and left the teachers open-mouthed and scurrying away with their tails between their legs.  I had valid points which they could not dispute and will be more then happy to post them here if you wish to know about it.  Just let me know and I will edit this post.

EDIT :  OK here we go some back ground info and a long story....

My children were "diagnosed" with having ADHD.  And who diagnosed them ?  Their teachers who have NO formal medical training.  The only person qualified to make that assessment is a neuro-psychologist.  But based on what the teachers said my children were put in ridilin.  It did nothing for them but make them lethargic.  We made an appointment with a neuro-psychologist, got them tested and were waiting for the results.  In the mean time the school decided that my children would need "special care" and should be transfered to a "special needs" class.  

A few days after the testing, the doctor sent us his findings.  The children were not ADHD or learning challenged.  In fact, they were above where they should be for their age and were probably just bored in class due to that fact.  This was due to the fact that even before they started traditional school, my wife would work with them with their numbers and letters and colors and read to them.  It gave them a nice head start.

So armed with this new knowledge, my wife calls the school and tells them the results of the test and asks if they have advanced classes or work.  Their answer was that the children did not show a need for advanced classes and the teachers could not be expected to come up with a separate lesson plan for them.

So I took off of work the next day so that we could pull them out of school and have my wife home school them.  We had been thinking about this for some time already and this was the last straw.  Their teachers brought them to the office and we told them our intentions.  And that is where they told us we were not "trained" to educate our children.

My response :

No, my wife and I are not "trained" to educate our children but, neither are any of you "trained" to make a MEDICAL evaluation of my children.  You are drug dealers that medicate any one that does not fit into your little box of conformity.  How many other children have you drugged because they did not fit your mold ?  I have medical proof to dispute what you say and ask for your help to educate my children and was told that you basically donÊ»t have the time.  So tell me, who is REALLY not "trained" to educate my children ?  My wife and I HAVE the time to find lessons that will challenge them.  

At the time my speech was not so eloquent and had quite a few "colorful" words thrown in.  I was already upset because I heard one of the teachers tell my son "Well if you think you have brains, shouldnÊ»t you use them ?"  But without the colorful words that was my response.  And the most surprising part of that day, the smile on the principalÊ»s face after I gave that speech.

Answer 11

If teachers are so highly qualified, why were my kids practically failing in school?  On the other side of things, if I'm too unqualified to educate my children,  why are they now two grade levels ahead?  I don't believe that a certificate proves a person is more intelligent or capable than anyone else.  Having a certificate doesn't necessarily make you good at what you do.  Furthermore, people should not just assume that you're lacking because you don't have a certificate.  I speak, read and write English, French, Spanish and Latin.  I do algebra and complex word problems as a past time.  I read no less than sixty books a year.  I don't, however, have any kind of a teaching certificate.  As a matter of fact, besides a high school diploma, I don't have any kind of diploma or degree, at all.  But as far as I'm concerned, I'm more capable than a lot of teachers.

Answer 12

I'm interested, as well.  (Isn't that the article that was written by a school janitor?  Or is there another I haven't read yet?)

I personally pulled my son because his certified teacher, who had been teaching for 12 years, couldn't handle a 6yo who was bored and <gasp!> talked.  It turned out he transferred in from a school that was accelerated almost 2 years beyond this one, and she too refused to offer him any enrichment work.  I even offered to prep it myself and send it from home!

Instead, this "highly qualified" teacher demanded, on the second day of school no less, that my son be medicated if he was to remain in her classroom.  I researched homeschooling over the weekend, taught him how to daydream without getting caught (he was that bored in class), and pulled him at the end of the third day.  He's now 10, getting A's in algebra and reading Jules Verne.

Yep, I think I can do better than medicating a bored but bright kid.  (I talked with his teacher and director at the accelerated school he previously went to for 3 years, they both agreed wholeheartedly that homeschooling was the best thing for him.)

I will say, however, that many teachers get the kids that really shouldn't have been homeschooled in the first place, placed in their classes.  Either the parents simply didn't have the time or motivation to do a great job - I have a friend who placed her daughter back in school after 2 years of "not really" homeschooling her, and was that ever a rude awakening - or the child just simply wasn't wired for homeschooling.  For many teachers, this is the only real connection they ever get with homeschoolers, so I can see where the poor opinions would come from.

Many classroom teachers never see the kids that are thriving with homeschooling, because they don't get placed back in school.  If they're doing well, why change things?  

I wish more classroom teachers could see the kids I get to teach in co op every week during the school year - bright, enthusiastic to learn and participate, and more respectful than a kid out of Leave it to Beaver.  :)  They finish their homework on time and often go beyond without being asked, and my biggest challenge with them is, well, keeping them challenged!  They form study groups on their own, email or call me with any questions, and apply what they've learned to other subjects on their own.  I've found myself, multiple times, having to accelerate their work by a grade level or two just to keep them excited.  Half of my high school students are in concurrent enrollment, and the other half will be as soon as they are old enough.

Answer 13

I am a former teacher and homeschool my 14yo son.

The very FIRST person I spoke to about homeschooling was a teacher-colleague whose wife homeschooled his children.  When I asked about HS, he said something like: "Why would you send your child to this school when you have a better option?"

Many of the teachers in our coop are former PS teachers who decided to HS their own kids.

My grandmother was a lifetime 1st grade teacher.  Before she passed away, she commented that she would never teach in today's PS.

Our own personal experience:

My master's level teaching certification program was not about teaching individuals - it was about classroom management, diversity, dealing with paperwork, public relations and a bunch of other stuff.  All that I learned is worthless as a homeschool teacher and was worthless as a PS teacher except for ... well ... trying to deal with classroom management etc.  Earned a 4.0 in that program by the way.

Our state's Secretary of Education commented at a teacher's in-service meeting that a Harvard professor with a Ph.d in Physics would be considered "unqualified" to teach high school science because he / she had not been trained as a "teacher."  That is laughable!

My son is 14 and took the ACT for the second time this year (first take in 7th through a TIP program). His score: 23 composite and a 27 on the English section.  Good enough to get into any state college and many selective schools.  He was disappointed with his scores.  His goal is to get a 36 (perfect score).  His score is better than 70% of graduating high schoolers.  His math score was a 22 - pulled down because he has not yet taken geometry.  His science score also a 22 - this upcoming year he will be taking chemistry taught by a college professor and has been accepted into a year long hands-on university lab academy that covers chemistry, microscopy, eco-toxicology and will participate in a real research project that will ultimately result in a published paper by the sponsoring professor.

He may well achieve his goal.

My DS is already being recruited by a top private college - he received an invitation to their recruitment day.

He will likely join the ranks of other homeschoolers who are National Merit Scholars.

As homeschoolers we have access to way more educational and social opportunities.

Final Note: For those who want a good laugh, I provide a link to the janitor's article below:

Answer 14

Two of our local group are ex-teachers and homeschooling BECAUSE they know what goes on in schools.

And that Janitor's piece, I see the site it's posted on disclaim any responsibility for the views expressed, but shouldn't they be just a little teeny bit embarrassed?