Public school, not okay, but college is?

Question

For those of you that choose to homeschool....

What is the difference between public school and college? Are your children not still subjected to the same people and peers they would have been in the Public School System? What makes it any different? If anything, there are more drugs and immoral behavoir in college!!! And we all know, sheltered kids tend to go nuts when they get there.....any thoughts?

Answer 1

College can be a local community college, a "public" state college or a private university.  

Most of the people in college are there to learn...get a degree, etc.

Public school (K-12) has a few kids that want to be there and learn and a lot of kids that are being babysat by the state (not wanting to be there)  

Also as most things in life go...if you have to pay for it it's worth more and you appreciate it more than something that is free and taken for granted.   Most of the families that homeschool spend as much on their kids as they would a private school...but it is tailored to the individual child.

I know that the stereotype is that homeschool kids are "sheltered" but I don't find that to be the case.  If anything I find the homeschooled kids able to talk to people of all ages and carry on intelligent conversations (even at very young ages).  Public (elementary)school kids are the ones sheltered by keeping them locked in classrooms with only 1 teachers point of view and a room full of kids the same age.  

There are drugs/immoral behavior at the workplace too but I know that they have to be able to go to work one day.  The key is to make sure that they are well rounded adults with enough self esteem and self worth to not feel it necessary to get involved with illegal/immoral behaviors.

I would say that the majority of college students that go "nuts" in college are those from..... hmmmm...... public schools

Answer 2

I was homeschooled, and plan to homeschool my own children, so I can answer this question from personal experience.

The main difference between sending your kids to public school when they are 6, and sending your kids to public college when they are 18, is that you have more time to equip them so that they can deal with the destructive elements of society. We don't send our soldiers into combat before they have been trained and equipped... why should we send our kids?

I do not intend to be a hermit at home and expect my children to be each other's best friends. But I do intend to be their main influence during their young, impressionable years. I don't want their teachers or their peers to spend the most time with them or take the greatest responsibility for their education. In my mother-in-law's words, "I didn't have kids for someone else to raise them."

It's my hope that by the time my kids are ready for college, they will be mature, balanced young adults who are much better able to handle societal pressures than they would have been at 6 or 8.

Answer 3

There are many differences:

First, by the time my children attend college they won't be children anymore, childhood is a time to prepare for adulthood, if that is done correctly you will be able to handle the different life experiences of college and make good choices.  Yes there may be some mistakes made, but that is part of life.

Second, the people who attend college are usually there to learn.  Most of them want to be there and have chosen their course of study according to their interests and life goals.  In Public School everyone is spoon fed the same information, in the same way, to prepare for the same test.  If you have ever attended college, you will know that the environment and attitude is very different from Public School.  The instructors don't pressure you to attend, if you don't then you just don't pass.  They figure that if you paid then you will come.

Yes there are some in college who are there to do drugs and party... it would be nice if there weren't.  By then my children will no longer be children and will be responsible for their own choices, right now it is my job as a parent to care for them and make choices with them until they are old enough to make them independently.  I believe that if I raise them right I will have done my job, if they choose to make bad choices later  it will be their responsibility to deal with the consequences.  The difference is that in one case we are talking about a child and in the other case we are talking about an adult.

I don't worry about my kids being able to handle the work in college because most homeschoolers are doing harder work in High School anyway.

Yes, SHELTERED kids might go nuts when they get to college.  I see this all time, kids who were sheltered in an age segregated classroom going wild and viewing instructors and authority figures as enemies.  Fortunately, my kids have grown up in the real world and have not been sheltered like so many unfortunate Public School children.

Can I be sure my children will make good choices when they are adults?  NO.  Neither can any parent. We all just do the best we can to raise them right and then we let them go hoping that they will remember what they were taught.

Answer 4

College is a lot more open.  If you don't go to class you aren't going to get babied and yelled at, you're just going to get dropped.  You have a lot more freedoms there but you don't have to go out every weekend and get keyed.  Yeah chances are you will a few times but college is basically necessary if you want to get anywhere in life.  If you mean for  your kid, you can't baby them forever, if you do they will resent you in the future or show even more erratic behavior when they do free.

Answer 5

There are many reasons why people don't send their kids to public school.  

Some people homeschool their kids because their public school does not offer classes that are challenging enough.  The point of homeschooling their kids is to give the kids the ability to do a much more challenging work load.  

Just because kids are homeschooled doesn't mean that they are not social.  In my town we have 60+ families homeschooling their kids.  Our state requires 4 1/2 hours for homeschooling.  When they are finished with their studies the kids get together at a homeschooling center and play games, do arts and crafts, karate class, etc.  

The point of homeschooling is to provide your children with the education that they crave so very deeply.  These kids are self motivated and will lean anything they decide is right for them to learn.  With homeschooling there is no way a child can't learn what they want.  Kids pick the subjects and parents do all that they can for their children to learn that particular subject.  Homeschooling is challenging and does not work for every family.  

Kids that are homeschooled don't pay much attention to people that want to keep them from their educational goals.

Answer 6

The idea is that by the time the children are old enough to go to college, they will be ready. However, the big issue with homeschooling is the social one. That's why I'm going to send my children to schools with other people.