To Do HomeSchooling do You HAVE to have a parent to teach you?

Question

im going into 8th grade. and i want to do ONLINE home schooling. And my mom said that i have to have a parent there with me. and i say you dont.

do you have to have a parent?

also, is it easier to learn things by being homeschooled? instead of in public school?

thanks

Answer 1

Depends how you learn. Some people learn better with teachers and some learn better by self learning.

Correspondence schooling (online schooling) is an option. Keystone National Middle School might be something you're looking for.

Answer 2

I was home schooled for 6 years and yes you must have a parent teach you or professional tutor but that's expensive. Without the parent you are just teaching yourself. It is much easier to learn through homeschooling because you are not competing for attention with 30 other students. You can go as fast or as slow as you need to learn effectively. Its a fact that home schooled kids score higher on state tests that public kids. You can do high school over the Internet but you need someone to teach you the information unless you are an exceptionally bright student who can learn by themselves and teach themselves algebra, trig, geometry, and calculus without any help.

Answer 3

it depends on the on-line program and if its accredited. in other words recognized by the school education board. i believe the person has to be a qualified adult. home schooled vs public school easiness depends on you. if you are disgusted with your school then i highly recommend try to transfer to another school with a fresh mind set. Mom i realize this can be extremely difficult but try.

Answer 4

you can do highschool over the internet.

usually the schools are statewide so i'm sure if you google it you  can find something.

Answer 5

No, I am homeschooled through Insight school. I'll give you the link. You can also find other online schools easily.

Answer 6

Whether you need a parent there or not for online schooling will depend on two things:

1) The school's policy.

2) The laws where you live.

Of course, there's the additional factor of a parent's willingness to leave their gr. 8 child at home alone all day long.

So, check the school's policies and look into what your city/town's laws are in terms of minors home alone--print off whatever you find online and take notes if you have to call somewhere. If that proves to be okay, you can show it to your mom. If it's really a matter of your mom not being comfortable with the idea of you being home alone that much, that'll be a harder issue to tackle!

Easier depends on you and the program and what you had in public school.

Answer 7

i'm in 8th grade too and i have been homeschooling since kindergarden. i have my mom home with me but sometimes I am just teaching myself.  You don't NEED a parent home with you but it makes it easier because then if you have a question you can ask them and you can go places and do cool things if you have a parent who can drive you.

Answer 8

If you're doing online school and you're old enough to stay home by yourself and your parents are okay with you staying home by yourself then no, you do not need a parent there with you.

As for the part about whether or not it's easier to learn, I will say that you're a lot more likely to meet your fullest potential, achieve more and go farther both socially and academically when you're HOMESCHOOLED, but I don't know how true this is for online school which is not at all the same as homeschooling. Online school is usually just public school done at home. Not the same.

Answer 9

Depends on your state's laws. Check here to see what your state requires. http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/dire...

Answer 10

No, you do *not* need a parent to be constantly there, teaching you in order to homeschool, per se; however the law may well say that, at your age, you *do* need a parent there in order for you to stay at home.

(I'm 15, home-educated and, along with my siblings, I teach myself (as do many other auto-didactic kids). When it comes to 'school', our parents act solely as our mentors and facilitators; they don't actively teach us anything. (Sorry Jason, *grin*, being taught by a parent or a tutor are just two alternatives out of a myriad of choices when it comes to home-education.) )

If you're 'going into grade 8', you are what? 13 years old? It may very well be illegal for your Mum to allow you to stay at home on your own for any length of time, regardless of whether you are doing schoolwork or anything else. Check out the LEGAL position on when (at what age) you can be left at home unsupervised if that is your mum's concern.

'Course if she just doesn't believe you're old enough, responsible enough, trustworthy enough, mature enough (or any of those other things mums tend to bang on about if you give them half a reason to!) to be left on your own, then she'll probably still be saying you have to have a parent there with you when you're 30!! If that is the case, then that's your mum's perogative, I'm afraid; until you turn 18, move out and start paying your own way in the world then your mum has the right to insist on whatever she chooses, even if that does mean you can't homeschool because she can't be there with you throughout the day when everyone else's mums are happy for them to stay home and do their lessons alone. You can either attempt to negotiate a compromise with her or you just have to accept she's your mum and whatever she says, goes.

Btw, Any schooling that you do online is Distance Education, *not* Home Schooling. It would still be very much a public/private school education; you just get to do it at home. Some people find that, by going down that track, they get the worst of both worlds and the benefits of neither!  

Whether or not it is easier to learn at home rather than school depends entirely on you, your personality, your surroundings, the amount of support you receive from others (incl. your mum) etc etc. It may well be easier at home and certainly heaps of people do find it easier but you also need to be pretty motivated and self-disciplined, committed and organised in order to make it work...and you have to be capable of keeping up those levels of motivation, self-discipline, commitment etc no matter what.

Rather than 'easier' it is probably heaps more accurate to say that *genuine* homeschooling is much harder work and heaps more demanding than simply going to school or doing school online etc; but, done properly, it is also massively more rewarding and fulfilling.

Answer 11

That depends on the laws in your city or state.  Are you old enough to legally be home alone?  (In my city, it's 13, in the neighboring city it's 12.  Check your local statutes, you should be able to find them online at your city government site.)

If you're old enough to be home alone (and you've proven yourself to be trustworthy), then no - technically you don't HAVE to have a parent home with you.  

Next question - are you able to keep yourself motivated and accountable to completing your work?  And do you like to learn on your own, or do you learn and retain better when someone is there to teach you?  

Some kids are highly motivated and do better on their own, while others do better under the supervision of a teacher or parent.  Some kids are auto-didactic - that is, they would rather just learn on their own - while others do better with someone else teaching them.

If you're legally old enough, and if you fit the motivated-self learning type, then online homeschooling may be for you.  Whether it's easier or not depends on you.  My son finds it easier, as he doesn't do well with the distractions in a classroom; my friend's daughter finds a classroom easier, as she needs the stimulation and competition.  It just all depends on you.

I hope that helps, and that it gives you topics to talk over with your mom?  Whatever you choose, I wish you the best.

Answer 12

No you do not need a parent there. Online charter schools also have teachers that are there fro you to help you by phone, email , and online vitural class rooms.

Answer 13

We have homeschooled our son since the 8th grade and he will be going into the 11th this year.

  My husband and I both work for the public schools.

We started homeschooling with my husband being home most of the day.  That quickly changed because of a better job available for him in the school system.   We adapted.

We did not choose an online program , a boxed curriculum program or a computer teaching program.   They were more expensive than we thought necessary and we really didn't feel that those programs would be any more successful than public school had been for our son.  (No reflection on the teachers but just a difference in the public school's setup and our son's learning style.)

Creating our own curriculum takes time but saves the dollars.

It also allows us to trash things that don't work and find things that do work.     Another benefit is that   he doesn't have to stay with a particular program or text book.  He may start out with a text book about American History and get to something that raises a question either about a particular person or about navigation.   He can put the text book aside and do research.   I am not going to get crazy because he only got through 3 pages of a text book if he spends  time  reading other sources about a topic that caught his interest.

Our schedule looks something like spending time in the mornings reading together, checking work, discussing, listening to a lecture, or planning.

He does the assignments by himself.  He listens to lectures (free online) by himself.   He also helps with housework.    We sometimes spend an hour or two in the afternoons doing the same things as we did in mornings.

I really don't understand people who think that an 8th grader cannot read and understand what they are reading.  That is the key to education.   Teachers, in a public school classroom, are there to make sure the students do the work.  They may spend some classtime in lectures, but much of it is just encouraging the students who want to learn and pushing the students who don't want to learn.    

Your mother does not have to be there while you are learning.  It will be her responsibility to make sure you get an education , but I have a feeling that you will make that job easy for her.

Is homeschool easier than public school?    It depends on what you consider easy.    I am still learning and learning is fun for me.     It is more rewarding for  me  to understand a subject rather than memorize a few facts long enough to pass a test.