What's it like being home schooled?

Question

Working on a story and was wondering how exactly it's different from public school.

Answer 1

Imagine the freedom to set your own pace, learn meaningful things, and be able to apply them in real life almost immediately.

Imagine the freedom to choose your own courses, set your own schedule, and still be able to have enough free time to get involved in numerous outside activities, work a job, and well be an independent capable young adult who knows he/she can think for themselves.

Any questions?

Answer 2

yeah, the main thing is doing everything from home... its totally cool that you can go to a theme park on a wednesday morning or whatever, but your social life is much smaller... there are ways that you can get involved with lots of people but its not as accesible as being in public/private schools... another big difference depends on why you are being homeschooled... i was homeschooled because my parents love me and dont want me to get exposed  to "all that"... this means that i litterally spend 24/7 with my family... if you were homeschooled because you were doing badly or you were bored or stuff like that you, usually, have friends still in school... but i dont so almost all of my friends are homeschooled...

Answer 3

you don't get to meet many people, but, if your parent is smart. it is a lot easier than reg. school because you can work at ur own pace you can also learn more interesting subjects and the atmosphere is much more relaxed

Answer 4

It really depends on the method you follow. Some do school at home and sit down and do school work for a few hours a day. Others (like  us) follow an unschool approach where the kids follow their interests and learn what they want. Still others are in the middle as far as how strict and formal your schooling is. Homeschooling can really be whatever you want it to be.

Answer 5

The teacher is someone who loves you, wants whats best for you and is willing to sacrifice greatly to see to it that you get the best education possible.

No bullying, shootings, peer pressure and peer dependence, drugs, pressure to have s*x and no need to learn useless garbage from special interest groups like g*y, feminist, environmental, abortion and other groups which now are able to influence education.

Answer 6

In 2000 I lived with a friend who had his wife and mother-in-law homeschooling their 5 children.

Like many "homeschoolers" the mom would get the kids up for school right near when we were going to work at 7:30.  

Get them fed, have them do some cleaning.  Then would set them down to study.  they would have a break at about 10.  Lunch.  and lunch clean up.  and some more projects.  early afternoon they would some cleaning.  

Pretty much a normal day .. but They did not seem to get to play often.  and what they studied fit state standards but seemed to be a bit off

.. and NO socicialization with other children except at the church on Wednesday and Sunday.

Like many homeschooler familes .. they were homeschooled for religous reasons.  

They had some odd books for Mennonites which not only had some normal school things but had several religiously based questions posed as right and wrong.  To me some of the questions were neigher right or wrong, but were correct in context of what society you lived in.  

(obviously I havn't been "schooled")

  

And I found these books and workbooks a little scary.  The family dressed the family almost like the books.  Girls were never allowed to wear pants.  Boys always wore a button down shirt and non jean trowsers.  

Nice enough as it were .. but the kids had almost never seen jeans.

no tv, no radio. no newspapers, no even talking to the grocery story lady.

I do have some fears for them.

They were/are so isolated that:

1. they are out of sync with the culture, so much so that it might harm them later.  

2. they are not allowed to see almost anyone else, except members of their church ..and then not unsupervised.

The neighbors are unwashed you know.  Seemed ok to me.

Almost everyone except them were going to h**l.  Are YOU "Christian enough?" -- what ever that means .. but they would try to tell you.

Lots of concern about being "saved" And the kids were going to h**l, unless they "accepted Christ" which they did shortly before I left.  at age 10 or younger.

I was extremely concerned that a modern english version of "Holy War" was being read to the kiddies and taught as a good example of how church and state should combine to work together to create an ideal comunnity.  and that there was too much religious tolerance, that America should become more intolerant of other religious groups.

oh my God.  

comments at amazon at the time mentioned quite a few Independent Baptists agreed with that statement.

3. the kiddies pounced on me one day and asked "me what I thought about evolution and if I thought that the evolution theory was silly and wrong?" I coyly answered .. "its controversial" .. and they asked "what does that mean?" and I said "it means you can argue about it" .. and they said "you can?!" and I said .. "well maybe you guys can't much, but others can and do" .. and to some "a right or wrong answer has not been reached yet" .. "oooh! really!"

4. One day young master S. said ".. ya know .. Daddy took Winny the Poo away from us because we liked it better than the Bible".. and I got a joyous confidential response when I said .. "Well on  some days I like Whinny the Poo better than the Bible too"

5. Unfortunately the children have never seen almost any popular children's fiction. no tv, no radio, no newspaper. And they were astounded at Greeley's books on Angels cause they had never seen anything like it before.  

They had never seen Spiderman .. wondered what it was on a friend's t-shirt .. said child friend was expelled from the little church shortly afterwards for being too wayward.  

6. They were busy trying to learn Ancient Greek .. but only as it agreed with the Bible King James Bible.  

Now if you have studied anything about this .. the ancient Greek can be ambiguous and/or can have different meanings than the King James translators gave.  But anything else was not "true".  To them each Bible verse had to have exactly and only one meaning.

The children had never seen a high-five .. some state conginition tests have a high-five to test socialization.

6. They had revisionist history around .. like a Christian history of the world.

7. There were spots of true child abuse, and I almost turned them in.  But because they were so isolated it was unobserved.  To this day I am uncertain if I did the right thing by letting them deal with it themselves.

I of course, whom was originally encouraged to rent the basement was quietly encouraged to leave .. heathen I was.

alas

So with all of this running around in a vacuum without community checks and balances .. makes the home schooling movement very scary to me.

Answer 7

It's fun.  Loads of free time.  Once you take out all the time wasted for going to different classrooms, roll call and waiting for the other students...  There's only about 3 or 4 hours of schoolwork being done in a day.

Answer 8

I'm going to put this in caps because you can't boldface:

NO TWO HOMESCHOOLERS ARE THE SAME. DOING A REPORT ON WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE HOMESCHOOLED IS LIKE  DOING A REPORT ON WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN CANADA.

What are Canadians like? What's it like to live in Canada? How exactly is it different from living in America?

Can't be answered.

In my case, I have a lot of freedom and spend 2-3 hours a day on work I've freely chosen to do, and I'm a couple grades ahead. My parents are not my teachers, I do not use a curriculum, I spend very little time at home, my family is not religious, we don't see every moment as an educational experience. By the last, I mean that we aren't the kind of people who can't do anything without rattling off an annoying list of facts.

In contrast some kids I know have school desks, school hours, their parents give them lessons, and they're Mormon fundamentalists. I have literally never seen their middle son doing anything but homework.

I don't go to school, and they don't go to school, but we handle our lives quite differently. However the people like me rarely get on the news, and when we do it's always an attack. I don't care though; it's my life and I'm going to live it the way I want to.

The social freedom is the best part. I have a load of friends, and since I left school at the end of third grade I've only gotten more social.

It gets me pretty steamed when people act like adolescence and the less saccharine sides of human nature are exclusive to public school. I don't know anyone who's having s*x, but I know kids who drink, I know kids who get stoned. There are some cliques, and people spread rumors. I swear, and so do my friends. Homeschoolers aren't these darling little angels who have been saved from the ravages of the evil, heartless school system.

Human nature is human nature, and to deny a group any part of it is to degrade that group.

Answer 9

I am currently homeschooled due to illness. And i think the main diff. is that you can do your work at any point in time. For instance i have lots of dr. appts. so if we are gone all day monday then i can skip "school" and do it the next day. It is also much more relaxed and quiet.

Answer 10

its boring all you do is work its no people there it sucks

Answer 11

Depends on each family.

My kids aren't so tied to a schedule.  They get to go a lot more places and do a lot more fun things (not book work all the time).  They get more input into what we work on--if they want to learn more about something, we work on that subject.  They can get a snack whenever they need one (not just when it's scheduled).  They get a lot more individual attention so that they can learn more in a lot less time.  And they get a lot more free time, time to spend with friends, or do what they want.

Answer 12

Our life isn't much different than when my kids were in public schools...we have a lot more free time, and get to see more friends because we have the freedom to move around. We get up when we want, go to sleep when we need to. We eat and play. Someone once described it to me as 'unschooling is like waking up on Saturday morning, EVERY DAY'. That's our life in a nutshell.

The big differences would be I guess that the kids don't have to get up at 7am anymore to get to school, we don't have to do homework after school, we don't have to cram chores into the five hours between school and bedtime, we spend a lot more time together, and we all value family more than most kids we know...who are away from family all day and then also learn from 'friends' that little brothers are always brats and big sisters are always hormonal fits, parent's are the bad guys etc. Amazingly enough, this isn't really true, it's just been created by the media to sell more product and tv shows...and it's been bought hook, line and sinker because it makes life easier to blame everything on family.

Boy, I *am* philosophical tonight. I'd better stop posting! Good luck with your story!

Answer 13

Being homeschooled can be great, you can make your own schedule and work at your own pace. Most online charter schools will allow you to work ahead and advance a grade level if you are completing the work ahead of time.

For more information about the online charter school I use and how it worked for me go to

http://homeschoolanswers.blogspot.com

Answer 14

It really varies depending on the parents.  For instance, I was home schooled from 4th-8th grade.  My mom is a teacher, and she wrote up a schedule for us to follow.  She made the lesson plans, and I followed them.  If I had any questions, I asked her, if I could do the work myself, I did.  She would then grade my work, and go over any problems I might have had.  The day started at 8 ended when I got my work done.  There were days that I was done by 12, and days that I was still working past 7 p.m..  The year started in late August, or early September, and was usually done by late May or early June.  My good friend was also home schooled.  Her mother was not a teacher, she did not write out the lesson plans, and she did the work whenever she felt like it.  For her, the school year usually lasted well into the summer, and she was lucky to be finished by late July.  It varies depending on the teaching style and experience of the parent.  I would not say that it was hard for me to make friends in high school.  I was always somewhere in the top 3 of my class, and currently attend Wake Forest University.  The other two that I fought for 1st with are both at Notre Dame.  My point is, I went to an academically competitive high school, and did quite well.  I attribute a lot of this to having been home schooled.

Answer 15

Disapline is important. It is a great education when done strictly [accredit program type thing]. Home schoolers don't fool around they are usually well educated.

Answer 16

As a parent who chose to remove my children from the public school system and home schooled my children i can give you my views. First we did it because we were not happy with the school environment. There is alot of bad socialization that occurs at the school and we wanted to eliminate this. Second we strongly were opposed to the content the school was teaching our children. We argued that we were responsible to teach our children about morals and sexual development and other such issues and decided the only way to ensure our children learned this was if they were home with us. The academics were satisfactory however their approach to individual childrens needs, both gifted children(we have one) and special needs(we have 2) was deplorable and we could see that our children`s self esteem and development was in jeopardy. Homeschooling let us control the content(most subjects they make you learn in school are not required and just waste your time), the speed(our children are usually done by noon daily), and the environment(fun quiet and peaceful). Schools are just  jails for kids. The bullying and social strata ostracization(clicks) are harmful to our children and now with the restrictions on teachers most kids are out of control. Our 2 eldest are in university and are doing well. My kids comment that they are glad they are homeschooled and many of their friends who attend public schools are depressed, have tried drugs, had s*x with both genders, attempted suicide and generally are unhappy. None of them say school is great...my kids do. As a therapist the difference inpublic schooled kids and homeschooled kids is in their respect for authority and others, their personal responsibility, their happiness their self discipline and as reported in many studies, their higher academic performance.

Answer 17

I don't know where to begin.

I'm homeschooled and I love it. Many people think homeschoolers aren't social or whatever, but they are!

I have tons of friends, and iv'e had a boyfriend, I get to invited to parties and everything.

The Main difference is well, you're at home...my mom teaches me, and since it's pretty much one-on-one so I learn very quickly.

Answer 18

i have a niece who teaches home school, she has taught her kids,4 girls and 1 boy,2 of the girls have graduated, she teaches in the mornings and they are through around 12:00pm, she teaches the same things they teach in schools and turns the paperwork in to the school system. the kids love it and so does she.

Answer 19

the only diff is that its done at home, your parents are basically your teacher and you do the work whenever you want but the down side of it is you dont really have a social life cause if you have friends at school you wont see them that much expect on the weekends.

Answer 20

I can't tell you that; nobody can.

This question is the homeschooling equivalent of: "How long is a piece of string?" You may as well be asking: "What's it like to have green eyes?"

There are as many ways to homeschool as there are families doing it so, as Glurpy already pointed out, being home schooled will mean a different thing to (and be a different experience for) every single person who sees your question.  

Personally I'm 15, a lifelong homeschooler and one of several siblings who are home educated. We're unschoolers so we don't bother about grades; passing/failing; lesson plans; timetables; or following any particular syllabus or curriculum. We don't have any compulsory subjects to do. In fact, we don't bother with any of the things that can often define homeschooling to a "school in a box/school at home" - type homeschooling family.

(Basically, if it happens at school, it doesn't happen here, lol.)

We're home educated partly because of personal/parental choice and partly because we live in a remote area where there are no day schools; the closest High school to our property is a 16 hour drive away. Hence, for my parents, it's always been a straight choice between having us homeschool and sending us to boarding school.

Answer 21

Wow, where to begin? Each homeschool is going to be different from the next one. There really is no consistent way of functioning the way there is in public school.

The students who are homeschooled will describe their experiences based on how their parents go about it. This varies from one family to the next. Some are structured very much like public school--in which case the main difference would be fewer distractions, more one-on-one, no competitive focus to undermine a child's self-esteem. On the other end are families who have almost no structure at all, the kids determine what they will do, etc. That means that most families are in between, with some sort of structure (which will vary widely) but lots of unstructured time, too.

Answer 22

the main diff, of course, is that it's done at home.  then, there's also the fact that homeschooled students get to work at their own pace.  also, they can take different classes because most have their parent's as "teachers"  :)