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65 sats \ 5 replies \ @justanumber 25 Feb \ parent \ on: Over 3 Million Americans are Homeschooled charts_and_numbers
The kids at school are not doing a full curriculum for 7/8 hours a day, a lot of it is "busy work", crowd control and other unnecessary stuff. Most "homeschoolers" (i.e. those who do "school" or at home) pull it off in about a couple of hours - 3 hours at the most.
This is correct. My son, now 13, has been homeschooled for his entire educational career. If we didn't allow him to get ahead or work on other educational/developmental interests such as coding, music, taekwondo/working out during his 8 hours of schooling per day he would be done his entire daily curriculum in 2-3 hours.
He is a grade level ahead in every subject and two grades ahead in math.
Public schools are more about social development and learning to take instruction and get work done than actual education. How can one teacher truly dynamically teach 30 students who each need to learn in their own unique way?
Anyways, I am a bit biased because we have had so much success with homeschooling and I know a lot of people I went to school with that became teachers and only one of them did it because they are passionate about teaching. The rest did it because in Canada it is a really cushy job, well paid, with a lot of time off and you can be really bad at it and never get fired. That's just reality. The teachers unions practically run Canada.
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My son loves being homeschooled. He has a couple extra curricular activities he does to add in some of the social element. His friends are pretty cool about the fact that he is homeschooled.
What's interesting is the change in reaction from other parents. We used to get odd looks from fellow parents when we said we were homeschooling but now we get more interested looks and a lot of questions so there has definitely been a shift in public perception.
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Regarding socialisation, home educated kids are learning social skills in the "real world" rather than in a class of 30 kids the same age as them (so like 3x0 8 yr olds) and the teachers who are "authority figures" which often creates an unpleasant power dynamic as there is a need for control. In home education there is a wide range of ages and experience and more of a mutual respect between adults and children. It's difficult for people who don't have the experience to grasp. I was there 16 years ago, thinking I was crazy for removing my eldest from state education - but it was pretty swift learning curve, once I was plunged into it.
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One additional thing that just came to mind is how schooling affects the parent-child bond, especially when both parents work, as it's the often the case nowadays. Children mostly experience their parents in stressful situations. In my opinion, this has unthinkable far reaching consequences.
When you talk to relatively older people, like 50+, you realise that they had much more freedoms. Already in early age, they could roam the streets unsupervised, socialise, play, explore with other kids. This would be unthinkable today, especially in a big cities. A tragedy!
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