Wednesday
Mar222006
When Will You Stop Homeschooling?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 10:31PM
Another entry in my series on "Questions for homeschoolers."
When learning that we homeschool and we work through the "why," the "what," the "how," and the popular socialization questions, onlookers then want to know how long we will homeschool our children and if we plan on putting them into "regular" high school.
This is another question that I love, because it allows me to answer and challenge people at the same time. To begin, I refer back to the "why we homeschool" question. I've blogged on part of that answer before, but in short we are a Christian family and we want to raise and educate our children with a Christian worldview. They will never get that in a school that is funded and directed by the government. They will get the exact opposite as they are trained in secular humanism.
So then, why not put them in a Christian High School? This is a fair question because the worldview issue seems to be answered (well...maybe...we all know of schools called "Christian" because they are physically connected to a church but everything else looks strinkingly similar to the public school down the street). Back to my point...this leads me to the second reason we plan to home educate through high-school (and maybe even into college). I've already blogged about peer dependency and I like what a blog-friend recently said: "Nearly every brick and mortar school is organized into age-segregated classrooms. Students progress through the grades regardless of ability or preparedness. The "quick to learn" are forced to wait while the "slow to learn" catch up."
Why, why, why would we give up the benefits of custom individualized education in our home for the "cattle-like" treatment found in the typical American high school? Why would I spend eight years shepherding their hearts and souls so I could release them into the ridiculous peer-dependent environment of the local high school? And, finally, why would we home educate our children through the difficult grammar years only to turn them over when they finally get interesting and can reason and discuss the fun topics of life with us?
In truth, I think what these critics really want to know is if we are going to let our kids go to high school so they can take part in the sports, dances, and proms? The answer is still no...I think my kids will turn out okay without going through the experience of locker rooms, home rooms, and campus life.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
When learning that we homeschool and we work through the "why," the "what," the "how," and the popular socialization questions, onlookers then want to know how long we will homeschool our children and if we plan on putting them into "regular" high school.
This is another question that I love, because it allows me to answer and challenge people at the same time. To begin, I refer back to the "why we homeschool" question. I've blogged on part of that answer before, but in short we are a Christian family and we want to raise and educate our children with a Christian worldview. They will never get that in a school that is funded and directed by the government. They will get the exact opposite as they are trained in secular humanism.
So then, why not put them in a Christian High School? This is a fair question because the worldview issue seems to be answered (well...maybe...we all know of schools called "Christian" because they are physically connected to a church but everything else looks strinkingly similar to the public school down the street). Back to my point...this leads me to the second reason we plan to home educate through high-school (and maybe even into college). I've already blogged about peer dependency and I like what a blog-friend recently said: "Nearly every brick and mortar school is organized into age-segregated classrooms. Students progress through the grades regardless of ability or preparedness. The "quick to learn" are forced to wait while the "slow to learn" catch up."
Why, why, why would we give up the benefits of custom individualized education in our home for the "cattle-like" treatment found in the typical American high school? Why would I spend eight years shepherding their hearts and souls so I could release them into the ridiculous peer-dependent environment of the local high school? And, finally, why would we home educate our children through the difficult grammar years only to turn them over when they finally get interesting and can reason and discuss the fun topics of life with us?
In truth, I think what these critics really want to know is if we are going to let our kids go to high school so they can take part in the sports, dances, and proms? The answer is still no...I think my kids will turn out okay without going through the experience of locker rooms, home rooms, and campus life.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
Reader Comments (1)
Here here!
(or is that, "hear hear!")