Hi Guys! Do you know of any good books to recommend to explain the benefits of homeschooling to educators and those who consider themselves to be highly educated? I have a friend who is going to start homeschooling this next fall. She has a 3rd grader, 1st grader and 16 mo. Her mom is an educator and her sister is a college grad. They both highly disagree with her decision to hs. I guess what she wants is something that will answer the questions they have. I didn't know of any books off the top of my head. Thanks!
Don't know of any books, but I'd like to say that I hs and I was a college grad and an educator myself. Not only that but my sociology professor in college homeschooled her children! The college I attended is very homeschool friendly as well! I think they are just anti-homeschool and need to get over it. Hopefully someone here will be able to suggest some good reads! You usually are either prohomeschool or antihomeschool ....no in between. I hope she can win them over or atleast have their support that she can do it!
You could point out that it's often homeschoolers who win the Geography and Spelling Bees. There are things on-line that talk about how homeschoolers are often ahead of their public schooled peers. The main reason is that they get one-on-one attention from their teacher, who loves them like noone else can, since it's their mom or dad! How can you beat that?! How can being in a room with 20 or more other children, sort of lost in the crowd, no time for the poor teacher to give one-on-one to all of them (even the best teacher can't do that!), peer pressure, low morals, bullying, etc. be better for your children than the loving parents and the one-on-one attention???! Plus, as a homeschool family, you can individualize the program for each child--slow down when the child doesn't understand something, or speed up when he/she already understand a concept. A classroom teacher just doesn't have the time to do that! PLUS, over time, it helps bond the family, bring them closer to each other, instead of relying on peers for attention/interaction! All that said, it doesn't mean every day is going to be wonderful! There are some days that drive you crazy, and you wonder why on earth you homeschool! But other days are GREAT, and you wouldn't want it any other way than being home with your children! Plus, children were given to US by God, not to someone else! They grow up so fast, and you miss out on so much when you send them away a large percentage of each day!
"Do you know of any good books to recommend to explain the benefits of homeschooling to educators and those who consider themselves to be highly educated?" I don't know whether it's that good, but I am currently working on an e-book - a basic guide to homeschooling from the parents' perspective. I am more than happy to post a link to it on here so you (and anyone else who wants it) can download it free. I hope it helps - there is some info on benefits in it. (It just needs a bit more formatting and a cover!) So watch out for it! I think the benefits of homeschooling depend on where you are in the world. For example, I used to be a language teacher in the UK - horrendous job! Rude, unwilling, children and contant disruptrion made the lessons very difficult for the few willing ones to learn from. No nice, willing child should have to suffer while teachers have to deal with the seemingly constant problems that detract from study. I imagine the US is pretty much the same! Would I want my kids (if and when) to go through that? NO WAY! That, alone is a reason to homeschool (if there is such a verb!). Having said that, I am now an English teacher in Japan, where the whole attitude in most schools is very different from what it is in the west. I can actually teach lessons, and in general the while atmosphere is far nicer. Do children here need to be homeschooled? It might not even be allowed - I don't know. But then, there still remains one HUGE benefit - no matter what you do and what policies are in place, you can't possibly cater for the needs of 30+ kids at once. Someone is going to lose out, no matter how you play it. So, by homeschooling you can adapt all of the classes to your child all of the time. What is NOT right about that? And I'm saying that as an educator whose bread and butter depends on having kids in the classroom to teach... Let's face it - it just bugs people because homeschooled kids do better than schooled ones!
