Everyone says that, but I've seen no data to back it up. In fact, most studies show the exact opposite, that home schooled children have better social skills. People just assume that since they went to school, everyone else should too. Is it really in a child's best interest to spend the majority of his time with hundreds of other poorly supervised children, learning to emulate their behavior rather than the behavior of trusted adults?
As soon as you get out of school you realize that adult life, for most people, is absolutely nothing like school. It's shocking just how much nicer adults are than children. The only social environment school really prepares you for is an institutionalized one (e.g., prison).
And don't even get me started on the distractions, by the time I was 13 or so I spent so much time worrying about girls (and other social stuff, but mostly girls) that learning was the last thing on my mind (I still made a 4.0 in high school, but I didn't actually learn much). I also don't think that those juvenile relationships prepared me in any way for actual adult relationships.
Its a common question that comes up, and as far as my wife and I could figure out it has never actually been an issue here. One of the things people don't recognize right away is that rarely are you the only person home schooling, there can be lots of people in your area doing the same. One of the programs we did was for science a bunch of us did a one science topic for the week, and everyone in the group's kids would go to that parent's house for some particular expertise or investigation. These were 5, 7 even 10 student groups of similar ages working on the same material. Similarly for Reikes which was 15 - 25 home schooled kids once a week meeting up at a county park to discuss the ecology, bio-diversity, flora, fauna, land management, lots of stuff.
If the impression is home schooling is 1 kid sitting at home all day doing the same things they would do in a class room, you are not seeing what is going on around here. Groups of kids tackling problems and learning about history, math, communication, societies and communities, and all the material you'd normally get in school, just in chunkier bits with the opportunity to go deeper into the topic if you're interested and just pick up the required bits if you're not. Lots of reading, lots of field trips (the Sierras are fabulous for doing geology field trips), museums and such. Oh and lots and lots of reading.
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Everyone says that, but I've seen no data to back it up. In fact, most studies show the exact opposite, that home schooled children have better social skills. People just assume that since they went to school, everyone else should too. Is it really in a child's best interest to spend the majority of his time with hundreds of other poorly supervised children, learning to emulate their behavior rather than the behavior of trusted adults?
As soon as you get out of school you realize that adult life, for most people, is absolutely nothing like school. It's shocking just how much nicer adults are than children. The only social environment school really prepares you for is an institutionalized one (e.g., prison).
And don't even get me started on the distractions, by the time I was 13 or so I spent so much time worrying about girls (and other social stuff, but mostly girls) that learning was the last thing on my mind (I still made a 4.0 in high school, but I didn't actually learn much). I also don't think that those juvenile relationships prepared me in any way for actual adult relationships.
Which studies? I'm a little skeptical that home schooled children have better social skills than kids that attend public school.
Its a common question that comes up, and as far as my wife and I could figure out it has never actually been an issue here. One of the things people don't recognize right away is that rarely are you the only person home schooling, there can be lots of people in your area doing the same. One of the programs we did was for science a bunch of us did a one science topic for the week, and everyone in the group's kids would go to that parent's house for some particular expertise or investigation. These were 5, 7 even 10 student groups of similar ages working on the same material. Similarly for Reikes which was 15 - 25 home schooled kids once a week meeting up at a county park to discuss the ecology, bio-diversity, flora, fauna, land management, lots of stuff.
If the impression is home schooling is 1 kid sitting at home all day doing the same things they would do in a class room, you are not seeing what is going on around here. Groups of kids tackling problems and learning about history, math, communication, societies and communities, and all the material you'd normally get in school, just in chunkier bits with the opportunity to go deeper into the topic if you're interested and just pick up the required bits if you're not. Lots of reading, lots of field trips (the Sierras are fabulous for doing geology field trips), museums and such. Oh and lots and lots of reading.
I'd love to see some more rigorous work on this.