What is good about being home-schooled?

You're right that it's unfair to lump all homeschooled students into the naive file. Reading through the answers to your question, it becomes obvious that there are a lot of advantages, depending upon what the student and his/her family make of it. **Hopefully** someone in the family cares, though that isn't always the case, any more than it is the case that no teacher cares. One stereotype, like the implied one that all teachers are abusive and don't care, all schooled students are secular stoners, sluts and social miscreants, is just like the other that all homeschooled students are naive religious zealots who subscribe to conspiracy stories. Hit the road and get your education from strangers? Sure! Over 95% will have gone to a school. And apparently a lot of homeschooling families think it's cute and popular to criticize others from the ratings. Yet do the same to them and they can't take it and wonder why the majority consider them isolationist oddballs. Yeah, give me a thumbsdown for pointing out the obvious in the answers. Personally I worry about homeschooled kids whose parents make choices out of fear and schooled kids whose parents make no choices.

Homeschooling isn't the issue. It's the parenting. You can raise homeschooled and naive kids who put down the majority who attend schools, who are afraid of the world and what it has to offer. They can only associate with members of their church who never disagree. Or you can raise confident homeschooled kids who are actually out interacting with the 98% or so of people who don't homeschool. It's all about choice. Nobody tells you what to do when you're homeschooled. That's good. What do you want it to be?

I was homeschooled in high school due to severe bullying at school and I don't think I'm "stupid". At school the teacher didn't even acknowledge me and I spent the whole class misunderstanding the lesson. Now I'm attending university and taking criminology and psychology. I taught myself and I was always dedicated to my studies. @Anika, I didn't "sit up at home all day". I cooked for myself, cleaned, did my schoolwork, exercised and went hiking, and spent time doing extra-curricular activities like boxing, taekwondo, and rock climbing. I also made friends with other teenagers who were being homeschooled. A lot of them went on to have successful careers.

My grandkids have been home schooled, the first one sort of out of necessity b/c of behavior problems coming from harsh treatment of her by her mother, which her mother will not, to this day, admit to. Anyway, it went okay for a couple of years, because my daughter is smart and educated and prepared lessons. Her father should have joined in with the math and science stuff that is his field and he got lazy and didn't do much of anything. And then bad things started happening with my daughter and home schooling went down the tubes, and my granddaughter sat at her computer all day and developed her drawing, which was nice for the drawing aspect of it. But eventually, she had to leave her mother's because things were getting worse, and now she's living with her father who is the same guy who neglected her before and now he's all gung ho about home schooling her himself. And he won't let me see my granddaughter, so I can't find out what they are doing. Social services and home schooling—really lax here—as long as the school has a lesson plan everything is fine, Except they never check the lesson plans or if anyone is doing anything about them because some do-gooders who couldn't imagine anybody would volunteer to home-school their child and not do a top-notch job got it into law that the school could not oversee the home schooled kids. It really sucks. Plus the other granddaughter had a tragedy in her life and her father didn't send her back to school because she refused to go, and now he's supposed to be home schooling her, and I'm not allowed to see her either. My son and I are going nutz with worry about them. It's an example of how home schooling CAN be great (although this story doesn't show you that) but how it can be a big FAIL. The fathers of the two granddaughters (cousins) are so full of themselves that they think they know everything and don't need other teachers and all they know is computer stuff and political conspiracy theories, not much arts, languages, literature, philosophy, history. You know as well as I do (from what I see you saying) that people have to know something if they plan to teach it. Feeling like you know everything and keeping grandma out of the picture has tragic results.

Can you tell I'm angry? Me, I'm a college graduate with an MA in my field. So, yeah, the most educated person in the family, let's keep HER out of the way. She might criticize us. I dont' know whether at some point I should try to do something about the legal lack of oversight of home-schooling in this supposedly educated area.

Everyone has different experiences. No one method of schooling (home, public, private, online) is best for everyone in all situations. Parents need to decide what will be the best for their child. There are pros and cons for each of them that are different from each family.

For my family, we feel homeschooling allows a lot of freedom. I can choose curriculum that fits my kids needs, interests, and learning style instead of being stuck with an all-for-one curriculum provided by schools. If something isn't working, I am free to adapt it or switch anytime to something else. We can go at our own pace instead of that of a large class. We can explore side topics that interest my kids more thoroughly. When we go traveling, we can take our school with us rather than worrying about getting ahead or caught up when we get back. We can do school anytime of the day that is convenient instead of normal school hours. This allows us to do activities that interest them during the day.

Secular knowledge is important for getting a job, but in a religious sense, it makes no difference to the Father - the messiah didn't hold an Oxford or Yale degree.

On the flipside, homeschooling gives you the control over what the child learns, helping you reduce indoctrination, pressure from other children, worldliness, disrespect ad selfishness learned from other children, bullying (being the perpetrator of or the victim of) and many things, of course it can also have the consequence of a lonely child, and fewer chances to learn social skills.

Being a hater of what English schools indoctrinate our kids to believe and the way other kids behave, while living in England, if i were to have children, I would NOT have birth certificates signed for them (so that the state will not own them and be able to force me to school them), and I would have them home-educated and since they are not registered as a "legal person" or "state property" I can choose what they are taught, legislation cannot.

I hope this answers your question and is helpful :)

Knowledge isn't the same as intelligence. I've known a few homeschooled students- one was my best friend. She was very smart but knew very little, because her sisters were in charge of her education (huge age gap) and they let her do whatever she wanted with her day. They didn't care. I mean, it depends on a lot of factors; general education sucks, unless you can afford a private school. Our students graduate with little to no knowledge of how to succeed in the real world (not taught how to do taxes or create a resume, etc). So, it depends on who is giving them the information, their motivation, as to how much they know* but it doesn't speak to their intelligence.

1. self paced

2. flexible

3. requires ur integrity

4. self disciplined

5. hard working

6. have more studying times

7. not much projects to do

8. more time with your parents

9. not alot of hw

10. gets to choose electives for high schol

Being homeschooled can be great, especially nowadays when you can find simply

anything on the Internet. For example, I've found this software which teaches my kids

reading, writing, math and many other subjects - and does it in a very enjoyable

manner while speaking to each one of them using his own name!

What else can you ask for? Here it is:

http://www.dolphyeducationalgames.com/ChildrensGam...

The difference is that somebody at home cares, and people at school don't. You could hit the road and get your education from strangers and still do better than going through public schools because at least on the road you would be learning reality.

The Lost Tools of Learning http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html

The Underground History Of Public Education http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Personally, I am not a fan of home schooling. I don't like how you sit up at home all day. I would rather be in school where an education is handed to me. But that's just me.