Josh Duggar ('19 Kids and Counting') Arrested by Feds

[flyingsit]

Like Prancer said, it really varies. Some people take homeschooling very seriously and some people do very minimal teaching and let their kids basically amuse themselves all day and consider it "school."

I know one person who claimed to be homeschooling while she worked full-time and when asked for details, she said she was teaching them a nature-based education, which meant they mostly played outside and then came inside and did their own internet searches on things that interested them. So...

 

[Prancer]

Through browsing the internet, it seems that homeschooling is common and popular in the US (well beyond special needs situations).

I wouldn't say that. I believe homeschooled students constitute around 3-4% of students in the US, which I, at least, would not call common or popular.

The pressures and mental demands on parents to educate their kids all day everyday through preschool to high school (as well as all the other parenting) must be pretty onerous.

I don't see why parents would find it more onerous than teachers. I would say it's less so, given that you have fewer students and it takes a lot less time to do the work.

Very few homeschoolers teach their kids from preschool through high school. The majority of homeschooled kids are homeschooled for a few years only.

The thing with homeschooling is that the child has to accept the parent in the role of teacher. There usually comes a point where the child rebels and at that point homeschooling falls apart. This doesn't always happen, but it often does and so a lot of homeschooled kids end up in a regular high school. That's also often the point where parents begin to struggle with curriculum.

Obviously, one parent wouldn't be able to work.

I think that depends, too. I've known homeschoolers where both parents work.

 

[ilovepaydays]

Through browsing the internet, it seems that homeschooling is common and popular in the US (well beyond special needs situations). Why is that? The US has free public schooling for all kids doesn't it?

The pressures and mental demands on parents to educate their kids all day everyday through preschool to high school (as well as all the other parenting) must be pretty onerous. Obviously, one parent wouldn't be able to work.

Because the quality of public education varies WIDELY by state and even within the same city. Some public school districts are as good (and maybe better) than $$$$$$ private schools and other school districts are, quite frankly, complete garbage. And moving to somewhere that has better quality public schools may not a doable option for many families. And homeschooling is considerably more affordable than most private/parochial schools where I live (DC metro area), for example.

Almost all homeschooling families that I know has at least one parent that either works from home or doesn’t work in a career at all. It’s worth noting that all the homeschooling families that I know have said that the benefits (flexibility of scheduling, quality of curriculum, lack of bullying, etc.) far outweigh any difficulties.

 

[starrynight]

Well this is interesting. As I said, homeschooling (as opposed to distance education for remote rural children) as far as I'm aware is really uncommon in my country - I've never heard of anyone ever (in tv, conversation, news etc) being homeschooled for a reason other than doing distance education due to living on a remote farming property/small town too far from schools. I only ever learnt of it being a thing via the internet and US television.

But I do totally get that some parents find themselves in a dilemma with some local schools being a bit scary if you happen to live in a rough area.

Although I am personally imagining the kind of 'curriculum' my strongly opinionated father might have put together for me, and I'm kind of flinching at the thought of being only exposed to that during my childhood and teens. Crikey (I'm actually laughing out loud at my laptop thinking of the way he would have framed some of the subjects).

 

[ЭPiKUilyam]

The thing with homeschooling is that the child has to accept the parent in the role of teacher. There usually comes a point where the child rebels and at that point homeschooling falls apart. This doesn't always happen, but it often does and so a lot of homeschooled kids end up in a regular high school. That's also often the point where parents begin to struggle with curriculum.

I was good friends in high school with the class nerd. Everything you can imagine him being. No socialization skills, but a total genius. His older sister went to Rice and he ended up at MIT. His family was in some kind of fundamentalist church and he wasn't really encouraged to socialize with others outside his church (I seemed to be his only friend from school, which of course I'd be his friend! The junior with a college boyfriend! lol). ANYWAY, his brilliant NASA parents decided they'd do an experiment for the youngest daughter and she was taken out of public school from 6-8th grade. By the time she made it to Clear Lake, which is a very strong HS, for 9th grade, it was a complete disaster. She not only couldn't sign up for Honors classes, but it seemed she had trouble with basic reading and arithmetic. It was sad to see her struggle, especially considering how bright her two siblings are. Then she got pregnant at 15 or16 and it was back to homeschooling. She was a sad situation. The homeschooling completely screwed her up, if it wasn't their fundamentalism.

 

[starrynight]

@ErikWilliam Maybe she was always going to be the odd one out in the family? It’s not uncommon for there to be some academic siblings and then one that struggles. Wouldn’t she have already learnt how to read by 6th grade?

 

[ЭPiKUilyam]

@ErikWilliam Maybe she was always going to be the odd one out in the family? It’s not uncommon for there to be some academic siblings and then one that struggles. Wouldn’t she have already learnt how to read by 6th grade?

You do have a point. She was having trouble with things that I had down by 4th grade. Maybe she was the odd one out in that family, but she is the only one to have been homeschooled. Maybe it was just a strange coincidence and there was no correlation.

 

[mjb52]

The best student I ever had when I was teaching had been homeschooled. He was also I think only 16 (this was a first year college class), which sort of shocked me when I found out. But he probably would have done well no matter what kind of schooling he had.

 

[genevieve]

A college friend decided to homeschool her kid due to YKW - I think because she did not trust the way their school was dealing with things. I'm not actually sure if friend has another job (ok, acquaintance more than friend at this point) but she does occasionally post about the lessons her child is doing, and they seem very interactive and exploratory. These are mostly the science class lessons. No idea what homeschooling framework she's using, but I want to go to her kid's classes!

 

[Prancer]

The best student I ever had when I was teaching had been homeschooled. He was also I think only 16 (this was a first year college class), which sort of shocked me when I found out. But he probably would have done well no matter what kind of schooling he had.

Yeah, I had one who was 15 and had already done all the master's level math classes at the university. He had taught himself Latin and Greek for fun. He had read pretty much everything that was assigned in all the undergrad literature classes and some beyond that. He was taking advanced engineering, physics and chemistry classes when I had him.

I gave him a B on one paper and he was so enraged I thought he was going to have a stroke. He had never gotten a B before.

He could have graduated from high school early (I think around third or fourth grade). His parents thought he needed a normal kind of kid life until he matured emotionally, but they also wanted him to be challenged intellectually, so they cobbled together an education for him from many sources; he took classes at public school and college, studied on his own at home with a little direction from his parents, played soccer and worked at McDonald's (you can imagine how he hated that ).

He was not a happy teenager (15 is generally not a happy age), but I don't know what would have made him happy. I thought his parents were lovely people and that their approach to dealing with his gifts was thoughtful. But I don't know if it was the right thing for him.

They let him graduate and go off to MIT or somewhere when he got his driver's license and had been driving for six months or so.

I've had some really great homeschooled kids and some really terrible ones...just like all the other kids.

A college friend decided to homeschool her kid due to YKW - I think because she did not trust the way their school was dealing with things. I'm not actually sure if friend has another job (ok, acquaintance more than friend at this point) but she does occasionally post about the lessons her child is doing, and they seem very interactive and exploratory. These are mostly the science class lessons. No idea what homeschooling framework she's using, but I want to go to her kid's classes!

Yeah, I forgot to mention that a lot of museums and other organizations have programs for homeschooled kids. Our local children's museum has a great science program and the art museum does some really nice things for homeschoolers.

 

[Aceon6]

An informal poll of parents of grade schoolers on my street had nearly all doing some home school in addition to the public school Zoom classes. Our district had some trouble getting remote learning going, so many took things into their own hands and signed up for the State authorized home school curriculae, mostly the STEM sections. It was entirely happenstance, but 4 families all chose the same stuff, so they were able to do some study groups as well.

All the kids went back last month, but those 4 families are going to continue with the STEM stuff.

 

[overedge]

FWIW most of the homeschoolers I'm aware of are doing it because they think the public school system is full of lefty atheists that are trying to brainwash kids.

 

[Badams]

Through browsing the internet, it seems that homeschooling is common and popular in the US (well beyond special needs situations). Why is that? The US has free public schooling for all kids doesn't it?

The pressures and mental demands on parents to educate their kids all day everyday through preschool to high school (as well as all the other parenting) must be pretty onerous. Obviously, one parent wouldn't ever be able to work.

But how could parents design their own curriculum for their children or ignore subjects? How does that work in terms of a child's right to an education?

There's a group of homeschoolers in my little village in NY. I spoke to the mother of one of the families about it because she was trying to convince me to send MY kids to her (hell no!). Her reasons were "we homeschool because we don't want our kids indoctrinated into Socialism". I told her I absolutely LOVE Socialism and quickly got away from them. Their kids are currently in the public school here. Most of them were at least 2 years behind but have since mostly caught up thanks to summer school. The mom recently died from cancer that she decided she was treating herself with herbs and potions, because Western medicine would kill her. She was a trained nurse who also tried to sell me vitamins and herbs to treat my type 1 Diabetes. I haven't seen any good results from homeschooling, needless to say. My kids are currently fully remote while dealing with the current international issue, but I don't consider that homeschooling because I do not teach them a thing. They are learning right along with their peers, only in my kitchen rather than the classroom.

 

[Amy L]

FWIW most of the homeschoolers I'm aware of are doing it because they think the public school system is full of lefty atheists that are trying to brainwash kids.

I live in a very very (VERY) rightwing area. One of my friends when I was elementary-aged was homeschooled. Her parents pulled her & her siblings out for similar reasons you mentioned. When I invited her to my choir concerts, plays, etc, her parents wouldn't allow her to even GO inside of a school. They outright told her that if she went she'd probably get r*p*d. I was since of course that could happen anywhere, but nothing like that happened to me, and they were telling their daughter that any time you went near a school you'd probably get assaulted? huh? Is that what they thought took up most of the 8 hours I went to school?? Weird. Most of their materials were church-based and I don't know how much schooling they actually did, when she talked about what she did all day it didn't sound all that educational. Her & her siblings are on my Facebook, they are at least literate enough to do that, and none of them are homeschooling their own kids.

My husband was homeschooled from grades 1-5. His kindergarten teacher told his parents that he was "retarted" because he couldn't do anything she said and he never paid attention to her. He was held back a year, then by the time he made it to first grade they found out that he was deaf. His mother was furious that so-called professionals couldn't figure out that it wasn't his intellect that prevented him from learning, it was the fact that he couldn't hear his teachers. His mother homeschooled him & his siblings for a while, but one of his sisters has severe behavioral/psychological issues that his mom couldn't handle by herself. My husband was sent to the Texas School for the Deaf from grades 6-10, but he didn't like it there so he was finally allowed to finish school at the local public high school. Some of his teachers still didn't believe that he was deaf so they didn't always give him the accomodations he needed, but he was able to do well enough to graduate at least. His family isn't religious, but if you've seen some of my posts on PI, they are suuuuuuuuper rightwing. They don't trust "educated elites" at all, so they actually talked him out of ever going to college and they make fun of ME for having a bachelors degree. One of his sisters is super duper Q-Anon brainwashed and tried to homeschool her son for a year and it was a total disaster. She gets really overwhelmed very quickly and just couldn't keep it under control. He went back to regular school in the 4th grade until the p-demic hit and then switched to distanced learning. She seems to like it better since he's at home and not getting abducted by billionaires or whatever it is she believes, but he's got actual teachers helping him and she doesn't have to split all of her attention to keeping him engaged and learning but also dealing with her younger kid (toddler-aged).

One of my husband's friends from high school, who he still sees fairly often, homeschools her children. She hated school and didn't want her kids to go through all the bullying and violence. She has four children, aged 4-10. I don't know how she's going to do all that by herself, especially as the kids age. The oldest two are already starting their preteen moodiness, I know she's going to go nuts. She's alone with them all day and her husband has to work as much overtime as he can to support a large family. She's not particularly religious, and she says she tries to find secular material for her kids, but she is a bit of a conspiracy theorist... she claims that she was a flat-Earther, but I'm pretty sure she still is, and she only said she wasn't because she was around a bunch of people making fun of it. She explained all the stuff online about Flat Earth that was convincing because "well, if you think about it, it does make a lot of sense" and gave me the reasons why. I pulled all of my geography major knowledge to explain some of the "stuff that makes sense" but who knows if anything made it through to her. So good luck to them I guess.

 

[MacMadame]

Through browsing the internet, it seems that homeschooling is common and popular in the US

I'll state this stronger than Prancer. Homeschooling is very fringe, not popular at all. As you can see from the responses here, many in the mainstream look down on it and believe a lot of stuff about it that isn't always true (but sometimes is).

FWIW most of the homeschoolers I'm aware of are doing it because they think the public school system is full of lefty atheists that are trying to brainwash kids.

I can assure you that this is not why I homeschooled my son for 2 years. As I am a lefty atheist myself.

As Prancer says, a lot of people homeschool their kids for short periods of time. Often, the issue is situational more than philosophical. In my case, my son was being shoved through to High School when he wasn't remotely ready and I had a home-based business so I could supervise him somewhat. We used a local Charter school that was all independent learning and he'd go in every 2-3 weeks to talk to his "teacher" and decide what he was going to learn next. The curriculum followed the state curriculum and they used a lot of the same books. I made him write a lot of papers and worked with him to be a good writer on top of it.

My neighbor OTOH took her kids out of school because they went to the school attached to their church with very small classes that stayed together including the teacher for the entire K-8 and she didn't like some of the dynamics of one of her kid's classes and figured they weren't going to change. (Also, I'm pretty sure she was having FOMO because a bunch of her friends were homeschooling.) They used a curriculum they bought somewhere that a bunch of her friends were using and did a lot of stuff with as a group with those families. When they moved, the kids went back to regular school. Even though they were religious, I don't think the curriculum was religious-based.

Oh and also she was one of those people who looked down on public schools and was sure private was always better; even though there are public schools in our town who are ranked very highly and are definitely better than the private schools that only exist to cater to people like her and are actually fairly mediocre.

I have other friends/acquaintances who homeschooled their kids. In all cases, something happened at school that wasn't acceptable to them so they took one or more of their kids out of school for short periods of time. Many came back to school for High School and that was always the plan. Or the situation changed and regular school was possible again or the kid just wanted to go back because he missed his friends.
-One had a smart kid who was bored at school.
-One had a teacher who picked on their son and also didn't seem to understand some of the STEM subjects she was teaching.
-One wanted a more flexible schedule for a while due to some family issues (they had to travel back and forth to aging parents, IIRC).

All of them have kids who seem perfectly normal to me (well, maybe not the super-smart one but she's weird in the best possible ways. ) and had no issues moving back and forth between homeschooling and regular school. Some homeschooled for longer than they expected and ending up homeschooling all the kids and some did it for a very short time and decided it wasn't for them.

I did know a few families through La Leche League who were into Unschooling. They were always taking their kids on trips to museums and doing projects. It was a lot of work, more than having a set curriculum IMO. I lost touch with them so I don't know how long they did it or how their kids turned out. But based on how weird their parents were, I suspect they were also weirdos. They were nice boys though so maybe not.

 

[Vagabond]

How does this contradict Rachael's version? Beside the fact that she said the wife teaches piano when in fact it's the daughter, I see no contradiction.

I must have misunderstood another poster's explanation of what was in Rachael Denhollander's tweets. As I said before, I don't want to read the tweets themselves because I don't want to retraumatize myself.

 

[Prancer]

I'll state this stronger than Prancer. Homeschooling is very fringe, not popular at all. As you can see from the responses here, many in the mainstream look down on it and believe a lot of stuff about it that isn't always true (but sometimes is).

Yes to all.

I can assure you that this is not why I homeschooled my son for 2 years. As I am a lefty atheist myself.

Yes. Again, I deliberately try to avoid making assumptions about homeschoolers because there are so many biases against homeschooling, the main one being "Oh, here's another illiterate religious nut who reads on a fourth grade level and doesn't know how to add and thinks man co-existed with dinosaurs."

There are faculty where I teach who think this way and refuse to budge on it, in spite of all the exceptions who have turned up in their classes (and the fact that those students had to pass academic tests to get into classes). It's always "Yes, but."

Most homeschoolers I have known personally have been like MacMadame; they are, for varying reasons, unhappy with their children's schooling or situation and homeschool for a while.

Of the ones I've had in classes, roughly half have been religious and half have not. Very few have been homeschooled for their entire K-12 education.

 

[Jay42]

FWIW most of the homeschoolers I'm aware of are doing it because they think the public school system is full of lefty atheists that are trying to brainwash kids.

This was part of why my parents chose to continue homeschooling my brother and I. Also because then they had the ability to control how we learned science. My mom emphasized how science was taught a lot when she would tell me about how my grandparents were asking her why my parents didn't put my brother and I in school.

So not in the States and this was over a decade ago now so things were a little different at the time. My parents briefly homeschooled my brother and I with a local school board in the town we were in but they switched to a Christian one after a few years, said Christian school board was shut down because of financial fraud in 2016 but have since reopened. There's also this which I'm guessing I would have found out if I had pursued post-secondary education.

My brother and I were both homeschooled, he has dyslexia and my mom spent more of her time working with my brother than me so I functionally taught myself, especially for most of high school. It's left my brother and I both feeling very insecure about our education levels. He genuinely thinks that he would have been better off in an actual school even if he had ended up in special ed classes. I switched from algebra to a really mediocre business math curriculum that was more focused on teaching bible lessons than actual math after grade 9 because I couldn't grasp algebra. My mom still thinks that it was all fine and expects my brother and I to homeschool our potential future children and neither one of us plan too because we know we aren't equipped for it.

As a result of my insecurity over my education, especially science wise, I read so many science articles and news reports. Despite my struggle with algebra I am decent at math. I always did have a knack for counting money which has served me well in the jobs I've had. But the idea of pursuing further education, especially because I finished school in 2005 and I don't even know if I have actual transcripts for school, which, as per the article I linked in my second paragraphed, are probably not worth anything anyway, is genuinely kind of frightening. Ultimately it's like the Bari Miller in the article I linked says "Home-school your kids, that's fine. But there has to be regulation in place so we can actually function in the world once we graduate."

 

[gkelly]

Of people I knew personally who were homeschooled:

One guy had grown up on a small island off the coast of Maine. If I understood correctly, the closest schools would have required taking a ferry to the mainland which the family felt the kids could do as highschoolers but not as young children. He said when he went to high school he felt he was more behind socially than academically.

In another case I understood that the mother had been an educator before she had kids and wanted to spend more time with her kids while using those skills.

And I did once had a conversation with a religious dad who didn't want his kid(s) exposed to some of what he considered secular/leftist aspects of the public school system.

In a few cases I didn't know why the families chose to home school, but the kids were skaters and it seemed that they got into skating because they had flexible schedules during the day due to homeschooling.

Which isn't to mention the opposite situation of skaters being homeschooled so that they will be free to skate during the day.


In other words, lots of different reasons, as others have said.

 

[Prancer]

But the idea of pursuing further education, especially because I finished school in 2005 and I don't even know if I have actual transcripts for school, which, as per the article I linked in my second paragraphed, are probably not worth anything anyway, is genuinely kind of frightening.

How to Get into University – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

7 ways to get into university without a high school diploma – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

I know it's scary, but if you want to pursue education, it's there for you. You might have to study harder than some of the students at first, but you have the advantage of wanting to learn. Take a class and see how you do. I'll bet you surprise yourself.

 

[Coco]

@Jay42 if you are voluntarily reading science articles, I would think you will do fine in college.

My brother was an adjunct professor at University of South Carolina and he had freshman students who literally couldn't read

 

[overedge]

How to Get into University – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

7 ways to get into university without a high school diploma – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

I know it's scary, but if you want to pursue education, it's there for you. You might have to study harder than some of the students at first, but you have the advantage of wanting to learn. Take a class and see how you do. I'll bet you surprise yourself.

This. @Jay42 almost every college and university has an admission category for students without a high school diploma, and almost all of them also have courses for upgrading to help potential students get accustomed to post-secondary education. There's a place in university and college for everyone who genuinely wants to be there.

 

[Jay42]

How to Get into University – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

7 ways to get into university without a high school diploma – University Admissions in Canada

universityadmissions.ca

I know it's scary, but if you want to pursue education, it's there for you. You might have to study harder than some of the students at first, but you have the advantage of wanting to learn. Take a class and see how you do. I'll bet you surprise yourself.

@Jay42 if you are voluntarily reading science articles, I would think you will do fine in college.

My brother was an adjunct professor at University of South Carolina and he had freshman students who literally couldn't read

This. @Jay42 almost every college and university has an admission category for students without a high school diploma, and almost all of them also have courses for upgrading to help potential students get accustomed to post-secondary education. There's a place in university and college for everyone who genuinely wants to be there.

Thank you all. @Prancer I will definitely look into that, thank you.

 

[pat c]

Thank you all. @Prancer I will definitely look into that, thank you.

Good, you can do this. You go girl.

 

[maatTheViking]

@Jay42 a friend of mine's ex wife had struggled with trauma and mental health while in high school, leading her to not graduate. After many years of not having any formal schooling, she got her GEDs at a community college in her 40s, then proceeded to get a Bachelor's degree (not from the community collage, from a state University)

I agree, you can do this!!

 

[barbk]

@Jay42 -- you might find this book helpful:

Amazon.com: Never Too Late: The Adult Student’s Guide to College: 9781620973219: Klein-Collins, Rebecca: Books

Amazon.com: Never Too Late: The Adult Student’s Guide to College: 9781620973219: Klein-Collins, Rebecca: Books

www.amazon.com

“This beautifully organized guide is indispensable to first-time college students regardless of entry point and especially useful for adults returning to college later in their careers.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

 

[MsZem]

Thank you all. @Prancer I will definitely look into that, thank you.

I don't think there's a place in college/university for everyone who wants to go, but from what you've written here it seems like you have both the ability and the drive to succeed. Go for it

(I'm sure other professors/lecturers will agree that curious, motivated students with some life experience are a delight to have in class)

 

[Jay42]

@Jay42 -- you might find this book helpful:

Amazon.com: Never Too Late: The Adult Student’s Guide to College: 9781620973219: Klein-Collins, Rebecca: Books

Amazon.com: Never Too Late: The Adult Student’s Guide to College: 9781620973219: Klein-Collins, Rebecca: Books

www.amazon.com

“This beautifully organized guide is indispensable to first-time college students regardless of entry point and especially useful for adults returning to college later in their careers.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

Thanks, I've added it to my list of books to buy because otherwise I will definitely forget.

 

[millyskate]

I'll state this stronger than Prancer. Homeschooling is very fringe, not popular at all. As you can see from the responses here, many in the mainstream look down on it and believe a lot of stuff about it that isn't always true (but sometimes is).

It's all relative - whilst the vast majority of US children go to school, homeschooling is still far more embedded in the culture and popular than pretty much anywhere else in the world. Just listening to Prancer describe her multiple experiences of welcoming homeschooled children into the classroom shows it does happen on a fairly regular basis.

Growing up in France, the only homeschooled children we knew were the children of US expats. In secondary school, two of my friends from the music school did the "CNED" which is the French national curriculum taught at the time by correspondence, now online - the child works entirely autonomously with the materials from home. They have to regularly send in tests for assessment. These friends opted for it because they wanted to focus on preparing for music exams and competitions. My mum offered me the opportunity to do the same because she didn't want me to feel left out but I chose not to.

I used to be very opposed to homeschooling for a number of reasons (mainly hearing the motives of the homeschooling families I knew growing up) but I'd now be open to it for children suffering from bullying or dealing with learning difficulties in particular. I also realise that sometimes, the locally available school environment is just so challenging that one doesn't want to send a child into it.

In general, the social education and resilience school provides is so valuable. I used to get particularly annoyed with the expat families in all the places I've lived in the world who just wouldn't consider the local schools and insisted that educating at home because they considered the local options to be inferior. Their kids missed out on so many opportunities, and often a fantastic education just as rich if not richer than the one they'd have had in their parents' home country.

 

[starrynight]

I think I read recently that homeschooling is now illegal in France? I am I right in that? As I understand it, it’s part of Macron’s efforts to combat religious extremism.