We're looking at homeschooling and as a result, everyone and their dog has an opinion.

Typical Objections

Homeschooled kids are weird/socially awkward.

Yes, they're weird. I had a good go at interacting with some homeschooled kids earlier this week while looking at possibilities for our own. They're not weird because of homeschooling, however. They're weird because of their parents.

The parents of kids who I saw having the most problem interacting with others were generally fucked in the head themselves. They prevented the kids from freely playing with other kids, prevented them from making small decisions like where to sit or whether they should sit together or not, had all their items (pens, lunch, etc) compartmentalised, and spent an hour hugging them in preparation for a separation of a few hours. For the record, the kids were participating in a one day camp that mixed kids from regular schools, religious schools, and homeschooled. By the end of the day the kids were interacting freely with other kids outside their circle of siblings.

Parents aren't qualified to teach.

Image source (Black parents are sick of kids left behind and are instead homeschooling)

I agree and disagree with this one. I agree that someone who barely finished highschool themselves, never read a book that's meant for adults, never travelled or opened their mind to anything in any way, and has the vocabulary of a washing machine shouldn't be teaching anything past kindergarden. Probably shouldn't be doing that either. You need to know the multiplication table yourself to teach it. Just because you got through life working at the local supermarket doesn't mean little Billy won't want to be an engineer.

I disagree as well-educated, rounded individuals are more qualified than most teachers. Teachers typically have a bachelors. Some have an associates. There's no reason that a similarly-educated parent can't self-learn the material typically part of teacher training or, if they're keeners, go through the teacher's college program themselves. More so, the coursework and educational material is available from myriad online and local resources. You don't need to sit there yourself writing up lesson plans every day.

Homeschooling is fucked up; they don't teach their kids anything.

There are some parents who think that pushing their bullshit social ideals on kids is smart. They're found everywhere in the world. They're the ones who pull girls out of school to take care of siblings and who think that not teaching their kids how to read magically empowers them to take on life. They're the ones who indoctrinate kids into following some extreme political ideology that only makes sense to them and only because they're complete and total morons.

Those people aren't us and they're not you. Those people are themselves. No two people are the same no matter what CNN and other scaretactic drivel sources tell us. Just because buddy down the street is filling his kid's head with all sorts of crap, largely inspired by that time a decade ago when he was doing 40 over and got pulled over by a cop of a different race than his own, doesn't mean you're going to do the same thing.

The kids play video games all day.

Don't let your damn kids play games all day. End of problem. Schools are phasing out homework (there is no point in assigning anything if the kids aren't required to complete it on time) as is; it's not a homeschooling issue.

Reasons to Homeschool

Politically-charged lessons/teachers

WTF is that? No matter who you voted for, this is messed up. Image source (I read the article and encourage you to do the same)

I'm not letting some retard who gets all their information from whatever television station they prefer to infuse politics into Cat in the Hat and teach that to my kid.

No homework

Idiots don't think ahead. What's going to happen to kids when they need to do work at home? Image source (not reading this)

I blame parents on this one. What's the point in assigning homework when the snowflake parents take on a crusade against the teacher and the schoolboard because their little Susie is too stressed out and has no time for Netflix?

Discovery education

We don't live in Aristotle's times when you actually had to discover everything. Shit's been discovered already. Teach it as it is.

Common Core

Those who don't know estimate, those who do calculate. Image source (no I didn't read it)

This one is a doozy. If anyone has ever held an office job, they'll instantly realise that this is math for the moron in the workplace who forgot everything they learned in school and are trying to compensate. Little Jenny doesn't need to create Google metrics if she's going to be a computer scientist. She doesn't need to produce guesses because to code an algorithm you need concrete numbers. And what if she wants to be a plumber? It's either 1" or it's not. This entire program trains kids to be web marketers and other low-paid workers that will soon be extinct. As a result, all parents are constantly scrambling to find schools that haven't been infected with the Common Core virus.

Teaching obedience

Teachers we spoke to all identified a kid as a "problem child" when the kid did any of these. The kid either required medication, to be singled-out as needing extra help, or removal/separation from other kids.

• talking when not spoken to/not permitted
• talking a lot
• answering every question
• asking too many questions or telling stories
• getting up
• fidgeting
• finding boring shit boring
• multitasking (coloring while listening)
• not focusing during long periods of boring shit
• looking out window
• medical issues (deaf, eyesight, etc)
• anything that makes them visibly different than most kids (dwarfism, hearing aid, attire, etc)
• dyslexia
• some non-existent disorder
• language/skills gap (difficult time reading)
• and pretty much anything that a kid may do that would interfere with reciting the lesson plan as timed and intended

If shit's boring, it's boring. Everyone knows its boring. It's boring to teach and it's boring to sit through. That's just how it is. Penalising or making kids feel like shit for the natural reaction of boredom is absurd.

*Just to clarify, we're not on the whole "resist authority" bandwagon.

Homeschooling Prep Challenges

Image source (This isn't what library time actually looks like)

Here are some we've dealt with to date.

Homeschooling is expensive

One of the parents must always be at home with the kid. That means income opportunities are lost. Books must be bought, classes attended, things like library times attended, you get the drift. Losing one income entirely or cutting two in half is difficult, both mentally and monetarily.

You can't control your kid

The kid needs to have a degree of autonomy even when always around the parent. We're careful to ensure that happens even at the early age. The kid needs to have the same capacity for making decisions, good or bad, and the freedom to carry them out as they would when unsupervised at school. That means you have to get over your own mental issues.

Dealing with other parents

Taking your kid out for library time means you'll run into crazy parents who don't want to let their kids associate with yours or anyone else for that matter. Their child is only allowed to play with them in an environment/program meant for interaction between kids.

Nagging from family members

Repeatedly telling family members to fuck off gets old fast.

Title image source Good resource, take a look.