Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph
I'm a teacher, and I've also seen kids who are now adults that have been home schooled through high school. Facts are not the main purpose of public schools, socialization and basic life interaction is the main thing they learn. The kids who had never been to a public school were . . . different. They tend to have fewer friends and have more difficulty sustaining romantic relationships. On the other hand, they also seemed happier than most. Plus if you send your kid to public school they could still end up having social problems anyway.
Personally I think a combination of public schooling and home schooling is currently best in the U.S. Perhaps a year on, and a year off method.
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I'm someone who went to public school and never learned socialization skills. I was 23 before I realized that eye contact was important, but still don't do it right.
The thing with the year on, year off method is that there are still required things to learn. While it's true that there are other ways to teach the basic subjects better than a public school can, I think we need to look at how kids learn at the public schools a little more. K-6 elementary school was fine just as it was. I had no problems with public school education methods in that age range. 7-9 middle school left out some things and I would have liked to research and study a few things outside of what they were teaching. Something like one day a week to socialize and meet other people, read books, study a topic of your choosing, or a group project of some sorts would have been good.
High School needed to be a little more focused, although it did a good job teaching math and science. But watching Nova on PBS could be pretty good too.
I think it would have been good for me to travel, volunteer, and backpack around the world for a year as well. But that might be a bit much to expect.