Homeschooling our children

[BeVonk!]

The homeschool parents groups that make the whole thing work is key. Unfortunately we found these groups to be formed around specific views/opinions and beliefs. They tend to be single race, religion and culture based. Birds of they same feather flock together. I found this to be very problematic. I believe kids must be exposed to other cultures, races, religions, etc, in an environment where it is safe for them to interact. I found most homeschooling parents to be running away from exactly this. Not good for the kids and their future. Kids cannot grow up in a bubble. I also got tired of the constant aggression against society. "They" vs "us" didn't work for me. I'm sure there are many situations that are different from what I experienced, but I never saw it.

 

[Loopin]

You've probably read countless papers and case studies (published in peer reviewed journals), so I won't throw my pedagogically unqualified opinion into the pot but:

Native bilingualism, at least from my point of view, is absolutely fundamental. The social and cognitive benefits are way too good to pass up. Thus if you're thinking of homeschooling please make sure you're a very competent speaker of a second language or natively bilingual yourself; and teach the children in both languages.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_advantages_to_bilingualism

Monolingualism is a disease! It's curable, but it's best to prevent it. And prevention can only take place during childhood.

 

[noxibox]

The only aspect I find wrong with homeschooling, is that I don't believe that any one parent/person could possibly be familiar enough and comfortable enough with all the subjects that need to be taught.

Back when I was at school you had one teacher per standard for most of primary school. If they could do it then so can any educated parent.

 

[Kosmik]

Back when I was at school you had one teacher per standard for most of primary school. If they could do it then so can any educated parent.

Hmmm, if I recall we had same teachers till about std 2/3 then we would get different ones. I look at my wife and as much as I love her, she is no where near suitable to teach our kids. Also, if you do something wrong in the younger years, your child is seriously disadvantaged later on.

 

[cerebus]

How well will you yourself (or wife) be understanding the subjects you'll be teaching? Will you get a tutor if your boys show an aptitude for a subject (say maths) and overtake your own ability to teach the subject? In a school system there is the option of taking extra maths, or attending maths classes a few grades higher than your own.

We're already planning to give them extra Kumon or Master Maths lessons, as those are freely available. But I feel that I should be able to teach them up to at least secondary level fairly well.

Are there any subjects you'll be leaving out for any reason? A lot of homeschooling in America seems to be because parents want to teach the 6,000 year old Earth, intelligent design fable.

We're both Christians obviously but we'll be using a non-Christian curriculum, Clonard. We just felt we wanted them to be exposed to the same kind of material that other students use, and some of the stuff in those curricula we wouldn't agree with anyway like YEC things.

The homeschool parents groups that make the whole thing work is key. Unfortunately we found these groups to be formed around specific views/opinions and beliefs. They tend to be single race, religion and culture based. Birds of they same feather flock together.

There is a homeschooling organisation here that we're starting to become a part of. It seems quite mixed although I'd say most families are probably sort of WASP-ish (or Afrikaaner equivalent); that can be said for SSW in general though.

Thus if you're thinking of homeschooling please make sure you're a very competent speaker of a second language or natively bilingual yourself; and teach the children in both languages.

They're already mutts - English/Afrikaans all mixed up, and Dutch/German to come :/ I pity them.

 

[Mars]

I think the success of this depends entirely on you as parents.

Ever heard "It takes a village to raise a child" ?

My wife and myself seriously looked at home schooling. In the end we decided against it, mainly because my wife is not the most patient person in the world.
I also dont understand her alot of the time in day to day things. She thinks she is being clear as crysal, but she is not. The main reason for this is that she interchanges words without giving thought to their meaning..
Anyway then end conclusion was that my wife may be brilliant with numbers, but lacking where it comes to communication. If she where to home school the kids one of two things would happen:
They would not understand her half the time, or they would learn her communication skills. Both of those scenario's are bad.

The second thing is that we are not the most social people. Not that we are introverts, but we do not make new friends easily, and few of our current friends have children. On the same line is that our family is kind of spread around the country so there is no real help there, tho we are remedying that by relocating to the cape at the end of this year.


It comes down to this:
If you are brutally honest about yourselves and still think that you are the best you can give your children then do it.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Cerebus's wife: I appreciate your input cbrunsdonza. We live 500 m out of the catchment area of both good schools in Somerset West, which means, with the amounts of kids currently in the Helderberg area, we would probably have to move 500m's in order to get our kids into either Beaumont or De Hoop. My boy's name is on the list for Grade R at Rooha in 2014, I put it on last year April, he was number 46. I have no idea how he will get into either of the schools. And moving for schools, where our hearts are for homeschooling, is a not so nice pill for me to swallow at this point. I do understand your point that schools esp Rooha is good! Thus me choosing that school, but how can it be good for my boys to fend for attention at the age of 5 with 30 other pupils? ....

Please don't allow your distance from the school to discourage you, or give you false hope. We live in Drama Street yet we have zero guarantee of getting our son into either De Hoop or Beaumont, hence the reason why we are glad to have got him into Rooha as this improves his chance. With Rooha just keep following up with them.

As for individual attention from the teacher, we as parents need to get use to the fact that the luxury of small classes is the privilege the elite few that can afford it. Instead we need to give up a lot of our time after school to ensure our kids do not fall behind - in effect we are semi home schooling our kids in the end.

If you are interested in home schooling Grade R then I can highly recommend some books for you to use. It requires just one activity a day and has been developed in South Africa, costs R450 per child. PM me if you want more info

 

[Sly21C]

Didn't read all the posts, but I personally think Homeschooling is a bad idea overall. Homeschooling might produce bright kids who can be Scientists one day but the social aspect is a very big issue. Kids must learn social skills, what if your kids want to be music producers? Music producers must be very social compared to a scientist.

The world is a very cruel place in most cases. Shielding kids away from bullies, disappointment, heartbreak, minor injuries, etc, will do them more damage than letting them learn from their mistakes and misfortunes.

Just my 2 cents.......

 

[twicode]

Cerebus's wife I read you posts and for your scenario it sounds like home schooling will work and you have a support group so go for it.
With the internet these days you also have such a wealth of information and tools you can't really feel disconnected. Schools don't realize the value of PCs fully and kids themselves misuse it so to be home schooled properly will help the kid in that sense.
I would just get the kids do some sporting activities at the same time and make it mandatory. The kids will enjoy sports that much more if they are home schooled as it is a means to socialize with kids their own age.

 

[boramk]

Just from experience because I had to deal with quite a few of them, the home schooled kids are socially awkward. Some of them extremely awkward.

 

[cerebus]

Just from experience because I had to deal with quite a few of them, the home schooled kids are socially awkward. Some of them extremely awkward.

Where did you have to deal with them? I do not see how some of you have worked with these kids and can say that? All the kids I have met thus far, and all of them are aged 3 to at least 17, are sweet, well behaved very socially adapted kids. I dont understand where that comes from. In what sense would you say?

 

[noxibox]

Homeschooling might produce bright kids who can be Scientists one day but the social aspect is a very big issue. Kids must learn social skills, what if your kids want to be music producers? Music producers must be very social compared to a scientist.

There's no requirement to be a social person to be either a music producer or a musician. Hell you can be the biggest anti-social prick and be the most sought after in the field. Goes for DJs too.

But seriously where do people get this idea that children learn social skills entirely or even largely from school?

The world is a very cruel place in most cases. Shielding kids away from bullies, disappointment, heartbreak, minor injuries, etc, will do them more damage than letting them learn from their mistakes and misfortunes.

Keeping some children away from bullies is a good idea, particularly in this day when a child is not allowed to deal with a bully themselves.

And while the world may be a cruel place children rely heavily on help and support. There's a good reason we don't just throw toddlers out into the world and say, "Hey kid, time to fend yourself."

An overprotective parent is going to be an overprotective parent whether their child is schooled at home or not.

I would just get the kids do some sporting activities at the same time and make it mandatory. The kids will enjoy sports that much more if they are home schooled as it is a means to socialize with kids their own age.

It's actually easier because you don't have the hassle of trying to force the child to do a sport they don't like because that is what the school offers and demands that every child take part.

 

[cerebus]

Cerebus wife: You know...what if your child gets bullied at school, suffers in silence for years, you dont know about it, because you are working and busy with life? They suffer with bullying for years on end, and it just gets worse.....you still dont know about it...how would you feel hearing about this after years? I cannot see how you put a 6 year old with bullies, and say "fend for yourself dear, this is good, you are learning great social skills?" - That is why you get situation for instance in the US where kids go on shooting rampages, if you go back into their history, you will find 90% of them were bullied, and their peers never showed respect for them, they were shoved into lockers, thrown into filthy bins etc, and mostly their parents did not even know about it.

I can rather see, raising a child to be self confident, and around people that has respect for him, will rather equip him with dealing with bullies, than actually putting him with bullies. And I am sorry, I was a child who was the nerd, the one that was never popular, and how did it help me in life? Only once I started being with adults, did I start becoming more confident in myself. It did not happen between kids who were rich, was popular because of that. Children learn to socialize by chatting with the black man in the line at Checkers, by dealing with the Clamber Club teacher with respect, greeting and loving his grandparents, having respect for them, how to be a loving brother and child in his own household.

I cannot see how sitting behind a desk with 30+ kids of his same age, will bring him to be a socially well balanced person. For some reason this thing exists where people has this idea that homeschooled kids are awkward. I just have no idea where they get this from.

 

[BeVonk!]

This bully thing is way overstated. Most of our schools are not like American schools and especially not those with a strong Afrikaans culture. People are so focussed on false/negative perceptions that the positives gets no attention. Kids want to interact with other kids all the time, not per a schedule "to keep the kids socially okay". Kids need to interact with all kinds of kids all the time, incl. the bullies, the nerds, the jocks, the pagans, the whatever. They need to live life with all these variables.

The kids need to do crazy things together. The need the sport and culture activity vibes a school offers. The need teachers that are specialists in their respective fields. The need to a lot of different teachers to get al lot of different inputs. They need input from all kinds of teachers. It is the parents' job to monitor this and intervene when required. Most principals are very sensitive to the culture at a school and I've never encountered a principal that wasn't willing to talk to me and my wife.

My oldest one are now preparing for MTBS. Awesome for the kids. Home schooling can never provide a kid with such an experience. Go google MTBS and watch the videos on youtube.

Parents need more courage and those who believe in God should show faith and courage. God loves those kids and will take care of them. He wants them in the world but not of the world. Kids should not be cultivated in a lab. They must be cultivated there where the real world happens.

How I see it.

 

[BeVonk!]

See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij23uI9la9I

Can't take that away from a kid.

 

[BeVonk!]

Another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1GR006mnUQ

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

This bully thing is way overstated. Most of our schools are not like American schools and especially not those with a strong Afrikaans culture. People are so focussed on false/negative perceptions that the positives gets no attention. Kids want to interact with other kids all the time, not per a schedule "to keep the kids socially okay". Kids need to interact with all kinds of kids all the time, incl. the bullies, the nerds, the jocks, the pagans, the whatever. They need to live life with all these variables.

The kids need to do crazy things together. The need the sport and culture activity vibes a school offers. The need teachers that are specialists in their respective fields. The need to a lot of different teachers to get al lot of different inputs. They need input from all kinds of teachers. It is the parents' job to monitor this and intervene when required. Most principals are very sensitive to the culture at a school and I've never encountered a principal that wasn't willing to talk to me and my wife.

My oldest one are now preparing for MTBS. Awesome for the kids. Home schooling can never provide a kid with such an experience. Go google MTBS and watch the videos on youtube.

Parents need more courage and those who believe in God should show faith and courage. God loves those kids and will take care of them. He wants them in the world but not of the world. Kids should not be cultivated in a lab. They must be cultivated there where the real world happens.

How I see it.

I'm with you on this one!

 

[cerebus]

beVONK, we have all that in home-schooling. We have big sport days where all the kids get together and sing, have the clothing, the "bou die gees", we have all that! Not missing out.

 

[Nerfherder]

Kids need to be naughty

 

[cerebus]

Tbh BeVonk the whole bullying thing isn't really a factor for us. It's just because some people here have said that it's positive to allow your children to be exposed to bullying, which I totally disagree with. Bullying is something that only happens in a particular environment where some children are permitted to dominate others; it's not representative of real life.

Personally I have to say... I've never been a huge sports fan. At school I resented being forced to play games I had no interest in. Now I never watch sports really. I get that there's value in it, and believe it or not there are a LOT of homeschooling or just extracurricular sports teams that children can be involved in. But for me it's not a huge deal. Children these days need academic skills FAR more than sporting skills.