I don't think so, amanda. Surveys show that the majority of parents in America homeschool for religious reasons. I don't think that religious families, more than any other American families, are more likely to have gifted children.
homeschooling
- Thread starter ohhMRmagazine
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I forgot to mention last night...everyone here talks about being above their grade level in public school...that's the way I was....and so when I went into homeschooling I did 8th and 9th grade in one year. 6 months for 8th, 6 months for 9th and I finished a grade ahead of all of my friends.
I've never had trouble socially. I socialize plenty, I'm not a shut in, I do have friends and a life. It just so happens one of my best friends in the world is also homeschooled, who knew.
My cirriculum was called "Switched On Schoolhouse," my BF's mom uses it for all them too, and it is EXTRAORDINALLY helpful. It has each subject you would have in school, even chemistry and...cringe...calculous. But, surprisingly, I did REALLY WELL in calculous...I finished my senior year of HS having secured straight A's my entire high school learning period. I finished with a 4.0. But that matters zilch to colleges when you've been homeschooled. Money is tight since my dad got so sick and now we have to pay a 15,000 tuition, with no help from scholarships or anything.
I DID take the ACT, but because I was very bored, I did worse than I thought I would. The environment for the ACT was a room inside the high school with no heat (I took it in December) and we were stuck there for 5 straight hours. (Plus I think the guy in front of me forgot to shower that morning....) So I was thoroughly distracted and ended up with an 18 score as opposed to the 25's I'd been gaining with online pre-testing.
I still say, overall, homeschooling has made me into the independent and confidant person that I am. Had it not been for homeschooling, with my current situation with my dad, having to run ALL of my mom's errands for her, I never would have made it. Stepping foot into the grocery store, alone, would have terrified me. Now, yesterday I went in there gabbing on my cell phone and ended up spending over 100 dollars in food.....holding my head high. I can get out on a stage and sing and dance and fall down and actually hurt myself without being afraid of the reprocussions that will come Monday morning at school. I can play the piano and the mandolin all day if I want. Because of homeschooling I learned how to play them both. It's a great thing.
But, as my Mom always tells people, for some people it will work and for some people it won't. It all depends on the child's willingness to learn at home.
(Even the director of my last play pulled my Mom aside and asked her what he needed to do to Homeschool his 4 kids.)
I've never had trouble socially. I socialize plenty, I'm not a shut in, I do have friends and a life. It just so happens one of my best friends in the world is also homeschooled, who knew.
My cirriculum was called "Switched On Schoolhouse," my BF's mom uses it for all them too, and it is EXTRAORDINALLY helpful. It has each subject you would have in school, even chemistry and...cringe...calculous. But, surprisingly, I did REALLY WELL in calculous...I finished my senior year of HS having secured straight A's my entire high school learning period. I finished with a 4.0. But that matters zilch to colleges when you've been homeschooled. Money is tight since my dad got so sick and now we have to pay a 15,000 tuition, with no help from scholarships or anything.
I DID take the ACT, but because I was very bored, I did worse than I thought I would. The environment for the ACT was a room inside the high school with no heat (I took it in December) and we were stuck there for 5 straight hours. (Plus I think the guy in front of me forgot to shower that morning....) So I was thoroughly distracted and ended up with an 18 score as opposed to the 25's I'd been gaining with online pre-testing.
I still say, overall, homeschooling has made me into the independent and confidant person that I am. Had it not been for homeschooling, with my current situation with my dad, having to run ALL of my mom's errands for her, I never would have made it. Stepping foot into the grocery store, alone, would have terrified me. Now, yesterday I went in there gabbing on my cell phone and ended up spending over 100 dollars in food.....holding my head high. I can get out on a stage and sing and dance and fall down and actually hurt myself without being afraid of the reprocussions that will come Monday morning at school. I can play the piano and the mandolin all day if I want. Because of homeschooling I learned how to play them both. It's a great thing.
But, as my Mom always tells people, for some people it will work and for some people it won't. It all depends on the child's willingness to learn at home.
(Even the director of my last play pulled my Mom aside and asked her what he needed to do to Homeschool his 4 kids.)
Acctually at my school now we are not aloud to do "Labwork" Such as experements and things because apparently it's to "Dangerous" .
We havent done anything like that in MONTHS.
Hi Aslan
I've been sitting here for around five minutes now trying to think of how to best describe my education. Trying to describe the structure of something unstructured is really hard! LOL
The majority of all of my education has been through reading. My mom is a huge reader, and for as long as I can remember I've spent a lot of time in libraries. When I was young we'd go to the library everyday and get books, and read for several hours. I got to pick out whatever books I wanted, and she picked out a few for me, too. I was born and raised in Hawaii, so I went to the beach every morning and did some reading there.
We even used reading for math and sciences. I did have a few math textbooks (even though I wasn't really raised Christian, I loved Bob Jones' math books when I was little!) but never really felt attached to them. Instead I read books about mathematic principles.
As I said, my day usually started off at the beach and a few hours of reading. After lunch, I'd read some more or take some extra curricular classes in the afternoon (mainly ballet). In the evening, when my mom got home from work, she'd play games with me or read with me, etc. (She was a substitute teacher and worked a few days a week throughout my childhood, so I was partially raised by my grandparents). Everyday was a little different and exciting!
And I didn't have a lot of friends my own age, to be honest. My best friends were my Poppi (grandpa) and an elderly lady named Alma who was our neighbor. We played make believe when I was little, and I set up a pretend boutique and made them shop from it when I was older (LEARNED MATH ON A PRETEND CASH REGISTER! LOL!). I always found adults to be a lot more entertaining that kids... and still don't really relate to my age group well.
All in all, it was a very fluid education. If my interest was piqued by something I explored it and it led me to a lot of different, interesting areas.
How about you? Did you guys go as far as using premade tests and mailing them back to the company for grading? I was actually pretty exciting when I got to college and started taking "real tests."
That's the most dismal description of college I've ever read and not like my experience at all.
I've gone to a community college and a state college, and the vast majority of professors I've had have been amazing people. I'm still in e-mail contact with around eight of them, and consider a few to be good personal friends.
YES! What a great way of putting it!
I'm going to add that sentiment next time I have to deal with a rabid anti-homeschooler. Ugh.I take Saxon!! I didn't know it was infamous lol. I've been taking it since the 6th grade I think. I start their Advanced Mathematics this year!!
Oh geez here we go...again... 
Aslan, I'm not against school choice, and I never said I was. I personally am not a fan of homeschooling, but hey if you responsibly teach your child in that method, I think that's great; if they succeed with it, fantastic, keep it up. I'm not cool with homeschooling children unless you are extremely responsible about it. I'm not huge on homeschooling that is for fanatical christian reasons, as what is behind my relatives methods (they teach creationism). That's the kind of homeschooling I am actually against, because I believe it's horrendously irresponsible to shelter your children and teach them things that are useless in the real world. I can dislike the idea (of the aforementioned), but I'm certainly not for stopping these people. If it's their prerogative to teach their children in that way, fine, but I dislike it.
And just to toss this in: You know, many liberal people have views that aren't purely liberal, so it's a bit ignorant to stake the claim that my opinion isn't liberal (enough) for the fact that I'm a liberal. Would it make you feel better to say I'm not a perfect liberal?
You know, I distinctly remember the world fascist being thrown around in that one thread you began not that long ago...
Aslan, I'm not against school choice, and I never said I was. I personally am not a fan of homeschooling, but hey if you responsibly teach your child in that method, I think that's great; if they succeed with it, fantastic, keep it up. I'm not cool with homeschooling children unless you are extremely responsible about it. I'm not huge on homeschooling that is for fanatical christian reasons, as what is behind my relatives methods (they teach creationism). That's the kind of homeschooling I am actually against, because I believe it's horrendously irresponsible to shelter your children and teach them things that are useless in the real world. I can dislike the idea (of the aforementioned), but I'm certainly not for stopping these people. If it's their prerogative to teach their children in that way, fine, but I dislike it.
And just to toss this in: You know, many liberal people have views that aren't purely liberal, so it's a bit ignorant to stake the claim that my opinion isn't liberal (enough) for the fact that I'm a liberal. Would it make you feel better to say I'm not a perfect liberal?
You know, I distinctly remember the world fascist being thrown around in that one thread you began not that long ago...
*shrug* all the kids i know that were homeschooled took that route because their parents felt that school couldn't challenge them, not for religious reasons.
and in these surveys that you cite, are the kids (both home-schooled and public-schooled) given a test to rate 'high achievement' or some other standardized method, or is it self-reported?
i still think it would be extremely hard to prove causation, since you'd have to control for a lot of factors. i would think that a family would need a good many resources in order to home school, in addition to having one parent with an income high enough to allow the other to not work. i question whether or not the researchers would be able to control for all of those variables that would affect achievement when they looked at home versus traditional school.
*shrug* i go to a good school. my experience is overall very positive, but at tier 1 research universities, at least in my experience, the professors largely make their own rules. sometimes that's good, other times it's not, but it's the students job to effectively adapt. it's a giant beaurocracy and certainly not the last that an adult will have to deal with in his or her life. i'd rather not be coddled and fawned over, my experience has taught me a lot about getting what you want from people that don't want to give it to you.