I was homeschooled K-12. My days consisted largely of 1-2 hours of bible study with my 3 brothers followed by a few hours on my own working through a set number of pages in math, science, literature, etc textbooks. I'd usually get done by 2 and then play Nintendo until friends got home from school.
I was never tested in homeschool. There were no grades or report cards. The only accountability was mom checking that the assignments were done. My first real test was the PSAT. As part of applying to college, my mom had to make up high school grades for the transcript.
I scored decently on the SAT and got accepted into a university. College was relatively a breeze since I had spent all my grade school years teaching things to myself - college was just an extension of this method of learning.
While there are plenty of good arguments against homeschooling, I feel lucky to have been brought up in an environment where education did not have a competitive aspect requiring 8-12 hours of work a day.
Also, you can move at your own pace. I'm sure nobody would work at a company where some terrible nephew who didn't know anything about computing was hired, and where everyone is assigned a random bug report to fix each day, but nobody could leave until the nephew pushed to upstream. So you might finish your daily bug in an hour, but now have to sit around waiting (without Internet access or the ability to leave your cubicle or converse with anyone) until hes done.
I was also homeschooled: I didn't do homework either. I did have to finish each day's work that day. Over time I learned to be reasonably timely. Most days I started school at 8ish and ended 2-3ish, depending on the year.
I did get graded; my mom was meticulous about record-keeping. In terms of college applications; I put down my grade for my high school equivalency tests and that was that.
College was a relatively straightforward transfer of experience as well; I just had to walk about more.
(For the benefit of readers outside the US and outside the homeschooling mileu) Homeschooling is a very diverse set of educational approaches ranging from traditional schooling (8-3 + defined curricula + grading) all the way out to "unschooling" and Montessori-ish approaches. Popular approaches include video classes, where a classroom is taped and the tapes + books are sold to the parents. I had a traditional school experience, more or less. My mother was a teacher (both for children and in college) at times in her life, and this carried over into her homeschooling. This meant 1:1 teaching for many years for myself and my sibling.
For this modality of teaching, with a disciplined parent willing to adhere to a schedule, I suspect that the educational outcomes are very good.
Like McPhilip, I didn't have 8-12 hours of school per day (unless I dawdled), and thus had hours of time every day to pursue my own interests, hold down a part time job, etc. This is, in my biased and minimal data point, a reasonable thing.
> College was relatively a breeze since I had spent all my grade school years teaching things to myself - college was just an extension of this method of learning.
This was exactly my experience as well, as another former homeschooler. I remember being kind of disappointed when I got to college and thinking, "wait, is this all there is to it?" I expected a radical change and got more of the same. It was actually kind of demotivating for a while.
This might be a weird question and totally based on anecdotes but: are you a good speller?
I have a lot of friends who were homeschooled and/or homeschool their kids. I've also hired some and gone to school with some. One thing I noticed about several of them is they're bad at spelling. I've always wondered why.
I'm a decent speller. I was homeschooled starting in the mid eighties, so coursework was done mostly away from the computer (i.e. no autocorrect crutch). Also, my mom valued spelling and grammar and would be quick to point out mistakes.
In general, I mostly saw problems with homeschooled peers being weak at math.
I was also homeschooled for the most part (k-4, 6-10, then college) and consider myself an excellent speller. For my fifth grade year, I went to a private school where I competed in a spelling bee and won at the school level, then at the state level against other private schools for my grade level. I have never found spelling to be deficient among the homeschoolers I know - quite the opposite in fact.
We homeschool. My son spells words fairly well and my daughter spells like a cat.
We've worked with both of them on spelling, in about the same way.
I wouldn't really call this a cause, but my daughter doesn't really believe spelling words correctly is anything she needs to get fussed over. She thinks it's funny to spell words wrong. Me too, sometimes--though I still hope she grows out of it eventually.
It ends up as a bad thing when it eventually translates to bad public policy. Like banning stem cells research with the justification that a large portion of the public has been schooled to believe in fairy tales.
So, unlike what the OP suggested, I do not consider this a good approach to home schooling at all. Unless children are given both sides of the story - the value of bible study vs. the criticisms - and then choose to study it, then you are effectively force-feeding religion to someone in their formative years. Depending on how "traditionalist" your views are, this could have profound effect on your child's educational achievements in sciences, should you end up enrolling him in a secular educational institution - like a State university.
> Unless children are given both sides of the story - the value of bible study vs. the criticisms - and then choose to study it, then you are effectively force-feeding religion to someone in their formative years.
You assume that homeschooled kids are not given opportunity to learn both sides. And when have you found this to be the case in a public school?
Regarding "force-feeding": It's ridiculous to think that a parent's beliefs and ideas about the world/religion/culture/science/whatever would not have an impact on a child's beliefs.
I attempted to recount my homeschooling experience without advocating it or bible study. Indoctrination at a vulnerable age is a bad thing, for the record. Still, competent minds will learn to question such things over time.
> Still, competent minds will learn to question such things over time.
There's no question that eventually some will.
Unfortunately, that's certainly not true for most. Otherwise all politicians wouldn't be so persistent about pandering to religious groups, we wouldn't end up with representatives that believe the earth is 6000 years old, we wouldn't come up with ridiculous rules about contraception and abortion, we wouldn't be banning scientific research that can alleviate deadly disease and improve the quality of human life.
So, to sum up, good that you've learned to question things with time, but please don't assume that is a universal occurrence.
I was never tested in homeschool. There were no grades or report cards. The only accountability was mom checking that the assignments were done. My first real test was the PSAT. As part of applying to college, my mom had to make up high school grades for the transcript.
I scored decently on the SAT and got accepted into a university. College was relatively a breeze since I had spent all my grade school years teaching things to myself - college was just an extension of this method of learning.
While there are plenty of good arguments against homeschooling, I feel lucky to have been brought up in an environment where education did not have a competitive aspect requiring 8-12 hours of work a day.