by Teresa Jones

Created on: August 04, 2010

I'd like to address the negative effects of homeschooling from the point of view of a parent that has homeschooled their kids.  First, let me address the points commonly brought up by other authors:

• "Socialization - "Many children lose the valuable socialization atmosphere that traditional schools provide..."

    Agreed.  My children lost that atmosphere in traditional schools when I pulled them out.  Instead of being grouped with age-peers, they learned to interact with children and adults of all ages.

• [Homeschoolers] "do not see enough diversity in the social circle in which they travel. Isolation from their peer group can cause them to be shy and afraid to have opinions that are outside the normal level of what their parents would expect."

  Instead of learning about the current situation in Afghanistan and Iraq in a classroom filled with age-peers, my son went to classes in Government and world history at the local community college where his classmates included military veterans just back from the wars in those countries. He learned first hand what it was like to serve in war. He learned sign language side-by-side with two vets who lost their hearing by their close proximity in the war.  He attends both church and secular teen groups and has made friends in many towns around the state. He is hardly shy. He discusses world politics and programming with a college professor in England via the Internet. If his opinions are not what I as his parent would expect, they are well-thought out and well-formed.  (I personally am not sure what a "normal" level of expectation should be.)

• "It is also well documented that the home school environment does not allow for extracurricular activities."

Maybe that is because the line between "extracurricular" and "curricular" is blurred?  By simply leaving the traditional school system and doing away with changing classes, taking attendance, handing in homework, etc. you save quite a bit of time each day. In fact, according to author Cafi Cohen who actually went around timing it, the average learning time for a student is something like 2-2.5 hours a day.  Add to that the fact that a homeschooler who has his education customized to his needs and abilities, he/she is more likely to actually be actively learning during that time.

Anything beyond that becomes extracurricular.  Extracurricular does not have to mean after-school sports, mock trial

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