My experiences with Public, Private and Home schooling

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BarbaraH
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My experiences with Public, Private and Home schooling

Postby BarbaraH » Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:15 pm

I personally didn't have a bad time in public school. I did pretty well actually. Was in gifted classes, until I got bored and realized how easily I could coast through school with minimal effort and of course, idle hands...My grades slipped and my parents got scared. They sent me to a Christian private school. That was a tragic mistake that we all regret. Most of the kids were very wealthy and wanted nothing to do with someone who had no care in the world of fashion or name brands or hanging out at the mall shopping all day. I was a tomboy and into sports and I shockingly loved most of my subjects in school and enjoyed learning. Because I didn't fit in with most of the wealthy kids I ended up making friends with the kids who were sent there to hopefully straighten them out. For the first time in my life, at age 15, I was introduced to smoking, drugs, sex, lying, cheating, stealing...after 2 years of that, I was a mess and dropped out of school. Looking back, the kids I went to public school with ended up graduating with honors and going on to college on scholarships...the kids I hung out with in private school, well all of us females ended up pregnant by 18 and dropping out of school, several of the boys have records.

My parents learned from me and home schooled my 2 younger brothers. Both of them are very intelligent, very well adjusted, very successful young men. I love the way they turned out, and so does my husband. He has a lot of respect for my brothers, and he'd been through similar experiences with school as I had been through.

I started my son off in private school, and saw the same problems facing him that hit me. We were the poorest family by far and it hurt him to not be able to keep up with the other kids. So we sent him off to public school. Unfortunately he never did well. We had all kinds of problems with him not being able to stay on task, not doing his work, and constantly coming home from school in tears because of being picked on for his small size (He will be 13 in 2 weeks and is not quite 5' tall and just finally hit 80 lbs, despite eating like a horse, he's just very active with a high metabolism)... He was held back in 1st grade and they wanted to hold him back again for 3rd grade. We had a lot problems with the teachers not communicating with us even though we tried so hard to communicate with them and do everything we could to give our son a good education. There was never anything done about the kids who were bullying him. He'd have bruises, have items stolen from him and a few times even got pinned down on the bus so he missed his stop.

Finally we figured we simply had to home school him. We'd exhausted every other option that we knew of.

So starting with 5th grade we pulled him out of school. We signed up with the same umbrella school that my parents used. After the first year of home schooling my son's testing had improved by several grade levels. He was showing an active interest in learning some things and at least trying to do everything else and really excelling in math and science. My son became less depressed and more out going. Extended family members and friends of the family, including those opposed to home schooling, couldn't help but be impressed with the dramatic change in our son. Now we're entering 7th grade together and I can honestly say home schooling is the best thing to ever happen to us.

My son earned, truly earned, his first straight A report card. His test scores have gone from below grade level/below age level to on level and above, with dramatic improvements in reading and math. We actually have fun together as a family. There is no more fighting each and every night about home work and how badly he's doing in school. There's no more fights every morning struggling to get him to school in time. My son is excited to learn, although he's still not a huge fan of writing and reading. He does enjoy listening to me read to him and he retains way more than I'd ever realized just from hearing me read to him. He still gets to play with the same friends, because they all live in our neighborhood. He actually plays with them more because he's not grounded, or spending hours on homework after school, or just so upset that he didn't want to play. A lot of his friends are truly jealous of him and one of them will actually be home schooled this year. My cousin is also home schooling her kids because of how well she's seen it work out for us.

We use a mix of curriculum. I like BJU for Math, English and History. For Science we love Apologia. We use Bible Unit Study Guide For All Ages for our Bible courses. We use Victory Drill Book to help with his reading skills. We use Alpha Omega Lifepacs for electives, Health Quest this year. We also do movies and books from the library and I record interesting things from The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The History Channel for us to watch together (He has never once complained about watching educational TV "after school" yay!). For art we're learning to do Origami (my son loves all things Japanese) and he's playing around with drawing. For music we use Usbourne recorder books since he had started learning that in PS and enjoyed it. We also do a lot of singing and dancing to Christian music. For PE we go swimming, walking, biking, skateboarding and Heeley's skating. We've been to the Museum of Science and Industry, zoos and the beach and parks for field trips. This year I am going to take him to see some plays and museums and renaissance festival. I am also seeking information from our local 4H chapters and home school groups to find other things for us to do now that he's feeling more out going and sure of himself and is interested in meeting and doing things with other home schooled kids.

So that is why I prefer home school vs. public school...and am so happy we decided to jump into it and wouldn't trade this time with my son for anything else in the world. We're very blessed to have this opportunity and I couldn't be happier with it.

4given
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Postby 4given » Tue Aug 05, 2008 5:52 am

Beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing your story, Barbara. I needed to hear that today.

Mark
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Postby Mark » Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:20 am

Thanks ma'am,

I needed to read that...

Jill
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Re: My experiences with Public, Private and Home schooling

Postby Jill » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:22 am

Jill


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