Note: LYH lives in the Texas Hill Country and home schools her children. If you have questions or comments, she will answer them when she has time. As you can imagine, she is busy. -- Sense & Nonsense Administrator

For most of my adult life, I was skeptical of the quality of the education home schooled children received.  I had witnessed some that I felt were marginal at best.  However, over the past few years, my position on this subject has completely changed.

America’s public schools are only getting worse year after year.  There are countless stories of young people who graduate from public schools without even learning to read.  Add to that the problems of harassment, bullies, peer pressure, drugs, sex, alcohol abuse and immoral staff, and it’s not a pretty picture.  Oh, this is before they even get to high school.

We try to raise our children to be respectful, use manners, be Christians, respect the flag, respect our military men and women, love their country, be honest, clean, treat others fairly, not to cheat, and so on.  You get the idea.  We want them to grow up to be decent, respectable, law-abiding citizens that have morals, ethics and values; that can make sound decisions and be contributing members of their community.  If we send our children to public schools, all of the values we work so hard to instill in them are thrown to the wind.  Sadly, it’s like throwing our lambs to the wolves.

So, what’s the answer … a private school?  For those who can afford it and if you can find one that is based on a religion, or whatever, that you approve of, a private school may be a viable solution.  However, even when finances and so forth are not an issue, if you have a child who has special needs or requires special education, speech therapy or whatever, your child may not be accepted or, even worse,  may be punished for not being able to keep up with the curriculum or having the skills expected.  Granted, this is not the case in every private school, but it happens.  It happened to one of ours. Many parents feel that the only choice left to them is to home school their children.

There are many quality home school programs available.  The curriculum ranges from free to several thousand dollars.  Computers and the Internet have been huge assets in accessing home school programs, books, guides, materials, and even bringing home school children together.  (As an example, two of our children participate in chess groups played online with other home schooled children.) The big difference is that these children are receiving quality educations in the safety and privacy of their own homes.  They can have as much or as little religion as the parents see fit.  They learn at their own pace, they get individual attention, and they are taught by people who love them and want them to succeed.

There are home school associations all over the country.  The one in our area has a school band, sports, field trips, school dances, 4-H, school pictures and even year- books and graduation ceremonies.   Even if a family chooses not to join a home school association, children can participate in social activities like church youth groups, girl scouts, boy scouts, dance classes, gymnastics, YMCA activities, swimming, 4-H, stock shows, Civil Air Patrol Cadets, and more. Home schooling can open more doors than it closes.

lyh
03/29/2010