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Homeschooling: Recipe for Incest and Social Retardation?

cienaños

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Ok, so I am having trouble debating someone on this issue. Please help.

Can someone provide some conclusive evidence/studies one way or the other? I am truly stumped on this one.

Thanks in advance.


PS. My personal opinion is that the variables are too many to count and so no one side is conclusive.
 
Anecdotal non-evidence...

Every home school kid I ever knew growing up was a social retard that thought he/she was a genius.

.02
Russell
 
Tim Tebow.
I'm kidding. I don't have any data but it always seemed to me that it was better for kids to socialize with other kids in their own age group. I think, at least in the South, a lot of people home-school their kids for religious reasons; mainly to keep them from being taught evolution.
ETA: Oh yeah, sorry, I know I didn't answer your question but just gave an opinion.
 
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There is a large dichotomy in kids who are homeschooled which makes this hard to study.

Some kids are homeschooled because of poor local schools or are in fact geniuses. There are actually pretty good systems which allow for socializing between homeschooled kids.
Some others are homeschooled for religious reasons and these are the ones I fear for due to the lack of a low or poor education standard for these kids.

Until we study these more objectively there is no great way to tell. Anyone have any data on this topic?
 
Accidental Martyr said:
I think, at least in the South, a lot of people home-school their kids for religious reasons; mainly to keep them from being taught evolution.
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Funny story, AM, from the other side of your state (Auburn...an island of relative liberalism in the state...relative says I). I knew a woman that homeschooled her children because she didn't want them exposed to the evangelicals.

oh, and war eagle, btw! :)
 
i only knew 3 people who were home schooled, one because his parents thought they were smart enough to handle it through grade 8 (they werent) but he was able to catch up in high school and graduated

the other 2 (sisters) were home schooled together for religious reasons, they actually got a good education (minus evolution and such) and both went on to college (homeschool was k-12) pretty fundie though, i dont blame the homeschool for that though, i knew people who went to public school k-12 and ended up the same way, and its not the homeschool curriculum would have been much different had they gone to a private christian school

all 3 of them were very socially well adjusted, probably because they werent sequestered in their homes, they went and played with neighborhood kids like anyone else


so thats my anecdote and/or $.02, i dont think theres anything inherently bad (or good) about homeschooling, it is what people make of it
 
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Given that the structure high school socialization teaches is largely only applicable to high school (at least if you're living right), homeschooling itself doesn't bother me that much. While I don't think parents have the knowledge that a subject matter expert would (more of a high school issue anyway), they dodge most of the required teaching knowledge by not juggling a class of 20.
 
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StuBob said:
Funny story, AM, from the other side of your state (Auburn...an island of relative liberalism in the state...relative says I). I knew a woman that homeschooled her children because she didn't want them exposed to the evangelicals.

oh, and war eagle, btw! :)
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You know, I've been to Auburn, I think, twice in my life so I'll take your word for it about the liberal nature of the town. :) Was the woman concerned about kids being exposed to evangelicals in public school in terms of their fellow students?
Roll Tide! ;)
 
cienaños said:
Ok, so I am having trouble debating someone on this issue. Please help.

Can someone provide some conclusive evidence/studies one way or the other? I am truly stumped on this one.

Thanks in advance.


PS. My personal opinion is that the variables are too many to count and so no one side is conclusive.
Click to expand...

I've known three families who chose homeschooling. All of them did very well. Only one of the three chose homeschooling for religious reasons, and even then only somewhat. They did prefer a religious education, but with five kids, it would have been too expensive. Meanwhile, the mother had been making her living as a teacher in a private (secular) school. She figured she could teach five kids at least as well as she could teach 20.

We considered it briefly for our kid, but we agreed we couldn't live without my income, and my wife wouldn't have been able to do it. She gives in too easily to the kid, and wouldn't have been sufficiently organized to make it work. She's plenty smart, but that's only one aspect of being a good teacher.

All three families I knew featured a highly educated mother who wanted to spend more time with her kids, and none of them continued past grade 8.
 
Larry the Cable Guy had an affair with his teacher. And he was being home schooled at the time. ;) But that is the only incestuous home schooling I've ever heard about. Though I do suppose that might add to 'social retardation'. ;) Why buy a cow when milk comes with the cow you've already got? ;)
 
Cleon said:
A lot of it depends on the parents, I'd imagine.
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This is the thought I had looking at this literally 0.2 seconds before I saw your post. My memory is bad with names but you seem to be establishing yours as someone's name who is smart.

Home-schooling depends entirely on the parents and on the child. A home-schooled child who has an academically-unrelated but healthy social life isn't going to have social problems just because they missed high school. If someone is home-schooled and their parents are their best friends then there may be some gaps in their life experience..
 
A very dear friend of mine home schools her children. As far as I am aware, the kids are fairly socially adept, as my friend makes it a point to join local societies geared toward home schooled children that allow them field trips and get-togethers with other home schooled children in the area. There is also a sort of syllabus for the courses to give the children and help available to explain any difficult concepts. I'm not really sure her way of doing this really qualifies as the dictionary definition of home schooling, but it seems to work for her, and her kids love it.

I couldn't speak to the question raised in the OP with any sort of scientific evidence, but it sounds to me as though the person arguing that way is prejudiced toward home schooled children for some odd reason.
 
Sabrina said:
A very dear friend of mine home schools her children. As far as I am aware, the kids are fairly socially adept, as my friend makes it a point to join local societies geared toward home schooled children that allow them field trips and get-togethers with other home schooled children in the area. There is also a sort of syllabus for the courses to give the children and help available to explain any difficult concepts. I'm not really sure her way of doing this really qualifies as the dictionary definition of home schooling, but it seems to work for her, and her kids love it.
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The only person I know who is home-schooling their children fits this description, too. There is nothing wrong with home schooling, per se, but it can clearly be done badly, and if there are no checks on what is being done, as there are with state schools, then problems are much less likely to be identified.
 
cienaños said:
Ok, so I am having trouble debating someone on this issue. Please help.

Can someone provide some conclusive evidence/studies one way or the other? I am truly stumped on this one.

Thanks in advance.


PS. My personal opinion is that the variables are too many to count and so no one side is conclusive.
Click to expand...
I fail to see how home schooling would lead to incest. people home school their children for many reasons not the least of which they want to spare their children the violence and chaos in some school districts.

Somebody said that parents home school their kids in the south because they don't want them exposed to evolution but many schools skip evolution anyway and there are some parents who actually teach evolution in their home. I was.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I fail to see how home schooling would lead to incest.
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I think the logic goes something like this:

Homeschooled youth will be spending most of their time at home, and not with the larger gene pool found in a public or private school. Thus, when they reach the Age of Great Lustage, they will be more likely to act out their Desires of the Flesh with members of the family than someone outside it.

Personally, I find this logic spurious. It assumes that homeschooled children will not be allowed to socialize outside the home, and that is not necessarily the case.

There is the uncomfortable fact that many children are homeschooled due to fundamentalist religious reasons, and are likely to get a sub-par sex education. However, that's not an inherent problem with homeschooling, that is (as I alluded to earlier) an issue of the parents.
 
StuBob said:
Funny story, AM, from the other side of your state (Auburn...an island of relative liberalism in the state...relative says I). I knew a woman that homeschooled her children because she didn't want them exposed to the evangelicals.

oh, and war eagle, btw! :)
Click to expand...

There are actually at least two other people besides me from Alabama here? Sweet. I'm here in Mobile. (Yes, with the Memphis blues, again)

Just had a talk with the neighbors the other day where I told them i was a pretty devout atheist and they said they were as well. They said their kids have been told at school "You're going to Hell!" by other students. Pretty sad, actually. My kids haven't had that issue, yet.

Oh yeah: GO JAGS!
 
Cainkane1 said:
I fail to see how home schooling would lead to incest.
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The person I'm debating told me this story.

One day, he had his professor at the university call him (they'd become friends) and confess to him that his son, homeschooled and at time 14, had gone up to his wife (the biological mother), and said to her, "I feel like I need to show you my penis." Thinking he wouldn't, the mother then responded, "Well son, if you really feel like that is something you need to do, go ahead."

She was aghast when he did in fact whip it out.
 
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