Where do you stand on homeschooling?

[renie408]

194. If you haven't researched what homeschooling can be, you should probably refrain from comment.

It is a misconception that homeschooling is only for religious nuts or hippies who want to let their children run free and naked all day long.

We live in South Carolina. We homeschool. I say all the time that we are the only parents in SC homeschooling because we are NOT religious. We pulled my daughter out of public school here in the third grade because A) she was being teased and told that we were going to burn in hell, which made her cry repeatedly. When I went to her teacher and tried to discuss this with her, she asked me if we had TRIED going to church. And B) she was making straight A's and could not do her multiplication tables, could barely read and wasn't getting any help with her dyslexia. At the time, the state of SC didn't 'recognize' dyslexia as a learning disability. There was no extra help for her.

She went back into public school in the sixth grade. She wanted to go to school with her friends. By that time she was reading well and doing math on an 8th grade level, so I figured fine. Her sixth grade teacher posted BIBLE QUOTES on the whiteboard and gave out pencils with 'The Path to Salvation' written on them for rewards. When I complained to the principal, he took her side.

We left our daughter in public school, though, because by then she was old enough to understand what was going on and other people's religious bigotry didn't bother her as much. Even when a TEACHER started a rumor about my daughter in the ninth grade that we were Wiccans and believed in the occult because we were atheists, I left her in. I did tell that teacher at a teacher conference that if she were not careful, I would put a spell on her. I thought it was hysterical. The teacher less so.

We went back to homeschooling in the 10th grade because my daughter's reading was falling behind and she was just not LEARNING anything. She flatly told me that the only stuff she learned, she learned from home. So, back to homeschooling we went.

There are so many resources for homeschooling parents these days from internet classes to private tutors to groups you can join for free to share information and learning. My family feels like our daughter is getting a better, more flexible education at home than she could ever receive at the public schools available to us.