Home school (page 2)

loveis

RE: Homeschooling, note the balanced and helpful counsel that Witnesses were given in the Awake of April 8, 1993 (pages 9-12), which presented both sides fairly.

The one jw friend I had was taking correspondence courses in high school. I felt at that time she was ripped off & it was a way for them to keep more control of her & isolate her. I still feel that way. There were many jw parents doing all kinds of things to keep their kids out of public school at the time. It's another way they ended up not feeling "connected".

Doubtfully Yours

Globetrotter,

Home schooling is very popular among JWs, American and Hispanics alike; their excuse is so they can spare their children the pressure at a regular school for so being different.

In the case of JWs, I see 2 problems in particular with this practice:

JW home schooling parent is not equipped with sufficient knowledge themselves to instruct the child. It's like the blind leading the blind.
The child(ren) grow up lacking social skills horrendously. I've seen it first hand at the KH. They literally don't know how to relate to others or how to interact in society. It's bloody awful!

All things considered, please take note that JWs aren't the only ones with this trend. Often times cultures or other extreme religions that don't want their offsprings to mix with the mainstream also home school their young; either that or they make special schools only for their kind.

DY

Meg

I was raised as a JW and there were quite a few in my congregation that were homeschooled. The other youths that I knew that were homeschooled their whole lives did have a lot of social issues and were not the brightest bulbs on the tree.

I myself was homeschooled for my last two years of high school. Mine was a self-study do-it-yourself type classes and I was able to finish up the last two years of high school in one year while working full time.

I definently don't think that you get the same level of education and I think that the interaction with real people is important.

cruzanheart

Hey, Meg, I did the same thing! However, it was due to necessity that I finished 11th & 12th grade by correspondence course -- we were living in Australia and the school system was quite different from America, so it seemed the easiest way to finish up.

As for home schooling in general, I have very definite ideas about it. For some it has worked out beautifully. For others, all it does is further isolate young members of an isolationist group and keep them from learning how to deal with the world in which they live. Sooner or later they'll have to get a job and deal with "worldly" people: the bullies, the tattletales, the abusers, the victims, the liars, the cheats, and the nice people -- and if they've never dealt with any except the pre-fab Witnesses at the Kingdom Hall, they're going to be woefully unprepared to function socially or in business. When my children tell me their school stories, and I tell them my work stories, we are working together to understand people and deal with all sorts. They're fascinated at the thought that I deal with bullies and tattletales at work, and we're all grown-ups! So I tell them to learn how to deal with it now, while they have their parents and teachers to help, and then when they're on their own they'll know what to do.

Oh, dear, there I am on my soapbox again!

Nina

kgfreeperson

I think homeschooling is rising in popularity as much as an unwillingness to subject one's child to the dysfunctional local school as for dogmatic reasons. I know families whose children are, as a result of homeschooling, far better educated and far better able to cope with the world, than their public or private school educated cohort. But I sure as hell would worry about JW homeschooling! Uneducated people who belong to a cult which distrusts and disparages learning and evidence of intelligence indoctrinating their offspring is a fairly depressing scenario.

Mulan

I know a family that is home schooling. They had their children late in life, and the mom just couldn't bear to be seperated from her son. (the second one is 3). There is a school they go to, for most of the classes, called a Home School Cooperative, (moms or dads go too) so I don't know how they can really call it home schooling, but they do. It is working real well for them.

I know others who have done it very successfully (Joy2bfree and Jst2laws) who have very bright kids, well equipped to go out into society. Others are messed up. One family I can think of, had a daughter who finished high school at 16, and immediately got married and had 3 kids in 3 years. From what I hear about her, she is not happy and had one baby with another man, and was df'd for a time. Her husband kept both her and the baby. That family had 10 or 11 kids and all are/were home schooled. I don't know anything about the others, but their mother is a nut case.

I guess it's different for everyone. The last two years, the kids who won the National Spelling Bee were home schooled.

RunningMan

It is entirely possible to adequately homeschool your children. It requires great effort to teach them and ensure that they receive adequate social interaction. There are many good reasons to homeschool children.

Unfortunately, in actual practice, it usually doesn't work that way. Many parents choose to keep their kids at home because of their own fears, rather than the best interest of the child. Many parents are incompetent teachers, and don't have the time to do it properly. The few kids that I know of who were homeschooled were undereducated and social misfits.

One family in my congregation (an elder and his wife) had three boys who were homeschooled. The mother has emotional problems herself, and likely wanted to overprotect her kids. In conversation other kids in the cong, they revealed that "field trips" consisted of service or going to the playground accross the street. For math, they occasionally played Yahtzee. The boys eventually ended up rebellious and on drugs.

Stefanie

I home schooled my children. It was against my will. Nevertheless to be "in subjection" I did it. I will say I did not enjoy it. I was always worried that they were lacking in social skills. I was wanting a greater education myself, Like going to law school or something. I always loved school so much and wanted my children to have that joy. So instead of working I was stuck at home, and my elder ex had a low paying job to "keep his eye simple". Guess what ended up happening. With added burden of buying their education and me not working we had to go on public assistance!!!!!! It stayed like that for a while, and i was so angry and was complaining every day.

I finally got the courage to kick him to the curb and put the kids in school. I myself got a good job. We are all happy and doing well now. That was 2 years ago and the kids are now 12 and 8. They made a&b honor roll!

Insomniac

I was home schooled. It was so my stepfather could break my nose two more times and feel me up without having a teacher turn him in. One of the great things about the school system is that a child has a relatively safe place to be 5 days a week, and teachers who are trained to spot abuse. Parents who home school their kids are either terrific, caring, and involved, or they're abusive monsters. And you'd be amazed by how well the bad ones can hide it when the kids are never allowed out of the house.

Home school