We homeschool our three children who are currently 6, 2, and 1. More specifically, we unschool-which is essentially home education without curriculum, and it works for us. Our children are all very pleasant, social children and so far they are doing great academically. Not only do they exceed all of their grade level/age group standards (even though I do not 'enforce' or 'teach to' them I keep track of for state mandated record keeping), but more importantly (to us) they learn so much that is not in standard curriculum. We all love learning together, our kids are free to follow their passions, and we have been successful in it so far so we plan to continue to unschool for the foreseeable future. Of course only parents can know and understand their children well enough to know what type of education is best suited to them. For us unschooling is best, but we know that other families and children are different. What's good for one is not good for everyone, and we absolutely respect every parent's right to choose what they feel is the best educational plan/system for them based on their observations and knowledge of their children and the needs of their family. There's no real "good" or "bad" in this scenario just personal decisions about what is best for one specific child/family.

I realize I'm coming in a lot late on this, but I'd at least like to throw my 2 cents in, in case anyone is still reading. I was in public school until the 8th grade. I was a better than average student, even being tossed into a few gifted & honors classes along the way. A lot of my teachers loved me...but I also had horrendous personality clashes with a few...and that seemed to RUIN any learning or experience I could have gained from that teacher. By the time I was in middle school, I was miserable. I liked learning, but school was *not* about learning anymore. It was about who was the cutest, the best kisser, the fastest, the strongest, or the one with the longest hair. I had a very outgoing personality, but I couldn't manage to use it to my advantage and click with kids in my classes. I think I finished the 8th grade with a small handful of acquaintances. My mom had remarried a few years earlier and with a now 2 income household revisited the idea of homeschooling. She wanted to do it when I entered kindergarten, but circumstances prevented it for a number of years. Now she was in a position where she could home school us during the week, and work weekends (my step-father owned his own cabinetry business). At first, I hated the idea. Then I met with my high school counselor who was supposed to help me choose my classes for 9th grade. I knew what was required of me as far as credits were concerned, and I knew what I was interested in. I told the counselor what I wanted...she shot down EVERY ONE of my considerations, INCLUDING my orchestra elective. I was first chair violin, no WAY was I going to even consider dropping it. If I didn't get into it now, I wouldn't be able to compete at the state level later. I walked away with a bunch of classes and electives I hated, that I didn't want to do. I met up with a friend after...and she had a different counselor. She got all the classes she wanted, including the ones that MY counselor said were not recommended for Freshmen. I was ticked. I went home...and told my mother she could home school me for the next school year. She already had plans to do it for my younger siblings (all in elementary school). She was actually very nervous about it, b/c she thought she'd be able to work her way slowly to high school with my younger siblings. She got in with an umbrella school that helps you with the legal aspects of homeschooling & figuring out your state & local requirements, and even curriculum. They also helped with electives, sports, and other programs that don't really work out as a singleton event. (Ever played basketball alone?) Eventually, we no longer needed help from the umbrella school and got involved in a Non-Denom church where there were a lot of homeschooling families. My mom was a former Catholic and hadn't attended church in many years, and our homeschooling was not based on religion. Eventually, I graduated high school. My GPA was 4.2. And that's not fluffed up with a bunch of weird electives...that's the GPA for my core classes...the ones that require a certain number of credits for me to graduate. I was required to have 24 credits, I graduated with 34. I got a modest 1200 on my SATs (I could have tried harder, but I had concert tickets for the Backstreet Boys later). Then I attempted to enroll in a community college. They essentially walked me out the door & said that a diploma with my mother's signature was not a high school diploma! Even though, according to the state, my mother was officially running a private school. Things changed considerably in the months following that stand-off. :) My siblings all enrolled behind me with no problems...and one of them even did a dual-enrollment where he spent his last year of high school ALSO attending community college. Essentially getting credit for his classes in 2 places. So, I never went to college. I don't mind, I didn't want to waste my time on educating myself for a career, when I really just wanted to be a wife and mother. I am currently in training to become a licensed Doula. A career where you gain your best lessons OUT of the classroom. I'm still on the fence about homeschooling my own kids. I would LOVE to. But we are a military family, and I worry about trying to get into new groups of homeschooling families all the time...finding kids that are the same ages as my children to play with. And even different laws from one place to another. Do I really want to do all that? Not at present. My oldest will be 6 soon and is excelling in Kindergarten. Maybe if I see her getting bogged down by her teachers or classmates, I will consider homeschooling. I did teach her quite a bit during her pre-K time, but she seemed a little hard-headed & opinionated. Not sure where she gets that... ;)

My son is a toddler, but I plan to homeschool him and any other children we may have. I am in the happy position of being able to stay home with him, so I already "school" him as much as one does a toddler. I am highly educated (two masters degrees) and an experienced and good teacher, so I feel pretty comfortable about facing any academic challenges of homeschooling. I suppose the only issue that bothers me about homeschooling is that some of the moms who homeschool seem unqualified to teach in such areas as standard English. (Please don't go grammar police on me, now; I'm sure I've affronted.) I read lots of homeschool listservs where many of the mothers/teachers of their children do not grasp basic sentence structures. Don't get me started on the atrocious spelling. Still, I trust that those moms are self-aware enough to get some outside help to make up for their weaknesses. Me? When my kids get to calculus, I am outsourcing.

I completely agree that home schooling is a personal choice, and I respect the effort that must go into it, but honestly, every kid I've ever met who has been home schooled has NOT been as well-adjusted socially as kids who have gone through private/public school systems. How could they be, when they're in a class with zero to a handful of other children, instead of twenty to thirty kids from varied backgrounds (social, economic, racial, etc.)? Unless -- maybe -- their regimen includes supplementary social activities? I guess that's what I would stress parents to include in their schedule if they are choosing to home school. Because honestly, if you can read or listen, you can learn almost any technical skills you may need for a job, but personal skills are much harder to teach. (Note: of course there may be special circumstances that make home schooling necessary, or strongly recommended, for certain children. My comments are obviously generalized, and directed towards relatively normal families who have access to public education.)

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This comment may well turn into a nine-page-rant-in-green-ink, but I must jump in. What IS education? What is knowing, what are the different ways to prove that we know? What constitutes knowledge, and what is "preparation for life"? How can one prepare for something that is already happening? Is there really a basic set of knowledge that everyone needs, or is this a relic of industrial-revolution thought? Unfortunately, the schooling of the past really has impacted our ability to recognize the importance of these questions - and also our ability to recognize the way our society works. Luckily, the technological changes that have happened during our lifetimes may finally lead us to seeing that the old paradigms are changing at an exponential rate, and that which has influenced our ability to survive and thrive has become significantly different. This view is not new - educators have been saying this for at least 100 years. But we simply cannot blame any one part of the system that is brutalizing everyone involved - children, teachers, administrators, parents, communities, environments, govemments, economies, societies - what is required here is for all parts to move up or step back or drill down to discover what we are becoming and dream of what we want to become. Our generation lives in a very exciting time. Today's children, more than most, must navigate a huge range of experience from the traditional bureaucratic heirarchical school system - which naturally replicates itself in government, university, etc. - to the more fluid meritocratic anonymous social systems of online networking, text-messaging etc. This is a continuum that most organizations fit along somewhere. Anyone who can embrace and play with these contradictions will be very much in demand. Personally, I want to focus on giving people the tools to fit in and be successful anywhere. One of those tools is recognizing that they can choose their own place. As a wise, strong, kind parent, I will not assume I know best for my son, but I will offer him everything I can to get him to his personal sweet spot(s) in this huge confusing world. Rant over!

I find the lack of janitor interaction interesting. When I was a kid (in a public school system), we had our two elderly janitors that we all saw. We were taught to essentially revere them. The lunchroom ladies were also of varying degrees of niceness. Miss Dolly (one of the janitors) used to tell us stories and had no problems telling us when we were out of line. I firmly believe that every child should be exposed to a Miss Dolly. Of course, I also believe that everyone should work retail at some point in their lives so that they will remember to treat the person on the register or at the drive through window with respect.

I have a question. Yes I'm biased, but this is in earnest: what are the chances of a home schooled child to continue to university? Are there statistics on this?