A formerly unschooled kid decided to go to 9th grade in public school for a year. Check out what he has to say! http://fivefreebirds.blogspot.com/2008/07/unschool-v-school.html So cool!
That was a great blog post to hear. I've been talking with a friend of mine, a special needs teacher... and there are so many different view points out there... it is good to get one from a child/teen rather than a parent.
Ok, kid did good in 2 languages and jazz. Yes, he's so much smarter. How'd he do in math, science, social studies? Also he hung out only with school kids, so he was socialized like any other school kid. The fact that he didn't attend classes meant that he could learn at his own pace and not be held back. That's one of the best reasons to have a custom education. He didn't say how educated his parents were, nor how much time they devoted to his education. These are primary factors as to whether going to school is going to be better. Not everyone is so lucky to have that background. Money is also a factor to be able to afford everything a kid might have access to in school, computer, high speed Internet, trips to museums, special advanced classes, etc. Other reasons for home schooling are bullying, cliques, peer pressure, school shootings, etc. I hated public school but I did well. Of course I went to same school as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer. So a lot depends on the public school you're stuck with. Ha! I just found out my high school turned 100 years old this month. Thats about how old I feel!
Other graduates from my high school were Carol King, Chris Rock and Judge Judy. So if a kid is home schooled and doesn't socialize with other kids much, they lose out on being friends and network with a large group of kids, some might be the key to future success, although College is more the place for that.
Living in the UK and going to school shortly after WW2, my schooling was quite a shambles, but I loved it. Most teachers were called up into the armed forces, since their work was not considered vital. This left us with teachers who had been brought back after retirement and recently retired from industry. (in the subjects they were teaching). The carpenter was great fun, but he had a very strange use of the English language. Put simply, every noun must be preceded by an adjective and every adjective must contain 4 letters and start with an 'F'. When we did something wrong, he skipped the nouns and just used the adjectives. Another little known fact was that a lot of our teachers were German. When we declared war on Germany, as per the Geneva convention, their citizens wee given 21 days to leave or face imprisonment. Since more than 90% of them were German Jews who had fled Germany during the Nazi uprising, they chose our holiday camps. Fortunately, Churchill was no fool and gave them the option of teaching. After the war, many of them opted to stay and for their services were given British Citizenship. My music teacher was formally the leader of a major orchestra in Germany. He went on to co-found the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, that still exists today.
