Home Schooling Support Group

You mentioned in the very beginning of your post that you are against homeschooling. If this is so then why are you wanting to consider this as an option? Do what you feel is best for your children when the time comes. Just please don't come into this community and tell us that you are against homeschooling...no offense intended here.

No offense intended here either, but from what I read of your post, you probably will be just as offended by what I am about to say, as I was by your post.

No matter how well you tried to hide what you really wanted to say, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and I just can't ignore it.

First of all, if you are against home schooling, why are you here?

Second:

"First, the school population is--how shall i say this--very diverse; second, the teachers and curriculum aren't the greatest in our eyes."

Translation: There are people here who aren't white like us, and we don't like that.

"Unfortunately, there is a lot of stress put on making all the students learn a language that we feel is not in their best interest"

Translation: They are going to make our kids learn Spanish, and we don't like that.

I'm sorry, but your post wreaks of bigotry, and I have no patience for it.

I have no advice to offer you until you show some sign of accepting that all human beings deserve to be fairly treated. If the reason you are thinking of homeschooling your children is simply to keep them separated from people of other cultures, then I have no desire whatsoever to offer you any advice or support.

Your post, unfortunately, made perfect sense to me, and I for one, do NOT apologize for voicing my opinion in this case. I am offended.

It seems that I left out a few key words here.

At the present I am against homeschooling myself. I have no ill feelings about those of you who choose do so, it obviously works for you so that is great!

I wasn't trying to offend anyone who is a part of homeschooling, I was trying to let you (collectively) know where I was coming from. If you read further into the post, I asked some questions that if someone gives answerd to, it will help me in our decision for when the girls get into the other district. I don't know anyone who homeschools, so as of right now, this is my first step in information gathering.

To be called a bigot...let's see, that's your perogitive to call me that and I take no offense to it. Yes, there is a HUGE spanish population here and the kids who speak English are at a big disadvantage because these students are not put into ESL classes and the kids who are literate in our language are held back in many ways to accomodate these kids. Its a fact and we all have our opinions about immigrants; however, this post was not about immigration, it is about me needing some more information to see if this is homeschooling is something that I may be interested in doing at a later time, again, since I only know what I see on TV and read about the subject.

And Sentinent, your feelings about non-english speakers is as straightforward as mine and I have no problem with that. If you don't want to offer advice because of that then don't. Keeping my kids seperated from this group is not the only reason for contemplating homeschooling. If you care to read my entire post, I think you will read that this districts test scores are one of the lowest in our area and there are some other issues involving a few of the teachers that I don't need to go into in this forum.

I am trying to look for some support in my decision to homeschool my children or not to. I also don't even know if this is a possibility because I don't know what the requirements etc... are to do so.

So, if anyone is able to provide me some insight on the following it would be greatly appreciated. If you don't want to give information then don't.


What I am looking for is your opinions on homeschooling. What was the driving force behind your decision to do this? What kind of training/education did you need to teach the kids? Do you have any concerns that the kids are missing out on anything since they are not in traditional school? Any other information would be great and welcomed.

TIA, Maggie

Understood.

Nobody likes to be called a bigot. The word carries a very strong negative connotation. Sometimes though, I feel very strongly that what I see as bigotry needs to be pointed out. Not everyone who seems to act bigoted always knows how what they say or do looks like to others. Sometimes it takes pointing it out to open their eyes. If the person truly isn't a bigot, they will normally defend themselves. If they aren't, the bigotry will become even more evident as they continue. If they are hard hearted bigots, nothing anyone points out will do any good. If they are the sort who truly hate bigotry, they will do what they can to figure out why anyone would think they are, and do something to correct it.

If you read your own post very carefully, you should be able to understand why I responded the way I did. It may have been harsh, and I admit it was, but it was based on the first impression from reading it. After several readings of it, and your last post, my opinion has not changed. It is, admittedly, a judgmental opinion, but it is only a reaction to what I consider to be a clear judgmental attitude on your part. If I am wrong, I apologize, but I haven't seen much yet to convince me I am wrong. It really does look to me as if you are afraid of allowing your kids to be exposed to Hispanic culture. And that, to me, is very sad.

Consider, first, the points I made (point/translation). In your reply to those points, you never once denied that was how you felt.

Consider also that you begin by telling us all that you are against home schooling. Your reply says that you didn't mean to offend anyone by the statement. Well, I'm not offended by the statement, and that isn't why I questioned it. I questioned it because you not only state that you are against it, but then go on to list all the reasons that you are against it. The most important reason seems to be that "if it was good enough for me, then it's good enough for them."

Then you promptly list all the reasons you DON"T think it's good enough for them, so you are flatly contradicting yourself.

Add to that the reasons you are giving (which is the REAL reason I'm offended, not the fact that you are against home schooling - I have no problem with anyone being against it - everyone is entitled to their opinion).

What I have a real problem with is your reason for wanting to home school. Your reply indicates that it's the testing scores of the school, and not the race of the people who are there.

Well, fine. if that is the reason, why don't you just work with your kids to make sure they are not one of the reasons the scores are so low? Just because a school's overall scores are not very high, does not mean every kid in the school isn't doing well. Plenty of kids go to sub-standard schools and do very well there, and usually due to quality involvement of their parents.

Learning Spanish won't cause your kids to do poorly in school. Being in school with Hispanic children will not cause it either.

A lot of American have either forgotten, or don't realize, that Hispanics came to this country, especially in the west, before other Europeans did. Out west, they were most definitely here before us. We took land from them, after they took it from the natives. We are no better then they are.

What I am saying is that if the facts that the school is mostly Hispanic and your kids will have to learn Spanish are the primary reasons you want to take them out of school, those, to me, are not good reasons. In fact, to me, they are the wrong reasons to home school.

I've already partly addressed the low scores but there is a bit more to say. While I do understand the "low scores" argument, I simply don't agree with it as a reason to home school, especially if you are someone who is against home schooling to begin with. It takes a lot of effort to home school. It takes less effort to get involved with your kids school work to ensure they will get a good grade there (unless you have deeper issues with the school on a philosophical level, which can mean you don't have a very cooperative relationship with them, and will make it far more difficult to help them there than to just bring them home).

Plenty of schools in this country require spending some time learning a foreign language. it never killed anyone.

If you had said, "The drug problem is horrendous there, or there is a lot of gang violence," or, "I simply don't think the schools can teach my children the values we hold," those would have been perfectly acceptable reasons to me to consider home schooling, but it wasn't those sorts of reasons that you gave.

"Keeping my kids seperated from this group is not the only reason for contemplating homeschooling" (ergo, it IS one of the reasons).

You also mentioned you are having problems with a couple of teachers, that you don't want to go into. I'm only hazarding a guess here, but if those teacher just happen to be Hispanic, i can make a pretty good guess at what the problem is related to. But you didn't go into it, so I won't take that any further. It's just a guess, as I said.

I've changed my mind a bit about answering some of your questions. Keep in mind, these are honest answers, and aren't designed just for your benefit just because of anything I may think about you and your attitudes. This is what I tell everyone.

"What was the driving force behind your decision to do this?"

My son has Asperger's Syndrome, and was not getting the kind of treatment he needed in public school. We can provide him with exactly what he needs here. We can make sure he is treated well, and learns tolerance for all sorts of people, no matter their backgrounds, disabilities, varying attitudes (within limits, as you have seen), and values that WE approve of.

What kind of training/education did you need to teach the kids?

I'm 47 years old, and my parents did a pretty good job with me. I leaned all the most important things I know outside school. School helped, but if my parents had had the time, I could have learned everything I learned there, from them. They didn't. I do. I'm going to college online, so I am here anyway to teach them. No special training, but I do have very good writing and math knowledge and skills.

"Do you have any concerns that the kids are missing out on anything since they are not in traditional school?"

No. There is nothing that public school offers, that we can't offer ourselves, including, but not limited to, a social life. The difference is that the social settings will be far better supervised than at school. Kids with Asperger's Syndrome are extremely vulnerable to bullying, and often become bullies themselves in retaliation. I would rather be there, or another parent I know well, in a smaller group setting with better control, than to have him continue to go into settings where there is only one teacher to thirty or more kids. There have already been too many problems. They are less likely to happen in smaller groups with adults he trusts.

Those are my reasons for home schooling. If your reasons are good ones, you know, and you don't need anyone to tell you. If all you really want to do is shield your children from other cultures, I think that's a dead wrong reason to home school.

SP

All you are turning this into is a race issue. You have your thoughts on loving everyone and I don't share those beliefs. It is a dividing issue in this country and always will be. In my eyes, your way of thinking is wrong and in your eyes, mine is. Let's just agree to disagree.


To answer your point about the problem with the 2 teachers, maybe it would be best if you don't assume. Neither of the teachers are hispanic as you'd like to think. One of the teachers was suspended and then let back a year later after sexually harrassing some of the young ladies in his class and on one of the sports teams he coaches. There are 2 other teachers whom we don't agree with their stand on things--they are teaching about God in class, which 1. goes against seperation of church and state and 2. my kids can learn religion at home if anywhere. As I stated, my sister has 2 children currently in this district and has had 2 others graduate from the district.

Also, if you would read my post a bit better, I state that there is no problem with the current district we are in, thus why I don't feel it necessary to homeschool or put them in private school at this point. The point where a change needs to be made is when they go to the other district in 8th grade.

I will be leaving this group because I don't feel that I need to be lectured on "loving all people for who they are" while I came here for some answers, which have yet to be addressed from my 2 earlier posts. All that you seem to focus on is my distaste for the immigration of people to this country.

I guess you have in fact answered my questions. If it is people like you who I would need to make contact with, this isn't for me.

Thanks for taking the time to express your views.

You've made it quite clear now that I was right. You are a racist. And you are right, I don't like that, nor does make me feel any need to make you feel welcome.

'nuff said.

No apologies here.

Good riddance.

Maggie
I hope you are here long enough to hear me, and that you didn't depart yet.
I believe everyone was trying to help. What touches me most is when you say, "I have no life so..."
Do you really believe you are in that situation and have no life? Rubbish! You have plenty of advocacy opportunities, you are in the right place to be a role model for your kids, and to effect the changes you find lacking in the system around you- OR you can turn tail, whine and say I dont have a life and am helpless to change the things that bother me about this hopeless system!
Write polite, tactful, point-filled well researched letters that support your beliefs, make phone calls, immerse yourself in the very school system you do not like, and make changes.
Your kids can benefit by knowing another language, in today's world people with a second language are given more opportunites, that's a fact. There is a calling for it in business, and in all kinds of jobs. The opportunities here for your kids to model you, and for them to grow as people for being in such a diversified environment, are an opportunity. You can always move. Or maybe you can see them as actual people. With families. Those children are like your children in more ways than they are not. Yours are not better.
If you want to teach your kids something, in a home environment, teach them this.
You seem to have the motivation, but need a push.
Turn your perspective around. See your location as being not a matter of poor luck---but rather as being exactly where you are supposed to be to learn and grow as a person, and to teach valuable lessons and learn them. Don't blow it by running away.
You sound frightned by differences and this may be because you don't have knowledge about the people around you. Communities are everyone, you included.
Reach out, and treat them as you expect to be treated. Ask where they need help. Walk into the school with an open heart, and be tough but tactful when explaining where you think changes should come about.
This is the USA, we have always been the great melting pot of all cultures and races. You are surprised by this now?
African Americans could finally vote by 1870. Women could not vote till 1920.
Thats enough oppression behind us. try to move forward here. I may seem offtrack about your subject but I dont believe I am. All of these things personify what America is, and to condemn one district instead of rolling your sleeves up and advocating and moving forward is missing your calling.
Its almost unAmerican.