Do you agree this should be standards of education

My friend's daughter who was homeschooled from about the fifth grade or so, when she got old enough to be around boys, because her mom wanted to shield her which to me did not prepare her for the world, cannot tell time on a clock if its not a digital and she is not capable of looking up a phone number in a phone book. And she let the kid learn on her own and made her do her own work but how is she prepared for the real world if she cannot look a phone number up or even read basic words her mother says she has trouble with big words and really this kid considers any two syllable word to be a large word, I can't always spell as well as I should mostly due to over thinking a word but I can comprehend them. And this kids boyfriend now lives with them and she says she will never live in a house without her mother and her boyfriend feels the same way and that is upto them as I live with my dad but its because I have to due to finacial reasons but if I wasn't single I would not live with him. And her mother encouraged this boyfriend even though they met online and this kid has only been on a few dates in her entire life as her mother has sheltered her so much. I am glad my dad let us think for ourselves well he made us and if I was unable to look up a phone number at 18 well heck at 10 he would have made me have a hard time sitting down for a while. What is bad is her cousins who are in public school are the same way and none of them can write in cursive and her mother sees history as unimportant so none of them know where they come from.

Home schooled kids are supposed to have regular testing to see where they place in their studies. If they fall too short something it supposed to be done. Though if the school system around there is in the sorry state that you claim it is, than the standards for home schooling in that area would likely be set on par with it. (Were you in that same school system years ago?)

All around it sounds like a bad situation. My guess is that the mother is not very intelligent herself, letting the boyfriend move in like that proves it, and thus couldn't ensure the daughter was learning at the proper level. Though to be fair, reading a clock is first to second grade material as is learning to use a phone book.

I was in a different county and they wanted us to be able to not only read but understand it and they taught history and told us to make our on choices and taught us how to gather facts on a situiation so we could decide how we felt about it. Her mother is against the military and even went as far as too say if my brother in law dies in afghanstan which he is leaving for in jan its his stupid fault for joining I just don't understand this kind of ignorance.

That's not home-schooling, that's called "no-schooling." No-schooling is a trend where parents let their kids learn if/when they want, at their own pace, from the world around them. Supposedly, the parents take the kids to museums, and day trips, and the kids learn all they need to know from day-to-day life. The parents are also supposed to be there to answer their kids' questions as they arise.

Of course, the core subjects get pretty much ignored in this method, and I'm not sure what questions kids can ask about subjects that they haven't even been introduced to... I'm sure the tvs and computers get a workout, though. One family I read about who supports no-schooling let their teen kids stay up all night if they want; the kids interviewed said they pretty much watch tv all day. One teen was asked "what grade would you be in in High School?" and she said, "I have no idea, and I don't care either."

You can't change how your friend is raising her daughter, but I have to say no-schooling your kids is putting them at a huge disadvantage in life.

I feel so sorry for this kid she cannot look up anything in a dictionary she doesn't know how, it just doesn't make sense to me my dad wanted us to be able to think for ourselves.

That's pretty bad. Someone like that doesn't have a chance at life in the real world. Not being able to look up a number in a phone book at 18? That's unbelievable. I can understand not writing in cursive since computers are so mainstream now, all you have to do is type. And that's really the sad truth of it. People are relying so heavily on technology that such basic, mundane things like reading an analog clock have become something that people don't want to learn because they don't think they'll need to know it.

What is sad is every kid I have met who lived in that county was the same way. Where as in my family they made us learn things like that because they said that our parents wouldn't always be here for us

As someone who was home schooled through high school, I'd like to throw in my two cents. It sounds like the mother was not doing what is required of home schooling parents.

We were giving a curriculum and books to follow that covered all subjects normally taught in public schools and my parents had to correct my work every night and go over things with me that I may have missed. I also had regular testing to make sure I was on track. The program I got my school work from, also offered elective classes that we could come in for a couple times a week and get credit for. It also provided social interaction with other kids my age.

I don't claim to be super intelligent but I can tell time on any clock, use a phone book and I personally prefer to write in cursive. It always saddens me to hear these kinds of stories about kids being "home schooled" in this manner. Not only is this poor girl not prepared for life, but it adds to the negative stigma that comes with home schooling. I can't tell you how many times people have tried to tell me that I am a high school drop out or that I won't be let into college.

Sorry, rant over. Home schooling is a touchy subject for me. Like I said it saddens me to hear this girl is being set up for failure by her own mother and we never get to hear about home schooling success stories.

I've heard of this trend, well I saw an abc report on a couple who does this to their kids and it really interested me, because a lot of times the reports on the news are misleading so I researched it- it's called radical unschooling
http://www.unschooling.com/
And I think it's insane to let your kids do whatever they want, but the people who do this have really good points. For example they don't think we should be telling our kids "good job" for doing something, because they aren't animals that need to be trained, they have the ability to reason and they need to understand that everything kids do is either for their own benefit or in order to help others/make life a little easier on society as a whole.
I really just think they take the concept to an extreme- because the kids that are raised by these unschooling parents all seem to be kids in adult bodies- they never learn much of anything, and not only in the academic areas, in all aspects of life.

Originally Posted by SwampWitch

That's not home-schooling, that's called "no-schooling." No-schooling is a trend where parents let their kids learn if/when they want, at their own pace, from the world around them. Supposedly, the parents take the kids to museums, and day trips, and the kids learn all they need to know from day-to-day life. The parents are also supposed to be there to answer their kids' questions as they arise.

Of course, the core subjects get pretty much ignored in this method, and I'm not sure what questions kids can ask about subjects that they haven't even been introduced to... I'm sure the tvs and computers get a workout, though. One family I read about who supports no-schooling let their teen kids stay up all night if they want; the kids interviewed said they pretty much watch tv all day. One teen was asked "what grade would you be in in High School?" and she said, "I have no idea, and I don't care either."

You can't change how your friend is raising her daughter, but I have to say no-schooling your kids is putting them at a huge disadvantage in life.

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I was unschooled, I never cared what grade I was "supposed" to be in, and I certainly don't feel as though I'm disadvantaged in life . People (of all ages) learn what they want to to learn....there is no way to force someone to learn something they don't want to learn, and no way to prevent someone from learning what they do want to learn.

I know more public-schooled kids than homeschooled/unschooled kids who can't read a face clock, and I've met grown adults (people who presumably graduated high school) who can't use a phone book. I work at the Post Office, and I sometimes substitute in a college town. The college kids can't fill out simple forms.

One's schooling has nothing to do with one's level of education.

Personally , I learned the most in a school that you were able to work at your level on most subjects... IE : Special ed also had kids like me who had very high IQ s but could not spell ( I still have issues with phone books only because I cant spell, thank you for google and internet white pages)... As Willowy put it , schooling and education are two different things...For me I learned far more outside of school than in...

I would think that standardized testing would catch a lot of the Unschooling at some point... Today homeschooling is almost a mirror of the public school as most are going threw the states and cities vs religious training. From those I have met doing this they merely are getting threw standard school in less time.

Originally Posted by Willowy

One's schooling has nothing to do with one's level of education.

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I was anti-schooled -- not just un-schooled but had a lot of impediments to learning on my own thrown in my way.

And I'd still pit my level of education against the OP's any day.

Originally Posted by sharky

I would think that standardized testing would catch a lot of the Unschooling at some point. .

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LOL, I BLASTED the standardized tests. 99th percentile, every time. Even my brother, who is NOT a good test taker, passed respectably (do you know you only need to score in the 30th percentile to pass? I think he was usually around 50th percentile). The standardized tests are nothing really. They basically test how good you are at taking tests, not your actual knowledge.

I don't know that my thoughts on this are right, just that it concerns me when a kid who is that old has trouble with such things that honestly I take for granted. And I worry because this kid has told me and truly believes that her mother will always be there and nothing will ever happen to her so there isn't a need for her to be able to do these things. It bothers me that her mother has stated that she gets along just fine and she dropped out in the
8th grade and then she got her ged later on and she says she doesn't see the point in a high school diploma and she actually took her daughter out a year early and she says she will have her test out for her ged.

People do a lot of things I don't agree with in raising their kids (like, your dad would really have hit you if you didn't know how to use a phone book at age 10? Because that would be abuse in my opinion). People do a lot of things YOU don't agree with in raising their kids. Right? Wrong? Who's to say? If it works for them, great.

And I'm pretty sure that relying too heavily on Mom is not specific to non-public-schoolers. Some families are just like that.

I got my GED. What's wrong with that? It's the same as a high school diploma. The test is probably harder than graduating most high schools. The school graduated my cousin (a straight-D student, only because it was against their policy to give Fs) just to get rid of him. I don't think a high-school diploma is so great.

Originally Posted by Tavia'smom

It bothers me that her mother has stated that she gets along just fine and she dropped out in the
8th grade and then she got her ged later on and she says she doesn't see the point in a high school diploma and she actually took her daughter out a year early and she says she will have her test out for her ged.

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Level and career wise, a GED and HS diploma are going to get you only so far. There is nothing wrong with a GED if one wants to go to college. With the way the school I went to was, we had several drop out at 16, take their GED and then go straight on to technical training or the nearby university. After they took their ACT or SAT of course. I really wish I had went that route myself instead (though my father completely refused to help me with college and would not let me get aid on his name, so it wouldn't have mattered anyways. ) since my HS was pretty bad.

I'm curious, those that have been "un-schooled" and in the US, what sort of grades are they making on ACT or SATs?

I should have retook my ACT, I took it back in 9th grade and only got a 30 on it.

Its not the GED that is bad its the attitude towards wanting an education when I began talking about wanting to be a social worker she told me she hated school when she was thee and I was stupid for thinking of going back. And honestly the public schools in her county are about the same and I am more concerned with the fact that so many kids cannot do things at the age of 18 that we did when we were in grammar school. I should have explained what I meant better. It wasn't so much home schools as she has the same curriculum as the public schools its just the fact that schools home or not aren't really doing enough to prepare kids. I appologize for me directing it at homeschools it was just that she was homeschooled and she was my example.

Well, it wasn't you so much as the subsequent posters who were bashing homeschooling/unschooling. It needed addressing.

You know, when you think of it, back when we were that young we needed to know how to read a face clock and use a phone book. Now you don't. I can't remember the last time I looked inside a phone book. How often do most people see a face clock? These are not necessary skills anymore. Now, if someone didn't know how to find what they needed on Google, now that would be a problem!

I don't know what my score would have been on the ACT or SAT, because I never took them. I never had any intention of going to college, and if I had changed my mind when I did reach college age I could have taken the tests then . A homeschooled friend of mine decided to go to college when she was 20, and took the ACT at that time, along with the college's entrance exam. She didn't even have her GED or any graduation papers (the state had promised her mother that if she used the state-approved curriculum, her kids would be given a diploma from the high school, same as if they had attended the school. The state reneged, of course ), but I guess acing the entrance tests is better than a diploma. From what I've heard, most homeschoolers/unschoolers do pretty well.

I just looked up info about the GED. In order to pass, you need to score higher than 60% of the graduating seniors that year! That seems unfair! Anyway, I don't see how anyone could argue that it isn't as good as a diploma (and plenty of people do).

Originally Posted by Willowy

From what I've heard, most homeschoolers/unschoolers do pretty well.

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The home schoolers, no doubt, could because they have proper curriculum. I was asking about the unschoolers. How can one pass history questions if they know no history? In fact, could the unschoolers even get a GED since it does require you to know history, some conversions, basic algebra and some geometry (I helped a step sibling prepare for it), and a writing test. I wonder if many HS can pass the writing tests, anymore.


As for OP's questions about schooling in their area, period. No offense meant, honestly, but if you're a product of that region they must be lacking in teaching English. While you criticize what others do not know, take a look over your own posts. Unfortunately, this is a trend in many coming out HS in the last 10 years or so, so honestly it's not just you.
(And yes, I do know that my grammar isn't perfect)

Are you really saying that you think I don't know any history? Or math? Or any "school" subject?

Who said unschoolers don't know history? Just because nobody stuffed it down their throats doesn't mean they don't learn things. That information is available wherever you want to find it, it's not like textbooks have a monopoly on information. I was particularly fond of historical fiction as a teenager. The fiction led me to look up the factual information, etc. Sometimes I looked at actual textbooks (gasp!). Because I did it myself doesn't negate that learning.

Unschoolers learn BECAUSE nobody forces them to. Learning is the natural human way to live. The only way to suppress that natural instinct to learn all the time is to make learning unpleasant, as many schools tend to do.

And let's say an unschooler DID do nothing but sit around all day watching TV, reading comic books, and twiddling around on the internet. I doubt that describes a normal unschooler but let's just say that. I'm pretty sure I learned just as much from watching Jeopardy, nature programs, Law & Order, and even sitcoms, as I learned from "official" sources. The internet has all the info you ever wanted to know (and plenty you didn't want to know, too). I wish I had the internet when I was a kid. I had to take the bus to the library! And I KNOW I learned more from Archie comics than from any schoolbook. I'm sure that the majority of unschoolers do a lot more than just sit around. Museums, theaters, nature hikes, etc.--it's not like they live in a closet!

As for passing the GED, I never even looked at an algebra or geometry book. I had no interest at all. I fully expected to flub the math section entirely, but figured I could score high enough on the other subjects to make up for it. But! I scored just as high on the math section as I did on every other subject. I don't know how or why. I guess somehow, in my normal everyday life, I must have absorbed enough algebra and geometry to get by.

If I ever needed to deal with higher math, or know advanced chemistry for some reason, I know I could pick it up quickly. It's not like people stop learning once they turn a certain age.