Thursday, January 11, 2007

Homeschooling and the Real World

It is interesting to me that people think that children who are homeschooled are being sheltered from the real world, as if spending 6 or more hours daily, five days a week for 180 days or so a year is representative of the the real world. It also surprises me that parents so willingly give up their parental authority to the system. This week, we had our second snow during the school year and tomorrow we have a memorial service for a friend's wife to attend. If my children attended public school, they would have missed being able to play out in the snow, which we usually get very little of in our part of the world, as the schools were still in session. They would not be able to attend the memorial service tomorrow without missing class. Now playing in the snow may not be a necessity, although I feel that it is a treat that they deserved for working so hard the two days beforehand and I like for them to enjoy it because we see so little of it around here. The memorial service, on the other hand, is a very real part of life and it also will teach them to care for and comfort others. In both cases it was, us, the parents of these precious children who were able to make the decision as to when it is appropriate to miss "class" or not, instead of some school district bureaucracy and they will be much more exposed to the real world with their family and church family during the memorial service than if they were to be spending that time sitting in a classroom with 25 other children of the same age. Two more reasons that homeschooling fits our family.

4 comments:

nwscrapmom said...

Amen! Very well written. It amazes me when people ignorantly assume our kids are sheltered and won't understand how to deal with life as they grow up.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I'm always amazed aobut the "socialization" issue. Someone once said, and I agree, that most people are talking about "socalizing" when they say socialization--getting to know age mates and learning to get along with them. Me, I always got in trouble for "socializing" too much at school LOL

Anonymous said...

Amen! There was a viewing in Grand Rapids for former President Ford, and the 11 o'clock news had a guy on there saying they couldn't stay in line the 8hours it was going to be because the kids had to be in school the next day. Are you kidding? Here's a piece of history that they may never be able to match, and they can't stay because of school?! Who's missing out on real life here?

Sheri said...

Good post.