By Leah Murdoch on Sep 2, 2008

I read your essay. I agree totally! What a blessing to keep them home and spend their day with them! My husband and I have two boys ages 13 and 10 that we are currently homeschooling. I will be checking out your blog from time to time now. Leah

By Nan on Sep 2, 2008

LOVED IT!! And wow… we would get along swimmingly. We also have four boys (2, 4, 6 and and are classical homeschoolers… and I would stab my husband with a spoon if he forced a bonnet on me… and we are not stereotypical. Though I would be a liar if I didn’t tell you the truth that I was about to dip my head into a vat of boiling lard yesterday, trying to work with these little hooligans. Pity we had no boiling lard on hand… Do you ever wonder if they would do certain things (like cry buckets about a vocabulary assignment) in public school with onlooking peers? I have to wonder…

Thanks for the fantastic article!

By Nan on Sep 2, 2008

weird… it put a cool smiley instead of the number Eight up there…. He’s eight. He is cool but he’s eight.

By Amy on Sep 2, 2008

My experience is that they just save the buckets of tears for when they get home.
Nice article, Tony.

By JorgXMcKie on Sep 2, 2008

I’m so sorry for your wife’s experience in Detroit. It’s a giant sucking hole of public waste, unfortunately. The new Supt. just discovered a few weeks ago (and I tend to really believe that she did just discover it, even though she’s not obviously overqualified for her job) that the DPS is in a $418 million hole. The idiot school board immediately blamed her for the shortfall, even though she’s only been in charge for a year.

The Teachers Union (unfortunately my union is affiliated) immediately denounced suggested that unneeded schools be closed and unneeded teachers be laid off. They’re pretty sure that if the state and/or the feds come through with a few billion more dollars and some mid-level administrators are laid off (I can get behind that one, anyway) the problem will be resolved.

It was also discovered that the most recent Auditor of the DPS had established a secret software account in which he endeavored to funnel millions of unbudgeted dollars to his friends and families.

Ah, well.

By Marc V on Sep 3, 2008

Dittoes on the good article. The criticism about homeschooling we hear the most is the “worry” about the youngster’s socialization skills. Obviously, sheltered kids who never go out will turn into sociopaths. Eh, whatever.

Public schools are a mess and will never get better until at least the federal government lets go of them. I wonder how long our society will continue to offer “free” education.

Isn’t there a Little House on the Prairie tourist site in your neck of the woods? Somewhere in Kansas?

By Donna B. on Sep 6, 2008

I totally admire and am in complete awe of parents who are competent home-schoolers.

Because I had a very special needs child, homeschooling was not an option for me. I needed help.

That said, I don’t think I would have been very successful at it anyway. I did try teaching my daughter to play the piano… and well, we both suffered.

However, I think I did a very good job of choosing excellent schools for them and making the sacrifice of being an involved parent at those schools — some private, some public.

I volunteered as wardrobe mistress for the ballet, chauffeur and chaperone for the orchestra, overnight hostess for numerous clubs and groups and was as involved in their lives during and after school as I felt I could.

The important thing I did was letting them know that their education was important to me. That goes a long way, no matter where a child gets the schooling, IMHO.

I have two daughters that I think may go the homeschooling route and I will support them wholeheartedly. I have another who I think is more like me and will probably go the private school route. I will wholeheartedly support her too.

I’d hate to see all public schooling go bye-bye because I know there are lot of parents like me who are not suited to homeschooling and cannot afford private schools, as I was (mostly) able to do.

By Leah Murdoch on Sep 8, 2008

Donna B.,
There’s no need to be in awe about homeschooling parents. We are just sitting on the couch with our kids trying to figure this thing out everyday. I don’t think that PS will go away because there are people who are not suited to homeschooling. (A friend comes to mind-she homeschooled her first two for a while but in a second marriage with the next two was unable to and put them in private Christian school) It’s obvious that our PS system is in a mess and I hope that with the success stories of Homeschoolers and the really bad PS stories that parents and educators will clean it up.