Are homeschooled kids weird?

E-Z-B

E-Z-B

CAGiversary!
In light of the upcoming National Spelling Bee on June 4th on ABC, I figured this question would be appropriate. Homeschooled kids tend to win this contest because the parents tailor their child's curriculum to anything they want. So at the expense of, say, science, they make their kid learn to spell words like "succedaneum" (or replace rooted science with pseudo-science such as Intelligent Design). In your opinion, are parents doing their children harm by not allowing them to attend public schools?

Here's a great example of a homeschooled kid winning the 2007 Spelling Bee contest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZNQ06kWyc

This year's contest is listed here:

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-2010-scripps-national-spelling-bee
 
I've always thought that being homeschooled would be a huge disadvantage socially as well as possibly shaping a person to be really close-minded (which could ironically be rather close-minded of me to think).

Darthbudge turned out alright, though. Valedictorian of P.S. Kitchen.
 
nothing wrong with homeschooling hell with how dangerous public schools are now it makes sense especially if you cant afford private school and if you have the meas to do it competently but if youre going to do it you need to make sure your kid or kids have some kind of interaction with other children. ive met some odd homeschool people especially the religious ones but ive met cool ones too.
 
Some, for sure. I was homeschooled my entire life and I have known quite a few homeschooled people. I think I turned out alright, and I know lots of others that turned out fine as well. However, I do know a lot of people that are incredibly weird after being homeschooled and know some that turned to homeschooling because otherwise they would have flunked out of regular school. I think a lot of people with weird or problematic children turn to homeschooling as a way to shelter them from the outside and this is where the social stigmas associated with homeschooling originate.

Looking on the flip side, look at all the weird kids out there who went to public schools. There really are just as many of them, they just don't get singled out because there is nothing to blame on why they are weird.
 
Homeschooling is fine...assuming the "teachers" are not total idiots. The most odd kids I've known were actually not homeschooled. They attended public school but their parents were way too overprotective. I'm talking kids who were not allowed to watch anything but Disney movies until they turned 18...and actually obeyed those rules despite their parents being just as soft as they were inadvertently raising their kids to be. I think what makes people really learn about life is all the shit that comes along with a normal school experience (ie: laughed at for your clothes, knocking out a bully or two, etc.)
 
I was home schooled from 2nd to 11th grade. I did running start after that. I will say as a fact homeschooling will fuck you up. I HATE my parents for doing that too me... life was beyond awkward until maybe my senior year of college. Major social issues and life issues in general. Also I think I picked up some radical views due to my parents being religious.

As someone who has been home schooled I would NEVER recommend doing this EVER. You may think you're shielding your child from shit, but what happens when you need to leave and they don't have ANY experience dealing with that SAME SHIT. It will mess you up.... :/ I have horrible memories from my childhood/young adult life which I can't ever forget.
 
[quote name='iKilledChewbacca']I was homeschooled from grades 7th-9th and I guess I came out alright haha.[/QUOTE]

Except for killing Chewie... you homeschooled bastard!!!

I have to agree with what others have said about these kids ending up socially retarded, despite all their book smarts. Most public schools in CA are absolute crap, i.e. me being able to breeze thru H.S. and graduate with high honors without ever learning how to study. I wasn't prepared for college at all but managed to get an AA and then transferred to a 4yr where I ended up dropping out cuz I couldn't hack it.

I think a good middle ground is the approach that private schools take. After dating an 18yr old senior Catholic school girl when I was 21, I could definitely see the value in private school as her high school papers and assignments were well beyond my public school/city college education.

The US really needs some national education reform to prepare kids not only for college, but the real world. At least one semester should be spent teaching them about personal finances, credit card debt, how to build a resume etc. so they don't end up struggling through it later.

[quote name='FrankySox']That video cracks me up. Especially the look on his face when she tells him he's wrong.[/QUOTE]
Hahaha... I didn't watch the vid before I posted. This kid seems like a borderline savant with obviously no social skills and poor manners to boot. "No, I like being homeschooled, because if I acted like this in public school I'd have my ass beat on a daily basis until I learned to act like a normal functioning member of society." Parents who raise their kids to be like this are on par with the parents of those freakish lil beauty pageant girls. Forcing a child to focus all their energy, passion, and intelligence into one minute aspect of life is just ridiculous and how do you expect them to not turn out fucked up?!
 
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Socially some home schoolers are really inept. This is one aspect that ALL home schoolers should remember. Life is not all about studying!

For myself I was only home schooled during high school. During my freshman year of college, there were certain times when I felt socially inept, but I guess I turned out ok... lol
 
That kid in the video is a poster child for why home schooling is bad. Yeah he might be book smart but he wouldn't last a week in a public school before some bullys/gang/etc beat the shit out of him - or at least attempt to.
 
This kind of stuff has always interested me, nature versus nurture and all. I think homeschooling can be fine if they are still meeting people and doing some other activities. Because public highschool can be equally damaging in an opposite way with kids not learning how to grow up until they waste a lot of their parents' money in college.

homeschooling sound pretty cool though, you could honestly learn an entire course in a couple of weeks pretty comfortably.
 
With the drop in quality of public schools with lack of funding and unmotivated teachers, homeschooling is definitely a viable alternative. However, the social aspect is an issue.
 
Homeschooling can probably turn out okay, but I would guess that the families that want to homeschool are a little crazy in the first place so chances are they would fuck up their kids anyway.
 
that's a pretty good point. it's like the "do video games make children anti-social?" issue -- well anti-social children generally drift to video games in the first place. there's no transformation involved.
 
[quote name='Ki77a KiD TRe']I wasn't prepared for college at all but managed to get an AA and then transferred to a 4yr where I ended up dropping out cuz I couldn't hack it.[/QUOTE]

I always did wonder if home-schooled kids were ill-equipped for college. I'm surprised home-college doesn't exist yet.
 
I dont have children so I dont have first hand knowledge but I always thought homeschooling wasnt that good for kids. But then again I can see it two different ways.

Part of becoming a adult is learning to interact with other kids, its a incredibly huge part of learning lifes lessons. Yeah a kid may learn book smarts at home but he will miss countless amounts of "street smarts" by being around other people. They also miss out on having to learn to do things for themselves all on their own like managing time and schedules and work loads in a public school, at home everything is very structured and sitting there for you already.

But then again public schools atleast from my experince in this area, complete shit. My school didnt really foster education, unless you played sports or were on a academic team or something equally important the school wanted you in and then right back out as quickly as possible. When I stumbled in school I was fucked, granted some teachers tried to help me but they each had over a hundred students during a whole day, they could only help so much. I also hated the fact that in school I was just me and I didnt try to fit in with anyone on a social level so being picked up and pushed around and having to fight back all the time and being alone didnt exactly make me excited about going to school. And other students and teachers and even parents put way to much emphasis on highschool. Not to mention schools dont teach much thats practical, or even true. Like world history for instance, we only learned about the worlds history that involved america somehow and how it made us look good. I never learned a damn thing about austrailia, poland, africa, ireland, japan, china or even germany outside the fact "America single handedly kicked their ass and won all of WW2".

They both have their good and bad sides.
 
[quote name='ananag112']I know plenty of people who are just as weird, but attended public school all their life.[/QUOTE]

But if we are talking about percentage, the turn out of weird people from home schooled backgrounds versus weird people from public school is very different.

The home schooled people I met in my life have all been weird, but I haven't met that many, either.
 
I've also known quite a few people that were homeschooled and really believe in it. Some are weird, some are fine.

However, for all the pro-homeschoolers citing the crappy nature of some public schools as a reason for their preference, schools do not instill the core values in the children. This is the parents' job! Granted, some schools may have an atmosphere that presents more negative influences than others, but if the parents raise their their kids to be rock-solid (as all parents should!) they'll be alright.

To these parents: You cannot shield your children forever, nor would that even be a good thing. Life throws both good and terrible things at you, and if your children can't weather that, they will not mature properly! Furthermore, if your children are saints, removing them from the "evil" public school would only propagate this problem even further, wouldn't it? Send them out and change the system from within.
 
Homeschooling is a bad idea. It makes you socially inept and cloistered from the world.

Not all parents are good teachers.

What about Internet H.S.? That seems like it would be kinda weird.

I couldn't imagine H.S. in the age of the Internet. Being bullied on the Internet by people you see everyday would be strange.
 
I've seen both ends of home schooling. I work with one girl who was home schooled and turned out just fine, even to the point of making fun of her own religion. And then I've seen some that turn out intelligent but so sheltered that they don't fit into a society of people their own age. They would rather be with their family and no one else.

It's a double-edged sword. I just seems that a lot of average parents try to become teachers when they wouldn't be qualified to run a day-care.
 
Mixed bag, some are pretty normal, some are pretty weird.

Biggest issue is the lack of social interaction a kid will get if they're home schooled and never put around their peers etc. If they're home schooled and still playing youth league sports year round, going to summer camp etc, then they get that to some extent at least.

I think it's a bad idea personally, better to get the social interaction, get taught by real teachers etc. etc.
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']I always did wonder if home-schooled kids were ill-equipped for college. I'm surprised home-college doesn't exist yet.[/QUOTE]

Ummm... yeah, public-schooled my whole life. I was just comparing public VS private VS home-schooled and how ill-equipped for college I was due to a very weak public school system in Southern California. It's commonly known around the world that America has the worst school systems, yet many foreigners come her on student visas because we have some of the best colleges, if you can afford them.
 
In the matter of are they "weird"... Any can be weird it doesn't really matter what kind of schooling they had IMO. Hell, my cousin's went to private school and they didn't do all that much better. Although, that whole family is pretty "weird".

When it comes to homeschooling, I guess it wouldn't be any worse than non home schooling as long as the "teachers" aren't idiots (as said). There's nothing worse than parents shaping their kids to do the things they missed and live though them.

As for me, I would've probably hanged myself if I had to be home schooled. I don't think my parents would've had the patience for that or patience with me to do that anyways. With that said, school in general seemed like a waste of time to me. Going from the different levels it was always "ok, forget what you learned earlier we will teach you the right way here"...
 
Lol, california comes in behind Alabama at number 47 in the country. But, hey, at least it beat Mississippi, Nevada & Arizona. (Arizona being last doesn't suprise me after the immigration issue, passing legislation that Obama must produce a birth certificate to be on the 2012 presidential ballot, and Arizona University not awarding Obama an honorary degree, saying that he hasn't achieved enough in life yet).

http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm
 
DAMN... looks like I need to stop making fun of red necks and become one so my "kids" will be guaranteed at least a Rank 45 education. haha
 
The way I see it it varies from person to person. Just because you can teach your kid doesn't mean you should, but honestly I think that grade school shouldn't be home schooled. IMO Grade school is more about social interaction and meeting new people. High school however is a different story for some people high school can be complete hell and I can tell you that I honestly did not learn anything in public high school. I think that home schooling should only be done in more extreme circumstances where a student is attending a terrible high school (not all public high schools are bad) and the family cannot afford or they do not have access to a private school.
 
It varies greatly. I work with a guy who was homeschooled... he's 'weird', but that ties a lot into having a pretty geeky family (think family D&D night) homeschool him. More notably, after several months he still hasn't learned the basic location of key items in the store. If you work in crafts, you should know what aisle the glue is on.

On the flip side, my fiance's little sister has done internet school for about a year now. She's very involved in softball (sometimes on 2-3 teams at once), so the social things is pretty covered, and all in all she's a pretty normal teen. The reason she's in internet school? Becuase her old public school is seriously fucked up. Group of 'ethic' girls decides to bully her and throws her into a locker? Oh, they're 'victims of circumstance.' Teacher finds a paper of hers wishing something bad would happen to these girls? To the principle's office, becuase she's obviously a threat! They gave up on the school when they discovered a boy got sent back to class with a girl he raped becuase the other schools around already expelled him. I can't blame for risking a little social isolation to get her out of there.

One of my co-workers kids goes to private school- for now. She's pissed becuase she's been informed that they intend to make him repeat kindergarden for not being up to spec on reading... and that it's been an issue sice November and nobody told her. Couple that with the teacher only having 10 kids, but not being able to give any extra time to the kids struggling- I don't think she wants to send him back.

Quite simply, it's all case-by-case. It's going to depend on you, your kid, and what kind of school district you're in. I say kudos to the parents who even take the time to review their options, regardless of what they choose in the end. At least they care!
 
I've taught several home school kids in college (art) and basically all of them were socially awkward to some degree. Most were smart, talented and polite but a few were not. One had to be removed from the school for social/behavioral issues ( I didn't experience it much from the student but apparently in another class it was out of control.)
 
Social interaction is just as important as learning. It might even be more important because once you get out into the real world a lot of your success depends on not only what you know but who you know. A homeschooled kid is at an enormous disadvantage, IMO.

My daughter is starting kindergarten in two months. I'm scared to death but I won't deprive her of all of the experiences (good and bad) that go along with going to school and making friends and finding her place.
 
I was homeschooled from 3rd grade on to graduation and don't consider myself to be socially inept as many of you might think. Both my brother and I made it through homeschooling fine and went on to lead socially active lives throughout college and beyond. Being homeschooled gave me some awesome opportunities that would not been available had I been enrolled in a public or private school. However, it's not for everyone.

It's all about leading a balanced life, and that does include social activities. There's usually plenty of social opportunities for homeschooled kids; you just have to be sure to take advantage of them. The parents are just as much as fault if they don't ensure their kids have ample social activities as they are by not being involved with their kids in a public school setting.

Attempting to shelter your kids by homeschooling is obviously the wrong approach, and will more than likely to lead to disastrous results.
 
When home-schooled by religious whack jobs, a definitive "yes".

Besides the ideal scenario is both. You can send a kid to public schools and make up for deficiencies in their education when tutoring them on homework.
 
Having had crippling agoraphobia as teenager, I'll say that homeschooling in tandem with liberal doses Final Fantasy 3 provided me with the mental healing necessary to later confront the world of work and college.

And I don't belief this crap for one second that children must be social. Children should be given the option of controlling their social input, so that when it's a constant negative they have the choice of relocating their energies into more productive activities.
 
My wife and I homeschool our nine year old. She has a mild case of Asperger's and as a result, she has trouble with formal education. She reads at an eighth grade plus level, but she struggles with some mathematical concepts and simply can't function under duress - the way she processes information doesn't allow her to focus on the methodology required to complete the task at hand whenever she has external pressures, like a time limit for example.

Given that Texas teachers seem to teach to beat standardized tests to get better stats, this approach causes my girl to get left out and held back - she's barely nine years old, I have every confidence that whatever skills she might've developed in public school working to a time limit are a) redundant for her age and b) possible to pick up later on when her maturity grows.

Homeschooling is awesome for her. We participate in many different co-ops and playgroups, and we're able to teach her in a far broader fashion than a regular curriculum would allow. I work retail, so we change up our schedule to suit mine - when I'm off, we do our field trips and get all the hands-on time we want.

A common issue with Asperger and High Functioning Autism kids is that they are just 'computers' who spit out facts and figures; my daughter has flourished and developed a real personality while homeschooling, something that only happened when she had one-on-one tuition from her parents. She was at elementary school through mid-first grade, and seeing how she was then to how she is now, I'm perpetually guilty that I didn't act upon my gut feelings sooner.

Sure, it costs a bunch more money - we have to pay school taxes as well as get our own teaching materials, and that stuff isn't cheap (or tax deductible). The wife gave up her job to stay home with the kids, primarily for our eldest daughter and that's actually why I'm a CAG, so I can save money on my hobby. Absolutely worth it though.

And as for socialization, I don't know how much more socialization you'd get in school than homeschool. Last time my daughter was there, she started super early, there's no talking in class, she had a 15 min break and a 30 min break to run around and play and then there's homework for afters. Doesn't sound very sociable to me. Besides, being that I'm obviously the conceited sort that thinks he can teach better than 'real' teachers, what on Earth makes anybody think that I would consider their kids worthy playmates for mine?

To each their own of course. Maybe you like public school and it works for you, and maybe you hate homeschool because it indirectly led you to remain a virgin until you were twenty-one. Fair enough. I love it though, and right now it's everything my girl needs and wants from her education.
 
OH GOD YES. My batshit insane ultra-Christian step-uncle is currently visiting from Huntington, Indiana with his three homeschooled, socially retarded children. They have no book smarts and no idea how to do fucking anything, and never question anything because their father will probably beat them, but are all perfectly happy. They have no idea of the outside world. They will all grow up to get GEDs, join the army, then either pop out more babies and beat them, or go crazy when they enter the real world, get addicted to hard drugs and become homeless. Thankfully they leave on Thursday.
 
The simple answer: It depends on the capability and involvement of the parents. If the parents don't have the intellectual ability to teach the children, then the children will be lacking.

A simple example would be the decimal system.....we all understand how to count, but explaining a 10-base system to children is best left to someone that understands how foreign a 2-base or 16-base system would sound. The point.....just because someone knows how to add or their multiplication tables doesn't mean they can adequately teach even the most basic concepts.

The social aspect of the education system is overrated. There are home school play groups and daily activities that offer that. If (adequately) home schooled kids act oddly, it's typically because their mannerisms and speech more closely mimic's adults speech rather than the high school jargon.

School is a waste. The education system teaches for the lowest common denominator in a classroom of 30. You can only learn at the speed of the slowest kid. It takes up 8 hours of the day to teach an hour of content, for a child of average ability (no learning disabilities). That's time those kids could be doing independent studying or anything more beneficial. School does more to teach conformity than anything substantial......and mainly serves as a babysitting service, since our economy essentially demands dual incomes for most Americans to pay the bills.

Finally, school teaches in ONE way (or just a few, if the teachers are really good). Everyone learns differently, but the education our school system supplies won't maximize the learning in all kids.

So, again.....if you have the capability to adequately do it then, yes, home schooling is far better than public education.


PS.....the child in that CNN video exhibits clear signs of the developmental disorder Aspergers (sort of a low grade Autism). The obsession with spelling (or anything), the involuntary (stimming) movement and the mannerisms, and monotonal speaking style.....all point to that. Bill Gates, Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, and a lot of other 'great mind' types all show signs of having had the same thing, so being socially awkward may have some benefits.
 
I was home schooled for high school (although no one was teaching me, I just read text books and wrote reports all day) I don't think it impacted me any differently than normal high school did. I really started coming out of my shell when I got my first job at 16. It was refreshing to work with adults (mostly) who were mature (mostly)
 
I work with a guy who was home-schooled all his life and now attends a private college. He is definitely a little on the odd side. Pretty cool guy though.
 
The kid in the OP's video clearly has issues other than homeschooling (Asperger's probably), though I certainly don't condone homeschooling either.
 
[quote name='benjamouth']We don't have home schooling in the UK, it's not allowed. I'm not sure I see the advantage in it.[/QUOTE]
I got a High School diploma when I was 16 and worked 4-6 hours four days a week. I think that's an advantage.

Just watched the video in the OP. Kudos to the anchor for keeping a steady smile throughout it. What's a worste interviewiee, this kid or a drunk David Hasselhoff eating a hamburger?
 
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