I am fully willing to admit that there are some advantages to homeschooling. For example, you don't need to deal with school bureaucracy, except in submitting progress reports and stuff like that. You don't have to deal with bad/mean teachers. You don't have to worry that the bus driver is a little too similar to the one on the Simpsons. You don't have to worry about your kids being teased at school (except by siblings). You get to have control over what your kids learn - this has never been something I really wanted, but it seems to be of great importance to homeschooling families, probably the number one reason for doing it for many of them.
However, there are also some disadvantages, right? My school has more resources than I do. Way more resources. And they are gathered together in one place. If I had to run my kids around to all the places I'd need to go to get them the same education as they are getting in our local public school, we'd be car schooling, because we'd never be home. Also, besides bad teachers, my children have had the pleasure of AWESOME teachers. Mostly awesome teachers in fact. They've had to deal with bullies, but they have also made wonderful friends. Settle down, I know homeschoolers have friends too.
The biggest advantage for me in public schooling is that I don't have to be everything to my kid. I don't have to plan it all or control it all. I know that some families thrive with this, but I can tell you right now that my kids would hate school and me if I was in charge of it all. I love that my kids are receiving a good education at school and then we teach them things we like at home.
This is the issue I've had recently with some homeschooling blogs I've been reading. There is some sort of assumption that if you send your kids out to school, you don't do any education at home. That's simply not true. We do go to the library, all the time. We go camping and teach the kids things in the woods. We do crafts at home. We make recipes to learn cooking math. We are teaching Anna to drive. We help Noah research skateboarding techniques. Both my son and I are involved in book clubs. We take them sledding on snow days and to the farm show in January. We also help with homework, but those are not always proud moments, so lets move on...
The truth is, while there are many public school parents that don't do a damn thing for their kids education, most of us do a lot. Just like there are very bad examples of homeschooling parents. I love to read what homeschool parents do, because lots of times these are things that I would like to do with my kids too. I have seen very successful homeschooling and public schooling families, and failures in both as well.
I guess my point in this post is to challenge us all to just get along and respect the choices of other people. I actually think a lot of the snarky homeschool stuff I've read is defensive reaction to public school people who think that homeschooling is just moms in denim jumpers teaching math by making lemon scones. I know that it's all that and more. :) Just kidding. I'm sure there are homeschooling moms that don't even own denim jumpers. I've never met any of them, but I'm sure they exist.
