[NiagaraThistle]

My biggest concern with Home Schooling is you literally have someone not qualified as a teacher, as in probably knows nothing of the subject and may not even have an education themselves, teaching the children.

Obviously this isn't all cases, and some traditional school teachers are questionable at best, but at least traditional teachers had to at least TRY to be subject matter experts before teaching in a traditional school. Sadly I personally know several friends that homeschool their kids and I have to say they are certainly doing a disservice to their children as the kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers and these 'teachers' (ie parents) are not the brightest.

[Amezarak]

Considering education majors are as a group among the academically poorest performing majors, I think your concerns are unfounded. Consider also the educational fads like three-cueing that actively harmed children.

A few decades ago, most teachers did not have anything beyond high school education. While there are many valid defenses of public schooling, "public school teachers are more qualified" is not one of them, particularly given the miserable performance of many public schools - qualified teachers in 23 Baltimore schools failed to generate a single mathematically proficient student, and Baltimore is not alone. Credentials on their own don't mean anything if there's nothing worthwhile backing them. If anything, they are currently being used for gatekeeping purposes. For example, I have a Master's degree in CS and I was a TA, but if I were inclined to teach a CS at high schools, I have to spend a few thousand dollars and get a pointless certification.

[graemep]

> kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers

Clearly not true. Do you think every genius had teachers who ever also geniuses?

You do not need to be a qualified teacher to teach, and you do not need to teach in order to educate. Teachers need teaching skills to teach classes. That is very difficult but not something home educators need to do.

As for subject matter, parents can arrange access to appropriate resources. It is not usual for parents to teach everything and I think that is a bad approach to home education (the term I prefer, for just this reason).

My two home educated kids have been taught some subjects I know, they have gone to classes a bit, had tutors, done online courses, and done a LOT of self-teaching. I like the last of these because it developing study skills.

They have done well academically. My older daughter got a 9 in Latin GCSE, for example, for which she was entirely self-taught. For those unfamiliar with the UK system that is a top grade in public exams typically done at 16 (although my kids did most of theirs younger - less stressful, less at risk from adverse events, and one of the advantages of HE).

Even for subjects I helped them with, once they reached their teens the help needed was very minimal.

A study in Australia found HE was unusual in that working class kids did better than middle class kids. A study in the US found HE kids whose mothers had not graduated high school did better academically than similar kids who went to school. A study in the UK found HE kids did better after adjusting for factors such as parental education and income.

What I do think is a bad idea (and I suspect it what your friends are doing) is to attempt to replicate school syllabuses and teaching methods at home.

[goodmunky]

>> the kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers and these 'teachers' (ie parents) are not the brightest.

I can feel your arrogance and contempt from here, suffice to say that’s not how “smart” works and it’s certainly not how education works. Sounds like you could benefit from some extra home schooling yourself.

[merpnderp]

For some reason there's not a lot of academic interest in homeschool outcomes, so there's not much data out there. But the data that is out there shows why parents who turn to homeschooling almost never turn back.

And I've never met a homeschooled kid who didn't seem weird. And by weird, I mean able to easily discuss complex topics with adults, showing not only competent conversation skills, but broad knowledge of the world and how it works.

https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/

[mcpackieh]

> And I've never met a homeschooled kid who didn't seem weird. And by weird, I mean able to easily discuss complex topics with adults, showing not only competent conversation skills, but broad knowledge of the world and how it works.

It goes beyond knowledge. I went to public school but one of my better friends was homeschooled. We knew each other because we participated on the same sports team and consequently saw each other six days a week for most of the year. He was always odd and I knew it, but only some years later did I figure out what was odd about him: He was two years older than me but he always treated me like an equal. He lacked the biases against people of a different ages that were normal in public school attendees. Most older kids (the rest all public school attendees) wouldn't necessarily bully the younger kids, but at best treated them distantly with mild to substantial condescension.

I was the same way, almost all of my friends were the same age as me but kids even one year younger were in some way "little kids" to me, even though some of them were physically larger, faster, and sometimes smarter too. What difference does one or two years make? Now that I'm an adult, I can clearly see that a few years of difference is no difference at all. My homeschooled friend had that figured out years before anybody else.