Keep an open mind

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Home : 2007 : June : 9

Keep an open mind
By LindaC

In the past three years, I have had 7 different kids that came from homeschooling. Most of them had homeschooled their whole lives (a couple had a year or two). Maybe I just happened to get lucky, but all of my homeschooled
kids came in with excellent academic and behavior skills. There was some adjustment to being in a classroom setting, but they ended up doing very well, mostly because I had excellent parent support.

The one thing I'd really like to say is that you really need to get past the whole "ooh, they were homeschooled" mentality. If you had a student come into your class from another

school, you would take that student with what he comes with, try to figure out where he is and what he needs and deal with it accordingly, wouldn't you? Do the same with the homeschooled kids. Every kid is different and there is no point trying to blame homeschooling for whatever "problems" you perceive there to be. Just treat them like you would any student who needs help and needs to learn.

It always irritates me when I hear people going off on the "socialization" thing about homeschooling. So then all of the kids who've gone to public school their whole lives have just wonderful, mature, and well rounded social skills?? Uh, you don't have to read this message board for very long to know that that's certainly not true. So what's the difference?? And you don't have other kids come from other schools with poor academic skills? So what's the difference??

Treat, love them, and teach them as you would any other student. They deserve that.