POST: homeschooling-public school teachers are scapegoats

Having worked several years in a large public high
school(though not as a teacher), my impression of the
problems of public education is that they have little to do
with teachers. Most teachers I met were gifted, creative
individuals and I would have loved to have been in their
classes years ago when I was a teenager. They are doing
their best to teach a population that has many distractions.
Also, in today's litigious society, teachers are relatively
powerless to combat disruptions in their classrooms and
personal accountability for student behavior is an
increasingly rare thing. Rather, the teachers become the
scapegoat for anything and everything negative that happens
in their classrooms. They often have little administrative
or parental back-up for decisions that would benefit their
teaching environment. This must be very disheartening for
teachers and burnout and poor morale seems to be on the
rise, probably much worse in some schools than others.
That said, I have chosen to homeschool my children for at
least part of their education.(And I am one of those people
who used to think homeschooling was a very wierd thing
before I had my own kids). This has been an agonizing
decision that required months of thought, prayer and
research. Am I nervous that I am not a teacher? Yes, I
certainly am. However, though I may not have a teaching
certificate and all that it requires, I do feel confident
that I know my what makes my child tick, what her passions
are, what scares and intimidates her, what motivates her
etc. better than any other person out there. I feel this
knowledge plus a desperate love for my child and the fact
that there is a one on one ratio of teaching will help us
succeed.
I think that when homeschooling fails, it is because this
decision was taken too lightly or perhaps as a defensive,
reactionary move and as a way of "punishing" the school
system. Homeschooling is a huge committment that requires
lots of planning and forethought and should never be done on
impulse.
I don't really understand all the hostility on these
posts. I am sure there are homeschoolers out there who are
not doing a stellar job of educating their kids, just as
there are kids in a less than satisfactory public school
environment. There is no perfect teaching environment and
there are pluses and minuses to every way of teaching. To
choose an educational environment for one's child is a very
personal decision that considers many factors. There are as
many children thriving in public schools as there are
exemplary homeschoolers.

Posts on this thread, including this one

homeschooling-public school teachers are scapegoats, 7/13/05, by carr.
Re: homeschooling-public school teachers are scapegoats, 7/16/05, by Ellen .
Re: homeschooling-public school teachers are scapegoats, 11/10/05, by Guy.