There's a lot of Tiger Momming going on in this NY Magazine's profile of five NYC homeschooling families. Also a lot of momming in general. And one dad who taught one class once Antonin Dvorak.
Also, parents saying things like not wanting their kids to have to experience waiting in a line. And some Montessori preschool class with just 12 kids which was apparently terrorized by a 4-yo bully? Was it run by an intern? How could a real teacher, much less a Montessori one, let that happen? Also, being accused unfairly in some schoolyard fracas?
And yet somehow, as intriguing as NYC homeschooling seems--and really, is there a better place that isn't a sailboat circumnavigating the globe to homeschool a kid?--it really is the mom-heaviness of homeschooling that stands out here.
That, and the siblings named Billie & Ocean, which, Brooklyn, obviously.
UPDATE: Hahayeah, there is also this chance to meet a homeschooled kid from New Zealand, who wrote a letter to the editor of something explaining how being gay will turn us into Planet of The Ducks. [wonkette, thanks dt reader john]
They look just like everybody else: Meet A Homeschooling Family [nymag via jj daddy-o]
Also interesting that two of the five talk about how their kids would have to use textbooks in school-school. I don't know actually know ANY kids in any school -- public or private, well-regarded or struggling -- who use textbooks.
I can see how the serious dancer needs homeschooling. The other families...well, I feel the MY PRECIOUS FLOWER feelings. the MY PRECIOUS FLOWER parents tend to have children who could really benefit from more socialization. Newsflash: little Hyphen's opportunities to meet people on modeling calls is not socialization.
well-spotted. Also, yes, wow, as JJ Daddy-o called them, "double-barreled hyphenates" for first names. A bold move. Twice.
How can daddyTYPES assume that Daddy Horowitz was teaching Antonin and not August?
This ain't daddyCOMPOSES up in here.
[raises hands from keyboard and begins slow, humbled golf clap]
Montessori was not a positive social environment. I have my kids involved in modeling and acting. Could these two sentiments actually have been uttered one after the other?
After all these years we finally discover that Brooke-Shields is only her first name.
If you don't know any kids in any school who use textbooks, you don't know many kids. All of the kids I know who are in school use textbooks, and so do most of the home schooled kids I know.
The textbooks, by and large, are much worse than they were forty years ago when I was in elementary school. Have you seen TERC Investigations? The students who use it typically need remedial help when it's time for Algebra.
A textbook much more common among homeschooling parents is Singapore Math. We have now moved on to Art of Problem Solving textbooks.
But a hater's gotta hate, even if it means making stuff up.
I'm guessing the family that doesn't think it's "normal" to ever have to wait in line will not be flying anywhere any time soon. Or maybe they have a private plane.
We homeschool in Baltimore and I can say with complete certainty that these New York homeschoolers aren't even close to what the average homeschooler I come across is like.