All-Star Home Schooling For Cheer

[SL&AM]

Admittedly I don’t know much about homeschooling vs. high school, but I always think it’s good for kids to have at least the social experience HS offers. It’s good to learn how to works in groups, how to navigate all kinds of relationships, and how to read social cues.

Then again my HS experience was pretty good despite some passive-aggressive bullying from my teammates my freshman year. But I really do believe that experience taught me to not care what awful people think all the way down to my bones. I went from worrying all the time about why these girls didn’t like me in August to outright laughing at their attempted jabs in January because I knew at that point they were mean, petty, stupid girls and I just didn’t care anymore. Which was a valuable lesson to learn at fourteen when you’re all insecurity and baby fat.

No matter though because four years later they’d all been cut for terrible toxic attitudes and I was captain of a national champ cheer team. So it worked out.

Sorry I didn’t mean to make this about me I had a margarita at lunch

I spent a year in high school before spending 2 years on a slip schedule---half day high school, half day college and my entire senior year of high school at a local college full time. I was also active in dance, had friends, did band...etc. It's definitely not an all of nothing thing and while some of my peers lived and breathed for all things high school, I was clawing my way out by week 2.

I went to a seminar recently for our school's PTO and the guest speaker---talking about how the generational differences in parents affect what type of fundraising efforts work---said the current Millennial Generation is the most education minded generation to date because the majority of us went through life being told that college was not optional and to achieve success we must go. Of course, that was a lie---but I'm watching friends of mine feel confident enough to step into school matters in ways I never, ever saw my own mother do or even my Generation X older sisters. With the broader media coverage of just how underfunded, understaffed and frankly archaically outdated our education system has become (depending on where you live), the push for homeschooling will only continue to grow because we have an entire generation of parents who believe they can do better. My girl's go to one of the top schools in our county and at the end of the year I'm always taken back by the moms who says they're not coming back because they're going to homeschool---and not just the younger kids, but kids going into 5th, 6th...etc.

If we did plan on moving to a different area for middle and high school---I would be considering homeschooling very seriously because our middle school options are all terrible.

 

[CLynn]

There definitely used to be a bit of a stigma to it. When I was a kid, if you were homeschooled it meant you either had academic or disciplinary problems. The super brilliant Olympic-bound athletes at my school (and there were a couple) still showed up to class. So in my head, I’m still shedding that stigma.

My children are not home schooled but I would say this is not the case these days, at least in my area. Many home schoolers find that traditional schools are not meeting their needs for many of the reasons mentioned above. I'll add that many "good" districts are very expensive to live in and private school is also expensive so that can be a factor. I lol on the socialization front, these kids have been socialized since music class at 6mo, gymboree as soon as they could walk, rec soccer at 3 etc. School is just another place to see people but certainly not the only place. Whether home schooled or not, my biggest concern re: damaging their social skills are cell phones but that is a whole other topic ;)

 

[catlady]

I've only known two families that have home schooled. The first family basically took the school environment, minus the kids, and put it in their home with books and computers and they said they fought constantly with their kids on schoolwork. The second family was the ultimate home schooler. They provided each child with a math and science tutor for one hour per week and the parents taught writing, literature, and history. They took their kids to museums, concerts, community theater, set up tours at businesses, did the youth assist program with Habitat for Humanity, and yearly overseas mission trips. They sought out non-English speaking playmates to help both sides learn a new language and their kids are fluent in two or more languages. They did not give their kids any tests except the state of GA requires a National test being taken in Grades 3,6,9, and 12 such as the SAT or ITBS, they just had their kids journal and scrapbook about their day. They had the philosophy that learning was never intended to be seven hours in a classroom listening, but it was meant to be all day, using all of our senses and resources available while engaging in conversation. I'm not going to lie, the kid's were a tad bit strange, but strange in the sense they seemed like 60 year old's in a kid's body, extremely mature, wise and cultured for their age.

 

[quietmom]

I homeschool my sons because of life shortening medical issues. They are part of co-ops and active in church and the community. One child is in middle school and the other in elementary school. They were in special education, and honestly they were very behind academically. I've been able to help catch them up and personalize their needs.

Homeschooling is not what it used to be. You can customize a lot, and there are a ton of resources now.

With all that goes into it and the sacrifices parents have to make to do it, I highly doubt that going for cheer is the only reason behind this.

 

[quietmom]

As far as socialization goes, there's very little positive socialization happening in public schools these days. The kids that I have seen in co-ops have better behavior and social skills than their public school counterparts.

My boys also take classes weekly for certain subjects from accredited teachers. Their education and skills have dramatically improved since we made the choice to homeschool them. But we are also well supported and in an area that has a strong community as well.

 

[336Teal]

My daughter has been homeschooled since 2nd grade and did not begin cheer until 4th. She was homeschooled before cheerleading, and is now a senior at 16 with a 4.7 GPA. She will be attending community college to begin working on her AAS in the fall.

Socialization is a common argument against homeschooling, however homeschoolers are often better socialized than their public schooled counterparts. Their flexible schedules allow them to volunteer, participate in sports, join clubs, have jobs, travel, study abroad, etc. Consider this, aside from school, at what other point in life will you be grouped together and socialized primarily with people your own age? That’s not really a valid representation of real life experience. The flexibility of homeschooling allows my daughter to volunteer with elderly at a local nursing facility and help with the younger cheer abilities athletes at our gym. She will be traveling abroad this summer with her private online school on a mission trip to a third world country. To me, these experiences provide far more realistic life socialization and enrichment than being surrounded by hundreds of kids her exact age for 180 days out of a year.

Along with the socialization misconception, many people assume that homeschoolers lack quality education. Thankfully, there are many options these days-from expensive private/advanced online classes, to public online classes, to facilities (aka co-ops) where homeschoolers gather once or twice a week and take classes. People often use a combination of these options. These can vary widely in quality, and it’s up to the parent to decide what is best for their kiddo. We have always selected the more challenging options (AP, honors, etc), as we sought a higher quality education than public school was able to give her.

Unfortunately some parents do take advantage of the lighter regulation and neglect the education of their children. But please do not assume that all homeschoolers are unsocialized or under-educated. Or that homeschooled all-star cheerleaders are doing it to accommodate for their cheerleading “careers”. While these may be true in some instances, it is absolutely not true in all of them. For many of us, my family included, cheerleading is 100% secondary to her education and always has been.

 

[DonnaM]

There definitely used to be a bit of a stigma to it. When I was a kid, if you were homeschooled it meant you either had academic or disciplinary problems. The super brilliant Olympic-bound athletes at my school (and there were a couple) still showed up to class. So in my head, I’m still shedding that stigma.

You have to remember-homeschooling was still illegal or very heavily restricted a generation ago. 34 states legalized it or codified laws between 1983-1992. My state finally settled their laws in 1999. So most homeschooling families then were doing it with the agreement of the school district, usually with an IEP in place, or through a distance learning school (In which case the kids were legally enrolled in a private school). I graded papers for Texas Tech University’s distance learning middle/high school in the early 1990’s, and quite a few of them came from girls training at Karoyli Ranch.

It’s a very different world now.