I was a public school teacher for 15 years and now write travel guides for kids with a focus on making the trips educational so kids can learn to be global citizens and parents get to visit something besides the zoo and Chuck E Cheese type places. We read about destinations (and I have created destination specific reading lists) and enjoy learning about Christmas traditions before we travel. This year – Greek cookies are on our holiday menu before next year’s trip to Greece.

Since we consider our travels very educational (and I can link to curriculum to ‘prove it’ to the educational powers that be in public school systems) we have no qualms with taking our kids out of school. Ours have been in private and public school but we know that those systems are not set up for creating adults who will excel in the upcoming years. The system just hasn’t kept up. So, we travel to supplement.

Additionally, we use a lot of homeschooling information to supplement when needed – especially for math! I love your blog and will be visiting often!

As the parent of public school kids who always has kept an open mind about home schooling, I’d like to share with you something I’ve learned about the public schools. While they do indeed have many problems, there are ways that as a parent, I can really help the schools overcome those problems by participating and helping out and even contributing to the lessons the teachers teach. I also know what my kids are being taught becauase I talk to them about it every day and as we discuss their lessons, I clear up anything I feel they have been taught in error. It is the attitude of a lot of home schoolers I know, who have said just what you have, that if I were intelligent and just did my research and knew what was really going on, there is no way I’d send my kids to public school. I am quite aware of what goes on in public school. I disagree with some of it, for sure, but I am not yet to the point where I see that the value of home schooling outweighs keeping my kids in their excellent public schools at this point.

I think home schooling is a great solution for many families, but I hate feeling like I’m this evil wicked mother because I choose to send my kids to public schools. That is what your comment made me feel. I do feel judged by home schoolers, possibly because I do see the fallacies and errors in the public school system but choose to send my kids there despite it. I know that if I home schooled them, things wouldn’t be peachy-keen, hunky dory all the time, but that is what your comment leads people like me to believe, that it would all be rainbows and butterflies.

It’s comments like these that turn people off with home schoolers and make them dislike home schoolers.