The Christian school v Homeschool v Public School debate is one that I try not to get into. I attended Christian schools, have taught and coached in public schools and there is a possibility that Sarah and I will homeschool our children. Every situation is different and I can point to good and bad products of each educational choice. There are advantages and pitfalls to each. At Maranatha, the percentage of homeschool students at one point was less than 1% - homeschoolers basically did not exist before the 80's - except on the mission field. 25 to 30 percent of the student body is made up of public school graduates and the rest are from Christian schools. The percentages of Christian school and public school grads have remained more or less the same over the last decade. However, the make-up of the Maranatha student body shows an interesting trend over the past 4 or 5 years - the percentage of homeschool students is around 15% and rising at a very rapid rate. This is interesting because, to my knowledge, we have really made no direct effort to market to homeschooler or homes "cool" as Gretchen says. If anything, we have sought to increase our public school demographic while maintaining the Christian school percentage.
So, what does this have to do with soccer? Well, here is how it has played out so far: the women's team has had a large number of homeschoolers and much of our recent success is due to homeschooled students. Sommer, Jen, Hayley, Fenster and others are all products of homeschooling. I am currently in contact with at least two promising recruits who are homeschoolers who I hope will be members of the 2007 freshman class.
I am in no way downplaying the role of the many Christian school and public school players that we have had over the years, we can use anybody who wants to walk with the Lord and loves soccer. But the fact remains that, homeschooling has been very, very good to women's soccer at Maranatha.
Interestingly, homeschool graduates have not helped the men's program at all. Our roster is dominated by Christian and public school grads. I find the difference between the two genders to be interesting, but I'm not really sure why the disparity exists. Maybe some of you have a theory or two.
Two Christian school grads, two homeschoolers and one public school grad below.-C
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Homeschool and Maranatha Soccer
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8 comments:
hey now...poor drew? he's gonna melt when he sees his baby girl...just like the rest of ya'll...daddies just love their daughters (i should know - i'm the favorite in my house ;P...). so how about LUCKY drew =P.
This is very interesting! We home school -- didn't plan to; God just worked it out that way. I find encouragement in your post, Josh, thanks!
I always assumed my kids would go to a Christian school. . .but I'm starting to see that circumstances may change that assumption. I have to make a decision in a year and a half! Why do you think there is such a difference in the number of homeschooled female soccer players versus homeschooled male soccer players? Coincidence?
I don't know why there's a disparity between female and male homeschooled soccer players. In our boys' homeschool gym class, there are some older boys who play competitive soccer, while the older girls tend to play volleyball.
I do have some thoughts about homeschooling, as we have been homeschooling for three years now, even though my husband and I attended public schools through college. Our older son has some Christian school experience, but loves homeschooling. Our younger son was always homeschooled.
After homeschooling for a while and reading a number of good homeschooling books, we are sold on homeschooling and feel it is the best option for our family (especially when the children are young, and even more so for boys). I wrote about some of the benefits of homeschooling on my blog and try to comment on others' homeschooling posts too.
I wish we would have tried homeschooling from the start with our older son, but his attending a Christian school gave us some perspective that we would not otherwise have.
It's interesting that a Smithsonian Institute study found three factors for producing genius in children: warm responsiveness of adults, isolation from peers, and freedom to explore and experiment. Not that we necessarily want to produce geniuses, but each normal child has the capacity to show genius in some area if allowed to develop and grow in a warm, responsive environment.
The disparity could just be coincidence, however it has remained constant for all 10 years that I have coached here. It is very interesting to me that one of the components of the study was isolation from peers. I don't know what to think about that.
Isolation is quite a shock to our cultural thinking that values "socialization" very highly. I do not think the study meant complete isolation from peers, but that it is better for the child to spend more time with adults (usually parents) than with their peers, especially in the formative years when they are learning their values. When children are with their peers more than their parents, the children tend to pick up the values of their peers and start to reject the values of their parents. There is also the tendency to become peer dependent, adopting the thinking of the group rather than thinking for yourself.
Studies have shown that creativity decreases as time in school increases. The great minds of our time (Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, and Albert Einstein to name a few) were home-taught. Perhaps it takes some isolation from peers to develop that ability to think outside the box.
Studies have also shown that homeschooled children rate high in sociability, being able to communicate with people of all ages rather than just their agemates.
I'm sure the homeschool books state this better than I do, but these are some thoughts that have stayed with me and encourage me in my homeschooling experience.
I don't know, Josh, but the specialist we work with for our second daughter (she has sensory integrative disorder) home schooled her three boys. They are almost all grown now, & her oldest was just drafted with a minor league baseball team. You can google her & find out about him -- Darlene Betsill. It's neat! So . . . I guess I'm saying the disparity may or may not be a constant. It's a tough call, & one I don't know enough about to contribute much.
"Why do you think there is such a difference in the number of homeschooled female soccer players versus homeschooled male soccer players? Coincidence?"
My personal experience is most male homeschoolers play baseball or basketball, while the girls play multiple sports, especially softball and soccer.
At least where I lived, Christian and Public schools could recruit a certain number of homeschoolers to play on their teams, as long as they took al comers from their school first. The rosters which were usually begging to be filled were women's soccer and softball. (I actually had a couple schools ask if I wanted to play, because they needed people.)
Meanwhile, the men's roster were full up and guys could only play on a club team. (I think a good part of this is the girls dropped out of sports to concentrate on boys, while the boys kept playing.)
Since most club teams played on Wednesday and Sundays, a lot of homeschoolers opted out. Basketball and baseball, on the other hand, were easier to work around church etc.
So basically girls had more opportunity to play soccer, guys picked other sports.
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