Home schooling (for now the answer is "no")

As an atheist (and as what in todays terms would be an exceptionally globally gifted youngster who was radically advanced 5 grades and still ended up bored) home schooling is something I've considered for my little girl, currently 2 1/2. In our former home of Lexington, KY the top rated pre-school in the city was a secular one. The closest thing to that which we've found in Jackson, MS is the public school Montessori, which she'll be entering next fall.

Since my spouse is Episcopalian, my daughter is already exposed to imaginary friends, so atheism isn't a strong motivator for me when it comes to considering home schooling. I'm much more worried about her intelligence. It's too early to tell if she'll inherit my global gifts, but at 2 1/2 she's probably averaging 6-10 words per sentence, often ranging up into 15-20 word sentences with grammatically correct conditional clauses.

Exceptionally gifted children don't really need school to learn. (When asked how I managed to get a 31 composite on the ACT at the age of 11 I always answered, "I read science fiction.") As a former college instructor with an extensive liberal arts background, I wouldn't worry so much about providing my daughter with sufficient academic preparation for college. (Although MOST of the resources that I skimmed in thinking about this are Christian-centric.)

In some of the studies that I've been reading lately it looks like structured radical advancement has the most benefits for really smart kids, and most of that benefit seems to come from the social opportunities of interacting with people on your own level of thinking. (As one researcher put it, no one expects to mainstream a child with an IQ of 40, why should we assume that a child with an IQ of 160 should be mainstreamed?) Public schools are, as vjack says (http://www.atheistrev.com/2009/03/atheist-homeschooling.html), centers for social instruction, but that doesn't ALWAYS mean that the social aspects are beneficial (although those aspects certainly CAN be in some, perhaps most, cases).

My own daughter is extremely social. She stayed at home the first few months after we moved to Mississippi, but kept asking to go to daycare (which she'd done before I retired). She simply finds being around lots of other children absolutely fascinating. She emotionally craves that contact. At this point, for my daughter, home schooling isn't currently an option. As a rationalist, of course, new evidence can always lead to change.

I think that the real question for atheists when it comes to home schooling is, "What causes more damage? Socializing with children who are very, very different (either in intelligence or in world view), or having very limited socializing until the dangerous late-teens?" I have trouble believing that any child who is too far off the "norm" can emerge unscathed from childhood, and I think that all parents should navigate their individual courses based on the circumstances that confront them. (Duh!)