I'm not a parent. The only kids I'm around are my bf's teen daughters. However I WAS a student for many years. So here FWIW is my comment on school and activities. This is not about homeschooling, but about school in general.

I see these kids in so many activities. They are exposed to a LOT-- not just at school, but in the media, they travel. All well and good. But can they write a sentence and punctuate it properly? Do they know how to think and do research (besides googling on something)? Do they read books all the way through and discuss them? Do they know how to evaluate ideas?

Some of the "homework" the girls bring home astonishes me! They do Power Point presentations instead of writing papers. One class did a project on the 60's and interviewed their parents and their parents' friends. The result was a multimedia presentation that they put on a DVD. Another class wrote a parody of The Music Man-- I'm not talking about a music or drama class-- this was supposed to be literature. These sound like extra-curricular things, but they're doing them in class as part of their regular coursework.

When I was a kid, the previous generation talked about how school had been "dumbed down" for us. We were reading Dick and Jane, and our parents and grandparents read "McGuffey's Reader," which if you've ever seen it, would challenge some adults. I guess I'm officially an old fogey now, because I see the same thing happening. These kids are very savvy, especially tech-savvy, but are they gaining any knowledge?

Enrichment and variety (e.g. fencing) is all well and good if the kids have had their meat and potatoes (potatoe? Yeah, hairdog, Dan Quayle made my point very nicely). Can they read, spell, think, analyze, do research? Can they locate countries on the globe and cities on the map of the United States? Are they familiar with major events of history and why they are important?

And bf's daughters are in the gifted and talented program. I shudder to think what the average kids are getting (or not).

End of soapbox.