Both my husband and I were teachers, so not only did we go through the school system, we got to be part of it and see the often dirty underbelly, too. If our own experiences in school weren't enough to convince us, our time as teachers certainly put the nails in the coffin of ever sending our kids to school if we had the power to teach them ourselves!

My best students were always those who were transitioning from homeschool-to-"normal" school. They knew how to speak to adults (an increasingly rare skill??), they had their own identity, they didn't always fit in (not a problem, in my book), and they handled their own learning with a sense of responsibility that a lot of my other students lacked. It was hard to watch them struggle in the often vicious social environment of middle school. Some prevailed and got a little tougher, some went back to homeschool, and others lowered their standards and became part of the cliques.