technology and homeschooling

Okay.. I know we're not supposed to do a blog on our own presentation but we talked a little bit about homeschooling and why it would be bad if everyone started being home schooled over the Internet, and I want to talk a bit more about that. First off, if everyone, or almost everyone, were enrolled in a 'virtual school' there would be jobs lost for teachers, secretaries, principals, custodians, cafeteria staff, and the list goes on. Also, there would be students who live in the country or on the outskirts of town, or who aren't active with sports or activities in the community who would not meet other children and learn the life lessons needed from that. To make a friend a child must learn how to socialize with other people, learn to read people's emotions, share, work together, talk, listen, be there for the person. If we had a virtual school system, many students wouldn't learn these lessons that are essential for life. Also, they wouldn't learn about interacting with teachers and adults in charge other than their parents. They wouldn't learn how to deal with people they don't like or how to suck-up to people they do.
Even with all these problems I think the biggest is the parents. School is a good place for children to go where they can be taught by an unbiased adult. If everyone were taught at home, many would be left unsupervised when their parents went to work. Others would be babied by their parents or bullied by their siblings. And then there are the parents who don't care. If a childs education is virtual and the parent doesn't care about the child doing their work, the child wont do their work. It would be educational suicide to many children to have a virtual-based school system.