How do you know you are teaching them like the public schools?

I've been homeschooling my 2 youngest daughters since pre-k. K is 10 starting 5th grade and S is 7 (all most 8) starting 2nd grade. Through out the last 6 years (I can't believe we've been home schooling that long, still feels like we are beginners) I have been asked so many times, in so many different ways "How do you know you are teaching them what they need to know?" "How do you make sure that you are teaching them to what public schools are teaching?" "How do you know you are...?" I've all ways tried to explain in a way that people that aren't into homeschooling will understand and at the least accept. Sometimes it's not that easy though. My reasoning is that easy, but making my explanation come out of my mouth the way I want it to isn't all ways that easy. One time a few years back a pretty intimidating man asked me "What kind of curriculum and testing do you preform in order to adhere to state levels of education." First thing out of my mouth was "Uh Uh well we do educational things with curri curriculum. and stuff".... WHAT? What was I thinking? Uh we do educational things and stuff?!? I sounded like the biggest dork! I just walked off, I remember thinking to myself... self: that can't happen again. I have to figure out why I home school AND be able to put it into words. That was when I started not caring what strangers thought about us homeschooling, about us being out at the park in the middle of a school day or anything else that goes along with a day as a homeschooling family. That was when my answers got a lot more understandable. I quit trying to answer the dreaded questions about how I am making sure that I am *keeping up* with public schools and started answering with, I'm not worried about *keeping up* with the public school system. I'm more worried about the public schools not being able to keep up with families that home school. I've finally realized that I am not teaching at home to teach like a public school, I'm teaching to NOT be like a public school. I now answer with confidence that public schools only teach to test, whether it's the up coming standardized tests or the nine weeks tests or semester tests. That's what they learn, what will be on the tests. We learn about life, we learn about math percentages in cooking and shopping, to use proper grammar and manners in real life introductions when they meet someone for the first time, to holding the door for someone and if someone drops something picking it up for them is common sense and common courtesy. We read the plaques when we are at a park or the zoo. Reminds me of year before last, we were at the zoo. It happened to be the same day that a local public school had a field trip. The kids were so loud and so obnoxious that my two daughters asked if we could leave. Instead we just took off in a different direction. After we had got far enough away that the roudy kids couldn't be heard anymore, my (then 8 year old) said "Wow Mom those kids aren't here to learn anything, they are just here to get out of school and tear up the zoo." :-) Now the school kids weren't tearing up the zoo, but they were tossing trash down in the Rainforrest, knocking on the glass to the exhibits that clearly said "Do Not Tap on Glass", and yelling so loud that not only could they not hear their own teachers telling them to be quiet but we also couldn't hear each other reading the plaques. So I don't know. Some may say it was a fun field trip, that they work all day in school so they deserve to play, that if they want to learn at the zoo their parents can take them on their own. My kids and me did all of the above, we played on the playground before we went into the zoo, we had a nice picnic that we prepared at home (that started the conversasion and research session on the diffence beteen ice and dry ice) and we went to the zoo to learn something new.

All of the home-school children that I've met over the years have been more well spoken than their public schooled peers. Just as much if not more mature and well rounded individuals.