Eek
Posted on March 28, 2007
Filed Under religion, Random blogreading, Money |
I’m (almost) speechless. Does this woman really believe that she’s educating her children?
Addendum: Behold the power of Nan…
2nd Addendum: While you’re here, be sure to visit our gift shop (that’s all those lovely adverts down the right-hand column).
Comments
113 Responses to “Eek”
Eek, squared.
Next Andrea Yates, et al in the making.
Scary.
Yup! I do! :^D
Not sure if you are referring specifically to integrating stories of Christian history into a very well rounded curriculum or if you just have an issue with homeschooling or Christians in particular but I am certainly educating my children. My oldest was reading at three and is not yet 7 and learning Latin, is at least a 4th grade reading level, has a very wide breadth of study in all subjects and he LOVES learning!
I make mistakes and learn from them like any parent but I know for certain that I am educating my kids!
Thanks for being genuiinely concerned though!
Nan?
What about ME, Nan?
Are you teaching them about me? I am THYGODDESS, you know.
I command you to stop breeding.
Pronto.
Umm… Well, I don’t know you. I’m not teaching them about you in particular. If you wonder if I am teaching them about world religions, the answer is a resounding YES! In a very broad format we have studied ancient civilizations and their religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Greek gods and godesses (I could produce coloring pages that my child has made of Hindu gods and scenes from Greek mythology), Paganism, etc ad nauseum. We have only barely touched on “Christian History” in the past week in particular as we are studying the rise and fall of Rome.
What is your six year old studying?
As for the amount of children I have, you’re safe!! The faucet is no longer flowing. The tide has been quelled. Fecundity has been hereby punctuated. We’re done having kids. Feel free to heave a great sigh of relief. :^D
But you can hate me and call me names. I don’t mind. :^)
Hi, Nan.
Thanks for checking in. I really don’t know you or anything about you, so I realize that I’m being a bit unfair.
Perhaps it was just careless wording on your part - perhaps not - but I have to say that you came off sounding like a bit of a twit.
Now, I do realize that home-schooled children seem to do just fine once they get out into the world. Sometimes they do extremely well.
What I don’t understand is this link between so-called Christian belief and the desire to insulate your children from views that differ from yours (something, something about publicans and sinners, etc.).
I’m also pretty sure that this is not history.
Awww.
Nan, come now.
No name calling here. Goddess loves you and your little flock.
On the other hand…
Wow goddess. Very quick to judge aren’t you? I’ll not respond any further to you because you obviously have a bee in your bonnet and wouldn’t care what I had to say, so determined are you that all Christians are hateful bigots.
Shadenfreude, “a bit unfair” is an understatement to say the least, but I’m happy to forgive your for your imprudent rush to quick judgement and your generalizations.
I’m honestly not quite sure what you found that sounded twitty. (insert expletives about how dense I am here.) I literally found those items this morning so I have not had the opportunity to read through all of them. But all are based on the lives of real historical people and are obviously dramatized in order to bring to life the characters in these various parts of church history. They are clearly written as narratives for children in a religious setting. My husband has a master’s degree in church history and if any of the information in any of them were glaringly historically incorrect we would certainly not use them. Even books and curriculum that I like immensely will have some things that I do not agree with or that I find to be on the extremist edge of things.
Are you insinuating that St. Patrick was not a real person? (I doubt that you are arguing that.) But just in case history disagrees with you.
Why, also, do you continue to act as if you know me? Why do you pretend that you know what I have taught my children or how I speak to them about the world in which we live? Two years I have spent teaching ancient history to my young children. And only two to three weeks of that entire time has been devoted to “Christian history” and that only where it fit in the history of the world.
We don’t insulate our children. We talk about world religions (and not in the “These people are BAD! Never be near them! Hate them! Stay away from them!! Live in fear of them!”), we talk about sex(yeah… with our 6 year old!). So once again you speak out of your great ignorance to #1 Christians in general and #2 me in particular.
I homeschool my children due to my desire to give them an academically rigorous education and one tailored to their individual learning styles and giftedness.
We homeschool so that we can stop in the middle of the day and say, “Screw spelling today, let’s go to a science museum!” We homeschool so our kids don’t have to run around bowing to a schedule that doesn’t jive with our priorities. We homeschool so they can do sports and art classes (and the like) without it having to be on top of a 6-8 hour school day (including driving times), leaving only enough time to maybe get some homework done and fall into bed.
While I like to integrate our faith into our studies where it is applicable (ie. we don’t do “Christian” word problems in math or “Christian” sentences in grammar, it is just a part of who we are, not the driving decision in our homeschooling. We don’t even teach Bible as a part of school. Our faith is integrated into the fabric of our lives (learning to love our neighbors and those who are unkind to us, being gracious towards one another, seeking to live humbly) not taught as a course or preached by way of mindless mantras. I went to public school. I have non-Christian friends (lots!) We are far from being insulated.
It is pure ignorance that prompts you to rush to such quick judgement of anyone who chooses to integrate their faith into the fabric of their lives. It just so happens that the fabric of our lives includes homeschooling. But we homeschool because it’s fun! And because my son is able to skip ahead as he is ready or spend extra time on a subject where he struggles.
Don’t assume. Quite frankly it just makes an ass out of you. But I am just sitting here laughing at how those who wish to accuse others of judgementalism are at the very moment racing to judgement themselves (and doing a very poor job at it.)
Hi, Nan.
I appreciate what you are saying, but I have to wonder if you’re not perhaps just a bit in denial (or maybe it’s me), but…
Maybe you can answer a question for me. Why is it that every homeschooling family that I know describe themselves first and foremost as Christians?
See, Nan, what I suspect is that it isn’t the children’s schedule that drives your desire to homeschool, but your own agenda - and that agenda is that you want to give them a Christian education.
I’m certainly willing to listen to counterarguments.
By the way, St. Patrick is indeed a person of slightly dubious provenance. Undoubtedly someone evangelized the Irish, and maybe his name was indeed Patricius. But he is mostly a legendary figure rather than an historical one.
By the way…
In case it isn’t clear, I do appreciate you sticking around and representing your point of view.
It’s not exactly the lions’ den, but we do snarl some.
Schad: A legendary figure? Shut up. Like Santa and ThyGoddess?
Nan:No response required!
Aren’t you a little busy bee? All that blogging, commenting, homeschooling and whatever…no wonder you have not had an opportunity to read through the edumacational material that you’ve found “literally” this morning.
Blessings and kissy kissy anyway.
Yes, my oldest is sitting and taking a math test at the kitchen table as I type and I just finished reading a book about spiders to my five year old and he’s now drawing. I like to grab any extra bits of time I have to type away in the blogosphere. Busy bee I am. :^D
There are plenty of non-Christians who homeschool. Just Google “secular homeschoolers” and you will get a plethora of information. I know of several people who are drawn to the more relaxed pace and lifestyle of homeschooling for reasons quite unrelated to Christianity. Again, an area in which I think you just speak out of being unfamiliar with the current homeschooling landscape. That’s understandable. If you are not a homeschooler there is little reason that you would be familiar with homeschooling statistics.
There is no denying that there are a good deal of homeschoolers who are Christians. And they each homeschool for a mixture and a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons being less than noble I’m sure. I do not defend anything anyone has ever done in the name of Christianity. To do so would be foolish.
No ifs, ands or buts about it, Christ is my very life. And I am raising my children unapologetically, as I said, in our Christian faith. I don’t think you’d have to apologize to the world for raising your child(ren) (present of future) in a secular humanist mindset. For if that is what you are (which is pure conjecture on my part) then that is how you will raise your children. I don’t assume that all secular humanists raise their children to be mockers and haters of all things religious or Jesus-y. I would presume that some *will indeed* raise their children that way because I *know* some that do just as you certainly are acquainted with a few Christian nut-jobs. That does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that all secular humanists will teach their children in that way. But having been friends with a person who was most certainly anything but Christian, and yet disillusioned with her public school system, I encouraged her to consider homeschooling. After all, if you really hold strongly to certain beliefs, who better to impart them (no matter what they be) than you yourself?
Make no mistake about it, my children are receiving a Christian education but not one that they wouldn’t receive if they went to school at Hell’s Gates Academy of Devil Worship if that were the only school in town and I had to send them to it because I couldn’t afford to stay at home (< -- it was fun coming up with that school name btw!) by day and yet came home to our Christian family by night. So while a fringe benefit of homeschooling is the all day integration of our faith, the real reason for me personally is academic excellence and rigor.
They receive a Christian education because they have Christian parents who desire to impart their faith to their children no matter how they get their formal education. We desire for our children to have that faith become their own but they are being raised to be rational and thinking beings who do not embark upon anything mindlessly, though faith by nature always requires a certain amount of assent to something that is not seen.
All this is true. All of this would be true if we sent our children to public school, which we still might do down the road; we are as yet undecided and are leaving the ultimate decision open until we feel it’s time to make a change. Each child is different and presents different challenges; each comes with their own unique areas of giftedness. If public school will serve them better then we will certainly go that route. We just don’t know until we get to that point.
As for this being a den of lions. No worries. I have engaged in much more heated debates than this and I do appreciate your current demeanor, though I still believe your initial blog post the definition of hasty judgementalism and rudeness. If people have legitimate and well thought out, well researched concerns I welcome a friendly debate. I don’t like scathing personal remarks (ala the Andrea Yates line. Yuck) anymore than the next guy. As you can see I’m a fast typist and an individual who doesn’t slink away from convivial disagreement.
Well, Nan, you certainly are sassy.
However, I have to say that I stand by my original statement. It’s not meant as a condemnation of you, and i have no doubt that your children will do well on whatever standardized tests they may encounter.
I’ll admit a small sample size tthat could well bias what I’m seeing. But, I do not personally know any secular home-schoolers, although I am sure they exist. All of the homeschoolers that I know call themselves Christians (discussion of the use of the term can wait for another time and place).
I realize that your children are young, and that placing them in the “story” can certainly help them remember some of what you’re trying to teach them. But I question whather your knowledge is sufficient to discern what constitutes good teaching materials and what doesn’t.
Shad, I question your whether knowledge of me or of what it requires to homeschool one’s own children to discern whether or not my knowledge is sufficient. Not to mention, even if I was as dumb as a bag of hammers, my husband holds two post-secondary degrees and he also participates in the education of our children and the choosing of curriculum. It’s awfully self-righteous of you to think yourself in the place to question my own (a perfect stranger to you) level of knowledge or understanding of the world and of educational trends and philosophies.
As for secular homeschoolers, again a simple Google search will prove that they exist in plentiful numbers. Here is the blog of one such individual. http://intothesunrise.blogspot.com/
I don’t agree with everything she says or how she says it but I fully support her decision to homeschool and I do appreciate how she makes me think. She cares enough about her convictions and her way of life to homeschool.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with my multivarious reasons for homeschooling but I always appreciate respect for my decision even from those who might not “get it.” However if I don’t get it, I’m not heartbroken. Nobody ever promised that “we’d all just get along.”
Oh and I forgot that I never did answer your point about St. Patrick (sorry, I got carried away before.) I am generally a skeptic of mysticism though I certainly am not in full denial of it. I do believe it is the exception and not the rule of how God relates to His people. Patrick bringing the gospel to Ireland is the point that I would press home to my children. The *gospel* being the most imporant factor in the equation. Any mystical happenings surrounding it, I would likely preface with an explanation that legends have a way of cropping up around famous individuals and St. Patrick is no different in this respect. Having said that I have had no problem in delineating for my kids some of the ancient legends that have surrounded other historical figures. At this point in their lives we are giving them hooks to hang future knowledge upon. We are not teaching them exhaustively. We are nurturing in them an enthusiasm for learning and an appreciation (since we’re specifically on the subject of history) for those who have gone before us — from all walks of life.
I have appreciated the discussion here Shad. I just wish it would have been started in a more amicable way.
Hi Nan. Welcome to the Jaded Atheists Social Club. I don’t have any criticism to offer your curriculum. In fact, it sounds as though I’d have gotten a better education in your house than I did in Catholic and public schools in Ottawa. The concern underlying the ridicule, I believe, is that homeschooling Christians are raising a bunch of xenophobes willing to undermine the freedom of those deemed not on the one true path. It scares us.
I envy your network, though. I think we secular humanists could do better at social cohesion and community. I like cultural inclusion and tolerance. I wish there was more of it.
oops, that should be “whether your” not “your whether”
My bad.
Hi Dawn. Nice to meet you. :^D Unfortunately there are irrational fears on both sides of the fence I’m afraid, usually based loosely on the fringe factor. There are fringe folks on either side of any debate who give credence to certain fears or concerns but most of us reside somewhere between those two poles, thankfully. Sure we may heartily disagree with one another. We may vote our consciences on matters that we hold particularly dear. And I don’t really think we’d want it any differently. But fear is no way for us to operate towards our fellow humans, especially on a personal level though, in either direction.
I don’t look at people on the street (or the information superhighway) and in my mind assign blazing signs of “damned” or “saved” on their foreheads. Just as I don’t assume that you, in daily life, assign value or worth of a human life based on the beliefs that those individuals hold. We can believe people are wrong or misinformed without hating every fibre of their beings and all that they hold dear.
What will it profit any of us to operate out of fear and misguided notions about the other? Which is exactly why I’m still in this conversation today. Not because I’m bored or shouldn’t be cleaning my living room (I should). Not because I like to troll the internet looking for a fight. I generally don’t come back to any blog this many times a day.
But because I desire to engage people with whom I disagree and remind them that their political or moral (or what have you) opponents are not their mortal enemies, are not all enraged, angry bigots, are not necessarily bent on undermining all the rights of those they disagree with… and to be reminded that the same is true of those that I don’t agree with. They (you) are simply people. People like me. People who live on planet earth and filter the information they have been given through the various sets of lenses that they have acquired by birth and through the years, by their parents, by their circumstances and personal histories (whether they include sorrow after sorrow, pain after pain or success after success) and other various experiences and influences.
That’s why I’m still here talking to you all. It’s not because I really think I’m going to convince you that you are wrong. But possibly to create a doubt in your minds about your strongly held beliefs and generalizations about a pretty large people group and to learn something myself in the process.
Peace.
Hi again, Nan.
I have to say that you’re a likable person.
I know I keep coming back to this, but…
Tell me, honestly, what’s your sense of the ratio of secular homeschoolers to Christian (1:2, 1:10, etc.)?
It’s surprisingly hard to find statistics on this, although it’s easy to find studies on how wonderful homeschooling is (although I question the study designs, I’m willing to believe it).
Why thank you Shad. You’re not such a drag yourself. :^)
I wish I could access that statistic you are looking for. I’m sure we are both right that Christians outnumber secular homeschoolers by somewhat of a landslide. But homeschooling, across the board, across the political and religious spectrum, is just getting more popular.
Honestly, I’m very open with anyone who asks, that we homeschool. I’d say 90% of the people who ask about it are more than likely not self-proclaimed Christians (again, as you say, that title means different things in different circles) though I couldn’t really know. I have yet to receive a sideways look. Most have said, “I wish I could do that.” (Citing either their lack of patience or the fact that they have to work as reasons for being unable to, both of which are legitimate reasons of course.) Most likely because schools are constantly in funding struggles, classroom sizes are a huge issue, fees are becoming outrageous, bussing is a *major* problem, etc… (I must tell you I made a horrible preschool parent a few years back. I couldn’t stand having to bring kleenex boxes, milk cartons, dried flowers, dyed feathers, etc… on a continual basis. I never remembered. What was I paying for?! Luckily they always had extras for the back-row slacker parents like myself. < -- That whole narrative was a freebie. :^D)
Another reason that I *love* homeschooling is that I hate the idea of having to wait at a bus stop at 7:30 in the morning in -30 degree weather… not so fond of it at 0 either for that matter! I live far north so this is not just something that happens a few days out of the year. LOL! I’d much rather have my hot cup of coffee and let my son read or do his lessons next to the fireplace or cuddle under a blanket with me to watch a good documentary on whatever we happen to be studying. Anyone can weigh those two options out and see which one is more appealing. Yet still, this is just another fringe benefit.
And I LOVE it that I was the one to teach my son to read! Nothing is quite that exciting… sitting with them as they, through tears of frustration, finally say, “OH! I get it!” And then to watch their countenance change to one of excitement and pride that they just learned this thing that was such a struggle for them. Really. That is why I homeschool. It’s wicked hard on some days and there are days when I wonder why I am doing this… but we have thought this out, planned for years in advance, researched methodologies and philosophies and ultimately come to the decision that this is for us for now.
I don’t see that people who send their kids to public school put an awful lot of thought into it other than, “Everyone does it. It’s just what we do.” (which has historically never been the best reason for doing anything) or because of the “socialization.” But then we hear continual reports of bullying, sexual assault in school bathrooms and bus violence on the news and people like to pass these things off as “rites of passage in childhood.” Sorry, but I can figure out a bunch of more child friendly rites of passage that my kids can go through, ones that don’t leave lifelong physical or emotional scars.
To be certain, the homeschoolers that tend to make the news are the newsworthy homeschoolers. Those who drown their babies in bathtubs or keep their kids in cages. Likewise though we can probably point to the fact that the majority of criminals in the penal institutions around the continent are products of public education. But again, these are fringe people that don’t define middle-land where most of us non-newsworthy folks live.
Gosh, I’m rambly. I apologize. It’s my down time now so I can sit and type and type until I fall asleep and drop my mac on the floor.
You’re right, Nan, that public school is a bad experience for some. It didn’t work very well for me. I’m always thrilled to see people doing things in a sensitive and thoughtful manner. I don’t care much care what belief system they subscribe to.
Tolerance is the cornerstone of civil society. We Canadians think of ourselves as amassadors of social justice, and, in a country where multiculturalism has become the foundation of our society to such a degree that we can hear the argument for the introduction of Sharia law and reject it based on its merits, rather than on our aversion, we are uniquely situated to model religious tolerance. Though its not much of an issue in Canada, it’s a growing issue worldwide, where religious tolerance is increasingly scarce, with increasingly grave consequences.
There’s an interesting discussion going on over here on a related issue. Please come over and join in if you’re inclined. We’ve an assortment of belief systems over there, and we do like to talk.
If an American can speak to this issue…
The Homeschoolers I know do it for many reasons. There is the Muslim woman who has her Public School High School Diploma who does it so her daughters won’t want to go to the school dances…and the fact that she doesn’t want her children to learn the theory of Evolution.
There is the High School dropout that decided on a whim last week to pull all of her kids out of Elementary school and home school them because the teacher lectured her about the number of days her child had missed this year.
There is the woman, like Nan, who finds it inconvenient to get up and get her kids onto the school bus.
There are the fundamentalist Mormons who don’t like many of the scientific things their children are learning. They want a more “religious based” education for their children.
I haven’t met a Home Schooler who actually has a college degree, though I am sure they are out there. I know at least a score of Home Schoolers.
As for me, I am passionate about Public Education, and that is why we kept our children there, though we could afford private schools.
I believe that Public Education is what keeps our society from falling back into the Feudalism that is the corporate conservative dream.
An uneducated populace makes it easier for an administration to sell an illegal and immoral invasion to the public.
Educated people don’t think Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are newsmen.
Though my husband and I both have degrees, we do not believe we have the knowledge and experience to give our children the well-rounded education that they deserve.
My daughter would not have learned her love for photography or sewing if she had to rely on me teaching her. She would not have been able to be on the school newspaper staff or Debate Club President.
Likewise, I would not have had the please of having my son take me through the Louvre, explaining the artists, paintings and styles to me. I would not have been able to watch him speak in front of 5,000 people as Valedictorian (you just knew I was going to find a way to milk that one more time, didn’t you?) of his graduating class.
Yes, there have been some issues in the schools. Luckily, I have been able to overcome these issues because I have always been present at my children’s public schools as a volunteer. Relationships with the Faculty, student body, and Administration go a long way in fixing social problems that arise in the schools.
I am a professor in a small college, and I can give you that perspective. We have a small but consistent number of students who are products of home schooling, and to a person, they have one thing in common. There’s not really any other way I can put this–they’re weird.
One of the things you hear home-schoolers claim is that their children are better educated and do better on standardized tests. My own experience has been that this may or may not be true. I have one student now who indeed is one of the best students in our department. She was home-schooled (I have no idea whether this was Christian home-schooling or other). And she is weird. She has almost no social skills, no friends, and no dates. She hangs around the professors looking for approval.
Granted, she is a sample size of one, but my experience with other home-schooled kids is that even those who show up with high test scores and ACTs (and admittedly, there are lots of these) end up floundering once they get past freshman classes. My theory is that they’re used to getting intensely personalized attention from their “teachers,” and even in a small school like mine, there’s no way they can get that here.
I know, I know, you take them to home-school soccer leagues and dance classes, but it’s not the same. Children in public schools have teachers that don’t love them. This is important. It is important for children to come into contact with human beings for whom they are not the center of the universe. Of course you don’t think your children are weird–they’re supposed to act that way around you. But they’re not supposed to expect the same attention and affection from others that they get from you, and they never learn that.
I also think that Bite has raised another serious objection to home-schooling–the anti-intellectual idea that anyone is qualified to be a teacher in every subject. I know there’s a school of thought that says that you should be able to teach anything that you yourself can do, and I often joke that all you need to do to be a teacher is know slightly more than your student. But that’s all that is–a joke. It turns out that teachers–even those at the lowest grade levels–have learned their subjects, have learned various techniques for teaching, and have experience using those techniques. To reuse an analogy that I’ve practically run into the ground, you wouldn’t take your car to a mechanic that had no experience working on engines and was going to try to do so based solely on the fact that he’d driven a car before and could read a repair manual. Why would you do such a thing with your own child?
I’m sure some children excel at life despite being home-schooled. Our good student seems to be recovering.
I am an American living in Canada.
There are actually a good many people who have at least one degree; many, in fact, who are former public school teachers and yet feel that homeschooling is a great choice. Moreover many women continue to pursue degrees (either first, second or third) throughout the homeschooling process. I am acquainted with at least 6 people in my immediate circle of homeschooling contemporaries who are pursuing nursing degrees, Master’s degrees and a few who are just now ready to defend for their PhDs.
The province of Alberta so believes in the success rate and benefits of homeschooling (one of those benefits being the ease of the already heavy burden on the public system) and in the ability of parents to do what is best for their own children that it actually funds homeschoolers! Yup. I get checks from the government to compensate for our school expenses. It covers anything from school books, papers and pencils, art classes or supplies, music lessons or instruments (we just got our son an electric guitar this way.)
I love it how people so readily take one item that they want to pounce on and use it as their key talking points. Nan doesn’t homeschool *because* she doesn’t like to get up early and wait at the bus stop. Nan enjoys the fact that the homeschooling lifestyle doesn’t require that (call me weird… but maybe you haven’t stood outside in booger freezing temperatures very much to know that it’s not very pleasant! LOL!) Nan homeschools for a bevy of reasons, practical and philosophical.
I also feel for those that so grossly underestimate their own abilities to offer the most to their own children, especially when their children are young. There is a wealth of opportunities for enrichment and information on the internet, opportunities for further development in areas of specific interest to the child — and all without stealing away any and all extra time in the evenings and weekends.
Responsible homeschoolers will know their limits. I will readily admit that some will abuse the freedom of homeschooling, but you’d be hard pressed to find any freedom that is afforded to us that is not abused by some who are blessed enough to have that freedom. It’s just the nature of free society. Some will use it to its fullest potential and some will squander or even abuse it. But we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I met someone once who told me that her daughters spent two years studying Anne of Green Gables in depth as their sole course of study. Apparently they “didn’t need math” because they didn’t like it and they “just wanted to be missionary wives.” Well, that kind of thinking makes me want to throw up and poop my pants at the same time. It sickens me. At the very least kids need to learn these things just to learn to stick with something that is hard. But does this woman’s poor choices reflect my own choices? Not remotely. This woman is failing her children but her poor choices ought not make people assume that because some people do this, that everyone will and therefor the whole concept is flawed. It’s almost as bad as parents who tell their kids that they don’t care if they fail in every class as long as they are good in a particular sport or keep their grades up at the minimum to be able to remain on the sports team. Public school (and parental idiocy) is failing these kids. But that does not mean that public school wasn’t the best thing to ever happen to another kid who took every opportunity afforded him/her.
If I choose to continue homeschooling my kids into highschool I will happily relinquish the teaching of higher math and sciences to a hired tutor or to the professors at a Jr. College. My kids will be challenged, they will be stretched. We will build in them a love of learning. The goal is that they become autodidacts so that even if they should choose not to go to University and instead become plumbers or journeymen, they will never cease to be educating themselves. One does not need a degree to foster this in their child. One does not need a degree to be able to teach their children. One does not need to learn in an institutionalized, one size fits all, cramped classroom where little real exploration can be done. Anyone who thinks a child being trapped in a room with 30 other kids their same age all day, every day for several years worth of their life is going to be the thing that fosters the most enriching possible experience of education is seriously missing something.
Just a little food for thought, here is a list of noteworthy homeschoolers:
Educators
Frank Vandiver (President - Texas A&M)
Fred Terman (President - Stanford)
William Samuel Johnson (President Columbia)
John Witherspoon (President of Princeton)
Generals
Stonewall Jackson
Robert E. Lee
Douglas MacArthur
George Patton
Inventors
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Edison
Cyrus McCormick
Orville Wright & Wilbur Wright
Artists
Claude Monet
Leonardo da Vinci
Jamie Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
John Singleton Copley
Presidents
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
John Quincy Adams
James Madison
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
Abraham Lincoln
Theordore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Scientists
George Washington Carver
Pierre Curie
Albert Einstein
Booker T. Washington
Blaise Pascal
Statesmen
Konrad Adenauer
Winston Churchill
Benjamin Franklin
Patrick Henry
William Penn
Henry Clay
United States Supreme Court Judges
John Jay
John Marshall
John Rutledge
Composers
Irving Berlin
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Anton Bruckner
Felix Mendelssohn
Francis Poulenc
Writers
Hans Christian Anderson
Charles Dickens
Brett Harte
Mark Twain
Sean O’Casey
Phillis Wheatley
Mercy Warren
Pearl S. Buck
Agatha Christie
C.S. Lewis
George Bernard Shaw
Religious leaders
Joan of Arc
Brigham Young
John & Charles Wesley
Jonathan Edwards
John Owen
William Cary
Dwight L. Moody
John Newton
Others
Charles Chaplin - Actor
George Rogers Clark - Explorer
Andrew Carnegie - Industrialist
Noel Coward - Playwright
John Burroughs - Naturalist
Bill Ridell - Newspaperman
Will Rogers - Humorist
Albert Schweitzer - Physician
Tamara McKinney - World Cup Skier
Jim Ryan - World Runner
Ansel Adams - Photographer
Charles Louis Montesquieu - philosopher
John Stuart Mill - Economist
John Paul Jones - father of the American Navy
Florence Nightingale - nurse
Clara Barton - started the Red Cross
Abigail Adams - wife of John Adams
Martha Washington - wife of George W.
Constitutional Convention Delegates
George Washington - 1st President of the U.S.
James Madison - 4th President of the U.S.
John Witherspoon - President of Princeton U.
Benjamin Franklin - inventor and statesman
William S. Johnson - President of Columbia C.
George Clymer - U.S. Representative
Charles Pickney III - Governor of S. Carolina
John Francis Mercer - U.S. Representative
George Wythe - Justice of Virginia High Court
William Blount - U.S. Senator
Richard D. Spaight - Governor of N. Carolina
John Rutledge - Chief Justice U.S. Supr Court
William Livingston - Governor of New Jersey
Richard Basset - Governor of Delaware
William Houston - lawyer
William Few - U.S. Senator
George Mason
Hey, archie.
One example: I happen to know a home-schooled girl who is now grown up. She won the national spelling bee (US), as well as university scholarships and other significant awards and honours. Last contact I had was 2 years ago, when she had to pass up another opportunity because she was too busy studying for exams at Harvard Law School.
I can’t say that she was weird, even though she wore home-made clothing, but I will say that her mother was extremely protective of her even as a near-adult (she was 17 at the time).
So, I have mixed feelings about the whole issue.
Ummm…Nan?
Let’s just ssay that your list is slightly…inaccurate.
I would say that my biggest problem with home schooling is the lack of oversight. I also know a woman who didn’t teach her daughter math because “neither of them enjoyed it.”
I am sure that Canada does a much better job of it than the US does, though.
Secular homeschoolers are not a myth!
Cheryl Seelhoff wrote a wonderful article entitled “Who Stole Home Schooling?”. I can’t seem to find it now- perhaps someone more familiar with the Way-Back Machine or web page caches can as it appears to have been removed.
Its a struggle to find materials not slanted towards religion-especially science! But it can be done, and IS, by more of us than you’d think. The problem is, without the evangelistic zeal of Christianity, we aren’t out there recruiting, advertising and legislating. We’re just doin’ our thing, at home, with our kids.
“I would say that my biggest problem with home schooling is the lack of oversight.”
I agree, oversight is a good thing though I fully support a parent’s right to choose curriculum, etc. But I think it’s proper for the govt. to make sure that education is actually happening.
We have our facilitator coming this afternoon to discuss my son’s results on a standardized test that I let him take. (He wasn’t required.)
There are different degrees to which they get involved. If you want less oversight you get less funding. More oversight and availability of resources and you get more funding. It’s a pretty good system actually. It depends greatly on which province or state one lives in though. I’m pretty sure there are no homeschooling regulations or helps in Ontario. No reporting to authorities, etc… I really like Alberta’s approach. It’s very balanced in my opinion.
Shad, I’m not suggesting I’ve studied each one of those individuals in any depth but I ask that you produce proof that none of them spent any time homeschooling.
In 1999, there were an estimated 850,000 homeschoolers in the US. By 2003, this number had increased to 1.1 million students in the US. For 2006-7, the number is estimated to be around 2 million. Like it or not, the homeschooling movement is continuing to expand. During the early years of homeschooling, most families were motivated out of religious conviction, but that is changing. While this is certainly one of the factors that leads many families to homeschool, many other factors contribute to this decision including: academic goals, giftedness in specialized areas (violin, piano, art, etc.), concern about violence in schools,etc.
We began homeschooling in 1998 when my oldest daughter was preparing to enter 1st grade. I was not pleased with her reading level and felt like I could do better at home. Not only that, but I had seen the amount of busy work and worthless projects that occupied her 7 hours of school time each day. I felt like we could make much better use of her time and I wouldn’t be bothered each week to send in toilet paper rolls and various other items.
Since that first year, we have classically educated each of our children. Year after year they perform well on their standardized tests. Now, for me to tell you how well-adjusted and socially keen my children are would be impossible. All I can tell you about that is that they are great kids who are a ton of fun to be around.
For the past 5 years, my children have participated in a “one day a week school” in which they take science, history, art, PE, etc. from teachers who are “experts” in their field. My oldest and second daughter are in higher level math, writing/literature, and science courses. These sorts of co-ops are springing up all over the place enabling homeschooled students to take courses from teachers who are trained in their field but still homeschool. My middle school kids have learned at an early age to manage their time wisely as they receive weekly assignments and have to plan out how much work they will do each day.
Another growing trend is the friendliness of community colleges toward homeschooling high schoolers. By 11th grade, many homeschooling students are taking the majority of their courses at their local community college.
I am quite aware that I am not going to be able to personally convince you of the viability of homeschooling, but I would encourage you to throw your stereotypes of homeschooling families out the windown and open your mind to the possibility that these kids will make a valuable contribution to society.
Well, Nan, let’s pick one.
Winston Churchill was not home-schooled - certainly not in the sense of being educated by his parents. He barely know his parents before young adulthood.
He had a governess - a hired teacher - who may have taught him at home, but it’s certainly not the same thing.
At a young age (9ish) he went away to school, and later to military college (Sandhurst, I believe).
I highly doubt Churchill’s Kindergarten and first grade governess was college educated and degreed. And what was Churchill’s impression of his early school days?
“How I hated this school, and what a life of anxiety I lived there for more than two years. I made very little progress in my lessons, and none at all at games. I counted the days and the hours to the end of every term, when I should return home from this hateful servitude and range my soldiers in line of battle on the nursery floor. The greatest pleasure I had in those days was reading. When I was nine and a half my father gave me Treasure Island, and I remember the delight with which I devoured it. My teachers saw me at once backward and precocious, reading books beyond my years and yet at the bottom of the Form. They were offended. They had large resources of compulsion at their disposal, but I was stubborn. Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.”
My Early Life (1988 reprint), pages 8-9, 12-13.
If you only know Christian homeschoolers, Schad, you must not live in an urban center. I started homeschooling in California and there are tons and tons of secular homeschoolers there. My reasons for homeschooling were:
1. Why should strangers get to reap the benefits of all my hard work during years 1-5, hogging the best hours of each day during the best years of my kids’ lives. Bah, humbug to that!
2. School wastes so much time! We can get the basics done in half the time, get on to more in-depth studies, add in foreign languages and special interests and still have tons of time to play and explore the world.
3. My standards are much higher than those of the local schools.
After 7 years of homeschooling (I have four kids), I put them all in public school for the first time this year. We all needed something new. The kids were shocked by what they found. Even after half a year they can’t stand the petty stupidity of some of the other kids, they’re bored silly half the time, the work is laughable…two of them are begging to come home. One of the others is in a language-immersion school that’s great, so she’s pretty challenged and she’s in kindergarten, so the social scene is pretty tame. The other one acknowledges the problems but is a social butterfly, so I’ll keep him in school.
My kids are not weird and I’m not religious (at all). We all just like efficiency and creativity. My one goal is to prepare the kids for a great life. I don’t care how that life unfolds; whether or not they stay in public school or come home, go to college, do public service, win any awards. I just want them to know how to work, how to pursue a goal, and most importantly, how to look at all the different options for achieving their goals.
It’s easy to attack Christian homeschoolers. As in every group of human beings there are crackpots and annoying individuals. Obviously Nan is infusing her study of history with her own world view. But she is also working hard to present other views as well. All of us view history through some sort of lens. I, personally, like to concentrate on historical patterns that repeat themselves.
The Andrea Yates comment is beneath you. Maybe you could blog about ways to improve public education instead.
For the record, the Andrea Yates comment wasn’t mine.
Great insight Jennifer. To be fair though, Schad did not make the Andrea Yates comment. It wasy Thygoddess. Just don’t want him wearing that badge on his blog since it wasn’t he that said it.
:^)
I just read more comments, so had to add:
1. I have a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania.
2. Most homeschooling parents I know don’t limit their children to only studying at home. They attend other classes, go to lessons, attend community college classes, take programs online, do distance ed classes from their local school districts, etc.
3. Yes, homeschoolers are often wierd in that they ignore the games other people so like to play. They don’t do the social thing as much, maybe - they’re not so hot at following fashion, etc. But please, if you take a close look, everyone is wierd. Seriously. Everyone.
4. I had a public school education all the way and went to a University and STILL turned out wierd. I still don’t do office politics, still choose to believe in the good in every man, still am capable of having friendships with people in many different religions, still believe in voting, still got married (for crying out loud), still READ! Shocking. I bet every educational system churns out wierdos.
Come on, people, are we really going to sit here, single out a group and point fingers????? Really? Should we start in on the rest of you? That will be productive.
Sorry, Schad - I meant to stick ThyGoddess’ name in there. Typing too fast. Feeling way too guilty indulging in a debate instead of doing “real work”.
Hi, Jennifer.
Re: your #3.
It’s a fair question. Are home-schoolers weird (a rather major assumption in itself) because their parents are weird (weird people homeschool their children) and they would have been weird wherever they went to school?
I tend to agree that everyone is weird, each in their own special way.
However, those social “games” are part and parcel of being social animals. To succeed in business (and even in academia these days) one must, at minimum, be aware of the games others are playing, even if one is not expert oneself.
Well now, this is interesting.
I have reservations about public school, because I think it’s essentially about procuring conformance with a standard designed to create good consumers. Yes, there are qualifications to that too numerous to list, but in essence, that’s what it is.
I also know both religious and non-religious folk who homeschool. In all cases, the parents are college graduates, and in fact at least one parent in each has either a Masters Degree or professional education as well.
I’d have to say that the secular homeschoolers have children who are doing quite well and seem normal in their interactions with other children. The very religious family of homeschoolers ARE weird. Their view of history involves a fair amount of intense Christian bias (which is to say that it ignores fact in favor of Biblical or doctrinal leanings).
It’s that fear we have of a willingness to suppress fact to religious purpose that worries us, Nan. Plus, we’ve had (some of us anyway) good experiences with education conducted by teachers, and for that we’re grateful. As bite points out, that great wonderful moment when our children have learned to love something we have no experience with and we ourselves probably would never have led them to — that “aha” moment is one of the things we love about professional educators.
I send my daughter to a private school because I wanted her to be a little more in charge of her own education than is often the case in a public school, but also to be exposed to a variety of people and perspectives and experiences that I wouldn’t really be able to give her. For us, that’s worked beautifully. She’s had great education, plus sports and lots of relationships with lots of other kids and adults, all of which I think have brought much more value to the table than I could have. And a private school is a real community, in a way that I think can be difficult to find in either large public schools or homeschooling circles. That sense of community where all the adults know each other and the teacher and the kids and the coaches is probably the most important reason I write that check.
All that said, I would think that early childhood education especially can be done well at home if the parents can truly devote the time and energy and maintain an objective distance from the familial issues in the process(this is what I could NEVER have done). High schoolers, though, belong in high school. Yes, there are bad social issues there — time to learn to deal with them, however.
Why should strangers get to reap the benefits of all my hard work during years 1-5, hogging the best hours of each day during the best years of my kids’ lives. Bah, humbug to that!
Your number one reason–selfishly concerned about your own needs, and not those of your children.
I have a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania.
Which does not qualify you to teach math, biology, chemistry, physics, history, or any other specialized courses that students get in school. You may be trying to teach those courses, but you’re not qualified to do so.
My kids are not weird…
You’re really in no position to judge whether your kids are weird. And as Schad says, sometimes kids are weird because of their weird parents, and not necessarily because of the home schooling itself. The result is the same. Kids need schooling away from their parents.
By the way Nan, listing a bunch of people as “home schooled” who lived before there was such a thing as modern public schools isn’t all that impressive. I guess Jesus was home schooled, too. You forgot to include him.
I have read this debate with interest, and just wanted to add our names to the list of college educated, homeschooling parents..
I have a B.S. in Elementary Education and my husband has two master’s degrees. I was a classroom teacher in both private and public schools for 10 years. We choose to homeschool because we believe that our children will receive a better education at home.
As Christians, we do raise our children in the Church and according to our beliefs. But we would do so even if they were in public school. And I would venture to guess that every parent represented here –whether atheistic, agnostic, or religious—imparts their own belief system to their children…whether consciously or unconsciously.
Perhaps there are some here who might need to practice a little of the tolerance that they preach.
Listen up, bitches!
Andrea Yates comment was due:
1) Nan’s own “certifiably insane” claim,
2) Unmistakably similar facts==> homeschooling children, pastor’s wife, devout Christian and shit.
You know what? Fuck you all. You are a bunch of ignorant fucking bigots and you are raising a bunch of little ignorant fucks.
And God hates you for that.
College professors…now there is a group of socially adjusted people!
When homeschoolers are disppropriationately represented in prisons I’ll believe that they are socially maladjusted as a group.
They don’t go to prison…they are already in one.
Plus, they either kill themselves or get drowned by their certifiably insane mothers before reaching full maturity.
Clue!
OK.
Here’s my concern and why I posted my original comment.
Nan posted a link to “educational” material that I consider to be worse than useless. Her further list of prominent “home-schooled” people just reinforces my belief that she is unqualified to teach.
None of that means that she is a bad person (or that any of you are bad people). What it does mean is that her children (or yours) may not be getting the education that you think they’re getting.
This also doesn’t mean that I pretend that there are no problems with the public schools. Lord knows that I have had my own problems with that (moreso in Canada than the US). There are plenty.
Addendum:
ThyGoddess: menopausal?
No, stressed out.
Have you ever written an appellate brief?
Huh?
Then, shut up.
Appelate brief?
Dear Judge,
You should overturn the decision of the presiding judge because he misapplied the law in the following way: (blah, blah)
[cite precedent here]
Thanks for your time.
Thy Goddess
Easy as pie.
You’re welcome.
Wow, thanks.
That was helpful.
Asshole.
Wow! I’m not sure where to start.
I’m not seeing any clear, reasoned, informed critiques of homeschooling,
and it is hard to know how to respond to stereotyped generalizations.
I’m hearing:
‘hsed students are weird’, 9)’social game playing is important’,
1) ’sheltering your children is bad’,
2) ‘Xtians are a scary group’,
3)’Nan might not be qualified to recognize good teaching materials’,
4) ‘lots of hsing parents aren’t college educated’,
5)’public education has intrinsic social value’,
6)’it is bad for a student to have only one teacher’,
7)’it is a bad for a student to have teachers for love them’,
10)’the biggest problem with hsing is the lack of oversight’, and 11)’hsing with a tutor (or governess) is not homeschooling’.
1) I think one of a parent’s primary jobs is to shelter his/her children. Of course the other primary task is to let go of our children so they can become separate adults. Balancing these conflicting tasks is challenging, and there are no simplistic, on-size-fits-all answers, but I think it is unreasonable to labeling sheltering as intrinsically bad or harmful.
2) As a Jew I have to agree that Xtians can be a very scary group indeed.
I have a friend whose mother, to this day, will not leave the house on Easter. She grew up in Eastern Europe and associates the day with danger and fear, though, logically, she knows she is in no danger in her friendly Canadian suburb, the associations are too strong and too painful.
Conservative Xtian lobbies are powerful and are affecting many issues, often in ways I deplore, and that too can be scary.
However, I am far more terrified by the suggestion that my, or anyone else’s, fear of any particular group should limit their right to transmit their values and worldview. I think our society would be better served by a higher level of mutual respect and genuine conversation than by the stigmatization of one strand.
3) I can’t presume to judge Nan’s qualifications, but I have spent many years now reviewing curriculum and, frankly, many of the resources used in the public schools do not begin to qualify as good teaching materials. So I am not sure how one could define ‘qualified’.
[Despite that many dedicated teachers manage to do incredible work with the flawed materials they are given… and I have seen teachers equipped with marvelous texts and other resources who manage to destroy any interest their students might have had in the materials.]
4) Although I greatly value the college education I have received, I am unconvinced that a college degree has any relevance to whether someone is qualified to homeschool his/her child. Is a motivated autodidact less qualified than someone who majored in PE? Can someone who majored in English lit be considered qualified to teach middle school science? Or history?
What does a degree really represent? Haven’t we all encountered intellegent, informed people without degrees and ignoramuses with? And vice versa?
5) This an interesting point and worthy of more serious discussion that this forum really allows. You might be interested in reading ‘The Skylark Sings With Me’ by David Albert. His worldview might appeal to you, despite some of the different conclusions he has reached.
I cannot do your concern justice here, I’m sorry. But I have a few comments/questions.
Your vision of public education is inspirational, but does not, imho, reflect the goals, methods, or outcomes of the system we have now. Gatto has some provocative discussion of the origins and goals of public education which might interest you.
I think society is better served by diversity that homogenity and that putting everyone through the same system (which is not what happens now) would not contribute to a stronger, better society.
I do agree that private schooling, whether it is schools or homeschooling, can often leave disadvantaged students out, and I share your concern about the stratification of our society. I wish I could envision a solution, but I am not prepared to sacrifice (my perception of) my children’s well being or deny them the advantages our class standing and material resources could offer them to try to even the playing field.
6) This is another good point. Once a child reaches high school, or for many middle school, it can be very benificial for him/her to have other teachers, and I would not presume to suggest that I am qualified to teach every possible subject at those levels… which is why homeschoolers ‘outsource’.
7) I don’t know how to respond to this. I have done classroom teaching, both of children and adults, and I must say that I have always cared passionately for my students, and, when teaching children, I have always come to love them… and I feel that this has only enhanced what I can do for them as a teacher.
The best teachers I have known, as a student, a TA, and a fellow teacher, have been the ones who are passionately invested in their students.
However, I do agree that there comes a point where my children have needed to have a different teacher. Not because I could not teach the subject, but because they needed another guide. I am already creating a monstrous enrty here, so I will spare you the personal details…
It is also hard to tell what you mean by ‘weird’. It sounds as if the student you encountered was more interested in conencting with the instructors than with her fellow students, but I’m not sure how this qualifies as ‘weird’.
It is odd that our society which so often espouses the importance of individualism can be so intolerant of eccentricity… do we only like individualism which conforms? That is a scary thought, isn’t it?
Perhaps my children qualify as ‘weird’, they like to discuss Shakespeare, politics, and classical music. My teenage daughters are articulate and passionate, respectful and compassionate… they have never watched television, they do not hang out on the Internet, or date.. they are atypical teens, and perhaps you would call them weird, but I am proud of them and would not have them be more conformist.
9) Social skills are very important, but game playing is, imnsho, not. My eldest, for example, is very socially skilled, but has no idea how to ‘play games’. She is direct and candid, and goes right to the heart of things, and I think that is wonderful. She volunteers for our local Shakespeare company and our Jewish community’s nursing home, among other things, and she is comfortable conversing with her peers, with younger children, and with adults.
10) I disagree very strongly. When I look at the impact of goverment oversight on public schooling, I am appalled. I think more oversight would be a nightmare.
11) I am confused by this. How is it less homeschooling if the primary teaching is being done by a tutor?
Eliana
Myrtle:
“Socially maladjusted” doesn’t mean criminal. But it might mean (as Schad pointed out) that they’re unable to effectively compete post-high-school with others who are more normally socialized. Those kinds of things do matter, sometimes more than the actual quantity of knowledge a person might possess.
And again–it doesn’t matter what degree you have, you’re not qualified to teach everything. I have a Ph.D. in biology. I promise you, you don’t want me teaching your kid physics or literature.
Eliana:
You said “Can someone who majored in English lit be considered qualified to teach middle school science? Or history?
What does a degree really represent? Haven’t we all encountered intellegent, informed people without degrees and ignoramuses with? And vice versa?”
This is precisely the issue we have with homeschooling. Someone with an English literature degree (the exact qualification held by one of the homeschooling advocates on this entry) does not qualify you to teach everything else. Now, I don’t think you really need to be all that accomplished to teach really basic early years kind of stuff. But beyond that, it really is problematic.
And yes, Schad and Arch are right about the social aspects. “Social game-playing” is what people do. If you intend for your child to have a successful life as an adult, he or she had better damn well be able to navigate that.
It’s funny that people keep talking about ps teachers having degrees in the fields that they’re teaching. Huh? Maybe in high school. I’ve never met a ps teacher yet for the years 1st-7th that had any degree except the general teacher’s ed course. In other words they spent less time in college than I did on actual class subjects and more time on things like keeping 30 kids quiet and in their seats.
And many homeschoolers at the high-school level branch out and use community college, distance ed, etc to teach the courses they are not qualified to teach.
I don’t know - this is a wierd topic. Someone picked one post on a blog of someone they don’t know and don’t follow, jumped to a bunch of conclusions and got us all stirred up. Let’s face it - Nan is real. She didn’t ask to be on this page, but now she’s the poster girl for Christian homeschoolers you all have chosen to throw darts at. Have a little compassion.
If you want to debate Christianity, do so. If you want to debate homeschooling, do so, but choosing someone at random to ridicule is pretty unkind.
But, oh yeah, this is the age of Anne Coulter, right? How else could a poor blogger make any headlines.
Up to a second cup of coffee, Schad? I’m kind of impressed with your results, here.
Keifus:
No. Tight-fisted bunch (For the love of Jesus, would somebody please buy something?)
Just kidding (not really).
I was weird. Public school wasn’t a complete failure for me, but it could never quite reach me. I was precocious in some areas and slow in others. I really sucked at math. I started grade 9 math three times and never finished it. Later, when I wanted to go to university, I completed grade 11 algebra in three weeks. Shortly before I dropped out of high school, when the truant officer and the Vice Principal and my parents and I all got together for a chat, I asked to take one or two university courses in addition to the mandatory curriculum. I don’t know if anyone took that request seriously, but I probably wouldn’t have done well at them, anyway, as I had lots of other problems by then. I dropped out at 15.
Socially, I had a hard time, too. Often either out of sorts or vague and day-dreamy, I was generally out of sync with the other kids. The boys picked on me. I became a tom boy, and got into a lot of fights.
The one or two teachers who recognized me as something other than a frustrating and defiant kid were like small windows of light in the fog. Most of the others were just happy to let me read in the back of the class, quietly, and pass me through each grade based on my performance early in the year. “Not achieving her potential” was the refrain. In high school, this passive support was gone, and, left to my own devices, I simply wouldn’t go to class.
I was alienated and struggling much of the time. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that I had significant aptitude in some areas. My social skills also matured. I’m still a little weird, but I can cover it most of the time.
Public education is probably adequate for 50% of kids. Meeting the (range of) needs of the other 50% is difficult and cost-prohibitive. A combination of home and public school would probably have worked best for me.
rundeep:
To follow your premise to its logical conclusion would involve a complete restructuring of public education. (Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing!)
As things stand now, K-8 teachers, in public and private schools, are not required to have a degree in the subject(s) they teach. In fact, even at the high school (and occasionally college/university) level a biology teacher, for example, might have his/her degree in physics or geology. (My high school physics teacher, who won national teaching awards and authored his own textbook, did not have a physics degree. A fabulous chemistry teacher at my college had her primary degree in physics.)
In fact a claim often made by professional educators is that what a teacher really needs is to know how to teach, rather be an expert in the subject s/he is teaching. (I am *NOT* agreeing with this viewpoint, just pointing out that it is a tenet on which our current system is based.)
Can we agree that teachers of K-8 do not need as specialized a background as high school teachers?
As I said before, families that homeschool through high school outsource many subjects. My eldest daughter is doing her advanced math and science, for example, at a local college (And is excelling there, both socially and academically.), takes piano lessons
from a talented musician, takes adult level courses given by community rabbis & rebbitzens, does extra writing with my mother who has a phenomenal background, attends courses given by our local (professional) Shakespeare company and chamber music societies.
When one of our children has an interest or ability beyond our experience, my husband and I work hard to find him/her the resources and mentors s/he needs to follow that passion… and that is far easier to do in a homeschool setting than an institution.
Our kids are getting a customized education - my son would have been so miserable in a school! He learns in leaps and bounds. Sometimes he needs to spend longer than average with a subject, and other times he is ready to jump forward by months… He just turned ten and he has been in algebra for over a year, learning programming, studying electricity, memorizing speeches from Macbeth, translating part of Bereishis (Genesis), reading at a high school level, learning to cook complex casseroles, and struggling with his spelling and writing. The school does not exist which could, or would, meet his needs.
Eliana
Addendum: my nephew—gifted, difficult, aloof, dominant—would have been terribly served by homeschooling. It wouldn’t have been able to begin to meet his intellectual and social needs. With his tendency to bully other kids, public school could have been even worse. The private school he’s enrolled in has provided him with exactly the right blend of intellectual challenge and social development, so that he’s evolved from a kid who was headed for some serious problems, into a confident and sensitive leader.
Okay, I want and looked at the materials which triggered this discussion, and I can see why you were concerned, Schadenfreude. It is not my cup of tea either, and I agree that, imho, they are more myth than history. (Though, in all fairness, so are many of the materials used in public school elementary history classes - they are just, perhaps, more palatable myths.)
I think you drew unjustifiably harsh conclusions, but I can see why you were concerned.
However, I think you are missing the point of Nan’s list of famous people who were homeschooled, at least the point I drew from it!
Education as it is done in our country at this time has not been around for very long, and the at-home, tutoring approach which many might say characterizes homeschooling has a far longer track record. As biteoftheweek (I thin!) pointed out, private education can reinforce class barriers, but it can also avoid the training in conformance rundeep mentioned… there are costs and benefits to any educational system, and there is no single ‘right’ solution. We each need to make the choices we believe are best for our children and our society. I jsut hope we as a society can engage in mutually respectful dialogue about these issues and not rush to simplistic judgements based on generalizations.
Eliana
Wow! This really is a great, and lame uncreative insults aside, civil discussion. As much as it was started at my expense I am enjoying the give and take of ideas. I think sharing them, explaining our reasons for or against certain things, etc… is a truly good thing. The internet is such a great channel for the free exchange of ideas.
Thanks for hosting this discussion Schad. I hope you know that there is always an olive branch from my direction… even though you may snarl some and I may snark some, I appreciate anything that renews my passions, makes me look at things from different perspectives and helps me practice patience and a resilient sense of humor too! :^D
Oh and don’t worry y’all. My husband NEVER let’s me bathe the children! ;^P < --- Note: That is sarcasm. Also known as a sense of humor. Well adjusted people have one! :^D
Thanks again Schad. And peace to you.
Dear homeschoolers
My criticism is that y’all are too selfish. You are focusing on the development of your own kids, but you are eroding the quality of public education in the process.
Undoubtedly, socialization is a big part of public education. People talk about peer effects a lot, i.e. kids pick up a great deal of habits, values and outlooks from their classmates. Put a child in a class of kids coming from dysfunctional families – sons and daughters of crack addicts, alcoholics and unemployed wife-beaters – and you’re putting him at serious risk of contracting some pretty negative traits. Put the same child in a different environment, surrounded by peers coming from engaged and enlightened families such as yours, and you’re likely to have very different results. When the better folks pull out their kids to be home-schooled, they worsen the pool and diminish the life prospects of all those left behind. Your own kids get a better education in the process, but have you ever asked yourself: at whose cost?
The effect I describe above works through other channels too. School quality depends among other things on parental involvement. Had you people (clearly among the parents most concerned about your kids’ education) not disassociated yourself with your local school system, it probably would have been blessed with curricular and pedagogic improvements thanks to the pressure you would have brought to bear. As it stands now, your neighborhood schools languish under the supervision of apathetic teachers and aloof parents. You have started a movement which, if it became widespread, would create gated communities of nurturing amidst a sea of educational collapse. This is what worries me.
It is of course not my place to lecture you about compromising your own child’s learning for the sake of a greater common good, to put country and community before family. But I am tempted to paraphrase the words of a great President whose inspirational words once stirred the soul of a nation:
Ask not what your school district can do for you, ask what you can do for your school district.
By the same token, Gregor, it can be a good thing.
Perhaps those parents who object to the science taught in schools won’t be screaming for the school board to teach the Bible as science.
Unfortunately, in our community, the legislator cutting funding for public schools doesn’t believe in them.
So, Gregor, it’s not enough that thousands of dollars of my husband’s hard-earned income go to taxes to fund public education, but I’m also supposed to sacrifice my own children on the altar of public ed?
I assume you have the same problem with those enrolled in private schools?
Just adding to other commenters - I’m an M.D., was valedictorian and a National Merit Scholar. These things don’t qualify me to teach my children - the fact that I know them better than anyone else and I’m willing to do the hard work to find the best way to educate them does. That may be homeschooling by me, by a tutor, in coop classes or public or private school. The bottom line is they are my children and it is MY job to ensure they have the appropriate education. Last I checked no governmental institution was quite so concerned about my (or anyone else’s) child.
As for being “weird” - I don’t think my kids are, but what do I know? I’m their mom and I think they are great. But I take the incessant doorbell ringing that begins at 3:45 each afternoon and the “best teammate” award on the community (not homeschool) soccer teams as signs that they get along pretty well with their public and private schooled friends.
Schad, thanks for sharing your blog with us homeschooling wackos. We’re actually a pretty fun bunch for the most part.
Late to the party, I guess, but what the Hell!
First, I do know of a few secular homeschoolers — most commonly those who are involved in high level athletics etc that require a more flexible school schedule than available from public or private schools — here in Park City, mostly ski/snowboard racers, a professional mountainbike racer etc.
Oh, and the one kid I know in a touring band who wants to finish his senior year.
I do think the socialization issue is the biggest concern in most situations (not these ones though, as they get more socialization that most of us could in public schools).
Note that Nan posted part of my comments on her blog (somewhat) out of context, without providing a link, then disabled the comments function.
I’m not sure what that says about her, but I’m sure it says something.
I’ve heard the comment that we homeschoolers are diminishing the public school gene pool by taking their kids out before, but it’s funny to hear it in this context. Everyone just got done telling us that we were worthless, stupid scum that couldn’t function in society - not a bunch you want running the PTA.
But, you are right - we are concerned parents who would volunteer at our local schools were we participating in them. If you read my earlier comments, you would know that I am participating in them this year. Here is what I’ve found: I can volunteer in my kindergartner’s class as long as I do what I’m told and refrain from making any suggestions as to curriculum or content. I have been strongly dissuaded from volunteering in any upper level classroom (I’d not humiliate my kids that way anyway :)). I can donate money to my heart’s content, and I can come to school board meetings and state my piece, but it doesn’t mean crap. Here in BC curriculum is province-wide - the local schools don’t set the curriculum or choose the books.
I think we’d see much more change if our leaders (I’m an American living in Canada, so I mean this inclusively) sent THEIR kids to public school. Then those with a little power to do something might take a harder look at our school systems.
The biggest problem, though, is that people only want to see this as an US vs. THEM kind of problem. Homeschoolers and schools should be working together. There should be a range of options, from full-time school to full-time homeschooling. Class sizes of all ages should be limited to 10-15 kids; any more than that and someone is losing out.
My biggest problem with public school is the HUGE waste of time it is. I was there - in third grade the actual time I spent learning anything maybe took up an hour. I was an incredible student. That left 6 hours a day of sheer boredom. Think of what I could have learned in all that time. If the local school district wants to ship me other kids to teach - great! I’ll have them all reading above grade level in a couple of months. I’ll take them through a cycle of history that covers everything they need to know to understand what’s happening today, but…wait - nope! The local school district can’t do any such thing! I’m not a certified teacher, and even if I was, my phonics curriculum isn’t the one that BC approves. Oh well.
I doubt I’m the only homeschooling parent that is frustrated that we can’t do more to raise the standards of our local schools, but we’re thwarted at every step. I will allow any of my kids that want to attend school to do so, but I’m not going to force any of them to if they’d rather spend their time learning.
Sorry, archaeoptrix, it was laziness on my part to not create a link to your blog. I will certainly remedy that. The reason for closing the comments on that post was because I mentioned that I did not want a creation/evolution debate there and I was feeling that that is where it was heading so I curbed the tide. :^D It was nothing personal against you. It says that I don’t like people making ignorant assumptions about me or my children and vocalizing them in my corner of the blogosphere. Note, I did not remove your comment which I could easily have done.
Closing the comments there does not mean that I am unhappy to carry on a friendly discussion over here (as has been done even since I closed the comments there.) Don’t make anything bigger of it than it is.
Amy:
I’m an M.D., was valedictorian and a National Merit Scholar.
Okay, I’ve stayed out of this, but I’ve got to say something here.
You may well be one of those rare people who received their diploma from a private medical school, but I’m betting you’re not. Assuming I’m correct, what you’re telling me is that your countrymen have made a direct investment in your career of, what, hundreds of thousands of dollars? As a national merit scholar, did you receive scholarships from the university you attended? You were awarded one of the precious medical school slots at whatever university you attended, so you can…
Stay home and teach your kids?
Not even spreading your fabulous education among the children of other parents, but merely staying home and teaching your own? Do you not feel some obligation to the people who have invested so much in your ability to provide service to others?
I dunno if you’ve encountered some health problems, or some other catastrophe that’s limited your ability to fulfill your part of the contract implicit in accepting the education you pursued, but with the kind of physician shortages we are facing around the country, I find this appalling.
My two cents.
Apologies Archaeoptrix. I don’t believe the comment I was referring to was in fact yours. Please forgive this error on my part.
Tenacious,
Well, actually, I stay home and teach my kids and expect that with the excellent education they receive here they will go out and make the world a better place.
No, I don’t have a medical practice and accept 30 different insurance plans and operate a for profit business - and frankly I don’t see how that would pay homage the taxpayers who funded a portion of my education in which I worked 100 hour weeks taking care of the indigent who could not otherwise afford healthcare.
But I volunteer often, both here in the U.S. and abroad using the education that I received through my own hard work. Not that I feel obligated to do so because someone somewhere decided I deserved a NMS or because I attended a public institution. In fact, if someone else were doing exactly what I’m doing minus the volunteer work, I would say bravo to them - free country and all that you know.
Beyond that, the extension of your logic is that anyone who receives a public education at State U. shouldn’t be allowed to stay home and raise their kids, travel the world, or even change careers to a a field that their education didn’t prepare them for. It’s just not implicit in a public education that you get a job in your field and work it till you die.
If I used that education to teach other people’s children I’m assuming it would be okay with you. But to teach my own, invest in them to make their lives and those they come in contact with better, that’s not good enough? We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.
Woo-hoo! Now we’re onto the working mommy/staying home mommy debate! I’m sure we’ll get some earth-shattering nuggets of wisdom on this one.
What I find appalling is that no one on the anti-homeschooling side of the argument is here to find out about the homeschooling side. They are simply here to sling mud. When did Amy say that she became an MD and then INSTANTLY quit her job and stayed home with kids, or that she refuses to EVER go back to work once her kids are raised. Huh?
Jeez, that’s the best you can do to knock her? How about telling her that an MD’s education is far inferior to that which a grade school teacher receives, thereby making her unfit to teach anyone, anything. Isn’t that where this whole blog started? Come on guys, get your story straight. Either we’re ignorant fools who shouldn’t go near children, or we’re way too educated and precious to be allowed to restrict our gifts to our own family. We can’t be both.
What is the fear here? That our kids will be ignorant? My kids went to ps this year and ALL three I homeschooled are on the honor roll.
That they’ll be bigoted? Hmmm - I never ever knew what bigotry was until I attended University. UPenn was the most amazingly classist/racist/sexist place I have ever spent time at before or since.
That they’ll be weird? As far as I know, George Bush went to college and he’s pretty darn weird, too.
That some of them will believe in God? Let’s look at George Bush again, shall we?
There’s a lot of energy coming our way that I don’t think has much to do about homeschooling. What is this really about?
Jesus, TK. They’re doctors, not slaves. The same could be said of anyone with a state school education who decides to pursue a career outside of their major.
Jennifer:
My experience with the BC public schools was pretty good (I used to live just down the road from you - in Smithers).
Nan:
I suspect that the evolution debate is pertinent in your case, but nobody can force you into a discussion that you don’t want to have.
Ah, I just deleted another impolite comeback. Hell, I don’t know your situation. An MD education is an exceptionally scarce resource, however. It’s not equivalent to an undergraduate degree in philosophy - it’s a training in which there is an assumption you will use your (very costly and heavily subsidized by taxpayer money) skills for the betterment of the population.
I have worked in a medical school, and been surrounded by medical students and teaching faculty. I know what many of them would say about the choice you are making, but that doesn’t necessarily make them right, either.
Gregor’s post was written tongue-in-cheek, I imagine. The response added a different texture to it, is all.
Good luck with the kids. I hope they go out and do great things that benefit all of us.
Oh, and Jennifer - my comment was gender neutral.
Hi Jennifer. Congratulations on your honor roll kids. If I had kids, I don’t know that I’d be willing to put them in our East Van schools with all the gang stuff going on. I sure do like living here, though.
I don’t believe that the fact that y’all homeschool your kids makes you a homogenous group (did I spell that right?), and we’re certainly not a homogenous group. You’re hearing a number of different viewpoints, here, not a single voice. Don’t make the mistake of assuming we’re all aligned in our positions. If there’s a common factor, it’s curiousity and a committment to intellectual rigor (shut up [not you, J]).
We’ve been treated like that before - as if we’re interchangeable, but you all seem much more intelligent and open-minded than those dkos folks. Those people are STILL talking about us.
Don’t mind ThyGoddess. She doesn’t speak for all of us. Really, she’s just flirting.
schad - Yeah, I know I’m a snob. My local school has NO honors or AP courses, so my kids have nowhere to go to get challenged. DS in grade 8 says that a third of the kids in his classes fail because they simply don’t do the work. How can the teacher do anything in that case?
Besides, our local district can only afford to have the schools open four days a week. Even when homeschooling I could never cram everything into only four days.
I don’t think the local school will prepare my kids to do well on the SAT, or prepare them to attend a college where the majority of kids have had access to higher level classes in high school. The teachers don’t have the resources available to do that.
My kids know we expect them to go to college in the US. They also know they will have to pay for half the cost and will need scholarships, most likely. It is going to be difficult for them to pull all of this off without supplementing their public school educations in some way. Homeschooling is the most efficient way of doing so, but if they attend public school we will do what we need to procur the extra education they’re going to need.
TenaciousK - I wasn’t saying you were sexist. I was saying the students and some faculty at Penn were - and I was shocked because I’d been raised in such a liberal atmosphere I didn’t even know sexism or racism still existed anywhere. I’d only read about it in books.
Questions for new visitors:
Does anybody regret homeschooling their children?
Alternatively:
Do any homeschooled children wish they had gone to a public (or private) school?
Jennifer:
I didn’t know that about the schools there. Is that recent?
The public schools in our particular district are dismal, although the local high school is quite good. The Catholic schools are all brand new, and seem to have sucked all of the money out of the public system (they get tax money). The private schools are the most expensive in the country.
UPenn is in Philly - ’nuff said.
Schad - I’ve only been here 2.5 years, so I don’t know when the four-day week was instituted. And don’t get me wrong, now that the kids are in school, I appreciate that we get to sleep in an extra day and we can schedule all our appointments and music lessons that day, too.
But - it really strains the system. The district is also using a block system in the upper grades which means my 8th grader only gets a half year of English, social studies, math and French. That means if he has math first semester he has no math for 8 months (Jan-Aug). That’s a pretty long stretch.
I’m getting some cool input from my homeschooling board about how to volunteer to teach literacy in the local public schools. I’m going to have to contact the principal of my daughter’s school and see what they say.
Do I regret homeschooling? Well, like every choice in life, there is a tradeoff. Obviously, my *official* career is on hold. I don’t get to lunch with the ladies or play on a tennis league. But overall, I’m very content with the life our family has chosen. I don’t regret it for a minute from a personal aspect.
Like I mentioned in previous posts, my kids are doing well academically and they have lots of friends - most of whom are not homeschooled - so I believe what we are doing is working. So at this point I have no regrets from an educational choice aspect either.
That said, my husband and I will evaluate the situation each year for each child. The time may come that we believe homeschooling is no longer the best choice for our kids and we’ll have no trouble making changes accordingly.
As to the homeschoolers wishing they had been sent to regular school, I don’t know. My kids are too young yet to say - though they wouldn’t be happy at this point to go to PS. I’m sure that the situation exists though! I mean, parents ruining a child’s life is a universal theme, right? I’m sure it exists in homeschooling circles just like it does everywhere else.
Wow Schad! If anything it gave both of us a little more blog exposure. :^D Mine made a jump today too. (not sure if my code will work but I’ll try it anyways.)
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63/posiepie/graph_summary_barchart.png
I do truly thank you for your tone throughout the conversation Schad. You are refreshingly down to earth and realistic even though we heartily disagree.
As for why I didn’t particularly want an evolution debate on my blog… well, like I said, I’m definitely not against a good evolution/creation debate (I’ve had many good ones), I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude for it today! LOL! ;^P
Urgh. My link didn’t work. Maybe this one will.
My stats for the week
We are homeschoolers who live in Los Angeles. Far from most of the folks in our group being Christian of any type, I would say it is more than 50% Jewish. Rather than conservatives are far more likely to be crunchy-granola freethinking ex-hippies.
I’m a liberal progressive… and a Christian. I believe in evolution, gay marriage and using tax dollars to support free public eduction. We don’t homeschool to protect our children from “secular humanism” or any other ideology. We don’t shelter our kids from different religions or sexual orientations. I also happen to work full time as an ordained minister in the United Methodist church. My dh is a stay-at-home-dad, and we share teaching duties as needed.
Both my husband and I were National Merit Scholars (is there a convention?), attended public and private schools before going to a pretigious private university. I have a Master’s degree, as require by my denomination. Between the two of us, we can handle most things from foreign languages to math through advanced calculus. What we can’t (basketball, piano lessons, etc.), we outsource.
So why do we homeschool?
1. We want our kids to have the best education possible. Education is a priority in our home. Our parents wanted the same for us, and made choices… we make choices for our kids.
2. We want to spend as much time together as a family as possible. We only have daily access to our kids for 18 years before they head out to conquer the world… I want to have a close, supportive and deep relationship with my kids. Relationships take time. There was a study that said the average parent spends a total of 15 minutes of quality time with their child per day. It isn’t enough.
3. It’s fun and fulfilling for me personally. I love that I’m finally getting to learn Latin. I love when we pack up our books and walk to the park, studying under the trees and pausing to check out birds through our binoculars. I love that we can go to Disneyland during the week and the off season and just have a fun family day (we did today!).
I don’t think everyone has to homeschool. But it is a wonderful life for those of us who are lucky enough (or have made the sacrifices) to have this dream come true.
DC: I don’t speak for you and you don’t get to make excuses for me.
None of my comments indicated an earnest engagement in a real debate or even a hint of serious assertion. I am simply too busy to debate the issue (and you know what happens when I do) and to be perfectly honest, I have no strong opinions on this matter one way or the other. I simply don’t give a shit.
Oh and my “fuck you all” comment.. right now includes you, I am afraid.
Goddess, you appear to be a wrathful diety, much like my most recent, more famous one. However, you seem more forthright about it. Do you perhaps have a pamphlet or brochure?
For any who are genuinely interested in alternative forms of schooling, including of course, homeschooling, The Calgary Herald actually put this out yesterday (crazy timing) in the city-wide “Neighbourhood” newspaper. There are several good articles on alternative educational opportunities.
http://shopping.calgaryherald.canada.com/SS/Page.aspx?&secid=27908&pagenum=1
Just thought it might be an interesting read.
Peace.
And once again my whole link didn’t post. **sigh**
Alternative Schooling - Calgary Herald
Hey, Jeni.
Thanks for your kind words, but I already have a job. This is just extra (work, not income, trust me).
The ads are mostly a joke (unintentional).
Jennifer:
I think this is to you, I’ve lost track with all you folks. It’s really not fair to say we haven’t been interested in finding out your reasons. Indeed, you’ve all been very free with them. But from some folks I see more than a pro-homeschooling vibe, I’m getting an anti-school one. Make whatever choices you want, but don’t knock us for making ours. There are plenty of really good reasons to send kids to school, just as there are reasons to homeschool.
And if you are really surprised to find that there is sexism still in the world, you really should not be homeschooling.
And Schad, fuck you. From Philadelphia.
Hey, Rundeep.
I used to live in Philly. Fuck you is almost a term of endearment, as I recall. Smooches.
Jeez, Rundeep - read the comments before you attack. I never said anyone else shouldn’t homeschool. I couldn’t care less how other people school their kids. The big secret that everyone is missing here is that most kids will become educated enough to function in some way in life no matter what the heck you do to them! All of us here in cushy North America get to sweat these little differences - homeschool/public school/private school. No matter which we choose, most kids will be fine.
And I didn’t say I am surprised now to find out that sexism exists, I said that as a seventeen-year-old fresh from upper-middle-class suburbia I was shocked to meet other extremely-upper-class kids who were so sexist it made my head spin! The fact that I met them attending an Ivy League University blew my mind.
I am qualified to teach my kids because I have more education that most of the teachers in my local school system, many of whom don’t even have a four-year degree. End of story.
Dear Moody Twit:
Perhaps a bit humour impaired? Might I suggest you consult with Ender. He’ll know what to say to you. My preference is you pull your head out of your ass.
Dear Random Ass Kisser:
Might I suggest you pulling your head out of Ender’s ass? My preference is you get off my fucking back.
TG, in all sincerity, you’re being an ass. I don’t really know why, or what you’re looking for. I’m sure a public falling-out will amuse and/or alarm our pals, but you are so far out of line, you can’t even see it anymore. I don’t know what I said that set you off. Give me a call when you want to talk about it.
WTF, DC?
You don’t fucking get to:
1) Interpret my comments to some fucking strangers,
2) Tell me to pull my head out of my ass,
3) Advise me on whom to consult with,
3) Decide when I choose to be an ass.
And…this conversation is over.
Oh, honey, I was joking. Up until the last comment, anyway.
I’m really, really sorry I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean offend you.
Peace, babe.
Nan’s bias is obvious. She spells Goddess with a little ‘g’ and God with a big ‘G’
It’s obvious what “history” she’s gonna teach her children. She’s gonna claim that christianism is the true religion, and that all other faiths are sumthin to read about…so’s y’all can try an’ convert ‘em before they all burn in hell…
Boy, I sure wish us indyuns had been allowed to continue “home-schooling. Then maybe so many of us wouldn’t be christianized, and ruined into the capitalist mindset.
But the christo-fascists thought home-schooling wasn’t a good idea for us pagans. They thought it would be better to kidnap the kids and put them in boarding schools; beat them when they spoke their own language or dared to pray to their own GODS.
Oh the IRONY.
Once again, I’ll use the local school system as an example. When I participated in a homeschool group - 80 kids from k-8 - all our programs were completely religion-free and friendly to all.
Here in the local public school the Christmas program - yes the Christmas program, not the holiday program - is chock full of hymns!
I’m shocked all the time at the lack of separation between church and state in government-run institutions in Canada.
And I’m with you, Catnapping - I think the First Nations people should embrace homeschooling and put together an education for their kids that merges their world-view and the skills necessary for achieving their goals.
Well how perfectly ridiculous.
Nan - no, you’ve never had a good debate on evolution. The good debates ended before you were born; before your mother was born; perhaps before your grandmother was born.
On home education: If you (any of you) are convinced you are capable of teaching better than your local school; better than any nearby school; better than any school you can get your kid into - well then, home schooling should be considered - if you don’t have something better to do.
Ignoring the value of having different teachers, though, is utterly incredible.
Now perhaps way up there in those arctic circles all the teachers are lousy.
The thing about that teacher/Nazi in Red Deer (was it? Fast Jimmy Keegstra) wasn’t that he was a teacher/Nazi - it was that nobody said anything about it for years!
So maybe Nan is the best choice, but…..
More people who were homeschooled:
Charlie Manson
Jim Jones
John Wayne Gacy
Nan - your list of those were home-schooled presents the best case against home-schooling. a) it is a really bad argument; b) it is factually challenged (as is, apparently, a certain percentage of your curriculum.
Anyway, way up there maybe you’ve got a point. There aren’t any good restaurants there either.
Hi, imbecile.
Good point about variety of teachers, although I’m not too sure how much that applies to elementary school (say K-3 or so).
You’ve obviously never had the mushroom caps at the Hudson Bay Lodge. Divine.
my shrooms don’t come capped.
There’s a debate as to the long term impact of pre-schools and nursery schools on kids. They didn’t have “junior kindergarten” in my day either.
But the spin is, of course, that these kids socialize better. I’ve to admit I don’t know how you define “socialize” let alone measure it. But the claim doesn’t seem outrageous.
Anyway, you got my main point. Learning isn’t so much about “facts”. It’s about “styles”, “methods”. It’s about communication.
You make a point one way to your kid. You make that same point differently to your colleague. You make that point differently again to your elders. School is about learning how to makes points in different fashion (and it’s about getting laid.)
There is tremendous value in getting kids away from their parents - except when it means giving them to Jimmy Keegstra.
As it is, parents have tremendous influence on their children - undo influence, I’d think, because they are worshiped.
Then the children reach their naturally rebellious age - I can’t imagine anything more smothering. I’ve got to say, it strikes me as psychologically damaging.
I’d like to hear from child development experts on developing a sense of independence in home school environments.
Parents surely have an important role in teaching their children. But, generally, their are limits to what gets taught precisely because parents play a particlar role.
Still - it’s always relative to your options.
Hey everyone -
This is a fine debate and it’s a great example of an exchange of ideas, even if some people have gotten a little riled. That said - Let’s keep it here, okay?
Apparently some people have taken the argument to Nan’s site and it’s hurting her ability to run her blog.
Let’s face it - she didn’t ask to be part of this debate. She got picked out of the blue and held up to ridicule. She did her best to have a discussion here in a very graceful and nice way. She doesn’t deserve what she’s getting.
Debate away - here. Let her blog about what she wants - there.
Actually, Jennifer, I don’t see that happening. She got critical comments on one thread, which she closed, and one critical comment