Homeschoolers suck and more falsehoods...

[mareserinitatis]

I saw a post on homeschooling today. I responded. I sensed an argument was about to start, so I bailed. I don't need to waste my time with that, right? I've been drawn into too much of that before.

Later, I saw this article had been posted.

Comments

[muralidhar]

i always thought, home schooling defeats the age old wisdom of teachers training future citizens. i also read a crazy story in the new yorker about the je$u$ freaks home-schooling. but i visited my friend's house and met his home-schooled kids and was spellbound. these kids are precious like pure gold. so well-disciplined, intelligent and they enjoy life too. daddy an electrical engineering graduate and a cto of a company helps ;o)

personally, i don't trust anyone (unless i know them very well) that they will be able to teach my kid better than i can and will.

[mareserinitatis]

I thought the same way you did, until I was asked to teach a workshop on web page design for a homeschooling conference. I was stunned at the intelligence and motivation these 10-12 year olds had. I also got to attend the conferences sessions for free and met some very prominent homeschool leaders. It really opened my eyes to the huge *unfounded* assumptions I had about homeschoolers. (Perhaps because this is the way they are always portrayed in the media...)

It's interesting that most people can't imagine anything else but school for their kids, yet schooling in it's modern form is less than 200 years old. It was originally developed in Germany as a way to teach soldiers basics so that they could follow orders from supervisors. Yep...used to turn out mindless zombie-like folks.

[joannaravenclaw]

I read your entire post and thought it was excellent.

Collin and I have given serious thought to homeschooling (if it's financially feasible for us) for all the reasons you mentioned (especially #1). My aunt homeschools her 5 kids and they are all smart, bright, and articulate kids. The oldest is now attending college in the Twin Cities and, from all accounts, is doing quite well.

[mareserinitatis]

I'm surprised you mention religion as the main reason. Is it more of the (lack of) ethics in schools? I mean...I didn't think you guys believed Jesus rode on dinosaurs... :-)

For me, one of the side benefits of homeschooling was to not have my son exposed to that damned Pledge of Allegiance every day. It made me insane because Quakers aren't supposed to make pledges or take oaths (and I fully jive with that because of the reasoning...not just as a mindless rule). Unfortunately, his teachers brainwashed him that he wasn't patriotic if he didn't say the pledge, and he believed (at the time) that being unpatriotic was worse than making a pledge.

Grrrr....

[joannaravenclaw]

We have no problem with our kids learning about evolution and such; that's not the issue. It's more of a moral problem -- as in, society's morals are, frankly, crap.

For example, there's a new law in CA mandating that public schools can only teach "positively" about homosexuality.

We think that EVERYONE should be treated with dignity, kindness, and respect regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. -- but we do not believe that homosexual behavior should be condoned or accepted as normal. (Not to mention that, IMO, sexual orientation should not even be a TOPIC that is taught about in a public school curriculum.)

However, if my kids were going to school in CA, it would be against the law to present homosexuality as anything but a wonderful, completely normal thing This opinion goes directly against our religious beliefs. And if my children tried to articulate authentic Catholic teaching about homosexuality in school, they could be charged with propogating hate speech (in other words, religious descrimination against

[mareserinitatis]

This is the biggest problems with public schools. They want to perpetuate a certain set of values, but we live in a diverse population which does not necessarily adhere to all those values.

I do have to take issue with this, though: in other words, religious descrimination against Christians is okayI don't think that's it at all. There are a lot of religions which share your beliefs on homosexuality, so they aren't picking out Christianity exclusively. What they're doing is attempting to create a homogenous set of values within the population that transcends religion and cultural attitudes and beliefs

[crayonbreakygal]

I wish I had the patience for it. But I don't. Sending our kids to private school has helped somewhat because they don't teach to the test at all. It's not perfect mind you, but better than public.

My hairdresser's kids are homeschooled and doing quite well. When I talked to him today he said that they might have to send the oldest to high school soon because he's almost beyond his wife's learning curve on a few subjects. That's the only legitimate problem I see. Do we know enough to teach our kids what they need to know? I couldn't teach my oldest geometry if I had to because I sucked at it in high school.

[muralidhar]

"studying for the test". i understand that western culture fosters creative thinking from early on. but i'm still not sure if i can judge the schooling in the east, where we have unit-tests every month and an annual exam at the end of the year from 1st grade. based on the scores, we were either promoted to the next grade or had to repeat the grade

[mareserinitatis]

My friend (the one who just graduated) told me in explicit detail about the Indian education system.

All I could say was "Thank goodness I didn't grow up there."

[mareserinitatis]

I think most people who homeschool do one of two things: they find someone to tutor their kids in weak areas or they will have them take classes someplace. (Some just put the kids right into college classes and skip the whole high school business.)

I also think most parents are aware of their weaknesses.

On the other hand, I will say that going through and teaching my son stuff that I hadn't seen since grade school really filled in a lot of deep, dark, empty holes that had been lost in my brain. :-D

It does require a lot of patience, which is why I finally said I couldn't do it anymore. It just got to be too much.

[primrose]

I do have to say that you can always tell when homeschooled kids and their parents walk through the doors at work. It's not always the same indicators, but you can always tell

[mareserinitatis]

Sometimes the kid is smart enough but absolutely obnoxious -- a combination of any number of traits, including completely lacking in social skills, overprecocious, condescending, completely spoiled, babied, or overstimulated.

See, that would have been Korwynn and myself. :-D

And this:

Sometimes the kid is fine and it's the parents -- overbearing, crazed people who have to turn everything into a teachable moment and who take every advantage to brag up how above average their child is -- who I want to discipline.would be my ex's family

[primrose]

I think you're right -- there are crazy people everywhere. It's just when they're homeschooled, they get a label to "explain" their craziness. Not all crazy people homeschool, and not all homeschoolers are crazy.

But I do have to say from experience that homeschooled families LOVE National Parks. And there is nothing crazy about that. :-D

Anyway, my favorite cultural reference to homeschooling is at the beginning of Mean Girls where the religious zealot homeschool kid says, "And on the third day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle so that Man could fight the dinosaurs. And the homosexuals." I crack up every single time. (If you haven't seen Mean Girls, please do. You can get over the fact that Lindsay Lohan stars in it by the fact that Tina Fey wrote it, right?)

[mareserinitatis]

I'll put it on Netflix. :-)

I think people meet a couple crazy homeschoolers, usually the ones who love to brag about the fact that they homeschool and how devoted the mother is for doing this (you know, like she should be canonized or something), and they get "the label". From then on, any homeschooler this person meets gets "the label". On the other hand, people may not realize that they know other, perfectly normal, homeschoolers because they aren't obnoxious about it.

But then again, that's true of anyone. Except people who graduated from Harvard. They're only too happy to mention it three or four times in a single conversation. Not a single one will let an opportunity to mention it just pass by. :-) (That came from a movie as well, but it escapes me which one.)