Monday, April 02, 2007
Home Schooling in Missouri
I just don't get home schooling. How can parents think they know everything about everything? Why don't they value different points of view? I always wanted my children to be exposed to other ways of thinking and not just my way of thinking. Isn't that what education is all about?
[Hat Tip: Greg Laden]
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20 comments :
Homeschooling is almost exclusively a christian right-wing phenomenon. They don't want to educate their children, they want to make them in non-thinking christian zombies.
To christians, the greatest sin is to think.
That woman should not be allowed to teach anything. Teaching should encourage a person to think not to "do as I do".
Not all home schoolers are like this.
We home school our two boys, but we also teach them evolution and other topics that the public schools seem to overlook.
I personally do not agree with homeschooling, but I do have a friend who was homeschooled, and got a wonderful education. He's one of the most intelligent, well-rounded people I have ever met. His parents were both trained as a high school teachers, though. I think that's part of what made his education so worthwhile.
"Homeschooling is almost exclusively a christian right-wing phenomenon. They don't want to educate their children, they want to make them in non-thinking christian zombies."
Unless you have data to support this assertion, I suspect strongly that it's just blind prejudice on your part.
What you describe certainly exists, but it's by no means the whole story in my (limited) experience.
Scott, go to some homeschooling websites and look at the crap they dole out to their kids.
Just read their own literature, look at their recommended textbooks.
It's mostly pure garbage.
I'm a school math teacher and I often think about home schooling my children. I currently don't have children, but here are my thoughts on the subject.
I think about home schooling because I live in Texas and I want to teach sex ed to my children not the abstinence-only curriculum that they have here. I want them to study the bible and other religious texts in a scholarly fashion without having to worry about being told I'm a heretic. I want them to be taught phonics and handwriting, subjects that are not currently taught in schools here. I want them to explore their surroundings and not worry about ever present standardized tests. Basically, I want to be more rigorous than the schools here.
On the down side, however, I worry that if I did home school my children they wouldn't know how to interact with children their own age.
So, where does that leave me? I’m trying to change the way we educate our children.
I absolutely agree that the mother in that video should not be allowed to teach anybody anything let alone teach science to adolescents (only .6 of a degree? - well that sure convinced me that there is nothing to global warming - I better go tell Al Gore. And by the way, what's the deal with fundies objecting to the idea of ozone holes and global warming, anyway?)
However, I must assert that
group-schooling is not an appropriate learning environment for all children. One does not need to "know everything about everything" to successfully homeschool. (Elementary and highschool teachers certainly don't, even if some university professors do...)
Just because fundagelical Christians use homeschooling as a way to avoid their kids learning "unacceptable" ideas and being exposed the different points of view does not mean that other homeschoolers are taking this approach. One does not need to send kids to school to properly expose them to other ways of thinking.
And, re socialization:
On the down side, however, I worry that if I did home school my children they wouldn't know how to interact with children their own age.
There are other (often better) ways to teach social interaction apart from school. I am mystified as to why so many people are convinced that the best way for children to learn how to become good citizens who can contribute to adult society is to throw them in minimally-supervised, age-segregated groups.
What's with these people and global warming, anyway? Unlike evolution, it's not as if it directly contradicted some major chunk of the Bible. But the last bunch of creationists I encountered also had a bug-up-the-butt about it.
Rationally, it's something that could be right or wrong, and we should discuss that on its merits, without attaching it to this other agenda. The fact that instead, it does get attached to all their other issues, I think shows that the major motivation of these people not only isn't science, it isn't even religion in the "spiritual" sense - it's all about politics and group identity. AGW is just another one of those librul things like evolution, so we're automatically agin it, cuz we're all good conservative Christians here.
What's with these people and global warming, anyway?
Guilt by association. The "global warming" scare (not the theory, mind you, but the use of the theory for political propaganda) comes largely from the political left, which is generally viewed by fundies as being statist, socialist, anti-technology, and largely anti-religion. Fundies, of course, assume that liberals are wrong about everything as a matter of course. So the fundies reacted on autopilot, and assumed that global warming was as much a pack of lies as everything else the left says, a hoax devised by leftists to help push the leftist agenda.
As for your post, Larry: my understanding is that many parents do homeschool out of intolerance, but many others homeschool precisely because they also want their kids to be exposed to multiple ways of thinking, and not just the views pushed by the state-run schools. And all political issues aside, the plain fact of the matter is that the majority of American state-run public schools suck at giving kids a useful education. Properly done, homeschooling is a vastly superior method of educating a kid.
"I think that Galileo made the right choice by giving up science for Christ".
Holy Crap! I just about spewed coffee all over the keyboard when I heard that. The man was tortured by the catholic church until he recanted and then died a couple of years later, a broken man under house arrest.
Kid needs a reality check.
I think Christianity has been at war with science for centuries and their resistance to global warming is just a manifestation of that, just like evolution was and is. Home schoolers naturally reject global warming simply because it is scientific. So why are Christians so anti-science? My guess is because they are taught from a young age to reject science because that is necessary for a continuation of that religion. The upper echelons of the Christian church have seen their powers take away by science little by little, so it is in their interest to instill fear and suspicion of science among their followers. Galileo is a great example of that. Theories of evolution do the same thing, and soon the biological basis of homosexuality will become clear, taking away another moral pillar from the right. If this continues, soon there will be little reason to believe the fairy tale of creation and Christian leaders won't get their 10% of their followers paychecks. I think it is perfectly understandable that Christian leaders reject science and encourage their followers to do the same, same goes for thinking in general.
The christainas are consistently ignoring the teachings of one of their own "saints":
Thomas Aquinas.
Who said that if the bible said one thing, and direct observation and experiment said another, then the bible was a book, written by people, and they'd obviously made a mistake somewhere ....
But they still take no notice and go on with this crap.
wolfwalker says,
As for your post, Larry: my understanding is that many parents do homeschool out of intolerance, but many others homeschool precisely because they also want their kids to be exposed to multiple ways of thinking, and not just the views pushed by the state-run schools.
I have trouble with that excuse. It's very unlikely that a parent could really expose their kids to more ways of thinking than several dozen teachers and several hundred students over the course of twelve years of schooling.
To take an extreme example, it may be very difficult for a well-educated liberal parent to show their children what ignorance and bigotry look like. You may laugh at this example but I'm deadly serious. It's part of a good education to expose children to the bad as well as the good.
And all political issues aside, the plain fact of the matter is that the majority of American state-run public schools suck at giving kids a useful education. Properly done, homeschooling is a vastly superior method of educating a kid.
In my opinion, a decent public school education is superior to the average home schooling. It's certainly better than what we see in the video in spite of the best intentions of the mother.
And, properly done, a good public school education is vastly superior to home schooling. Let's work at making the public schools better.
That made me sad.
Oh, who cares! A normal 12-yo can do grades 1-6 in a year. If you want children with sound bodies and minds with many and complex neural connections teach & encourage them to read and send them to “work” on a farm in a traditional rural community, if such still exist. Elementary school is a service for parents, not children. Don’t home-school adolescents; it deprives them of social skills which are more important than algebra and biology.
Homeschooling doesn't mean that kids never leave the house, it just means that they do not attend a group school for ~6hrs/day. There are plenty of other opportunities for exposure to other people - scouts, music programs, special interest classes, sports, hobby groups, libraries, museums, grocery stores (to name a few).
To take an extreme example, it may be very difficult for a well-educated liberal parent to show their children what ignorance and bigotry look like.
There is a difference between showing kids what ignorance and bigotry *look like* as opposed to forcing kids into a situation where the ignorance and bigotry are directed *at* them.
(If you really want to expose kids to ignorance and bigotry, I can think of many churches that would be much better at this than just about any school.)
In my opinion, a decent public school education is superior to the average home schooling.
I would agree that this is the case for perhaps 80-90% of children. But for those of us with kids in the 10-20%, homeschooling is the alternative that enables a kid to leave highschool (with failing grades) in grade 10, and then return to formal schooling at the post-secondary level, completing a technician program, and halfway through a technology program, with an A average.
It's certainly better than what we see in the video in spite of the best intentions of the mother.
That mother's teaching is execrable and indefensible. Her "best intentions" are clearly not *education* but *indoctrination*: Gallileo made the right decision to renounce science for Christ?!? Is she teaching geocentrism as well as creationism?
And, properly done, a good public school education is vastly superior to home schooling.
Agreed - properly done, the suitability numbers probably jump to 90-95% (and, for anyone in Ontario who would like to see "public schools" become more public: see this initiative to amalgamate Catholic and public school boards).
Let's work at making the public schools better.
I agree completely. Despite my continuing defense of homeschooling as an alternative, I remain a strong supporter of the public school system. (I personally volunteer one afternoon per week doing science and technology education at a local junior high school.)
I actually have heard opposition to global warming on religious grounds. According to the bible after the supposed deluge God promised Noah he would never flood the Earth. Since global warming involves flooding, some fundamentalists refuse to believe it because they think that would involve God breaking his promise. Of course when the flooding does come, and it will, they will have dug themselves another hole they will have to rationalize their way out of.
I was going to leave a comment, but it got rather long, and I moved it to my blog. However, there doesn't seem to be a trackback mechanism anywhere I can find, so the URL to the entry is:
http://madhadron.auditblogs.com/2007/04/16/homeschooling/
Elfishness of Elephantinium, people.
Perhaps this is "argument from innundation."
Is this how things are done in the Queen's Chilly Dominion?
__________________
I just don't get public schooling.
Try that one on for size.
See John Taylor Gatto on this one.
Golly, professor--gee. Looks like yet another site dedicated to "science" that (golly again) seems to pop out on the side of semi-socialist mush and slush and PC gush.
Is that reason as well?
Public school kids DO make compliant, nanny-state, orwellian oriented citizens who will do their duty to State and power and socialism. True.
But then what if you disagree.
On the bright side, if it's true the USA for one example actually does need millions of ignorant peasant to run yard services and swab tables, we don't need illegal immigrants any more.
We can just contact the NEA.
Thanks so much for yet another dismissal of actual creative ideas that can truly benefit the collective hive.
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/redirect.php?r=f770fe666fd1932b9b914ddd69a23770&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freedomofeducation.net%2F
As to that crapola about Galileo, the true historians will tell you that the martyr syndrome assigned to him is a little over the top, just as with Copernicus.
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Column.aspx?ContentGuid=1996ef45-26ea-4495-a904-3c445cb24f7c
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