Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 15, 2011 at 11:25pm

Well, work will be a culture shock. I am not necessarily against homeschooling completely, I just don't think that homeschooling is in the best interest of some particular children. If the mother that is homeschooling has the I.Q. of a golf ball, her child would benefit from being in a classroom rather than sitting at home while she watches Jerry Springer all day. Some children are lucky enought to have a parent that is very educated and cares about the success of the child. I am obviously not talking about a situation like this. My problem is the instances like my cousin that I wrote about in the original post. Unfortunately, there are many parents that don't care about their child's education and they teach what they think, not what the book states as facts. For instance, my aunt and uncle do not believe dinosaurs ever existed. Their child that they homeschool does not believe dinosaurs ever existed. I have asked him what he thinks about the fossils and he says the government planted them there. I asked him why he thinks they would do that and his answers is "huh,huh I don't know. You ask dumb questions". He says it is impossible for dinosaurs to have ever been real because they are not in the bible. I try to ask him open-ended questions all of the time and he just looks at me. He cannot hold a serious converstation and it seems he can't even think about things clearly.

On the topic of social skills: if there are other places that a child can acquire the social skills needed, I think it is great. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single way that homeschoolers in my area would be able to interact with other children, unless they went to church.

Oh, and because he hasn't had the chance to be around anyone outside of his race, he holds his parent's views on others. They are racist and they have passed it on to him. Not saying in my popultion of 800 town there is going to be many different ethnic groups, but I think it would help if he got to be around them instead of just hearing about them.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Wayne on February 15, 2011 at 1:29am

No, school is not a parent's choice.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on February 15, 2011 at 7:08am

The education of children is not a parent Right. It is their Responsibility. Children are the ones with the Right to be educated. I was at a talk recently where Dan Dennett suggested that changes should be made to the school curriculum. Currently the 3 “R’s” - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic are considered the basis of a good education system. He suggested that it now becomes the 4 “R’s” with Religion becoming the fourth one. By Religion he means teaching about all world religions in a philosophical and historical context.

These 4 subjects would be part of the examination system and would need to be undertaken in order to progress through the education system. So even if somebody is home schooled they would have to study the 4 mandatory subjects. This would give children a much broader world vision.

My view is that this should become mandatory. Parents would be held liable for neglecting their child’s education if they did not let them learn the history of religion. When I hear of children of Muslim parents being able to recite the Koran at age 11 (or younger) or 6 year old kids of Christian parents quoting Bible scriptures I feel saddened that these children have lost out on so much of their childhood. It is one of the worst aspects of religion. Home Schooling to indoctrinate a child into one religion and isolate them from other children is Child Abuse.

“It is easier to build stronger children than repair broken men” Frederick Douglas.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ed on February 15, 2011 at 8:48pm

Parents DO have a right to control what their children are exposed to. That's not open for debate. If the parent doesn't watch out for the child who will? Issues such as pornography and violence should be taken seriously. Childhood exposure to the world should be carefully monitored. Let um be kids first for crying out loud.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 15, 2011 at 8:55pm

Actually, it is open for debate, otherwise we would not be debating it.

Do the children have no rights to an education? If a parent decides to control what their child is exposed to to such an extent that they are illiterate, do we simply say to the child (now grown) "Tough luck, your parents wanted to keep you ignorant and you just get to deal with it?"

There is a balance between the parents' right to raise their child and a child's right to a decent education. In my opinion, parents have a right to control what their children are exposed to, within limits. those limits are imposed by the child's right to have a decent education. The catch is defining 'decent education'.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ed on February 17, 2011 at 9:01pm

I agree. A child can be offered parental protection and given a sound education at the same time.

Education never stops. There is no time limit for learning; when they finally fly from the nest they will start an altogether new learning experience: paying the bills....   :^ )

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Atheist Mama on February 15, 2011 at 11:16am

This is a topic that is very touchy for me.  I am an atheist and I am a homeschooling parent.  I also happen to run one of the largest homeschool co-ops in my state and my state consistently ranks at the bottom of the educational charts.  We happen to live in a fairly liberal area so I know other atheist and non-religious homeschoolers, but I also know that a huge majority of my and my son's peers are devout Christians.

 

A common argument against homeschooling is "What about socialization?"  Let me tell you, 90% of the children I know, and I have regular contact with literally hundreds of children, are amazingly well adjusted and socialized.  Homeschooling is not sitting at a table in the kitchen doing flashcards and drills for six hours a day.  The homeschooled child is out there in the world, taking classes, hitting up the library, having sleepovers on Tuesday nights, talking with strange adults they've never met, playing nicely with children of the opposite sex and different ages.  The average homeschooled child, at least in my experience, is far more socialized than the average school child.  As an example, we have a park day every week and kids ranging in age from 1-14 show up.  Sure some of the kids naturally break off into smaller subgroups, but it's not at all unusual for the teens to be seen digging in the sand with six year olds they've never met before.  It's not unusual for my nine year old to help a four year old climb a tree, and it's not at all unusual for the girls and boys to play together and consider one another best friends.  By removing the segregating structure of the public school system, children stop identifying peers by age and sex.  It's really an amazing thing to see.

 

Educationally, I have found that even if a parent is very lax about what they require from their children, they still tend perform above their schooled counter-parts.  Maybe that's a reflection on the crappy state of my state's public education system, but I think it's speaks more to the natural ability children have for learning.  An ability that is oftentimes squelched in public schools. Children have very different styles for learning, even among various subjects, and a school can't accommodate different styles of learning. There are just too many students to allow for individuality.   Are there parents who are doing a disservice to their children by letting them do nothing all day or forcing them to read the bible and nothing else?  Yeah, sure there are.  But that's not the whole picture of homeschooling. Besides, the reality is that there are no set curricula in public schools.  I could send my son to the school down the street and  he'd be learning one thing.  If we moved across town and enrolled him in a different school, he'd be learning something else entirely.  If we moved again, this time to another state, he'd have a different curriculum yet again. Students can't keep up with their peers from one school to the other, so claiming that home-educating a child is irresponsible because he's not where his peers are is a non-argument. Perhaps if there were ever a core curriculum that was adopted by the national government and enforced by the states, that would be a valid argument against homeschooling. But there's not, and I doubt there ever will be.

 

I could expound on my reasons for homeschooling for hours, but to answer the original question, I am strongly in favor of private education. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on February 15, 2011 at 11:43am

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on February 15, 2011 at 11:44am

I have more to add later...but this is a chart that kind of goes to show what kind of homeschooling you will get depending on what state you live in..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robyn on February 17, 2011 at 9:37pm

This doesn't show that the kind of homeschooling you will get will differ from state to state.  How well a parent educates their child is not correlated with how much paperwork they fill out and send to the state.  Parents who live in a state with less regulation don't care less about their child's education.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Atheist Mama on February 15, 2011 at 2:59pm

And this link and map show the kind of public school education you'll get depending on what state you live in.

Public school 8th grade comparison by state

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Atheist Mama on February 15, 2011 at 12:29pm

Yay for you and Myles!

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page