What, like this guy's training? Read the whole article, it's short and as a homeschooling mom, I find it hysterically funny. I would not be amused if he taught one of my jedis, though.
And what training or experience backs up that judgement?The parents who homeschool are, I make no doubt, close to universally graduates of public or parochial high school. If any are not, they will learn while teaching their children--so even if the child's education suffers theoretically from the parents' limited competence in the subject matter, more total learning would occur. And that theoretical failure may in fact be positive rather than negative, serving as a challenge to the child to master what the parent does not command.
If the child is motivated to learn, s/he will tend to fill in any gaps as experience and further study allows. Failure to motivate the child to learn is the only way to really fail as an educator. And for a significant portion of their students, public schools routinely do fail to do that.
What curriculum would prepare a parent to homeschool? Any curriculum developed by the education establishment would, most assuredly, be intended more to discourage the prospective tutor than to empower her or him. Would the curriculum include "classroom management?" What?
I would respectfully disagree, though, about the need for formal training. There are other, far more important characteristics for a parent to have, such as love, maturity, and plain ol' grit, in order to homeschool; parents need to have sound judgment and a good understanding of themselves (helpful to really any parent, whether their kids are in public/private/home school). I've just met too many smart, intelligent, wise people with very little/no formal education, and very immature, common-sense-lacking people with massive post-graduate degrees, who broke down my misconceptions about the need for formal educations.
There are so many amazing resources for the homeschooling parent -- we are more fortunate in that way than just about any other cohert of people in history. Heck, I taught myself to read before school started, even in the home of an enlisted military guy and his barely-english speaking wife in base housing -- just because of my access to just a few resources in those tender years.
I think the bottom line is freedom. Guess what, ladies, you have so many wonderful choices that your sisters before you never dreamed of, except for perhaps a few visionaries. For those who feel "peer pressure" to homeschool - get over it, grow up, and find new friends (I know, I know, you can't just find new family readily, and they can be a challenge); for those who feel "peer pressure" to NOT homeschool -- again, you should have control over your response to those forces. I think, overall, the regulatory and institutional risks that are still facing homeschoolers, aren't facing public school parents (e.g., intrusive government, NEA).
Just a few thoughts.
What, pray tell, is justified in your to demand to use police power to assure your interests in my kids? What qualification do your agents in government possess to make that judgment?
What, like this guy's training? Read the whole article, it's short and as a homeschooling mom, I find it hysterically funny. I would not be amused if he taught one of my jedis, though.
Speaking as a homeschooling parent, most of the homeschool parents I know DO have formal training. We have parents with degrees in Engineering, History, Liberal Arts, all sorts of subjects where you actually have to know things besides psycho-babble and edu-speak
Considering the fact that homeschoolers consistently have better test scores than public schoolers, I would counter that perhaps it would help matters if schoolteachers had formal training -- in their subject matter.