Posted on 10/15/2004 11:41:53 AM PDT by cinives
Reminds me of the following observation in an article published on LewRockwell.com:
The primary advantage of socialist education, we are told, is socialization. The ability to sniff the behinds of those around you, and ascertain your position in the pack, your place in the pecking order. In adult prisons, rapists help to put and keep "fresh meat" in its place. In kiddy penal institutions, bullies serve the same purpose.
I'm not sure if beagle is on your ping list, I wasn't sure who handled it for homeschoolers.
What a waste of time that school was!!
My oldest two kids finally went to a public school -- NC State University. They still have seven-year-old handwriting, alas, since I taught them to type around that age. Dori can hit 135 wpm, though, on the old keyboard! Our 8 year old finally mastered touch typed (16 wpm at the moment) -- so I'm starting her on Esperanto.
Thanks for the ping. Great article. My boys are four and we've decided to homeschool. I've gone back and forth, but we've finally made a decision. I am excited, terrified, nervous, hopeful...I know we're making the right decision for our circumstances, but it sure is scary!
Please put me on your ping list, thank you.
Excellent article! I have been homeschooling my 12-year-old son for three years now. I started for several reasons, most of them related to the sorry state of our public educational system and the horrors that take place every day in our schools.
My son is no longer on medication for his ADHD and has adjusted beautifully to life without meds the boredom he felt in school. Life is good again.
homeschool ping
I hadn't seen that article - a good one. I've read Gatto, Iserbyt and a few others.
I am also a homeschooler. In Kindergarden my son went through a variety of evalutions from his teacher. I kept asking myself, "whose child are they talking about?" The descriptions certainly didn't resemble the little boy I knew. Within the first six weeks of kindergarden the analysis had started. First, his teacher thought he had hearing loss. No, that wasn't the case. Then she decided it was a speech impediment. He did have some remnants of baby talk left, but I had already noticed that it was improving day by day. Within three months of school it was gone. So no, that wasn't it either. Then we moved on to the possibility that he was dyslexic. He did occasionally write his 7's, 9's and 5's backwards. He also got confused with b's and d's. I investigated this and discovered it was developementaly noraml. Lastly, you guessed it, came the mother of diagnosies, ADHD. This was because he not only fidgetted during the 45 minute quiet time, he also occasionally sang to himself, in a whisper I might add. Question, how many of us can sit still in a doctor's office waiting room for 20 minutes without fidgeting? His teacher began to insist that we place him into a program known as pre-first. It is a retention year. That means you are in affect holding your child back. She claimed that this was based on his maturity level, which in her expert opinion was lacking. I never considered this as an option, but when I received his acheivement test scores and they all ranked in the 95% and above, I decided it was time to do some serious asking around. We were fairly new to the area, lived there about 9 months. I began asking parents of his close friends, some of whose children had different teachers, all of them were little boys. I asked about seven or eight in all. What I discovered was astonishing! All, but one, had been recommended the pre-first program due to maturity levels. This lead me to two conclusions! Either the district was attempting to fill a quota for this program, or there was just an outright intolerance for the normal developement of little boys. I confronted my son 's teacher on this and for the remainder of the year she was unwilling to speak with me. Think I hit the nail on the head!
Anyhow, my son is now in 5th grade. I also have two daughters, 3rd and 1st grade. We have homeschooled ever since. My children are well adjusted, and intelligent! I am very proud of them! We have two out-of-town businesses and we are able to bring them and their school work with us when we go to check on these sites. Even our vacations have provided learning opportunities! I'm amazed at what my children, even my 1st grader are able to tell me. They'e learning to think, not just recite. The conclusions they draw from everyday events is astounding! Okay, I'll quit bragging. Let me just say though, that I thoroughly love homeschooling, not just because of the intellectual results I'm getting, but because it has allowed me to get to know my kids in a whole new way. I not only love them, I really, really like and enjoy them.
Apologies! This reply is nearly wordy enough to be a John Kerry answer. Except, I actually did say something, not just blah blah blah.
Oh LOL - maybe there's hope for her if she doesn't buy all of the liberal BS about being elitists if you don't subject your kids to public school.
There was an article about Mississippi homeschooling recently. Seems like it's growing by leaps and bounds; however, a public school official is worried to death because there are apparently no hoops for parents to jump through.
Anyhow, at the end of the article, a woman who has something to do with ACT and SAT test resporting said the Mississippi homeschoolers excelled on their SAT and ACT tests.
I wonder how public school kids, or private school kids for that matter, in Mississippi do on those tests?
From the article, self proclaimed "flaming liberal" admitting to the same reasons that I will not let my kids in a public school. Forcing them to lose their natural modesty, natural goodness, to "fit in."
ADHD - a situational "illness", visible only to the eyes of the beholder
I have the same problem with my daughter. It is horrific grading her schoolwork some days. But she can outtype me at 80 wpm some days.
ADHD - the full employment act for psychologists and school guidance councellors (with apologies to the honest ones)
I recently started homeschooling my 2 children, grades 6 and 9th. I live in Hawaii and well this is the worst school system in all the 50 states. Let me give you some reasons why I pulled them from public school here. Besides the fact Hawaii Public school system is behind most mainland schools by 2 yr., using books that are dated in the 1990's, they were also subjected to rasim. My daughters first day as a Freshmen should had been exciting with many positive things to discuss with mom. Instead she tells me with shocked mouth open, Mom in my journalism glass this girl told my teacher to F OFF! With my mouth open I asked her what the teacher did, she told me the teacher told the girl to watch it. That's IT! In every class she had, she was subjected to constant vulgarity and in her PE class even subjected to hearing sexual remarks made from students to the PE teacher. The school had to lock the bathroom doors because of students sneaking in there and having sex. She witnessed countless fights everyday. In her math class, half the students wore ear phones listening to music while the teacher taught and didnt care. I could go on and on. Would I perfer to have my children in school? YES. I have to consider their future and college. I can tell you now they do MORE work at home than public school. They are more responsible for getting their work done everyday. This has had a wonderful impact on their desire to learn. NO fighting to get them up for school and they learn at their own pace. They take in EVERYTHING they learn and when they get answers wrong, they are given a second chance to corret their mistake. Also, their self esteem has risen to higher levels!
I wonder if parents would pay public school tuition for their children if they had the opportunity to choose between private and public schools. Perhaps many would. On the otherhand, perhaps many would choose to spend their money elsewhere.
Nothing would shape up failing public schools faster. NCLB sure isn't going to do it.
Okay...that right there...that was funny.
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