Posted on 01/10/2006 4:17:33 PM PST by wagglebee
SURREY, January 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – B.C home schooling parents are dismayed after discovering harsh comments about home schooling made by Jim McMurtry, Liberal party candidate for South Surrey, B.C., in the September/October 2003 edition of Teacher Magazine.
McMurtry wrote that parents who educate their children at home are “condemning their children to an impoverished, friendless, and segregated learning environment.” Home schooling parents, he said, “participate in what can be perceived as a form of child abuse.”
Paul Faris, Director of the Home School Legal Defence Association said, “Jim McMurtry has insulted every home schooling family in Canada,”
Study after study has shown that the academic and socialization outcomes for the average home schooled child are superior to those experienced by the average public school student,” said Deani Van Pelt, author of Home Education in Canada.
Ironically, McMurtry himself has himself hosted in-house classes for high school students. In 1992, the Toronto Star reported that a then-suspended teacher Jim McMurtry was holding impromptu classes for his grade 12 law class at his home in Ajax, Ontario. According to the Star article, McMurtry read passages from Northrop Frye’s “On Education” and portions of his own PhD thesis on censorship to 14 students who sat on the floor and filled every available chair.
The assertion that home schooling has detrimental effects on children, though popular on the political left, is strongly refuted by the available data. In October 2003, the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) released a study of 7000 adults who had been educated at home showing that home schooling has significant positive impact on the students’ future success. American universities are changing their admissions policies to include provisions for home schooled applicants, who regularly score significantly higher than publicly schooled confreres.
The NHERI study showed that 74% of home-educated adults ages 18-24 have taken college-level courses, compared to 46% of the general United States. 59% of the subjects reported that they were "very happy" with life, while only 27.6% of the general U.S. population is "very happy" with life. 95% of the home school graduates surveyed said they were glad that they were home schooled.
Given McMurtry’s affiliation with the scandal-plagued Liberal Party, his objections may also come from the results that showed home schooling significantly raises awareness of political realities. A mere 4.2% of the respondents said they consider politics and government too complicated to understand, compared to 35% of U.S. adults.
Given the general liberal antipathy to religious belief, McMurtry’s poor opinion of home schooling could also derive from the 94% of those surveyed who said, “My religious beliefs are basically the same as those of my parents.”
LOL! I guess our gunner thought that his screen name and tag line would give him carte blanche.
We shall see. :)
Gotta log off now, but take care, don-o, and, all the best to your friends and family, in 2006. I don't mean to be presumptious, but I will think of you in my prayers tonight. :)
Those guys at Nanaimo are serious. Speed tubs.
LOL!
For an American, you're one of the best, most dedicated Canadians I know.
On election night, I'll chill the beer, you bring the popcorn.
:-)
You are absolutely right, as far as I'm concerned.
I do think (and hope) that average Canadians are starting to wake up and to think that "hey: we dont always have to be against Americans in order to have a culture."
There is a serious national discussion that should be had, amongst Canadians. You don't have to be anti-"everything US" in order to be a country. And this is serious, now. People are dying because people are so afraid of even talking about any kind of incorporation of some form of privitazation (again, people will not speak the dreaded US word), that people are getting sick and the health care sytem is falling apart
"Those guys at Nanaimo are serious Speed tubs"
Unfortunely the Nanaimo Bath Tub Races were concelled a few years ago due to a combination of lack of funds and Coast Guard regs.
There used to be Tug races in Nanaimo until a couple of Tugs sunk by exeeding their hull speed. The Tug race was the last of the great work boat races in Canada.
Today the greatest, and most incredible resource available to homeschoolers is the world wide web. I can't tell you how many times it has bailed me out of some minutiae that my kids come across in their schoolwork.
And, humblegunner, I may not know everything there is to know about all subjects my kids are in, but I have given them the greatest and most important gift of all in regards to education: how to research a subject. I cannot tell you how many times I was stifled in public school due to: other students ridiculing my questions, desires; the teacher not being able to answer my questions and reprimanding me for asking.
Nice work Freepers. It is so encouraging to see real fols who are doing the work to raise the generation that have opportunity to begin to save the Republic.
AMEN!!! Not to mention the fact that it has come out in the news lately that the very middle school that my daughter was supposed to attend (yes, one of those vaunted Public Schools that claims to be "accredited") was the scene of a rape. A girl got dragged into the boys bathroom and assaulted.
If certain homeschool detractors want to come on and lecture me about how stupid I am, then I hope he has the intestinal fortitude to hear what I think about his frightening lack of conscience.
I had just been homeschooling my kids a couple of years when Columbine happened. Had a friend, living in Denver at the time, comment to me how lucky I was to know where my kids were.
I also have a babysitter for a few years before that that had a teenage daughter get assaulted in a public school hallway, between classes. The perpetrator was back in school the very next day. How can anyone subject their beautiful daughters to that?
I also have=I also had
Most people are abusing them (kids) by doing so.
You, sir, are a complete idiot.
Oh, and I hate H Ross Perot. The way I understand it, it was because of his Essential Elements program in Texas that was part of the horrid downslide of the public schools...but I could be wrong.
I despise that man anyway.
You're right about the Calvert curriculum. It's one of the best, IMO. We had the option of two different curriculums when we homeschooled our sons in Alaska. Calvert was one option, and I can't remember the name of the other. We were told that Calvert was the more difficult of the two, so we chose that one.
I had to re-learn how to diagram sentences and spent many nights studying. Some folks do not understand that you do not have to be an expert in every subject in order to homeschool. It does, however, take enough brains to know where to go when there's something that you, the parent/teacher, cannot figure out. You wouldn't think that'd be such a daunting thought to some people, but obviously, as we've seen on this thread, it would be for some.
Ok, I am not a homeschooling proponent, although I fully believe it is the best choice in many cases. That being said, this guy is an idiot.
Your statement is just as idiotic as the statement from the Canuck.
A reasonable statment on a homeschooling thread? Are you in the right place?
Using the Calvert curriculum, we found out that what our homeschool advisor had told us from the beginning was true. By the time our son finished 8th grade in the Calvert program, he was extremely advanced compared to his peers in public school. When he was in 9th grade, we placed him in our local public school. He spent the next four years being bored to death with their curriculum. He had already "been there, done that".
He's full of it for pointing out that someone who is uneducated isn't qualified to teach advanced mathematics?
Ahhhh, there's nothing like an equipment operator with a big piece of equipment to send a gal swoonin'. LOL!
It was nice chatting with you too. See you 'round the threads. Chena :)
This statement is an opinion at best, and an unproved, baseless load of crap at worst.
Just so you know, I think calling homeschooling child abuse is an ignorant thing to say.
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