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.”
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
No, not all of them. Just most of them.
I'm sure some parents do quite well at it. My point is that
MOST parents can't.. and never will.
I'm sure that's so.. but the vast majority of people remain
unqualified to homeschool. They simply do not have the ability to do so.
I absolutely agree. As a parent, you know your child and his/her experiences much better than I ever could. You can make connections and use examples that are directly related to your child's real life experiences. You don't have to try to teach one concept and attempt to tailor it to the 5 who already know the information, the 3 it is designed for, 5 more who need some background to understand it and 6 who cannot come close to understanding.
Classroom teaching is MUCH different than homeschooling. People who are very successful at homeschooling may not be successful classroom teachers.
I support homeschooling 100%. But not everyone wants to do it or feels qualified to do it. That is why we have schools.
The question is not "are most parents qualified to homeschool" as much as "are the parents who currently choose to homeschool qualified". The answer to the second, based on the actual test results, appears to be a resounding "yes".
As long as the parents who are actually doing it, CAN, and the ones who can't, DON'T (which seems to be the case, from looking at test scores, except for a small minority of parents who say "I'm homeschooling" to cover up "he's truant and I can't do anything about it so leave me alone"), then there's no problem.
So what's your problem over the current state of homeschooling?
Are you saying there is a high percentage of parents CURRENTLY HOMESCHOOLING who are not competent to do so?
No, I'm saying most parents are not qualified to teach anything.
I grow weary of repeating myself on this.
Teachers must take certification tests. As a freshman in high school, I helped my brother's girlfriend study for the GED. It was incredibly easy.
I took 2 PRAXIS tests last June. The hard part about the PRAXIS Content Knowledge test is that it tests a very broad range of information. Can you identify the definition of "limerick"? Can you also identify the most important impact of, say, the Marshall Plan? Can you solve various equations? With the exception of the math portion, it is nearly impossible to study for. Either you know the information or you don't. This is why, I suspect, we hear about teachers who fail the test multiple times.
The other PRAXIS test I took was an essay test about educational practices. One reads a scenario and responds to questions asking how the teacher could have approached a problem in a better way, or asking what the teacher did correctly. The biggest challenge there was to finish the test in the time given. We were given about 3 minutes per question to formulate and write a coherent answer.
So, having experience with both PRAXIS and GED, I say you'd be wasting your time by having teachers take a GED. I would be most opposed to taking another test, whatever it was! Not because I fear I could not pass the test, but because it is likely that said test would do no more to test my teaching ability than the PRAXIS tests did. What I don't know, I can look up, as many homeschooling parents have stated.
As far as I know, you have multiple doctorates. That doesn't change the fact that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I was homeschooled my entire life by my mother who had no post-high school education. I guess she was just too dumb to do it, and I've been screwed since kindergarten, right?
That makes you an idiot.
Who says you have to teach your kid? I learned algebra, calculus and physics on my own. From books. With no other assistance.
I agree that some of what passes for homeschooling is just the parents floundering around and running essentially a daycare center, and I also agree that "socialization" may be stunted in such an environment, but it's my opinion that homeschooling doesn't have a worse batting average than conventional methods, as far as turning out useful members of society...
Is that what you think of my home? Well, all I can say is, "up yours!"
1 + 2 = 2 + 1?
More importantly, can you tell me what is the purpose of education?
Do all children have to know algebra?
Why?
Who has the authority to make this decision?
Where does this authority come from?
Is it possible for a parent to learn a subject along with his child?
Is it possible for a child to learn independently?
Is it possible for a child to learn algebra independently using a pre-packaged curriculum?
"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.'"
Interpretation: "We authoritarian, big-government types don't like homeschoolers showing up government schools by outperforming them. Even worse, we are terrified that there are going to be kids out there that are not indoctrinated in correct government ways of thought. How can we inculcate PC doctrine if these crazy parents don't turn their kids over to the state?"
I have a degree in engineering, and took Calc I through Calc IV and differential equations. Today, I don't even know what a differential equation is. I don't work as an engineer, so who cares?
Looking back, I would have been much better off studying something important, like Scholastic philosophy and theology, which I've been studying on my own since graduating. The process has been much more rewarding.
Dear Dianna,
"Classroom teaching is MUCH different than homeschooling."
Yes, and inherent in this difference is much of the ignorant, bigoted anti-homeschooling mythology. It's true that most parents don't have the skills to teach classes of 30 kids that often vary every 40 - 60 minutes. But that's a personnel management issue, not an education issue.
As well, you're correct that parents have a better feel for their children, and can better relate educational topics to their children. Added to this is the fact that no one cares more for a child than his parents (the small number of truly criminal parents notwithstanding).
Of course, the truly bigoted, ignorant anti-homeschoolers set up a strawman - not every parent is qualified to teach every child every subject. Gee whiz! Who said different?
But I don't know of any homeschoolers who plan to teach their children every subject, on their own, without any assistance whatsoever, K-12.
The homeschooling family will use the resources available to them as they need them and as they find them. Lots of homeschooling families switch to regular schooling at high school, precisely because they recognize that some advanced high school subjects may be beyond their ability. It's quite obvious that folks with a high school diploma will usually be intellectually competent to homeschool through sixth or eighth grade, but the high school years are certainly tougher.
And accordingly, far fewer homeschoolers go right through high school.
However, increasingly, homeschoolers are braving even high school, because as the movement grows, so grow the resources available to us. Through co-ops and shared tutors, many homeschoolers are able to provide excellent high school curricula for their children.
But of course, the bigots and the paid shills (Free Republic has had paid shills before, advancing their paymasters' causes - one wonders which of the anti-homeschool bigots running around here are getting paychecks directly or indirectly from the NEA or its tentacles) run around shouting, "Not every parent can teach every child every subject!! Not everyone can homeschool!!"
Well, of course not, bigots. These bigots are bringing the typical liberal public schooling mentality to the question, which is that we have to find THE cookie cutter with which to educate EVERY SINGLE child. But homeschooling isn't about finding a single solution that fits every child. It's about CHOICE. It's about FREEDOM. It's about the freedom for families to devise a unique educational program for each child, according to his needs, as opposed to squeezing the child into the cookie cutter mold at the local public warehouse, er,... school.
And sometimes those choices include public schools, because there are plenty of good public schools out there. Regrettably, there are also plenty of not-so-good ones, and lots of bad ones, and plenty of really atrocious ones, as well. Sadly, it seems that where folks are most concentrated - our cities - schools are often the worst, thus miseducating millions upon millions of children.
Homeschooling isn't for everyone, but most parents have the capability, at least for K-8, to do a better job than most public schools actually do.
sitetest
Translation:
Your child will not be exposed to homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviancy, nor will they be forced to learn about the peace-loving Islamofascists. (I have no idea what he means by impoverished.)
Thankfully, I don't make life decisions based on what a few numbskulls on FR (like you) insist is the proper way to live.
As for teaching : TRY IT. or are you a coward to find out just how dumb YOU are?
I appreciate that you have an open-mind about homeschooling and public schooling. Our sons are grown men now. Both were homeschooled until they reached high school age. One joined the military and became a satellite communications expert, and served in Iraq. The other is a construction foreman and doing very well too.
I think kids can do well in public school IF their parents are as "hands on", so to speak, as most homeschool parents are. Even when our sons entered public high school, we were very much involved. Unfortunately, they would have been farther ahead if we had continued to homeschool through their high school years. Through homeschooling, they were ahead of their peers in all academic subjects, and the next four years were spent mostly just treading water. We did homeschool our youngest son's Senior year because he was tired of "treading water". LOL
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