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.”
I hope you figured that out earlier rather than later.
Your mis-grasp of my point demonstrates your lack of comprehension.
You got a problem with my screen name and tagline?
Who gets to decide which parents are qualified to teach? You? The government? What if a parent can competently teach every subject but insists on "brainwashing" their kid with Bible stories and moral lessons?
I was homeschooled from day one, mostly by my high school graduate mother. I'm studying computer science in graduate school now. Someday I'm going to teach my own kids. I think I'm qualified and you'd probably agree - but what about some government minion who thinks I should teach my kids about the joys of "diversity"?
Post 149: That makes you an idiot.
You are engaging in name-calling, a fourth-grade public school activity.
It demonstrates your ignorance and inability to compete in debate.
I hope you aren't "teaching" any children.
Go sweep the hallways, swamp out the fifth floor bathrooms and call it a day.
Ping!
Just in case anyone hasn't read this story yet.
You make the oh-so-common mistake of confusing "homeschooling" with "school at home." I have three children, age 10 and below, all "homeschooled". I never "teach". I supply materials and arrange their schedule and assist them, allowing them to take the lead. They use books, CDs, and videos and meet in groups, co-ops, library programs, and outside classes to pursue their interests.
Btw, given two equations, my oldest could figure the values of x and y when he was only six.
My only mistake was putting our oldest in a 6-week school summer program for first grade. It was so dumbed-down. It was a science program, and my child knew more than the teacher. There, he learned that other kids didn't know as much as he did, and his very comment was, "Mommy, I don't have to know as much as I do."
The only way I was able to convince him that he should continue learning at a fast pace was to tell him what other homeschooled children we knew were doing: "You have to compare yourself to other homeschoolers, not kids in school, because the school holds them back."
That's what you're not considering - all the time wasted in school, waiting for the next lesson, waiting for other kids to catch up, waiting for the school to decide you "should" learn algebra or whatever other subject you can handle, and how the love of learning is squashed in a prison-like atmosphere.
LOL! I guess you didn't read my profile to see what I do for a living. A living brought about by my excellent education by my "unqualified" parents who were "abusing" me, according to your incredibly educated, well-thought out remarks.
This statement is an opinion at best, and an unproved, baseless load of crap at worst.
It is an opinion. An opinion based on anecdotal experience. It is most certainly not baseless, and definitely not crap.
We HSed until high school. My daughter spent 3 years at a public HS. I had close enough dealings with the teachers (and administrators) to form this opinion. I also have friends that have been teachers for several decades that will agree to the extent that they would probably say many, rather than most.
Crap is what we put up with for the 3 years of public school. Unmitigated, continuous crap. Algebra teachers (with dregees in math) that had to ask my daughter for help. Teachers that gave out copies of the test the night before and then the test was open book. School counselors that lied through their teeth about requirements to get into state colleges. I could write a book about the incompetent crap I personally saw over these 3 years.
So, yes, there is nothing of the scientific method in my statement. But there are a bunch of first hand experiences to back it up.
I CAN read, you know...but apparently you want me and the others on this thread to MISread and READ INTO what youve posted as the definitive characterization of homeschoolers, thereby proving your assertion that we really are dumb as rocks. I think you misread what *I* wrote : public schools SUCK.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUCK!!
BIG TIME.
And I will encourage ANYONE to get out of those awful places and do their own schooling because that alone proves they are smarter than your Average Administrator who only wants to line his pockets with the money the government throws at the schools and then bash the teachers for not pulling in good scores. THEY SUCK.
The fact that you used a pejorative against homeschoolers to begin with proves you CANNOT defend your position.
Teachers as a "profession" in Canada are the bedrock of socialism just like they are in Cuba, former USSR, and even the US. Makes me glad that I'm an engineer. Stereotypical conservative and proud of it!
CONGRATS!
Hug your mom! She obviously was a wonderful teacher, and you are living proof of her efforts. You'll be a wonderful mother and teacher. Apples DO fall near the tree. :)
You rock! (can an almost 50 year old mother use that term? LOL)
Thank you for your military service, Future Snake Eater. And thank your parents for raising such an intelligent and honorable man for me. :)
Actually sounds more like he's describing your average public school; impoverished, friendless, and segregated. HA! Public school "socialization" is something my kids and I can live without. I had as much "socialization" as I could stomach during my school years and that is a major reason we homeschooled. I wouldn't ever want to subject the children I love so much to what I went through. I haven't been to a class reunion yet. I keep in touch with who I want on my own.
So that would include most "teachers" who are married and have families. NEWS FLASH! Most public school teachers are not qualified to teach. When the teachers fail to pass the high school proficiency exams that the students are expected to pass to get out of high school, they are not qualified. (This happens regularly in Buffalo and results in a big blow up every few years). My son, who is trying PS for the first time, is teaching the other kids in his math class their math, (which he had two years ago) while his teacher is out in the hall flirting with the one of the other teachers. And besides, at the college I went to which was considered one of the foremost teaching colleges at one time, the teaching degree was considered the degree for anyone who couldn't handle a real course load. The subject taught for "teaching majors only" were nowhere near as rigorous as the ones you took for your major. Teachers are NOT taught to teach, they sink or swim when they get out in the real world.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.