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.”
Canada Ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.
Ignorant pest. Obviously not homeschooled.
Rose
Whatever you say, Zippy.
Joe works in a warehouse, he knows how to run a forklift and load a truck.
He's the Dad.
Linda works at El Camaron, a restaraunt. She waits tables.
She's the Mom.
Good folks, the both of them.
Little Jimmy needs to be taught algebra, but he's homeschooled.
Which parent shall teach him, Oh sage?
You have got to be s****ing me...
With all due respect, you are F.O.S.
What makes you qualified to call someone ignorant?
Is that all you have, assertion?
What a load.
Zippy indeed.
The belief that the ability to procreate equals the ability to teach is ignorant.
Anybody who can have kids is not automatically qualified to teach.
Are you getting this?
Yes, I assert that a forklift operator isn't qualified to teach algebra.
Refute that all you like, Zippy.
Incorrect. As a matter of fact, most teachers in the public school system are unqualified to teach. I can say that from personal experience.
Most people are abusing them (kids) by doing so.
Again grossly incorrect. Some of the sick indoctrination I saw in the public elementary schools is abuse.
We homeschooled and public schooled, and unless you deal with the public school people closely you can't realize how demented some of their thinking and teaching is. Some of it is beyond creepy.
None of us get your point.
You haven't posted anything cogent.
What you have done, rather, is simply asserted yourself.
Zippy again. Indeed. What are you, eight?
What really chaps their ass is that THEY don't get to indoctrinate the home-schooled children. Just another Lieberal idiotic statement.
What IS "algebra theory"?
We HS'ed #1 son to age 16. He learned algebra. Problems - equations. He's making all A's in his first semester in PS. Including Geometry - which looks like Calculus to me.
Seems to "Socialize" whatever that means, fine. Has an after school job, and making new friends. As well as keeping old friends.
You really believe that, or just trolling?
I know several forklift operators who could easily teach algebra. Could you?
This may or may not be the case. I know a fellow who parners with his wife running a shop that makes oak table tops. He has three Phds, his wife four. These are degrees in physics and math. Granted, these are unusual people. You can't really make the sort of judgements you are making without knowing a great deal more about the individuals. It is not impossible to image that someone who drives a forklift would know algebra. Knowledge of algebra doesn't make one a CEO, either.
Surely you jest, humblegunner. First of all, you imply by your post that someone who works in a warehouse and someone who is a waitress are less than intelligent, and obviously could not be able to comprehend algebra. Secondly, if neither of the parents is able to comprehend and teach their children algebra, they have a few options. They can hire a tutor, they can ask a friend, family member, or other homeschool parent who does understand algebra to help them out.
I had a friend who didn't feel qualified to teach geometry nor algebra to her son. I stepped in and taught them both. Not only did the son do very well, but the mother learned right along with him.
As you wish, Zippy.
Let the plumbers teach biology and the sheetrockers lecture on physics.
All parents are qualified to teach, simply by virtue of being able to procreate.
Happy now?
The dump-truck driver's class on political science is up next...
follwed by a fascinating class on health by a pair of crackheads
who manged to reproduce thus allowing them teaching credentials.
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