Posted on 08/19/2008 1:01:58 PM PDT by jazusamo
I certainly agree the central planners motive may be bad, but even if their motive is good, they are not the experts compared to your knowlege about your situation or millions of other situations and their situations.
Thanks cic, excellent post.
My kids don’t talk back or threaten to sue me. They know better.
That is not the case in most inner city, public schools.
Control of the environment has as much to do with learning as the structure and application of the curriculum.
Don’t forget the fact that most people who say stuff like “all the homeschoolers I met are weird” are usually drawing from a pool of their crazy sister-in-law and that weird lady down the street. Contrary to popular belief, homeschool graduates do not have a big red H tattooed on their forehead.
If you met me, or my husband, or my homeschooled coworker, in a business setting you would probably not guess we had been homeschooled. If you took your dog to my homeschooled sister-in-law for treatment or had my homeschooled sister teaching your freshman kid World History 101, you probably wouldn’t know.
Sure I was a little weird as a kid - way into reading and science fiction, not too interested in clothes or boys, but I attribute that to my personality. Being homeschooled allowed me to indulge my likes rather than hiding them. School is an unfriendly place to be the chubby girl who doesn’t wear makeup and reads Heinlein and wrecks the math curve. I’m glad my parents made the sacrifices to ensure that didn’t happen to me.
You're right. He rules!
He sure does and consistently with many many different subjects.
I kinda agree, but political correctness has really wrecked public education.
In addition, social changes have dramatically changed the teacher pool. Once teaching was a popular career for intelligent woman who wanted a job with mommy hours. Now, the put the kids into daycare. Bad for the kids, the family and society.
Sure I was a little weird as a kid - way into reading and science fiction, not too interested in clothes or boys, but I attribute that to my personality. Being homeschooled allowed me to indulge my likes rather than hiding them. School is an unfriendly place to be the chubby girl who doesn’t wear makeup and reads Heinlein and wrecks the math curve. I’m glad my parents made the sacrifices to ensure that didn’t happen to me.
That's not weird; that's you being all that God made you to be, and walking tall with that, JenB! :)
Excellent points—and they need repeating as long as the stigma is applied.
No class, race, or gender, has a monopoly on weirdness or social deficiency. It occurs across the board. Social misfits abound in public school. To single out a class for a deficiency is uncivil brutality calculated to demean.
However, I did wish to address SBprone's point.
And to do so, I tell you that when my eldest was about 3 years old, I did look into homeschooling. I attended a social event at a park. Very, very nice people. What I saw then was a group of highly civilized, academically oriented families. At the same time, elsewhere at this public park, was a group of pub-ed schoolers using the park for an activity; call it "recess". This group was racuous, not very civil, fairly wild, more into fun, being cool, racing the wind. My husband I decided that night to try pub ed. Why? We wanted our daughter "mainstreamed". We wanted her to find her bearings inside a "microcosm" of the society at large.
Well, some have already heard the rest of my adventures in this regard, as to how my daughter came to be homeschooled very soon after her onset in pub ed.
The real issue, which made us decide: Is our daughter actually getting an education.
We began homeschooling. Not at all in isolation, not at all to "hide" from the microcosm of the public "at large".
We knew that a "child should be trained from the get-go" in how they should live. And going the pub ed path in the location we were living was a sure way to ensure chaos and trouble and little to no education. Just lots of fun, indoctrination, fitting in, conflict resolution, gangs, foul language, mispelling, no science, little math.....
Inside the pub ed classroom was one whole "recess".
I, for one, didn't take offense to SBprone's words: I wished to address it, on the level, with what my own experiences have been. SBprone found homeschoolers with a "wierdness" factor. Homeschooling takes place 24-7: It's a lifestyle. Fully getting into any location and experience. Being vital and aware of one's full surroundings.
Pub Ed: Another lifestyle, largely involving going for what one wants, ignoring all other the factors around, and having a good time.
I really didn't think the "weirdness" factor had much to do with homeschooling kids, actually.
Absolutely all the homeschooling families I know, knew, still know, have few to no problems with sibling rivalry. And what rivalry does exist is at very civil and appropriate levels. The same, I cannot say for pub ed kids. Pub ed kids bring their "other world" inside the home with them. They have a bad day at school, everyone at home gets to experience it, too.
This just doesn't happen in homeschooling families. The goal is clear - education, civility, becoming life-long learners.
great article
There is a "social" element to learning - group play, group dynamics, learning how to behave among peers.
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