Posted on 05/31/2009 1:48:40 PM PDT by aberaussie
Homeschooling: great for self-aggrandizing, society-phobic mother but not quite so good for the kid.
Here are my top ten reasons why homeschooling parents are doing the wrong thing:
10. You were totally home schooled is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm (whether or not the offender was home schooled or not). And say what you will but it doesnt feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.
9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students classroom shouldnt also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldnt be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Studentsfrom little ones to teensdeserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.
8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (Im assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.
7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didnt God say Go therefore and make disciples of all nations? Didnt he command, Ye shall be witnesses unto me? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally Im agnostic, but Im just saying )
6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two masters degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. Ill give you that. But theres no way that you can teach English as well as me, and biology as well as a trained professional, and history and Spanish and art and counsel for college as well as a schools guidance counselor and and
5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (Thats good enough for #5.)
4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, theres probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesnt live among them?
3. And dont give me this they still participate in activities with public school kids garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially.
2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks in choosing a college or line of work. The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling.
More comfortable taking risks with their childs education? Gamble on, I dont know, the Superbowl, not your childs future.
1. And finally have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.
*** Please see the comments for thoughts on the word geeky. But, in general, to be geeky connotes a certain inability to integrate and communicate in diverse social situations. Which, I would argue, is a likely result of being educated in an environment without peers. Its hard to get by in such a diverse world as ours! And the more people you can hang out with the more likely you are to succeed, both in work life and real life.
One last note, to those homeschooling parents out there: its clear from the number and passion of your responses that TeacherRevised is missing an important voice in the teaching community. If any of you are interesting in writing for us, send me an email: jessescaccia@gmail.com. I would love to have you as part of our conversation.
My niece and nephew were both home schooled. He graduated with a masters last year from UCI and has decided to go ahead and get his law degree. She is working toward her medical degree, neither is unadjusted or “geeky”... what they both are, is well adjusted, clean cut young adults.
Don’t forget the strong character, work ethic, and Biblical foundation of right and wrong...
why... they might not be “sex positive” or know who the latest American Idol winner was!
So I should make a critically important education decision for my children based on the opinions of immature college kids, most of whom cannot find Germany on a world map, diagram a sentence, or solve a proof in Geometry? How silly is that?
9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students classroom shouldnt also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldnt be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Studentsfrom little ones to teensdeserve a learning-focused place to study.
So this self-important teacher never assigns homework, and assumes her students never study for exams at home? More silliness, and perhaps proof that Jesse flunked Logic 101 in his college career.
7. God hates homeschooling.
The same God who commanded the Israelites to teach their children all day long, sitting, lying down, walking, etc.? That's silly, too.
(Personally Im agnostic, but Im just saying )
Agnostic? Listen, there are two possibilities: God is or God isn't. If God is, then the agnostic is wrong, because God has defined Himself and his intentions clearly. If God isn't, then the agnostic is wrong.
There is more to criticize, but I'm bored with it. Jesse is wrong on all counts.
a. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. (I have always considered geek and nerd synonyms. If you consider yourself one but not the other, I apologize for lumping you in with those other people.)
b. Ive seen the average college kid. Ive been the average college kid. Id prefer it if my kids were not like the average college kid.
c. Incompetents like to bring people down to their level with insults that discourage achievement. You were totally home schooled is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky studious kid in the dorm (especially the one who also happens to be a Christian and doesnt go along with the immorality that is encouraged.) And you wonder why we dont give you our kids without a fight. The teachers are just as bad as the kids.
9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students classroom shouldnt also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldnt be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Studentsfrom little ones to teensdeserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.
We call them schools, also known as failure factories and indoctrination mills.
8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (Im assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.
7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didnt God say Go therefore and make disciples of all nations? Didnt he command, Ye shall be witnesses unto me? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally Im agnostic, but Im just saying )
I always love being lectured on the Bible by agnostics who know one or two verses (out of context, of course.) The disciples were adults who had three years of training before being put in a leadership position. How much preparation should we allow for our kids before we subject them to brainwashing by openly hostile teachers such as this one.
6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two masters degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. Ill give you that. But theres no way that you can teach English as well as me, and biology as well as a trained professional, and history and Spanish and art and counsel for college as well as a schools guidance counselor and and
a. Our kids all learned to read at home. They all read well. Whats the percentage of kids you taught who can say the same?
b. If schools actually educated instead of wasting time on the 'gospel according to Algore' our kids might go to public schools.
c. I understand that the teacher who wrote this has multiple degrees. That kind of stupid doesnt come naturally it takes a lot of education to get that way.
5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (Thats good enough for #5.)
a. Have you ever painted your house? How did that make the contractors in your town feel?
b. If you did a better job on the house than the contractor could, how would that make him feel? Would you care how he felt?
4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, theres probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesnt live among them?
My oldest son (the only one of six in public schools) came home with a couple of racist jokes he learned in that bastion of tolerance and inclusivity. He learned quick that dad doesnt put up with that crap.
3. And dont give me this they still participate in activities with public school kids garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially.
Do you want kids to grow up to act like adults or kids? Who are they more likely to learn that from? My kids probably arent experts at making gross noises and they probably cant use four-letter words in context in conversation. Im sure they will get over it.
2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks in choosing a college or line of work. The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling.
More comfortable taking risks with their childs education? Gamble on, I dont know, the Superbowl, not your childs future.
a. Ive seen whats behind the public school door. Ill gamble on door #2. (How long have our schools been experimentation factories for every leftist crackpot educational theory
1. And finally have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.
Not to hate?
You wrote this as satire, right?
Surely nobody could be this stupid, and be for real.
Ummmm, well, on second thought .....
No, I write better than that...I hope. ;-)
Check out the blog. The blog owner called the writer an idiot. Warmed my heart.
Wow, I guess you were telling the truth. Looks like my second thought was correct after all ..... there really is someone that stupid. Sad to see.
I thought this HAD to be satire. Then, I went to the website. Ironically, in another of her posts she admits she doesn’t know much about homeschooling.
Please tell me this is a spoof.
Then we would wind up with millions of illiterates.
The majority of parents can't teach anything.
We would wind up with millions of people making posts without capitalization, like you.
Wouldn't that suck?
So nothing would be changed from how it is now, then?
It would be much worse.
Everyone except the whiny mommas-kids would be guaranteed illiteracy.
Wow aside perhaps from #3 (socialization, which can be gotten elsewhere) the reasons given are all BS, written by some teachers union hack.
Contrast with CF’s good reasons to avoid public school.
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