A pic of Jesse Scaccia’s at its blog.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/03175162616373898055
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 doesn’t feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.
9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students’ classroom shouldn’t also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldn’t be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Students–from little ones to teens–deserve 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 (I’m 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, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t 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 I’m agnostic, but I’m 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 master’s 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. I’ll give you that. But there’s 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 school’s guidance counselor… and… and…
5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s 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, there’s probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?
3. And don’t 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 child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s 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. It’s 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: it’s 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.
This is a joke, right?
Haha, when I first read the post, I thought it was satire written by a homeschooler!
I love the very first exchange on the comments. Someone comments about the “negatively connotated hand signs” (referring to the devil horns one kid is making). The blogger immediately criticizes the commenter for assuming those were gang signs. Haha, it’s just like a really bad B-movie. “How did you know the victim was shot? I never mentioned a gun”
I am somewhat amazed that this is apparently written by someone that is opposed to homeschooling.
I initially thought that it was written by a supporter of homeschooling that was mocking anti-homeschooling arguments.
"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 (I’m 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."
This idea that the State has some claim to compel students to attend public schools for utilitarian reasons is a case in point. The responsibility and authority for making decisions concerning the education of children belongs within the family. That some parents are irresponsible, ignorant, or morally negligent does not justify infringing on the rights of parents who are responsible. If the education being offered by the secular state is substandard, tends to promote immorality, or poses physical dangers to the safety of children, parents are well within their rights to seek alternatives whether they be private, religious, or home-based instruction.
There is an argument for the socialization function of the education of children in schools, that formal schooling provides certain social advantages, etc. There can be a pretty good debate on that, but it has to be balanced out with the other issues.
Liberals and secular humanists made serious mistakes in McCollum v. Board of Education Dist.71(1948) and Abington School District v. Schempp, (1963). By removing Christianity and prayer from public schools they set up the situation driving the homeschool movement. Students have different learning styles and varying educational needs which cannot be met by the Deweyite and Fabian Socialist education offered in many school districts. As long as this continues, concerned parents will seek alternatives. Providing a solid Christian education benefits society in numerous ways. Schools would be wise to return to that tradition.
Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin turned out OK and they were homeschooled.
Leftists are really getting bold and speaking their mind now a days. It would be funny if it wasn't so scary.
Yesterday my brother in law was saying Palin hates the environment and wants polar bears to have no ice to get around on. I asked him, 'you are joking right?' no he wasn't joking and I can not correct him without causing problems within the family. I tried but he wasn't listening. Leftists believe facts are just another opinion you can not reason with a leftists.
That’s really true. Don’t confuse them with facts!
Sending children to public school is a form of child abuse. Nuf Ced.
Whenever you encounter someone boastful of her education, especially in the English language, you don't have to look very far for an error in grammar.
But there's no way that you can teach English as well as I. I, not me. You can recognize the error if you imagine another verb at the end of the sentence.. But there's no way you can teach English as well as ME teaches English.
But there's no way you can teach English as well as I teach English. Get rid of "teach English" and you'll know whether to use an I or a me.
What a maroon. LOL.
Okay, just read #6 and had to post for the second time. Uh, yeah, I’m a lunatic. She’s right, I don’t have the same credentials she has, therefore I’m not qualified to teach. I’m such a “lunatic” I hired a native Nicaraguan to teach my children how to speak Spanish. I know, how crazy is that?
Oh, and if I you will allow me to toot my own horn to make my point, here’s the deal on my own educational credentials. I have none. Nope, other than a HS diploma I got nothing. Huh, how weird. Oh, did I forget to say I entered college at age forty when my kids got older? Did I forget to say I was awarded a full ride scholarship for both my undergrad program and law school? Again, that’s weird. Apparently having a GPA above a 4.0 makes me a lunatic who is obviously ill prepared to teach my own children. Huh, how about I’m getting ready to graduate Phi Beta Kappa? Summa Cum Laude anybody? Would that help? You’re right. I see her point. A single mother financially supporting herself and her children couldn’t possibly be smart enough to teach. *sighing and rolling my eyes*
Give me a break. This woman makes all the elitist mistakes common to those unfamiliar with home school families. And she’s doing it while claiming to be academically superior to someone like me. I’d take this highly educated woman on any day of the week.
Okay, I’ll stop posting. I think I’ve made my point.
I read them all. The rest are the same.
9.Many home schoolers don't watch American Idol (A good thing, IMHO) and if you think public schools are a study focused area, you haven't been to a public school.
8. So home schooling does give the best possible education, superior to even private schools?
7. Try proselytizing in a public school and then tell me that students are missing an opportunity there.
6. Grab a hand full of average teachers and convince me that having a firm grasp of all (erroneous) modern educational theories and little else makes them more qualified to teach than the average person. The teachers will, however, be sufficiently arrogant.
5. Feel free to be pissed off. If I was facing unemployment, I would feel the same way.
4. "Intolerance and even racism"? Coming from a likely member of Senator Byrd's party, that's funny.
3. Find a home schooler that got beat up for his lunch money and then get back to me on that socialization thing.
2. Running out of points? See #6.
1. Home schoolers tend to get good grades and do well in society. Inferior people like the writer will always hate such and it is not the fault of the hated.
I did not home school my children. If I had it to do over, I would.
I answer, "Yes. That is WHY I homeschool..."
I have 3 nieces who are home-schooled. I will stack them up against anyone, BAR NONE, for their maturity, level-headedness, social skills, and the rest. This is a teacher who is scared. It is also the weakest rhetorical presentation I’ve seen in years.
Public-schooler.
The simple fact is that home-schooled students from families of whatever wealth, outproform government school students by all possible measures. Jesse is just providing one more reason to get students OUT of government schools.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "An Open Letter to Sonia Sotomayor"
Latest article, "Ben Franklin (Congressman Billybob) at Knoxville Tea Party"
Her basic attitude is that our children are the property of the system, and she resents kids being able to escape indoctrination, and having the smarter kids not be available to help prop up the dumber kids.
Congratulations! :-)
The comments section at the link rip the author to shreds!
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