Posted on 03/13/2011 6:06:56 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
Chicago’s pitifully short school day is getting even shorter.
At five and a half hours, Chicago’s school day is already the shortest of any of the 50 largest districts in the nation. During the mayoral campaign, both Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel and a rival, Gery Chico, brought that up. Mr. Emanuel noted that a child in Houston gets four more years of K-12 instruction than one here.
But now comes “Breakfast in the Classroom ” for 410,000 students.
Most schools already offer a cold or hot breakfast before the start of classes. It’s free for the 86 percent of public school students eligible for free or reduced-price meals. My first grader, who has breakfast at home, has attended two C.P.S. schools, and they both offer breakfast at 8:30.
For several years, about 200 elementary schools have participated in a voluntary program to offer breakfast in classrooms at the start of the instructional day. In January, the Board of Education made it mandatory, meaning about 300 more elementary schools, including my son’s, must institute it. A student need not partake of breakfast but must sit there as others do.
The $41 million expense may make vendors happy, but it reduces instructional time.
Norman Bobins, a longtime school board member and esteemed former bank president, struggled before voting yes — caught between the nutritional benefits and the time lost from education. Mr. Bobins said his gut told him that improving nourishment for poor children should override.
But school officials also told the board that breakfast could be completed in 10 minutes. That is preposterous, but it was a line repeated when, calling as a parent, I contacted the office in charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You are likely a **very** responsible parent, and it is my guess that you likely share most of the same beliefs about the importance of learning that my husband and I have. It is likely that your home is organized and your children have a dependable routine for sleep, diet,chores, and exercise. You likely have good control over your children's use of electronics. You keep an eye on their academic progress and would get outside help for them as needed. Your vacations include stops at historical sites. There are good books and uplifting magazines in your home. You would likely take immediate action if your children showed signs of slacking with regard to their school assignments. You keep an eye on their friendships.
My conclusion, (if you are doing the above), is that **YOU** and your spouse ( personally) are the **REAL** teachers of your children. **YOU** are doing the hard work of educating your children.
If your home life, your values, and the minute by minute actual **time** that your children are spending at the kitchen table or their desks were compared to those who successfully homeschool there would be almost **NO** difference!
Honestly...Where are the studies that **prove** that government schools actually educate children? How much is due to all the work done by responsible parents ( like you) IN THE HOME? How much is due to the government school?
Again.. Where are the studies separating out what is learned at home from what is acquired in the school?
It could be that we spend **thousands** of dollars per child per year on schools that aren't really teaching. It could be that successfully educated children are **really** being educated IN THE HOME by their **parents**!
Personally, I conclude that if there is an successfully educated child that child was **afterschooled** or homeschooled. The only thing government schools do is send home a curriculum and provide tax paid babysitting.
( Capitals for emphasis only)
Respectfully,
Wintertime
If you know of an academically successful child, that child was **afterschooled** or homeschooled. BOTH take the SAME AMOUNT OF TIME and work by the PARENTS!
The following is an anecdotal observation:
I was the owner of and doctor in a large health clinic. Over my career I have know several thousand families. I asked parents who had academically successful children about their home habits and study habits. ( Mostly, I was looking for ideas for my own family.)
I found that there was little to **NO** difference between families ( homeschooled or institutionalized) with children who were academically successful. Both sets of families had the same values and home habits. Both sets of children were spend about the **SAME** amount of time in study at the kitchen table or at their desks IN THE HOME.
The same was true for academically successful foreign born children. Their parents were getting help from older children, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and ( especially) parent organized study clubs. The success of their children was due to the massive amount of work done **OUTSIDE** of school and IN THE HOME!
I concluded:
Again...If you know of an academically successful child, that child was **afterschooled** or homeschooled. BOTH take the SAME AMOUNT OF TIME and work by the PARENTS!
But...When it comes to undoing godless government secular humanist indoctrination...that may take **more** time on the part of the parents.
( Capitalizing for emphasis only.)
I honestly don’t know why they even send children home in some of the urban school districts; the biological parents care nothing for their offspring anyway.
I’m sure if they offered dorms (while leaving welfare ayments at current levels) much of the underclass would accept.
All the technolgy in the world won’t help people who say “wiff” instead of “with”; functionally illiterate people won’t benefit at all from such gadgets.
When I read >> You are likely a **very** responsible parent, and it is my guess that you likely share most of the same beliefs about the importance of learning that my husband and I have. It is likely that your home is organized and your children have a dependable routine for sleep, diet,chores, and exercise. You likely have good control over your children’s use of electronics. You keep an eye on their academic progress and would get outside help for them as needed. Your vacations include stops at historical sites. There are good books and uplifting magazines in your home. You would likely take immediate action if your children showed signs of slacking with regard to their school assignments. You keep an eye on their friendships.<< I almost fell out of my chair.
This breakfast program is for the hungry kids whose momma is still crashed, in bed or on the floor, with the guy she met last night. However the public officials in Chicago and many other cities are not permitted to speak the truth for fear or being called racist or starting a family fight.
(Have you considered a career as a comedian?)
Good heavens. We can’t expect parents to do time consuming things for their children. Yes, those same parents who can’t be bothered to homeschool will, of course, take the time it would take to give sanity equal time with the insanity that is pounded into their children for 12,000 to 14,000 seat-hours of government school (not counting extracurricular activities and homework). They will also carefully read all the textbooks and monitor what is said and done in class, at assemblies, etc. so that they know what to counter.
Me, I’m lazy. That all sounds like far too much work, even though it would be absolutely necessary to counter the liberalism being feed to children. I think I’ll take the easy way out and homeschool.
The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
Just another method of training an entire generation to be dependent on the government teat.
These kids will grow up unable to care for themselves with the basic necessities such as fixing their own breakfast, which is not rocket science.
I was making real mashed potatoes one day and one of the little girls next door asked what I was doing. I told her and she said to me, in all seriousness, “Why don’t you make them the homemade way, in the microwave?”
Why not have mandatory in-house dinner, mandatory in-house and after-dinner snacks? While they’re at it, insert computer chips into their heads that will program the cirriculum into their minds while they sleep.
“Private school is costly and home schooling is time consuming especially if you have two working parents.”
Homeschooling IS time-consuming. And can be difficult. And often requires significant sacrifice. Absolutely.
Yet, it is a gift that parents give to their children and to themselves. Families that manage to homeschool reap rewards out of all proportion to the sacrifices made.
sitetest
I completely agree. Unfortunately most do not see this...even most conservatives.
Why bother to send **any** child to government school if the real work of teaching is being done by the parents? If parents are the real teachers and doing most or all of the work, why are we taxpayers being forced to hand over thousands of dollars to so-called schools if the entire concept of prison-like government schools is flawed, and no learning happens there?
Where are the studies that **prove** government schools teach anyone anything? Where are the studies the separate what is learned outside the school from what is supposedly taught in the classroom? Has anyone ever taken the time and resources to see if government schools actually **do** what they say they supposed being doing? Huh?
It is my anecdotal observation that there is **no** difference in the home values and habits of successfully educated institutionalized children and homeschoolers. Really, where is the difference? Huh?
When there is an academically successful child ( home or institutionally schooled), the parents are doing the **same** things in the home. Both sets of children are spending about the **same** amount of time at the kitchen table or at their desk studying!
My conclusion: The **real** work ( whether home or institutionally schooled) is happening OUTSIDE the school!
So?...If parents and the children themselves are doing the real work of teaching and learning in the home, only a complete idiot would expect government schools to be of any value to children from dysfunctional homes. We evidently need an completely new approach to education if we are to reach them.
Also,...For children in functional families, maybe they would be better off and make more progress if they wasted LESS time in the prison-like government school.
Personally, I have **never** met an academically successful child who wasn't either homeschooled or afterschooled.
Both homeschooling and afterschooling require a lot of work. Afterschooling is actually harder, though, since the child is tired from being in school and a lot of indoctrination must be undone.
By the way, I was a doctor in and owner of a large health clinic. During my career, I likely had contact with several thousand families. Because I wanted ideas on how to make my own family life more effective, I would ask successful parents about their home habits and values, and their study routines for their children.
Honestly...In all those years of working with families, I have **never** met an academically successful child who was not either homeschooled or afterschooled. Even my foreign patients, they too were afterschooling. They found help from their nationality clubs, relatives, neighbors, friends, and older children. Their kids were more likely to be active in study clubs.
My conclusion: Government schools are not teaching children anything. They are sending home a tuition-free curriculum. It is the parents who doing 99.99% of the hard work of actually making sure their kids learn.
Really...please think on these words that were printed in 1930...
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, AND EVERY AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL IS A SCHOOL OF HUMANISM. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
Or...
“So very humanistic is modern education that no religion has a future unless it be Humanism. The religion of tomorrow in America and the day after tomorrow in all the world may not be in all respects identical with the religious Humanism we are advocating in this book, but it will be mightily like it and of the same spirit.”
Both of these statements are from “Humanism A New Religion” by Charles Francis Potter in 1930...he also signed the Humanist Manifesto 1 in 1933 along with John Dewey the “father of modern education”.
We are much better served to instead follow the words of Scripture...
Psalms 1:1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit at the seat of mockers.
I still cannot understand why so many parents will send their children to learn from the wicked, sinner, and mockers and then think that they can “undo” the damage.
Please remember these words...
1 Corinthians 15:33-34 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God-I say this to your shame.
My education was in a Catholic schools, a public school and a private school. Of all three, I would choose the private school as the best. If you started to slip backward they caught it right away, not during the next quarter.
One of the schools I taught at had free breakfast and lunch during summer vacation. Any child could come in for a free meal.
Amazing, isn't it? Public education is paid by our tax dollars, and distributed without regard for whether or not we paid taxes, yet some find it hard to recognize as welfare.
Many conservatives feel entitled to it because they pay income, sales, and property taxes, but if so, why stop there? Why don't they sign up for food stamps, heating assistance, that free cell phone, free medical and dental, and cash assistance? Their taxes are paying for those things too.
One could quit that second job, spend more time at home with the kids, counteracting the damage inflicted by public education...and be paid for it!
Best of all: one can still pay sales taxes. Take some govt cash and shop! shop! shop! It's so deliciously entitling.
I just finished reading about something like this as it relates to John Dewey and how he thought about freedom...his idea is much different then what you or I would think of freedom. The article I just read today was titled “John Dewey: Philospher of Relativism” that is in the March 2010 issue of “The Schwarz Report” (I was cleaning out my files and came across this issue that I had miss filed). It is a reprint of an article originally printed in the “National Review” December 31, 2009. I would think you would find the article interesting if you can find it.
“Personally, I have **never** met an academically successful child who wasn't either homeschooled or afterschooled.”
I'm sure you're right.
“Both homeschooling and afterschooling require a lot of work. Afterschooling is actually harder, though, since the child is tired from being in school and a lot of indoctrination must be undone.”
That may be. However, I know many folks whose children do well academically in traditional schools where both parents work full-time and even work long hours. I've seen folks try to homeschool with both parents working, and that doesn't work easily or well, and often results in relative failure.
Thus, most homeschoolers generally forgo one income, while many children who obtain a good education even while attending traditional schools do so with both parents working.
“Government schools are not teaching children anything.”
I don't agree with this statement. I'd go so far as to say, “Many government schools are not teaching children anything.”
But I live in a state and a region where several counties have public schools considered well above average. And, indeed, I've met some of the young men and women who have attended some of the better public schools, and many of them have actually learned a fair bit of stuff while inside the public school building.
No doubt, much learning also takes place outside the school building.
I'm more than willing to admit that these schools are probably more the exception than the rule for public schools. Nonetheless, some academic education is happening within their walls.
The very best public schools are nearly competitive with good private schools.
And good private schools can provide very good academic educations, indeed.
As well, once past the elementary school level, very good private schools can do things that are much more difficult for homeschoolers. My two sons were homeschooled through eighth grade. Now they attend a Catholic high school. Not every class, not every teacher is a winner. But over the past three-and-a-half years (my older son went to the high school part-time starting in eighth grade), I'd say that roughly six out of seven of my sons’ teachers are truly excellent.
It is a joy for me to pick my sons up from school in the afternoon and hear them tell me with excitement what happened in this or that class, with this or that teacher. Many of the teachers at their school are truly expert in the subjects that they teach and are truly excellent at actually teaching.
There are trade-offs, to be sure. There are advantages to homeschooling through high school on which we lose out. There are disadvantages of a traditional school that we must bear. But there are advantages to the traditional high school, as well, at least if it's a really good school with really good teachers.
My wife and I are still very involved with the guy's school stuff. I check homework every night. My wife or I listen to the younger guy recite his spoken German, so that he does it well for the teacher the next day. If there are problems, we contact and talk to the teachers. With my older son, he struggled a lot in Algebra II his freshman year. His teacher took extra time each week with him to help him, but my wife and I made sure he did an extra 10, 20, 40, 50 problems per night to really master what the teacher taught him during the day. He eventually earned and A- for the year, and his diligence earned him the underclassmen Algebra II award for the year. But the afterschooling done by my wife and me could only be effective in conjunction with the during the day schooling and extra help from his Algebra II teacher, who took the time, and who had the complete command of the subject matter as well as the teaching skills, to be effective with my son.
But frankly, it's a lot less difficult, a lot less time-consuming with them in school than when we homeschooled. My own view is that my wife (who did most of the homeschooling) did such an excellent job teaching them the habits of learning for eight or nine years that these habits enable them to get the most from their teachers and their classes now that they're in high school.
There are any number of generalities one can make about education. I have my own set of them: Homeschooling is generally to be preferred to any other method of education, especially in the early years; private schools generally outperform public schools; many (most?) public schools are sewers.
But they're all generalities, and don't all fit each individual child, or the circumstances or the environment of each family.
And that's what homeschooling is really all about - doing the best for each individual child, given the totality of a family's circumstances. Even though our kids are now in a traditional school, we still consider ourselves homeschoolers, because our focus is on putting together the right pieces for our two sons individually, without regard to generalities, bumper sticker sound bites or ideologies.
sitetest
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