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As opposed to, say, the orthodoxies of socialists, Marxists, the NEA and the DNC? |
Posted on 09/03/2003 8:29:31 AM PDT by Damocles
Home is no place for school
Wed Sep 3, 6:49 AM ET
By Dennis L. Evans
The popularity of home schooling, while not significant in terms of the number of children involved, is attracting growing attention from the media, which create the impression that a "movement" is underway. Movement or not, there are compelling reasons to oppose home teaching both for the sake of the children involved and for society.
Home schooling is an extension of the misguided notion that "anyone can teach." That notion is simply wrong. Recently, some of our best and brightest college graduates, responding to the altruistic call to "Teach for America," failed as teachers because they lacked training. Good teaching is a complex act that involves more than simply loving children. Research on student achievement overwhelmingly supports the "common-sense" logic that the most important factor affecting student learning is teacher competency. While some parents may be competent to teach very young children, that competence will wane in more advanced grades as the content and complexity increases.
But schools serve important functions far beyond academic learning. Attending school is an important element in the development of the "whole child." Schools, particularly public schools, are the one place where "all of the children of all of the people come together." Can there be anything more important to each child and thus to our democratic society than to develop virtues and values such as respect for others, the ability to communicate and collaborate and an openness to diversity and new ideas? Such virtues and values cannot be accessed on the Internet.
The isolation implicit in home teaching is anathema to socialization and citizenship. It is a rejection of community and makes the home-schooler the captive of the orthodoxies of the parents.
One of the strengths of our educational system is the wide range of legitimate forms of public, private or parochial schooling available for parental choice.
With that in mind, those contemplating home teaching might heed the words of the Roman educator, Quintilian (A.D. 95). In opposing home schooling, he wrote, "It is one thing to shun schools entirely, another to choose from them."
Dennis L. Evans directs doctoral programs in education leadership at the University of California, Irvine.
Kudos to you… yes, you are teaching your daughter better than anyone! I have several friends and family who have home-schooled their kids. Their sacrifices have been rewarded… these kids (some are grown by now) are the smartest and most polite young people I know.
My wife taught for 15 years. She left teaching 20 years ago. Discipline in the classroom was on the decline, even then. Her class size was much larger than today's (35 to 37 students was the norm). Most of her 5th graders were there to learn, but her principal would not back her up when she tried to discipline the few troublemakers.
I believe discipline in today's public schools is near non-existent.
Unlike the current crop of teachers that are FAILING their competency exams by the THOUSANDS in Mass and NY and California. Parents are held to a standard that the NEA doesn't want to be applied to their cash cows!
Dump the Dep. of Educrats, and save some budget $$$!!!
That's what I tried to tell my older brother when I was 3 and he was 9, but he taught me to read, anyway.
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As opposed to, say, the orthodoxies of socialists, Marxists, the NEA and the DNC? |
How many people have ever failed in an attmept to become a public school teacher based off their ability to teach? Assuming that not everyone can teach (false assumption), but it seems almost everyone can be a Public School teacher.
Recently, some of our best and brightest college graduates, responding to the altruistic call to "Teach for America," failed as teachers because they lacked training.
Unsupported statement, how did they fail...what was the basis of this so called failure. What were the objectives for Teach for America.
Classic straw man arguement. We would have to assume the writer in intentionally being intellectually dishonest, and therefor has an agenda counter to our interests.
That pretty much lets you know where we should file this one.
Afterall, being captive to the orthodoxies of the government and a stranger are much better. (/sarcasm)
However, I must say I found it curious that, except for the part where you said they "may not know the latest swear words," your post reads as if every home school models only the most wholesome and conservative values.
It was the one "may" in there which made all the absolutes seem a bit humorous. :-)
We shall not capitulate... no never. We may be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us... a world in flames.
- Adolf Hitler, In Politics/Nazism
When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side, 'I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your decendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.
- Adolf Hitler, In Politics/Nazism
PASSAGES ARRANGED BY: www.fightthebias.com
"[State-run] education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." --
Joseph Stalin
"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." (Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party)
"All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all." (Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in "Not by Politics Alone.)
We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." (Hillary Clinton, 1993)
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." (President Bill Clinton, USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A)
This was a paid advertisement, right?
It is quite telling on how far this "scholar" will twist context to support his flawed logic.
LOL! Who is he trying to kid?
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