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Home is no place for school - Homeschool Alert
USA Today Op Ed ^ | September 3, 2003 | Dennis Evans

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antiamerican; antihomeschool; antinuclearfamily; antiparent; antiparentalrights; antiparentsrights; backintheussr; bewaretheredmenace; bigstinkincrock; brainwash; breathedeeply; disinformation; drinkthekoolaid; education; groupthink; homeschool; homeschoollist; homosexualagenda; indoctrination; karlmarx; liberalagenda; littleredschoolhouse; losingyourreligion; mccarthywasright; nuclearfamily; pc; politicallycorrect; propaganda; publicschools; reddupes; redmenace; reeducationcenters; socialengineering; socialism; socialists; socializta; socialtraining; taxdollarsatwork; theredmenace; unamerican
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To: netmilsmom
Who taught my daughter to tie her shoes or her ABC's? I did! With the proper information, I can teach her better than anyone. Especially a poor teacher who is just trying to maintain control in her classroom when all effective methods of discipline have been taken away.

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.

101 posted on 09/03/2003 10:00:56 AM PDT by auboy
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To: HungarianGypsy
Our children are going to a private Christian school and learned cursive writing from kindergarten on. It seems this is unusual, yet my 7 year old in 3rd grade has handwriting far better than mine (I never learned properly). It is a useful skill and imho you shouldnt skimp on it, although I manage with my lousy hand-writing I often joke about the 'chicken-scratch' I make. You'll need focussed teaching of it if you want him writing cursive, and imho you shouldnt wait because even 5 yearolds can be taught it and the sooner they start the easy it becomes their habit.

If your son has an 'attitude' about learning needed things in home, it may not be the right structure for him. Discipline and motivation are essential for learning to happen, so whatever environment has that for him would be best.
102 posted on 09/03/2003 10:02:29 AM PDT by WOSG (Lower Taxes means economic growth)
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To: Damocles
Home schooling is an extension of the misguided notion that "anyone can teach."

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 $$$!!!

103 posted on 09/03/2003 10:02:42 AM PDT by Itzlzha (The avalanche has already started...it is too late for the pebbles to vote!)
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To: Mind-numbed Robot
Actually go to his web page and it says he was a school principle for many years ... so he is not totally ivory tower:

http://www.gse.uci.edu/doehome/DeptInfo/faculty/dennis.html
104 posted on 09/03/2003 10:03:40 AM PDT by WOSG (Lower Taxes means economic growth)
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To: Damocles
the misguided notion that "anyone can teach." That notion is simply wrong.

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.

105 posted on 09/03/2003 10:06:24 AM PDT by mountaineer
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To: WOSG
Excellent post!
106 posted on 09/03/2003 10:07:06 AM PDT by auboy
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To: JohnGalt
boy you are an a--hole twisting things around like that.
you know well that GW Bush didnt cause 9/11 so dont put Lincoln=hitler either. Bush = Lincoln, someone *else* started the war; Hitler = 9/11 terrorists, created violence, GOT IT?
107 posted on 09/03/2003 10:07:41 AM PDT by WOSG (Lower Taxes means economic growth)
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To: Damocles
...makes the home-schooler the captive of the orthodoxies of the parents.

 
As opposed to, say, the orthodoxies of socialists, Marxists, the NEA and the DNC?

108 posted on 09/03/2003 10:10:39 AM PDT by Fintan (Seriously...does my hair look all right?)
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To: Damocles
Home schooling is an extension of the misguided notion that "anyone can teach." That notion is simply wrong. .

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.

109 posted on 09/03/2003 10:11:36 AM PDT by Dead Dog
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To: WOSG
Where did I suggest that Bush 'caused' 9-11?

Are you high or gubmint school educated?

110 posted on 09/03/2003 10:12:13 AM PDT by JohnGalt (Don't leave the children on their own, no, no. Bring the Boys Back Home)
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To: Damocles
It is a rejection of community and makes the home-schooler the captive of the orthodoxies of the parents.

Afterall, being captive to the orthodoxies of the government and a stranger are much better. (/sarcasm)

111 posted on 09/03/2003 10:12:29 AM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace ((the original))
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To: AngryJawa
I will have to disagree with you on this point. Parents are failing. It's that simple.
112 posted on 09/03/2003 10:13:33 AM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace ((the original))
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To: Libertina
I'm 100% on your side.

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. :-)

113 posted on 09/03/2003 10:14:15 AM PDT by newgeezer
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To: Damocles
Wow, the Nazi party is in full force these days:

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)

114 posted on 09/03/2003 10:14:17 AM PDT by Porterville (I spell stuff wrong sometimes, get over it, you are not that great.)
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To: Sloth
GREAT quote from the SCOTUS and application to this BS op-ed. Turns their own (il)logic upon them/exposes their bankrupt morality and inability to think more than one thought deep.

We seceded from a very poor gov't school in Connecticut with our three children in their critical elementary years (1993-1997) and enrolled them in a small parochial school, purchased Hooked On Phonics, my wife tutored them at home every night (basically nighttime home schooling) to catch them up to the higher standards of the non-public school (used the Abeka curriculum).

For high school we intentionally moved to an above average public school district in North Texas that reflected more traditional values and high academic standards. All three children are A/B students, SATs from 1100-1350 and read very well. The base we built in the elementary years by seceding from the gov't schools and providing parental tutoring is largely responsible for this.

Patents must become involved and stay involved.
115 posted on 09/03/2003 10:14:27 AM PDT by enviros_kill
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To: Damocles
Dennis L. Evans directs doctoral programs in education leadership at the University of California, Irvine.

This was a paid advertisement, right?

116 posted on 09/03/2003 10:15:12 AM PDT by Rudder
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To: AnAmericanMother
Thank you for finding the context of the Quitillian quote.

It is quite telling on how far this "scholar" will twist context to support his flawed logic.

117 posted on 09/03/2003 10:15:25 AM PDT by Damocles (sword of...)
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To: Damocles
"homeschooling...while not significant in terms of the number of children involved..."

LOL! Who is he trying to kid?

118 posted on 09/03/2003 10:16:20 AM PDT by Boxsford
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To: Damocles
That article is an excellent argument not only for homeschooling but for ending tenure for college professors.
119 posted on 09/03/2003 10:18:32 AM PDT by Tribune7
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To: Dead Dog
I'm a teacher, with a great background, good experiece travelling the world, degrees up the wa-hoo, but becuase I don't have the CA cerification, I can't teach high school; they won't even treat me decently when I try, but, I can teach at JR. College... P.E. coaches are better teachers of business and histroy anyway, Right???
120 posted on 09/03/2003 10:18:45 AM PDT by Porterville (I spell stuff wrong sometimes, get over it, you are not that great.)
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