Posted on 07/25/2005 7:26:05 PM PDT by Millicent_Hornswaggle
Schools With Good Teachers Are Best-Suited to Shape Young Minds By Dave Arnold
There's nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task. Certain jobs are best left to the pros, such as, formal education.
There are few homeowners who can tackle every aspect of home repair. A few of us might know carpentry, plumbing and, let’s say, cementing. Others may know about electrical work, tiling and roofing. But hardly anyone can do it all.
Same goes for cars. Not many people have the skills and knowledge to perform all repairs on the family car. Even if they do, they probably don’t own the proper tools. Heck, some people have their hands full just knowing how to drive.
So, why would some parents assume they know enough about every academic subject to home-school their children? You would think that they might leave this -- the shaping of their children’s minds, careers, and futures -- to trained professionals. That is, to those who have worked steadily at their profession for 10, 20, 30 years! Teachers!
Experienced Pros
There’s nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task. Whether it is window-washing, bricklaying or designing a space station. Certain jobs are best left to the pros. Formal education is one of those jobs.
Of course there are circumstances that might make it necessary for parents to teach their children at home. For example, if the child is severely handicapped and cannot be transported safely to a school, or is bedridden with a serious disease, or lives in such a remote area that attending a public school is near impossible.
Well-Meaning Amateurs
The number of parents who could easily send their children to public school but opt for home-schooling instead is on the increase. Several organizations have popped up on the Web to serve these wannabe teachers. These organizations are even running ads on prime time television. After viewing one advertisement, I searched a home school Web site. This site contains some statements that REALLY irritate me!
* “It’s not as difficult as it looks.”
The “it” is meant to be “teaching.” Let’s face it, teaching children is difficult even for experienced professionals. Wannabes have no idea.
* “What about socialization? Forget about it!”
Forget about interacting with others? Are they nuts? Socialization is an important component of getting along in life. You cannot teach it. Children should have the opportunity to interact with others their own age. Without allowing their children to mingle, trade ideas and thoughts with others, these parents are creating social misfits.
If this Web site encouraged home-schooled children to join after-school clubs at the local school, or participate in sports or other community activities, then I might feel different. Maine state laws, for example, require local school districts to allow home-schooled students to participate in their athletic programs. For this Web site to declare, “forget about it,” is bad advice.
When I worked for Wal-Mart more than 20 years ago, Sam Walton once told me: “I can teach Wal-Mart associates how to use a computer, calculator, and how to operate like retailers. But I can’t teach them how to be a teammate when they have never been part of any team.”
* “Visit our online bookstore.”
Buying a history, science or math book does not mean an adult can automatically instruct others about the book’s content.
Gullible Parents
Another Web site asks for donations and posts newspaper articles pertaining to problems occurring in public schools.
It’s obvious to me that these organizations are in it for the money. They are involved in the education of children mostly in the hope of profiting at the hands of well-meaning but gullible parents.
This includes parents who home-school their children for reasons that may be linked to religious convictions. One Web site that I visited stated that the best way to combat our nation’s “ungodly” public schools was to remove students from them and teach them at home or at a Christian school.
I’m certainly not opposed to religious schools, or to anyone standing up for what they believe in. I admire anyone who has the strength to stand up against the majority. But in this case, pulling children out of a school is not the best way to fight the laws that govern our education system. No battle has ever been won by retreating!
No Training
Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills? They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.
(Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois.)
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NEA or its affiliates.
I homeschool my fifth grader. She's bright but not, IMO, such a genius. Nevertheless she easily absorbs 8th grade math, college level English and literature, three foreign languages, music lessons on three instruments, and a lot more that she'd never get in public school. Is homeschooling easy? YES. (Incidentally, my eldest was also homeschooled, and finished all high school level courses at 13. She was no genius either, and I am not, IMO, a gifted teacher.)
I believe that with sufficient materials and a schedule you stick to, you can give your child a better education than your public school, be it the best in the nation. And it's cheaper and safer too.
quite the dissection. thank you.
yes, homeschooling is difficult, time consuming, aggravating, and, hopefully, rewarding. so what? proper parenting is difficult too.
Please keep in mind how wacked out half these parents might be as well..There are a lot of great teachers in the school systems.Dont believe everything you hear in the media.Im in NJ and there are Republican/Conservative teachers still working,even here .Can't say much for the newer kids fresh out of our Communist universities though.Still, there are many more "old school"good teachers than you may think.
Dave was taught in public schools. His brain has never recovered.
Anyone notice the complete lack of statistics to back up any of the stated opinions in this editorial?
Do you know why? I'll bet you do...
"The idea that union teachers are "motivated to do the best job possible" is ludicrous."
My wife used to be one of those union teachers. And, while she was, in fact, highly motivated, most of the rest of the teachers she knew were an embarrassment. Her local "union leader" insisted that she and the rest of the "teachers" exit the school at the end of the day at the exact moment they were allowed by their contract. The union also told her and the rest of the teachers not to provide children extra help after school, because their contract didn't specifically provide money for that service.
After her first year she quit. Our two children have never set a foot inside a public school classroom, and they never will.
That illustrates the exact point that I brought up. :^)
Most public school teachers START dedicated and enthusiastic, but after just a short time the union environment sucks the motivation out of them.
The same thing happened to me as a union CNA that happened to your wife as a union teacher. I was told to not do any more work than was explicitly spelled out in my instructions and the overwhelming atmosphere at the facility was of a spiteful contest of wills between the union and management.
The NEA calling parents who home school amateurs is like Carrot Top telling Lenny Bruce to develop "an edge."
"Oh my!! The thread is great but this link takes the cake."
Exactly! But that poor janitor...he must be tying his own noose by now.
Not my point at all, and you know that.
It's simply bogus to imply that two income families aren't looking out for their child's best interest.
The FACT is that some parents don't have the knowledge, skills and abilities to homeschool not to mention the temperment. That has nothing to do with second incomes.
Snarky comments like yours turn people off to homeschooling. If you want to be an advocate for homeschooling, you should talk about the benefits, not berate those who choose a different path.
"Not my point at all, and you know that.
It's simply bogus to imply that two income families aren't looking out for their child's best interest."
I'm not implying anything. I'm making a statement of fact. There are one hell of parents who ignore the ills of public education and the risks to their child which are common in public schools because they place a higher priority on money they save by using public education as opposed to private schooling or sacrificing one of the incomes to homeschool.
Am I saying that all two-income families place a lesser priority on money than on the best interest of their child(ren)? No.
But, I'm convinced that a significant percentage of two-income parents who send their children to public school do so simply because they place a higher priority on the bigger house, the nicer car, and/or the better vacation than they do on the education and safety of their child. I've got a neighbor who lives a block from me, in a $800K home, who pulled their kids out of the local private school, and the mother told me...to my face...that the $350 a month, per child (she has two) she was spending was just too much to spend. They have three cars (two drivers) which are worth about $100K between them. They have a covered pool, and she has a woman come into her home to clean twice a week. She knows that her kids were getting a better education in the private school they'd been in. She admits it. She just doesn't want to spend the money.
I can't tell you how many times I've talked about the options of homeschooling or private school to parents of kids who were having either academic or behavioral trouble in public schools, only to have their first reaction be "Oh, it's so expensive!"
It's common...stop kidding yourself.
Thank you. I will agree that some do.
Beyond that, I'm done with the conversation.
sure!!!!
amazing anyone ever learned to read before the government decided to teach them.
Actually, the amount of people who learned to read increased significantly after schools were formed and reading materials became more widely available.
Oh good grief, they asked the janitor???
That condescending attitude is what inhabits the minds of 99.999% of public school teachers in the United States.
Holy cats, I must be one of those .00000001 percent who thinks differently! (actually I know a lot of teachers who do--any sane teacher knows that if the parents don't spend time with the kid at home, that he/she will not learn or progress as fast as those who have parents who do--preferrably TWO-parent homes) Hey! That makes me a minority. Maybe I can get some kind of special treatment.
Actually, I work WITH the parents of my students. I think they have wonderful things and new ideas to offer.
The influence (or lack of it) of a parent is more responsible for the child than almost anything not to leave out one's own individual choices and efforts, the influence of friends, etc. A teacher can indeed make a difference and be a good positive force in a child's life (I have seen countless examples of that), but we become what WE want to be and look to the examples of our parents first.
Too often today, we seek to blame others without looking inward first.
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