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.
IMHO, well-meaning amateurs are always to be preferred to maleficent professionals.
The nea "shapes" pleanty of minds by giving as many little boys as much ritalin as possible.
The nea gives lip service to parental involvement but it seems this is pushing parental NONinvolvement.
even if you do not homeschool, this article is VERY disturbing.
BTTT... for later input.
OK--so I'm getting tired of this "holier than thou" attitude from both sides----and the cavalier attitude towards the Head Custodian.
I'm a high school clerk (12 month position) and although I can't teach the kids who pass through my office, math or science, I can teach them how to behave in a business setting and correct their English grammar (and I do it all the time).
I believe there is a place for homeschooling in many parts of our country, but there is also a place for public education. Your child will do best when you take part in their education, not necessarily run the entire thing.
All too often I see parents who have had their children for 14 years, suddenly expect us, in the course of 5 hours to not only teach their kids, but change their behaviour as well.
I've seen kids from homes where their parents (or more often parent) don't know what their kids are doing and don't care---as long as we don't upset their lives.
So, before you make a blanket statement and call all NEA members morons please consider the value on each side of this issue. I am an NEA member---not because I want to be, but because I'd have to pay 85% dues anyway---and I'm not a moron.
By the way, I had to laugh when you said that many Social Studies teachers are called "coach" because they are, but those I deal with here are also some of our best teachers, too! (and many are also conservative)
:::sarcasm off:::
But that does not exist. You do have the option of educating (or 'educating') your children in public schools, private schools or in a home school environment.
Don't get angry at the people who are seeing the dirty work of the NEA. Get angry at your own leadership.
Who said anything about being a janator.
The nea is established to protect the mediocre teacher NOT the extraordinary teacher.
The fact the nea puts out anything attacking homeschooling has now given legitimacy to homeschooling as a valid and legitimate competition to public school education.
The nea is always going to be "turf" oriented. More home schooling means less teachers to be hired.
How many children are homeschooled now? 1 to 2 million? How many teacher jobs does that represent?
THAT is what the Nea cares about.
but you STILL have to pay for the public school you do not use.
True competition would not have that.
"Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois"
HE"S A JANITOR!!!!!!!!! I didn't know janitors belonged to teacher's unions.
A history of Homeschooling, Legislative battles
From the Home School Legal Defense Association
http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V19N2/V19N201.asp
A number of courts in other states ruled against educational freedom, however. By the early 1980s, homeschoolers in many states were left with difficult choices: hide, move, or persuade the legislature to create a new legal option for parents who educate their own children in their own homes. Remarkably enough, homeschoolers were able to persuade one legislature after another to pass homeschool statutes in the 1980s:>> 1982 Arizona and Mississippi legalize homeschooling.
>> 1983 Wisconsin and Montana follow suit.
>> 1984 Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia pass homeschool statutes. Rhode Island gives superintendents the authority to "approve" homeschool programs.
>> 1985 Arkansas, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming all enact homeschool statutes.
>> 1986 After homeschoolers won a federal court case, Missouri legalizes home education.
>> 1987 Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont, and West Virginia all permit homeschooling.
>> 1988 Colorado, New York, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania allow parents to teach their own children at home.
"The Evil Empire"
Three states (North Dakota, Iowa, and Michigan) prosecuted homeschoolers so fiercely that they became known as the "Evil Empire." One family after another was prosecuted for teaching their own children in their own homes, and the courts were quick to convict. Finally, in 1989, after seven fruitless appeals to the North Dakota Supreme Court, homeschoolers finally won. The legislature legalized home education.
The next state in the Evil Empire fell in 1991, when Iowa finally enacted a homeschool statute. One official within the Iowa Department of Education still did her best to block homeschooling through restrictive state regulations, but freedom-loving families in Iowa worked even harder to keep the freedom they had earned. (In the end, the homeschoolers won, and the disgruntled official left the Iowa Department of Education to work in another state agency.)
By 1993, only one state still routinely prosecuted homeschoolers: Michigan. Then, on May 25, 1993, five judges on the Michigan Supreme Court overruled four dissenting judges to allow sincere religious parents to teach their own children at home without a teacher's license. It was not until 1996 that the state legislature finally allowed any parent to teach a child at home without some assistance from a certified teacher.
There is zero place for public education as it is now constructed. Public education spends 8-12 thousand per year per pupil. Or for a class of 20, about 180,000 per year. A teacher might get 60,000 of that and 120,000 goes for the building, and overhead. Building and overhead should not cost 120,000 dollars.
This is a monopoly situation and monopolies never serve the public. They don't have to, because they are a monopoly. It is time to give every kid an 8k voucher and let the private sector do this job. Tuition at Stanford is only 24,000 per year (does not include room and board and students do have the option of off campus living). And that includes state of the art everything, Rodin sculptures everywhere, in the most expensive location in the US.
Those statistics are amazing. They seem much higher and starker than other homeschool studies that I've seen. I'd like to compare those statistics to other studies.
But I'm sure that we all know some parents who we'd never want to see homeschooling their kids.
That said, remember that professionals built the Titanic and amateurs built the Ark.
"Without allowing their children to mingle, trade ideas and thoughts with others, these parents are creating social misfits."
Interesting. That is what I say about schools who put kids together only with kids their own age.
"There’s nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task."
Like thinking out loud. That is not a skill for janitors.
Did you catch that? The author is a freakin' janitor!
Wait...have I fallen for it...this is the Onion, right?
What a hoot!
"They just follow the book with indifference"
if they can read, that is....
"Teaching is easy; learning and discipline are hard as Hell."
Damn, that is well put!
(Could I add one little addendum...not related to this thread, but just flushing out the statement generally. how about this: good teaching is also a way of learning since you are synthesizing, repackaging and passing on what you have learned...sort of a finishing touch. once you know it, and then you teach (or written about it) it, then you have mastered it).
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