Posted on 11/27/2006 7:04:44 AM PST by meandog
Schools With Good Teachers Are Best-Suited to Shape Young Minds
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.)
When we started we had no idea how to go about it, but we learned. It not so hard.
We had a young lady come over one day to ask about homeschooling her child. We showed her what we were doing and she loved it. Told us her son would never go to public school.... she is a 9th grade math teacher.
My oldest went to socialist school err public school till his 8th yr. He also was on the honor roll never had a problem, we thought everything was great. Then one day his CAT scores came back really bad, we had a talk with his teacher who played down the bad scores, ie he just had a bad day.
Well later we realized his math has not even 5th grade level, nor was his reading. Turns out the reason he made the honor roll was because he is a quite boy never did anything bad they just pushed him along.
After one yr of home schooling his math and reading level were on the 12th level. He would be in 9th grade in PS.
Bottom line the teachers didn't teach they just babysat. Oh and this wasn't one school. He started PS in NY then we moved to NC, were we first heard on homeschooling.
So I say if you even consider it... do it
I never bothered with memorizing the 345 special case rules. Pythagorean theorem (z = sqrt(x^2 + y^2)) works in all cases and yields the correct answer. Then again, public school, since it's so great, should've been able to teach me to memorize all the special cases. Yeah right.
You directed the question to the entire "class" by posting it on a public board.
Did you want James to raise his hand and wave it about until recognized?
Or did you perhaps think that I didn't know who Pythagoras was and needed to be reminded? I read classical Greek in college as well as Latin, and I read koine Greek for fun now.
Most teaching is done by parents anyway.
I had to teach my children to read,
I taught my children about atomic elements,
and last night they didnt know battles of the Revolutionary War, so they we taught about that.
This article needs direct and total refutation.
Many kids are miseducated by the system. Homeschooling corrects that. Sure there are some homeschoolers who could do better, but who better than the parents themselves to figure that out? No parent will go through the bother of teaching if it could be done better elsewhere.
"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!"
Kids aren't in a 'battle', they are supposed to learn.
The reality is that with information avaialable, it is easier to teach children than ever. A parent has more resources for teaching than ever before.
"head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School" - janitor?!?
What utter nonsense. The NEA should be shut down under RICO.
I thought this was a good point. However, I have to consider that "homeschoolers" are consistently getting better scores and better college admissions than those from "the professionals".
I also realized these people cannot be "best suited", because they used a hyphen where it does not belong.
But, a parent can always ask another homeschooling parent to tutor a student in a certain subject. Currently, I am supposed to be tutoring a young lad in spelling.
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.
If what our Public Schools are currently producing is the best product capable of those most "knowledgeable, trained and motivated" this Republic is doomed.
We home schoolers are just eliminating the middle men, dog.
And, when that comparison is made, the homeschooled kids place well-behind their competition.Source? Back-up data, please.
First, it is an easy problem with an easy solution (117-miles).
Second, you say that this is a standard high school math question. I am certain that either of my children could answer this question by the 6th or 7th grade. The complexity of the question is low, requiring only a fundamental understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem.
And interestingly, we have some friends in Cincinnati, who do NOT fit the profile usually associated with homeschooling parents: they are simply independent-minded people who foresee what an bottomless pit big-city public schools could be to their two sons, who are both under 10. It was surprising for me to see this, since I had no idea, and thought, even as little as a year ago, that homeschoolers fell into these stereotypical patterns of social/religious/political types the NEA would like to believe they do.
In my case, they would be. Between the Grandmothers, there's over 50 years of teaching experience. And between The Grandparents, Mrs. Wbill, and myself, there's at least a 1/2 dozen BS and advanced degrees.
Oddly enough, I *think* that not a one of us would be eligible to teach in our state. The M-i-L has let her certs lapse since her retirement, I'm sure, and no one else in the family ever got them.
The arrogance of this author astounds me. Friend of my wife's is a teacher of a 'Life Skills' class. She's declared bankruptcy once, generally stays one step ahead of the bill collectors, and is currently working on her 3rd divorce. Yet, she's qualified to teach life responsibilities to HS students. Amazing.
I teach English and ESL in an inner city middle school in Los Angeles. My students are often quite sweet, but they are as wild as feral mink. I remember this one boy who had just come from Belarus and he was an intelligent, well-mannered, witty 12 year old. He would sit in his chair and look around in astonishment at the cursing, dirty little inner city hoodlums with tagging all over their backpacks. Poor kid. He was obviously thinking "This is America?"
I got him switched to the magnate school for his own safety. Smart white kids aren't popular in my neck of the woods.
Not to mention it is OLD. We thoroughly discussed this one ages ago. :)
My HS Algebra teacher was a drunk that sipped 'coffee' all morning, and mostly slept through his classes before 10am. It took my algebra II teacher (who was a whiz) to make up for all the lost time.
My point is that there's no guarantee in the school systems, either.
Exactly.
"Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills?"
That is mostly thanks to a kid/parent-hostile cultural environment and undisciplined children in schools. We have tend to these 'problems' because the kids get attitude adjustment problems from the bad kids they interact with. It goes like this in our house, now that we've observed some slippage in behavioral maturity since the kids went to public schools: Kid talks back, then wife says "we never should have pulled them out of private school and sent them to public school".
"Do you ever wonder where those social, disciplinary and behavioral problems COME FROM?"
I don't. Kids are great imitators, and behavioral problems are like a virus that occurs when kids infect other kids with bad social models.
Think of the discipline effort *saved* when you keep kids away from bad behavioral models. All that time saved can be spent focussing on more positive things.
Sure, she doesn't have a degree teaching her how to specialize in a subject, but I'll take a naturally gifted scholar over a teacher with a M.Ed. and a four class "concentration" in English that let's him claim to be an "expert in his specialty." High school level classes aren't rocket science, and anyone with a good liberal arts education should have enough background to teach most of them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.