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.)
So much to say about this article, and I'm not a homeschooler.
First, I have a special needs daughter. Last year, she had a huge evaluation by a neuropsychologist. The neuropsychologist told me that homeschool was a great option. My daughter has speech and social problems, so I am very concerned about those areas. The neuropsychologist then asked if we went to church, did any after school activities. She said that there are plenty of socialization activities after school.
Second, I have a degree in engineering. I have more math and science than most elementary education majors, and probably more than most middle school teachers. There's only a few subjects that I would not feel comfortable teaching (foreign langauges, physics).
Third, if the public schools were doing their jobs, then people wouldn't be pulling kids out of them. Lots of public school do not have science, music, art, PE, or history. If you want to have those things, they need to be in private or homeschooled.
"This homeschooler believes that vouchers are an engraved invitation for increased federal regulation of homeschooling."
This is an unfortunately too common misperception; you think wrong. Every voucher proposal out there is about *opening* up choice, not regulating it. This anti-voucher claim is one that has no basis in fact, yet its so prevalent I have to think some anti-voucher Educrats spread it as FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) to 'divide and conquer' those who would reform education in their own different ways. A simple retort to this is to ask: "Where has this happened?" Nowhere, it's never happened that voucher systems put a crimp in either private or homeschools.
Everything you can do today you can do in the voucher future. The only difference is that there will be the *option* and *choice* of government subsidies/funding/voucher direct to parents and children for some of these choices.
If the voucher system was so crippled by regulation, which is only what opponents not advocates of it want, there is an option any parent could take - walk away from it. The educrats have tried to cripple experiments and charter schools etc. in the past, but most experiments have worked so well it couldnt be held down. what frustrates me is that the EDUCRATS WONT EVEN GIVE IT A CHANCE.
Note that the enemies of homeschooling (vis the article above) are the enemies of vouchers, and they use the same phony arguments against both possibilities. The philosophy and goals of vouchers and homseschooling are the same - it's about giving parents and children choice in how they are educated and making learning child-centric.
I am pro-homeschooling even though its not for our kids;
I am pro-voucher and pro-private school even though for right now we are sending kids to public school. We have to recognize that each parent and child should have the right to make decisions about learning and education without being under the thumb of the education monopolist system.
The future of schooling needs to be a diversity of choices, and homeschoolers and the various advocates for vouchers, for charter schools and for public/private school options should all stick together for the sake of better education choices for children.
What our obsolete public schools produce:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/233015033.html
The problem with public schools is that too many parents have abandoned them. We get only three or four now showing up for parent teacher nights in each grade for the entire school now--no exageration. If parents want better schools, then parents should support better school systems and demand better teachers...parents could do so by getting state legislatures to back merit pay systems for teachers, so they would attract more qualified classroom leaders.
First paragraph is what I was referring to. (oops)
"Then, I realize that most of the population really doesn't care, and the children of the people that *do* care, likely will excel regardless of what type education they pick."
Yup ... "Even the best education cannot stop a brilliant mind."
At it again, huh, meandog?
Almost everyone I know actually utilizes co-op teaching situations, paid classes, tutors, etc, for some or all of their children's high school educations. On the other hand, my neighbor down the street didn't, and his son is attending a public university on full scholarship right now.
And he's a hottie, too - not some weirdo you imagine. :)
No, it is NOT rocket science to teach elementary school, subjects, and pretty easy to teach a lot of middle school subjects as well, since most children by that age are quite independent if they've been homeschooling a while, know how to study, and know how to research.
And homechoolrs do
Scouting
Little theater
Dance classes
Soccer
Baseball
Swim team
Homeschool clubs like literature club or chess club
Homeschoolers take classes at our local science museum, where they are much favored over the ill-behaved public school children
YMCA Youth and government programs
Church activities
Summer camp
And MUCH MORE
"You suggest that you are a conservative by posting here and yet you want to force me and others to support gummint skewels which are the parochial schools of the radical left, secular humanism, agnosticism, atheism, leftism, socialism, peacecreepism, and just about every other evil in our society."
"parochial schools of the secular left" ... LOL, I like it!
It's always about the money and the ideological enthusiasms of the teachers' unions and related groups. When I went to public schools there was no such thing as a teacher's aide, classes were anywhere from 26 to about 35, and the per pupil spending in inflation adjusted dollars was much lower than today. Given those "disadvantages" and others (e.g. the inflation adjusted income of middle income families then would qualify them "poor" today), children then got a far better education.
They'll never collapse because they are just another form of public welfare jobs.
#2 reason they'll never go away ? Because of all the parents who know that schools are in trouble but *their* school is just wonderful. These parents don't read their children's textbooks or sit in their classes to see or hear the drivel that passes as academics.
Where to begin... Of course I take my car to a trained mechanic. I go to the mechanic, tell him what I want done, and he does it. If schools operated this way, I wouldn't be homeschooling my children. If my mechanic were to consistetly send my car back to me in worse condition than I sent it to him, I'd find a new mechanic too.
i think 11-12 is the age i would definitely choose NOT to send my kids to school... especially today... i know you found a very rare school district, but most middle schools would not suit our family...
Thank you! I will check it out and give it to the Boss for her and our curriculum consultant to look into.
"I'm a public school grad and I can still tell you who Crispus Attucks is. (FYI, He's a *BLACK* man who happened to be the first person killed in the Revolutionary War. The fact that he's black, was of some importance, I guess.). However, 'Common Sense' was never assigned reading and most of the knowledge I have of the people of the time - giants, really, like Washington, Greene, Paine, Franklin, and on and on, was aquired on my own. Go figure."
Methinks its getting even worse in schools these days.
I'll go you one better.
If your mechanic put a camera in your car, and began asking you probing, personal questions; and if, when you said, "Look, I just wanted you to make my car run," responded, "Everything related to your car is my business" -- you'd fire him.
Curriculum is killing all schools - religious and private.
A lot of the catholic schools use the same books as the local public schools. Dedicated teachers cannot overcome a poor curriculum.
Why did you stop at 10 years? The University of Texas system is a public institution and your son would have been exposed the same kind of social ills there as in high school, wouldn't he? Why don't you homeschooling parents take on collegiate studies as well; after all aren't all colleges and universities dripping with liberal tenured professors? What's the difference? I really believe there should be homeschooled doctors, scientists, lawyers, even preachers--you homeschooling moms and dads can do it all!
See post #257
My son had a severe concussion in 2000. He had been reading at a 4th grade level (7 years old) but I had had to go back to "A sounds like aaaa." The drs said he had permanent brain damage and my husband was recalled form Kosovo. He then got very ill for about 3 years and we found out he was a Celiac. He then became a Type 1, brittle diabetic.
Last August he started public school. I had him held back a year from the get-go just because he's been through so much. He tested 5 years above his peers in reading (maxed the test) with a college-level vocabulary, two years higher in math, and two years below grade level in writing.
Can you honestly tell me that *ANY* public school would've done better with this kid than I did?
My daughter is almost 15 and getting really sick of her friends (who are, on average, two years older) asking her to define words she uses on an every-day basis. One of her friends has hypothyroidism and my daughter knew more on the subject off the top of her head than her friend knew after living with the disease for two years. Both of my kids will kick the average adult butt when it comes to history, human physiology, medicine, history and science. The school nurse told me that my son knew more about diabetes than she'd learned after working with diabetics for 20 years.
With all that said; I *KNOW* there are idiots out there who would make horrible HS parents. I also know that HSing is hard work that takes incredible stamina and dedication. Too many parents aren't willing to do the work required to do a good job. HSing isn't for everyone, but it isn't necessarily true that PS is the best option for all children.
".your parents should have gone to the school board (few ever do) and demanded that they be reprimanded and, if that didn't work, fired!"
Uh huh... complaining. Never works. This is yet another good reason for school vouchers and school choice, so you can actually yank kids out of toxic school environments as a message to the schools to fix the situation.
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