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.)
I think of my poor, disadvantaged HSed older two -- Matthew, with his top grades, well on his way to a medical career, Rachael with a BA, already teaching French and Spanish at HS level... poor things....
"Do most homeschool parents have the necessary skills to teach some of the more difficult courses? What about languages, which are often required for entrance to college?"
Not all do, which is why they hire me, I teach advanced math. I know a couple of people who offer both Latin and French clases, as well as kids who take courses at the local community college.
However, most homeschooling parents are college educated themselves, and just teach the language they learned such as Spanish or French.
David Arnold of the NEA !, now there's a guy who would take an objective viewpoint of home schooling !!!
My daughter belongs to a home school cooperative on the Florida space coast with her four and six y/o. There is such a sharing of skills. Lisa lacks a teaching credential but I sense from her 5 on the calculus AP that she might be a half decent math tutor.
My wife and I home schooled our 4 children with the following outcome:
2 graduated from George Mason
1 is a licensed contractor in a major U.S. city doing very well for himself. Drives a better car and has a bigger house than his old man
1 is a film maker
....me thinks we did ok.
Let's see, in the course of their schooling, my kids have had the teacher who said that the dark meat on chicken is dark because "it's closer to the bone". Then there's the ones that spend half the class time talking about their pets and whatnot, and the one who had 11th grade math students sewing fake moles because it's Mole Day. And let's not forget the many that think watching popular movies is an effective use of class time. Professionals my eye.
Somewhat flawed...the stats have been derived by homeschooling advocates who take a sample of homeschooled children against the whole of public school educated ones. A better sample would be to compare homeschooled kids against a subset of public school students who have parental involvement. And, when that comparison is made, the homeschooled kids place well-behind their competition.
cementing?
The author is an idiot!
"consequently, when we teachers get their children back they are unprepared and over challenged"
I guess that's why my nephews and nieces that were home schooled have all scored extremely well on the SAT and have ALL gotten scholarships and gone on to the universities of their choice.
I was originally against home schooling for them, but when I saw the curriculum I was truly impressed.
There are indeed some parents that don't have the time or discipline to do this, but some do, and do it very well.
Then why does every study show that homeschoolers do so much better on standardized tests (on average) than their peers in public school?
Homeschooling parents do not want to teach any children other than their own. They know their child far better than any teacher will ever know them. The homeschooling parent does not have to put up with the time-consuming task of disciplining children that are in the classroom only to cause trouble and call attention to themselves.
Incidentally, I assume this teacher is receiving a paycheck, so he is also in it "for the money."
His kids can watch MIT open courseware for free. MIT offer full course lectures for algebra, cal, trig, physics, bio.
The next thing you know, all those professional head custodians out there will want to sire our children for us too. NO THANKS Dave, I'll do the shaping of my window washers, brick layers and space station builders.
It's not just that they have the right to do so, it's that they see that public schools are dangerous, left-wing dominated institutions that teach things they do not believe and do not want their young skulls-full-of-mush to be taught. I'm sure your cousin will find a solution if he's that concerned about the environment his child is forced to endure.
LOL, well yes.
I was in contact with 3 or 4 of them in our area when we were thinking about continuing my son's homeschooling into the high school years.
I never saw the "hubris" you mention - I never met a parent who was reluctant to have an expert in the more difficult subjects. In fact, you would be amazed at the qualifications of some of the folks in these co-ops. Just one example -- a retired Army Colonel of Engineers with a doctorate in electrical engineering was teaching the kids calculus, along with the principles of navigation and applying math to "real world" problems like moving dirt and building amplifiers . . . and the kids were having a ball!
What he wasn't doing was trying to influence the kids politically or socially . . . which is what many homeschool parents are trying to avoid. It's not just the lack of competence that annoys parents, it's the ideological subtext that's injected into so many classrooms. To paraphrase, "shut up and teach!"
And it may be hubristic of me, but I would put my academic qualifications up against those of any public high school teacher. I'm not qualified to teach math or science at the high school level, but I could teach English, English lit. or history at college level, and if I had a chance to brush up I could teach up to intermediate level German or beginning Latin.
yes--the "wannabe" writer with good intentions who heads up the custodial department... isn't that a crack-up?
And, for those out there who don't understand the meaning of "hubris", the above quote is a fine example.
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