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.)
Hmm. You're onto something. When you take education out of the market economy it is likely to produce some negative effects. Whether the venue is public or private, it doesn't matter. Either way, some alternate form of competition will be in play. In American society, trust is reserved for the professiona
Exactamundo.
OMG. Doesn't this just speak volumes about the author, the article, and the concept of "professional educators!!!"
Someone who doesn't know the difference between cement, concrete, conglomerate.....yet....is the only person skilled enough to teach a subject like geology to kids. Idiots!
Okay...........if I get this right by having read the first couple of paragraphs.......if no one can know everything, how can teachers possibly know enough to give a good education? After all, they can't know everything right?
Yep, this needs a BARF alert
And then there's the classic Bush Bashing Rant which probably takes up a significant amount of class time.
i think the problem is you're just not used to students who can think for themselves... i'm sure this makes your job much more difficult... then you have to expend much energy just to "dumb them down" so they can be at the same level as all your other students... must be hard...
This NEA jerk just did to homeschooling parents what Kerry did to the military with his recent remarks ......
Exactly. You're preaching to the choir on this, shag...I also endorse a parent's right to teach his/her kids at home but SO many of them are SO unqualified in all the disciplines needed to prepare students for college. Homeschooling parents are the most arrogant lots you'll ever find, in always knowing what's best in educating their children, and in the end do their kids a disservice. I fully understand the angst against public schools but they would help their children a lot more if they abandoned the idea of homeschooling and opted instead for a job to pay the tuition for a good private school education.
Well-meaning amateurs? Noah was a well-meaning amateur. He built the ark and saved your miserable butt. And I bet he is right now sorry he did that. NEA = union malefactors.
Same old straw man argument about parents not having enough expertise to instruct their children. Yawn! Given the fact that homeschooled children outscore all other types of students in standardized testing, it seems that the the evidence does not support this expert's assertion. Why he gets it wrong is that his argument is based on the erroneous assumption that parents who are homeschooling their children are the only ones the children will be exposed to in their education. The reality is that homeschooling parents draw from a wider range of educational instruction than is available to the average public school. Not only do they have the freedom to pick out the best curriculum, but they can also avail themselves of local experts in various fields, or even through the internet. This article also assumes an education degree enables one to be an expert in education. We can all see how the public school record sinks that argument in a second. Finally, this article assumes that the classroom instruction model is the most effective educational environment whereas a mentoring model has been used for thousands of years and has trained the world's best thinkers, inventors, philosophers and leaders. Need I say mroe?
If you take your car to a mechanic, and it still won't run after you pay him lots of money, why should you trust him to "fix" it again?
Public schools are more than broken.
They also might check out Bioedonline.org . I know the people that produce it. I think it may be quite good.
They don't if the comparison sample is correctly done.
Woo hoo ..... rim shot!
Pardon me all over the place. I aimed my previous post toward Dave Arnold, and then posted it to you. Sorry, meandog.
the sat's of home schooled children are higher than those of kids educated in public schools on average.
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