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 wasn't referring to you particularly. The general point wass that most people are trying to avoid the truth about the public schools because it is appalling. The usual excuse is that their public school is "different" - just like their congressman (it's those other ones that are bad). Again, I was responding to a theme, not your situation, whatever it is.
BTW, no one is condemning or even judging you. We are condemning public schools as such. Unless you are personally a public school or a National "Education" Association, you are neither condemned nor judged.
If your personal circumstances leave your kids in public schools, and you are doing the best you can, good for you! Encourage your kids to spend time at libraries and to read a lot of the best stuff so that they may overcome their gummint skeweling. It will be hard but worth it.
If one says that Dr. Jarvik or Dr. DeBakey is a better choice of cardiac surgeon than J. Random phsyician at a welfare clinic, one is not insulting the patients of any of the three. Likewise the fact that homeschooling and most private schooling is quite superior to PS 666 does not insult the students of any of them.
The preliminary clause was a hypothetical and the main clause was true as allegory.
Christ said to the crowd ready to stone the woman taken in adultery: Let he who is sinless cast the first stone. IF Mary threw the first stone, she would not have disobeyed (other than as to gender) His direction. That she did not throw the first stone and that no one else did does not make her disobedient.
Lakotan/Torquemadan theological method be-um not make head hurt looking for obscure controversies: Go with flow! Otherwise, one suffer what those who had "professors" in secular prep schools instead of teachers suffer. It be-um not necessary to review history of use of term "professor" instead of teacher at secular private prep schools!
I do not "abandon" my children. I am not "abusing" my children. I don't care what you, as an obnoxious homeschooler, think. When I moved here from California, I was fully prepared to put my children in private school, until they refused to take my son because he had a writing disability and didn't fit into their perfect little mold. As I had to get my children into school immediately, I went to the local public school. They have treated my children with love, and my children are thriving.
The school has won multiple awards. The student to teacher ratio is 11/1. I know almost every teacher by name. I volunteer regularly. They use Saxon math, and have advanced math and reading classes for every grade. They have two full time gifted and talented teachers, and two special ed teachers. The children have full time PE, art, and music teachers, as well as a full time nurse.
When I had a concern about the possible use of a certain lesson plan being touted by the liberal wackos, I called the principal, and while we were still on the phone, she issued a memo stating that if any teacher wished to use that lesson plan, parental approval would be required.
You can walk through the halls and see Bible verses used in art projects. Discipline is excellent, and students are required to use sir and ma'am when addressing a teacher.
My son took an enrichment course in Latin and will continue with it in the public high school.
So, guess what? MY school IS different. It is more like a private school than a public school.
Your attitude is absolutely disgusting, and dismissive of other people. If you continue to attack others, homeschooling will lose more and more support from those of us who think it can be a wonderful thing, but have made other choices for our family.
I am not going to argue about the abolition of public schools, because it simply is not going to happen, at least in the near future.
You must be terribly anxious about something because I didn't say one word about you abandoning your children or abusing them. I would assume that no one posting here would do those things. If you have "issues" with someone else, please don't address them to me. Thanks.
You must be terribly anxious about something because I didn't say one word about you abandoning your children or abusing them. I would assume that no one posting here would do those things. If you have "issues" with someone else, please don't address them to me. Thanks.
Did you know that Dr. Michael Debakey is still alive at 98!
They don't even set sail till about page 100 or so! If the early stuffon land bored you (The Inn, Father Mapple's sermon) then I don't know what to say.
It's problematic when your reader finds the protagonist uninspiring, let alone contemptible.
That "idea" you responed to is, as Rep. Randolph once said of a piece of legislation, - it is like a carp in the moonlight. It is shiny and it stinks.
The left is about power. If you do not elect them to it, they will seize it from you any way they can, usually via the Judiciary.
It's perfectly reasonable. It's called the Intentional fallacy and it was put forward in the 1930s or so by a group of American critics called the Southern Agrarians. All oustponekly conservative and Christian. 'Meaning' cesom from the text not an author's intentions. Whatever they were.
*Many of Hitler's Eugenic ideas were lifted from educated Americans, Like Mag the Scag Sanger, who were forced to read the formless poetry of Whitman...I'm just saying :)''
there is absolutely no indication he intended a joke. His "intention" was an after-the-fact attempt, by his political handlers, to cober his large goofy butt
Were her explanations of equal value to your ideas generated by her text?
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