The Case Against Homeschooling

10. “You were totally home schooled” is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm (whether or not the offender was home schooled or not). And… say what you will… but it doesn’t feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.

OIC... If it this were an issue of racial intolerance, the kids uttering the comments would be evil. If the comments contain intolerance directed at home-schooled kids, the home-schooled kids are the problem.

9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students’ classroom shouldn’t also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldn’t be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Students–from little ones to teens–deserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.

Inference: People who home-school are knucle-draggers. Why they could quite possibly eat fruit-loops and meat loaf at the same time, and they probably have their kids sit on the couch where they do other things they enjoy. Well, they may read there when home schooled. What would be the problem with that? I would imagine that most home schooled kids spend quite a bit of time at a table doing their other studies.

8. Homeschooling is selfish. Wha?????

According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. If well educated families are coming to the conclusion that our present education system isn't meeting their chidlren's needs, then doesn't that damn the education system even more? If they are wealthy, then it's clear they're not stupid and floundering helplessly in a societal fog. They are fully educated, and capable of making good decisons. And these are the people you just tried to trash in number nine.

To take these (I’m assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. What a steaming pile of horse doo. This gives the teachers more time to spend on students who need help. That's bad? And why should students that excel be hobbled by having to go slower so other students can keep up? And what makes these home schooled students high achieving anyway? Wait a minute! Aren't we talking about home schooled students here? They're excelling? Really? This person assumes that only high acieving people can make it under homse-schooling. Of course that has to be the premise, because in intance after instance, home schooled children are showing up with excellent skills. This must be attributable to something other than the prowess of home schooling, so the assumption thus becomes that these kids are smarter than average, and therefore would have done well no matter where they attended. Whew, public school system isn't worse than home schooling after all.

Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates. The class warfare briggade knows no bounds. The rich are cheating the poor again, and now it's a conspiracy of children against children. Oh the humanities! I thought the education system was filled with brilliant caring teachers with years of education behind them. These teachers have chosen a field and have studied to obtain advanced degrees. They've been taught the most advanced current techniques to masterfully instill wisdom in their students. Now we're told that a sub-set of the children being exposed to this subject matter for the first time, is the real reason the underachievers excel. If so, what do we need the teachers for? What was their ecucation worth? Who knew?

7. God hates homeschooling. I didn't realize this. Which book and chapter of the Bible was this revealed in? Once again, who knew? Who DID God appeart to, to reveal this manna from heaven?

The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. Yes, that's no doubt part of it. It also true the parents don't want their children exposed to "YOUR" religious or moral instruction. Perhaps it's more accurate to state, they don't want their children exposed to the federal governments, the states, and the local school board's religious and moral instruction. And who could blame them? Is there a moral right and wrong? Well yes there is. And so more parents are opting out of the mind altering morally confusing quagmire that the public education system has become. You actually thought parents across this land wouldn't notice the public schools disrespect for our Founding Fathers, our Founding Documents, and the Constitution of the United States? You actually thought parents wouldn't object to having their five year old kids exposed to the wonders of anal? You actually thought parents wouldn't object to their children being taught that parents are racist homophobic morally repulsive knuckle-draggers? You actually thought that parents were going to stand idly by, as you hand out information so their daughters could obtain an abortion without the parents knowing about it? Tell me, what planet do you come from?

To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he (He) command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…) It's impossible to read this and not recall recent moves by the athiests to remove any evidence of God from our K-12th grade campuses, unless it's the god of Islam. Then, a sort of rift in the universal fabric of space and time occurs, and suddenly it's a joyful experience to learn about other cultures. Still, to hell with our own. Now we're beginning to see what really motivates all of this. It's the idea that the public schools won't be able to gain access to young minds, so that you can destroy everything parents had been trying to instill in them, including a respect and reverence of God. How can kids spread the word when Bibles are fobidden on campus, the mention of God is also forbidden, and talking to other students about God is considered to be a violation of church and state? Yes, you're just saying a whole lot of things that don't makes sense.

Oh yes, and one more thing. Get thee behind me Satan.

6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! Then why are children who are home schooled, beating the pants off of children who graduate from public schools? Spelling bees, math contests, geography, general knowledge, across the board, home schooled children are doing quite well when compared to students taught in the public school system. And surprisingly, they graduate with their values in tact. They aren't getting pregnant at the rates the children with all that pubic instruction are. They aren't having as many abortions. The kids have a lot better chance of making it to the 12th grade and through. So it would be very interesting for you to explain why these parent teachers don't have the right to be arrogant, and why you aren't the real loon here. Yes, for real!
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My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. And yet you readily admit, you can't teach the slower students without the help of the high achievers being introduced to this material for the very first time. Is it any wonder why people take one look at people like you and come to the conclusion that there isn't any chance they would risk their chidlren in a public school system?

So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? As we count down from 10 to 1, the reasons you think home schooling is wrong, we are now on item number 6. It's the fifth section in the sequence. And here almost half way through, you state, "So, first of all, homeschooling parent..." First of all? Are you saying items 10, 9, 8, and 7 weren't directed at home schooling parents? What do you mean 'first of all'? You've been driveling on for paragraphs here. I'm thinking home schooling partents might be able to provide an education that would prepare their children to form more organized thoughts than this, by the fifth or sixth grade. It's amazing to me, that with all the education you have obtained, you aren't able to think clearly enough to avoid such a sophomoric mistake.

And during that time you would think that you would learn somewhere along the way, that when talking of God, "He" is capitalized, a mistake you made in the middle of Section 8.

I've read your comments up to here. They aren't very impressive. If a person with your eduction including some impressive sound academic achievements and degrees, student teaching sumesters and mutliple interships, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles can't do any better than this at coming up with reasoned logical arguments, then I do think parents have a pretty good chance of doing better by their children, than you would.

Well, maybe you can. I’ll give you that. And so will I.

But there’s no way that you can teach English as well as me, Wow! Take a look at the comments in green, just above and to the left here. The same individual wrote those three full and partial sentences. Again, wow! This is a person with a very impressive education related resume, at least the parts they provided for us above. They were a professional writer for a period of time. They had a double major and two advanced degrees, master's degrees. After all that, this is the best they can do to represent their own views.

...and biology as well as a trained professional, and history… and Spanish… and art… and counsel for college as well as a school’s guidance counselor… and… and… You have expressed your thoughts here. You haven't done a very good job of it, but you did use your skill set to present the views you have. You consider yourself to be a master of the English language. You worked as a professional writer. And this is the best you could do, to express your views to us, in an attempt to win us over? Now you want us to accept that others with advanced degrees are equally as qualified as you are, to teach in their fields? And I'm sure you think that is supposed to impress us, and ease our minds about submitting our children to the public school system.

Frankly, I think you've achieve your goal. You've been a real eye opener. And I would like to thank you for making the case up to this point, that home schooling is a good idea, much better than I could have.

5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s good enough for #5.) I'm sure it does. The competition must be driving you absolutely nuts. Imagine, children spending more time with their mothers/fathers, achieving grade levels with shining examples of having been taught the materials required. And on top of that, they attain those levels with morals and religious beliefs in tact. From your point of view, that must represent everything that is wrong with the family unit in 2009.

4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. And tomorrow an 7.9 quake could destroy downtown Bismark. Just a few paragraphs back, you were saying that home schooling parents were "arrogant to the point of loonacy". Now you're saying that home schooling parents stand a good chance of instilling intolerance and racism. Perhaps you'll excuse me for thinking you are the one who is "arrogant to the point of loonacy". What, they may not tell their children by the time they are five, that anal intercourse between men is a wonderful idea. What, they won't convince their children that the Founding Fathers were racists, and that Martin Leuther King and Rosa parks were the real founders of our nation? You are one sick puppy.

Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, there’s probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them? Where to begin? I was raised in a White home. My parents explained to me that God loved all the little children. My church reinforced that. I was raised by these two entities not to judge people based on their appearance, but by their actions. Imagine that. By the time I went to school, I was already tollerant of girls and boys based on how they interacted with other children. I thought very highly of a little hispanic girl named Carla. She was so sweet. There were a lot of other kids I liked, who weren't just like me. And now I see you, a person who is willing to judge every family that home schools based on the fact you can't deal with it. You don't know these people. You haven't met their kids. You simply base your prejudice on the basic premise, that if they don't want to buy into your bias, they are ignorant intollerant rasists.

I was further along that you are now as an adult, by the time I was six.

3. And don’t give me this “they still participate in activities with public school kids” garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially. I've seldom met anyone that was more intollerant or prejudiced than you. It's called free will. Parents are allowed to opt their children out of the public education system. The results speak for themselves. There is no evidence that they are turning out ignorant intollerant racist social misfits, yet you slander every one of them with your broad statements. When those kids win the spelling bees, you must be sitting there thinking, why those little ignorant intolerant racist social misfits. You are one sick individual.

2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are “probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks” in choosing a college or line of work. “The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home schooling.”

More comfortable taking risks with their child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s future.

The issue of arrogance wasn't the only rehash here. We're also back to discussing the highly educated parent again. So we're not just rehashing number six above on the issue of arrogance, but we're also rehashing number eight with regard to well educated families too.

A new point is brought up with regard to the well educated family argument. Above the author of this flotsam tried to guilt the educated parent by stating it was selfish not to expose under achievers in public school to their over achievers. This gambling ploy should have been intruduced up there. Intruducing the condept here, just reveals how hard it was to find ten things to trash home schooling for doing.

We can ignore number five, and this should have been included under other topics. So far you've made only seven arguements. This should have been labeled number four.

1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***. Keep in mind the qualifications this person brags about having, and realize how low they stoop here.

This isn't a good argument against home schooling either. This exercise listed only seven groupings of ideas why this writer thought home schooling was wrong. Two of the offerings were nonsensical, and one of the offereings should have been listend when the general topic was raised elsewhere.

This wasn't even good by a layman's standard based on an eighth grade level of education.

I wanted to respnd on each point this person made, but I think most people reading their comments will recognize them for what they are... shameful!

“To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…) “

Hey, doofus. The command to ‘make disciples’ was not given to children, it was given to adults. People may want their children to be missionaries in the public school but there’s a reason they were not expected to do that per NT theology, it’s because they aren’t mature enough. People who push their children to do missionary work before they are ready are making a mistake.

Mawahaha.

Will have to read the thread tomorrow when I’m bored.

“’You were totally home schooled’ is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm”

“You were obviously government-schooled” is an insult successful young (formerly homeschooled) adults can use when responding to derision from unemployed, illiterate welfare recipients.

When you really take a step back and think about it, it is insance to think a situation where kids are surrounded only by people their own age is normal.
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Much of the socialization is prison-gang pathology. Kids learn how to be pliant prisoners and get along with the gang bosses.

If you really thing about it, almost **all** of the pathologic prison-gang socialization children learn in institutional school must be **UNLEARNED** just to get along with and work cooperatively with co-workers, the boss, the neighbors, in-laws, and **spouse**. Thankfully humans are resourceful and adaptive by nature, and most make the transition to healthier and more cooperative ( and kinder) socialization. Sadly, some do not.

It's a familiar complaint. Since many wealthier students may go the route of private schools, the NEA activists bray about "losing" these students, as if they are entitled to them by some statist claim upon children in general. The state does not own the children of the country. It is a strange attitude.
But many teaches will leave the teaching profession because of the unruly and undisciplined behavior they encounter in many government schools. The meme and whining about the wealthier students with higher standardized test scores are a familiar NEA ritual. Liberals and secular humanists have troubled accepting the fact that people are free to seek whatever kind of schools they prefer and can afford. They would outlaw religious and private schools, if they could. And, of course, they don't want kids learning in Christian homes. So they complain about being reduced to 9-to-3 social workers and babysitters. There is a nanny state mentality to all of this.

Communities could organize their own schools without the government and the NEA.

The piece reads as if it were written in 1992
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This piece reads like a post from one our Free Republic government school defenders.

By the way...they seem to have disappeared recently. I suppose the NEA and democratic party has laid them off from Pro-government School Internet Defending jobs.

Ping

you think you can teach English as well as me?

Considering the sentence above, "yes."

Double masters degrees and this doofus still can't master the use of me vs. I???

i caught that... just reading the sentece "hurt" my ears...

Is this sarcasm?

How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?

my children are exposed to other races and cultures because my husband and i mingle with people of different races and cultures...

my husband and i are ethnically different... our children are adopted, and in their cases, we do not know their ethnicities...

Holy Crap! Your son is UltraSonic? I want my girls to be just like him when they grow up!!!

Great job!!!!

I don’t know why I should be so amazed that some people just have absolutely no clue. Must have been a public schooled blogger.

“Also....When there is a homeschooler who is shy and not a leader why on earth would anyone conclude that institutionalizing them in prison-like schools would make their personalities more outgoing??? Chances are the prison-gang socialization of the other children would simply make things worse. Instead of being a little shy and odd, the kid would be a high school mass murderer.”

I couldn’t agree more. I was very shy in public school, and I was ridiculed and bullied because of it. One day during my junior year, I snapped. I pummeled a senior’s head with a flurry of punches that would have made Mike Tyson proud. He wasn’t the cause of all that pent-up rage, but he was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Had I been in possession of a weapon, I surely would have used it. I have to admit it felt great to get it out of my system, and I was never picked on again, but it was still wrong for me to use violence. The situation didn’t call for physical force.

I use that story as a lesson to my kids. Prepare yourself with learning, and you’ll be armed with enough knowledge to defeat your emotional foes with razor sharp wit. I also teach them how to take care of themselves physically, and I’m a strong proponent of gun safety lessons for kids. Violence is only called for when your physical safety is in danger, which is hopefully never, but you can never be too prepared.

Somewhere in time, we reached the apogee of enlightment, we must have, because we’re on the other side of the hill now, going down. I haven’t been able to decide when that apogee was. I suppose it was incremental. But there’s nothing “enlightened” about contemporary culture. The equation of “diverse” cultures is one reason, relative morality is another. And you are absolutely correct, public education is a major contributor to the downhill slide. I suppose this is that “slippery slope” I’ve heard of. I know the far left has been instrumental in it, and they are the ones who have controlled academia and media for decades.

Yes, they escape the equality of being “dumbed down” for the benefit of the “self-esteem” of others, and for a “more equally” stupid and malleable society. Marxism on the march.

My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism)

These are truly negative assets in the teaching of English grammar, spelling and usage. Trumpeting them shows how far from actual education the Education Establishment is.

Right. Unfortunately, there has also been a failure of the various mainstream Christian denominations to reach a consensus on Christian culture for education. Liberals and secular humanists have exploited this division and weakness within the Christian communities.

Home-schooled kids are going to be this country's next generation of leaders

or prisoners.