Posted on 05/31/2009 1:48:40 PM PDT by aberaussie
Homeschooling: great for self-aggrandizing, society-phobic mother…… but not quite so good for the kid.
Here are my top ten reasons why homeschooling parents are doing the wrong thing:
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.
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.
8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (I’m assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. 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.
7. God hates homeschooling. 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. 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…)
6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! 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. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. I’ll give you that. But there’s no way that you can teach English as well as me, 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…
5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s good enough for #5.)
4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. 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?
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.
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.
1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.
*** Please see the comments for thoughts on the word ‘geeky.’ But, in general, to be geeky connotes a certain inability to integrate and communicate in diverse social situations. Which, I would argue, is a likely result of being educated in an environment without peers. It’s hard to get by in such a diverse world as ours! And the more people you can hang out with the more likely you are to succeed, both in work life and real life.
One last note, to those homeschooling parents out there: it’s clear from the number and passion of your responses that TeacherRevised is missing an important voice in the teaching community. If any of you are interesting in writing for us, send me an email: jessescaccia@gmail.com. I would love to have you as part of our conversation.
Obviously, ol' Jesse doesn't know many homeschooled children.
But I could add that everybody I've met who's anti-home schooling tends to be pretty much an a$$hole.
Betcha Jesse is, too...
This person is accusing someone else of being arrogant??? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
All 3 of our kids (now happy, productive adults) were homeschooled and were always sought after as friends by the neighborhood kids who were in gov’t. schools. Why? Because our kids were nice to everyone. They were not bullies and did not exclude younger siblings or kids that were different. The person writing this article ought to be ashamed of his (her? I forgot to look at the name) prejudice.
Or, he could start minding his own business. That would be a refreshing change.
You got further than I.
AGREE, 110%!!!
>>10. “You were totally home schooled” is an insult college kids use when mocking...
Proof that public schools breed social savagery.
>>9. ... Students–from little ones to teens–deserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.
The author thinks of them as a meal ticket where their incompetence and indoctrination are kept secret from the general public.
>>8. Homeschooling is selfish. ...Poorer students ... greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.
It’s not the job of diligent kids to teach their savage class mates. That’s the author’s job.
>>7. God hates homeschooling. ...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.
Sorry, but it’s you pagans who are trying to preach your religion to Christian kids. You’d lock up any kid who tried to convert his pals to Christianity.
>>6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism)...
And the stats prove that “Ed” majors are the intellectual bottom of the barrel. An ordinary parent who cares about their kids does better than you unionized morons.
>>5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off.
Being revealed to be an overpaid incompetent generally has that effect.
>>4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. ...How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?
He can learn about yoiur moral savagery on TV, if his parents let him. Oh, and he can read books. Of course, there is a bigoted undercurrent in your assumptions that I won’t go into.
>>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.
Which is why all the home-schooled kids I have EVER met are more socially mature and pleasant to be around than any randomly selected public school student. PS: your job is to educate, not to socialize.
>>2. More comfortable taking risks with their child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s future.
The real risk is in trusting a unionized government employee to raise your kids.
>>1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.
I guess the tolerance and diversity goes out the window when some hack is worried about her gravy-train job.
That is the most arrogant stuff I’ve read since Obama last opened his mouth.
Let me help you out here........
I have to admit to not reading carefully through this for laughing. Here’s the deal. I home schooled my children for almost four years and my oldest just graduated high school with enough college credits to enter college as a sophomore. Since she is so well adjusted and academically prepared, her advisers are pressuring her to get her BS in two years. Yep, I’m selfish. I want my children to be academically successful and good people. I taught them to love their country and to be wary of revisionist history and those that teach it. Knowledge is power. I consider those who send their children to public schools to be taking the gamble. Yeah, my kid’s a real drag on society. So much so, she (along with other local teens) volunteer with our local police department helping preschool children. Yep, as you may have guessed, she’s socially inept and can’t get along with adults or children. /s
I’m not wealthy by the way, far from it. The decision to home school my children was a huge financial sacrifice. I consider it an investment not a gamble. I’m only sorry I didn’t home school them the entire twelve years, maybe then I’d have had enough time to turn them into successful young adults. /s
I can attest to the “lunacy” and “selfishness” of homeschooling parents... A family with 4 children who previously were in school with mine went off the deep-end! They pulled the three in grade school out when the perceived bullying was handled as they wanted it handled. This also masked the desire for the “golden child” in private high school to stay in that private high school - with the younger three in private school too, the oldest would need to go to public high school.
As for the home-schooled child as an adult: I had to work with one. He was even an Eagle Scout and passed the CPA test at the first sitting. He was hired bacause the hiring manager held the “EAGLE” in high regard. Social skills were very poor. After he was hired, it was found that his scout troop was a troop of one scout and one adult. He did NOT have any of the leadership skills one would normally find in an eagle scout.
off the soap box...
Pretty sad, poorly written and juvenile, resorting to ad hominem attacks, specious reasoning, and evidence of neurotic control and authoritarian issues. Guess a masters in English isn’t what it once was.
Frankly this piece makes the case for home schooling very well tho unintended.
Here is that Educrat’s vulnerabily point - her Gotcha Point.
“My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism).
MS Educrat admits to a degree in journalism, AND wants the FR community to accept her having survived the academic rigors (forgive the sarcasm) of a school of urinalism as a qualification making her superior to a home schooling parent.
Get The Net, FReepers, we have a live one here.
“seems a bit jealous” and threatened. Could it be that she is a LOUSY TEACHER?.
Wow. I've been called a "nerd" due to my admitted zeal for sci-fi and video games, but "geeky"?
How many combat patrols has this wench led? Call me that to my face, bitch.
> This is exactly right. Well socialized illiterates with
> the illusion if self esteem is MUCH better than
> academically accomplished children with real self
> esteem. /sarc
Indeed.
:)
However, as homeschoolers, we prefer to teach self-RESPECT. We will leave the vanity of self-esteem to the tax-funded, union-run government indoctrination centers.
A few points of my own.
* “Public Schools” are better understood as “The Bus Ministry of the State Church of Secular Humanism”.
* “School Districts” are better understood as “School Collectives”, considering their Marxian origin.
* “Public School Teachers”, by their own union literature, are better understood as “Change Agents”, a Maoist term adapted by Carl Rogers, the co-inventor and promoter of “Affective Education”. Take note that “Affective” is not the same as “Effective”.
* “Public Schools” typically employ the lowest common denominator, one-size-fits-all model of teaching.
* John Dewey, touted as the “Father of Progressive Education” by the Teachers’ Unions, was an atheist and socialist and a cosigner of “The Humanist Manifesto”.
Wacky parents will do wacky things with or without homeschooling.
My experience with homeschooled adults has been that they are pretty normal and are quite grounded. They may lack a few negative experiences but hey, life will get around to slapping them with enough of those anyway.
Is this for real? The “God hates homeschooling” line kind of stands out as a lame attempt at humor.
Not much of an argument against home schooling there in that article.
Are lefties getting nervous concerning the movement?
Agreed. Bragging about her credentials-a sure sign of “superiority”. If I am not mistaken, education majors at most colleges are in the bottom quartile ranks of SAT and/or ACT test takers who go on to college and graduate.
Toilet Paper article.
Aw she’s just jealous that I can do her job without her vaunted credentials.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.