The NEA *is* awake...and foaming at the mouth over this wonderful Homeschool success! 
Posted on 03/30/2002 3:56:22 AM PST by Caipirabob
It won’t do any good, but you can point out that teacher’s salaries have steadily increased … and that class sizes have steadily decreased for thirty years … and her profession is more of a failure than ever.
I am home-schooling two kids while I write and market a book. One is old enough to have taken standardized tests, FReeper NattieShea, age 8. Her Stanford Achievement test scores last year indicated that she is a perfectly normal 10th grader. She scored Post High School in mathematics and algebra :-). She is completing a self-taught course in high school geometry now and will begin trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus this summer! THIS is an example of her literary work at that time. Her current term paper analyzes five works by Dickens for how his perspective of the Industrial Revolution was biased by his childhood experience.
Her sister is now barely 8. She is completing her work in fractions and can multiply binomials in her head. I am now introducing matrix algebra as a means to do subtraction. Her term paper is on five books by Jules Verne. She is the athlete, NattieShea is the dancer.
That’s right, we taught times tables and fractions before doing large subtraction problems. That is because we are free to integrate the curriculum into new and exciting forms that save huge amounts of time. It has its downside in that all experiments don’t work, but the benefit is that we can change it if it’s a flop. Our process of rapid iteration creates a customized curriculum and pedagogical style for each child.
Here is the really damning piece of information insofar as public schools are concerned:
I spend less time teaching these kids than it would take me to drive them to school and back plus help them with their homework. I have no doubt that, if they were in pubelick schools I would spend MORE time dealing with the behavioral problems arising therefrom than I do now while achieving excellent results and producing kids that are a pleasure to have. Parents beg us to loan them out hoping that they might be a positive influence on their kids. Home schooling is the best thing ever to happen in our family. It has brought us together like nothing else ever could have done.
When a market of home schools reaches, say five million kids, there will be dedicated broadband services and cable channels, private laboratory facilities in mini-malls... In short, the MARKET will provide the ancillary capabilities that one would rationally assume constitutes a limiting factor for the continued developmental acceleration of home-schooled teenagers. As parents find ways to integrate their professional development with their educational responsibilities, using the power to bring their professions into the home (as I do), the children will also see and experience that professional life all during their educational development. What do I mean?
I write and consult for a living. Everywhere I go, so do my kids. They see the world of work while they study. They walk the halls of the State Legislature, they visit the farms, factories, and small businesses, they meet forest landowners, they witness discussions with academics and agency administrators. They can sit quietly and study anywhere. Why? They get to see the interactions of adults on issues that matter. So far, wherever we go, I have yet to meet a person who is not delighted to have the kids around. They see me get frustrated with my own inabilities. They see me study and learn the skills I need to overcome the difficulty. They witness the need for quick thinking in debate. They therefore understand the importance of what they are doing. They understand that as soon as they are able, that they can help. Tell me that this is not an incredible learning environment.
For those who have doubts about home-schooling perhaps you might read Charlotte Iserbyt's book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America or John Taylor Gatto's book, An Underground History of American Education to understand where the public system is really going. It is so bad that any idiotic argument about socialization should be shown for what it is: the covetous desire to control how MY KIDS think. Socialization is socialism. Nothing more.
One final benefit. Every time a parents confront what they don't know, that they need to teach their kids, they get to go fix the damage done by THEIR public education. Home-schooling re-educates TWO generations of voters simultaneously and pulls families together that will resist the indoctrinal system (including the media). They will break down the entire educational hierarchy, including the university credentialing factories controlled by the PC professorate. That is why the fascist system so greatly fears it.
I have just one word for parents who have kids in public schools now: flee.
Let me state up front that I think alternative schooling is a great thing.
However, I just like to call things what they are. EVERY time someone sends a kid to a college course, a public school athletic team, and co-op of kids taught by one knowledgeable parent, etc., they are simply recognizing why institutional schools developed in the first place.
What homeschoolers and private/parochial schoolers want is legitimate input into the content and methods of THEIR children's education. I fully support that...especially in terms of moral education.
But we shouldn't pretend that the bugaboo is the "institutional" school. The devil in the details is threefold: (1) Schools off on their own "immoral" education crusade, and (2) Schools that have lost control of discipline, and (3) Schools with low academic expertise.
The NEA *is* awake...and foaming at the mouth over this wonderful Homeschool success!
Wake up the NEA??! As far as I can tell, the NEA is awakened-- and with a personal vendetta... We're talkin' about a $$$-dollar industry here, man... These folks are going to discredit and tear down homeschooling as much as it takes to fight for their jobs and credibility...
So, everybody wins and they have a group hug. Maybe sing Kumbaya.
And growing due to the new NEA and GLSEN agenda.
I agree with your post for the most part. Teachers these days have challenges never fully anticipated when they made the decision to teach. They spend most of their time attempting to discipline of have some semblence of order in the classroom. Because of this, and the incredibly short attention spans of TV-infused, ill-mannered, disrespectful children, little actual teaching takes place.
There are wonderful teachers in our public school system. There are also the teachers who follow the NEA to the letter and are horrid instructors for our kiddos.
The fault lies with a number of people, imho:
1)parents for allowing the kiddos to live life like wolves
2)NEA
3)school administration
4)some teachers
I have met a few homeschooling parents who failed to recognize that much of their child's educational material came from an institution of learning. They would go on and on about the evils of institutionalism, (and they have much to gripe about) without realizing the value (used wisely, of course) that some "institutions" may offer. Many homeschoolers will be going to institutions of higher learning such as colleges and universities. Hopefully, those children will be able to deal with the good from the bad and take advantage of the possibilities. I hope that my son will. :)
In athletics, my son enjoys fencing, snowboarding and tennis. He hated mandatory P.E. when he went to public school. He played goalie for a youth soccer and hockey team for a few years, but now he is on a fencing squad and devotes most of his time to it. (One older kid on his squad just received a fencing scholarship from Stanford University.)
My son has homeschooling and public school friends who play more traditional sports on Little League, Pop Warner, and Boys and Girls Club basketball teams. We have yet to meet any homeschooler who plays on a public or private school team. I know that they are out there.
There are also loads of kids with ambivalent parents who wouldn't get any educational motivation at all if it were not for public and private school sports that include academic criteria. That fact alone is a good thing to come out of an educational institution--especially when the parents are uninterested in their child's education.
"Success isn't politically correct", she added.
Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said that in some instances, home-schooling parents emphasize memorization more than schools do - another reason home-schoolers have found success in the bee.
Well Duh...and memorization worked great for 200 years until the hippies and commies took control and forced alternative learning on the kids. This guy is an "educator" and he sees something working so he derides it...sheesh!
Homeschoolers Unite!
Fine post, Teacher. I come from generations of public school teachers, and without fail, they approve of our choice to homeschool. (At least those who are still alive.)
I've thought about starting a school, and was even asking some questions pointed on FR at one time. I envisioned 10-50 students; 1-4 teachers; using existing facilities like a church, local VFW post, or donated office space; not providing lunch, despite the income it generates for public schools; possibly writing and marketing our own textbooks; try to keep tuition low enough for middle-class wage earners; utilizing volunteers effectively; offering math, English, science, social studies, German (the only language I've ever taken) and health through GED levels; working with a nearby public school to let our students join their athletic teams (already done in many parts of Indiana). The overall structure would be very similar to the old community contract-hired schoolhouse master.
The financial numbers seemed to work out, but the one piece of FReeper advice I got that threw me was, "you'll always overestimate the assets, and always underestimate the liabilities." That scared me off. I've kept my eyes open for anyone else who is similarly-minded, but I don't think I could summon the willpower to make a small 'neighborhood' school work by myself.
I have never considered working with a private school to mentor a home-school program, though. How would I go about finding those private schools that participate?
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