Posted on 04/27/2002 2:36:15 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
By looking at the e-mails to the editor this week, questions about home-schooling are still in play. Along with doubts about the home-schooling atmosphere and educational results, there is large concern over whether home-schoolers are properly socialized.
These concerns are spread throughout America, accusing home-schoolers, because they are educated at home with a loving parent, of not learning the necessary socialization skills required in later life.
I, as a home-schooler, am tired of my intelligence being insulted every time I turn around. Probably the most fabricated or misconstrued idea about home-schooling is that the child is inhibited from obtaining essential socialization skills.
The largest group spreading this disinformation is the National Education Association. In its 2000-2001 Resolutions, it writes, "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience."
In a letter to NEA President Bob Chase, the National Home Education Network wrote asking what their resolution regarding home schooling was based on. He replied, saying, "During the 1998 [Representative Assembly], delegates approved the policy on homeschooling. They were concerned that homeschooled students were not provided a comprehensive education experience because they did not have an opportunity to interact with students of different cultures, economic status or learning styles." In other words, because I stayed at home with my mother, brother and sister and not several hundred other children down the street, I will fail.
It is obvious that home-schooling has stepped in the way of the NEA's agenda, and because of the fact that home-schoolers make up less than 1 percent of the American population, groups such as the NEA are able to spread this obvious disinformation and deceit.
The premise of the war against home-schooling is that children do not obtain the needed socialization skills. By agreeing with that, you have to concede the point that public schools, private schools, etc., are the only source for socializing.
Ever hear of church, sports, community events or neighbors down the block? Many home-schoolers, such as myself, play sports, go to church, attend community events, play musical instruments and many other things.
Maybe if public schools learned from home-schoolers and focused less on socializing in class and focused more on learning, the average test score for public school students might be greater than 50 percent.
Critics state that the majority of home-schoolers are antisocial. In contrast, dare I suggest that, in proportion, there are more antisocial students in public schools rather than home-schools.
With one-on-one learning action with parents, many home-schoolers are able to communicate far better with adults, compared to their public-schooled peers – leading to a greater success in the future.
Because of the rough peer pressure (pressure to have sex, use drugs, commit crime, cheat on tests, or pressure to commit other unethical behavior) and social situations, many are left out in the cold by other pupils – unlike the alternative choice of home-schooling.
Tied to the antisocial claim is that home-schoolers will most likely fail in later life – quite humorous. Even if you were to concede that home-school students are antisocial in grade school, saying that they will fail in later life because of it is nothing short of absurd. Just because a person is not a part of the "group" in their childhood does not mean they can't communicate in the present or future.
Although home-schoolers make up less than 1 percent of the population, you find home-schoolers winning the national spelling and geography bees, as well as being Rhodes Scholars, doctors, politicians, presidents, founding fathers and much more.
The start of the public education system only began in the previous century, but using the NEA's logic, all people educated before 1900, including all the founding fathers, government officials, doctors, lawyers and people from all occupations were not given a comprehensive education experience and not properly socialized.
So, stop the spread of this deceit and disinformation. The NEA says that I have not obtained the necessary socialization skills (or communication skills), but I just communicated information, facts and my beliefs to you.
When did this become a requirement for receiving one's high school diploma? Are grades in "tolerance and understanding toward the dregs of society" now included on public school transcripts? (For cryin' out loud, I hope I'm not giving them any new ideas here........)
Don't be surprised if they are, under the heading of "Respect for others"
The primary purpose of the public school is to ensure indoctrination of the kids into whatever passes for the "Party Line". Always has been. Teaching them to read and write is just what they do to reduce complaints by parents. (The secondary purpose is to be a jobs program for "progressive" activists)
To the NEA "socialization" means mainly preparing kids for socialism.
When it refers to social skills, on the other hand, socialization means getting kids to learn about:
* what it's like to be bullied by bigger kids;
* what extortion of your lunch money is like;
* what being ridiculed by your fellow "students" feels like;
* how to learn to "hold your water" so you don't have to risk going to the bathroom and being beaten up;
* how to receive ridicule and condescension from teachers;
* how to obey authority and how to comply with their wishes, even if your rights or well-being or even sanity is being violated as a result;
* how to accept Ritalin when the brain-dead environment of school makes you act out, out of sheer desperation;
* which new hate words to use to replace the old hate words (e.g., how to call low IQ kids "speds" instead of "retards" -- same difference);
* how to hate whites, regardless of which race you are!
* how useless manners are;
* how to accept perversions of all kinds as "normal"; and the corrolary, of how to accept that moral behavior is to be considered unusual and deviant.
Well, there's more, but this is the main kind of socialization that a kid really learns in school.
It means that my home-schooled children won't succumb to being the public property of a bureaucratic police state.
Egads! They can't have free-thinking kids around to blow their cover, can they?
I'm proud to say I have 'educated' many of my friends this year about homeschooling. I was VERY active at both Catholic elementary schools my kids attended so I knew a LOT of people. When we decided to homeschool this year, I was CONTINUALLY asked about socialization. I reminded them that our kids would still be in their Scout troops and be involved with Parish activities. And they get in trouble for 'socializing' during class anyway, don't they? They already knew that Sir SuziQ and I could provide an education better than they were receiving in either school.
Frankly the kids are just as happy to stay home and do their work at their own speed, which alternates between tortoise and lightning on various days. And when they feel like getting together with friends, they do. We've always encouraged our kids, schooled or not, to speak respectfully to and converse with other adults. They won't have a problem with that at all.
I am truly impressed with the article that young man wrote. I know MY kids couldn't do that right now, and there are some homeschooled kids who won't ever be that eloquent, and that's fine. But he is a wonderful representative for our kids.
I remember by kid's PS approved social skills at work in my house: the twelve-year-old telling me I had no right to go into her room, to know with whom she was hanging around; snotty replies to my requests. The change was radical, and coincided with the start of her middle school year. That must have been the "magic" they spoke of: "Goodbye dad and mom, I belong to them, now."
We were informed the nine-year-old needed drugs. This beautiful, creative kid couldn't pay attention, was a bully, and intimidated her teachers. Butthole teachers: THE KID COULDN"T READ!!!!! But they only cared about her ability to be an obedient object.
We homeschooled from that time, and now that the kids are in college where being smart and polite isn't seen as a sign of weakness; they're popular, trusted , confident , and respected by their instructors and friends.
The public schools' five-year socialization plan is a destroyer of otherwise useful lives.
It is hard to refute an unsupported assertion, such as the charge that Home Schoolers are not properly socialized. In my community the lie is highlited in neon lights. Some Home Schoolers would like to participate in the nearby school's extracurricular activites. (sports, band, etc.) This is not allowed. The NEA is opposed. If they were truly concerned about Home Schoolers socialization, they would welcome this participation.
Godspeed, The Dilg
The Dilg
No, they don't. They know that home-schooled kids are outscoring "their" kids on standardized tests. They know exactly what's going on. They are being threatened.
Bump.
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