Home Schooling

[Grandpa Harley]

rip,

 

"Socialization" or lack of is parents problem.

 

Beastie gets to rub shoulders with folks from scientific, engineering, construction, compressed air and helmet diving, building, exploding, thinking, philosophical, medical, live saving, military, lines of professions by hanging around with me on the various jobs I do or did.

 

At our public schools the influence of various gangs and bullshit artistes have ensured that my legal legs are well worn as I sue the shit out of the District for little things like *Equal Protection* and "Section 1983" suits.

 

Beastie has so far this year disarmed a knife wielding punk, taken a baseball bat from a kid who was intending harm to he and buddies, put a dozen or more punks on ground that were threatening or had already hit him.

 

The Invisible Hand works, and out socialist skULlez sure are good examples of how not to use the Prussian method of *education*. Adam Smith is coming, and first thing I hope the rate paying public feels is the squeeze of big box schools...

 

Beastie will do more than survive and be one of the sheep. Be damnned if I'll let the skULLez be the arbiter of what he thinks..

 

kFL

 

With due respect, Skip, my dove... would you say that you were a average father? You're one of the very few people I learn stuff from... and that, as arrogant as it sounds, is as high praise I could give...

[ShackledNoMore]

It depends really... Westboro's home schooling curriculum would be child abuse.

 

From where I sit, the Christian home schooling movement is to maintain the cult's control over the kids. As to content, how is this policed? Is it policed at all? Are there spot checks?

BINGO!

 

As has already been mentioned, home schooling can be used as a mechanism and as a sanction to teach dark ages superstition as fact. Not only a terrible disservice to the student, but bad for society as well.

 

Religion aside, some parents who home school are sorely unqualified to do so.

 

OTOH, in other cases, some qualified and motivated parents can do a much better job than the school system.

[Jubilant]

As many people here know, we home educate our children. Our 9yo dd has never stepped foot into a school building (aside from a county blended school program that she loathed after just one semester and decided not to go back) and we withdrew our son from private school (he’s been to public also) five years ago. We love home educating and our children turn down going to school every year. They have friends, we get together regularly with other home schoolers in the area, etc., etc…which takes care of socialization needs.

 

Both of our children are polite and courteous, look people in the eyes when speaking, and upon meeting new children or going to a home that they’ve never been to they don’t cower somewhere in a corner trembling with fear. There are shy home schooled children and there are shy public/private schooled children. I’m sorry, but one of my biggest pet peeves is the socialization argument, it’s as though every child in public school is outgoing and well suited for society and that is far from the truth. Let’s not forget that when public school began here in the states that children were marched off to the classroom, escorted by soldiers with guns. The same thing happened with Indians and much of their culture was lost in the process. I’d like to ask anyone who argues against home schooling because of socialization a question…How the hell did society function and socialize BEFORE the introduction of public schools?

 

Home educating is not for everyone, but it works for millions of people. I’d venture to say that many people who feel that children need to use the same curriculum or test in order to ensure that they are learning what the public/private schooled children are learning have never really looked into all the various learning styles and methods when it comes to educating children, and therefore those concerns are more general blanket statements rather than coming from knowledge.

 

We are relaxed/eclectic in our home educating approach. Florida has two choices for home educating and we opted for going with an umbrella school that I report to yearly with 180 days attendance, no grading, no testing, no portfolio requirements. Our spelling consists of using a book entitled Spelling Power and I also use misspelled words from their writing assignments. Literature consists of the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman, when they’re finished with those books, we’ll move to something else. We’re using a fun, hands-on science curriculum called Bite Size Physics that I purchased on the web; there are math portions in this for children that are ready for it and since my son is 13, he does the math portions. We also use, for science, The Handbook of Nature Study. Our son is reading a book about the Presidents for history and dd is reading History of the World Part Two. Each day they use Google Earth for Geography and learn about a place or places learned from their history books. They write a written narration each day using either history, science, or literature; sometimes I’ll ask for a poem or short story. We’re still awaiting our son’s Saxon Math program because we were unhappy with Ray’s Arithmetic but our dd plays math games online and also does lessons in Saxon Math. The Grammar program that we used is called Simply Grammar and we do that about twice a week.

 

I don’t spoon-feed my children the answers, you will not find multiple choice questions in our home. If my children are struggling in an area, we can take our time and not concern ourselves with what the state says they “need to know” and when they “need to know it”. They are not taught to test, which is a something that many school teachers and parents complain about on a regular basis when regarding the public schools. Our children are taught to learn how to think, how to question, and how to find answers. If my children had to take the FCAT, they’d probably fail…just like many children that study to take that horrid test fail. Take a look at what we’re using above and compare it to what children nine and thirteen are learning in the schools. I’m quite sure that not many nine year olds are being introduced to Physics and 13 year olds are probably learning General Science; IOW, maybe they don’t *know* what other children their ages *know* but they are learning. If some people had it their way, my kids would learning from a boring and lame textbook, answering end of chapter questions, and testing to make sure they retained what they learned.

 

Not everyone home educates the same way that I do. Some people use full curriculum and have their children sitting at the table for the same amount as children in regular school…that is not for me but I certainly do not judge people for choosing that option. Allow me to let you guys know a few various ways to home educate:

 

1) Full Curriculum

2) Unit Studies

3) The Charlotte Mason Method

4) Relaxed

5) Unschooling

6) The Waldorf Method

7) Literature Based

 

These are all wonderful options and sometimes people combine a few of these choices to suit the needs of their children and family.

 

Studies have shown that it DOES NOT matter whether or not a child’s parent is a college graduate. Children home schooled by a parent that has a high school diploma test just as well as those educated by parents with college degrees.

 

More and more people are choosing to home educate their children and it is growing, especially among the secular community. You can educate yourself by actually looking into studies, searching home schooling blogs, reading about adults who were home schooled, learning styles and methods, etc., etc.

 

 

HERETIC ZERO...I soooo agree with you!

[pandora]

Last year when I took a biology class at the community college I was reading my textbook and thinking "Wait a minute! I remember this stuff from high school!" The global warming stuff I learned in that class was new learning material for me, but all the stuff about plants and animals was quite familiar. One classmate of mine even asked for my phone number as she was having quite a hard time with the concepts we were learning and needed a study buddy.

 

 

That's how "community colleges" tend to be... remedial. I went to a public school my entire life, and I consider myself likewise well-rounded over the average college student these days. But at a community college, you can't really take the fact that your BIO 101 course was review for you seriously. Community colleges are meant to prepare the student for "real" university or to give them an associates degree, or fulfill prereqs for a program at another college more cheaply (and more simply for the student... the bar is dropped considerably at a community college). I had an excellent education, IMO, as a public school student. I was in the burbs so maybe that had something to do with it, but I sense a bit of elitism from those who choose to home-school in a perfectly good school system. As for some of my fellow classmates at the public university I attend now (much easier academically than the private one I attended for 6 years), I think that some kids just haven't had the exposure and experience... and I feel for them. Many of them are truly intelligent (as evidenced by their drive and ambition IMO)... but they just haven't been sufficiently enriched, have had horrible teachers, or a home environment not conducive to learning. Kudos to them for trying... and succeeding. Many of them catch on quickly and end up putting the rest of us who were told we were "gifted" from age 4 to shame.

 

I think public schools are what you make them... even the worst schools in my city have programs for gifted students. But kids that somehow slip through the cracks do get missed, and I could see why homeschooling them would be a good idea... but you can provide enrichment at home. In my state, I don't think there are many regulations for homeschooling. It scares me what the Christian right is getting away with by using homeschooling as a means for indoctrination. I am a firm supporter of public schools and I really do have a hard time justifying it for most circumstances. My husband and I, if we have children, will not even send our children to a private school... even if we live in the ghetto. I think our public schools are losing a very important battle. I worry that the education system will implode, just like the healthcare system is about to (IMO).

 

I should add that in our area, private schools don't necessarily have a better reputation than the public schools. The only ones with a good reputation are the Jesuit high schools. Protestant schools are sub-par on many levels. There aren't any private secular high schools in my area. The closest you get is the wealthiest suburbs. And those kids have a reputation for being spoiled brats. They go to a private college and keep that reputation. They get a good job from their connections and continue the cycle of the elite. I think integration is important... especially of socioeconomic status and perceived intelligence.

[Grandpa Harley]

For the record, I was state schooled in the UK. It was hell...

 

One of my teachers (the guy who sold me on Shakespeare and poetry) once said to my mother

 

"Harley is a very bright boy. If a teacher cannot teach him the subject, it's certainly not his lack or fault. Unfortunately, Harley knows this"

[Kratos]

We home schooled our son through the third grade as we were happy with his socialization with a lot of community involvement at the time plus we lived in a largely populated area with a lot of problems in the public schools. When we moved across country where we lost our large community network and we were then in a small town with a small school with less problems, we put him in public school where he has been ever since.

 

Our Christian beliefs never had anything to do with our decision to home school or to stop home schooling. Our decisions were based on our judgment as parents of what was best for our son's development in each situation. I never wanted to "protect" my son from the beliefs of others as he would have to have made up his own mind about them on his own one day anyway.

 

As a libertarian for the most part politically, I oppose big government sticking their big brother noses where they do not belong. I believe that parents for the most part know best what is needed for their child's development and a large centralized Federal government usually just gets in the way through their ignorance of the situations in each home and their ulterier motives to keep their power base over the people alive and growing.

 

I think that the vast majority of home schooling parents do so for the protection of their children from the bad influences of other children and from violence in some school systems. The rash of school shootings that keep increasing adds to this fear. They really just want their children to grow up safely and without gand, alcohol, and drug problems. I think tha belief that it is about protecting their children from science or other views of religion is overblown. We all know that our children will hear these things elsewhere as they grow and have to make up their own minds anyway regardless of what we do. We just want them to make it to adulthood so they can be who they decide to be.

 

In my 4 years of High School, there were 6 kids killed on campus through gang and racial violence. I had to keep one eye over my shoulder everyday and going to the rest room was always a dangerous last resort when you could not hold it. This was in the Los Angelas area and my High School was finally closed two years after my graduation as the district had to admit that they could not stop the violence. I am sure that this has affected my choice as to where we live and where my son goes to school. There are 12 students in this year's Senoir class in my son's High School so some would say I have not come too far from home schooling. lol

 

John

[Grandpa Harley]

I can see this becoming a Fundy Barbie...

 

 

I think the idea of 'protection from violence' idea is a good front for some, although I'm not casting aspersions at Kratos' reasons since they are a good point...

[Jubilant]

Kratos wrote: "I think that belief that it is about protecting their children from science or other views of religion is overblown. "

 

So do I.

 

I'm the leader of a home education group and there is only one other secular person that home educates in our group. None of the Christians I know home school because they are concerned about violence or what they may learn "secularly", they want to tailor their child's education to best suit them, period. As a matter of fact, we live in a very Fundamentalist Christian area and most are vehement that their children attend only the best public schools or private schools and will not even consider home schooling and for the same reasons that many here wouldn't.

[Freethinker]

Home schooling is good if you have a child who just does not fit in the main stream. Some children do much better academically when they are placed in a more individual environment and not everyone can afford specialized private schools for that child.

 

Our daughter has done all 3 versions of schooling. She has been in private school, home school and public school. She was able to learn calculus at age 12 and she can write a paper that is footnoted and uses illustrations with explanations and the writing level she has is a very high level. The only reason she is now in public school is that she is beyond where I or her mother can teach her. Both her mother and I have 4 year college degrees and the home schooling did well for her. She is ready for college but in the state of Florida, she must be 16 to be admitted full time and unescorted on a campus due to liability issues. Because of this, we let her go to the local middle school and we told her that she should keep her grades up but most importantly, she should have fun and be a kid. I told her it is ok to have fun and if she gets into alittle trouble...that is ok too, just avoid serious trouble. I said play a few pranks, go to a few dances, just have fun. Her grades are 4.0/4.0 and she is having fun and has friends, plus she is able to sing in a chorus class which she so enjoys. She even got a part in the school play, Annie. I have had discussions with each of her teachers and they say that they will give her little projects to keep her busy as she is so far beyond the class academically and they want to give her a challenge. They all like her and said she is good for the class even if they do get frustrated with her blowing the curve out. Her friends want her to help them with their home work...LOL.

 

Wow, your daughter really has it MADE! She already knows all the academics so now she can just have fun and make friends. Of course, you would never brag about your daughter though, noooooo. lol

[Freethinker]

In response to the OP, I was homeschooled by fundy parents who did it to brainwash me and maintain 100% control over everything I learned. They wanted to protect and shelter me from the horrible Satanic influences of the outside world.

 

Guess where I am today? Agnostic, liberal, uses profanity, lives together with bf (not yet married), believes in evolution, owns her own business, 100% independent and aware of the real world.

 

Guess that homeschool thing didn't work out the way they planned, huh? lol

 

Luckily, homeschooling did not hinder me academically. I have an A.S. degree, have won awards and full scholarships, have a high GPA, and will be going to the university soon.

[Freethinker]

And like you say gramps, how do you police these people?

 

In spite of my fundy homeschool experience, I am very defensive of homeschooling and am considering homeshooling my future children for a few years. I strongly recommend that you back off of your policing idea. Every parent has the right to teach their kids whatever they want, even if they are teaching them young earth creation and other similar nonsense. Who are you to tell them what they can or cannot teach their kids? Who are you to impose standards and tests that they must pass?

 

Policing the homeschoolers has been tried before, and failed.

 

Think about it this way: the kid will either turn out like me (intelligent, college degrees & scholarships, denies creationism and accepts evolution, realizes fundy faith is false), or they will accept everything they have learned and stagnate academically and as an individual. If they stagnate, they will naturally find low paying jobs requiring less intelligence and less responsibility. Which leaves the higher paying jobs requiring more responsibility for people like us.

 

By the way, this is not a satirical post. I'm dead serious.

[SWIM]

In response to the OP, I was homeschooled by fundy parents who did it to brainwash me and maintain 100% control over everything I learned. They wanted to protect and shelter me from the horrible Satanic influences of the outside world.

 

Yup, that's what my in-law does, it's the whole reason for HS

 

Guess where I am today? Agnostic, liberal, uses profanity, lives together with bf (not yet married), believes in evolution, owns her own business, 100% independent and aware of the real world.

 

Guess that homeschool thing didn't work out the way they planned, huh? lol

 

Luckily, homeschooling did not hinder me academically. I have an A.S. degree, have won awards and full scholarships, have a high GPA, and will be going to the university soon.

 

Well, not EVERYONE brainwashed stays brainwashed. It all depends on the skill of the brainwasher, and the intellect level of the "washee". You broke free yes, but it would have been easier for you had you not been through that yes?

 

After reading all the responses, I guess HS would not be so bad *in the right hands*. If you are HSing to better educate your kids, more power to you, and I hope you succeed. But if you are doing it out of some distorted religious motivation, then NO you should not be HSing imho.

 

Wow, pretty interesting subject, got a lot more responses then I thought it would!

 

Kevin and Jubulant, I think you guys are more the exception then the rule though, you sound like you are doing a great job of it.

[SWIM]

And like you say gramps, how do you police these people?

 

In spite of my fundy homeschool experience, I am very defensive of homeschooling and am considering homeshooling my future children for a few years. I strongly recommend that you back off of your policing idea. Every parent has the right to teach their kids whatever they want, even if they are teaching them young earth creation and other similar nonsense. Who are you to tell them what they can or cannot teach their kids? Who are you to impose standards and tests that they must pass?

 

Policing the homeschoolers has been tried before, and failed.

 

Think about it this way: the kid will either turn out like me (intelligent, college degrees & scholarships, denies creationism and accepts evolution, realizes fundy faith is false), or they will accept everything they have learned and stagnate academically and as an individual. If they stagnate, they will naturally find low paying jobs requiring less intelligence and less responsibility. Which leaves the higher paying jobs requiring more responsibility for people like us.

 

By the way, this is not a satirical post. I'm dead serious.

 

That's fine, but say you are "retarded". (not calling YOU retarded, just an example) and you are a high school drop-out. Now, you "decide" to home school. The child you birthed however is NOT retarded, and is actually quite intelligent. If *nobody* policed the HSing of this person (meaning "tests" not cops knocking on your door) then what kind of an education would that child be getting?

 

The above example IMO *could* happen, and pretty much amounts to abuse, or better maybe *neglect*.

 

So, what is exactly wrong with having the kid be required to take a test now and then at a neutral location? If you are doing a good job educating them, no worries right?

[Grandpa Harley]

As a comment... Momma Freethinker didn't do enough sleep dep, cattle prodding, freezing douses from firehoses, starving, beatings etc...

 

Only way I know to make brain washing to really stick... I miss the small press stuff you used to be able to get in Army Surplus stores in the 80s...

[Freethinker]

It depends really... Westboro's home schooling curriculum would be child abuse.

 

From where I sit, the Christian home schooling movement is to maintain the cult's control over the kids. As to content, how is this policed? Is it policed at all? Are there spot checks?

We have to remember that it's not only Christians that do home schooling.

 

But I agree about the policing. I don't do home schooling myself, so I can't really answer for how they control what the kids learn. There is a curriculum they have to follow, and there are tests they have to pass, so in general they learn the same things as the kids in public school or they wouldn't be able to pass the exams. I do think creationist Christians do take a different approach to subjects like evolution and sex-ed.

 

Here's an article about how Christian home schooling: link

 

My memory is a little rusty on the exams that homeschoolers take. And of course it varies by state and so forth. I believe that here in WA state there was a new law that went into effect due to No Child Left Behind that required homeschoolers to take the WASL along with the public schooled kids. But I was in college by then so I escaped that one. I think both my sisters took it. Not sure how they faired on it; don't remember.

 

Regarding evolution and sex-ed, you are right. The kids are taught that evolution is a Satanic lie, and the only thing they are told about sex is to abstain.

 

Quoting from the link you provided:

"This lack of regulation may be skewing science education in US homes, says Alters. "Poll after poll shows that approximately one out of two people in America reject evolution. They think the scientists, teachers and textbooks are wrong," he says. An even higher proportion of home-schooling parents may reject evolution, Alters thinks. "And they're going to be teaching science?""

 

Why is it that so many people think that homeschooled kids who are learning creation and not evolution are a threat to science in the United States? Why do we keep coming up with creative ways to get kids interested in math and science? I strongly believe that a child who has no interest in math or science has no business doing math or science, or considering a career in math or science. Only those kids who like math or science should go on to work in those fields. Math and science are pretty hardcore fields, and they are very demanding. Only the best and brightest should get in. We shouldn't be trying to coax some spark of interest into theses kids, trying to get more of these disinterested kids into the fields.

 

The article ends with this line:

""Home-schoolers are going to be leaders in their field," says Wile. "They are going to change science and how science is done.""

 

I don't believe that creationist homeschooled kids have any business meddling with science and the way science is done; they don't have the first clue about the scientific method. The scientific method would be the first thing to go, if these creationist people were in control of "science and how science is done." Science would simply be a chapter in a in theology textbook. Nothing more.

 

At the same time, it does not matter what your background is. The people that should be "doing" science should understand and care about science, regardless of their background (public schooled or homeschooled).

[Ouroboros]

The article ends with this line:

""Home-schoolers are going to be leaders in their field," says Wile. "They are going to change science and how science is done.""

 

I don't believe that creationist homeschooled kids have any business meddling with science and the way science is done; they don't have the first clue about the scientific method. The scientific method would be the first thing to go, if these creationist people were in control of "science and how science is done." Science would simply be a chapter in a in theology textbook. Nothing more.

 

At the same time, it does not matter what your background is. The people that should be "doing" science should understand and care about science, regardless of their background (public schooled or homeschooled).

And maybe that's the reason why American scientists is a dying breed and foreign countries will dominate the market of science, medicine, technology etc from now on. America lost its brain, because there's fewer people who understands the foundation.

[Freethinker]

That's fine, but say you are "retarded". (not calling YOU retarded, just an example) and you are a high school drop-out. Now, you "decide" to home school. The child you birthed however is NOT retarded, and is actually quite intelligent. If *nobody* policed the HSing of this person (meaning "tests" not cops knocking on your door) then what kind of an education would that child be getting?

 

The above example IMO *could* happen, and pretty much amounts to abuse, or better maybe *neglect*.

 

So, what is exactly wrong with having the kid be required to take a test now and then at a neutral location? If you are doing a good job educating them, no worries right?

 

Well having them take a test here or there is fine. Nothing really wrong with that, unless they are denied college education and employment based on the results. The tests are all Math and English anyway; you have to know how to do your numbers and write a good essay. Nothing wrong there. Policing is more invasive than making them do the WASL test, such as checking the curriculum being used, banning certain curriculum, requiring the kids to do x number of years in the public school so as to balance things, etc.

[Freethinker]

And maybe that's the reason why American scientists is a dying breed and foreign countries will dominate the market of science, medicine, technology etc from now on. America lost its brain, because there's fewer people who understands the foundation.

 

The access to a scientific education is out there, available to even the most poorly educated victim of homeschool brainwashing. I don't really believe that the average public educated student has a better chance than a homeschooled kid of becoming a scientist and contributing positively to scientific understanding and advances.

 

In fact, I think that the average public school curriculum is too weak and the public school environment does not set high enough standards to challenge those intelligent kids that would be the ones to lead this country forward in scientific advances. In addition, the public school environment does not inspire kids to become the best and the brightest. The public school is simply a hurdle you have to pass on your way to adulthood and "freedom." It stifles the curious minds and extinguishes dreams.

[Grandpa Harley]

TBH. I think you're hopelessly optimistic... they get smaller minded and nastier every year... they are fleeing into the comfort of a new dark age wherein earth once more sits in the centre of God's creation...

 

In some respects it's like agoraphobia, or a cage bird that gone insane and can't leave it's cage...

[R. S. Martin]

Robbobrob is another homeschooler on here. Haven't seen him recently but I linked his profile so you can look him up.

 

Freethinker, I am very glad to see such a positive outcome from a homeschooled person. However, I agree with gramps that your "brainwashing" missed some of the harsher aspects of earlier generations. Also, I think you're over-doing it a little. Ever since Michael has been on these forums, he has talked repeatedly about his brother's wife and how she is raising the kids. That is case is not funny. Homeschooling is not the perfect solution to all problems. While the emotional abuse, ridicule, and mockery at school was severe when I was a kid, it was an escape from home. That gives you some idea what home was like. I'm not sure what kind of mental case I'd be if I'd been stuck at home the first twenty years of my life. As it was, I got to go to school during the school year, and spend part of the summers at an aunt and uncle's farm. From age 16 on I got to spend major part of the year with other families as live-in maid. I would spend the occassional year at home. I traded off with my sisters.

 

As an elementary school kid, I went to two different kinds of schools. When I started school in the early sixties, it was at the rural two-room school within walking distance. I was the oldest of half a dozen kids at home, so it was quite an adjustment from being the biggest kid at home to being the littlest kid at school but I adjusted and was there for Grades 1 through 3. Then the schools were centralized and all of us were bused to a large school in town. Only it wasn't ready by September so we were taken to a central location and shifted to other buses which took each class to its own rural school house. Grade 4 was at Redhill, Grade 5 was at Beechvale, etc. My bus took both Grades 4 and 5 to our respective schools from the central loading docks and returned us there in the evening. Then the rural buses took us home again.

 

By that time I had a whole batch of siblings and a cousin to look after and make sure they all got on the right bus at the right time. One time my sister next to me in age was not on the bus and the driver wanted to get going. I spoke up and told him. He was impatient, waited a few minutes. She didn't come so he said she must be on the bus. Just as the enormity of the situation penetrated into my brain--he was actually going to leave my sister behind--she showed up. Lucky for him because he would have had a problem on his hands if he had gone without her.

 

My people bought up the rural school houses as the school boards made them available. The one I attended for my first three years became available for Grade 6. I spent Grades 6 through 8 in the same classroom as I had spent my first three years. I definitely enjoyed the rural school houses more than the large one in town. Redhill was okay, too, despite all the hassle getting there. The thing I didn't like about the school in town was the playground. There was no grass, no trees, and we weren't allowed to go barefoot. Also, we had to play in a certain area of the playground so we couldn't even go into the shade of the building.

 

Come to think of it, in the winter when we played dodge ball on the parking lot I enjoyed myself. And I also loved the skipping games we played with skipping ropes. I learned double-dutch at that school and I loved it. That must have come from one of the other schools because I never saw it at our school. Wow! I never made that connection before. If I would not have had the opportunity to learn double-dutch otherwise, then all the hassle was worth it. The hot days on the barren playground must not have been all that many; I just hated the ones I had to endure.

 

It was made worse because of one snotty spoiled brat classmate and her followers who wouldn't have anything to do with us Mennonite girls. One day they and us (minus some of the "neutral" kids) were stuck playing ball. I forget the name of the game. It's the same as baseball except when you don't have enough players for teams there's one on each base and three batters. Then people move up one every time a person makes out. If someone catches a fly, that person changes places with the person who hit the fly. Well, I was the most unpopular student so I was at the very bottom of the field. And I happened to catch the fly of the spoiled brat. I never caught flies due to my unfocused eyes and low vision but that day my dress played into the game and somehow I managed to hold onto it and it was ruled as a catch.

 

No one was supervising the game and the only way I knew it was "ruled" as a catch was that Ms Spoiled Brat put down the bat and pouted, "I'm going in." For some reason the game broke up but I'll never forget the feeling of triumphant victory that I had bested the spoiled brat.

[Naughtyhamster]

the only problem I have with homeschooling is that it deprives the child of good socialization skills.

In a regular school, the child is forced to handle situations with other peers and it helps them develop socialization skills, something that homeschooling does not offer.

 

 

 

I guess it matters of what kind of parents the kid has, especially if the kids has fundie parents then they will be more isolated from peers. In my family my cousins and I were heavily into sports and community service projects. There were many times as a teenage competitive figure skater I had to put up with shit from other skaters who had the same clique-ish attitude as kids in a public school. Some younger kids would stay by my side as older skaters would treat them like crap and some of their parents would ask for my advice on skating and stuff if the kid was a beginner.

 

 

That's how "community colleges" tend to be... remedial. I went to a public school my entire life, and I consider myself likewise well-rounded over the average college student these days. But at a community college, you can't really take the fact that your BIO 101 course was review for you seriously. Community colleges are meant to prepare the student for "real" university or to give them an associates degree, or fulfill prereqs for a program at another college more cheaply (and more simply for the student... the bar is dropped considerably at a community college). I had an excellent education, IMO, as a public school student. I was in the burbs so maybe that had something to do with it, but I sense a bit of elitism from those who choose to home-school in a perfectly good school system. As for some of my fellow classmates at the public university I attend now (much easier academically than the private one I attended for 6 years), I think that some kids just haven't had the exposure and experience... and I feel for them. Many of them are truly intelligent (as evidenced by their drive and ambition IMO)... but they just haven't been sufficiently enriched, have had horrible teachers, or a home environment not conducive to learning. Kudos to them for trying... and succeeding. Many of them catch on quickly and end up putting the rest of us who were told we were "gifted" from age 4 to shame.

 

Well, my situation was that people were telling me that here in California home schoolers can't get financial aid from the government to go to college so I attended college a little later than usual. It wasn't until my academic counselor at the community college discovered that my G.E.D. scores were extremely high ( I had the second best scores out of the eighty people tested the day I took the exam) she recommended me to attend university. Only problem is I was diagnosed in my second year in community college with a mild/moderate learning disability and that's the reason I was slow in learning math and I couldn't hear too well ( I have something called auditory processing disorder). I thought it was best to stay at community college for a while to bring my math levels up, then when I felt like I was ready I could attend a university. Also here in California it seems like getting into a university is tough if you don't have any community college or high school A.P. class credits to transfer. I have my A/A and graduated with honors which got me into the first university I applied for.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately for me when I attended a hellish junior high for five months I barely learned a thing because of drunk,stoned teachers and principals yelling "Fucking retards!" at students. Then there was the sexual harassment from classmates and male teachers alike. My grandmother had discovered from a man she was working for that this junior high had been shut down for the same crap in the past, and he was on the school board handling complaints from parents and students who attended that junior high. This school was in the ghetto and there were no gifted classes, and the standards were so low that I didn't get a challenge. I had an English teacher who thought an essay was a two page form with stupid questions you filled out and then wrote a paragraph about the book you read. When I had attended elementary school in a different district we had to write at least six pages ( of our own work ) and if we wanted to use an advanced level book for the essay we were allowed to use it.

[Jubilant]

I'd like to interject the following: The name of this site is Ex-Christian.net, right? How many of us were public or privately schooled our whole life and still ended up BRAINWASHED? (Raises hand, was in public school from age 6-18) Come on guys, if public/private schools were that crucial in causing people to question their beliefs, this country would not be majority Christian. I myself didn't escape the fold until my 30's and I have a feeling that the majority of people on this site didn't escape until after school and in many cases, decades after they graduated.

 

As far as science is concerned...when America was in its early hay day of scientific advances, quite a few of them were home schooled, including Thomas Edison who was labeled "addled" and "dumb" by his teachers in public school.

[R. S. Martin]

I strongly believe that a child who has no interest in math or science has no business doing math or science, or considering a career in math or science. Only those kids who like math or science should go on to work in those fields. Math and science are pretty hardcore fields, and they are very demanding. Only the best and brightest should get in. We shouldn't be trying to coax some spark of interest into theses kids, trying to get more of these disinterested kids into the fields.

 

Freethinker, you are missing important aspects of life when you say this.

 

1. I don't think you read HanSolo's linked article about what kind of people are being trained to fill political offices in the United States. Nor have you taken an objective look at what fundamentalist religion does to our world. Perhaps you are one of those people who believes that it's okay for fundamentalist religionists to knock down towers in one country and for the fundamentalist religionists in that country to then go to war against them, dragging the rest of the world's economy down with them.

 

2. There is something wrong with the view that people shouldn't learn math. All of us need basic math skills. We need to know what happens to our bank accounts when we buy stuff. We need to be able to read signs and speedometers, etc. I'm one of those people who would not have learned had it not been drilled into me. There is a difference between going into a math career and not knowing basic math skills. I am talking about basic math skills. I am not the only person who needs to be drilled in order to learn the basics required to live in today's society.

 

3. So if you think knowing science is not important it seems you are missing important life issues. Maybe you don't know that lives are being lost because science is not allowed to progress due to some religious superstitions. If our top politians and those who vote for them are educated in creationism, then they are going to think like you even if they deconvert and they won't allow science to progress because they love their religious parents too much to upset them. They won't consider the ethical issues involved about people dying needlessly because of supersitions. All they will think about is their relationships with their superstitious parents and families. I have a very serious problem with that.

 

4. With major parts of the world's most powerful nation ignorant of science, if not outright believing evolution is evil, the rest of the world is forced to deal with Dark Ages logic. Some of this has already been discussed in this post. However, for a nation like the USA whose leadership depends so heavily on elected officials, what the majority believes in a given voting block has an impact on world politics. Freethinker, how do you expect to continue to be free to think freely if you allow this kind of thinking to continue unhindered? Nay, if you DEFEND this kind of thinking?

[Jubilant]

When America was thriving and ahead of other countries in the area of science and technology, people were taught the Bible in school. I'm not positive but I think YEC has only become a big issue in these past few decades, most of the teachings of course are being held at churches, bible groups, life groups, etc. IMO, evolution is the only area of science that fundy home schooled children are being taught wrong (and of course they think everything was made by God), as for the rest, I just don't see it and I know a lot of home educated students and the majority are Christian. Most of the Christian home schooling parents I know are BIG when it comes to mathematics, so that isn't an issue either. Besides, life is so much more than science and higher math, there are a ton of other areas and fields of study in which people can choose to go into when they get older.

 

The majority of children in this country are public schooled and we're sitting here picking at a minority of people who home school because of disagreeing with what they are being taught? Millions of public schooled children drop-out or fail school each and every year and people seem more concerned about people teaching their children creationism and raising fundies than they care to discuss how to fix the public schools. 50% of African Americans drop-out of school by the age of 16, where is the uproar and concern for what is causing that? Should we start policing African American parents? Start policing parents who are not involved with their children who are in public school?

 

Look at some of the "Bee's" that have taken place over the past few years and most assuredly there will be a home educated student in the top-three.

 

Booker T. Washington made scientific advancements and he was a Christian. How many other famous scientific achievements in America have been because of Christians who were scientists? I don't know about you guys but I'll definitely be on a search to find out.

 

My point is...this is more about Fundamentalist Christianity having become so popular and that most of them have not been home schooled and are still Young Earth Creationists regardless. I think we're focusing on the wrong thing here, if Huckabee or Romney is elected President, their primary voters are more than likely going to be Christians and/or Fundamentalist Christians...the vast majority of them, public schooled.

[Thurisaz]

"Undecided" for it all depends on the circumstances.

 

If the public school system is a piece of crap and the parents are well-educated and know what they're doing, homeschooling can be a wonderful thing.

 

If parents use homeschooling to keep their kids from learning what to them is the "painful truth" that simply Must Not Be™... you know whom I have in mind.