I’ve been asked to expand on my ideas about homeschooling from another thread on one of Mike Duran’s posts. I didn’t comment there too much because it’s a subject I have gotten into rants on in the past, and usually felt bad after about. So I’ll put down here. It’s also a fairly unpopular thing to be anti-homeschooling among Christians, especially if you hope to write children’s books.
I’m against homeschooling as a concept for many reasons. I am calling this a theoretical argument because I don’t have the resources or time currently to collate or link to hard data, and there are issues with doing so. To be honest, I wish at times I had an academic degree so I could actually get the data, and present it as a formal study, but that’s not happening. These are my arguments against it, in handy numbered form.
1. There is no objective data on how well it works.
The main source of data about homeschooling tends to be the HSLDA, an organization devoted to encouraging it and defending it legally. The problem with this is that they have no reason to show objective data, as they are an advocacy group all about making sure it remains legal, if not championing it energetically.
This wouldn’t be an issue if not for the lack of data on the ground. Requirements about homeschooling vary from state to state, but there really isn’t any attempt to track or collect data on how well the kids are educated. Usually the public face of homeschooling tends to focus on the kids who succeed, and the parents who are enthusiastic about it. This leads to selection bias, and the “Lake Wobegon effect:” somehow all homeschooling kids are above average children who only excel in it.
Selection bias happens because homeschooling especially is tied up with parenting. To say you stopped homeschooling, or that homeschooling might have serious issues to it, is often taken as a personal attack on the mother (and rarely, the father.) This makes it hard to get a baseline of data to really evaluate it, especially since so many other issues, like race, family structure, parental education level, and other things would play a part.
This is important because it ties in to how effective the education really is. A wealthy family with parental involvement may do as well or even better in a public school, and the education may actually be inferior. The child’s own intelligence may be responsible for overcoming the faults of the model. Without data, we are just experimenting on kids, and it’s a little dangerous.
2. Socialization.
I’m going to need to tread carefully with this, so I’ll try and keep it specific. Maybe sub-points will be the best way to do so.
A. Teacher and Parent are Two Different Things.
Homeschooling socialization has a problem because of this. Your parent loves you, acts subjectively towards you, has to live with you and put up with you twenty-four hours in the day, and is bound to you intimately.
A teacher is none of this. He is there solely to educate you, and to maintain order in the classroom. He may choose to befriend the child, but in a way which always keeps in mind a certain status. He will not change himself or the lessons for the child unless with good reason, and the child not only knows this, but is often harshly disciplined if he tries to cheat or pressure the teacher otherwise. Since he can go home at the end of each day, suspend the kid from showing up, or worse, his relationship is different.
When the teaching authority is conflated with the parent, this creates a mentality which often struggles some when encountering an actual teacher or boss in real life. Often this happens in college, but sometimes earlier. The kid also acts in ways that add parental authority to something it shouldn’t. Relating to authority can be made substantially more difficult in my opinion because of this.
B. The Need for a Child’s Own Identity.
There’s a lot of caveats to this. By this I mean children need some measure of separation from their parents and their ideas in order to build their own identity. Public or Private school does this by giving the child a sphere where he exists as himself, in the same way many of us have careers. We all instinctively feel that we need some form of separation; this is why working under a parent, spouse, or relative often has many hazards to the average person, and the “family business” is often rebelled against or accepted grudgingly.
I am aware many homeschoolers do try their best to mitigate this through extra-curricular activities. But these are still parent-selected, and bear a lot of the imprint of parental authority. The type of activity, the type of other children associated with, and other factors still retain that kind of control which in my opinion makes it hard to assert their own identity.
C. Isolation and Selection
This would be less of an issue if it weren’t happening across society as a whole. There’s an aspect of serendipity to public and private schooling which can’t be thrown away. A recognition of the fact that we can’t entirely engineer the world to always be safe and to our best wishes.
By homeschooling, the child may be safer, but I’m not sure how robust. There’s a whole subset of experience that you can’t just learn from books. There are things you have to deal with in a class, like personality conflicts, bullying, group dynamics, unfairness, and the unexpected. The trend in society is to isolate people, and then over time they self-select into less robust and more brittle forms.
Confusion of authorities, lack of identity, and brittleness are the three aspects of socialization I worry about when it comes to homeschooling.
3. The Isolated Society
I’m going to make this the final point for now. I wrote something cryptically about the public aspects of education, and I’ll try to flesh it out.
Why, instead of homeschooling, not private school? I know there are realistic reasons:
-none in the area
-cost
-denominational and faith issues, etc.
What I mean is, why aren’t we investing or building into the proper, public expressions we want rather than isolation? When we go to church as Christians, we have to admit that usually it doesn’t do a stellar job of it in many ways. The teaching may not be the best, the congregation may not be, and the worship can be sub par. But would anyone argue except sheepishly that it’s better instead to worship privately in your own house, even as a small cell church?
While I do think isolation can be a proper response to certain things, I don’t think we are at the point where it is preferable to the alternatives. The average school is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be, and there’s really very few children who excel at academics enough where they’d be crippled in your average suburban school.
In a way, it’s like the post where I mentioned this. We argue often that Christian fiction should reflect the real world more, and the isolation of the Christian fiction market has produced a stifling form of art outside of real life experiences. This is a result of a Christian culture that has isolated itself from the world beyond the normal means necessary. In a way, homeschooling is like this reaction, because it overreacts to the problem (a secular culture that is at odds with religious faith) by doing something that can lead to cultural harm or enervation (withdrawing into a small, tightly knit subculture and amplifying differences.) The long term effects of this are unknown, but trouble me.
I have other issues, but this is long enough as it is. I’m not sure what will happen with subsequent generations, if homeschooling takes off even more as an idea. Families historically have taken on the burden of educating their children, but usually only to impart the family trade. This is a new experiment, and I wonder what will happen if it continues.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 03:59:24
OK, since I’m one of the ones who asked for this expansion on your statements at Mike Duran’s blog, I’d like to thank you for doing so.
I would also like to address a few of your concerns.
First, I was against homeschooling myself for a long time. And I realized much of my reasoning had to do with lack of exposure to it. When I actually started meeting homeschoolers and learning about home education, I changed those views–and ended up homeschooling.
You say there is no data that it works. Did you know most states require homeschooled students to be evaluated every year? Many require the same standardized tests that public school students must take. In my state of Florida, we can opt to have our kids tested or have a certified teacher review the work we’ve done throughout the school year. Many of those statistics about the performance of homeschoolers come from those tests and evaluations–the very same things that determine the “success” of kids in public schools.
The rest of your arguments stem from the misconception that homeschool kids are isolated. My family belongs to a homeschool group with somewhere along the lines of 200 other families. We meet at the park every week, we have coop classes, field trips and other outings, promotion ceremonies, sports events, you name it. We are a community. Yes, some homeschoolers live isolated lives, but that is a result of personality and living choices. Most homeschoolers actually laugh at the term “homeschooling.” Home??? Who’s home??? We’re always out and about!
As for kids not being around peers–I say the issue with public school is that they are ONLY around peers. My kids have friends of multiple ages. They can equally relate with teenagers and toddlers. They of course have friends their own age, but they are not limited to kids who happen to have been born within twelve months of their birthday.
And one thing I find about public school–as someone who attended it–individuality is not exactly something that is encouraged. If you are at all different, you are ridiculed. You have a group of “populars” dictating what is cool, what to wear, what music to listen to, etc. Homeschoolers don’t generally have that pressure.
I was a product of public schooling. I had no idea how to deal with the real world when I got out. I could study, and take tests but NOTHING I learned in public school prepared me for jobs and relationships (other than with peers). I had to learn that outside the classroom. School taught me what was in books. I homeschool my kids so they can learn from life–real life experiences–alongside our book lessons.
Also, I think if you speak to public school teachers, you’ll find their number one complaint is discipline. They spend entirely too much time trying to make kids behave when they should be learning, and they have limited power to enforce the rules.
And last, public schools offer a one-size-fits-all approach to education, If the kid doesn’t fit the program, they fail. Yes, fortunately a good number of kids do fit that form and do well. But far too many don’t. Far too many get lost in the classroom.
I will say this–I am not anti-school. I am pro-kid. I am for doing what is best for your child. For some that is public school. For some that is private school, And for some that is homeschooling.
Oh, I’d love for you to visit me here! To spend a day with my homeschool group To see what we do, the programs our kids participate in, the socialization that would have your head spinning and you wishing for some isolation!
Dec 22, 2012 @ 06:50:43
Hey, thanks for responding.
“You say there is no data that it works. Did you know most states require homeschooled students to be evaluated every year? Many require the same standardized tests that public school students must take.”
Here’s a link showing some problems with this in Florida:
http://www.southcountyhomeschoolers.org/SCHS/HTH/Evaluation.HTML
You can get ex-teachers to administer the test, and the site recommends you chose one who is also a homeschooling parent! They recommend against objective means like the FCAT because you’ll be the last one to know the results. If anything, this site seems to be more about hiding any objective attempt to evaluate the kid: you don’t need to send a copy of your evaluator’s credentials, for example.
This sort of bias is what I mean when there is no data. There’s more than this too, but there really aren’t objective, reliable sources of data yet.You look at the HLDA’s studies and they are a small sample size of people inclined to self report. A good thing to do for homeschoolers to convince people is to push for stricter self-reporting standards and build objective data to prove your point.
“The rest of your arguments stem from the misconception that homeschool kids are isolated.”
I think I failed to come across then. I am not arguing they are physically isolated, but there is a measure of spiritual isolation when the social interactions are primarily parent-driven. They reflect the values of the parent, and it can be hard to build an identity when they flow more from the parent’s needs than the child’s. There’s a subtle loss of organic interaction versus planned time.
I’ll use an example from my life. In junior high, I often played chess during lunch. If my parent had instead gave me a list of things to do in order for me to socialize, and chess was one of the options, there’s a different dynamic there. I guess it goes back to the term serendipity again. There’s a form of isolation when things are planned like that.
“As for kids not being around peers–I say the issue with public school is that they are ONLY around peers. My kids have friends of multiple ages. They can equally relate with teenagers and toddlers.”
I hear this a lot, but a lot of precocious kids know the right things to say as opposed to understanding or relating. By having friends your own age, you relate to them through experience, and then you build empathy. When there is a gap in ages, experience is often lacking even if they know the right things to say.
“And one thing I find about public school–as someone who attended it–individuality is not exactly something that is encouraged.”
I attended as well, and this is something that has to be learned. When they face the real world, they are going to have to realize that individuality isn’t always the prime value to be encouraged. They’ll need to learn which parts are important and when to pick a battle over it, and that individuality has costs as well as benefits.
” School taught me what was in books. I homeschool my kids so they can learn from life–real life experiences–alongside our book lessons.”
This is both home and regular schooling. It’s the quality of the experiences and how they relate to the real world that matters, and its hard to argue anecdotes.
“Also, I think if you speak to public school teachers, you’ll find their number one complaint is discipline. They spend entirely too much time trying to make kids behave when they should be learning, and they have limited power to enforce the rules.”
There’s less disruption from others when homeschooling, yes. But there are different issues for it, involving discipline. It’s tough enough I bet to be a parent trying to get a kid to take out the trash or clean his room, but to also get him to do his math test too?
“And last, public schools offer a one-size-fits-all approach to education, If the kid doesn’t fit the program, they fail.”
If you’re arguing special needs or learning disabilities, this is true. A common reason to homeschool seems to be a son with ADHD or autism, and I can’t argue they struggle in the classroom. I’m not sure it’s fair though to ask a parent who deals with them to also shoulder the burden of educating them too, and I really wonder sometimes about these kids will interact with the world when they grow up.
I get you aren’t anti-school either, but this is kind of a dangerous time for education. Home schooling and things like the Khan Academy might be seized on for the wrong reasons, as a way to shunt the burden of education on parents and children rather than society. To have the more motivated parents “go galt” may not be a good thing considering this.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 14:43:01
In Florida, no matter what this article says, the test and or evaluation IS supposed to be administered by a certified teacher, with credentials referenced. And I have my kids evaluated by a teacher who is actively teaching in public school.
What makes you think the child’s needs are ignored in favor of the parent’s? This is really showing your bias that homeschooling parents are control-mongers. Most of us are not. I don’t plan and schedule my kids’ every moment? They choose their activities far more than I choose for them. They get more time to interact and socialize with friends than their public school counterparts because they’re not sitting butt-in-class, mouths shut for eight hours a day. We get our work done more quickly, and can then do all kinds of things.
It is the public school parents and kids I know who are suffering from over-scheduling. They are in class all day, then after-school programs, then piano/guitar/boy scouts/etc in the evenings.
I’ve found discipline to not be an issue. My kids sit down and do their work, much of it independently. And the parents who pull out their kids because of ADHD and such are doing so by their own choice–not being “burdened” with it.
I need to ask–How many homeschoolers do you know? How many of their kids have you spent real time with? And were these all in one area? How many public school teachers do you know? Are you a parent? If so, how old are your kids?
Don’t take this wrong, but everything you’ve stated here seems like conjecture and the result of reading online studies. You’re not citing anything from personal experience other than you played chess during lunch at school. Have you ever played chess with homeschoolers? Why is it different? What makes you think homeschoolers don’t meet at the park or whatever for a few hours and the kids who want to play chess don’t start their own games like you did in school? Your views of homeschoolers are limited and come across like someone living in the mountains shouting about how dangerous the beach is even though you’ve never been because you read a few news reports about shark attacks, while you ignore the avalanches happening in your own territory.
I am around both homeschool kids and public school kids. I spent two years working at Sylvan Learning Center with kids who were suffering ill effects from public school. I know so many public school teachers who *applaud* homeschoolers. That’s not saying all public school kids are messed up from it–of course not. But you are generalizing that ALL homeschoolers suffer from homeschooling, and yet write as if you’ve never even met one.
Find a homeschool community and reach out to them. Spend some time there. Get to know the parents and kids, see what they do in real life, not reports, and come back and write up why you are stridently against it.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 17:46:40
I have to work today, so I might have to make this short and come back later when I’ve thought about this a little longer.
The first point you make that I heavily disagree with is the one of personal identity being thwarted in a homeschool environment. This may be the case in some homeschool environments; however, in my opinion (as I’m a product of public school education), public schools are far better at nixing personal identity than homeschools. Public schools require group think and conformity. You also claim, later in your point sets, that schools aren’t as bad as we often make them out to be. You can’t convince me of that because, again, I was a product of public schools. They were, in my experience, worse than my memories of them. I have literally suppressed much of the pain I experienced in schools and try to keep that pain locked up in a little box where it can’t be touched.
I don’t homeschool in order to keep my children safe, though. For better or worse, I survived–even with learning disabilities–kids who bullied me and teachers who didn’t know I existed. Public school is a grand-scale social experiment in and of itself. Let’s see what happens to children who spend their days in an environment of this kind of neglect. Let’s just see. On the other hand, children spending their days with their families isn’t a social experiment. That has been the reality for most of human history, regardless of how the children were educated. In many ways, we’re disenfranchised as a society. We no longer have extended family and communal bonds all around us. Homeschooling may be an experiment of re-enfranchisement in a society that’s extraordinarily disconnected; it may not work well on that level. I can’t speak to that. I don’t happen to know any isolated homeschool families (for obvious reasons–if they were in the homeschool group, they wouldn’t be isolated).
“There are things you have to deal with in a class, like personality conflicts, bullying, group dynamics, unfairness, and the unexpected.” Ha–I said I was going to make this short! If you believe these things ONLY happen in the classroom, you aren’t living in the same world I am. Although bullying is kept to a minimum due to its status of illegality–honestly, assaulting another person is a crime that public schools don’t enforce (in my experience)–the rest of this happens everywhere in the world and isn’t of a criminal nature. It’s just life. You can’t live in this world and not be slapped with personality conflicts, group dynamics, unfairness, and the unexpected. It happens in homeschool group classes, play days, and field trips. It happens at church. It happens in the family home. It happens at dance class or dance competitions or art class or while playing with random kids at the park or while working a job outside the home. My children would probably laugh cynically at you if they read that statement. In fact, they just did (I read it to them). We have some nasty cliques in our homeschool group that pretty much operate like nasty little snobbish cliques do everywhere.
You already answered your own question on private schools. My children don’t attend private school because none exist in my community and because we couldn’t afford private school if they did exist. Just to conclude, I’m not completely sold on homeschooling. My children would survive public education just as I did and, no doubt, come away with the same crappy education I did, and then they might or might not overcome their crappy education in college. I don’t know–that’s a what-if scenario. Rather, I homeschool for the same reason that others enroll their children in public or private school: Life is messy and difficult and it’s the easiest solution to the lack of choices in my community. There’s never an easy answer to raising and educating children. So I make the best decisions I can based off my resources and skills.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 17:57:12
p.s. I wanted to add a thank you for your polite and gentle thinking-it-through tone in your article. Also, I posted this on facebook. I don’t know whether my homeschool friends will respond or not, but I apologize if you suddenly have a lot of comments to moderate.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 19:10:39
I’d just like to give my perspective as a seventeen year-old who has been homeschooled. Number one, there is no way I could ever pressure my parents into allowing me to cheat, nor do I have any problems relating to other authority figures aside from my parents. I may not have been to school, but I have been in other class room like dynamics, and there has never been any issues with authority for me.
Number two, as far as I can tell all the homeschoolers I have known have actually had an easier time creating their own identities. All the public school kids I’ve known were all about following the crowd and identifying with what was popular at the time. Homeschool kids tend to have their own very unique identities that may or may not have anything to do with their parents. I can only imagine that homeschool kids, who have not created their own identities, must have very controlling parents. However, this could just as easily happen with children going to school. Their parents could easily force them into choosing certain activities at school etc. I will also add that I have generally chosen my own extra-curricular activities throughout my entire childhood.
Number three, I have to laugh a little bit when you say that homeschool children don’t deal with bullying, group dynamics, and personality conflicts. Most homeschool children have homeschool groups, in which they regularly hang out with the other children. Bullying and cliques definitely occur. They’ve gone on in the homeschool group I am apart of for as long as I can remember. Homeschoolers also have a better time socializing with people of all ages. Of course they have peers their own age, but they also have younger and older children around as well as parents, and they learn to get along with all of these age groups. I do not feel isolated in the world. My parents have always encouraged me to go out and do the things I want to do. I also have friends.
Last of all, I do not think the education any of these children are receiving is a problem. Many of them go on to college and are very successful there. Maybe not all of them are above a public school education, but the children I know do not appear to be below a public school education. Personally, I feel like I have a much stronger tie to all of my family members because of this. And what truly matters? A close tie to friends who may drift off someplace far away when they finish school? Or a close tie to family member who will always be there?
Dec 22, 2012 @ 19:24:43
Kat:
But again. that’s picking the self-selected successes. I’m simply not going to see the negative ones because they won’t use centers and have no real desire to allow observers to witness them. Part of the problem I have here, and why I said theoretical, is that anecdotes are revealing far too much positive information with none of the negative. The data isn’t balanced, so visiting others won’t help any more than following the blogging community about it.
“What makes you think the child’s needs are ignored in favor of the parent’s? ”
It’s not that they are ignored. But the level of control and parent presence may shape them to make brittle kids. I guess I would say education is a balance between child, parent, and society, and when you remove one of these instability happens. By shaping education to minimize society into an elective thing, those same kids are going to have issues with it down the road.
“What makes you think homeschoolers don’t meet at the park or whatever for a few hours and the kids who want to play chess don’t start their own games like you did in school?”
It’s hard to really give a feel for the difference. There isn’t the shared level of experience that comes from the example I gave. The homeschooler will never have to ask his chess buddy if he can copy his homework because they are in the same class. They won’t be able to enjoy the sense of stealing time to act on their own, because this is all about their time: they can just go back home and continue the match online if they want. They won’t have to choose between lunch and playing the game, and they won’t be griping about the math teacher they both have in sixth period because that’s griping about their mom. There isn’t always the sense that this is a special thing. Again, serendipity. Stolen time versus budgeted time.
Finally, all kids suffer from all types of education. What worries me about homeschooling is that I cannot find the evidence that they do, which is honestly impossible. Because of the need to advocate for its legality, and its very intimate bond with being a good mother, the negatives are being swept under the rug or ignored in order not to hurt the educators or the cause. This is dangerous, especially as it becomes embraced by more people, and people do so poorly or fail at it.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 20:21:40
OK, I will admit I don’t at all see your point about kids “stealing time”–again, it’s your misconception that homeschool moms are constant overlords in their child’s lives. And if you think they don’t gripe about their math-teacher-moms with each other, you’re sorely mistaken. And to be honest, getting into all that is not seeing the forest for the trees.
I DO have to address one thing:
You are wanting to nix something because you can find no negative evidence against it. What if you could find it? Does that mean it would be okay?
And let’s assume that I agree with you that there are bad homeschoolers and bad homeschool situations–let’s assume it because I *do* agree that those exist. That means it should be illegal? Then by that logic, so should public schools. I could sit here for hours listing negative effects of public schools. In my life, in friends’s lives, In the lives of their children. In the lives of the kids I tutored. But I’m not going to say public schooling should be shut down because it’s not perfect, and because the teachers are not perfect, and because it’s not a fit for all children.
All I’m saying is the same logic you are using against homeschooling can be used against public school. Brittle kids–I’ve seen plenty BECAUSE of public school. I’ve seen brittle kids become strong because of homeschooling. I simply don’t think there is one right way.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 21:35:23
Kat, yeah I’d worry less if those things existed. We have this for something like day care, where there’s at least a debate and some acknowledgement of possible issues. I’m not advocating homeschooling should be illegal, but I’m opposed to the idea of it.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 02:00:08
“Kat, yeah I’d worry less if those things existed. We have this for something like day care, where there’s at least a debate and some acknowledgement of possible issues. I’m not advocating homeschooling should be illegal, but I’m opposed to the idea of it.”
So, that is the crux of the problem–What are they HIDING? That is something I can understand. But I’m not sure why you’re unable to find discussions among homeschoolers who are aware of and facing issues. Sure, we’re going to try and highlight positives because we’ve got too many people who think we’re anti-social freaks. So, yeah, we’re going to point out all the Tim Tebows of the world–why wouldn’t we? We still know we’re not perfect. I don’t know a SINGLE homeschooler who doesn’t admit it’s not a perfect situation.
I guess that’s where I think your avoidance of getting to know us is wrong. If you open up to us, you’re not going to just see how normal we are–you’re going to see how normal we are. Meaning you’re not going to just see that we’re not a bunch of isolationist freaks, you’re going to see we do have struggles and doubts, and we do work to try to fix things that don’t work.
And another thought that hit me a while ago….The collective mindset you feel we need to be exposed to via public school–this is a chicken and the egg situation. Is the collective mindset a result of a naturally collective society? Or has our society become a collective because of the creation of public school?
Finally, unless these kids are growing up and becoming self-sustaining farmers, how are they pulling out from society? We still have to hold jobs, pay taxes, live in houses w/in neighborhoods, drive in traffic, go to the grocery store and the post office….And if people want to isolate themselves, school is only ONE aspect of it. You are extrapolating.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 02:28:14
BTW, D.M., I meant to say that I very much appreciate the cool head you’ve kept through this discussion. Having and onslaught of homeschoolers come on here and defend their education choices when it is something you feel so passionately against takes a lot. Props due for that.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 06:35:15
Kat, no worries. I’ve learned a bit from previous debates. Plus, you all are people I don’t just talk about this with, and it adds perspective. To be honest, I may have to swallow these objections if only because of the transmission of faith. It may be that to remain Christian will necessitate this kind of separation if the whole culture becomes actively adversarial. This is not as far-fetched as I once thought.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 19:48:38
Actually, the negatives aren’t being swept under the rug, especially now that kids have internet access…..oh, the world wide web! I’ve read so many forums with griping homeschool kids that I have to wonder if any type of education can change who people are at the core of their being. What do they gripe about? Parents. Friends or lack of them. Not having enough time to do what they want to do. The usual stuff. There is no perfect choice. Frankly, I don’t care if others are stridently against homeschooling (because it keeps us on our toes, just as criticism of public educators keeps teachers from becoming complacent) as long as the critics allow that parents, in a free society, still have the right to make choices pertaining to their children.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 20:38:48
Heh, here I notice my blog actually has reply buttons, go figure.
Jill, virtually every post I notice on the web about homeschooling seems to be almost overwhelmed by pro-homeschooling advocates. I really don’t say this in exaggeration, but the negatives if there are generally buried in any public discussion of them. They may acknowledge them on forums, but there’s solidarity otherwise to an incredible degree.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 22:39:19
Ha! Using the reply button! I’m not sure why you would expect advocates to be negative. That would be a sort of reverse advertising, kind of like a publisher intentionally trying to annoy his audience (ahem, won’t mention any names!). That’s why you’ll only get honesty from children on forums or on facebook. I simply don’t talk about homeschooling much online. By the way, some dude (a journalist?) wrote a book a while back about the first-wave homeschool graduates to see how they’re doing in the “real” world. I’m not sure where to find it, but I don’t think it was written by HSLDA.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 19:51:26
Jill:
No worries, it’s not like I’m overwhelmed with comments here or anything. Unlike Mike, who must be pulling his hair out by now.
The problem is that identity isn’t just individuality. You have to face group think and conformity and know when to fight your battles. There’s WAY too much emphasis on individuality without a realization that we are also connected to other people and need to deal with them in good and bad ways. I don’t speak of this idly; I was also bullied in public school. Had I been pulled out though, there would have been no solving of this, because I also would have lost many good things, and would have wilted in isolation. A focus in
You can also avoid a lot of the unfairness you mentioned via homeschooling. Church full of bad kids? Find another one. Play date bullies? Tell their mom, or find another one, or refuse to invite that kid over. Homeschooling in general can restrict a lot of it; for one thing, it’s near impossible for single parents to do.
I also get why the private schools, but my question is why homeschooling instead of building affordable ones? I don’t think anyone can argue that homeschooling is easy, and has its own stresses and problems. It’s the removal from collective solutions that worries me when I wrote this.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 06:30:12
Jill, and also Kat,
Well, I like anime a lot, and I recommend it to people I meet. On specfaith, I’ll often make a point about how something is like some anime I have watched, and I’m sure at times I befuddle people there. But as an anime fan, I’m often the first to admit there are some serious issues with it, and there are things that detractors often have right. Usually the people really into something know the true weak points, and many times it’s only them who can point out problems and find ways to overcome them.
When I can’t find those, I start to worry. When I find people saying there are no problems, and I often do, I find fanboys. I don’t mean anyone here is one, but fanboys not only like or are in favor of a certain thing, they invest their identities in it and make it a part of them. This is a dangerous thing because then not only is a person criticizing the thing, they are criticizing the person themselves.
This is dangerous. Back to anime again, the weaving of anime into the otaku (fan) culture has created a dangerous feedback loop which amplifies a lot of bad things and weakens the japanese animated film. It’s a whole other post detailing why, but there’s a huge need for people to step up and challenge a lot of the sacred cows that they erect up and defend for the health of the thing itself. I guess this is why I worry, and why it’s good for advocates to also focus on the negatives, if only to disarm objections better.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 19:53:59
It’s hard to really give a feel for the difference. There isn’t the shared level of experience that comes from the example I gave. The homeschooler will never have to ask his chess buddy if he can copy his homework because they are in the same class. They won’t be able to enjoy the sense of stealing time to act on their own, because this is all about their time: they can just go back home and continue the match online if they want. They won’t have to choose between lunch and playing the game, and they won’t be griping about the math teacher they both have in sixth period because that’s griping about their mom. There isn’t always the sense that this is a special thing. Again, serendipity. Stolen time versus budgeted time.
You are saying that homeschool kids don’t gripe about their parents to each other? I’ve never met a child who didn’t gripe about their parents. Homeschool kids definitely gripe about their moms, and the math lesson they did but didn’t want to do. I used to gripe with my friends about certain homeschool programs that we all had in common. You are advocating copying home work? To be honest, I don’t really feel like I’m missing out on much here. I mean sure. I’ve played chess online, but that doesn’t mean I’m not stealing time away from something else.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 20:10:45
This will be a very short post.
1. There is plenty of objective data about public school failures, but they are glossed over in the attempt to discredit other avenues of education.
2. Socialization is not a valid argument for public education. It is supposed to be education. Socialization can happen in social environments.
3. For children, an isolated society is the natural, or “real” life experience. We should not rely on others to teach our children the things that parents should teach. A strong family is the foundation for life.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 21:18:57
Joy:
1. I clearly admit the failures of public education. But homeschooling glosses over its failures to the point of where we can’t even track how many there are. This is bad, even for people who agree with it, because we can’t tell its true level of effectiveness.
2. No, it isn’t the same. It increases aspects of selection already present, often to dangerous degrees. We’re already suffering from the problem of likeminded people clustering together in unhealthy degrees. This can amplify it by removing one of the few ways left to encounter others outside of your range.
3. The family is the first state of man, yeah. But we are not mean to be isolated. Too much focus on the family leads to infantilization as much as too much focus on society leads to collectivism.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 20:30:07
Eva:
It doesn’t have to be cheating. Children can put pressure on parents in a way they can’t on teachers. If mom comes home tired from shopping one day, or is sick, and the kids start up about how much they hate math or because they are in a bad mood, there’s tremendous pressure on the mom to fudge it in the sake of peace. The fact the teacher doesn’t live with them, and is someone who can ground you from TV as well as someone who feels bad if you say you don’t love them makes for a different dynamic.
Your second point I don’t think you’ll encounter until college. I say this as a pretty weird individual myself, but there is a profound sense of regret when you realize that same individuality sets you apart from others in ways you didn’t expect. There’s legitimate bashing of conformity, but in many ways its mutated into its opposite; celebrating a disassociated self.
Your point three and second post might be easier to use a silly example.
What if Harry Potter was homeschooled?
Say when he escaped the Dursleys, instead of going to Hogwarts, he wound up living with Ron’s family, and they taught him. I don’t really mean the whole “what mythical monster in Hogwarts is trying to kill me this time?” thing, but the day to day life that he went through there. That’s sort of what I’m trying to mean when I say things like that-there’s something about that very communal experience, good or bad, which helps to form who Harry was and that would change radically if he wasn’t there. Of course it’s fiction, but maybe its a better analogy. It’s not an easy thing for me to define.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 01:53:59
I’ve already encountered being set apart from others. As of yet, it doesn’t bother me. I can still find ways to connect, and homeschooling has become prevalent enough that I do not find it hard to run into other homeschoolers whom I can easily share a connection with. My hobbies also bring me connections to others. Some experiences that public schooled kids go through do not particularly make me want to join in. It’s like being outside the box and looking in. And then I start asking whether the things that other people my age think are so ‘important’, really are. I have a different perspective, and because I have a different perspective, I can influence society in different ways. It doesn’t mean I disassociate from society. I find different ways to connect, and I find like-minded individuals, who do share my experiences, just like anybody at public school would.
It is true, perhaps, that there is more pressure on parents to fudge at times, but it has never been a problem in my family. A few days off in a year makes little difference, especially considering the amount of days taken off at schools for teacher training or whatever else.
I’m not going to say that Harry Potter’s specific circumstances didn’t shape him. In the book that happened to be just right to further the plot. That does not, however, mean that different is worse. It doesn’t make it better either. It depends on the situation. Could an equally good book have been written with Harry Potter having a totally different experience? I would say yes. Someone who has gone to public school will never have the same experience as me. I will never have the same experience as them. Both shape us. We both associate with like-minded people. School is only one small part of life in the grand scheme anyways. After school ends people go to college and get jobs and basically share the same experiences. Even if they can’t automatically relate at first, they will find many ways to relate over the course of their life. I can’t honestly see the problem here. I see no reason why one groups experiences are better than another groups.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 05:56:23
Eva:
The problem is that eventually the costs of that different perspective start to manifest themselves. Usually around college. I think people really oversell the virtues of being outside the box and downplay the regrets or bad sides. When you are outside the box, you actually have little power to change things, and your perspective is often marginalized or overpowered. You lack a vocabulary to relate to other people, and if the difference is great enough, disassociation can take place.
This isn’t saying to go with the flow, but there’s a dark aspect to the idea of individualism that doesn’t get mentioned much, and i’m not a little worried about how we are encouraging sort of a separatism based on it. Sometimes we need to know that we are more than individuals, and the bad things also shape us too.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 20:30:37
dmdutcher: “It’s the removal from collective solutions that worries me when I wrote this.”
Your ‘Weltanschauung’ is showing…Does every human activity have to be “collectivist” in nature?
If not, then there is certainly a place for “homeschooling” in human culture. It is probably closure to a natural model which has existed by default for thousands of years, where children learn about life from their parents and the extended family group.
The history of modern public education, as you and I know it, is a fairly recent development, and it’s scant record is indeterminate at best (think: No Child Left Behind).
Dec 22, 2012 @ 21:00:52
Actually homeschooling for most of human history was just teaching a trade and the myths of a particular small society. Modern homeschooling is unusual in that it seeks to educate a general education instead of very specific knowledge, and it’s somewhat of a decentralized model of public education. Usually for advanced education even a thousand years back, you went to court, or to a monastery, or to university.
The collectivist argument is a good point, but I think as a society in the USA, we are in danger of becoming atomized rather than that. Any culture in which the most motivated pull out of society because it no longer benefits them rather than attempt to engage it is going to fracture rapidly. Especially when many of those motivated seem to like that same society when it can’t be opted out easily from: science labs, varsity sports, and secondary/postsecondary education. The problem of education is not that it is collectivist or imposes a worldview, but that it is broken and needs fixing. It’s like a sinkhole has sprouted up in main street, and rather than fix it, people give up driving and walk around the edges.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 21:11:02
DM, it’s difficult to make an argument at this point because you’re stuck on the idea that it’s the goal of homeschool moms to make everything perfect and fair for their kids. This kind of utopian-idealist-perfectionist is a personality trait that I most certainly lack, and it’s a personality type that isn’t confined to homeschool circles. And as far as building an affordable private school (is that even possible?)–seeing as I’m not of the aforementioned personality type–I would rather be strung upside-down by my toenails than to be a school teacher or administrator of the usual sort.
Dec 22, 2012 @ 23:10:56
dmdutcher: “Actually homeschooling for most of human history was just teaching a trade and the myths of a particular small society. Modern homeschooling is unusual in that it seeks to educate a general education instead of very specific knowledge, and it’s somewhat of a decentralized model of public education. Usually for advanced education even a thousand years back, you went to court, or to a monastery, or to university.”
So the historic model of parents/family educating their children has expanded and adapted over time to embrace a changing reality of expanding knowledge, technological advance, and hyper-specialization of industry…I don’t see how this in any way disagrees with what I said.
dmdutcher: “Any culture in which the most motivated pull out of society because it no longer benefits them rather than attempt to engage it is going to fracture rapidly.”
Most homeschooling families (whether they are the “most motivated of society” in the first place is highly debatable) who rent or have a mortgage within a district are still financially supporting the public school system at the same level (say, $5,000-$9,000 per child on average) as if they actually had their children enrolled in the school, but without receiving any actual benefits.
How that qualifies as “pulling out” or not supporting the existing system I fail to understand. They are supporting it at the same level as other citizens without receiving any of the benefits, so if anything, they are “giving more”.
dmdutcher: “The problem of education is not that it is collectivist or imposes a worldview…”
I would politely beg to differ: public education does that precisely: It “imposes a worldview”. To deny this is, I think, naive in the extreme. Are you, yourself, not arguing an implicit difference in worldview between a publicly educated child and a home schooled child when you make the claim that a home schooled child is not properly “socialized” if they manage to avoid a public school education?
In the end, who are we to say that “highly individualized” persons will not make solid contributions to the otherwise {largely} conformist society that they exist in?
It seems to me that there is a huge amount of room for innovation within education in liberal, Western societies, and that includes the option to home school as part of that picture.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 06:12:27
Jed, it’s not the same as past efforts, so any attempt to play the “this is the natural state of education” doesn’t work. To be honest, it requires the public education system still to exist, but decentralizes it in the same way Amazon.com replaces book stores. But neither are oral cultures any more.
The second point. Look it this way. Child-free people also pay the same financial penalty while pulling out from the obligations of having a kid. This often changes their focus and can divorce them from the wider culture. They don’t vote for schools, tend to pursue their own interests in urban areas, and are kind of disengaged from many issues. The fact they pay higher taxes while getting less benefit really doesn’t change the disengagement from the culture that comes with it, and I speak as one myself. In a worst-case scenario, if enough do, demographic colllapse.
When I say education doesn’t impose a worldview, I’m saying that it doesn’t give a conscious ideology or set of mind that causes the problems it has. Most of this stuff is at a sub or unconscious level regardless of what is being taught, and it’s not specific enough that changing the content will ameliorate the problems. It’s not that there is some quasi-collectivist ideology that teacher’s unions are putting forth than can be broken and then we fix public schools, or public or even homeschooling doesn’t consciously brainwash people. The difficulty is in subtler ways.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 03:17:59
Hi, D.M.! First, thank you for being so brave as to put this out there. I hope it is an indication of a search for truth, wherever that may lead you.
I’m not interested in debating. I have no kids, so the question is moot for me. However, I am a graduate of homeschooling and I thought perhaps a few facts about my career path might be of interest to you.
I don’t remember learning to read. But I was reading standard-sized novels at age 5 and 600-pagers by 7. Due to my father’s sporadic work situation, both parents had an equal share in my education. I wrote my first novel at 9 and never really stopped, while staying strongly active in art, sewing, Brigade (like Scouts, kind of), philately and other hobby groups. I finished high school two years early with an A grade in publicly-staged exams, paid my own way through university by up to five part-time jobs at once, and gained a postgraduate degree by 21. I worked 6 years for the police in Germany, then went freelance as a translator, working throughout my 29th year as I trekked around Ireland and the US. When I returned to New Zealand, I started my publishing house (Splashdown), bought a boarding house, and began saving for my next trip, which I am now on, while still running my two (three?) businesses. I’ll be 34 next month and I’m very happy with where my education got me.
I’m the first to admit I’m a rabid individualist, hate conformity of most any sort, and am alternately lazy and driven, which serves me well in my lines of work. No doubt you and I are completely different in nearly every way — it really does take all kinds. I won’t diss you if you won’t diss me. Deal?
Dec 23, 2012 @ 06:53:37
Hey Grace, thanks for posting. I hope Splashdown is treating you well.
No intentions of dissing anyone here. This is just a tricky subject that would have overran poor Mike’s comments even more, and the tangents are getting crazy there as it is.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 18:39:39
Wow, Grace. I’m in awe of you. No, seiously. It’s weird when you make online friends, yet don’t really know a person at all.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 19:18:22
The problem is that eventually the costs of that different perspective start to manifest themselves. Usually around college. I think people really oversell the virtues of being outside the box and downplay the regrets or bad sides. When you are outside the box, you actually have little power to change things, and your perspective is often marginalized or overpowered. You lack a vocabulary to relate to other people, and if the difference is great enough, disassociation can take place.
This isn’t saying to go with the flow, but there’s a dark aspect to the idea of individualism that doesn’t get mentioned much, and i’m not a little worried about how we are encouraging sort of a separatism based on it. Sometimes we need to know that we are more than individuals, and the bad things also shape us too.
I’m not going to disagree with you, but I think we are going to extremes here. I don’t see homeschoolers being that disassociated from the rest of the world. Many of them hang out with public schoolers. They know their language. They just don’t experience absolutely everything someone in public school does on a daily basis. Regrets? I really don’t see the point in having regrets. You accept that their will always be a bad side along with the good one, move onward, and find ways to succeed. I don’t desire to be just an individual, but I also have no desire to play games. How many people within the box can change things? Many of them won’t even realize that anything needs to be fixed. It’s like Plato’s allegory of the cave. Not everyone can see that what they experience may not be everything to reality. Someone who is outside the cave is the only thing that can bring them out.
Dec 24, 2012 @ 01:27:07
“It’s like Plato’s allegory of the cave. Not everyone can see that what they experience may not be everything to reality. Someone who is outside the cave is the only thing that can bring them out.”
There’s a slight difference here. It’s not that the philosopher is outside of the cave, but he has escaped it. That he has experienced it directly enables him to bridge the gap and explain the shadows. A philosopher who has never been in those chains won’t be able to relate to them to do so. Stephen’s posts on the Incarnation over at Speculative Faith come to mind about this, if you are a Christian.
The extremes you have a point, but there’s also the problem of people also self-sorting by other factors which can amplify it. Your post has some issues in it that I’ve been wrestling with, and I might make a fuller reply in a second post.
Dec 24, 2012 @ 16:28:52
“There’s a slight difference here. It’s not that the philosopher is outside of the cave, but he has escaped it. That he has experienced it directly enables him to bridge the gap and explain the shadows. A philosopher who has never been in those chains won’t be able to relate to them to do so. Stephen’s posts on the Incarnation over at Speculative Faith come to mind about this, if you are a Christian.
The extremes you have a point, but there’s also the problem of people also self-sorting by other factors which can amplify it. Your post has some issues in it that I’ve been wrestling with, and I might make a fuller reply in a second post.”
Fair enough. I haven’t escaped myself. I do think an argument can be made that all the parents who are homeschooling now are the escapees of the cave. It wouldn’t makes sense for someone who escaped to put their children in the place they were, would it? No parent would knowingly put their child in a prison even if they could dilute the effects somewhat. Why would they want them to experience the shadows, even with an explanation, if they could experience something better? Also, since you bring up Christianity, I’m assuming you would not suggest that all Christians should go become atheists in an effort to not become disassociated, or in an effort to influence other atheists and bring them to Christianity. Number one, that would put a Christian in the way of many temptations, and number two that would make the Christian an imposter, which would not go over well if that fact was ever discovered. Where do we draw the line here?
Dec 25, 2012 @ 08:23:49
“Where do we draw the line here?”
I don’t know. But I think too often Christian culture is on the side of disengagement, and it’s really not more of that we need. Your generation is going to have a tough choice: keep on separating, or reengage the culture? I don’t envy that.
Dec 27, 2012 @ 17:07:31
And, yet again, I’m stymied for an answer because you’re making the assumption that homeschooled children are separated from the world. If that’s your starting point, or foundation for argument, then it’s impossible to argue against. I say they aren’t separated; you say they are.
Dec 27, 2012 @ 17:22:39
Agreed, Jill. It’s an impasse.
Here’s a point, DM. I have to say this. If you are out in the world, talking to people, meeting them, just generally interacting with them on a day-to-day basis, how do you know you’re not interacting with homeschoolers all the time? With the parents of such, with the kids who are no longer kids and are now just living life? It’s not like we have visible marks. We’re not all tattooed “homeschool” or something, and we don’t generally introduce ourselves like, “Hi, I’m so-n-so and I homeschool/was homeschooled.”
And if you are not interacting with real people on a day-to-day basis, then you are the isolated one, and since you don’t homeschool and weren’t homeschooled it can’t be blamed for that. I don’t mean that to be snarky. I have no idea how social you are. My point is only that either you aren’t social–and therefore are as isolated as you accuse us of being–or you are social and by sheer probability have met many, many homeschoolers you assumed were part of the “normal” world simply because they function perfectly well within it.
Dec 27, 2012 @ 19:01:28
I live five minutes away from an elementary school, so especially where I live, homeschooling would be isolating the kids and setting them up for ridicule. I’m also an single adult male, and there’s generally a huge stigma against us interacting with any kids that aren’t our own even in organizational situations. While this is necessary at times, I don’t think you realize that there are more barriers to us interacting with kids than you think.
I have interacted with some as teens in the workplace, and I make it a point to look for what they say on the net. Nothing really disputes my belief of sometimes smart kids that are made brittle by the lack of experience. Even when the parents try and balance it out, the experiences often chosen are so idiosyncratic that it can isolate or even harm the kids. For a heavy example,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/my-parents-were-home-schooling-anarchists.html?ref=homeschooling&_r=0
I stand by the point of homeschooling as separation. When you spend the majority of the day separating the kids from others by educating them at home, you’re doing so. To be blunt, I think a lot of this is also leaving the kid alone while you do it: given the sheer amount of time it takes to educate a kid on the standard range of subjects. They go to their spot and work on their workbooks, coming down to ask questions while the parent is stealing time to do chores. And you also get the whole unschooling thing, and many homeschoolers who don’t enjoy large para-school organizations or access to socialization measures, especially in smaller or rural towns. There’s a strong current of isolation implicit in the nature of it that can’t be ignored, even if certain homeschoolers try and use para-school things to make up the gap.
Dec 23, 2012 @ 19:43:02
dmdutcher: “Jed, it’s not the same as past efforts, so any attempt to play the “this is the natural state of education” doesn’t work.”
Actually, you have my argument exactly backwards. What I am saying is that parents and extended family educating their offspring is a natural state of *parenting* and family interaction that goes back thousands of years. The education of children, historically, was mainly a sub-set of child-rearing by the family group.It was not a separate thing until relatively recently. That this parental education, or educational parenting, was a reflection of the world around them, I think, goes without saying.
It is Education of Children that has been extracted from the {natural} task of parenting. This recent development of modern education, as a specialized task involving experts, is a matter of historic record. That is the great societal change which I was attempting to describe.
Again, that you find non-Collectivists solutions troubling, is, I think, more striking than any other {single} thing you have written in this thread. Wouldn’t a general fear of Non-Collectivist ideas be at least part of an implanted world view that one would likely receive by osmosis from an admittedly “Collectives” public education? It is at least a reasonable question to ask.
dmdutcher: “When I say education doesn’t impose a worldview, I’m saying that it doesn’t give a conscious ideology or set of mind that causes the problems it has. Most of this stuff is at a sub or unconscious level regardless of what is being taught…”
This point I think you make rather more strongly than I did, but I will go with your wording. Implanting an ideology on a “sub or unconscious level”, as you say, regardless of the surface material that is being taught, is a serious charge to level against the current system.
Even if we argue that it is unintentional, it still produces the same effect, namely, the subconscious implanting of a world-view within the child being effected by experiencing life from within the institution. I remind you that this educational model and these institutions are designed and run by professionals well-versed in child psychology.
Whether influencing a person below the level of their conscious decision-making processes is even moral or ethical, I think, would probably take more exhaustive research and another blog post…
Dec 24, 2012 @ 01:19:27
“It is Education of Children that has been extracted from the {natural} task of parenting. This recent development of modern education, as a specialized task involving experts, is a matter of historic record.”
It’s not as modern as you think. C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man has a passage about people like Plato, who wanted children as “bastards nursed in bureaus,” and others who advocated that kind of separation. While these would be considered intelligentsia, even something as simple as religious education was and almost always has been considered outside of the parental overview. Again, most Christians would think it absurd not to take their children to church, which is just as much delegating the parental rights to outsiders as schooling. The parental role is vital and often is the only one who can fuse the whole thing together, but I really don’t think it’s completely as natural as said. We’ve almost always delegated some educational roles.
“Wouldn’t a general fear of Non-Collectivist ideas be at least part of an implanted world view that one would likely receive by osmosis from an admittedly “Collectives” public education? It is at least a reasonable question to ask.”
I can ask if your fear of collectivist ideas is something that you’d receive by osmosis from an individualist upbringing in reply then. I don’t discount this entirely, but I’m not a total fan of collectivism in all aspects of life, and I doubt you are an individualist in all areas of life either. There are times when one mode of relation seems to work better than the other. Kind of ties in with your next point.
“This point I think you make rather more strongly than I did, but I will go with your wording. Implanting an ideology on a “sub or unconscious level”, as you say, regardless of the surface material that is being taught, is a serious charge to level against the current system.”
No, the idea that a fully formed ideology can even exist on that level is not possible. We’re talking effects due to method. Like if you decided to put a kid on a deserted island, and surrounded him with books but no other humans, people would think it inhumane due to the effects of isolating him completely from others. Not whether or not what the books contained, or that he would learn something specific out of them. He may very well learn an ideology. One may think people are sophist illusions, the other may think they are mysteries to be embraced, and so on. But the physical factors of isolation shape the character in ways that don’t always manifest in conscious ideals, but in subconscious ones. It’s tricky to explain from my end, and I’m not completely sure I am, but these are more effects and traits than intellectual arguments.
It’s also impossible to avoid this kind of influence. That’s an even tougher ethical argument at that…
Dec 27, 2012 @ 21:33:27
I wanted to address these points in specific as a response to Joy:
“1. I clearly admit the failures of public education. But homeschooling glosses over its failures to the point of where we can’t even track how many there are. This is bad, even for people who agree with it, because we can’t tell its true level of effectiveness.”
Why does it matter whether homeschooled kids are tracked? Why does it matter that ANY child is tracked? The need for tracking any student is to measure progress. Why is there a need to measure progress unless education is a competition? It doesn’t need to be. Some of us homeschool because we want something different than that for our kids. We want learning to be for the sake of learning, something beautiful in and of itself.
Effectiveness is measured only by each individual. Nobody can look at me and measure me as a person, why do it to kids and their own personal learning? I can tell people that I have a degree, but it’s pointless unless I’m actually living a life that I personally value that impacts the people around me positively.
At the heart of this one point is a very different philosophy on life and what life means and what success looks like and is defined by. Tracking and measuring students means nothing except to a person whose job is reliant on statistical measuring of educational progress for taxable dollars and accountability. Along that line, homeschoolers do NOT use state funded tax dollars for their education. To me, that is the end of the question right there. No funds, no tracking.
“2. No, it isn’t the same. It increases aspects of selection already present, often to dangerous degrees. We’re already suffering from the problem of likeminded people clustering together in unhealthy degrees. This can amplify it by removing one of the few ways left to encounter others outside of your range.”
This is true in communities too. One could argue that since communities are homogenized, then it stands to follow the schools one attends are also that way since they are completely localized to geographic areas. My own experience, homeschooling my kids, is that outside of those confines, we were free to meet all kinds of people we wouldn’t have otherwise encountered. There is no way I can emphasize this point enough without writing in all caps with all kinds of crazy punctuation!
“3. The family is the first state of man, yeah. But we are not mean to be isolated. Too much focus on the family leads to infantilization as much as too much focus on society leads to collectivism.”
This goes back to the point made following point 1. At the heart of this is whether a person believes that family is the center of our lives or whether the state/government/world is. It is a very personal difference in belief systems. Some people very much believe that children belong to the state and should be tracked and accounted for by the state. It is the very basis of public education and compulsory school attendance. It was first created in Italy to keep track of its citizens, by a dictator. It’s become so ingrained into our culture, American, that we accept it at face value without really understanding the history of this movement.
Some people, and I am one of them, truly believe that the family is the basis for all offspring, the culture around us is simultaneously secondary to that and a part of all of us. The government and state is much much farther down that list for me. I realized a long time ago that my children were butts in seats with dollar signs attached. I wanted something better. I have something better, in my humble opinion. We can agree to disagree.
I normally don’t engage in these sorts of discussions because I’ve found that when people have made up their mind about something, there is little anyone can do to change it. Those ideas have become a part of that person’s belief system. Just as I would never tell my Muslim friends that Allah doesn’t exist because I might believe otherwise.
Dec 27, 2012 @ 23:48:50
1. It is important for many reasons:
-to prevent it being abused for truancy or worse. Many states have slim to non-existent regulation about homeschooling, and the ones that have others can be gamed.
-to show that homeschooling truly is effective by providing unbiased statistics. As long as the HLDA keeps being the standard, everyone will always suspect bias.
-To ensure homeschooling meets minimum educational standards. Not whether they are teaching controversial things, but just the foundations of literacy and education. If the child hits college, and suddenly finds out he’s actually WORSE than a public school student, he suffers a grave injustice. One he may not be able to correct.
It’s not about competition or definition, but preventing legitimate harm. When I argue being tracked, it is not for socialization, or content of education when it comes to religious issues. It’s to prevent the cure from being far worse than the disease, and the lack of oversight many states have on it can easily transform a homeschooling situation into something more like truancy if the parents aim to do so. This must not be, and I think we all can agree on this.
2. I agree with communities, but I’d honestly ask how diverse the average homeschooler’s experience really is. My belief is that homeschooling further acts to amplify the selection aspects of community. The percentages for hispanic or single parent homeschoolers are tiny compared to the rest, for example, and very few homeschooled children are only children-a staggering amount belong to families with three or more children. When you tend to grant the selection effects already present due to location or income, you can get a powerful layered effect.
To be honest though, selection in general society is a problem.
3. Yeah, the family is the bedrock of civilization, but it’s also not the best at all things. There’s arisen an adversarial relationship between family and collective education that really isn’t all that healthy, because that educational system does a lot of good.If comparable, affordable private schools existed that respected ;religious belief, we wouldn’t even have this argument. This is what puzzles me: why don’t we have the same push for building private education for Christians and others?
Dec 27, 2012 @ 21:42:00
Also, as to infantilization…
In my experience, the more choices a young child has within the safety confines of their family, the more and better choices they make as they grow older. There is nothing more infantilizing than taking away choices and telling someone what to do until they suddenly are 18 and free. Schools do that. Lots and lots of young adults make terrible choices in their reactions to sudden freedom, after years and years of people telling them what to do and what is good for them. It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s why young adults binge drink and party as soon as they are “free”. It’s a creation of immature adults. It’s something I’ve seen in my oldest daughter’s schooled friends that I have not seen in her. There is no way I would go back in time to change that. There are no regrets here. I have an intact relationship with my now grown daughter and she makes responsible choices, just like she’s been doing for years now.
Dec 28, 2012 @ 00:05:37
I can’t see how this is any better when the parent is both teacher and educator. Rebellion isn’t just due to educational structure, and I don’t think a lot of homeschoolers realize that by needing two parents, one stay-at-home, the family structure itself might be mitigating a lot of the problems like this. Plus, to even attempt to homeschool kids is going to require a stable family with both parents on board, so there’s a chicken or egg question here. Are they fine because of the educational method, or because of the family structure you need to have for it to have a chance to even work?
Dec 28, 2012 @ 20:12:47
“It’s to prevent the cure from being far worse than the disease, and the lack of oversight many states have on it can easily transform a homeschooling situation into something more like truancy if the parents aim to do so. This must not be, and I think we all can agree on this.”
I actually really truly do not agree. Children aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are born whole and remain so until damage is done. You are talking about cures and diseases, analogies, but even people in medical professions can’t even agree on these things. What you see as a cure to a disease, someone else might not even see as a disease or a need for a cure.
It’s a big giant what if, or straw man argument. How many grown homeschoolers do you know?
As to homogeneous communities… If every community is diverse then there is no such thing as a unique community or group of people or culture. If my own neighborhood is made up of almost all one kind of person and my child goes to school in that neighborhood, for 6+ hrs each day for 5 days a week, and then goes to classes at the community center for 2+ classes each week, or engages in sports at the school for the same, for about 30+ hrs they are surrounded by the same people, in their same neighborhood doing the same thing day after day for 12+ yrs of their life. There is zero diversity in that. If a child isn’t confined to their neighborhood and classroom, they are free to move about in their larger community. Even in my own metro area, having the ability to participate in activities in other neighborhoods creates more diversity than being stuck in a classroom with the same kids every day.
“-to prevent it being abused for truancy or worse. Many states have slim to non-existent regulation about homeschooling, and the ones that have others can be gamed.”
If a child is being homeschooled they aren’t truant. Lots of legislators have used this argument and it’s been shot down so many times, I wonder why this argument even still exists. If it’s so children don’t slip through the cracks, that old argument about the abused child kept home in the guise of homeschooling, those parents aren’t homeschooling. That’s a public school issue, not a homeschooling one. The fact is that children are abused by a small percentage of parents. Homeschooling parents for the most part are doing what they do because they’ve decided to invest in their children, their time and energy.
Most homeschoolers don’t want to be regulated. They exist outside of the tax based school system and don’t expect any monetary benefit to be accountable to the state for. At the basis of this argument is whether one believes that children are the property of the state or the parents. If a person believes that all children are the property of the state and the state should be accountable to all children and their well being and education, that person will find themself in complete disagreement with almost every homeschooler I’ve ever met.
If we, as a society have abdicated our parental responsibility to the state, then yes all children should be measured and educated exactly the same way in the entire country and the state should pick up the tab on that in every way shape or form and correct any and all failures on their part to produce valuable and productive citizens. Since that will NEVER happen, I am personally taking responsibility for my own children.
If you don’t like the system you don’t even need to game it. I know the state I live in doesn’t have the funds to keep track of the kids, whose parents want them cared for by the government schools. Why in the world would they want to track kids whose parents have decidedly left that system, saving millions of tax payer dollars? Our local district has finally come to terms with that and has stopped collecting test scores and doesn’t track kids outside of the school system anymore.
“-To ensure homeschooling meets minimum educational standards. Not whether they are teaching controversial things, but just the foundations of literacy and education. ”
Whose standard? The educational textbook and testing industry? That’s who does it now. What if you value other things and would like your children to possess other qualities? That is the main reason so many people homeschool. You don’t have to like it. That’s the beauty of living in a country where we have these choices. If you, as a parent, don’t like what is being offered to your children, you can make another choice.
(Just as an anecdotal piece of information: nothing has pushed more people to homeschool more than NCLB, the horrible monstrosity of educational and textbook industry getting way more than their foot in the door of the public educational system. The moment those high stakes tests hit the classrooms of elementary aged children, those parents took their kids out in droves. Every single day in the online homeschooling forums, there would be someone posting about taking their child out of school to homeschool because they hated the high stakes testing. That was and is all about accountability and measuring students.)
“If the child hits college, and suddenly finds out he’s actually WORSE than a public school student…”
Worse in what way? Homeschooled kids, for the most part, just don’t see the world in these terms. They are, generally, much more secure in themselves that they wouldn’t see themselves in terms of better or worse than other people. That is created by the school systems desire to measure and compare everyone to each other. Without a failing student, there wouldn’t be an “A” student. That’s classic bell curve. The schools are great at claiming all the “A” students and sweeping all the failures under the rug, blaming parents or anything or anyone other than the system itself which created it in the first place. Maybe that kid simply had other talents not recognized by the one size fits all school system. School highly values reading and math skills, but not everyone should be that way. Going back to homogeneous communities, nothing creates or tries to create that more than school, by only valuing and prizing very specific skill sets. Humans are so much more diverse than that. Some people should be dreamers and tinkerers, a skill very devalued by the school system. Some people should be verbal story tellers, another skill very devalued by the system. Some people should be crafters and creators, another skill devalued by the system. Some people should be artists and problem solvers and experimenters, all skills devalued by the system.
So people come out of that system not even knowing they have these skills or should possess them and go straight away to college to try and find themselves a niche to make a living. Well, if they hadn’t been robbed of knowing their talents and skills in the first place, they could jump straight into the world doing what they love. Sometimes that is college related things and sometimes it isn’t. Homeschooled kids are GREAT at this. They get to keep their skills, their natural abilities and run with it. It’s very exciting to watch. I know many homeschooled kids that are young adults. Their lives and their potential are truly inspiring.
Dec 28, 2012 @ 21:35:37
“I actually really truly do not agree. Children aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled. They are born whole and remain so until damage is done. You are talking about cures and diseases, analogies, but even people in medical professions can’t even agree on these things. What you see as a cure to a disease, someone else might not even see as a disease or a need for a cure.”
And its possible to damage them through homeschooling. Again, I’m talking basic levels of reporting to ensure it isn’t being abused and depriving kids of a basic education. Unschooling comes to mind: if you think kids are self-motivated to learn pre-algebra or geometry, you are going to have a rough shock awaiting for you, and an even rougher shock when they take their SATs and bomb out on the subjects they didn’t like.
Again, I’m only talking about weak standards of reporting just to make sure we have data on how effective it is, and to prevent cases of serious educational neglect.
“If a child is being homeschooled they aren’t truant. Lots of legislators have used this argument and it’s been shot down so many times, I wonder why this argument even still exists. If it’s so children don’t slip through the cracks, that old argument about the abused child kept home in the guise of homeschooling, those parents aren’t homeschooling.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
All scotsmen like haggis.
But my uncle, who is scottish, hates it!
All TRUE scotsmen like haggis.
We can’t redefine abuse under a method as not being the method at all.
“Most homeschoolers don’t want to be regulated…Why in the world would they want to track kids whose parents have decidedly left that system, saving millions of tax payer dollars?”
Sorry for jumping around, but these points are related. They want to regulate them so that they produce kids that are, well, employable. They do this also, as hard as it may seem to believe, for the good of them and the families they belong to. Otherwise you are setting a kid up to be a member of a permanent underclass, or for some long, hard, work of self-education.
Also, homeschoolers themselves should embrace regulation. I don’t honestly get why not. I’m a public school guy, but I don’t say “well, public schools shouldn’t be regulated at all, and anyone who wants to should make one” even if no tax dollars are involved and the school is private. It’s because of abuse. A good example of what happens when education is unregulated can be found in the for-profit web colleges like U of Phoenix and others. A tremendous amount of substandard education is given to snap up free student loan dollars, and it affects everyone.
“Humans are so much more diverse than that. Some people should be dreamers and tinkerers, a skill very devalued by the school system. Some people should be verbal story tellers, another skill very devalued by the system. Some people should be crafters and creators, another skill devalued by the system. Some people should be artists and problem solvers and experimenters, all skills devalued by the system.”
Oh, good lord. I’m sorry, but as someone who is trying to do just this, I can tell you that these things simply do not pay for the majority of people out there. We have so many crafters, dreamers, tinkerers, and others that people literally give their works away for free in the hopes of getting noticed, while they toil away at their grinding, uncreative job that makes enough money to live on.
If anything, we’ve all been sold a bill of goods. The work that pays makes very use of those capacities, and focuses on doing unsexy, unglamourous jobs that involve human judgement and tremendous amounts of grunt work. Or instead of using creative skills, they use social ones. Only a small minority can truly earn a living utilizing those values: for the rest, if anything they gnaw at us when we are confronted with a day job where we cannot tinker, cannot change, cannot create, and cannot solve problems. Even in creative work, much of the crucial work involves none of those qualities: you need to be a good marketer, a good networker, and have people skills.
This is a subject for a longer post, but a lot of the skills the hated public school system teaches are far more vital than you think to your future success.
Dec 29, 2012 @ 21:30:19
“And its possible to damage them through homeschooling. Again, I’m talking basic levels of reporting to ensure it isn’t being abused and depriving kids of a basic education. Unschooling comes to mind: if you think kids are self-motivated to learn pre-algebra or geometry, you are going to have a rough shock awaiting for you, and an even rougher shock when they take their SATs and bomb out on the subjects they didn’t like.”
A basic education by whose standards?
Even kids in public school come out not having what the school deems basic standard of education. The majority of kids leaving high school with a diploma, who then enter college take remedial math classes. SAT’s are no longer the standard entry for colleges these days.
Why does everyone need to know pre-algebra and geometry? Along that same line, pre-algebra and geometry, as taught in public schools, are completely removed from actual use, to the point that it doesn’t make sense to the average person. It’s going through the motions to get a grade. To what end though?
Anyone with a couple hundred dollars can go to the local community college and take a math class. It’s certainly not a subject that MUST be learned at the age of (fill in blank here_____). The best use and knowledge of math is acquired through living and the need to know. If you want my personal feelings about this subject, the best starting place is this wonderful, although long, article on the matter… worth reading when you have the time, you won’t be disappointed! I didn’t write it. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
“This is a subject for a longer post, but a lot of the skills the hated public school system teaches are far more vital than you think to your future success.”
I went to public school. I went to college. There is nothing vital that I learned in either of those places. The jobs that I’ve had that I’ve done and loved the most were not ones that school helped in any way shape or form in the acquisition of skills needed for those jobs.
One of the BIGGEST lies told to kids by school is that if they do “A, B, and C” then they will be successful and be employable. How many unemployed people went to school? Resumes and job applications get dumped in recycle bins without ever being looked at. You want to stand out? Be homeschooled. I’m not kidding. I know so many young people that have been hired exactly because they were homeschooled and not born of the cookie cutter educational system.
Dec 30, 2012 @ 00:13:51
Jenny said, “…pre-algebra and geometry, as taught in public schools, are completely removed from actual use, to the point that it doesn’t make sense to the average person. It’s going through the motions to get a grade. To what end though?”
I spent two years working in a tutoring center dealing with kids from public schools who did not have basic skills. They didn’t understand math, they saw no practical use for it, their textbooks flat-out sucked, and their teachers were JUST teaching them how to score well on standardized tests so their school would get better funding. “Teach to the test” has become the mantra.
And it’s not just the teachers. The kids’ parents would come in basically telling us to just get little Johnny to be able to pass the multiplication test. We’d try to explain that little Johnny *can’t add* and therefore teaching him how to correctly guess on a test of multiplication skills is not going to help him in the long run. So many of these parents don’t want to hear that, though. Just make little Johnny pass the test. Just give little Johnny some extra credit to bring up his grade. He didn’t pass the Gifted screening? Too bad, put him in the program anyway because we need it for scholarships….
Sorry, DM, but standardized testing is not the answer. It is not accurate.
Wait, I know your next question: So why does it matter if homeschoolers do well on standardized tests? Because we’re NOT teaching to the test. We don’t have access to them like school teachers do. We’re focusing on skills and working at our kids’ pace, not moving forward until they master something. So if they do well on standardized tests it’s because they’re actually learning.
Also, I just have to say–you’ve made blanket statements about unschoolers. And again, you don’t seem to actually know any. Or if you do, you aren’t aware of their unschooled status because on your radar they are completely normal and therefore must have been public schooled. Something that must be taken along with the understanding that you consider yourself weird and someone who possibly does not relate well to the mainstream population–see your own “The Problems of Weirdness” post. I normally don’t psychoanalyze people online, but the fact that you think of weirdness as a bad thing may be the root of this whole issue for you. You see your own weirdness as an obstacle, and therefore assume that anything outside the box is going to be an obstacle for the rest of us. But that’s “in the box” thinking–a direct product of being, well, in the box. The fact that you cannot see a homeschooler’s side on this issue is that you are firmly in your box, refusing to see out it. You have NO idea whether or not we’re having weirdness difficulties because you can’t/won’t see us outside of studies and statistics.
I’m sorry–but that is what it boils down to. I appreciate you taking all this time to address the issues and present your side, and to allow us into your personal space to voice our side. But the fact is, you are setting the example of exactly the kind of thinking trap we don’t want our kids falling into by being put in the public school box.
Dec 30, 2012 @ 07:26:26
We need statistics anyways, Kat. Lets say I take your advice, but since I can’t travel to see your kids, I check out ones in my area. And lets say I encounter some radical quiverfull sect that are worse than I imagine. Rather than just worries about socialization and adaption to college, it’s actual neglect. I come back and say “hey, Kat, I did meet them! They were horrible!”
You tell me not all are like that, and then we are back at statistics anyways. You need to prove most aren’t, but we need data. Again, I’m not sure why the reluctance: there’s as much if not more of a chance that unbiased data could prove your argument better than anecdotes.
The weirdness thing, well, it’s a really complex issue, and you aren’t entirely wrong about regret factoring in. You kind of have to be weird though to understand, and there’s a lot of well intentioned, very conformist people who trumped the idea of individuality while very much living the white picket fence dream. They did so because it seemed exotic and alien to them, but they never understood it enough to realize the other sides. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on you-I say this in general: the cult of the individual is a strong one.
But when you are in it, you start to see the issues. Your Christian homeschooler suddenly reaches age 25 and realizes she’s never dated anyone, and isn’t sure she wants to. Your Christian teen can never really relax around other people his own age, and he isn’t sure why. To be outside the culture, to truly be an individual, has some intensely profound costs that will manifest over time.
Maybe I am self-expressing some. But there are obstacles to being outside of the box, and they’ll often manifest later. These are in addition to the obstacles the honest expression of our faith has, and those grow heavier each day. I’d rather seem maudlin so long as we honestly discuss them rather than think everything will be all right if we just be true to ourselves and exalt the individual’s freedom to create and self-express as a panacea for the ills of society.
Dec 30, 2012 @ 17:28:03
I’m not saying we don’t need statistics. I’m saying they are not reliable. I’m also saying that you are completely disregarding any data that shows homeschooling is good because you think we’re hiding things. There ARE studies that show homeschoolers do BETTER on standardized tests. You pffftt at those studies and say we have Lake Woebegon syndrome.
Also, a whole slew of homeschoolers and adults who were homeschooled have come on this very blog and shown their intelligence and capability and testified to not being isolated from society, yet you cling to the numbers and your own fear of weirdness.
Guess what–I do know what it’s like to be weird. I AM weird. I just don’t see it as an obstacle. I relate fine to people, even though I am very different from most of the people I relate to. I PROMISE it is DESPITE my public school experience, not because of it. IN school I was shy and terrified of relating to people.
Anyway, I feel we’ve reached in impasse on this. Actually, I felt that about four comments ago. But now I’m ducking out. Again, thank you for your graciousness in this discussion, but I don’t really see any reason to put more on the table at this point.
Dec 30, 2012 @ 19:24:44
Well, a whole slew being four adults and one teen. I’d kill for a whole slew of people commenting here.
Yeah, we are at an impasse. Sadly it always ends this way, in almost every conversation I see on homeschooling. The thing that will break it is the voices of the kids raised as such as they deal with adult experiences. I don’t particularly relish that, because I think they’ll prove me right.
Dec 30, 2012 @ 06:47:39
Short answers here.
1. I’ve attended one of those math classes. They are powerful arguments for teaching kids normally, as maybe half of the class dropped out of it, and many adults struggled doing problems that I was taught in seventh grade. It’s much harder to teach adults things than kids, and even teens. This was intermediate algebra, not pre-calc.
2. The best chance for a child to achieve what they want is to be prepared for college. Even if they choose otherwise, like vocational education or homemaking, at least they have the basic skills to choose college if they wish. If they aren’t taught things because the parent doesn’t think they matter, that’s restraining the kid, not helping him.
This isn’t a homeschooling issue. This is just general good education. I’d even argue for public education the constant hollowing out of sports, art, music, and other things causes immense harm.
Dec 29, 2012 @ 21:43:40
“And its possible to damage them through homeschooling. Again, I’m talking basic levels of reporting to ensure it isn’t being abused and depriving kids of a basic education. ”
I’m far more concerned about the damage that happens in schools than any sort of perceived educational neglect that might possibly happen in homeschooling.
I’m far more concerned about the damage parents do to their kids in the name of school. I’ll spare you the details, but I’ve seen it all. (Since my own homeschooled kids don’t live in boxes they get to witness all that.)
Dec 31, 2012 @ 09:37:08
“1. I’ve attended one of those math classes. They are powerful arguments for teaching kids normally, as maybe half of the class dropped out of it, and many adults struggled doing problems that I was taught in seventh grade. It’s much harder to teach adults things than kids, and even teens. This was intermediate algebra, not pre-calc.”
Those people, in that class, were almost all certainly products of public schooling.
“2. The best chance for a child to achieve what they want is to be prepared for college. Even if they choose otherwise, like vocational education or homemaking, at least they have the basic skills to choose college if they wish. If they aren’t taught things because the parent doesn’t think they matter, that’s restraining the kid, not helping him.”
I’m stealing an analogy from a dear friend, but here it is anyway… It doesn’t help to break a person’s leg to prepare them for the possibility that they might one day break their leg.
If a person WANTS to go to college they will be much more prepared and get much more out of it than someone going through the motions simply to be prepared to go to college and then going.
My own daughter who has never had a single math or reading lesson in her life, took a college entrance exam and was exceptional in reading and average in math. Sure, that’s anecdotal evidence. Here’s some more anecdotal evidence; When we go to the grocery store she’s the kid who can spot the best deal based on price and quantity before I can even pull a calculator out. She does that in her head.
“And lets say I encounter some radical quiverfull sect that are worse than I imagine. Rather than just worries about socialization and adaption to college, it’s actual neglect.”
My own personal radical thought is that it’s none of my business to go around deciding who is doing right by their kids. When they end up on my sofa after running away from home, then it becomes my problem. I’ve known 2 homeschooled kids who have run away from home, but they weren’t shining examples of great homeschooling parents. However, they didn’t break any laws, they were just jerks. I’ve had many many more kids land on my sofa whose parents sent them to public school, who were also jerks. Still not neglect if there’s food in the cupboards and clothing to wear and a place to lay one’s head at night.
Even though homeschooling falls under the educational neglect laws, I have yet to hear of or know anyone who has dealt with that in real life. This is largely due to the fact that homeschooled kids aren’t being neglected educationally. If they were, they almost certainly weren’t homeschooling to begin with and were likely abusive in other ways.
The irony is that in the USA, there is no such thing as compulsory education, it is compulsory attendance. Somewhere along the way, written into law books across the country, schools didn’t want to be held accountable if for some reason all those millions of failures they produced, came back and sued them.
Dec 31, 2012 @ 17:20:47
You’re trying to define away any failure of the method as not existing, and sweeping it all under the rug. Any educational method will have successes and failures, simply because fallible people do it. By ignoring them, ironically you make it harder for the people who want to do so. If they think it always works and there are no problems, they will be shocked when they pop their heads.
I finally found a decent comment thread on the subject, and not from someone who can really be accused of bias (though of other things)
http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/2012/06/community-question-are-you-happy-you-were-homeschooled/
Reading this, that’s more of an honest look of the ups and downs, and one of the few threads I’ve seen where advocacy doesn’t dominate the discussion.
Dec 31, 2012 @ 09:40:24
Also, since you are very keen on measuring and accountability, here’s an article that might persuade you otherwise! http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201212/can-you-measure-education-can-you-define-life-s-meaning
Dec 31, 2012 @ 17:53:49
I read it. I honestly don’t get this mindset. You make for happy, curious, well-adjusted kids by making sure they have a decent body of knowledge to evaluate the world by. This often involves using “factory-like” methods because kids often struggle with learning discipline, good study habits, deadlines, and many subjects they aren’t personally strong in. This can be abused, but to some point, a kid’s mindset is going to be based on what he knows.
I mean, if the guy was saying all this, and then turned around and said “Oh, READING isn’t all that important to this. Plenty of people can not read a book in their lives and yet be happy, curious, emotionally resilient, and have good values,” we’d think he is nuts. Mostly because we know that without teaching reading, even through factory-like methods if the kid resents being taught it, is vital to those things. We wouldn’t say “Oh, he dislikes reading, then we shouldn’t teach it: we should let him paint and sculpt instead, since he loves to do so and has talent.”
So even homeschoolers teach reading with factory-like methods, using tests, workbooks, scheduled study times, tracking progress and addressing weakness. Because not being able to read harms those vary traits Peter talks about. I’m arguing a higher level of this, and it puzzles me that people seem to think the traits he mentioned don’t exist without a substantial body of knowledge imparted as a child to begin with.
Jan 07, 2013 @ 22:10:54
I just came across this post and I wanted to say that I was homeschooled until I reached the 5th grade. My mom could not continue to homschool me and take care of the rest of my siblings. I was sent to the local public school and I experienced culture shock. I had no idea how to relate to most of my peers. Since we were a military family, I didn’t get the opportunity to be in a homeschool group much. For a short period of time there were a few of the families that would get together when I was living in Texas (this was in the 80′s). I was socially awkward for much of my middle school and high school years. In fact, if it wasn’t for going to a public school, I would have never learned how to play the clarinet or to be exposed to classic literature (Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc). My mom did not teach us any of those things. She taught the absolute basics and that was all she could do. She couldn’t teach the higher sciences or mathematics or history, etc. I’m not saying that all my experiences with homeschooling were negative. I learned to read very early. I taught myself geography, etc. My only classmate was my brother. I admit that I was very isolated which lead to a lot of social anxiety. It wasn’t until I was in my 20′s and working that I was able to break out of my shell.
I’m not completely opposed to homeschooling but it does limit oneself. Sure, there are homeschooling groups but they typically are similar people from very similar backgrounds, like minded, etc. There is less of a chance of diversity and exposure to other people, cultures, ideas, etc. In this, it is very parent controlled.
Jan 09, 2013 @ 06:29:21
Yeah, I keep coming across this as I listen to others experiences. Not harm exactly, but a sense of limits and ambivalence. I had a weaker form of the same social anxiety, but it was due to more being spiritually sequestered due to faith. Very into the Christian culture, very isolated by nature, faith, and choice. It can be a rough thing.
Mar 30, 2013 @ 20:05:59
I know this is an old blog post but I thought you might find this worth a read:
http://childrensmd.org/uncategorized/why-doctors-and-lawyers-homeschool-their-children-18-reasons-why-we-have-joined-americas-fastest-growing-educational-trend/
And just since I didn’t comment before, I’ll add that I homeschooled K-12 (most of my high school courses were done online) and I didn’t experience culture shock when I moved out at age 17 and got my nursing degree at a large secular University.
Mar 31, 2013 @ 01:38:16
Thanks for the link. The problem though is this: that family has four kids, and two parents who work. The mother works full time third shift as a doctor. Yet somehow, there is absolutely no downsides to homeschooling; it’s fun, easier than just dropping them off to normal school, and somehow magically produces well-educated kids in a half of the time that normal schooling does. There are absolutely no downsides, or no honest talking about the husband, who is the real stay at home parent and probably does all of the work.
Here, take a look at this sample page from a homeschooling forum:
http://www.home-school.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=30
Notice how its more honest, as parents ask for help dealing with reluctant learners, discipline issues, and other things? Your link makes it sound like heaven, but a lot of the forums deal with issues like children struggling how to learn reading and writing, or not even being motivated to bother with what little classwork a homeschool curricula has. The difference between advocacy and experience is drastic enough to make me look twice.
Apr 01, 2013 @ 22:45:29
Why is it not honest to highlight the positive? The blogger had a negative mindset towards homeschooling until she tried it. I think she assumed her audience likewise had heard plenty about the problems with homeschooling and needed to hear more about the awesomeness.
If the difference between advocacy and experience is drastic than you’ve only been hearing from people on one side.