GROWING MOVEMENT A “REAL REACTION TO TO A FAILING SYSTEM”
By FAITH FALISE || Right about this time last year, I gave up a lucrative career and a pension to homeschool my children. So, although I had no idea what I was doing at the time, here’s a smattering of reasons why I did and why so many other parents are following suit, in droves.
I homeschool my children …
1) Because I had to spend as much time with my children at night, when they were dead tired, re-educating them about basic history, math and science, as I do now for our entire home school day. “No son, World War II was not fought over the Jewish concentration camps.” “Yes dear, Columbus brought smallpox to the Indians, but didn’t he do something else a bit more memorable?” “Yes, you can add 328+142 in less than 15 steps.”
2. Because if I want my children to be brainwashed, I’ll do it myself. Public schools, global warming, Al Gore, “An inconvenient truth.” Enough said.
3. Because in 2005 a federal court said that our nation’s public schools and arguably their progressive agenda trump parental rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that parents’ fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door,” and that a public school has the right to provide its students with “whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise.” I’ll teach my children to put condoms on bananas when they’re ready, not when the government dictates.
4. Because of school violence. Littleton, Colorado and Sandy Hook made me realize, even more, that when you put the whole government education thing together: the vacuous curricula, the permissive environment, the lack of parental involvement and the unending money and special interest driven bureaucracy, it becomes less about the kids. The kids, the good and the bad, fall through the cracks or become inconvenient to deal with. Your kids will deal with school violence or bullying at some point in their public school career. It’s only a matter of time.
5. Because one of the main opposition points raised by homeschool skeptics is always socialization – but bad company corrupts good morals. A child left with other kids for five days a week, 180 days a year, will learn to accept and do whatever is necessary in order to gain approval by his cohorts. Like it or not, he will learn how to talk, how to dress and how to act from his peer group.
6. Because 2-3 hours of homework a night has not been proven to be effectual or pedagogically sound. Too much homework prevents play and too much pressure backfires. Let children be children, not automatons. Who wants to go to work for 40 hours a week and come home to 15 more hours of school work? No child I know.
If you send your children to Cesar to be educated, don’t be surprised when they come home as Romans. About 1.5 million children in the U.S. are homeschooled. That this number is growing is neither a coincidence nor a fad. It’s a real reaction to a failed public school system.
No one promised me home schooling would be easy. It’s hard as hell actually but I’ve never been one to take the easy route. Public schools can’t teach tenacity.
Faith Falise is a libertarian activist and author.
184 comments
Excellent post, Faith!!!!
“Because 2-3 hours of homework a night has not been proven to be effectual or pedagogically sound. Too much homework prevents play and too much pressure backfires. Let children be children, not automatons. Who wants to go to work for 40 hours a week and come home to 15 more hours of school work? No child I know.”
Thank You!!!! I have long said and believed that among other things, the reason so many kids these days are going ballistic (literally) is that they are not allowed to be kids, anymore. Draw a picture of a gun and you get hassled by the police, suspended or expelled, and possibly a police record. Take a plastic knife to school to cut your food up and get the same. When I was in high school (and elementary) we ate with metal knives, forks, and spoons. Now, they don’t trust kids with these implements. In the 80’s, I worked in a Maximum/Medium security prison and the inmates in that place were trusted more (with metal utensils) than we trust our school kids these days.
10+! For being such “Free spirits”, Leftists sure have a way of adopting conformist and infantilizing attitudes.
The smartest kid in my college class…his dad a nuclear physicist…was home-schooled…and yes, I was jealous…
“. . . …his dad a nuclear physicist…”
Faith does not strike me as being a nuclear physicist.
That’s your limitation, not anyone else’s.
Begs the question: Was the nuclear physicist dad home-schooled?
Which further begs the question, how were people educated before public school?
Rich people hired tutors or used private academies. Everyone else was uneducated. It was Republican Nirvana.
What percentage of SC students in public school are graduating uneducated? Is this free education Democratic nirvana?
Not everyone who chooses to home-school is a nuclear physicist. In fact, quite a few have only a high school diploma…
And in most states, that is all the law requires.
The government allows all sorts of people without advanced degrees to do stuff. Like police work for example.
Thanks for writing this. Please keep on home schooling your kids and keep them as far away from my kids in public school as possible.
I look forward to seeing your young ones in successful careers in talk radio or as Fox News pundits.
Just one last question…how old do you tell them the earth is and where did mankind come from?
“… keep on home schooling your kids and keep them as far away from my kids in public school as possible. …”
Gee, Okey dokey.
Lizards live in holes by themselves… the lizard brain is the tiny little appendage on top of our brain stem… the “action” part. The oldest layer of the human brain and therefore the most ‘primitive’ of the three. It is known as the ‘reptilian system’ because it makes up the entire brain mass in reptiles.
The reptilian system, also known as the ‘root brain’ or ‘R-complex’ consists largely of the brain stem, the basal ganglia, the reticular activating system and the mid brain. Functions of the R-complex are related to physical survival and body maintenance – digestion, reproduction, circulation, breathing, response to stress, and so on.
The lizard brain is responsible for territoriality, social dominance, status maintenance, deception, tendency to follow precedent, awe for authority, social pecking order behavior, compulsiveness, ritualism, prejudice and resistance to change. The R-complex is activated when the organism perceives threat and the needs for survival and safety predominate.
The mammalian or limbic brain developed after the lizard (this is the brain of all birds and mammals, including rats).The mammalian brain consists of a series of brain structures – hippocampus, amygdala, mammilary body, anterior thalamus, cingulate cortex and hypothalamus – which together form a cap or ‘limbus’ (Latin for ‘ring’ or ‘forming a border around’) around the brain stem containing the R-Complex. Hence the name ‘limbic’ brain.
When the limbic system interacts with the cerebral cortex – thinking part of the brain – then feelings of fear and protection become increasingly complex.
The third layer occupies five sixths of the brain and is known as the ‘neomammalian brain’, the ‘neocortex’ or the ‘cerebral cortex’. The cerebral cortex is the latest evolutionary development of the brain… the distinctively primate and human layer. In humans, it is responsible for “consciousness” – a higher state of being not yet achieved by Republicans.
Consciousness ties together survival of the individual to survival of the species. It links up with the emotional center and the analysis parts of the brain to create complex ideas – ideal forms refined and synthesized from imperfect physical manifestations, and critical observations. And from these ideas come models of the universe, through which we may reach into the fabric of reality itself, and withdraw what we need, without having to kill for it.
It is a fairly recent development, and in those who have achieved consciousness, it becomes apparent fairly soon after, that consciousness is a threat to those who have not achieved it. The threat is perceived, by the reptile brain, to resources such as territory, sex and food.
The reptilian brain was very successful – seizing territory, killing the “other,” focused on survival and accumulation of territory, food, and sex… to Republicans, it still has a strong appeal.
And don’t even get us started on the “quality” of those squalid little Bobby E. Lee Resegregation Academies and three-room church schools that dot the hinterlands.
…using all parts of the pig.
Please keep on home schooling your kids and keep them as far away from my kids in public school as possible.
I don’t get why you feel that way. Well, not unless she uses Ron Paul’s Totally Not Libertarian Indoctrination Home School. It totally isn’t indoctrination, because only government can do that. You don’t trust the free market? The Invisible Hand (peace be upon Him) will smite you if you don’t!
The only thing that pisses me off is the way the home schoolers act like they deserve the “Best Parent Ever” award.
Ouch, that is going to hurt Faith’s feelings, phatkhunt.
“… the vacuous curricula, the permissive environment, the lack of parental involvement and the unending money and special interest driven bureaucracy …”
You go, girl, er ah, Mom.
They were home-schooled up until time to start 1st and k-5? WTH – you mean she took care of the day care part? Well kudos to her, she really has enough history to know that they are way out front.
She has them *both* working/learning at the (Colorado) 3rd and 4th grade level in math and english.
I mis-spoke: one is in the first grade, the other in the 2nd grade.
Sounds like they’d be ready for High School graduation, if they were in SC.
Actually, my sister-in-law teaches in a grade school in New Mexico and her fourth graders ARE ready to graduate in high school math … Thanks to the above mentioned Khan Academy.
Somewhere I envision Captain Kirk yelling “Khaaaaaaan!”
HOMESCHOOL!
ya see that? ya see that?
whoo—EEEE! we got a winner!
Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, Iraq – war, and now Homeschooling…
Let’s all get out our venomous snakes and compare notes on how much more God loves us!
Hawking is a construct, nothing more. I seriously doubt he says any of the stuff his staff “claim” he said.
anosognosia?
and inside computers there are little squirrels in cages, and the atomic/hydrogen bomb is a hoax – they used millions of tons of dynamite.
Pythagoras was the last great thinker… or whoever was the last person you read about before dropping out of school?
Feynman was a construct too. He was a drunk and a skirt chaser.
I’m not gonna lie. I had to look that word up.
Seriously, where are you guys going with this? I thought this was an article about homeschooling. Why is this now a debate about atheism/Comfort/Hawking/construct, etc?
The single biggest argument against home schooling is that they’re all religious bigots (or kooks….) – oddly though most home schoolers do it because they think they can give their kids a better education, not for religious reasons (though that’s a close second)
I know several people that choose to home school their kids. In each case, it is because the kid has a learning disability, such as autism.
Again, I just don’t know why this is such a “debate-worthy” topic. It would seem to me that if you send your kid to a public school, then why would you care if another parent home schools? Additionally, if you home school, why do you care if another parent sends their kid to a public school?
It just seems like a non-issue to me.
But the whole point in coming here is to argue about stuff like this. Will’d be in that double wide trailer T-Rav threatened him with if we didn’t…
It all about money. People who home school and private school, want the rest of us to give them money so they can spend their money on something other than educating their children.
I fully agree people should be able to home school if they want. I agree people should be able to use private schools if they want. But until private schools accept students based on some system that does not prefer race, religion, how much money you have, or who you family is. I.E. anonymous admission, I do not think there is any place for public funding of a private business.
I actually feel different about home school than I do about private school. I think the state should develop an online curriculum which home school families should be allowed to access for free, They should also have access to the same text books as public school children, on the same terms. Beyond that there is nothing more that we should do for home school children.
The better education goal may be achievable, but improbable, due to the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G_zSos8w_I
you don’t see the parallel between politics and religion? Preservation of dogma requires extreme insulation, so that the light of reason may be avoided, and inconsistencies can be explained away without fear that imperfections will be rudely pointed out.
“Feynman . . . . He was a drunk and a skirt chaser.”
Second, some say, but not the first. He early-on felt the first “tug” and shied ever away thereafter.
“Hawking is a construct, nothing more. I seriously doubt he says any of the stuff his staff “claim” he said.”
That’s your limitation, not anyone else’s.
Touche’
That’s why it’s called an opinion….
If you send your children to Cesar to be educated, don’t be surprised when they come home as Romans.
What a cringe-worthy quip.
Cesar Chavez, maybe?
Correct, they will come home as Hispanic union organizers.
“What a cringe-worthy quip.”
Oh dear. And one wonders what the “re-education of basic history, math and science” entails . . .
Based on the college kids I teach now, it isn’t so much “reeducation” as it is teaching it in the first place.
What is frightening is they let you teach college kids. Do you tell your students that even though you support our ability to send them to war, you don’t think they should have the right to vote?
Do you tell them you think young girls are stupid because they ask politicians questions about things you think are unimportant? Do you tell them you would rather see SC secede from the nation than allow gay people to marry?
No Jan- my job is to provide the information and let them develop their own sense of what is important and what doesn’t matter. I try not to teach them what to think, rather how to think critically. In fact I will often take a antithetical position to my personal beliefs just to challenge their preconceived notions.
As for you allegations that I support our ability to send them to war with out the right to vote – guilty and we as a nation did just that for most of our history. 18 year olds are to ignorant to vote – you can disagree but much greater minds than ours thought the same as I do.
Do I think young girls shouldn’t ask stupid questions – absolutely but let’s go a step further, no one should be allowed to ever ask anyone a stupid question. If you don’t think there’s any such thing as a stupid question, you’ve never been a teacher, an Army Officer or a Scout Master.
As for your allegation that I think we should secede over gay marriage, I never suggested, implied or stated that I believed any such thing – in fact, I disavowed the idea. My “bonnie Blue Flag” post was a historical reference to the issues that caused the (un)Civil War – nothing more.
“but much greater minds than ours thought the same as I do.”
Speak for yourself.
“18 year olds are to ignorant to vote..”
There are plenty of old white men who are too ignorant to vote as well, but if we are going to base who can vote on intelligence, who is going to administer the test, and what do we put on the test?
If I were going to be the one called upon to risk my life in the defense of a cause, I would damn sure demand the right to have a say in the debate.
Tunes – I see you’re having a discussion with yourself today but here’s the answer to whichever one of you asked the question…
From the time of our founding until the 1960s the voting age was 21 or higher (in many places 25). It was only in the permissive society of the 1960s that any serious attempt was made to lower the age. The Voting Rights Act had language that forced the states to lower their age to 18 but the Supreme Court rightly struck that part of the law down.
I don’t really understand the first sentence, but as for the rest. I am well aware of the voting history of this country. I am well aware that it took men until 1920 to realize women should be allowed to vote. I am well aware that it took a civil war to force white men to allow black men to vote; and I am well aware that it took until 1960 for this nation to realize how grossly unfair it was for people to be given the responsibility of adulthood without the privileges of adulthood. So much for all those giant brains.
If you can be forced to die for your country you damn sure have a right to participate in its government. Its that old government by the consent of the governed thing. If you want 21 to be the age of majority, then it should be 21 for the responsibilities of adulthood, including the obligation to fight in wars.
Did I miss something, did the Fed bring back the Draft?
No, but that is not the point. At anytime we could declare war and institute a draft. If we did that a significant portion of those who would be ordered to fight would be 18 to 20 years of age. In addition, everyone over the age of 18 has all the legal responsibilities of an adult. They can be tried for crimes as an adult, they are responsible for contracts as an adult, they can be sued in court as an adult, etc, etc. They therefore should have the right to participate in the government of the nation as any other adult. I know plenty of 18 year olds who I would trust to make rational decisions over certain 40 and 50 year olds; and when we start getting into the 80s and 90s even more so.
That said I would not take the vote away from people for being too old, as long as they lack the capacity to understand what they are doing.
So then is it just 18 year old males that should get to vote?
No, how could you possibly get that from my answer?
Only males register for Selective Service, unless that’s changed over the last 50 years.
First, that is by statute. That can be changed at any time. We are not drafting at all right now. We could be at war and drafting young men and women next week if Congress so voted. In fact there is a law suit in court right now challenging the Constitutionality of only registering men for the draft. As a result, 18 to 20 year olds are far less likely to vote for old neo-cons. That is why the Republicans are constantly trying to restrict the ability of young people to vote.
Second, 18+ year old women, like me, have all the responsibilities of being an adult and are therefore entitled to the privileges of being an adult. If anything 18 year olds have a much higher stake in the future of this country than 80+ year olds, and the odds they lack the knowledge to understand the ballot is probably not that different between the two groups. So why don’t we have an upper age limit on voting as well as a lower age limit?
You don’t get it do you, I have no problems with an 18 year old or a 100 year old voting, just your use of war as a reason. Since women are now allowed in combat, if the draft does come back, women should be drafted also. The 1981 SCOTUS decision of not drafting women as constitutional, IMO no longer holds water.
I get it just fine. You did not read my answers well. I believe there should be one age for majority in this country. When you reach that age you should have all the obligations and privileges of being an adult. That age can be 18 or 21, but it should be uniform. The most significant obligation of adulthood is the obligation to defend the country in time of war. The most significant privilege of adulthood is the ability to vote. You should not be allowed to vote until you are an adult and you should not be sent to war until you are an adult. Women and men should be treated the same.
How old do you have to be to drink beer?
Purchase a hand gun?
Gamble?
Get married in some states?
Rent a car most places?
For some reason, we decided that 18 was too young to do most of those things. When I was a private Soldier most of my peers carped about the drinking age (course it was moot on post as we had a beer machine in the day room and the enlisted and NCO clubs never carded. Go into town to drink – not possible.
Wanna buy a hand gun? Wait till your 21 to buy one from a dealer – by the time I was 21 I had been shooting competitively, safely for 11 years..
Gambling is forbidden to 18 years olds in all but 14-15 of the states that allow casino gambling. Interestingly enough, every state will let an 18 year old play the lottery. Many casinos deny the privilege to 18 year olds as a facility rule.
Wanna rent a car – are you at least 25 then good luck with that. at a minimum, you’ll be barred from renting high dollar vehicles and you’ll likely have to pay a significant surcharge.
The gambling and rental car are not relevant. These are private businesses. They can do business with whom they please. The law should not restrict 18 year olds from gambling or renting cars.
The 21 year old drinking age was pushed through by MADD. I don’t think its appropriate or really accomplishes much, but the states are willing to go along with it to get federal highway funds. I think 18 to 20 year olds have every right to bitch and to vote for people who pledge to return the drinking age to 18.
As for hand guns. I think federal law says a licensed dealer cannot sell a hand gun to a person until they are 21. They can sell a rifle or shot gun to an 18 year old. Everyone else can sell anything to an 18 year old. Some state laws differ. I personally, think everyone should have to be licensed to own a gun. As part of the licensure they should have to go through a background check, and show they have attended an approved fire arm safety course. You should only be allowed to sell a fire arm to a person who is licensed. Beyond that 18 year olds should be allowed to own a gun, just like anyone else. Age is certainly no indication of maturity as to the use of firearms.
” Age is certainly no indication of maturity as to the use of firearms”
Right, see Dick Cheney.
You’re taking all the fun out of shooting each other!
The legal age to gamble in a majority of states with legal gambling is 21 – so, yes it matters.
It’s that way, because it’s been that way. It wouldn’t be that way if there was a better way… that would be ridiculous, and cast shame on the sacrifice of my ancestors – so like my father and his father before him, I will guard the traditions of unknown origin with my life – as long as I live, nothing is going to change.
So help me Jesus.
“”but much greater minds than ours thought the same as I do.”
Speak for yourself.”
There’s few things more interesting to witness than someone’s complete lack of self awareness.
Yes, I know
no one should be allowed to ever ask anyone a stupid question.
——-
How can you prevent them, not knowing the question until the giraffe, carrot, smoke and dust has fallen, say military officials?
Maybe I should define “stupid question”.
In my class room, a stupid question is one that has already been asked and answered and then has to be asked again because you weren’t paying attention the first time.
At my unit, a stupid question is the one asked because you are too lazy or stupid to use the manifold resources we gave you to find the answer.
In my office, the stupid question is the one you ask when the answer is already posted on the shared drive, shared calendar or knowledge point.
It’s better the lazy grunt asks the stupid question and it saves lives, than to discourage being informed, … and refuse to answer on the basis that it is a “stupid” question. There’s a limit to what lengths even a starched shirt and a shaved face will go to make a point.
it’s better he reveal his ignorance than to put others lives at risk… if you can cull him out before he shows up in an artillery detachment, fine. But if he skates through with the idea that if he “should” know the information, he’d better keep quiet about not knowing it.
“What is frightening is they let you teach college kids.”
Who’s “they” Jan?
I don’t know, but they have to be someone. Right?
I think that’s an important question and that you should think about what the answer might be.
Ok, will do.
What’s scarier is that you can have a Masters degree, be two years out of school and get hired as an adjunct faculty member. You are “qualified” to teach college courses but aren’t qualified to teach grade school or high school. I wonder how many parents know their tuition dollars are going to a 25 year old faculty member with no teaching experience.
I agree with you in cases wherein the instructor has “two years experience,” but I actually think it’s funnier that someone with 20 years of business experience and a masters degree wouldn’t be allowed to teach a econ course or even civics at at a junior high school without getting indoctrinated into the education world.
Actually, the ability to teach is a skill. Just being in the business world for twenty years mean nothing if you lack the skills to transmit knowledge in a manner students can comprehend. I regularly teach classes on tech, and I get a lot of positive feedback on my ability to teach. There are people out there who know more than I do, but they had no desire to learn how to transmit their knowledge. Funny thing, but one class I teach is on communication (teaching skills). It is a learned skill, but too many people want to see it as a personal trait.
You’re right, of course. I wasn’t saying that *anyone* with a graduate degree and 20 years of practical experience is by definition a good instructor, but many are. Many instruct at some level as part of their professional background, as I do (I’m a consultant). Not that I want to do so, but if I walked into most school districts in an attempt to get a job teaching something within my areas of expertise, I would get laughed out of the building. Teacher certification is partly about teaching ability, but mostly about club membership. There are a few universities who invite me to teach every year as an adjunct, and I do so when I have the time. They vetted my teaching ability the old fashioned way- by checking refs and watching me teach a course- no “certification” required, and now the mushy-headed college kids are getting essentially the same instruction that clients pay considerably more to receive. I wish I could afford to teach more often, for precisely the reasons you stated. Many of the kids are morons who shouldn’t be in college but there are a few in each class you know are going to make it, and teaching them is very rewarding.
Other than the spelling of Caesar, what is it you find cringe worthy about that particular quote? (and I do think there are other parts of the article that are, shall we say, less than desirable?)
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
I love a good MP quote. Let us remember though that the circumstances of the past don’t always translate to current day.
In fact, if we take your example and list a few things from it, is the government doing them worse or better over the last 30 years?
Roads? Water? (both freshness & supply(see CA)) Public Health? Education?
All of the above are in decay and have been, yet budgets increase for the most part year after year.
Also, the MP example conflated government services with those normally provided by the private sector, such as wine & medicine(differentiating public funding vs. private practice).
Here is what I will say to all the home school freaks out there..
1. Stop shoving this down everyone’s throats. Do not wear as a badge of honor.
2. Stop looking down on the rest of us.
3. At what point will you allow them to go into the real world? Will you home school them until they turn 30. I know some have go as far as a king their kids do college online. How well do you think that kid will do when I interview them for a job.
4. I will take my well balanced Jesus loving public school babies over your home school kids any day of the week.
5. If you home school why do I see you a couple days a week out shopping during school hours.
6. Not home school related but I hear Gray Collegiate will only make your kids stay 4 hours a day and they have a 2 year college degree when done. How is that possible?
Home schoolers are the new gay pride movement. Soon we’ll see parades of home schoolers, legislation stating that home schoolers are in fact high school graduates, etc.. They’re already allowed to participate in extra-curricular activities in some school districts even though they don’t attend those schools.
Right on. They want to pick and choose which parts of the public system they benefit from. Typical spoiled brat adults who
1) use it as an excuse to be a stay at home mom
2) Wanted to be teachers but didn’t want to put in the time
3) Want to eat their cake and have it too.
4) Want to constantly harp on about it to pat themselves on the back
Do what you want with your kid but stop trying to make a movement of it.
Just another variation of helicopter parenting, I’ve been around home schooled kids. The old saying “fish out of water” comes to mind when they’re around other kids.
“I’ve been around home schooled kids.”
When is that? Have you’ve been luring them into your van with candy?
He’s just mad cause they don’t put out.
+3 I’m not sure if I should be shocked/mortified/grossed out or laughing my ass off.
… or all of the above?
:-D
Only in your pedophilic imagination.
disagree.
Uhmmm, yeah – they are in fact “high school graduates” in most states. Their parents are paying taxes that pay for those athletic facilities and “extra curricular activities”, why shouldn’t they be allowed to play/participate? Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow was a home schooler, as was runner up Colin Klien.
Sorry, I didn’t realize all home schoolers were property owners. There are three high schools in the district that I live in, can a home schooler in my neighborhood play football for one school and baseball for another? Since they are paying for facilities at both schools.
Has to play at the school they’re zoned for in RCSD2 at least. A lot of private schools will let them play as well.
Home schoolers are the new gay pride movement. Soon we’ll see parades of home schoolers, legislation stating that home schoolers are in fact high school graduates, etc.. They’re already allowed to participate in extra-curricular activities in some school districts even though they don’t attend those schools.
In one respect, I agree with your post as a parent with home schooled kids.
Parents that are home schooling shouldn’t be shoving it down anyone’s throats or looking down on people that don’t.
I will disagree with you as far as wearing it “as a badge of honor”, in that homeschooling is very challenging for the parent and no one should feel like they have to purposely avoid the topic so as to not offend the sensitive.
Sure, someone crowing about it all the time is likely to get on anyone’s nerves , just like any form of bragging on any topic. But, it is a lot of work and so there’s a natural desire to feel good about doing it successfully and sharing that success with others. It’s obviously important to try to do that without being condescending.
Anyway, I actually cringed when I saw the article up last night and didn’t even want to read it. I figured the comment section would end up being a disaster as well.
I think the moral of the proverbial story is: We all make our choices and what we think it best for our kids based on our circumstances and life experiences.
What is “best” is not uniform, nor should it be…so the parents of home schoolers(word?), public schoolers, & private schoolers should not be warring factions.
I’m not a homeschooler, but enjoy the right to do so if I choose. The argument is about parental rights. I would rather our government err on the side of parents than government control over children.
I believe you mean CAESAR. Or is my public school education showing?
boom
“Because I had to spend as much time with my children at night, when they were dead tired, re-educating them about basic history, math and science, as I do now for our entire home school day”
Well, in fairness to her, she didn’t say she was re-educating them in “spelling”.
:)
What an idiot! Please keep your children at home…
Thank god for the comedy gold known as the Conservative American. These fuckers never fail to amuse.
Man, that hurts. You would think that if you were planning to rail on the gubmint skools about how dumbed down the standards are, you would have somebody who’s read a history book proof the essay for ya…
Oh yea. All the government school students I know are great at spelling. That’s why they win so many spelling bees…. oh wait!
Faith should be able to apply for and receive all the tax money used in govt. schools to help offset her costs of teaching her children as she sees fit.
Are you willing to pick up her share of the cost of public education. If so, why don’t you just give her the money directly and cut out the middleman. Or do you expect the rest of us to absorb her share of the cost of education. Or do you propose we shut down all public education, so no one has to pay her share.
Will new math enable fast food workers to give you the correct change if you hand them another nickle and two pennies?
Whats a nickle?
I’ve always wondered with the ongoing inflation, why they just don’t go ahead and eliminate pennies and round up/down.
Your post just made me realize why the gov’t doesn’t…you have to have those skills first.
Let’s see.
#1. That’s every family.
#2. Public teachers are not allowed to proselytize. That’s just opinion.
#3. OK. I’m cool with that one. I agree.
#4. I think every kid needs to learn to push back from day to day assholes. Little bullies grow up to be big bullies… and an overly protected sheltered kid who grows up to be an overly protected sheltered young adult won’t know how to deal with those people when they live on their own. What are the odds that someone is going to shoot up the school?
#6. I agree with that one dead on.
Number one reason to not homeschool your kid: So they don’t end up as vapid and dumb as you, Faith.
If I was considering homeschooling, I would change my mind after reading this piece of crap writing. How can someone that writes on a second grade level be trusted to teach children? If a public school teacher wrote something with this many basic mistakes, they would be banned from anything but being the lunch lady.
Blinky Corrections:
1. The number one reason…
2. If you’re only considering homeschooling, then you haven’t changed your mind. (Would you change your mind or change your opinion?)
3. …banned from “everything except ” being the lunch lady. Anything is singular.
4. Your diminutive reference “lunch lady” is “vapid and dumb”.
Way to hoist by them their own petards. Posting rule #1, NEVER correct people with ill intent, your setting yourself up to be knocked down.
I want to be sure I understand the rule. Since your statement evidences ill intent toward Blinky Tells the Truth, does “Posting Rule #1” prevent me from pointing out to you that you created a run-on sentence and should have used “You’re, not your. In other words, would the rule prohibit me from correcting a person with ill intent, namely you; or is it ok for me to point out the errors of a person with ill intent; so long as I have no ill intent?
If the rule is the former, then Bible Thumper should not have corrected Blinky Tells the Truth, because he believes Blinky Tells the Trust had ill intention. If the rule is the latter, then Bible Thumper should not have corrected Blinky Tells the Truth as Bible Thumper was doing so with ill intent.
These rules are all so confusing.
It is alright as long as I can call out your a jackass when ever you post to me. I’m sure you get the point, if not look in the mirror at the top of your head.
Sure, you can call me a jackass whenever I respond to your posts (although you should have used you’re again). Perhaps the rule should be don’t point out the spelling or grammatical errors of other posters (as in people who post, not the cardboard or paper type)?
There’s a difference between writing a column, which presumably is proofread, and writing a quick comment, which probably isn’t.
Agreed. However, there have been such issues in many other articles on this site without all the attacks. Although I’m not a particularly religious person, I suspect many of the attacking correction crowd are such because the author may have such beliefs. I had a ninth grade English teacher who barely could read straight out of a Warriner’s(?) grammar book while using straight ebonics. She had a teaching certificate and was employed in the Public System. To the point these replies have more to do with hating her beliefs, than her teaching ability.
4. A proficient writer would not need to use the word “crap” to make a point
*5.
The vast majority of mass media is written on a 4th grade level or below.
“If a public school teacher wrote something with this many basic mistakes, they would be banned from anything but being the lunch lady.”
If only that were true…..
http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/08/3375797/new-film-puts-low-sc-literacy.html
Let me get this straight. You would reconsider homeschooling after reading this article because you don’t want your kids to have a vapid and dumb teacher? I’m not sure you thought that one through.
By the way, before you criticize someone’s grammar, you should learn the proper use of the past subjunctive.
Before you all freak out and start your diatribes about “…Jesus riding the dinosaurs…” and “…the world is 6,000 years old..” you need to actually know something about home schooling beyond your narrow little “…I disagree with those nasty holier than thou non scientific Christians…” world.
There are any number of fully accredited organizations providing fully vetted “standard curricula” that is non religiously based – one of the best is the “Calvert School”. The only thing you would think was different than what our little darlings are learning here in RCSD2 is that the math is taught in a linear makes’ sense method rather than making it more complicated than it should be and the social studies and history is presented without any bias. I have friends who are world travelers, their children used Calvert and I’d put them up against anyone in measures of achievement (both are cum laude college grads physics and anthropology)
Those kids are going to be so socially awkward in the real world.
Dumb argument. Assuming she’s a normal mother who wants her kids to have social skills, she will make sure they are engaged in homeschooling groups, sports and church activities. In fact, there will be MORE time for extracurricular activities b/c homeschooling takes less time. No wasted time on homeroom, lunch line, BS “Teaching to the Test” classes.
Another option to provide your children with a better education is to do what my wife and I, along with about three other couples did 44 years ago: start a Montessori preschool.
As our children grew, the school expanded to grades 1-3, then 4-6, and today has a 13-acre campus thru middle school. Not only did our children get a better education (the valedictorians in five local high schools in 1988 were in the beginning classes of our school) but this opportunity was available to all in our community by low tuition and scholarships.
Someone will always be able to cite the occasional genius or homeschooled kid that scored 800 on their SATs, but that won’t work if the parents are not smart enough to teach what they need to succeed in this world.
Worked with a few home schooled kids through the years. They never lasted.
Great, more poorly socialized, undereducated kids…..
It appears to me you don’t have to home schooled to achieve those.
+10 It’s obvious he’s never spent anytime in our local schools either.
Explains the SC electorate’s love of the Tea Party. Undereducated voters are their bread and butter.
Speaking of undereducated voters why do Democrats rely so heavily on their get out the vote program?
If they tied it directly to the receipt of welfare checks it’d be a smashing success.
And then they might get the white vote in SC.
It’s good that you admit Democrats could have success this way.
I’m not sure why you are bringing up race.
Because they are smart and know their message is appealing to a wide margin of voters. Where as, the Tea Party works very hard to prevent people from voting. Any other questions?
Really, if their message is appealing to a wide margin of voters why do they need the get out the vote program? A wide margin of voters are low information voters and they need someone to tell them it’s time to vote.
Why do the Republican’s work
so hard to keep people from voting? Going out and getting people to vote shows you are confident in your message. Just because they get people to the polling station, doesn’t guarantee that they will vote Dem. The Republicans know that their views are increasingly becoming unpopular with a majority of the nation. The Republicans are pretty much done on the national level.
I don’t why you think Republicans are trying to keep people from voting, I don’t. I hope those people without a photo ID don’t try to visit the White House.
Then you clearly don’t keep up with your party’s activities. Typical.
“…your party’s…” What do you mean, where did you read that? “Typical”…please explain.
As they get into high school, how do homeschoolers cover more challenging subjects like AP literature, history, calculus, physics and chemistry, etc.?
Their are online courses for AP and other higher level classes (even some of the basic ones, one of my friend’s daughter took PE online even though she was enrolled in public school because her schedule was too full with her A&P classes etc to fit it in). Anyone that’s based basic high school classes should be able to follow a teaching guide and teach the classes.
I’ve got an engineering degree and took AP calculus, physics and chemistry. I’m certain I could not teach those subjects.
Most homeschoolers hand the ball off at that point…you can do it via sending your kids to a tutor(grad student for example), tech school, 2 year or 4 year college(early).
Many home schoolers have “consortiums” (my word) that get together to handle “the hard stuff” one of the groups I have friends in has a PhD teaching the science portion of their class work. I realize that is an exception but it is an example of how those “ignorant home schoolers” deal with their ignorance. I know of two CPA’s teaching 4-5 families children math.
Ha – so they are forming…….wait for it…..private little SCHOOLS> Next, they will be asking for tax dollars for to build a building.
No, most meet at a local church, the public library or in some one’s home – why does this bother you so much?
Because it’s probably a participate in some way in the public school system and doesn’t like the idea of people opting out of it and/or competing with it.
So you’re impressed that a CPA is teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? How well does a a CPA know geometry or calculus?
Well she helped me get through differential calculus – so yeah, I guess I am impressed.
She is a summa cum laude grad dual track mathematics and accounting, and a partner in a major CPA firm here in South Carolina.
Okay back on topic. How many other home schooled students have this type of resource to use?
You might be surprised. All of the home schoolers I know have at least a college degree, many of them have master’s degrees or professional licences of one kind or another. Yes, I know that not all of them do but most of those will make up for that by using a support group or a hired instructor.
Diff Eq wasn’t that hard. Plug and play, if you can do that.
Yeah well, I can compute fractions and ratios, geometry and the like in my head but calculus, not so much vector and diff liked to kill me. My oldest son gets it but apparently he got that gift from my wife, fortunately for him, he got his looks from her as well.
Well she helped me get through differential calculus – so yeah, I guess I am impressed.
She is a summa cum laude grad dual track mathematics and accounting, and a partner in a major CPA firm here in South Carolina.
There are lots of online resources now. People can get mentors or form co-ops. When you get to AP level, a lot of homeschoolers just take the course at a community college. In some cases, homeschooling makes it easier. For example, the best way to prepare for the AP literature exam is lots and lots of reading, and homeschoolers have ample time for reading.
You’re also forgetting that it’s quite possible to learn a subject without a teacher, especially when you can go at your own pace and study for mastery. That’s how adults learn things all the time, and teens are usually much more ready for that sort of independent learning than adults give them credit for.
Whether you agree with homeschooling or not. The public school system is failing kids just not in South Carolina but all over this country. Charter school, private school, home school, whatever. Im glad this mother is taking her parental responsibility to educate and not pass her kids onto the public school system to indoctrinate. Any libertarian or “republican” should applaud her exercise of individual liberty and personal freedom.
It is only failing the ones who are slow, not supported by parents, or have not been taught to function properly. All of the above deserve special attention to succeed but college admissions prove your theory false.
I could care less about homeschoolers, but they regularly make up freshman classes at Harvard, Yale and MIT. They are large percentage every year of national fullbright scholars and they are more likely to complete a four year degree plan.
Whom by the way should teach them to function? there is already after school and before school programs, 4k, 3k, whats next 2k? How many standardized tests do public school educated kids need to take to demonstrate that the overall public education system is doing a pretty terrible job? When will we allow money to flow directly into the classroom and not over bloated bureaucracies of departments of education, pontificating blow hard school board members and curriculum consultants, who have not been in the classroom, nor know very little about educating children.
When you have 5th graders who cant read, and teachers who are no longer allowed to teach, please tell me what parents who care are supposed to do? pay their taxes and keep their mouths shut? I will take the alternative.
What kind of parents are homeschooling children who attend Ivy League schools? Not ones like the writer of this piece.
I tried to find some evidence of Ivy League/Fulbright scholar claim, but found nothing Unless you can cite your source, I’m calling B.S.
Most fully home schooled children would not have the social and extra ciricular components required to gain admission to an elite university.
What was the lucrative career? With pension, yet?
Fox News bubble headed, news reader, perhaps?
It’s fucking South Carolina. You’re going to wind up undereducated either way.
I’m guessing you’re the recipient of a SC public education, yes?
Partial. Moved around a lot as a child. It was always nice when I returned to SC, because I was so far ahead of the other students.
“I was the gold medal winner in the Special Olympics!”
Returning to SC schools did make me feel like a volunteer at the Special Olympics. Can’t imagine how bad it is now.
army brat?
Kuddos to you! As a mom, I know there are many options for educating kids. And many different methods of homeschooling. Not every mother has the temperament, patience and education to homeschool. But it is by far the best option for those who are called to do so.
Great post! …….Any free thinking individual understands the dangers of public education.
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted” – Vladimir Lenin
conservative america does not feel that your child belongs to you, even while its still actually part of your body. i wonder why a conservative american would feel like she has the right to hold the young americans in her home hostage to her own beliefs and prejudices? the kids need to be at school. get your job back and buy a house in good district. that’s your freedom for ya.
“i wonder why a conservative american would feel like she has the right
to hold the young americans in her home hostage to her own beliefs and
prejudices?”
That statement contains so much wrong, yet in doing so, also clarifies the depth of progressive sickness.
Wow, your kids are screwed. I wonder what garbage you teach them about climate change.
Why do you wonder? Are you worried about the planet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
Or better yet, what do you teach them about “Cesar?”
Wuz he the imperer of Rom?
Homeschooling moms or dads should be required to have a college degree, minimum. I know several homeschooling moms who are, to put it politely, flat-out lazy and ignorant. I think homeschooling is their answer to that awkward moment when the babies are school aged and hubby wants them to go to work instead of staying home all day. Then all of the sudden these moms find all sorts of objections to public school.
I was talking to one of these moms at a soccer game. She is a high school dropout, BTW. According to her, she’s supposed to spend 6 hours a day on her daughter’s education but “they get it done in about 2 hours.” Lazy. I feel so sorry for her daughter, who is doomed to a life of ignorance and poverty. She doesn’t even have a chance of having teachers show her a better way than her parents.
“Columbus brought smallpox to the Indians, but didn’t he do something else a bit more memorable?”
When Columbus arrived in the new world, there were 200 million native Americans. Within a century European diseases, mainly small pox and measles, had reduced that number to 19 million. This made the back plague look like a walk in the park.
What do you teach your children that Columbus did that was more memorable than that. He was not the first European in the new world. That was arguably Leif Ericson, 500 years earlier, and most likely many others during the intervening years. He did not discover anything. There were 200 million people there before him. He died broke. He was a rotten governor. What did Columbus actually do other than alert the Spanish to available lands to plunder?.
Don’t be too hard on old Columbus. He was doing this for a nobel causes. Gold, slaves, and power.
7. Because I want my kids to stay white – like me.
Get the DVD now! “The Children of Caesar: The State of American Education”. Love your original thinking. I”m sure that about the standard of your kids’ schooling at home while they do worksheets all day, all purchased from the same company that the other homeschool parents buy them. It’s not that you don’t want your kids brainwashed, it’s that you want them brainwashed with info skewed by YOURSELF biases and prejudices.
…ambushed by iPad spellcheck once again. Apologies.
YOUR biases…
It started out quite sensible until we got on to the underlying theism and refusal to accept hard evidence (global warming, Al Gore). A spectacular admission of brain washing right after a broad false attribution fallacy.
I homeschool my own children. They are not taught opinion as some home edders think its ok to do, they are taught fact, reality not mysticism or superstition.
If they ask something they are answered, whether it’s about sex or alliteration. I somehow feel this is better than the Christian approach of suppressing, molesting, rape and secretly burying the bodies of unwanted clergy offspring. We’ve tried that for centuries, let’s try being honest for a while eh?
Faith, points #1 and 2 on revisionist history and propaganda are so true. If you look at Barnes & Noble’s children’s history section you would be led to believe that WWII was all about the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment, Rosie-the-Riveter, and the atomic bomb. Look hard enough and you will find a few thin books about Hitler and the Nazis, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, but the vast majority of the shelf space is devoted to social studies to the exclusion of history.
This reflects the educational establishment’s priorities and agenda as well as the fact that most educators and publishers of children’s books and textbooks are now women, whose preferences and tastes by their own admission are along the lines of the personal and subjective, rather than the objective facts of human nature and history, warts and all. Unfortunately, too many boys (and girls) who have an interest in WWII are getting their information from video games and movies, which are poor substitutes for a good book on the subject.