Public Education vs. Ignorant Parents

a reply to: tavi45

I never declared myself as an expert. On the other hand, some others here have. I have studied and read a lot. I also have a working knowledge of Piaget's Stages of Development. I'm perfectly well aware of the use of behavior modification and values clarification in the classroom.
So are you going to move the goalposts again? You asked if I was a parent or certified by a board of education. I told you that I have Montessori training, and have worked in classrooms as an aide.
You are just looking for ways to insult me because I disagree with your view that educators are brilliant and parents are stupid and unqualified, and that our world is going to fall apart if we are not in full-fledged nanny state authoritarian hive mind mentality.
Furthermore, I oppose Common Core for many reasons, and so do many parents and educators. In fact... whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com...

a reply to: vexati0n

if their primary concern was that their student be taught history as it happened

Who opposes a real history lesson? As long as they don't revise it to engender some political ideology which is foreign to our Founding values.

Because people do not understand science, they refuse to vaccinate their kids, leading to thousands of unnecessary infections and deaths.

Just love the Big Pharma angle here. Just wait till we get a mandatory Ebola vaccine!
Oh by the way did you know that AIDS was spread via tainted Hepatitis B vaccines? Public and private schools alike mandated the Hepatitis B Vaccine for all 7th graders.

Because we teach faulty economic theories, we sentence millions to poverty.

Because Keynesianism and socialism are working out so well?

Society’s right to educate itself must trump individual parents’ rights to impose narrowmindedness

You mean because you buy into that journalist's view that parents are not the natural guardians of their children and it must be left up to the Supreme State to do everything?
Is this what you believe?
www.youtube.com...

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Actually my view is that there is more than enough blame for everyone and blaming the teachers alone is weak. I know tons of teachers and they have far less control than you think they do.

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Common core has plenty of issues. The spirit of it is good. The rigidity of it is bad. It's the most recent of a long line of political band aids. Remember "no child left behind"?

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14I agree with you that people can have meaningful interactions with people without that happening in a school. And, as you say, most don't happen at school. A city is a great example. So are workplaces, and so on.

What I am saying is that absent the most amazing outliers of history, i.e. those who are completely self taught AND have travelled the world, most people can't get enough from just existing in a single country, city, or what have you.

Firstly, you need to define what you are basing that assumption on exactly? Is it just an intuitive feeling about the way you think the world works or is it an opinion based on something youve read? I feel its important that you clarify where you got this basic assumption from because its hard to tell sometimes whether its actually someones actual opinion or something #trending being thoughtlessly parrotted. I trust you care enough about this subject to not feel personally offended by this request. For example i also noticed that you used the phrase "self-actualization" previoisly in this debate. Again if this is an idea that forms part of the same underlying ideological framework i think you should be forthright with where these ideas come from and admit if they are not actually your own. If you cant provide any original thought of your own, what good are your qualifications when youve been programmed to not think outside the box? In either case, you should step down from you pedastal of "knowing" as you have seem to have no idea how dangerous your ideas actually are.

Secondly, docunstructing the points you made thoroughly, reveals a handful of underlying assumptions that constitute the world view you basing your arguments on. And for now i will just list them so we can all be a lot clearer on what they are then we can debate them later in more depth. The first basic assumption seems to be a somewhat modernist ideal that assumes in order to function in modern society one needs to have a lot of exposure to other cultures from around the world.

The second, and this is something i perceive as very dangerous philisophically and pragmatically in terms of implementing "education policy" the propogation of ideals among academic elites and so on, is the exclusivist assumption that in order to have a well rounded upbringing (essentially in order to become a mentallly and spiritually healthy human being) one needs to have had a lot of interaction with a lot of different cultures (not people) outside of ones local community. Essentially discriminating against those that have been raised in remote or monocultural commmunities as being inferioror and somehow emotionally and spiritually impoverished (or on the pragmatic level ill equipped - re the first assumption), compared to those people who have regular interactions with different cultures, especially in academic institutions (re the pragmatic level again). There are countless more assumptions around this, but depending on the level of honesty in your answer to my first point in this reply, they cant be written openly as it all depends on where you picked up these ideas and who educated you to see the world as you see it, and whether they are actually your assumptions. But most importantly the second thing you have to sincerely ask yourself is why did they indoctrinate you with these beliefs? Is it just ignorance purely and simply? Or is it something more sinister and agenda driven? If you go back a few pages you will notice my post about the two posts by Murgatroid in my thread on this topic a week ago, and if you read the source material provided his posts you will understand why im arguing these points. Its not just the fact that i am passionate about this topic, its because i know how deeply we have been indoctrinated and programmed to think in certain ways and how dangerous that can be. Why we are gullible enough to accept it is also covered in the same conspiracy, if you read thoroughly enough into it. And its all very well and good thinking you have some enlightenment about other cultures, but what good is it when you are so fundamentally unenlightened about your own?

without structured study they will not have exposure to not only the countless cultures across the world but also well-researched historical data and issues surrounding those cultures and others.

Not only is that not true, again its very misleading. There are many other ways to learn about other cultures outside of our big brother and uncle sam schooling, and "professional" teaching methods. They tend to be a lot more enlightening too. If you educate a person within a culture under a political system invested heavily in war and financial exploitation of other cultures, what kind of atmosphere do you think is being created around this learning experience? You may think i am overstating it, but i suspect the wool has been pulled over your eyes about this. Having spent time with many people of other cultures and listened to them and not just in one tone, but all the dimensions, i know that there is no way to describe in words a lot of that kind of information. The attitudes are sometimes too subtle and too deep to comprehend unless you have spend more time than you might have. The quality of education about something as spiritually profound and as deep as culture in modern capitalist society is pitiful. Not only are certain topics intentionally ignored by Academia for a political agenda, they are also rushed or overlooked and ignored, but mostly for all intents and purposes handled insensitively, because thats how schools teach. I think we be clear here about what levels of education we are talking about. Uni' College, High School? etcTo me this whole thread is about compulsory education and not neccessarily about further education, although of course they are part and parcell the same system.

Part of having the most accurate hypotheses on any topic, but especially social and physical sciences, requires that such hypotheses (or philosophies of life if you will) encompass all known data on the topic. You can't do that if your sample is not representative of all mankind. This is but one issue.

Do you even realise impossability of what you just described. To me it sounds like you have an ideal that science should aim to reach a point of near omniscience. To me thats bad science. We may live in an age big data, but humans can never and will never know everything there is to know. It would be better if we only knew what we needed to know, and worked with that instead of endless trawling for new data and new fields (what use is that?) Seriously, we need to get the fact that we cannot know everything. And look at ourselves in this situation on this planet and ask instead what we need to know, whats useful to know and whats completely superfluous and a waste of resources to investigate.

.And another problem of home schooling is that students may not get enough diversity of opinion, viewpoints, and teachers in a structured academic environment, even if their parents are brilliant. Because all people are biased, so if a goal is to get a wide variety of views in order to inform your own, it helps not to have only a few teachers.

Professional educators are equally as guilty of this as you claim parents to be in my view. As above so below.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Let us assume for a moment that homeschooling parents can create all of the variables necessary for a completely well rounded child able to reach their full potential.

Another statement based on a myriad of flawed assumptions. The first one that jumps out at me is the assumption that learning and reaching ones full potential are synonymous. They are not. The second very dangerous and very flawed asumption is that reaching ones full potential is only acheiveable within the first twenty years of ones life and only through an institution designed for programming the next generation of obedient workers. The third flawed assumption is that reaching ones full potential should be a standard by which we measure the success of our schooling. Should it not be measures on how well we pass on knowledge? The next flawed assumption is that it is necccesssry to provide a completely well rounded up bringing and education to bring a person to their full potential. That is not so. Ones full potential is not the business of the education system, or neccessarily the parents alone, but that of the whole community. Finally, the variables you assume to be neccessary may not be neccessarily what the child feels is neccessary, and the assumption that public education is better equipped for providing those subjective variables (according to each childs nature) than home schooling is absolutely not true imo. Lastly the state imo is far more ill equipped than parents when it comes to encouraging the inner conditions neccessary for a childs inspiration for learning to flourish and grow. On the contrary schools regularly inhibit flourishing, and over encourage growing, and this kills inspiration and the willingness to learn.

This still requires very well educated, open minded, and informed parents, travel, exposure to all kinds of diverse ideas and peoples, and so on.

none of that is neccessary for helping a child learn and flourish and grow as a human being at a natural rate imo.

Do you think that most families themselves have the vast knowledge of other cultures and their own biases to effectively create respect and knowledge in their kids? How many even know or care about history? Do you really think that most parents, with our misinformed and often brainwashed and apathetic public, are ready to meet this charge? i can tell you having worked with a lot of parents of my students that most, while loving and decent people, didn't seem to be ready. So then it isn't really a viable solution to most families' education needs.

Show me sociological evidence that what you just said is a representative picture of how society is. Its no good if your simply telling me all this based on nothing more than your own personal experiences. Im in London... You taught for less than five years in New York and you feel you are somehow qualified to make sweeping generalisations about the whole of western civilisation? I dont think so.

If anything about what you claim is true however, imo its because parents are not even aware of an alternative to the state education system, and thats why they dont appear ready. We as a society are so indoctrinated, that the idea of taking responsability for the education our own children seems alien to us. So alien for most parentd it doesnt ever even once enter their conscience as a possibility. Again, something is very wrong with this picture as you yourself have presented it to me. The fact that weve only had broadband internet in nearly every home for less than a decade and the the same Victorian education system for over a hundred, is another reason to suspect parents now are more than ready to at least start thinking about taking back this responsability. Enlightenment rarely happens over night, just as realizing ones full potential rarely happens by graduation if at all.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

This is what hyper self centered and people without sufficient scientific knowledge about the environmental issues say. This is nothing but your cynical, profit orientated, and exploitative way of denying any need for action.

They are not self-centered and they are not selfish. People are leary of government-backed, scientific studies and poor political rhetoric--and for good reason.

The climate change issue is important on many levels. If we are trashing thr environment, then something needs to be done, but I would make the argument that the opposite of what the authoritarians want needs to happen; namely, we need to do away with all government regulation and we need to allow a true free market to flourish.

You want cleaner technology? Then let the entrepreneurs do what they do. Did you see what the government has tried to do with regulations imposed upon Tesla Motors? Tesla Motors has the power to revolutionize clean transportation, but they are a threat to oil and automobile industries. Those same industries that are using government to write regulations that benefit them.

It is too easy for governments to be bought. More regulations and taxes are not going to solve our problems. More engineers and inventors in a free market are.

originally posted by: tavi45
a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Actually my view is that there is more than enough blame for everyone and blaming the teachers alone is weak. I know tons of teachers and they have far less control than you think they do.

I accept this position. I am aware, that at least at this time with the implementation of CC, that teachers have even less control now than ever. As I understand it, teachers are allowed to add only 15% content to the CC Curriculum. The rest is controlled by the federal government. Teachers teach to the test. That is they teach only for the students to pass the tests.

Defenders of the Common Core standards insist that they are “standards” and that they do not influence or control either curriculum or pedagogy. Teachers. Are free, they say, to use their own methods of instruction.
As this article in the Washington Post shows, Common Core math dictates how teachers teach. The story is about the resistance of parents to the methodology, but there is no question that there is a specific pedagogy that must be learned and taught.

Even this story repeats the claim that “states and school districts decide how to teach to the standards and what materials to use.” But the story itself demonstrates that the “standards” dictate HOW to teach, and every publisher must align their materials with the CCSS standards.

dianeravitch.net...

CCSS are not state standards in the first place, and are nothing more than further federalization of our state education systems. It has been the goal of federal education departments for decades to further control state education of our children through federal standards, and to take education out of the hands of the parents and put it to "the state," or under federal control. This has been done at a rapid pace through "school to work" and "college readiness" programs. To read further on these programs visit our College Readiness link here.

States were hooked into the Common Core movement with Race-to-the-Top (RTTT) grants (funded through Obama's 2009-2012 stimulus package the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act- ARRA) they applied for in 2009-2010, and with that application, they were allowed to apply for "No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Waivers" if they adopted the CCSSI verbatim! Subsequently, each state was allowed to add 15% to these federal standards under the Common Core 15% Rule only after they adopted these CCSSI standards verbatim. Read more on the "State Adoption of the Common Core: the Standards 15 Percent Rule" here.

www.arizonansagainstcommoncore.com...

Just the cold hard facts. We do not need to have a degree in science education and be board certified as a teacher to understand what is happening here, contrary to what seems to be implied by various people on this thread.
In light of that, we can understand that the federal government, now having the ability to control more of the content,is taking full advantage of that by inserting indoctrination such as Climate Change theory, which does emerge out of UN Agenda 21 by the way, the desire for the globalist control over all the world's resources. Al Gore and Bill Gates are both tied into the globalist organization, The Club of Rome, which is deeply involved in Agenda 21 policy making.

originally posted by: tavi45
a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Common core has plenty of issues. The spirit of it is good. The rigidity of it is bad. It's the most recent of a long line of political band aids. Remember "no child left behind"?

Yes, the AZ against CC site says that CC is" No Child Left Behind on steroids". As we know, Prez Bush got that one going, so this is not a partisan attack on my part.

originally posted by: vexati0n
and facts are precisely what these parents so despise.

Um ... no. We homeschooled until fifth grade because facts are exactly what we wanted. Just the exact opposite of what you claim. Facts, truth, and safety. Those were things the public school system in Alabama, and the city schools here where we live now, couldn't offer.

it is not the school system’s intention to “brainwash” their child

Oh yes it is. The NEA absolutely has an agenda. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

Society’s right to educate itself must trump individual parents’ rights to impose narrowmindedness and cowardly conservatism on their children.

Hell no! Parents have the right to educate their children as they see fit, not the state. My God what a nightmare that would be ... the political state deciding what is true and what isn't and having it cram their politically correct hogwash down the throats of children.

Some parents may teach their children creationism which is incorrect, but so what? The flip side is the public schools teach man made global warming nonsense with Al Gores 'Inconvenient Truth' film which has been completely debunked. In the end, the PARENTS have full right over their children and not the state. Otherwise, welcome to 1984.

originally posted by: Cuervo
Of course educators do a better job educating than parents. And parents do a better job parenting. The problem is when people think those two things are the same.

We did both just fine. We homeschooled and parented. Our daughter turned out great ... safe, well educated, well socialized, well rounded, open minded and she is now in good university studying engineering in an honors program. The same can't be said for her most of public school counterparts here in the city.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
It is also scary that many of the home schoolers are themselves very low information and uneducated, with exceptions of course.

You shouldn't believe the propaganda that the NEA pumps out.

Information Here

- The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. (The public school average is the 50th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.)

- Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income.

- Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not related to their children’s academic achievement.

- Degree of state control and regulation of homeschooling is not related to academic achievement.

- Home-educated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions.

Home School ACT Exam Scores

Home SchoolTest Scores

The Atlantic - Home Schooled Children Score Higher on Tests

In our home school group, every household had a parent with a college degree. Most had two parents with college degrees. In our case, my husband has two masters and I have a bachelors. Our daughter will be graduating college with an engineering degree in an honors program and she'll be doing it two years ahead of her public school counterparts. She was homeschooled until fifth grade and was able to take her learning skills from home school with her to high school and college.

The NEA has an agenda to try to discredit home schooling. With millions of children being very successfully home schooled, there is a big loss of teaching jobs and with a big loss of teaching jobs that means a big loss of UNION INCOME for the NEA. That's why they demonize home schooling.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
My question is, why do parents that home school think that they are in any way qualified to teach their kid everything for the modern world. You could have a PHD in physics and you wouldn't be. I have two masters degrees, including one in education. I do not believe that I am qualified to teach my five year old everything for the next 13 years. There is so much education, expertise, psychology knowledge by age, and so on that one parent can't possibly know.

For an 'educator' you are showing a severe lack of understanding about home school. No one claims to be able to 'teach everything for the modern world' and no one needs to be an expert in psychology or in education to be able to teach their child. Public schools can't do that. Private schools can't do that. Home schools can't do that.

However, most parents ARE capable of teaching their child at home and most do so using standardized curriculums. They are excellent and are widely available. So simply put together that nearly any parent could use them and teach from them. Parents can tweak what is taught to best suit the child's abilities and needs. There are set standardized tests at certain times during the school year that are sent in. There are help desks to help parents with questions. There are additional guidelines and guidance given as needed.

Teaching at home isn't rocket science. It's natural and it works. That is why home school students consistently score higher on their standardized tests and college entrance exams. And no, socialization isn't a problem no matter what the NEA tries to claim. Most home schoolers are properly socialized and are involved in 2 or more peer group activities a week. (see the home school legal defense fund website for the stats). Our daughter was on two swim teams, a YMCA art club, and she went to gymnastics. She had activities every day and sometimes twice a day, in addition to playing with the neighborhood kids and other home schoolers.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

But most of the questions about anthropogenic climate change have been answered by those actual experts. And, there is a majority that support it, an almost complete consensus.

Simply untrue. That's like saying that experts on the bible know that the earth is only 6000 years old and all bible believers have therefore reached a consensus that that is true.

Remember, people that are not experts in a field do not count as detractors from consensus. I do not count as a detractor if I blog about doctors and medical researchers being wrong. I would not be a peer-reviewed nor credible source. You should know that if you are educated on science. This dude's blog does not qualify, nor does his nuclear science degree.

You seem to be asserting that in order to be able to understand how to teach scientific method, one first has to have a PHD in the specific field? Is that what they are teaching you in science education? Sounds like they are selling a lot of PHDs.
I need to have a PHD in Kool Ade to know how bad sugar is for me. You also seem to believe that no matter how much information is out there on the information highway, in books, and elsewhere, or how much is actually taught in the classrooms, everyone is still just dumb except you fine educators.

Most important, a person can have a phd in some random topic but that doesn't mean they know more than a professional teacher about education.

Oh wait, weren't you just trying to tell me that I have to have all these different degrees to teach something. Now you tell me that only professional educators are qualified. You are asserting that a nuclear engineer cannot perceive what is faulty scientific method because he does not have a degree in climate science. I bet he does math better than all the cc lessons .
In any case I think whatever you just said is no longer the case, since teachers now have to teach to the test with only 15% of their own content, And who developed all this testing?
It seems to be a group called "Achieve". Pearson and Microsoft are involved in the online testing platforms.

who will benefit from Common Core? Craig Barrett is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Achieve, Inc., he is the current Chairman for the AZ Ready Education Council; and he is a Thunderbird Faculty member promoting United Nation Principles. (He is also the Former CEO/Chairman of the Board of Intel). Computer companies will directly benefit from computer sales to the states and local school districts. All of the Common Core student assessment testing will now be computer based. See (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers [PARCC] website for more details on the new student testing that will replace AIMS).

www.arizonansagainstcommoncore.com...

So it seems as if the UN is the new expert on teaching.

Classroom teachers were not included among those principally involved in the development of ADP benchmarks.

deutsch29.wordpress.com...

Is your state adhering to the new CC standards?

Here's something else for anyone interested.

most widely used history textbook in U.S. public schools is A People's History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn. It has sold a million and a half copies since it was published in 1980. It is required reading in many high schools and colleges. This history textbook by Howard Zinn is a very leftwing version of U.S. history, full of multicultural, feminist, and class-war propaganda. It is based on the thesis that America is not a republic but an empire controlled by a few white men. Its heroes are anti-establishment protestors. The book debunks traditional heroes, such as Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson, and doesn't mention great Americans such as Thomas Edison.

After several decades of use in schools and colleges, new information emerged about the author. In 2010, the FBI released 400 pages of files on Howard Zinn, and it turns out that he was an active member of the Communist Party. He was vice president of a group in Brooklyn, New York run by the Communists and attended Communist Party meetings in Brooklyn five nights a week. He was so important in the Communist Party that he taught a class to his comrades on "basic Marxism."

Howard Zinn's textbook is worse than anything he ever did as a member of the Communist Party. His textbook was specifically written to present a Marxist version of U.S. history based on the Communist strategy of the "class war."

Control of public school curriculum is a very desirable prize for those who seek to control the future. Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, once admitted that "national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas."

www.eagleforum.org...

In my opinion not a good reflection in public education based on indoctrination coming from the top down.

a reply to: FlyersFan

You have stated your points beautifully. A word of caution about homeschooling related to CC.

The new common core state standards will affect online charter school programs being used in most states. This could affect homeschoolers in the few states that require homeschoolers to take periodic state assessement tests. Even if a state allows homeschool exemption from this new common core assessment test, it will affect homeschoolers that might later enroll in a public or charter school. This will likely affect changes in other standardized and achievement tests in the future that could eventually affect homeschoolers.

homeschoolcommoncore.com...

CC proponents seek to impose CC standards on private schools and homeschooling. Which means they are also imposing content if one is to be able to pass the tests.

a reply to: vexati0n

That's a bunch of horse#. The public education system is so far from attempting to fill kids heads with "facts"(not that you even know what a fact is), it's pathetic.

The public education system is about CONTROL... That's why they force children to go to them. They want control and the ability to indoctrinate kids... period.

Not everyone involved want that necessarily, but the underlying infrastructure itself does.

If they really wanted to teach facts, 90% of what are in text books would be eliminated. They would teach logic and rational reasoning and show actual evidences and explain the theories and the reasoning behind the conclusions reached.

They DON'T... They teach theory as fact, they use contrived evidences and they DON'T encourage using logic and reasoning and instead focus on an appeal to authority (a fallacy btw).

So get out of here with that #. Some parents have a problem with it for the wrong reasons, because they don't want it interfering with their own indoctrination of their child, but the real problem is that school has political motivations behind the structure and curriculum.

Jaden

a reply to: Masterjaden

Yeah only the facts approved by the parents should be taught. We all know every human being is wise and intelligent. We got to where we are now by reteaching our kids what we learned. Science, philosophy, history and all that other stuff is garbage.

I think that generally speaking, your guys' view of what education means and what kids need for the 21st century is outdated.

No, I am not basing all of this just off of personal opinion. Much of it is evidence based AND it is what is being discussed generally for the future of education.

In short, in an increasingly globalized world, having just knowledge of your local community or culture is NOT enough. People who have not learned about, interacted with, and learned to engage effectively multiple cultures, languages, and other countries are at a distinct disadvantage. I know this not just from education research and application but also because I work in international affairs.

You said this perspective puts down people from rural or homogenous communities. No it does not. First, it recognizes that they DO have less access and leverage in this globalized world. This is well recognized and factual. Second, it only supports my point further that they absolutely need the best education possible locally about other cultures and places, as a the next best thing. They should be at the very least getting as much interaction with other people and cultures nearby as possible. Again, I believe that home schooling on average would only further disadvantage such people. They not only would not have the globalized access but less interaction than their friends at school. I may be wrong about the last point. Open to it.

To your next point my having a limited scope about education in different places, I've not only studied education systems around the world, I have also worked in education and other forms of development in the US (Washington, Arizona, NY) and the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Bangladesh, and China. I've also done numerous projects such as data analysis or development planning projects for such countries as Palestine, Angola, Nigeria, and India.

To your point about hypotheses, you are incorrect. THAT IS the philosophy about hypotheses. Fact. Obviously we will never have perfect data about any topic. However, for every single topic in science and social science the goal is to get as much data, studies, replication, peer review, congruence with other related studies, qualitative data, and so on. If any new information violates the accuracy of your hypothesis, then you have to upgrade it, expand it, or throw it out.

originally posted by: funkadeliaaaa
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Let us assume for a moment that homeschooling parents can create all of the variables necessary for a completely well rounded child able to reach their full potential.

Another statement based on a myriad of flawed assumptions. The first one that jumps out at me is the assumption that learning and reaching ones full potential are synonymous. They are not. The second very dangerous and very flawed asumption is that reaching ones full potential is only acheiveable within the first twenty years of ones life and only through an institution designed for programming the next generation of obedient workers. The third flawed assumption is that reaching ones full potential should be a standard by which we measure the success of our schooling. Should it not be measures on how well we pass on knowledge? The next flawed assumption is that it is necccesssry to provide a completely well rounded up bringing and education to bring a person to their full potential. That is not so. Ones full potential is not the business of the education system, or neccessarily the parents alone, but that of the whole community. Finally, the variables you assume to be neccessary may not be neccessarily what the child feels is neccessary, and the assumption that public education is better equipped for providing those subjective variables (according to each childs nature) than home schooling is absolutely not true imo. Lastly the state imo is far more ill equipped than parents when it comes to encouraging the inner conditions neccessary for a childs inspiration for learning to flourish and grow. On the contrary schools regularly inhibit flourishing, and over encourage growing, and this kills inspiration and the willingness to learn.

There is a vast amount of sociological, political, and psychological data on all kinds of topics showing the levels of education, geographical awareness, historical awareness, and so on regarding people in multiple countries. A lot of people and families really are poorly informed, some through their own poverty or disadvantage, or just frankly apathetic. Not only that, I've worked with a lot of these families and people in my work. Again, I can't actually believe that you think that if many families and parents are not well informed or educated, that they are ready to be real teachers to their kids. Remember, education is not just learning to read and write or do math. It's all of the historical, philosophical, cultural knowledge too. Arts, music. No, not every family by any means is equipped to be teaching their kids for the 21st century. This ain't Lincoln writing with a piece of coal.

This still requires very well educated, open minded, and informed parents, travel, exposure to all kinds of diverse ideas and peoples, and so on.

none of that is neccessary for helping a child learn and flourish and grow as a human being at a natural rate imo.

Do you think that most families themselves have the vast knowledge of other cultures and their own biases to effectively create respect and knowledge in their kids? How many even know or care about history? Do you really think that most parents, with our misinformed and often brainwashed and apathetic public, are ready to meet this charge? i can tell you having worked with a lot of parents of my students that most, while loving and decent people, didn't seem to be ready. So then it isn't really a viable solution to most families' education needs.

Show me sociological evidence that what you just said is a representative picture of how society is. Its no good if your simply telling me all this based on nothing more than your own personal experiences. Im in London... You taught for less than five years in New York and you feel you are somehow qualified to make sweeping generalisations about the whole of western civilisation?

I dont think so.

If anything about what you claim is true however, imo its because parents are not even aware of an alternative to the state education system, and thats why they dont appear ready. We as a society are so indoctrinated, that the idea of taking responsability for the education our own children seems alien to us. So alien for most parentd it doesnt ever even once enter their conscience as a possibility. Again, something is very wrong with this picture as you yourself have presented it to me. The fact that weve only had broadband internet in nearly every home for less than a decade and the the same Victorian education system for over a hundred, is another reason to suspect parents now are more than ready to at least start thinking about taking back this responsability. Enlightenment rarely happens over night, just as realizing ones full potential rarely happens by graduation if at all.

This I think is the biggest danger of homeschooling. That a couple of parents, who may or may not be well informed or critical thinkers (some are obviously are more so than others), will end up being knowledge gate keepers for their kids, only provide a limited worldview, and end up replicating their beliefs in their kids. This is less likely when kids are forced to engage with a whole host of teachers, some of whom don't agree with their parents. When parents (or anybody) can decide that their kid will only have teachers and tutors that believe in the family world view, what does that do for exposure and critical thinking.

As some home schoolers said on here, they do try to increase expertise and exposure to other teachers through having co-ops or private tutors, perhaps people who are experts or proficient in teaching a certain subject. While that is a good thing, I think there can be a problem still with exposure and diversity of perspectives if those tutors are also of the same ilk as the parents. What if the fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers only hire tutors that profess "Jesus is lord."