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reply to post by thepainweaver
Public schools are terrible i agree, op. But home schooling should be a last-ditch option. Home schooling is terrible when it comes to teaching children how to socialize with other children their own age, and it creates socially awkward zombies.
reply to post by TheLastStand
I think you are right but for different reasons. The schools programming is pushing one world culture, environmentalism, and all of that UN agenda 21 crap down your children's throats. It is to soften people up in order to socially engineer people, otherwise the system would definitely be more laissez faire with education rather than turn it into a day care so they can make both men and women work for ever diminishing amounts of money (when viewed at in terms of actual buying power). They have built a slave society, and for years they have been turning your children against you. If they don't get your kids that way, no worries, the system will just come up with more excuses with which they can use to take your children away; destruction of the family unit is high in the state's list of priorities.
Although non-homeschoolers worry that homeschooling may turn children into social misfits, we know that the opposite is true and that POSITIVE socialization is one of the best reasons to homeschool your children. During Homeschool.com's 2005 Summer Teleconference I had the pleasure of interviewing Diane Flynn Keith and we openly talked about the socialization issue.
"Socialization is actually meant to prepare children for the real world, which means learning to interact and deal with people of all ages, races, and backgrounds," says Diane Flynn Keith. "In this case, homeschooling actually does a better job of this because homeschoolers spend more actual time out in society."
Research supports this. According to Home Schooling and the Question of Socialization by Richard G. Medlin, "Home-schooled children are taking part in the daily routines of their communities. They are certainly not isolated; in fact, they associate with--and feel close to--all sorts of people."
He continues, "Home schooling parents can take much of the credit for this. For, with their children's long-term social development in mind, they actively encourage their children to take advantage of social opportunities outside the family. Home-schooled children are acquiring the rules of behavior and systems of beliefs and attitudes they need. They have good self-esteem and are likely to display fewer behavior problems than do other children. They may be more socially mature and have better leadership skills than other children as well. And they appear to be functioning effectively as members of adult society."
This and other studies support the irony of the socialization issue in homeschooling that we have known for years, which is that traditional schools are actually more on a path of de-socialization. In traditional schools students learn to stay in a class to which they've been assigned and are grouped according to age and academic level, and generally with students from the same geographic area and socio-economic background.
So in a sense, as I like to say, many people are homeschooling because of socialization reasons.
During our discussion, Diane Flynn Keith agreed that traditional schools are not conducive to socialization and in fact, that students are actually punished if they try to socialize in the classroom.
She shared this ironic story, "I recall distinctly that my son spent a great deal of time in the classroom in the first grade, with his head down on his desk because he wanted to talk all the time to all his little friends around him and the teacher kept saying 'We're not here to socialize, young man.'"
The structure and reality of traditional schools are teaching students to be passive and compliant, which can follow the children throughout life. Children can learn to take abuse, to ignore miserable bosses or abusive spouses later on. In a traditional school someone else usurps authority.
This is where homeschooling comes in. Kids in homeschooling develop self-confidence and self-esteem; they learn to deal with difficult people when they are developmentally ready. When they are ready to go out into the world they know they have choices, a foundation developed in homeschooling.
Research conducted by Michael Brady entitled Social Development in Traditionally Schooled and Homseschooled Children, a Case for Increased Parental Monitoring and Decreased Peer Interaction endorses this idea. Brady states, "There seems to be an overwhelming amount of evidence that children socialized in a peer-dominant environment are at higher risk for developing social maladjustment issues than those that are socialized in a parent monitored environment."
In other words, socialization in homeschooling works better because children have more opportunities to be socialized through the modeling of good social behavior by caring adults rather than through peers, who do not know much more than they do. Parents give their kids the skills they need to interact with other people and also have the chance to protect their children.
So, the big question in homeschooling socialization is "Who do we want them learning life skills from? Caring adults, or peers who don't know any more than they do?"
"No," Flynn Keith jokes, "the REALLY big question is 'What about the prom?!'"
Prom and graduation are viewed as rites of passage, which are important parts of children's lives; however, they do not need to be activities organized by the state or a school. Many states and homeschool organizations have established proms and graduations for homeschoolers and a homeschooling family can create their own private way to celebrate rites of passage.
Originally posted by sirhumperdink
reply to post by Blueboyinheaven
well thats good to know can you please provide more information about the public school system in london?
(im pretty sure the topic is specifically about schools in the united states though and i can assure you the situation here is much different)
reply to post by Jiggyfly
I've tried to stop posting and just lurk here, to avoid taking the bait on a number of topics that people seem to enjoy trolling with. However, this isn't a troll, and it's an area of personal expertise, so I have to jump in.
Background: 5 years teaching experience (5th grade) in a couple of different districts, now an administrator in a suburban K-5 school with approx. 650 students. M.A in Elementary Education, M.Ed. in Educational Leadership, currently working on my Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. I am, by no means, an expert on the home school debate. However, there are some fundamental issues regarding your stance on this that require correcting...which I feel qualified to discuss.
First and foremost, please drop the "proof" argument. There is as much or as little "proof" in terms of opinions, scholarly articles, and half-assed literature reviews to satisfy any stance on education you would like to take.
will find are studies commissioned by textbook companies (I'm looking at you, Pearson) to support a product. This product will likely change in 4 years, and a new, contrary study will be commissioned. This is not to say that you are incorrect in any of your statements, just watch your rebuttals.
However, there are some fundamental issues regarding your stance on this that require correcting...which I feel qualified to discuss. Proof is, sadly, either abundant or completely lacking (depending on your standards) for every stance possible
Second, teachers are underpaid in some locales, completely overpaid in others. Teaching can be a vow of poverty, or a 100k per 9 month job, depending on where you teach and how long you've done it.
You are right that quite a few teachers are unqualified, in that the 100k folks are usually the most out of touch, since their real study of the profession was done decades ago and it's been a crazy 20 years for educational theory.
Salaries are a problem, to be sure, but not always in the way you spotlighted.
Third, you do not have to go to college to learn to teach, true, but that teaching will be the exact same uninspired, inept teaching you criticize from the "underpaid, overworked" teacher.
Real teachers study their craft every day, and collaborate with colleagues to improve their practice as part of their routine. It is embedded in everything that they do.
However, excellent pedagogy is not the best benefit to lead, 'cause that's completely untrue.
Most home schooling resources are the packaged models for instruction that weren't good enough to be sold to the districts
Furthermore, most non-educational professionals have no idea the nuance in teaching a student, particularly a young student
Do you know how kids learn to construct meaning from text?
reply to post by ScatterBrain
Math knowledge. Most kids do not have a basic understanding of math when they graduate. That's not because we don't teach it.
It's because the actual good ways of teaching it are often criticized and beaten into the ground because it does not resemble the methods used in the past.
Here's the punch line: Most of the Baby Boomers don't have basic math either. I can hear the counter argument now..."but, but, stupid teenagers can't even make change!"
You only learned to make change 'cause it was an integral part of your life, not because of effective math curriculum
However, many people actually think that the same people who don't recognize real answers when they see them are the best people to choose curriculum for their kids.
There are a great many indictments on public education that ring true. Indoctrination, mass production instructional model, social decay, wasteful spending, and all that. Numbers tend to back a lot of that up, depending on what you're looking at. I'm certainly no public education shill. I got out of marketing and into this to help, not because I thought it was perfect by any stretch. Also, homeschooling might very well be a viable, effective choice for a lot of families. However... 1. Proof simply does not exist in the form that you state for anything in this field. 2. Parents are not, by default, effective teachers. Objectivity and training are issues here. 3. Learning is a social activity. Homeschooling has to address that to work well.
Originally posted by Numbers33four
Get them out before the teachers have sex with them.
The schools teach your kids to be dependent of government. To hate God. To be disrespectful to parents.
I know that schools are hell holes. There are a few good ones, but chances are that you cannot get your kid into one of those. Even then how do you know what they are putting into your kid's brain?
Throw your TV in the trash. Burn the illuminati garbage music cds.
Have no guilt when you abandon ship. Just be thankful that you got out.
Hell with all of the tax drones who worship the system.
Before I go into sources and quotes, I want to tell you why I think everyone should homeschool.
3. Public schooling teachers your children to perpetuate society's bad manners. They're taught that swearing, fighting and being a jerk is cool. They're not properly taught by overworked and underpaid teachers how to be polite, or how to care about other people.
4. Those children who do poorly in public school will never get proper help for it. They will be told to work harder without being taught how.
6. Public schooling leaves your children with very little time for play, which is NECESSARY for the growth and true education of younger children.
8. Public schools and their teacher unions make it impossible to fire a bad teacher. Yes, as close to impossible as one can get.