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Homeschooling debate

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shetuck;1109643; said:
You're constitution towards being a social ostrich is week!
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Home schooled social ostrich

OSTRICH.jpg


But I see that the home schooling process introduces the child to the either Nazi worship or Dirty Sanchez instruction at a precocious age.

Homeschollingmagazine.jpg
 
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I see the same, with one caveat: The kids from big families are much better at socialization than the kids from (God help us) "only child" home schoolers. They tend to be smart, but dead sure that they are right about everything, and ill equipped to deal with the comments of kids who do not agree that they are the Nazizzle. When they are told "Suck my *ick homo", they have no response, and go run to the RA to protect them from the mean kids, further socially ostracizing them.

Dealing with ignorant assholes is also a life skill, and they do not seem to have it. In many ways, dealing with people who are not on your own plane, educationally, or socially, or religiously, is a skill more important then knowing the answer. Great example is Broadcast News movie where the William Hurt character keeps succeeding because of his personality and the Albert Brooks character is way smarter, but fails because he is a nerd who either pisses people off or fails to impress.
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Well stated, I would agree with this completely... thanks for saying it for me. Where were you during my term papers? :p
 
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muffler dragon;1109617; said:
Whereas, my experience with the Montessori group is a bunch of snobby pricks who ultimately wanted their children to be intellectually stagnated all in the hopes of becoming an artisan. I guess there's all shapes and kinds throughout the world.
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Hey! I may not have learned much in school while I was becoming an artisan, but I think you just called me intellectually stagnated. :sad2:

I attended a Montessori school up through 3rd grade, and public school from then on out. We had the opportunity for hands-on chemistry, speech and debate, and all sorts of things that you can't get in public elementary school. We did have applied "classes" where specific topics were covered, but you were also free to apply yourself to whatever subject you wanted for a good portion of the time. I don't remember any focus on arts over other topics, but perhaps things have changed in the last 20 years.

I thought it was an amazing school, and I remember going to 4th grade with a desire to learn, only to find out that they were behind what we'd been studying by about a year.

However...

I've also heard horror stories of someone teaching "Montessori" method at a local daycare, which basically meant no discipline, and just letting them run around doing whatever they want, period. That was never my experience, and I feel like it gets a bad rap because of teachers like this who don't really understand the full package.

Like any other school, I think Montessori's effectiveness depends greatly on the caliber of teacher, and probably depends more on the attitude of the student than other methods.
 
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MolGenBuckeye;1109660; said:
Hey! I may not have learned much in school while I was becoming an artisan, but I think you just called me intellectually stagnated. :sad2:

I attended a Montessori school up through 3rd grade, and public school from then on out. We had the opportunity for hands-on chemistry, speech and debate, and all sorts of things that you can't get in public elementary school. We did have applied "classes" where specific topics were covered, but you were also free to apply yourself to whatever subject you wanted for a good portion of the time. I don't remember any focus on arts over other topics, but perhaps things have changed in the last 20 years.

I thought it was an amazing school, and I remember going to 4th grade with a desire to learn, only to find out that they were behind what we'd been studying by about a year.

However...

I've also heard horror stories of someone teaching "Montessori" method at a local daycare, which basically meant no discipline, and just letting them run around doing whatever they want, period. That was never my experience, and I feel like it gets a bad rap because of teachers like this who don't really understand the full package.

Like any other school, I think Montessori's effectiveness depends greatly on the caliber of teacher, and probably depends more on the attitude of the student than other methods.
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You remember the 4th Grade?

Wow.
 
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buckeyegrad;1109333; said:
Although we like to use a lot of rhetoric about education being a liberating experience and the chance to explore new ideas and thoughts, in reality it is often an exercise in indoctrination and the closing off of creative and intellectual horizons. When the state becomes involved in this process, the frequency of closing such horizons becomes all that greater.

Universal, public education has always been about normalizing individuals to become what the state considers good citizens. If you doubt this, do some research on Horace Mann, the father of public education in the United States. His primary reason for wanting to create universal public education is because too many immigrants (i.e. Irish and German Catholics) were changing the character of the United States and they needed to brought in line.

I can only hope this decision is struck down by the appellate courts because it could set a dangerous precedent that a child's education should be dictated by the state rather than the parents. As a parent, if you want your child normalized because you think it will guarantee a greater chance of success or it will help them be a "better person" as defined by the dominant culture, then you should have the option. However, you should also have the option to not have you child exposed to normalization if you believe success should be defined differenlty than it is by the domiant culture or the state.
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I disagree with your premise, grad, that public education is all about indoctrination and closing off horizons. But I do agree that for a kid whose parents don't stress the importance of independent thinking, the "group-think" phenomenon can be a problem.

In my experience, home-schooling parents are typically those who are significantly at odds with society (for better or worse) with respect to moral, religious, or intellectual "norms." My experience is that home-schooled kids can be poorly socialized as a result, though many are not (especially those whose parents balanced the home school with plenty of out-of-home social activities).

With that being said, I think home schooling is an option that ought to be open to all parents, and the idea that a state would outlaw it is as chilling to me as it is to you.
 
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