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cowboydoc
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Hydraman]
10/10/02 09:22 AM
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I sure won't argue with you. I think everything you said is the truth!
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tenebrous
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Hydraman]
10/10/02 10:33 AM
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Hydraman, you really put the responsibility on the parents. In the vast majority of situations you are correct. I worked for a "Government school" and too many parents expected the school to raise their child. It was not unusual for us not to be able to contact a parent when there was a problem. You could write letters and leave messages on the answering machines and still no response. The only way I was able to contact some was call them at work. Many times I had to leave the message with the supervisor.
It was always a pleasure to call a parent when a student was not being responsible and know that they expected more from their child. Kids are not perfect and do make mistakes but together the school and the parents have a good chance of developing the child into a responsible adult.
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BrianP
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Hydraman]
10/11/02 01:58 PM
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Gee, I'm glad to see my little post generated such interesting discussion. As you might have guessed by now, I'm pro homeschooling, not anti school, although I can say that while I had a lot of good teachers, I had a lot of bad ones too.
I really believe that many parents would rather spend more time with their kids, but the pressures of day to day life means they can't afford it. And some people shouldn't be teaching their kids anything, just like some parents shouldn't have become parents in the first place.
That being said, I would never walk up to somebody and berate them for sending their kids to a public school. I would never say that they are brainwashing their kids, or exploiting them because they follow the state curriculum.
Why is it, though, that people feel perfectly free to say that about our family?  One neighbour laced into my oldest son for our 'misdeeds'! Kinda strange if you ask me.
Oh well. To all you home schoolers out their good luck! To all you public schoolers: good luck. I hope your kids do real well, home or public schooled. But as for those of you who would attack those of us -- well there isn't an Instant Face here which shows what I think ....
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tenebrous
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: BrianP]
10/11/02 04:28 PM
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Oh well. To all you home schoolers out their good luck! To all you public schoolers: good luck. I hope your kids do real well, home or public schooled. But as for those of you who would attack those of us -- well there isn't an Instant Face here which shows what I think ....
Very well said and I wish you and yours my best wishes.
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Hakim
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Haz]
10/11/02 06:44 PM
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Homeschoolers are familar with most of these names, but it is often of interest to those unfamiliar with the history of homeschooling, to realize that some of the most gifted and successful people in American history did not attend formal public schools exclusively ...
The Homeschool Hall of Fame
Notable Homeschoolers
So many children in history through today have been home schooled, and then become not only functional, but highly successful members of our society. Here some of the people, from the 1700's through today, who spent some or all of their time being schooled at home rather than in the public schools.!
Interested prsons may read more extensive accounts of the biographies of many of those who were homeschooled in Chapter Four of Linda Dobson's Homeschoolers’ Success Stories (A Brief History of Home Schooling). It is available at Amazon .
Homeschoolers’ Success Stories
Presidents
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Harrison, Theodore F. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Tyler, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Governors
Patrick Henry (VA), Charles Pickney III (SC), Richard D. Spaight (NC), William Livingston (NJ), Richard Bassett (DE)
U.S. Senators or Congressmen
William S. Johnson (CT), George Clymer (PA), John Francis Mercer (MD), William Blount (TN), William Few (GA)
College Presidents
John Witherspoon – Princeton, Timothy Dwight – Yale, William S. Johnson - Columbia
Chief Justices of U.S. Supreme Court
John Rutledge, John Jay, John Marshall
Preachers & Missionaries
John & Charles Wesley, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, Dwight L. Moody, John Newton, Hudson Taylor
Scientists, Economists, Businessmen
Blaise Pascal, Booker T. Washington, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, John Stuart Mill
Authors
Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Irving Berlin, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis
Famous Women
Abigail Adams, Margaret Mead, Mercy Warren, Martha Washington, Florence Nightingale, Phyllis Wheatley, Agatha Christie, Pearl S. Buck
Generals
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur, George S. Patton
Philosopher
Charles Montesquieu
Artists
John Singleton Copley, Andrew Wyeth, Rembrandt Peale, Claude Monet, Ansel Adams, Charlie Chaplin
Composers
Anton Bruckner, Felix Mendelssohn, Amadeus Mozart, Francis Poulenc
Web Developers
Muhammad Chishti
Hakim Chishti
Staff/Moderator
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Bayrat
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Hakim]
10/12/02 05:56 AM
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What could one say to top that??? 
Bayrat
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Hydraman
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Bayrat]
10/12/02 10:03 PM
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Here I thought that I could at least get a good 'Discussion ' going, !! Didn't think everyone would be so agreeable; but; this is just for fun anywayz, isn't it??   !!
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Hydraman
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: tenebrous]
10/13/02 07:06 AM
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Tim,
Yep-I most certainly do put the responsibility on the parents.
My Mother was a teacher in the Gov't school system, as were Both of her parents. The big difference is that while her parents were busy teaching-- they were also raising 10 children-- that went to the same school their parents were teaching in!! Of course this was going on out on the prairies of Montana during the early homestead years, so there really wasn't much difference between this one room school and the homeschool of today. And even though my parents sent me to a Gov't school, my Mother the teacher was very active in my education process.
The big Government was not really the big issue when I was in school, although when I look back, I can see how it was really entangleing itself in the process at the time I was there.
I think my parents would literally flip their lids if they were to see what public education has become!! There is a lot of difference between the education system I was in 40-50 years ago, and that of today, and it really saddens me when I watch my grandchildren becoming indoctrinated the way they are. I now know that I FAILED to pass on to my children what my parents passed on to me. So, maybe, if I can pass on the importance of the PARENTS responsibility to just one other person, I can then be of some help to them and their future generations!! Gotta go. God Bless
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JoeR
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Hydraman]
10/14/02 10:37 PM
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Not to change topic, but it is a sad situation when we must put law enforcement officers into elementary schools. Of course, they are not called "law enforcement" instead we use double speak, and call them a "school community resource officers". In the past 20 years, schools have turned into prisons. They have chain link fences, police officers, and people patrolling the hallways. Why has the education system changed from education to: Education, prison/riot control, surrogate parent, psychologist, and brainwashing center? I guess too many parents are depending on the "system" to raise their children...
Joe
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rozett
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: JoeR]
10/25/02 08:54 PM
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What we are seeing is the effects of alcohol and drug abuse during pregnancy. I am a substitute teacher at the local high school. The number of students coded with learning and behaviour problems is staggering.
And this problem will continue to get worse because a fair number of these kids do nothing but cause trouble all day and learn very little. They will graduate (I shudder to think how) or quit school and find out what it's like to survive in the real world. They will then get involved in the same abuses and the procreate. I am afraid for our society.
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AndyF
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: rozett]
10/30/02 07:48 AM
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What we are seeing is the effects of alcohol and drug abuse during pregnancy.
I think what we are really seeing is an ever smaller target range for "normal" and a continuing drive to reduce educational options. Legitimate apprenticeship programs and good vocational education are disappearing and students who a generation ago would have gone through these programs and been very successful are instead forced to sit through classes in which they have little interest and if they act out they are "diagnosed" as ADD, AHDD or whatever acronym is currently trendy.
While poor parenting and weaker social constraints play a big part in current problems at school, the lack of options is also a large role.
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tenebrous
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: AndyF]
10/30/02 09:59 AM
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Legitimate apprenticeship programs and good vocational education are disappearing and students who a generation ago would have gone through these programs and been very successful are instead forced to sit through classes in which they have little interest and if they act out they are "diagnosed" as ADD, AHDD or whatever acronym is currently trendy.
Andy, you are so right. I do not know where you are located but New York State has decided that everyone including special needs students are to be in a college prep program. The regional vocational programs have been pushed aside to the point that a student with a brain would not want to be there. I do not know where our electricians, masons and plumbers are going to come from but we may have a lot of engineers. We do a horrible disservice to those students who are not interested in college but would be much happier in a GOOD vocational program. 
There is hope in that some school districts in the state are fighting to have the return of a meaningful non college bound curriculum. It will be a long and difficult struggle.
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AndyF
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: tenebrous]
10/30/02 04:37 PM
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I do not know where you are located but New York State has decided that everyone including special needs students are to be in a college prep program.
I'm in NY and my wife is teaching Earth Science in Newark NY. She went back last year after being away from teaching for 12 years and found a lot of changes in the state requirements. Since coming back she has had several students drop out because they couldn't get into BOCES (vocational education for you non-New Yorkers) and a bunch of others who are just lost because they are in over there heads. Unfortunately, the requirements have been watered down so the real bright kids aren't being well served either. Its unfortunate that the state has moved to a one size fits all academic approach.
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tenebrous
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: AndyF]
10/30/02 05:24 PM
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Since coming back she has had several students drop out because they couldn't get into BOCES (vocational education for you non-New Yorkers) and a bunch of others who are just lost because they are in over there heads.
I am not all that far from you in Geneseo.
That does not seem to matter to the powers that be. One size does not fit all especially in a classroom. I have taught honors, regents, non regents and special ed classes. My greatest satisfaction came from those special ed students who worked so hard to learn the basics of mathematics. To expect these different level of students to all study the same material and progress at the same rate is ridiculous. Your wife is correct that all the students are suffering. This I believe is a financial and political issue that will be changed. Did you read in the D and C that Fairport is about to rebel and offer a non regents program. The school boards association, I believe, voted to again have the track system or a variant. The vote was close but this may finally be the return to real education. The State Education Department turned a deaf ear and refused to comment.
I just remember a meeting I once attended in Albany and the State Education Department speaker opened his talk with "I am from the State Ed. Department and I am here to help you." The roar of laughter from the group was better than a Robin William's performance.
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lac
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: BrianP]
11/04/02 12:53 PM
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It seems to me the matter of home schooling along with traditional schooling should be what is best for the child. We as parents and teachers sometimes try and put all students in the same category. Some students need the socialization desperately. It seems like all things, no one answer is best for all.
lac
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knucklehead
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: lac]
11/05/02 08:37 PM
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You hit the nail on the head. I've referred to the public schools as assembly lines in the past; a generalization for sure, but intended to point out that a bureacracy cannot be thought of as a substitute for involved parents. Parents need to "steer", even if their children are in the PS full time; if this was done by even half of parents, the PS would be a vastly different place.
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roncarla
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: knucklehead]
08/03/03 11:34 AM
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Hi, I'm new here and I might as well just jump in with both feet! I have three children, all are homeschooled -- ages 11, 6 and 3-1/2. I have homeschooled all of them since day one with a couple of exceptions. My son (11), was in public kindergarten for about 4 months because of the birth of my daughter (who had a difficult start in life and screamed constantly!). The few months that he was in kindergarten was a nightmare and this school was in a small Iowa town of 150. The teacher was a bully. She did not like the fact that he wrote his name in cursive (maybe she couldn't???). When I was finally able to homeschool him again, he had to "re-learn" everything he had learned as a 4 year old because all they did for 6 hours was color. It was a terrible experience and he still remembers it.
Anti-homeschoolers? Our parents were totally against it in the beginning. How did I deal with them? I would point out a kid with pink hair or earrings or nose rings or eyebrow rings and just ask the innocent question, "Is that whom you want your grandchildren to socialize with?" Another sweet question is "Were you allowed to 'socialize' during school? I had to be quiet during class."
Other reminders are with socialization breeds peer pressure. I don't have any facts to back up this assumption; however, I would bet that there are less homeschoolers involved in drugs.
Now, after 7 years of homeschooling, our parents agree that this was the best choice and actually compliment me in regards to their capabilities.
To the gentlemen educator who stated his concern regarding some homeschooled children not being properly educated by their parents, I can only respond by saying that I can point to a lot more children who are not properly educated in public school. I went to public and private schools. I had great, adequate and downright poor (shouldn't have been allowed in the door) teachers. I chose to homeschool prior to having children because I believed they would be better served then spending all day, 5 days a week, in a public institution in which they have to pass through metal detectors, be used as targets, deal with gang members, or have drugs offered to them. None of those things happen in our home. I am able to nurture them 24 hours a day. I also have the privilege of seeing their faces light up when they "get" something. What a joy! I love what I do.
One final thing...When my son was in 2nd grade and was required to take the Iowa Basic Skills Test, the counselor said she had never seen another child complete it so quickly and perfectly.
Thanks for letting me stand on my soap box for awhile -- Carla
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fivestring
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: roncarla]
08/04/03 11:42 AM
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"To the gentlemen educator who stated his concern regarding some homeschooled children not being properly educated by their parents, I can only respond by saying that I can point to a lot more children who are not properly educated in public school.
AMEN!
Public schools: big hole to throw money down into never to see a return on investment.
Gary
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Finger-pickin' good!
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BrianP
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: roncarla]
08/06/03 03:41 PM
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Great to see this thread 'alive' again!
I figure this is one issue that'll only be won one convert at a time. On the one hand, the argument is made that 1) professional teachers are better teachers, and 2) that kids need socializing. On the other hand, I believe any reasonably educated (or dedicated) adult should be teach a child, though maybe teaching 30 or 40 takes special skills. Plus, I figure kids probably don't need that much socializing, which is why I keep mine locked in the root cellar.
Actually I made the last bit up. 
Now, I'm willing to admit that home schooling doesn't guarantee the best and the brightest, but I can show that public schooling rarely delivers.
The odd thing is, the biggest arguments the wife & I have been having on this subject is with my oldest, who was home schooled and got in to a presitigious university, etc., etc..
Aw heck - he has to complain about something!
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bgott
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: BrianP]
08/06/03 11:30 PM
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Stick his butt back in the root cellar, he'll come around!
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Boondox
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: BrianP]
08/12/03 11:38 AM
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Brian -- Almost all of the kids my wife and I are so impressed with we wish we could adopt have been home schooled...and most by parents without your credentials. They are invariably well read, well adjusted, think before blurting out the first thought that comes to mind, able to hold their own in adult conversations, and not caught up in the fashion/consumerism merry-go-round. They are as a general rule more responsible young citizens, and do more to help their community than the mass-produced output of our local school system...which is rated tops in the state.
No comparison in our book! Keep up the great work.
Pete
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farmerpsv
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Boondox]
09/13/03 01:14 PM
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Hey all,
Good thread, lots of great folks here, there is hope for America with you all home schooling. Our own experience. We home schooled both our boys from the beginning through high school. Neither set foot in a school until they went to university. One is getting his engineering degree at Penn State the other wants to be a writer and is finishing his degree at University of Tennessee. Each earned a full scholarship, so daddy doesn't have to pay for University. The common socialization question is rather silly if one thinks about it, after all, it's not as if we have our kids locked in a dungeon where they have no social interaction.
I always answered that question with another question: "who would you rather have teach your kids their social skills, you or a perfect stranger and a few hundred clueless kids?" Who is going to love and pay attention to your kid more than you? Schools are designed primarily for crowd control, not teaching. Gee, how did society exist for thousands of years before the relatively new phenomenon of public school? People fear what they don't understand.
paul
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AndyF
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: Haz]
10/10/03 09:14 PM
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A question for the home schoolers - How do you deal with the "no schoolers" who say they are home schooling. I've probably met less than a dozen home schoolers in the last few years and out of all of them, two were definitely "no schoolers". They just seemed to expect that their kids would learn without being taught anything.
I'm not anti-homeschool at all, but I do think that just like with public schools there should be a mechanism to ensure that the kids aren't being educationally shortchanged.
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knucklehead
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: AndyF]
10/13/03 12:20 PM
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"...just like with public schools there should be a mechanism to ensure that the kids aren't being educationally shortchanged.
Uh, what mechanism is that? Can't see it from my house!
"How do you deal with the "no schoolers""
There are a lot of flavors of "unschoolers"....some are just using different methods of training, or starting the kids a little later. There are also instances of outright neglect. This is a hard thing to think about, but it is the parents' responsibility to raise their kids right, not the public school or the Feds.
Personally, I observe far more parents abusing their kids through lack of discipline and demonstrating that materialism and self are the priorities that matter most. Far, far more than any other behavior by any other group.
It is the "norm" that concerns me greater than a relatively minute alternative group.
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BrianP
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Re: How do you deal with 'anti home schoolers'
[re: AndyF]
10/15/03 10:47 AM
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Interesting point.
Round these parts, a home schooler is supposed to meet at least every year with somebody from the local school, such as a principal, or vice principal.
The reality is, that it is virtually impossible to get these characters to meet with you, and at best they spend a few minutes on it.
I figure they view home schoolers as 'out of sight out of mind' and somebody else's problem. Unfortunately, this is not good for kids who are supposed to be home schooled but who are not.
So, we live in a society where parents don't read to their kids, don't encourage them to do homework, and so on. It might be worse if these kids are supposed ot be home schooled, but I believe responsible homeschoolers do a better job than public school teachers.
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