My short answer to the OP is no, it shouldn’t be illegal.
I’m a little torn about some specific applications of this opinion, but it just doesn’t make sense for the government to mandate what parents are allowed to teach their children and what they are not.
Absolutely. Parents put a great deal of investment into bringing up their children, and their beliefs, both religous and social, are what we depend on for a stable and /or preferential society. Parents can do that a whole lot better than a public school.
This is where I see a problem. A national society has a stake in the character of its citizens as well, and isolation from the norms of the greater society can cause conflict for all. I’d say religious schools should be banned.
I guess I wonder where the child’s rights come in. I agree a parent has a right to teach, through example and expectation, what their standards of behavior are, but if the child isn’t buying the religion the parents are teaching, is the child allowed to withdraw from that religious training? At what age do we acknowledge our children as thinking individuals who are capable of interpreting the meaning or validity of religion for themselves?
Also, I need to ask…for those of you who require your children to attend religious training, what is the expected end result? Are you sending them to instill a good moral code or are you sending them to save their souls? Or both?
“Taking advantage of”? So, teaching children, so that they will no longer be ignorant, is taking advantage of them? Or is it only taking advantage of them when you teach them things that aren’t right or aren’t true?
I think you’re asking this question from the perspective that religion is false. But, a religious parent doesn’t share this perspective. From their point of view, what they’re teaching their children is what is true and right, and it would be failing to teach them that would be misleading them and doing them a disservice, just like failing to teach them to brush their teeth and say “please” and “thank you.”
I do agree that, when they’re old enough to understand such things, children (from every religious background, including atheist) should be taught “This is what we believe, and why, but other people believe different things, and have different customs and traditions and values, such as…” They should, and must, eventually decide for themselves what they believe and what fits with their own experience.
I would hope that religious parents (and teachers, and others who influence children) would have good reasons for believing and behaving as they do, and that, as part of their religious education, they would share those reasons with their children.
While I agree parents must have wide latitude to induce their kids into the parent’s moral and religious beliefs, I also think that kids need to get some outside facts so they can make up their own mind. Thus, I think that homeschooling should be illegal, and kids must to go a public school, or a private school that follows a State curriculem.
Thus, the children can make up their own minds and have a real choice.
Is there any evidence that home schooled or private schooled children are somehow maladjusted or less knowledgeable than those who attended public schools? So long as they can pass whatever standardized tests the state administers to public schools I don’t see why it matters where they got their education.
Marc
Did I mention the words “maladjusted or less knowledgeable”?
Most homeschooled kids do follow a state curriculum (though it isn’t standardized by any means). They also mostly attend a public school or other public forums for socialization. They take P.E. classes, attend field trips, belong to teams, etc. It’s not complete isolation, and few parents want that for their child.
In the US, IIRC, there’s a well-recognized fundamental right to direct the education of one’s children.
I don’t know if I count or not.
I sent my son, for three years, to an avowedly Christian school which had weekly chapel and bible lessons, and regular prayer in the classroom.
I didn’t send him for the religious training necessarily, but I did like that he was getting a foundation in one of the world’s major religions. I also liked that along with the specific religious principles they were teaching, there were complimentary moral principles taught (peace, humility, respect for others, the golden rule, community service, etc.). Not that those values are exclusively Christian (they aren’t necessarily
“religious” at all) but the school was good at imbuing them, and I think their faith-based principles helped with that.
The religion itself was a little heavier-handed that I liked (and it positively creeped my spouse out) but the school was small, loving, warm, and cohesive, and there was a lot to like about it. They also taught science as scientifically as I could ask for. As for the faith stuff, I figured his little mind would adjust, become skeptical, and eventually form his own opinions and beliefs just as his Dad and I had (Dad’s agnostic, I’m somewhat spiritual but not wholly Christian). I didn’t think he’d embrace religious views too far out of line with our family’s values. So far that seems to be true.
So I’m not sure I really answered your question–but it’s a perspective of one person who sent their kid to a private religious school.
As for another comment–There are some cultural and religious practices I am wholeheartedly against, and I’m going to share those views with him. I may not go so far as to tell them the people who feel otherwise are “evil” but I don’t think my opinion will be sparing. However, I’m guessing that SDMB views of how “immoral” I am is conditional. Am I going to be criticizing Female Genital mutilation, or Evolutionist, Slavery or Hinduism, Torture or Liberals? Religious conservatives aren’t the only ones who might try to sway their children against other beliefs and practices. .
Note the words I highlighted: “most”, “mostly” and “few”. I am talking about the uncommon and rare parents, like those weird fundie mormon-*like * cults and the like, where girls are raised to be virtual slaves.
Well, yeah…but plenty of kids can be screwed up by their parents even if they attend school every day. Homeschooling in and of itself isn’t harmful.
You said it should be made illegal. That hardly refers to the rare and few who use it as a tool for abusing their children.
Exactly my point. Homeschooling “in and of itself isn’t harmful”, but it is a powerful tool for bad parents who wish to brainwash their kids. I suppose I should modify my statement to “I think that UNSUPERVISED homeschooling should be illegal.”
Of course you count. I should have included those who send their kids for the education (some people say the religious schools in their area provide a better all-around education than their public schools).
But what if your kid decides that the religion stuff is too heavy-handed and wants to go to public school? Would that be an option?
When they move out. The basic rule has always been “Under my roof, you follow my rules.” If those rules include going to church, then you do it until you move out on your own, at which time it ceases to be any of my business. No matter how much I may force attendence, I cannot force belief. Every child will decide, when they are ready, whether or not they buy into what is being taught. This is a basic right as a parent, and no-one has any business messing with it unless it steps over the line into provable child-abuse.
What purpose does forcing attendance serve if the adult/child doesn’t believe it? Just flexing your muscles?
Absolutely.
Actually, it got to my husband first, so we switched the child to a secular school. But I’d have no problem sending him to a religious-based school again if one seemed the best place educationally. Even if were a denomination or religion not my own. I know a bunch parents who feel the same way.
But I suspect it would be more interesting, for the purposes of this thread, to hear from people who sought out a religious education for the religion. Like the mom of my son’s classmate, who really proud to report that her little girl had said “I feel sorry for kids who go to public school and can’t learn about Jesus every day!”
Needless to say I didn’t always feel like I fit in at parents’ meetings.
No, I was just trying to figure out why you thought it was important to make homschooling illegal. If the children aren’t ending up as maladjusted or stupid adults then I don’t understand your reasons for wanting it to be illegal. You want children to get “outside” facts but does outside necessarily mean better or more objective?
Also, I don’t think most homeschooled children are completely unsupervised. Don’t most states require them to pass certain tests to make sure they’re actually getting an education?
Marc