I think I see a problem here with the “selfish” that is being tossed around. That problem is that there is a stigma attatched to being called selfish, even though, in general everyone is selfish. Most decisions we make are to benefit ourselves. This doesn’t mean that it is WRONG to want what’s best for ourselves, or our loved ones.
In even sven’s case, I think they are saying that it IS wrong. They believe that we should work as a community, not as spearate entities. I’m not going to debate that…I would like to say that perhaps sven should focus that message on someone else. Homeschoolers at the very least are attempting to do something positive. Their actions are an attempt to make a more productive member of society (directly or indirectly). Perhaps it would be better for the community if they were to difect their efforts to others, it is the people that do NOTHING that are truly at fault. If all parents took interest in at least their own kids, we wouldn’t even need to debate this. But, because some parent’s don’t carry their weight, the rest of us are seen as wrong for not doing someone else’s job.
Well, you got the impassioned part right. Unfortunately, the “backing up” part was woefully inadequate.
Why not this time? You posted an inflamatory opinion in a forum called “Great Debates”, and now you are whining because somebody actually applied the standards of debate to what you wrote. As for scholarly, I think your post reflected quite well the schooling which you have enjoyed.
I do agree, though, that “simple” is a fine adjective for your outpouring of thought.
Who cares? Is the fact that you are a commie somehow relevant to your inability to present reasoned support for an incendiary statement? I was unaware of your politics before. I am apathetic to them now.
Then don’t make categorically offensive statements. If that is too difficult for you to comprehend, then I’ll place another tally under the column “problems with public schools”.
Fine, then as a political and philosophical concept develop an argument for why it is wrong. If, “it’s how I feel” is the best argument you can come up with, expect to be criticized for sloppy reasoning.
While you’re at it, perhaps you could explain the moral gymnastics you employ to determine that people who commit repugnant and ultimately selfish acts are not bad. Are those judgments value neutral in your morality?
Excellent, then you won’t feel any more need to display them on a public board. Just for curiosities sake, how long do you think you will have to post to the SDMB before you realize that other people sometimes respond to what you write?
Ah, the germ of an actual support for your position. See, it isn’t so hard. It isn’t so easy either, of course. You still haven’t attempted to provide a reason why generalization from your personal experience to a broader observation is warranted, but at least it’s a beginning.
Sure I can. And then you would be expected to provide actual evidence for your position. That’s how a debate works. In particular, I might ask you for some numbers to provide insight into how words like “many” and “often” whould be interpreted in this instance.
I agree. She might turn out to be teh sort of person who passes rash and offensive judgments upon broad classes of people.
Not in my experience. Rathe than digress to far into this, though, I will simply point out that unless you are now positing that the primary motivation for parents of homeschooled children is to prevent a bad school from “bringing a kid down”, then this point is irrelevant.
If you are saying that, then please tell me how not wanting a child to be “brought down” is the ultimate in selfishness?
I see little evidence for it.
It’s a pity your college of choice does not demand better reasoning skills from its honors graduates.
sigh
[li]An unsupported assertion that it takes more work and creativity to “learn nothing at all” in a public high school than to complete a course of homeschooling.[/li][li]A comparison of homeschooling to “having a perfect education handed to me”.[/li][li]Reduction of the concerns of homeschooling parents through the derisive, “I didn’t die. I didn’t become a gangster.”[/li][li]Hyperbolic conlusion that public schools are not a “fate worse than death”. (Who knew that homeschools were slaughterhouses. “I’d rather kill little Timmy than send him to Boston Public!”)[/li]
Pitiful. Please tell me the name of the colege about to bestow honors upon you. I would like to make sure I accord it the proper respect and admiration.
[li]If you have the talent to love and nurture children, why keep it selfishly to your own family. Every parent should adopt or foster other children lest they suffer the unending scorn of even sven[/li][li]If you have talent for cooking how dare you selfishly prepare meals for your own family. Get thee to teh soup kitchen![/li][li]If you have the talent to soothe your children with fine music, how dare you selfishly confine your songs to the home! Get to the public square and give free concerts every day![/li]
If these analogies aren’t sufficient, then consider this: Did your mother spend every day at school with you? No? Then what is to prevent homeschooling parents from providing just as much service to the community outside of regular schoool hours that your mother did? Wiat. I know. It’s because you already know they are ultimately selfish. :rolleyes:
I think I will pass over the emotional appeal you use to close. Much like your last post, it is a rousing finale waiting in vain for the argument that was supposed to precede it.
Well, as far as I can tell, there are generally three complaints directed at homeschooling, which I find to be mostly inaccurate.
One is that the parents often aren’t qualified to teach their children. This is nonsense. Homeschooling parents are usually, by definition, strongly interested in their children’s learning. Therefore, they will take the time to themselves learn how to go about it. There is a great deal of material out there for just that purpose. Additionally, in most areas there are tests and guidelines in place to insure the children are being educated properly.
Another argument is that removing the intelligent and/or active parents and students from the public schools is harmful to the other children. While this may have some tenuous plausibility, the same arguments could be directed against private schools–and those are well-established. If private schools exist, this argument is pointless.
The major argument is that removing a child from the surroundings of a public classroom is detrimental to their social development. This can be quite true; it is easy for homeschool parents to isolate their children, sheltering them from the “outside” and leaving them unable to cope with life in the real world. (Those who homeschool for religious reasons often do this deliberately…) However, many parents avoid this. Homeschooled children participate in normal after-school activities; have friends they’ve met in other ways; and generally make up for the lack of social contact in school. A competent homeschooling parent can do just that.
While I’m by no means saying that homeschooling is always superior to public schools, or even effective at all; I am saying that the flaws often cited are the fault of incompetent parents, not a flaw inherent in the concept of homeschooling.
As a side note, a personal anecdote; I was homeschooled from kindergarten up through age 14, when I began taking college classes. I’m now 18 and a Junior in college, and I’m spending my summer working as an intern at Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico. I’m naturally introverted, but interact easily with people and have no unusual social problems. One story proves very little, and I’m probably not very typical, but it does show that homeschooling CAN work.
As for homeschooling being selfish… well, perhaps. I was pulled out of school by my parents because, quite frankly, I was more advanced than the local schools were willing to deal with. Had I remained in the public school system, I would have been forced to plod through material far below my ability level. Perhaps it was selfish of my parents to want me to have the opportunity to learn at my own pace, without being restricted by the mass-learning environment of a public school. But given that any benefits of me having stayed in the public schools are rather intangible and vaguely defined, I don’t see the problem.
Selfishness is not always a bad thing; it’s a basic part of human nature. Like many things, it only becomes a problem when taken to extremes.
I think that many people have this idea that it is natural or “meant” to grow up surrounded by people exactly your own age, and that this is the only enviroment in which socialization can take place. We are conditioned by the media to think in terms of “our generation” and to watch the same sows, eat the same foods, listen to the same music, share the same concerns with people we have no more in common with than a birth year.
But there isn’t anything natural or normal about this. It’s just one way of many to grow up. were I to homeschool, I would think one major benefit would be to let my child be socialized by all types of people, both much older and much younger. (I actually think there was probably alot to be said for one-room school houses, which did exactly this. I know to many people my age (early 20s) who have a great deal of trouble operating outside the peer group they were raised in. Public school insulates you from everyone older or younger than you, and overwhelms you with people your own age.
And even sven, you sound like you were happy in school. Many students aren’t. They are miserable, bored, and brutalized. I don’t think that 12 years of misery and boredom is a good way to socialize anyone, and I don’t think that I have any moral imperitive to condemn my (hypothetical) child to misery and boredom for the good of some nebulous whole. The good my child will do when they are an intelligent, productive, happy adult working at full potential easily outweighs the good I might do as home room mother.
Okay, personal confession times. A lot of my venom is plain old jealousy. I have issues with the fact that I and the people I grew up with were given so few opportunities. Despite those missed opportunities, some people I grew up with have managed to “succeed”. Others, however, never made it out and that hurts me. Envy rages through me when I see children that will know no hardships. I see so many inequities and it bothers me that some will deal with so much hardship whiles other live in a veritable promised land. The first time I visited a private school, I cried to see that they were building kayaks in their woodshops, while in ours we were building with wood donated from a church that got torn down and rebuilt. This pain, which I will never be rid of no matter how far I go in life, colors my beliefs on the subject of home, private, or any other “I’ve got mine” schooling. Manda Jo is quite correct. My scorn is better spent on more important issues. My only defense is that I don’t go out and protest homeschooling or anything like that. This is all simply an idle opinion. It is hardly the basis of my life. The only reason I say anything is because the subject was brought up.
Not, of course, that that changes any of my points.
So Spiritus Mudi, I will have to deal with you again. I really have no interest in defending myself, but I have more time than money, so I will anyway. I have been with the Straight Dope, as both a poster and a lurker, for several years. Most of my time is spent in Great Debates because I am really interested in hearing the opinions and beliefs of others, and forming and refining my own. I’ve never once been so harshly treated- usually I state my opinion and converse back and forth with others in a friendly, exploratory way. I know that I do not have the answers, but I am interested in getting a little closer. Some would say my political leanings make me a lost cause, and I fully understand their view. With those people I respectfully disagree and we go on with our lives. I guess I mistook you for one of those people, and sought to express my disinterest in bickering over fundamental differences in such an inopportune place.
I see, however, that you are no such thing. So I guess I can’t really leave this alone.
In my research, I found that while some states hold homeschoolers highly accountable, other states do not.
Accordingto this site, there are many parents that do not file. In many states (like California) it is hard to get an accurate number on how many people homeschool. Now if we can’t even tell how many people homeschool, how can we tell that they are doing an adequate job? Some homeschoolers seem very hostile to the idea of any sort of regulation. A homeschooling magazine states “Increased government regulation of homeschooling inevitably means that we would have to adopt the curriculums, standards, and values of government schools.” Words like that sound more like those of a person on a power trip than a concerned parent.
People on power trips are not new in the homeschool world. Christian reconstructionalists want to use homeschooling to create a political force that will transform the United States into a theocratic nation. “The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and Holy Communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.” I won’t hold this against homeschoolers. There are nutcases in every segment of society. My concern is that homeschooling makes their job a lot easier.
Isolation is an issue. I am not really concerned with socialization, as I understand there are many ways for children to gain social experience. But I am concerned that some parents see homeschooling as a way to have absolute control over their children’s lives. Many parents crave the control that homeschooling can give them. This homeschooler states “An EXCELLENT reason to educate them at home (is) so you can make sure their “socialization” experiences are positive instead of negative.” A Christian homeschooler states that “Instead of merely conforming to cultural and societal norms, Christian parents who homeschool have a unique opportunity to take an active role in how, when, and where their children are exposed to the world”
Perhaps many see that as a good thing. I see it as somewhat scary. I just don’t think it is healthy for a parent to control every aspect of a person’s life twenty-four hours a day. I also fear intellectual stunting, as children seek opinions and views that make their parent’s happy, as opposed to finding their true beliefs.
Perhaps I should give parent’s more credit, but I get scared of the attitude that children are property to be molded to one’s will and sheltered from the evil outside world. I don’t think this attitude leads to the kind of citizens that benefit the world.
And yes, I still hold that people with talents should share them with the world. Don’t freak out too much…this belief is not too far from the traditional concept of a “work ethic”, except in this case you work for a bit more than your own benefit.
I hope, dear Spiritus, that you find some merit in what I say. I don’t expect you to agree with me, and I know that I hardly give a flawless presentation, but I think that my ideas merit some consideration. Perhaps you would like to debate me in some other forum about something I am more knowledgable about- I’ve got some great theorys on sequences of racial initiation in 1980s nostalgic musical depicting the late fifties and early sixties…or cycles of perceived interaction, purchase and testemony utilized on home shopping channels…
And for you further information (or my derision) I attend the University of California Santa Cruz. Yay Banana Slugs!
Note parents who homeschool do not need a high school degree themselves. They are required to test, but not to report scores. There is a lot of leeway here to not teach your kids. And there are plenty of people who homeschool because they don’t want the gubberment in their lives, or they want to protect their kids from the evils of public schools – drugs, guns, sex education, evolution, and differing opinions from their own.
I also understand that many - perhaps even most - parents who homeschool are doing so because they truly believe it is best for their children and are doing a very good job. The inherient small class sizes, tailored instruction, and caring teacher are ideal components of success.
When the parents priority is giving the best possible education to their child and they have the talent for it (it takes hard work and patience to teach), and the child responds well to homeschooling (not all kids do) it can be a great thing. And, like everything, it can be a disaster when done poorly or for the wrong reasons.
Really? Then I can only assume that most of your posts do not begin with blanket condemnations of large classes of people. I certainly saw little that was friendly or exploratory in your first post, and I did read it quite carefully.
[/quote]
Some would say my political leanings make me a lost cause, and I fully understand their view. With those people I respectfully disagree and we go on with our lives. I guess I mistook you for one of those people, and sought to express my disinterest in bickering over fundamental differences in such an inopportune place.
[/quote]
Apparently, you have mistaken me for someone who has expressed disagreement with your political views. The only person who seems fixated upon that in this thread is even sven. I took exception to what I saw was an offensive characterization of homeschoolers. I am not a homeschooler. I do not personally know anyone who is homeschooling their children. But I found your position offensive, arrogant, and completely lacking in rational support.
I am not at all certain where you expressed your “disinterest in bickering over fundamental differences”, and I am not at all sure what place you think would be opportune for doing so, since the Great Debates forum of the SDMB isn’t sufficient. (Motto: We can hammer out Kirk vs Picard and the existence of God, but even sven’s prejudices are right out.)
I rather doubt that you see me accurately, but you are certainly welcome to your opinion.
I do (well, except fot the “I’m a commie” martyr syndrome, but that’s a separate issue. This thread is supposed to be about homeschooling.)
You raise interesting issues about appropriate standards or lack of same, possibility/appropriateness of federal control, where to draw the line between parental freedom to instilll their values and parental obligation to prepare children for autonomous existence, and whether qualifications for homeschooling parents should be required. You also express a real concern for the potential of abuse that exists in a homeschool situation. I do find it puzzling that you can point to such issues, express such concern, and still rage against homeschooled children as “children that will know no hardships.” That equation doesn’t seem balanced.
More importantly, though, I wonder whether you understand that “I have these concerns about the potential for abuse in homeschooling” is quite a different statement than “Home schooling is as selfish as it gets.” If you had begun with the former, you might well have avoided the “harsh treatment” of my reply. If you distance yourself from the latter, you might never have to suffer it again.
Great mascot!
As to derision: you offered yourself up as an example of the succeess possible from an education in public schools. If you interject your personal achievements into a debate, you should expect that those achievements will be evaluated.
For the record, I went to public (or DoD) primary and secondary schools, too. I do not, however, present myself as a success story for the environment.
Home schooling is only ‘selfish’ if you think that the children exist for the benefit of the educational establishment, rather than vice versa.
People who hold this opinion do not belong in the same class room as any child I care about.
The purpose of education is to educate. The choice that gives my child the best shot at that is the one he gets - like a shot, and devil take the hindmost.
I had a long response typed up but it rambled too much.
By the time I was 16 I had been to 34 different schools, 32 of which were public, 2 private, and 8 of them being high schools. I also graduated from a homeschool. I skipped 3 grades in California where they gave me more ability appropriate work while keeping me socialized for the rest of the school year with my peers (they were very accomodating). I skipped 5-6 grades in Japan (a private school that allowed us to work at our own pace) where I went from fifth grade to basically 10th and 11th grade. Again, when I moved back in with my mother she wanted me in the age appropriate classroom in a public school where I was later completely stoltified. And I eventually graduated high school later at 16 being homeschooled. (I had to take a lot of placement tests after they started me working on things and realized that I scored well above what is required to graduate.)
Public schools serve their purpose. They are there to mass educate a lot of average people to end with an average education to become average citizens. The honours/gifted programs are almost completely lacking and don’t teach anything significantly outside what the regular programs teach and with the view that only the basics required be taught to the abilities of the average student with little personalization. That sounds harsher than it is. Public schools often have limited resources, limited time, and significantly underpaid teachers who may or may not want to make a difference much less be there. Private schools are a bit better as the classes tend to be smaller with a lot of individual attention. The teachers there may or may not be as skilled as the public school teachers but generally they want to be there as they get paid significantly less (usually) than the public school teachers. Still, private schools and homeschools fall into the trap that one must achieve x for one to be successful at y. Now home schooling, has as much individual attention as there can be (although in my case, I taught myself and had no teacher involvement until I felt ready to take the tests required to graduate) with lessons that applied to things that interested me. I learned to read music, really play the guitar (so much so that I went to college on a classical guitar scholarship), as well as many other things. Granted, I didn’t learn anything that I couldn’t have learned at a public or private school, but what I did learn, I learned at my own pace and finally learned to appreciate what knowledge could get me and that learning was its reward for its own sake, not to get some pavlovian award like an “A+” on a report card. Coincidently, I graduated with honours but not because I sought the award but because I desired to learn and put in the work it required to feel like I had learned.
The issue of socialization is really a moot one. I had gone to so many different schools (some of which were for less than a month) that I never really had to bother forming lasting friendships. Even that is a moot point because I don’t know anyone who has been out of highschool for more than a few years who still socializes with their “old friends” from high school. I have made and continue to make friends and have had many friends for longer than 10 years, none of which I had met in any of the schools I was in at the time. I tended to make friends and acquantances by going out and doing things and eventually seeing the same people enjoying what I was doing and making bonds there (from video games, music, to poetry). Incidently, those are the friends whom I still associate with not the friends whom I met artificially do to having been forced to be in the same area as them and having “socialization” forced upon us.
Also, the choice of the three basic types of schools (public, private, home) is not black and white. People from all walks of life or types of schools succeed in whatever they collectively do. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, just the one that works best for the individual in this aspect. For every success or horror story one can give to compare a certain type of schoolings effects an equal one can be give for any other type of school. Personally I found public schools to be just as homophobic and evil as the Southern Baptist private school I went to and wouldn’t want that type of spew passed off to any child much less myself. I found that home schooling allowed me to develop ideas for myself rather than feeding back what any given teacher wanted to hear and feeling like a better person. Maybe not the most popular person but one who is now confident to be whomever I feel like being.