Public vs. private vs. homeschooling

Great Debates
121

To start with, that going to public or even private schools will teach what you call the "have to"s is belied by the number of college freshmen who have not learned that lesson by the time they have made it to college. Second your argument seems to be that one should send ones child to school because it is so terrible and will subject them to abuses.

Schools provide a very artificial environment that does not reflect well at all the environment I have found in the work place. The big lesson of school was suck it up, you are powerless to do anything, keep your mouth shut and go with the flow. I don’t know about where you work, but the places I work, that won’t cut it. I am responsible for my progress and if people stand in my way and refuse reasonable requests, then I actually hand the problem up to my boss and say, hey, this project may stall because this person won’t do what they are scheduled to do. You know what, my boss will actually help deal with the situation, perhaps assigning a different resource, suggesting alternatives, or possibly speaking with the obstacle’s manager. That is just the opposite of how lessons learned in school would tell me to solve that problem.

You know what else? If a co-worker threatens my safety, I don’t have to accept that and just suck it up and learn not to scream so the attacks maybe won’t last as long. It is my employer’s responsibility to do something and every employer where I have had that situation, the employer did not hesitate to remove the problem employee or see that they mended their ways so fast it makes my head spin. Now this is not the case everywhere, but neither is the school model of suck it up and don’t make waves.

Another lesson taught in school is “do not excel.” Do not learn fast or you will draw the ire and fear of others. When I come into a workplace, my ability to adapt fast and learn new things quickly gets praise not fear. People actually seek me out to work with and even to learn from. Others seek me out to teach me things, because they see I am eager to learn and may even remember what they tell me.

Do you know what really teaches one the “have tos”? Doing anything at all well will teach one discipline. In every undertaking under the sun, there is some aspect which is less than thrilling, but for best results needs to be taken care of correctly. Any discipline has these aspects.

I find your list of “have tos” very narrow indeed, and a little silly considering the growing importance of telecommuting. It does remind me of the terrible things my mother said I would have to go through to give birth, the enema, the shaving, the being shifted from one bed to another when it was time to deliver, and many other innumerable inconveniences which I did not have to endure because intelligent women spoke up and put a stop to long before I ever got pregnant.

Just because I had to put up with the foolishness of badly run public schools is no reason to subject my children to them.

122

Lissa, I think you have missed some of my points. It is exactly because school is not the only way to educate that I think it is so unnecessary. And it is exactly because some people will end up in unrewarding jobs that we should stop trying to force them to learn. Someone who works at a “McJob” does not need anything he learned in high school; I don’t see the gain in making him learn if he doesn’t need or want to.

Mind you, I think he should want to learn, for his personal betterment. But he has to want to. Forcibly making students sit through years of things they see as boring and irrelevant just makes them angry and resentful and quashes that “curious spark” you refer to (And which I would contend that all children naturally have, to varying degrees).

If someone is content working a McJob, god bless them and let them get started sooner; they won’t need anything beyond fifth grade. In point of fact, it’s my strong belief that a lot of kids would have been better served by dropping out of school at 13, working full-time at Wal-Mart for a year and being told they could keep doing that their whole lives if they chose to. I suspect many of them would quickly want to come back to school, and would be full of motivation for learning (and student motivation is the number-one ingredient in learning). Others might not return to school, but neither would they have been conditioned by enforced schooling to think that learning sucks, and might someday take up literature or science or whatever interests them. Still others would never do either, and would never seek anything higher or better than Wal-Mart; as I say, god bless them, and let them get started earlier. They’ll be happier out of school, and the schools will be able to focua on those who do want to learn. I don’t think the state has any right or even gets any benefit from cramming 9th-grade chemistry down someone’s throat.

As to the benefits of learning to submitting to class structure, working within a system, etc. I do think those are skills people need to learn; and they can learn them just as easily on a sports team or in any number of other environments. Heck, most kids learn lessons like “sit still” and “wait your turn” before they even get to school.
Lessons like that, about “knowing your place,” don’t require 12 freakin’ years of conditioning … unless of course one envisons people as human capital to be fit into a mechanistic, assembly-line society – which of course is exactly what many of the architects of the modern school system did have in mind when they created it during the heart of the industrial age.

123

I do see your point, and frankly, ditches do need dug. Our ecopnomy relies on having a source of cheap labor. That said, do you really think kids are well-equipped to make decisions which will direct the course of the rest of their lives? My concern is that kids will drop out because they don’t like school and later regret it.

I still don’t agree that the schools are solely to blame for crushing the “curious spark.” I DID sit through years of education in the Christian school which was boring and irrelevant. I deeply resented having to learn Creationism when at home I was reading books by Stephen Jay Gould. It didn’t quash my love of learning. I posit that a love of learning is more dependant on personality than enviornment.

People may want to return to school but practicalities have a way of becoming a barrier. Once you’re out in the working world, your expenses have a way of rising to meet your income. You take on other obligations. You get married or have kids, or otherwise become dependant on keeping your job and leaving to go back to school starts to become difficult if not outright impossible. I’ve known quite a few people who left college fully intending to go back after a year or two but somehow they just never made it.

It goes a bit deeper than that. School also teaches cooperation with peers and how to deal with people who don’t like you. (Even the torments that outcasts go through have learning value.) A sports team won’t always teach a kid how to deal with a bully.

A good student learns how to tailor their work to meet what the teacher wants even if their opinions or style is different. No one, exepting those who go into science-related careers, really *needs *chemistry or physics, but it gives them an idea of how the sciences work and that knowledge can be valuable.

There are also the aspects of learning time management, dealing with deadlines and stress. (In a sense, homeschooling is different when it comes to these issues. Mom understands why you didn’t get the history paper done because the car broke down and you were stuck at grandma’s. The teacher isn’t quite as sympathetic.)

124

Actually, it would be unconstitutional – and was ruled thus in the early part of the 20th century. See Pierce, Governor of Oregon v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925):

125

I don’t see any value in having been tortured and raped, nor do I see it having value to any child.

126

Who said anything about rape?

I was talking about the teasing that “rejects” go through. And if you talk to a lot of people who went through that sort of thing, the majority will tell you that it made them a stronger person. I’m not saying it’s a* good *thing, but it is something from which people can learn valuable lessons about life.

127

lee, most people aren’t tortured and raped at school. It seems like you have had a particularly bad experience that is coloring your ability to judge the situation and effectively take part in this debate.

If the public schools my children were slated to go to were that bad, and I couldn’t arrange for them to go anywhere else, then yes, I’d homeschool them.

But the overwhelming majority of students do not have a substantially bad experience in school. Replying to your earlier post, at the public schools I went to, reporting abuse to an adult most definitely got a response that was pretty equivalent to what one encounters in the work force. Doing well was rewarded. Working hard provided satisfaction. And having to get out of your cozy bed before you’re ready isn’t “abuse and suffering.”

Again: I’m sorry that you had a freak experience that damaged you so much.

128

School definitely crushed my creative spark, if not my curious spark. In fourth grade (where I was bored to tears being taught things I had mastered years previously), I occupied myself by drawing things. Until I was forced to stop by my teacher. I was taught that drawing was to be done only when directed to by a teacher; doing art at other times was wrong and bad.

I can’t do any sort of manual art anymore; I am too self-critical of my work and end up giving up in frustration. I have to wonder to what degree this was aided by this particular gem of a teacher – who was merely enforcing what someone in this thread called "have to"s: I “had to” not do artwork at that moment, even though that was because of an arbitrary reason having entirely to do with regimentation and control and having nothing to do with any actual educational need either for myself or for anyone else in the room. (Teaching people to follow rules unquestioningly is contrary to the fundamental principles of our nation, and is also thoroughly unwise in a business context. About the only place where it is appropriate is a military command situation.)

Fortunately, my later teachers were unwilling to crush my inappropriate tendencies to ignore their instructional directions, but this is probably in large part because my father was on the board of education at that school and so they probably feared that any serious measures taken against me might impact their employment. They were certainly able to crush such tendencies; I saw them do it to other children whose parents were not as well-connected as my father. They simply refrained from doing so in my case.

129

The conditions and attitudes which allowed my torture to continue for three years are all too prevalent in today’s schools. Parents and teachers all too often think that it can’t be too bad, it is only children doing it. Many take the stance that children need to work these things out for themselves. Nevermind that if you saw adults doing the same thing the sane response would be to call the police. Since the children are supposedly in the care of the teachers, I would hope that such things could be handled by stepping in and making it clear this is wrong and not acceptable, but the discussions I have had with teachers and parents lead me to think that they would hesitate to interfere with such a valuable character building experience.

Accounts in the news of rapes in schools seem to show up every year so all is not safe and well. At least they are considered newsworthy I suppose. I see no evidence that schools have improved all that much in the last thirty years. Attitudes have not, that I am sure of.

130

Personal background: product of public school education, currently pursuing a dream career in academic science. My school environment was quite traditional and structured and extremely non-diverse. My parents were encouraging but had little to add to my education.

First point, I think most everyone here is greatly exaggerating the influence of a kid’s school environment on their moral fiber. I just don’t think we need to worry about whether school provides diversity or socialization, or whether it stokes or quenches curiosity. I think kids will pretty much be who they are and as long as they’re supported by their family and given basic resources to understand their world.

Second point, I think the metrics we use to measure the success of education in this country are too reductionist and that our kids are developing all kinds of skills and interests that just don’t get measured using the instruments we currently have. The outcry about public education was pretty bad in the 70s when I was in school but that generation is turning out to have as much creativity and curiosity as any to come before it, whether you look at business, technology, arts, or sciences. The public schools offer as good an education as a child can get anywhere. Unfortunately, increasing lack of funding and idiotic policy constraits threaten to undo them.

Third point, there IS a basic set of skills that everyone needs to be able to sustain themselves in modern society. Having a public institution dedicated to educating children means that we’re all responsible for providing this foundation for the future generation. Commercializing or disintegrating this system removes our collective commitment to education, with the result that more and more kids are left behind.

Furt’s statement about the European visitors in the 1800s (“one of the most frequent observations of European visitors to 1800s America was the fact that they were amazed to see so many ordinary tradesmen and farmers reading and discussing “highbrow” things: science, literature, political theory, etc.”) is right to the point – only he got it backwards. The decline of public schooling is the result of the America’s small-mindedness, not the cause. If you want to return to an enlightened society, support public schools.

131

Sorry, I just don’t agree. More accurately, I think I’m interested in different kinds of diversity. I’m less interested in how many races are represented in the student body (though all things being equal, the more the better), and more interested in diversity of thought. Different strokes.

I should be clear here – I am not opposed to teaching, nor to classrooms, nor even to schools. All can be and are effective; and I had some wonderful public school teachers myself. What I am opposed to is government-mandated, government-run, bureaucratic school systems.

Sorry, I’m just not persuaded by this sort of thinking. People who aspire to freer, more independant lives can adjust themselves to reality when they need to. I don’t see where we need to beat it out of them at every opportunity.

More fundamentally, I’d argue that the regimented chain-of-command, office-cubicle, corporate aspects of our culture are in part a result of what schools condition people to expect. As I mentioned to Lissa, the modern school system was envisioned and created on an industrial-age model, as part of an industrial-age conception of society.

The world is thus? No, thus have we made the world.

I have enormous faith in kids. I have far, far FAR more faith in them than does the educational system.

Yep, they should be. They aren’t. Teenagers don’t seem to find spending six hours a day in a chair fun and exciting.

132

Nope. Which is why up until 18 the parents are involved.

To clarify: neither do I. School is part of the mix.

Yes, they do. But barriers serve as tests: do you really want to be here? Are you motivated to make it worth your while?

To be clear here: I think it’s a good thing for the state to encourage education. I’m all in favor of a (smaller) system of government-supported schools that are there for people who want to take advantage of them, and which compete with private schools on a more level playing field, much the way we have state universities (I think it’s interesting to note that American higher education is arguably the best in the world). What I object to is the unthinking way that 98% of our five-year-olds are handed over to “the professionals” to do with as they will. The first step to getting parents involved in kids’ education is giving parents real power over it – and there is no power more fundamental than having a real choice in who his teachers are.

And if you want to claim that most kids would benefit from a year or two of formal schooling, I won’t argue. But 15,000 hours over the ages 5-18 is more than a few lessons; it’s operant conditioning.

133

I just had to bump this thread after coming across this link (in this current Pit thread).

I’m sure most homeschooling parents, even those who do it for religious reasons, have no such revolutionary agenda in mind; but it sure makes you stop and think.

134

I must have missed this thread first time around. Too bad.

It would help if those who are discussing things like this do some research into the evolution of the public school in America. Socialized education arose out of the same trends in the early mid-1800’s that gave rise to Jacksonian Democracy. There was a sense that the common man should not be shut out of the world of the landed aristocracy and merchant class. Of course, at the time, society was relatively homogenous, at least over the area covered by any given school board. As a result, there was little disagreement about content and values taught.

The modern public school in many places is much less homogenous. People with vastly different mores and cultures send their children to the same school. Schools increasingly must negotiate a path among conflicting value judgments, attempting to please as many as possible to some extent, while avoiding actions that violate constitutional rights of students. They do quite an admirable job of this.

Homeschooled children generally fare much poorer in terms of actual education than their public school taught peers. Of the three main reasons for home-schooling, the reason that seems to correspond best with a good outcome is a desire to provide a more challenging curriculum. Those who home school because of specific religious reasons or fears about the “moral environment” at public schools, and those who home school in order to avoid action against their child by the public school system (e.g.: expulsion), do not fare as well in academic achievement on the average.

Home schooling takes a tremendous investment of personal time. It isn’t a bad idea, under the right circumstances. Children in the South of the US were often home schooled (with or without tutors) until the common school movement and compulsory education took hold. But it is not for everyone, and it would be a shame if the public school system “imploded.” I am sure the Europeans and the Asians would shake their head in disbelief. :eek:

135

I believe that any parent has the right to choose how to educate their children. One hopes that standards would be set up, for the protection of the kids. However, this might not be possible, since the private schools & homeschoolers can’t be threatened with loss of public funding.

None of the flat-earther fundie homeschoolers are posting here. But I’ve noticed a few who hate public schooling because their tender selves were crushed by the system. Can those poor crushed darlings really teach? Or will they only pass on their bitterness? Perhaps they should deal with their own problems first.

The educated SAHM’s who homeschool because hubby has a big income & they’d rather not get a job are a bit smug, but mostly harmless.

136

Mostly harmless, yes. Completely harmless, not so much.

My husband’s good friend and his wife home school their grammer school aged children. She discussed how wonderful the program is that they use this past weekend with my husband and I. The children pick what they want to learn. One of her children hates math, he is 10, and knows nothing but basic counting and addition but this is “okay” because he “excels” at other things. The kids choose each day what they want to do. Apparently “nothing” is not an option, however, basket weaving or painting is.

I kept my big mouth shut but I would imagine the shock came across in my expression because she walked away rolling her eyes at how behind the times I am.

137

That’s interesting, but it’s not like it’s very easy or practical to go around ‘converting’ people to the idea. Homeschooling is, and will remain, a minority movement for sheerly practical reasons; not that many people are in a position to do it (though many do despite difficult obstacles of work and income). Most homeschoolers are not going to tell everyone that they should homeschool, because not everyone should; it’s simply one of a range of educational options that works for some. The most that homeschoolers generally hope for is the opening of more educational options for everyone (which is indeed happening, as public schools scramble to retain kids through Independent Study programs and such).

I do have two friends who have recently started homeschooling, and I probably played a part in that simply by being an example of an obviously ordinary person who is doing it and still has a normal child. But I was by no means the primary motivator of their decisions; in both cases it was the pressure of school and personal circumstances.

Most of the time, I find myself saying things like, “You don’t have to be Supermom to do this, you don’t have to be a teacher, and you don’t have to have endless patience”–simply to let them know that I am not Supermom (clearly, I am much more on the danger side). I wouldn’t tell anyone that they should homeschool, and I’ve been known to tell some people that they probably shouldn’t.

138

It’s interesting that people talk about how some homeschoolers don’t do well academically. That’s certainly true. There are definitely home school kids that get a horrible education. However, there are also plenty of public school kids that get a horrible education. Those advocating government interference by imposing standards on home schoolers must think that such standards work in public schools. Sure, our schools have standards, but many children fail such standards.

If you indict homeschooling for producing uneducated kids, then you must also indict public education for doing the same.

139

Most studies (a number of which were cited earlier in this thread) show that homeschooled children have higher test scores on average than their public school counterparts. Certainly some do poorly, but that is going to be true of any large group.

140

Tell that to DSYoungEsq, who said this: “Homeschooled children generally fare much poorer in terms of actual education than their public school taught peers.”

My point is that people here are bringing up anecdotes about fundies who homeschool their kids and deprive them of education. And I’m sure some do. However, this ignores the fact that no education system is perfect. Public schools fail to educate many kids, too. So if they are going to be so dismissive of home schooling because a few kids they know don’t do well, then they should be as equally dismissive of public schools.