Homeschooling

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For those living in an alternative reality, Conservapedia has an "article" about Homeschooling
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Homeschooling is just what it sounds like - children are schooled at home, usually by their parents. Sometimes parents from two or more families will share the duties of schooling their children. This is done to access the strengths of each parent as teacher -- one may be a mathematics whiz, another may be an English major, and so on. For instance, failed lawyer Andrew Schlafly teaches economics and history to homeschool students. Together with 58 of these students he created a clean, concise compendium of trusworthy knowledge called Conservapedia.

Contents

[edit] Collective homeschooling and the fight against government regulation and oversight

If you are wondering how one man could accumulate 58 "homeschooled" students, the answer goes by the term collective homeschooling. That is, students gather at the home of a parent/teacher for class. Usually, such people are defined as private tutors - a job title that requires a teacher's certificate in most states. Homeschool advocates constantly fight against all such government efforts to regulate homeschooling, including:

  • Accreditation of all homeschool programs.
  • Certification of parent/teachers, including those who teach other people's children.
  • Oversight of curricula and teaching materials.
  • Requirements that any home or other building used for collective homeschooling carry extra insurance to reflect its use as a school facility.

[edit] The "teachers"

You don't want to know what he is schooling them in.
You don't want to know what he is schooling them in.

The one model for homeschooling requires one parent (guess which one) to stay home with the kids and teach them from books specifically designed for homeschooling.

Homeschooling parent/teachers are not held to the same standards as public school teachers. While many have college degrees, those degrees may lack any relevance to a child's school curriculum. (Business administration, Theology, Basket-weaving, for example.) But, (this, in the USA does vary from state-to-state,) as long as their children/students pass standardized tests, few people raise questions about this disparity.

Conversely, some people like to teach dozens of kids simultaneously over the Internet and call it "homeschooling" (This would be more properly known as cyberschooling). This has the added advantage of not allowing the child to be touched by the teacher and excludes the possibility that a teacher notices bruises.

[edit] The homeschool industry

The homeschooling industry has such a lock on the information about homeschooling that it is difficult to find anything but positive feedback. (After reading some of it, you might think "propaganda" is more accurate.) If you enter the word "homeschooling" into a search engine, followed by words like "myths," "horror stories," "cons," etc., you will be greeted by hundreds of links dispelling myths, horror stories and cons as lies. Websites with legitimate stories about the negatives of homeschooling are almost impossible to find. This lack of critical information has raised questions among those seeking information about homeschooling.[1] One example of such a question is "Perhaps homeschooling is not a bad as some think it might be?"

[edit] History

The American homeschooling movement originated in frontier homesteads. During the winter months when fields were fallow, parents occupied their children's time by teaching them to read and count. As communities grew, schools with professional teachers opened. By the end of World War II, homeschooling was limited to a few isolated homesteads in places like the Great Plains and Alaska.

The current homeschooling movement in the United States gained popularity among fundamentalist Christians in the 1970s and 1980s. Many evangelical Christian parents believe that God and Jesus call on them to isolate their children from any viewpoints (like evolution or sex education or common sense) or people (like public school teachers) that "mock" Christians and Christianity. As of 2006, evangelical Christians made up 75 percent of the homeschooled children in the United States.[2][citation needed]

[edit] Modern homeschooling

One view of today's homeschooling movement is that it grew out of exaggerated or false concerns that anti-public education activists have planted in the minds of parents. Among these are:

  • Public schools (often called "government schools") are dangerous. Seriously, you've never heard of a homeschool-shooting, have you?
  • Private schools are too expensive and/or unavailable locally.
  • All public schools - and some private schools - are really hotbeds of anti-Americanism where liberals brainwash students into being Marxist robots.
  • Girls who go to public school are more likely to get pregnant and have abortions.
  • Public school third graders are taught to put condoms on cucumbers - leading directly to the Great American Cucumber Shortage of 1993 -96.
  • Public schools turn out ignorant and illiterate dunderheads. (Unlike the kids who helped develop Conservapedia!)
  • A lot of the kids that go to public school -- well, you know, they're just (whispers) not the right type.
  • Public schools deliberately lobotomize kids by teaching them to read using the whole language method instead of phonics
  • Miscellaneous scare stories based on isolated incidents, such as public school children being given medical examinations, Ritalin, or fluoride treatments without their parents' knowledge, quack pop-psychology and social engineering methods (like these) brought into the classroom, mock-terrorism drills during which a SWAT team came into the school to scare the kids, etc.
  • Public schools require that children be vaccinated, and vaccines are bad, mkay.[3]

Sometimes reasons for homeschooling can be even more irrational. In his opening lecture on American history, Andrew Schlafly touches on the subject briefly.

“ Ask yourself: why would Europeans want to go there [America]? . . . Search for gold. Convert the natives to Christianity. Conquer the natives. Obtain freedom. Why do your parents homeschool? For some of the same reasons.[4] ”

[edit] Other reasons for homeschooling

The reasons espoused by conservatives like Schlafly aren't the only motivations for home education. Some parents may pursue careers in which they are rarely settled in one location, such as a military career or touring musicians, and find homeschooling their children to be more practical than enrolling them permanently in a school.

In other cases the reasons are determined by the interests or abilities of the child. For example, parents who believe their child to be especially gifted, or wish them to be, may feel that the child could not reach their full potential in a public (or even private) school, and instead educate them, often intensively, at home. Some are "child prodigies" with a particular skill, such as musicianship or athletics. These inevitably take a lot of practise time, and cannot easily fit around a school schedule. Sometimes these children, or their parents, have little interest in pursuing other educational studies. Similarly, a child may be more interested in learning a craft than in pursuing an academic education. However, if the majority of homeschooling time is given over to a particular subject, the child may miss out on a balanced general education, which could disadvantage them later in life.

In a few cases, a student's reasons for being homeschooled may relate to negative or traumatic experiences in a school environment, such as bullying or even assault, leaving them feeling that they are unable to return to school.

[edit] Homeskool kid makes good!

Homeschooled kids often win contests such as spelling bees and math contests. However, it's unclear how typical these few prize winners are among the total population of homeschooled students. For instance, because many of today's homeschooling materials are bible-centric, it's a sure bet that most homeschool science education lacks any real value. The Biology Blue Ribbon at the science fair isn't likely to go to a homeschooled child.

It is also quite possible that these shining examples of success come from other groups besides fundamentalist Christians who homeschool: those hippy types who don't want their children indoctrinated by "the establishment" to become capitalist tools, or parents who feel that they can provide better facilities for their gifted or otherwise special-needs children. For example, disorders on the autism spectrum are sometimes associated with increased ability with mathematics or memory, the skills tested in math and spelling competitions. Since children with autism often have difficulty with social situations, their parents may homeschool them in order to give them a good education without forcing them into the often difficult social environment of a public school, while their natural abilities lead them to win these competitions.

Because of the recent rapid growth of bible-centric homeschooling, we are decades away from accurate studies on the effects of it on students, or how it will affect society. Today the effect of homeschooling on these students' college graduation rates, post-graduate studies, careers, socialization with others that don't share the same world views, and so on, is anybody's guess. Thankfully, the Rapture is due to occur before this truly becomes an issue.

[edit] Examining an example of a homeschooled celebrity

Conservapedia:

“ Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951), designer of the German Porsche automobile. He was homeschooled and self-taught during his formative years, which is ironic given that homeschooling is illegal in Germany today.<ref>http://famousbrandnames.blogspot.com/2007/02/porsche.html</ref> ”

Source quoted above

“ This legend of automotive design was self-taught in his hometown of Maffersdorf, Bohemia, a region of Austria-Hungary when Porsche was born in 1875. As a teenager Porsche chose not to follow his father into the tinsmithing trade and instead pursued a fascination with electric motors. The Porsches became the first family in Maffersdorf to be wired for electric lights when Ferdinand rigged a generator into the house. ”

Wikipedia:

“ Ferdinand Porsche was born to German-speaking parents in Maffersdorf near Reichenberg in northern Bohemia, then belonging to Austria-Hungary (today Czech Republic).

He showed high aptitude for mechanical work at a very young age. He managed to attend classes at the Imperial Technical School in Reichenberg (Liberec) at night while helping his father in his mechanical shop by day. Thanks to a referral, Porsche landed a job with the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna when he turned 18. In Vienna he would sneak into the local university after working whenever he could. Beyond auditing classes there, Porsche had never received any higher engineering education. During his five years with Béla Egger, Porsche first developed the electric hub motor.

”

Official Porsche site:

“ On September 3, Ferdinand Porsche is born in the Bohemian town of Maffersdorf. In 1889, after attending grammar school there and the Staatsgewerbeschule (State Vocational School) in Reichenberg, he enters his father’s business as an apprentice plumber. ”

Not only wasn't he "homeschooled" - he wasn't even German!

(emphasis in above quotes added by RationalWiki)


[edit] See also

[edit] External links

This is what they claim. To many in the homeschooling industry, they are considered to be "ambulance chasers", interested in their own status and well-being more than that of the homeschool community in general.
  • Creationism/ID textbooks declared not adequate preparation for college.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ Do any good websites describe the cons of homeschooling? WikiAnswers: The Q&A Community [1]
  2. ↑ Movie: Jesus Camp
  3. ↑ Vaccination is not compulsory in Britain.
  4. ↑ Conservapedia: American History Lecture One. Emphasis added by RationalWiki.
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