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Replies to '11/24 Great School Debate'
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November 20, 2006, 10:00 am PST
 Quote From: princess1 I read your entire post and see that all you did was spout the negative attitude that most "professional educatiors" have about home schooling. Again I can not speak for every homeschooling family, but in every case that I know of you are incorrect in your assumption that parents resent being told the truth. Our kids are not all undisciplined and unmotivated. The school system has failed some of our kids. The more I tried to work with my son's teachers the less the school wanted to work with our family. When he could not do simple basic math he was told he was not smart enough to learn it, and was just passed along. When he was labeled with displacia (a form of dyslexia where they write backwards instead of reading backwards) he was told he would never learn to write; and that was ok as long as he learned to use a keyboard. As a parent it was unacceptable to me for them to give up so easily. If my son truly was unteachable I would have not had a problem. My husband and I taught him how to write,do math and science, social studies, etc where the school did nothing. He scored higher on the college placment tests than the average public school student from our area. At age 16 he graduated from his home school high school course and was accepted into college. Parents income and education level have little to do with children's success. I was a single mom until 3 years ago and I managed to work full time and educate my child. Of course I can not speak for every home school family in the world, I just know of the thousands of families in our homeschool co-op. If the parents are not doing their jobs as parents, they will probably not be interested in making the commitment to homeschool. You are going to have to excuse the fact that this board is getting busy, and I don't remember exactly what I have posted to whom, but I am quite certain that I have been clear on the fact that I AM NOT AGAINST HOMESCHOOLING. I don't know how many ways I can say this. What I am against is simply believing that ANY parent can or will effectively teach their children.
I agree the school system is not able to meet the needs of every child. The school system is over-burdened and riddled with bureaucracy, among other problems. It can be especially difficult to help kids with rare disabilities or those who are very gifted. I don't know your specific circumstances, but I am sorry if you feel you were treated poorly by school officials.
Please try to look at a different perspective. I don't think ALL parents who resort to homeschooling have lazy, unmotivated children. In my experiences, which have been very different from yours, I have seen too many parents who DO fall into this category. You must know that there are simply some pretty bad parents out there. I have seen some pretty bad stuff, and then I see THOSE parents think they can homeschool because the "statistics" tell them homeschool is the way. The statistics alone fail to tell these parents all the other things they need to consider.
Parents income and education level have little to do with children's success. I was a single mom until 3 years ago and I managed to work full time and educate my child.
That simply isn't true. It isn't a cause and effect, but it is a strong correlation, meaning not EVERY child from a wealthy family will succeed or every poor child will fail. There are always exceptions, and anybody who is truly committed can beat the odds, but the data on this is pretty conclusive.
If the parents are not doing their jobs as parents, they will probably not be interested in making the commitment to homeschool. This is what I am trying to make you see. There ARE parents who are doing a poor job parenting who think they should homeschool. Very few parents THINK they are bad parents! If we are going to responsible in discussing homeschooling, we need to very clear on what the demands are and how much commitment it requires. |
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