velvetpage (
velvetpage) wrote2006-08-16 02:57 pm
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PoAC: Home schooling
An interesting article at CBC got me thinking, again, about home schooling.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_ekoko/20060816.html
Here are my thoughts: when done well, homeschooling can be a valuable experience, however it has certain glaring drawbacks. The first is social. Most adults have a certain common ground in public, or at least institutionalized, education. There's a whole cultural vacabulary surrounding things like pop quizzes, lockers, schoolyard bullies, and report cards that a homeschooled kid is not going to understand in quite the same way. Then there's the type of socialization-by-age-group that occurs at school, which is missing from homeschooling. I'm not certain if that lack would be classified as a drawback or an advantage; I suppose it would depend on the child. But there is a certain value to learning to work with one's peers, that is harder to develop when homeschooling.
The second is exposure to a variety of viewpoints. For many people, the main reason for homeschooling is to give their children a religious education, thereby excluding certain values that don't fit with the religion. The Southern Baptist Convention is one of the largest associations worldwide to promote homeschooling. Their viewpoint is that the public school system promotes a "secular humanist" ideal that goes against Christian teachings. Aside from suppression of exposure to other faiths, there's the lack of breadth in the life experience of parents-as-teachers. How is a child of non-musical parents going to discover a gift for music, if not at school? How could I, who can't draw a stick person, teach my child art? As a teacher at school, I can either trade off the subjects for which I have no passion, or I can hope that the teacher they get the following year will have complementary skills to mine. Homeschooling associations need to be big and broad to emulate that. How many of them manage to teach languages other than English at all?
Thoughts, anybody?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_ekoko/20060816.html
Here are my thoughts: when done well, homeschooling can be a valuable experience, however it has certain glaring drawbacks. The first is social. Most adults have a certain common ground in public, or at least institutionalized, education. There's a whole cultural vacabulary surrounding things like pop quizzes, lockers, schoolyard bullies, and report cards that a homeschooled kid is not going to understand in quite the same way. Then there's the type of socialization-by-age-group that occurs at school, which is missing from homeschooling. I'm not certain if that lack would be classified as a drawback or an advantage; I suppose it would depend on the child. But there is a certain value to learning to work with one's peers, that is harder to develop when homeschooling.
The second is exposure to a variety of viewpoints. For many people, the main reason for homeschooling is to give their children a religious education, thereby excluding certain values that don't fit with the religion. The Southern Baptist Convention is one of the largest associations worldwide to promote homeschooling. Their viewpoint is that the public school system promotes a "secular humanist" ideal that goes against Christian teachings. Aside from suppression of exposure to other faiths, there's the lack of breadth in the life experience of parents-as-teachers. How is a child of non-musical parents going to discover a gift for music, if not at school? How could I, who can't draw a stick person, teach my child art? As a teacher at school, I can either trade off the subjects for which I have no passion, or I can hope that the teacher they get the following year will have complementary skills to mine. Homeschooling associations need to be big and broad to emulate that. How many of them manage to teach languages other than English at all?
Thoughts, anybody?
no subject
Now, that really has nothing to do with it I guess, but I did note a few things. The mother who had 3 kids all home schooled were very well behaved, and seemed intelligent enough. But they were defiantly lacking the kid aspect. These kids could have survived being born in the 1800's. At 4 years old they were well behaved little working machines. They cleaned everything, did exactly as they were told, and generally very sheltered. Now there were more families in the church, and they all shared material but never socialized their kids outside of church time. They were all like this, behaved like this, it was cult like and very scary. The second you had a child they swarmed on you about home schooling and why you should.
The second woman, well her kids turned out horrible. She was unable to effectively deal with the problems her children were (very accurately and truthfully) diagnosed with. They got worse and worse, and she flower coated what her kids could do, compensated in their stronger areas and let their week areas get weaker and weaker. She was a minority in the group, but there were other parents just like this.
I also recently saw one of those swap children shows on the BBC kids channel. A little girl who was home schooled traded lives with a little girl from a city who went to school. The home school child struggled to keep up with the basics at school because of the shortcoming of what the person teaching her at home was able to do, but she excelled at other areas, this is true in most people who are home schooled. My one friend was kept home for elementary but sent to high school, and he said the same thing that he found some areas he was much weaker at when EVERYONE was able to at least do it, but other areas he excelled at without trying, he was also painfully shy and didn’t really know how to interact and found himself trailing a lot in our group of friends. If it was not for the fact that he was painfully good looking he would have had a terrible time in school I think.
All in all I decided that for a general well rounded knowledge and social interactions I was going to send my kids to school. Now I was ousted from my church because of it, but good riddance to bad rubbish. I would rather my children can keep up academically with everyone else, and maybe have to work a little harder to find what they can flourish in than cater to it right from the get go and let other things slip a little. In the end every kid who wants to go to university or college will have to go to school since that is one thing that can not be home schooled. I will gladly give up the well behaved robot children for the children I now have.
no subject
But don't you think that most of that can be taught before they become of age to go to school? I also think it is an evergoing process of the parents responsiblity to teach their children this even while going to school. Teaching never stops, I taught my son english while he attended a french speaking school, I also teach him on a fairly ongoing basis that it is wrong to bully, that it is ok to ask questions, to not be pushed around, to let others be themselves, along with the standard don't drink, smoke, do drugs or have sex.
This might seem a little extream since my son is only turning 9, but I strongly feel that since I made the decision to become a mother it is my responsibility as well.