School-Homed Children

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teflor the ranger
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School-Homed Children

Postby teflor the ranger » Fri Apr 02, 2010 1:44 pm

http://www.theonion.com/articles/increa ... ldr,17159/

"Simply put, it's not the job of parents to raise these kids," Dufrense added.
kiryan
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby kiryan » Fri Apr 02, 2010 5:41 pm

Hmm Onion must be off their game. I mean that wasn't even satire was it? Just an accurate reflection of how parents let the schools raise their kids and the government feels that its their job too?

sad but true.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Ragorn » Fri Apr 02, 2010 7:22 pm

I've seen homeschooling kids and met homeschooler parents... and they're fucking crazy. Parents who opt their kids out of every high school science course because "science is from the devil" and shit. Parents who won't let their kids read Shakespeare because of the sex. Seriously crazy, right-wing lunatic parents who call Modern History a "secular course.". Those poor kids are going to be incapable of functioning as adults, and they're going to keep breeding generations of retards who think that photosynthesis is "Satan's Work."

We should make public/private school mandatory and jail parents who refuse to allow their children to be educated PROPERLY.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby kiryan » Fri Apr 02, 2010 9:09 pm

I'm not surprised of your position on the matter.

I home school one of my children and the other 2 are in public school based on what is best for them taking special account of how they learn.

They all get a healthy dose of my lunatic rantings.

Most homeschoolers are quite a bit right of center, I challenge you on your statement that they are "incapable" of functioning in society as adults. Academically they tend to excel as a group. Their belief system may result in issues and many of you'd probably say they hold stupid ideas to be true, but they typically understand and accept their value system and the world's opposition to it. Fair enough characteriziation?

On the other hand, shall we take a look at how the public school systems prepares kids to function in society? Low test scores? Low graduation rates? Deviant behavior and gangs? Inability to calculate or comprehend compound interest and legal documents?

Maybe they get short changed on darwinism and carbon dating, but show me where darwinism is important to you as an adult? They may stridently argue with you over the age of the earth, but practically speaking how does that affect them going to work as a software programmer? or as a bank teller? or as a doctor? The "education" you expect everyone to have and more than that, to believe in your version of the truth, has very little to do with functioning in society. Half the people who work with you probably beleive in some sort of God that the other half are sure doesn't exist... how exactly is this an issue of functioning in society?
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Callarduran » Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:20 am

I tend to lean towards public education, as I believe it gives a more rounded education as a whole to children than homeschooling can provide.

I have known some homeschooled children that are absolutely AMAZING, with parents that are absolutely great at teaching them. It actually makes me a bit sad that they're only teaching their own children. When I worked at the public library (darn that tax supported public education) I met one family that taught their kids at home. Their 5 year old was reading at a 3rd grade level. Their other two children were likewise approximately 3-4 grades higher in their education than their age might have indicated. These kids were _greatly_ helped by being taught at home by great parents.

On the other hand, I have a couple of cousins that are being homeschooled by my aunt and uncle - The boy is allowed to go to college now, while the daughters are being taught that they are good to be wives, and nothing else. There is sheltering your child, and then there is cutting off the entire world from your child, and they are doing the latter to those two girls.
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teflor the ranger
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby teflor the ranger » Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:45 pm

Yes, to provide a specific counter to Ragorn's highly localized and anecdotal statement (aka, bullshit):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... -of-grads/
The results of those tests demonstrated that on average, home-schooled children regularly outperformed their peers.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Ragorn » Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:36 pm

The most common feedback we get on our distance learning curriculum, by far, is "you need to remove [something] from the course because I'm not teaching my kids that." That [something] can be anything from cell mitosis, to Elie Wiesel's Night, to American internment camps during WWII, to the fact that the founding fathers owned slaves. We actually have someone on staff called an "outrage reader" whose job it is to try to predict which parts of the curriculum the right-wing crazies will complain about.

We have state-mandated learning objectives for a reason.

Homeschooled kids who excel are the exception, not the rule.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby avak » Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:34 pm

teflor the ranger wrote:Yes, to provide a specific counter to Ragorn's highly localized and anecdotal statement (aka, bullshit):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... -of-grads/
The results of those tests demonstrated that on average, home-schooled children regularly outperformed their peers.


You linked to an opinion piece by the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Even if you assume the study is accurate, how do you account for other variables? Other enormously significant variables such as the average family income of home-schooled children...

Beyond that, test scores are not the singular measure of success in education. Everybody knows that home-schooled kids are fn weird.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Adriorn Darkcloak » Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:45 pm

When taking some courses in the Education department at the university, some of them talked about home-schooling and studies relating to home-schooling. Most of the studies came to the conclusion that home-schooled children who entered high school had a difficult time adjusting, and many of them eventually had to leave and return to the home-school environment, or smaller schools. However, there was no difference in adjustment or success among home-schooled children who entered college after being home-schooled.

I've known several (think like 9 or 10) of them as a teacher, and with two exceptions (#1 sweet kid, but just couldn't handle it, #2 odd damn kid, but could handle it), they've had no trouble adjusting to school or a rigorous curriculum. My personal experience, limited as it might be...
teflor the ranger
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby teflor the ranger » Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:31 am

avak wrote:Beyond that, test scores are not the singular measure of success in education. Everybody knows that home-schooled kids are fn weird.

And somehow, obese, WoW playing kids that can't pay attention to something not on the internet for more than 20 minutes is somehow better?

I'm not exactly sure of what argument you're trying to make, but if you're just discriminating against home schooled kids, I would understand.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Sarvis » Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:50 am

The funny thing with homeschooling? Well, the students are going to come out like the parents. Many highly intelligent parents homeschool their children because they are more than capable of doing it themselves, and their children are also more likely to be highly intelligent so they are good students. However, if you have Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel homeschooling his kids you're NOT going to get very good results from home schooling.

But I think the real problem is that a home schooled kid is really likely to only learn what his parents are good at. Think about your parents for a minute, and ask yourself how effective they'd be at teaching you computer skills. Or, more importantly, ask yourself if you'd want to have the same jobs they have... because that's the skill set you'd acquire best under home schooling.

School isn't about learning from the parents, it's about learning from the entire body of knowledge humanity has collected. The really, truly important part here is the exposure to new ideas so that a person can grow and develop and find what they are good at, what they enjoy and how they can best fit into society.

Home schooling is doomed to failure on that front. The closest equivalent are groups of parents who "home school" their kids taking turns on their respective areas of expertise. Frankly, though, the moment you're sitting in a room with 10 other kids learning from a person who isn't your mom... well, how is that not school?
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Corth » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:12 am

Everything I'm very good at I taught myself. Perhaps there is something to be said for an education, be it a traditional school or otherwise, that encourages and teaches children to explore their interests and figure things out on their own. For instance (and using Sarvis' example) neither my parents nor my public school taught me what I know about computers (admittedly a lot less than some of you folks), but they did provide at a very early age the core values, knowledge, resources, encouragement etc., to put me in a position where I might learn on my own.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Sarvis » Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:38 pm

Corth wrote:Everything I'm very good at I taught myself. Perhaps there is something to be said for an education, be it a traditional school or otherwise, that encourages and teaches children to explore their interests and figure things out on their own. For instance (and using Sarvis' example) neither my parents nor my public school taught me what I know about computers (admittedly a lot less than some of you folks), but they did provide at a very early age the core values, knowledge, resources, encouragement etc., to put me in a position where I might learn on my own.



So are you saying you're not good at lawyering? Because I swear you had to go to school for a long, long time to become one... :P

I will say that whether you actually learn a subject well or not wasn't really my point. I was introduced to computers in school, yet we really had no classes that used or involved computers. Basically my biology teacher in junior high used one in the classroom, and it looked interesting. He also happened to run a computer club, and encouraged me to join. This is where I started learning about computers, even though from that point I did a lot on my own until college.

The point is that this wouldn't have happened if my mom were my teacher.

I would also mention that self-taught programmers are frequently difficult to deal with. They can be brilliant at solving problems and getting the job done, but they are often very poor at working in teams or writing software in a way that makes it maintainable. They have a tendency to do things like make all variable names a single letter, and not comment anything at all which is annoying as hell for the guy who has to work with your code afterwards.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Corth » Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:23 pm

No, I'm saying I learned how to be a lawyer on my own. This example actually illustrates my point very well. I could go to law school for a hundred years and learn only a fraction of the substantive law that exists out there. We had a library full of federal code, federal regulations, state statutes, state regs, and 1000's of books containing hundreds of years full of reported cases. For that reason, the main point of law school is not to give you a comprehenisive knowledge of the substantive law, but rather to give you a 'legal mind' so that you are capable of figuring things out on your own. It frustrates my friends and family to no end when they ask me if such and such is legal or not, and I tell them I have no idea. Of course, if I wanted I could find out - and among other things, that skill is what I charge the big bucks for.

Another point - law school is a scholarly pursuit. However generally you are not being taught the actual mechanics of the law. Upon graduation I was no more prepared, for instance, to try a case, then you are right now. Filing motions, discovery practice, depositions etc.. I had the law part down but not the practical parts. This is something that you can only learn on your own, through observation of other lawyers and trial and error.

Something else I learned how to do on my own? Play bass and harmonica. Sure I had some lessons with the bass at first but really when it comes down to it, you either have it in you or you don't. Harmonica - I bought a book and it gave me some ideas but the rest was just a tremendous amount of practice. Kind of irrelevent, but FYI I am an awesome harmonica player, much better than bass.

Finally.. your own example kind of illustrates my point. You were given access to the resources (computers in school), and encouraged to take an interest in it, but afterwards you progressed on your own. You don't go into it in too much detail, but I would suspect that during your formal computer education you would get some basics from whatever class you were taking, but when you really learned a subject was when you actually had to set something up or fix something, either for yourself or an employer. And you sat down for a few hours and figured it out.

Fact of the matter is that in almost all cases an educator can give you the basics, but if you want to master something it will take your own efforts, ingenuity, time, and interest.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Sarvis » Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:30 pm

Corth wrote:rather to give you a 'legal mind' so that you are capable of figuring things out on your own.



Yes, and that goes against my point how exactly? Any college professor will tell you that the facts you learn are largely irrelevant, you are learning how to learn in college.

Again, school's job is to expose you to new things and new ideas so you can find what you like and are good at, along with giving you the skills pursue those interests and function in society.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby Corth » Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:41 pm

I think we are basically on the same page then.
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby avak » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:39 pm

Corth...you sound just like the libertarian professor I watched give a lecture on the us education system last week. He said that schools (especially higher ed) are essentially just elaborate credentialing systems and teach no real skills. Now, I happen to agree with the thrust of that, but certainly not the degree. He made the case that K-12 should be bolstered so that a high school degree is sufficient to do most jobs in the work force. I happen to agree with that too.

I went to an expensive liberal arts college and got a degree in biology. Now I am a business owner in a virtually unrelated field. Most of the technical skills that I have I learned outside of college. However, I learned an enormous amount of peripheral skills in high school and college. I am very happy that I got a liberal arts education...the exposure to a broad range of topics has really benefited me tremendously. I was also exposed to a broad diversity of people. You can always go back and make the case that I would have found these experiences without the 150k in tuition, but I am not convinced. I tell people that college taught me how to learn.

Teflor, you're not sure what argument I am trying to make!?! What argument are you trying to make? The merits of home schooling cannot be summed up by cherry-picked test scores cited by the president of an advocacy group.

err...sorry to double up on your point on 'learning to learn' Sarvis...
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby kiryan » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:07 pm

I agree homeschooler are the exception not the rule, I agree that homeschoolers tend to be fn wierd... people that homeschool tend to do so because they don't want their kids to be "normal". Whether thats science and political views they don't agree with or social ones dealing with sex and a woman's role in society or the culture of drugs/gangs/underachievement that exists at so many of our urban schools. They don't want the traditional expected result for their children. When the public education system is failing your child, why would you send them there to waste their time and be exposed to bad behavior before they are capable of dealing with it.

I disagree that college is to learn how to learn. college in my experience was proving that you had responsibility, time management, independent motivation and a smattering of liberal courses to push you towards "diversity" and having an open mind. College is sink or swim in terms of responsibility and time management. Mama's not going to register you for classes or make sure you study instead of going to that party.

I agree that homeschoolers tend to learn what their parents are good at (or interested in). I tend to teach my kids more math and reading than writing (because I hate composition). My wife's mom homeschools her kid #5-9. They overwhelmingly tend to excel at reading and writing (things she enjoys) and suck at math. They are also fat because of the food she cooks and the fact they have desert every night of the week. First one is off to college, a bible college, defying her mother's wishes and so far has a 4.0, filled out the financial aid stuff, held a part time job until she was relayed some bad information about the "schedule", came up $200 short after financial aid (which I spotted her). She is in most ways the average poor sometimes irresponsible college student. Her mother taught her that women didn't need to go to school, or have a job, but there she is in college albeit a bible college.

Matter of fact, all her daughters have so far choosen to go to college against the wishes of their mother. The first 4, from the first marraige, were public schooled, the two oldest, girls, ended up pregnant at 18/19 under poor circumstances and both finished their Bachelors in worthless areas. The 2 boys, quite sharp and intelligent, didn't even make it 1 year at college one of which had a 4 year full ride. The 4 of them are well above average in ability in my opinion and were not even close to being overchurched (she took a hard right turn after the first 4 left the house).

Your faith in religious mind control of home schooled children is probably tin hat worthy. Your upbringing is obviously a powerful influence in setting your values and beliefs, but kids have a tendency to do whatever they want.

** disclosure, Leif, my homeschooler, does have 2 periods of band at the public middle school. He started off with flute and moved into 2nd year band at the semester so he decided he wanted to play oboe too. He might need to stop digging the fagalo hole (zohan reference)
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Re: School-Homed Children

Postby teflor the ranger » Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:38 pm

avak wrote:Teflor, you're not sure what argument I am trying to make!?! What argument are you trying to make? The merits of home schooling cannot be summed up by cherry-picked test scores cited by the president of an advocacy group.

Since you seem to have missed it, I will repost part of my post:

to provide a specific counter to Ragorn's highly localized and anecdotal statement (aka, bullshit)

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