Talk:Homeschooling/Archive2

Clonlara school link
It's sort of interesting, but it's more of an advert than informative in any way. Is there a better place on their site to link to? A bunch of platitudes and a kid banging together some wood don't say much.  ħ uman  01:04, 28 October 2008 (EDT)
 * That link came and went. It was more there just to show you (and anyone else peeking in) where I was coming from.  Carptrash 11:44, 28 October 2008 (EDT)
 * Oh, can you copy it here then? So it doesn't get lost in the mists of time and old edits?  Also, perhaps you could bang out a quick paragraph about your experience(s) with them?  If you feel like it, of course.  ħ uman  15:48, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

I don't really think that the Clonlara link is needed, it was more for discussion and clarification purposes. Also the section that we have been discussing above was my experiences in homeschooling. I know well enough, both from here and wikipedia that my experiences just become opinion or original research or and that sort of thing. There is a Party Line here that says homeschooling is some horrible thing that nasty Christians do to their kids and that's not my view. The worst time I've had with my father, a hard core atheist, was a night that we killed a bottle of scotch in a motel in Arkansas and we fought about homeschooling. My mostly loving wife once called me a "tool of fundamentalist Christians" because I supported them in their (opinion) mistaken attempts at education. I'm not sure why I even stepped in here other then I read what was written and decided that i was irritated about the perpetuation of stereotypes that I was seeing and decided to get involved. Sort of like King Kanute deciding to order the tide to stop. Life is supposed to be interesting, (Abraham/Hicks) and it is. eek Carptrash 20:57, 28 October 2008 (EDT)
 * Well, I'm certainly not demanding that you outline the details of your personal experience. However, if you don't (at least on the talk page?) we won't know what they are.  Especially regarding that school you linked to.  I couldn't figure it out - did you like them?  Hate them and survive them?  merely deal with them in some way?  Often, the talk pages here are more interesting than the articles, I was hoping, at least, to generate something like that.  And yes, life sure is interesting, although I'm not that was original to an Abraham or a Hicks.  ħ uman  23:11, 28 October 2008 (EDT)
 * Well I did survive Clonlara - but, and I guess that I was not clear about this, I WORKED for them for 10 years. I was also homeschooled for 2 years in high school, but that's another story for another day.  Or not.  My experiences were many and varied.  A Texas Christian mother called me up one day and said that their son, who they were homeschooling said that he would shot them if they did not send him back to public school.  What should they do?  I suggested sending him back the next day and then call me after that.  Which they did.  For my last 5 years or so I worked almost exclusively (except for families and students with who I already had a relationship) with high schoolers.


 * Parents would come in and ask, "How will my son or daughter get socialized if they are not in school?" And I'd ask how happy they were with the socializing that the child was getting in public school, and most would answer "Not Very." Many homeschoolers I met were very well socialized because, in school students only hang out with kids their almost exact age, but homeschoolers typically associate with a much wider range of ages.


 * My most challenging college entry was getting a tennis player into Duke. The coach really wanted her, and she was bright, with excellent test scores, but the mother was a mess who called, wrote and emailed me everyday (literally) for two weeks and got so involved that she damn near botched the deal.  But the student got in.  But you see, they are all different.  FIngerprints.  Different.  Voice prints Different.  People. All different.  Don't let Conservapedia dictate how you react to issues.  That's my concern.  One of them.  Einar Carptrash 23:27, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

EC)
 * I don't think that you've got the 'party line' thing quite right, Fishy, As I see it it's the bigoted attitude to public schools and the inadequate tuition of A. S.  that arouse the ire. I for one believe that done well homeschooling might, probably is, as good as or better than public schooling. The problem is the "done well" part of the sentence. Also the teaching of what I regard as downright lies as truth is somewhat problematic. Toast 23:30, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Well this is all very good and fine, but remember that to conservative Christians the public school's teaching of evolution is, for example,. . . as you so eloquently put it, teaching " downright lies as truth". And, for example, in New Mexico, around here, something like 70% of public school's students can not meet their own requirements - which does not set a very high standard. It seems to me. Doing better than that is not as unusual as you seem to think. Not sure what A.S. is? Carptrash 23:55, 28 October 2008 (EDT)
 * Carpy, I was enjoying your opening up about your home schooling experiences here on the talk page. I had to take a few days off due to not being funny anymore.  I appreciate your comments here.  More, please?  ħ uman  00:51, 2 November 2008 (EDT)
 * Not being funny is frequently a good time to take a break, take inventory, take drugs, etc. Last weekend was the Dixon Studio Tour, a major event for pretty much everyone around here.  it is now gone and I too can return to normal. Carptrash 11:05, 3 November 2008 (EST)

I'd prefer an educational system that is based on actual evidence to one based on a three-thousand-year-old myth. That's how I'd determine if someone was teaching downright lies as truth. I'm not 100% happy with the way public education goes, but it does have the virtue that it HAS to be kept honest because everyone can see it, and if it gets too bad, heads will roll. Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)Approach the Presence 05:14, 29 November 2008 (EST)
 * I am not quite sure what this is referring to," based on a three-thousand-year-old myth", but if you are suggesting that all homeschooling is based on the Judeo-Christian stuff then you are the one falling for a modern myth (Homeschooling = Religion) and ignoring the actual reality.  Which is homeschoolers come from all walks of life, all socio-economic groups etc.  Would not almost any committed rationalist homeschool her/his child rather then send them to a school where 70% of the kids are below age level in math and reading ?  Carptrash 11:05, 29 November 2008 (EST)

no, no, you're the one falling for the myth, which is "Liberals want all homeschooling banned!". I'm saying I'm fine with people getting their education wherever they like, so long as it's based on the evidence. Many homeschoolers do provide their kids with a better education than they'd get in public school, and more power to them, but you can't expect everyone to do that and for some people it's a way to indoctrinate their kids in their religion. Both are aspects of homeschooling and you're allowed to deride one while supporting the other. Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)Approach the Presence 18:20, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Unschooling
Probably could do with shifting to a separate article, there is a WP entry and a primary website that can be used for referencing it too.  A rmondiko V  User_Talk:Armondikov 11:14, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Vaccination
Added the footnote that vaccination is not compulsory in Britain, although this may be the case in parts of the USA. And for the record, I'm not anti-jab, all my children received all the vaccinations offered, although I did delay MMR by 12 months because I am of the opinion that any adverse eefects it may have may be due to the overloading-the-immune-system-with-too-many-jabs-over-too-short-a-period theory. And I don't know what that's actually called, but I did discuss it at length with the family GP who agreed that it was okay to delay. Fox 14:30, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * In the US of A vaccination is sort of required - tho there probably are regional/local variations. So kids have to get then unless the folks fill out a form, get it notarized and jump through a few legal loop holes.  I do need to see what connection you've made with homeschooling here because I do have opinions on the subject. Carptrash 21:34, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * When the MeNZB vaccination came out (a particularly nasty strain of meningitis) the vaccinations were mostly done en mass in schools, and I assume homeschoolers had to go to the doctor to get theirs (as I did when I missed one of the shots), which might result in some falling through the cracks and not getting vaccinated Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)Approach the Presence 05:11, 29 November 2008 (EST)

most types homeschooling is not bad
With government schools as crap as they are it makes complete sense to home school your children if you have any time i completely disagree with christian homeschooling and some other types of homeschooling that is a form of extreme brainwashing. Alot of Parents home school because they think it best for there children and do a pretty good job at should the content be moved to Christian homeschooling since this is what most of the article is about.--Dolphin674 13:59, 30 November 2008 (EST)
 * Do you have any figures on what the percentages of various "types" of homeschoolers are?  ħ uman  17:55, 30 November 2008 (EST)
 * Agree, Dolphinnnn, we do appear to come down too hard on general home tuition. Without some regulation,however, there are bound to be a large number of "homeschoolers" who are being badly taught; it's those we are against. Also: sorry, but if you were more grammatical in your comment it might carry more weight, given the subject ;-) 18:38, 30 November 2008 (EST)
 * Re: the snark. I must say, that whether our Dolphin friend is an example of a homeschooling parent or student, their writing skills worry me, and they should get some better tutoring.  If, Dolphin, you are the product of the public schools in your area (or private ones?), you might likewise consider any other alternative since the one you are using isn't working very well.  I say this based not on just one poorly written talk page comment, but on spending half an hour trying to repair some of Dolphin's contributions.  Dear Dolphin, we appreciate your efforts and contributions, but can you spend some more time on them fixing grammar and spelling?  Firefox, at least, is a browser that can have a built-in spellchecker activated.  It would bring your writing greater respect.  ħ uman  21:13, 30 November 2008 (EST)

We homeschool. My wife and I make curriculum decisions together. We decide to mix and match curricula based upon our students' aptitudes and personalities. One child benefits from this type of math curriculum, and the other from this language arts curriculum. We teach what we want, when we want, without having to argue with a school board or a district or a textbook commission. The teacher has 5yrs experience in a low SES junior high school as a certified special education and reading teacher, she has a genius IQ and a degree in accounting. The principal has 6yrs in the US Marine Corps, worked as a junior high school teacher's aide, has law enforcement experience, started a small business, and has a general studies degree and a genius IQ. The student teacher ratio is 2:1. School days are as long as they need to be and start when everyone gets up in the morning. Uniforms vary, but can consist of casual wear or pajamas. Vacations and breaks happen whenever we want them to. Discipline problems are referred to the principal via telephone who, if he has to, will magically appear to resolve the issue using any and all means necessary. Religious and moral training is a major reason for our decision to homeschool, with both of us having public school experience. We go to great lengths to involve our children in other activities, including social activities involving other homeschool families. Our children have access to educational opportunities that simply are not available to their public school age-mates, with the added bonuses of no guns, knives, drugs, crime, abuse, truancy, homework, report cards, detentions, assaults, rapes, bullying, or other undesired conditions in the classroom. We refer to your problems with teacher strikes, teacher pay, fights over textbook content and administrator salaries and other hopeless nonsense as the "comedy club."

Just as an aside, those of us who cherish our liberties will also protect them. If you come to take my children from the home to forcibly place them in a public school, understand this: I will not tolerate tyranny. I will not take you to court. There is a line in front of my home, and a sign that says "this far and no farther." You had better come for my guns first. And before I give you my guns, I will first give you all of my ammunition.
 * Well that's just silly. How are you going to fire guns without ammunition?  ThunderkatzHo! 04:18, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Plus, what happened to there being "no guns" in your children's school environment? 04:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * At least you are both geniuses! Congratulations!  Asshat.  06:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Cut from article
"The alternative

The majority of parents choose not to homeschool, and instead rely on the state to "educate" their children. In England, this means they will, for example, be the recipients of a two year history syllabus, which focuses on Hitler, resulting in a "pass" grade at GCSE, without ever knowing who won the Second World War... Perhaps they are destined for a career in "leisure and tourism", the GCSE examination for which asks such demanding questions as "Describe what customers need to do to receive a delivery service from an Indian take-away restaurant"... Don't forget the extremely rational "science" education that the state provides, in which, for example, an examination depicted a child sitting on a horse, wearing a riding hat and asked which organs the riding hat protects. Unbelievably, the exam markers accepted "skull" as an answer, even though it's not an organ, because otherwise too many people would fail... England's state education system has finally become a factory operated purely to mass process as many units as possible regardless of the quality. England's state-schooled children are education's mushy peas."

Amusing I suppose, but this article is about homeschooling. Perhaps this belongs at school or public school or public education where it would be on-topic?  ħ uman  21:31, 20 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Well, the same approach could be taken towards most of the snark in the article, which is really just a vehicle to attack Schlafly/Conservapedia. Fox 08:37, 21 March 2009 (EDT)
 * I don't think so, really. Especially considering that plenty of text in the article defends HS in various ways.  This section simply isn't about HS, but we should keep it somewhere - and since, as I recall, you wrote it, would you like to pick which article it ends up in?   ħ uman  17:31, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Jaycee Duggard
I wonder if the case of Jaycee Duggard could be used to argue that maybe homeschooling could be used to hide rather serious crimes?&mdash; Unsigned, by: Orderbel / talk / contribs
 * I dunno. In that case the kidnapping was far more important.  In most jurisdictions, the "authorities" have some level of contact with the children who "no longer" go to school.  In this case, they didn't even know Jaycee, or her children, even existed.  23:15, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Fox's voluminous edits
Is anyone keeping an eye on the structure and tone? 02:38, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Probably Badman. Fox 02:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No offense, I'm just concerned for the end result. I suspect most of the "good" numbers that relate to HS kids have nothing to do with YEC-types.  But it's so hard to find good numbers on how many homeschoolers are from which flavor.  02:53, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is an enormous divide (culturally, not just the big watery one) between Homeschooling in the UK and Homeschooling in the USA. Religion has very little to do with reasons for HS in this country. You're right, it is hard to find clear, hard data, but what is available for the UK seems to indicate that the main reason for choosing HS is a strong belief that the state system could not fulfill their children's needs. Kendall and Atkinson stated in their study that "In a number of local authorities, the establishment of schools for certain religious denominations had led to a dramatic reduction in the numbers of children home educated for religious reasons." Badman states in his review that he found "a significant number who chose this route for ideological and philosophical reasons or simply because they believe they 'can do it better'." My - anecdotal - experience is that I have never met a family who chose HS purely for religious reasons. Even my Jehovah's Witness friends who switched to HS after talking with me and discovering that they actually had a legal right to HS, chose to do so because the standard of our local schools is so shitty, not because of their religion. It's pretty fucking annoying that we in the UK are tarred with the same brush as the fundie crazies in the USA =/ I think that it's because of people like Schlafly that the public here mistrusts domestic HSrs so much. I've said it many times, but I'll say it again. Conservapedia has done more harm to the cause of home education than possibly any other single non-governmental body, both in the USA and the UK. Fox 03:20, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Besides the creationists, we have here a significant contingent of "unschoolers," anarchists, etc., who homeschool because they believe that public schools train you to be obedient little cogs in The Machine. We have school choice here, so the problem of bad standards at the local schools is not so acute. 03:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we/I tried to cover this a bit more in the homeschooler article. Nope, that's a redirect to this one. It's Homeschoolers. We need to clean this mess up somehow. I want to see hate and mockery of Andy's style religious HSing, while still seeing respect for the other "flavors".  03:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The religious end of it is not the problem, this being instead Mr. Schlafly's utter incompetence at both teaching and grading. 04:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Probably the single most irksome aspect of RW for me has always been the denigration of home schooling in general, based on the fallacy (proof by example?) that Aschlafly and his activities represents all home education. For one thing, what he does can at best only be loosely described as home schooling - it certainly appears to be a private, commercial (do fees change hands?), autonomous school operating under the auspice of "home schooling" purely for regulatory purposes. The preponderance of evidence, I would argue, demonstrates that the single family model is the norm, and that children who are home schooled receive a better quality of education than their non-home schooled peers. Fox 11:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Andy is a "tutor of students who are home schooled", and, yes, he charges money for the real-life courses he "teaches". 20:17, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm just wondering, article quality wise if some of this can be split up now. Take the paragraphs on violence in public schools, under the heading "the teachers" and in an article on homeschooling. While I'm all for well cited and critical work, I think that stuff could make it's point better elsewhere. And the whole child abuse thing might be better placed in the child abuse article. 20:42, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been wondering about this all day since reading Human's comment viz Schlafly's vision of homskulling vs everyone else's vision of alternative education. The page as it stands is a tug o'war. Perhaps we need to define what it is we disagree with (removing children from formal education to prevent them being taught, I dunno, science or whatever it is that is the issue) and what it is we agree with (alternative models of education that have demonstrated positive outcomes). If you get my drift. As for the abuse thing, I think it should be well deserving of an article of its own, much as the Satanic abuse scare/hoax or Recovered Memory Syndrome is. Fox 20:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * perhaps a summary of Reasons Parents choose homeschooling ? ideology, disability/illness, social issues, school quality, continuity because of relocation etc. maybe with some simple pro and con Hamster (talk) 23:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Very Nice
This article rocks! I was homeschooled by my (fundamentalist) well-meaning parents (along with my six siblings, cause birth control is against God cause he likes to punish womens' vagina's with baby heads) until I begged, whined, and cried so I could go to public school freshman year. There, I finally learned that the world isn't 6000 years old and that it isn't normal to beat your children cause the Bible says so!

But seriously, homeschooling ain't so bad, and I was very very advanced in every area except science (which is funny because it is my gift, and I am now majoring in chemistry). This article does a great job, quite refreshing after the glowing pretty whitewashed (inaccurate) Conservapedia.DenaChemistry (talk) 07:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Glad you enjoyed it, and especially glad you didn't feel insulted. Yes, homeschooling can produce excellent results given the best of circumstances.  But it can also cloister children into a narrow worldview.  08:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree on both points, homeschooling can be very positive if parents really work on making sure their children have many opportunities to learn other views. When I get more time after finals are over I will add some stuff on the legalities and issues of allowing homeschooling students to enroll in public school programs such as sports and drama. I did a paper on it for a sociology class and I have a ton of resources for it.

I was homeschooled then self taught
Advantages included customized (accelerated in my case) pace and learning style resulting in better long term retention (enjoy learning/doing something and you will remember it better, being forced to learn at a set pace and with a possibly sub-optimal (for you) style can ruin enjoyment). Disadvantages include very uneven levels of knowledge (very good at mathematics (second order differential equations aged 12) but essays? brain block), lack of practice at making friends/other relationships (parents lacked income to send me to clubs, ect.) and a lack of self-discipline (self taught? don't have to do things you don't want to. homeschooled? can argue/negotiate with teacher). Note: This is from comparison between being self-taught+homeschooled and three half years in a normal school. It's a sample size of 1. :D 82.11.1.60 (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2011 (UTC)