Must……Stop…….Blog-hopping
18 01 2006You know, clicking around, when by fate you stumble onto a blog that irritates the shit out of you.
In my case, it’s public education fanatics.
NOTE: If you were somehow directed here by a comment I made, or a google search, and you have no practical experience with homeschooling, other than your ignorant opinion based on absolutely nothing, please do us both a favor and do not linger… especially, do not comment.
I warned you.
I do not care if you believe my children are likely unsocialized. If they were in a group of publicly schooled children, they may well appear to be unsocialized. What you observe as unsocial behavior is probably my children’s complete disdain for whatever insignificant, shallow, and socially undesirable topic is being discussed. They have little interest in popular rap music, brand name clothing, makeup, drugs, “partying” or sexual innuendo.
I don’t care if you believe that homeschooling parents aren’t qualified to teach. Can you prove that public school teachers are qualified to parent? Our entire society was built on centuries of parental involvement and not public school. In fact, the advent of industrialization and public education signaled the beginning of social disintegration.
I don’t care if you need “me” time. I signed on to raise children. I’m raising mine.
I don’t care if you think being homeschooled isolates children from “the real world”. Public school emulates “the real world” in what way? Where, in the “real world” are adults sequestered in single aged, warehouse type rooms for entire days, dependent on one other adult to direct all their activity?
I don’t care if every child is educated - I only care if my children are educated. I don’t believe my tax money should be spent parenting your child.
But most of all - I don’t care if you send your kids to public school. Stop worrying if I homeschool mine. Statistics as to my children’s academic success are greatly in my favor.
There are no valid arguments that prove (US) public education is superior in any way, academically or socially, to any other educational choice. Test scores. Drop out rates. (who ever heard of a homeschooler dropping out? They just start college sooner) Violence. Sex. Drugs. Apathy. Parental involvement. The entire system should be dismantled and rebuilt. Pull every child out of public school for a year. Give every parent enough money to homeschool them or send them to private school for a year. Swap out the system for a new one. Model it after successful school systems on any other continent. Okay, maybe not Antarctica. However, if by some chance there are children there, perhaps the children of a researcher, they’re being homeschooled.
I’ve been doing this a homeschooling gig long time. I’ve formed the following opinion, based on endless hours of listening to these same inept arguments. Parents who choose to send their children to public school, who parrot phrases that contain the word “socialization”, and who herald their children’s return to school after vacation, are intimidated by parents who make the conscious decision to be involved in raising their children. I’m disgusted that so few parents in our society are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to raise their children.
If you can’t take care of them, don’t have them. Period. Simplistic, not simple minded.
I’m so lucky my community schools inspired my kids out of a Montessori cul-de-sac to be as self-motivated as they are. Imposing freedom has an exclusive swing on it now but the inclusive side could mean renaissance and who doesn’t believe the educational attitudes need that?
Bravo, Butch…THIS is why I read your blog! Well said.
Absolutely brilliant!
Thank you for this post! I keep coming back and falling more in love with your writing.
I’m curious who first used the word socialization in relation to gschools. Do the anti-homeschoolers even stop to ponder for a moment what we as homeschoolers think of socialization?
Excellent post! I think I just read the blog that made you feel that way, that crap is so tiring.
Great post!!!
Someone else’s shoulds/musts layered as thickly onto my life as they think they must layer to get my attention make me sad. Do you think the people who tell me why I must conform to their ideas of correct living are as fearful of my life and choices as they appear to be? Or are they just doing a “loud shout” so they can convince themselves they are doing the right thing? What about my choices is so scary to those who make different ones? I like homeschooling. What is so scary about that?
Sam - I think the socialization argument developed along with the growth of homeschooling. It was probably coined by public school teachers. In 1992 Larry Edward Shyers earned a PhD comparing home educated children to publicly educated - his dissertation made quite a stir in both the home ed and public ed camps - he said there is basically no difference in their social skills and that home ed students had higher self esteem. And so the battle rages on…
christine - what bugs me the most about these idiots is that they simply spout out some line they’ve heard - not an original thought - and all they’d have to do is google the terms homeschool and socialization together.
annette - any time you make a different choice, and your choices result in something positive, those who feel they must color inside the lines get fearful. The entire education issue should focus on parent involvement and stop blaming school districts and administrators. The teachers I know are well educated, well prepared, dedicated, and love their students. But how are they supposed to deal with the problems their neglected students wear around their necks like 50 lb rocks? I know teachers that keep several changes of clothing in their classrooms so that kids can occasionally change their clothes - then the teacher takes them to the basement and washes them. Classes where every student qualifies for free breakfast and lunch, and they’re hungry because that’s the only food they get all day. Kids who show up the first day of school with no school supplies, and no money to buy any. Entire classes… How do you deal with academics when you’re basically the only parent to 20+ students?
You said two things that I think a LOT, but never have the guts to say to certain people.
I don’t care if you need “me” time. I signed on to raise children. I’m raising mine.
AND
If you can’t take care of them, don’t have them. Period. Simplistic, not simple minded.
I keep my mouth shut when it comes to homeschooling. I’m the ONLY hs’er (that I know of) for many miles around. My friends try to be either polite or vaguely supportive of our hs’ing, but really they’d rather not talk about it. I understand that, in a way. They’d rather not compare choices with me. That’s okay because I don’t want to be compared to them either. However, they think that they’re being supportive when they say things like: “That’s great it works for you. I just couldn’t be tied down/ stuck with / trapped /etc. with my children all day long. I have to get away sometimes.”
I think that’s f*cking sad. Really f*cking sad. I want to know what is so bad about their kids. I see their kids and they seem really great. “I” like them. I know I don’t always see them at their worst, but I don’t see anything so horrible about them that would make a mother say she wouldn’t want to be stuck with them 24/7.
Anyway, my son came into this world against all odds. I don’t take that for granted. I fought to have him. I’ll take care of him myself thank you very much.
Thanks for saying what I can’t.
Before I was a parent, I taught pre-school in a day care center in Alaska. The head honcho and I used to spend hours trying to figure out why people had children they wanted someone else to raise. We couldn’t come to any conclusions that made sense. Occasionally a parent would hear us discussing this topic and ask us if we really wanted to be out of jobs. “Yes! If being out of a job in daycare would mean the kids got to be home with their parents who love them the most, of course we want to be out of jobs!”
Many of my friends are teachers, and I can’t imagine teaching in the classrooms full of the kids they have. One woman has only 3 kids in her class of 20 who don’t have at least one parent in jail. She spends money on fruit to keep in the classroom so the kids get to eat something nutritious. Other people get to deal with the kids who are so far ahead of the rest they are bored as well as those who are too far behind to catch up. Most of my teacher friends don’t want to teach in the grades in which the kids have to do state tests because their salaries are often tied to how well the kids pass. It is just sad.
And as to people being afraid when someone else thinks outside the box… why be afraid? I am a confirmed box guarder. I am comfortable with the inside of boxes. But that is only for ME. If someone else thinks outside the box for themselves, I have never seen it as a threat to me, so I don’t understand why they should think me a threat either. (Ok, so I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area during the 60’s… lol)
Read this over Andrea’s shoulder this morning.
Something we should all have the chance to say
Must blog hop more - maybe I’d have found this sooner.