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July 03, 2019 03:04 PM UTC
27 Comments
I'm fine with this. The fewer of these kids in public schools the fewer parents will rant and rave about attempts to teach their kids to live in the modern world.
Why are the children appropriate casualties of this?
"Sometimes two men kiss." Boom! Your kids have the gay.
Catholic Dioceses In Colorado To Pay Reparations To Sex Abuse Victims
Home schooled kids tend to be really lonely and socially awkward when they finally rejoin a regular school, usually to get enough credits to graduate. Sometimes tthey join a couple clubs or sports and gradually adapt to their peers; sometimes it means they go all-out rebel and break every rule they possibly can. But for the most part, homeschooled kids are nervous, shy, and unhappy when they come back to public school.
Home schooling is useful for some kids that are basically literate and can read at grade level, study on their own, and have good relationships with their family members who are their "teachers". I've seen home schooling work for kids with immune disorders or other health conditions that keep them out of school. But it shouldn't go on for longer than a year.
How many teens do you know that are literate, have a good family life, and have sufficient social skills to be able to function among peers? Not many. I especially don't recommend long term home schooling for very young children. They may do OK academically, but they do tend to struggle to socialize.
The "evil" that parents are trying to avoid, i.e., acceptance of normal sexual diversity, is something kids are going to get exposed to no matter what. In my last small town schools, everyone knew who the gay kids were, and the gay kids were accepted for the most part. I won't say that bullying didn't exist, but it was rare. For trans/genderqueer kids, they struggled more, and yes, they did tend to either drop out or choose home schooling. Trans/Q kids still had supportive friends and teachers.
Families considering home schooling might as well let their kids get accurate information from their "health" class – that teacher will generally respect community norms and impart sex information in a neutral, factual way, the same as all the other health curriculum about physiology, nutrition, etc. I have great respect for all the health teachers I know.
In my opinion, home schooling is only useful for a few kids for short periods of time. There's a reason we pay for public schooling as a public good.
As I said, earlier, M.J. Kids whose parents would pull them out of public schools over this are most likely being taught radical Christian evangelicalism and will find the larger, secular world an uncomfortable place. If they manage to do well enough in their religious or home school, they will most likely attend a college with a similar curriculum and possibly remain somewhat isolated in a like-minded social circle as adults, only occasionally brushing up against the sharp edges of the wider world.
My beloved East Shitlick, Texas, Bible College, home of the Lost Tribe, accepts home-schooled kids in our Leviticus Education program. Student loans available from DeVos Bank.
Roll Tribe!
You're right, cook. I hadn't thought about the inherently isolating effects of being brought up in a radical Christian evangelist family as a factor in how socially inept many homeschooled kids are.
I'm just sharing my observations about various homeschooled kids I've encountered in regular classrooms over the years. I'm about to venture into that territory myself, now that I'm retired. Online education is a big business, and there are various flavors of it that are hiring people like me part-time. I could teach adults in Japan, "at risk" kids who've been expelled or suspended from regular school, or homeschooled kids, some of whom will be from strict religious backgrounds, and some of whom will have health conditions, or be gay/trans kids who couldn't take the social ostracism of their schools.
It will be interesting.
This may be a good resource for you, M.J. It will certainly lead you to interesting places. John Holt started the “unschooling” movement in the mid-’60s. It’s as far as one can get from the hard-line religious type. Unschooled in this context doesn’t mean uneducated: http://rockymountaineducationconnection.com/unschooling_events/
Interesting, cook. I wish some of those resources had been around for me or my kids when they were ready. That said, we totally took advantage of everything that was available in DPS to let us follow our interests – I took Senior Seminar, a pioneering program at East that allowed seniors to travel, spend weeks trying out different careers, pursuing interests. I still remember the Seminar program, even though I've forgotten much of high school.
My kids went into Denver School for the Arts and the School for International Studies. Neither one ended up working in those fields, but they did get the opportunity to explore those aspects of their talents.
I have to say that the ability to follow one's own passions, which seems to be a principle of the "unschooling" movement, appears to be a function of privilege. I didn't see many students of color in those pics, or students with visible disabilities, and they carefully don't say how much the programs cost.
My family was privileged; we were able to raise enough money to travel, and we had the basic academic background necessary to qualify for admission.
I'm not saying that we should feel guilty for the privilege or deny ourselves those opportunities; but they should be available to all students, and adapted where necessary.
For example, rural students don’t have special arts programs, or international studies programs, or science programs, especially at the lower grades. It’s the luck of the draw in whether they get a teacher gifted in those areas that year.
Basic levels of literacy and numeracy are crucial for Dewey's missions: to prepare citizens to live in a democracy, to educate for personal growth, to fulfill student potentials. None of these meet the corporate mission to have a ready supply of workers with certain skills that can perform certain tasks well.
Some charter schools and community college partnership programs are pathways for less-privileged students to still be able to follow their interests; most rural schools have programs that allow students to take college credit courses at the local community college, in medicine, auto mechanics, computer applications, and various other things. This is only available the last 2 years of high school.
So what about providing pathways to individualize programs for student interests and abilities, during the other 10 years of public school? I think that charter schools were an attempt to answer that need.
Unfortunately, many charters seem to be stuck in a for-profit model, or are cherry picking students who will make them look good, or exist mainly to serve the parent's political / religious biases and preferences. Religious schools meet parent's needs, not kid's needs, for the most part.
Oh, cook, you got me going on educational philosophy again. What have been your thoughts and experiences with "alternative" education? If you ran a school, what would it be like?
M.J., Let's move this conversation over to FB. We probably could (and just might) go on for hours.
That's too bad. Some of us non-facebookians are interested in your answer, even though we're not commenting. In 1974 I taught for a short time in District RE-1J in Montrose. I didn't last long. I just could not participate in the paleo-lesson plans they were using at the time.
I love to help people learn. I loved the classroom setting, but I almost immediately began to butt heads with the administration. I turned away to a more lucrative career, but still find the subject compelling.
Anyway…just wanted you to know some of us really enjoy your insights..both of you.
😊
What Duke said. Y es, at times I've criticized MJ assuming it's all about her, like the recent detailed instruction she g ave voters in my Denver City Council district from her vantage point in Beetdigger Center😉
but this realy is her turf as well as a side of Cookie I didn't know. Please stay here and comment as long as you like. Think of it as denying the forum to Poddy mouth.
Okay, Duke and Voyager. I just didn't want to be tagged for hijacking the thread. Still with us, M.J.?
When I was younger I was a nanny for several years and did a fair amount of tutoring of my charges. Not in a traditional "let’s turn to page…" but in tactile ways that seemed to stick much better.
As an example, I had a boy who was just baffled by fractions. He'd just about given up trying and asked the classic, "how come I gotta learn this junk?'
One afternoon he came home and I was setting out butter, sugar, and, flour. “Come wash your hands. We're going to make cookies.” I read the recipe, and he did all the measuring. The next day, he took “fraction cookies” to school for his class, and was able to tell his teacher he knew what fractions were for. That's "unschooling".
John Dewey agrees with your theory of education. So does Maria Montessori.
Practical, real world tasks that show how the learning is applied….that’s the ticket.
I like MJ's comments about the needed conditions: "Home schooling is useful for some kids that are basically literate and can read at grade level, study on their own, and have good relationships with their family members who are their "teachers"."
I'd add that the adults need to be literate and read well, study on their own, and have enough time to devote to the task.
I've seen several kids who were home schooled for multiple years — and do well. As in a sister and brother who earned highest possible ranks in Scouts, graduated with multiple honors from a large public high school here in Denver, and graduated in 4 years at CU-Boulder: the young woman with "good" grades and an active co-curricular resume and the young man with summa cum laude honors. I've seen several high school debaters who are still home schooled, and use speech and debate as their "social" activity (which makes me wonder about the PARENTS' judgment).
Of course, there are also some who DON'T do so well. Who knows how much of that is "nature," how much is the "nurture" provided by their parent(s) as home-schoolers, how much is the more general nurture of the home.
Home schooling should be regulated just as any other educational venue is: Require the teacher, (in this case, parent(s)) to have a Masters in Education.
And be able to teach at a level that keeps the child at the same grade level as others at the child's grade level.
Sorry, Blackie, SCOTUS didn't entirely agree:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_in_the_United_States#U.S._Supreme_Court_precedent
We don't require the masters to teach in K-12, Blackie.
And yet they wonder why teenagers commit suicide in the numbers that they do.
Ironically, a fact-based, neutral comprehensive sexual / health education curriculum could help prevent teen suicide. (and teen pregnancy and STDs, and a lot of other problems).
If students understood that sexual variation has always been a part of human culture, and isn't weird or "sick", they'd feel less isolated and happier.
I'm not too concerned about this.
Number 1. Educating a child is hard, onerous work and not many families will try it for long.
Number 2. I'd be interested if Kevin Lundberg has a financial interest in the materials sold on the referenced home school website.
Gee, ya think!
One of these new laws will make it illegal for a licensed counselor to help a child work through any gender confusion he or she may have…
Oh, that is rich, Kevin Lundberg. So rich, it’s stinking up the room.
Helping kids through their gender confusion absolutely is still allowed! In fact, encouraged! Because that’s the function of a counselor– to provide a place of acceptance for kids who find themselves questioning their sexuality, to listen and encourage them to share their feelings.
Oh, but you define help as “beating them into submission with your Bible”. In effect, forcing your brand of “help” on these kids. Well, Kev, there’s a word for forcing help on people that they don’t want or need– abuse.
Which makes you a master projectionist, thinking the pro-LGBTQ side is forcing their help on people… when in actuality, it’s your Christianist side.
More to the point, Lundberg and his colleagues have starved school budgets to the point that few schools have adequate resources for counseling. KUNC did some reporting on the issue, finding:
Spot on, John!
Excellent point.