homeschooling

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Can I suggest you stop thinking about evolution entirely and concentrate on your view of creationism. Just apply those same critical thinking skills to creationism, because I know it won't stack up.

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How can one separate the two?

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This highlights what appears to be another problem. Where does evolution come into astronomy?

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More on this later, if that's ok. I'm going to open up a thread eventually on my thoughts on the Big Bang theory

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Evolutionary psychology? I had to use Google to even find out what that is!

If you want to ask questions about evolution, ask a biologist or geologist, not a psychologist. How on earth did you end up studying that kind of stuff?

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LOL, quite frankly, I didn't intend to. I thought I was signing up for a regular psychology class - personalities and characteristics and mental diseases and Freud and all that. But, it was an interesting class regardless, for as long as it lasted.

Scenarios like this would take place there: he'd be dithering on about evolution and I'd get a question about evolution in my head. If it was the right time, I'd ask it - but generally his response was that there just wasn't enough time in the class to answer it. To be fair, he did offer to me and to all other students with questions to make an appointment with him. I did, but the day I was scheduled to visit with him I was told that his back had given out and he had to drop all classes for the entire semester.

OR, as was more often the case, I'd have a question about evolution - and see how creationism takes care of the same dilemma.

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Quality of education.

I find it interesting that your thoughts tended towards logistics rather than learning.

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For a moment I too was thrown for a loop, until I realized why. My parents used the classical method of education, especially during my early years of schooling, and the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric taught me to learn about an issue, resolve the details about it, and form an opinion on it. So now, I consider learning as far more dependent upon the student rather than the teacher. The teacher (or the student, depending on his intellectual level) passes on the information or the systems, but it is up to the student to resolve it and fit it into his knowledge, belief system, principles, etc.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

How can one separate the two?

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Because it's not an either/or question. If creationism as it must, fails, then there is some other answer. Many people think it's evolution, but many don't as well.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

More on this later, if that's ok. I'm going to open up a thread eventually on my thoughts on the Big Bang theory

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Boring subject, I feel. Without a PhD in astrophysics, it's all a bit difficult, and I have to say that not being sure of what happened ~15 billion years ago and an unknown number of light years away doesn't really bother me.

This is why your schooling concerns me - you keep asking the wrong questions. Only about three people in the world understand Hawking's BB theory, why on earth do you think you need to be the fourth? You're applying so much faith to religious beliefs, yet demand precise answers on unanswerable subjects. Seems all back to front to me.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

OR, as was more often the case, I'd have a question about evolution - and see how creationism takes care of the same dilemma.

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Again, I can only come back to science. When geology or paleontology utterly refutes a creationist position, it's gone. If none of them are supported by science, it requires suspension of logic to accept it. See, you're treating evolution that way, but not doing the same for other beliefs.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

The teacher (or the student, depending on his intellectual level) passes on the information or the systems, but it is up to the student to resolve it and fit it into his knowledge, belief system, principles, etc.

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That seems dangerous to me, and the results you've achieved tend to confirm the problem with it - it's like making up your rules as you go along, which just doesn't work. Science is referred to as a physical discipline because a scientist must provide physical proof of his theories, so rules are imperative.

Without rules, wheels wouldn't be round and this computer wouldn't work. Belief systems have no place in science - other than the obvious belief that existence exists.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

For a moment I too was thrown for a loop, until I realized why. My parents used the classical method of education, especially during my early years of schooling, and the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric taught me to learn about an issue, resolve the details about it, and form an opinion on it. So now, I consider learning as far more dependent upon the student rather than the teacher. The teacher (or the student, depending on his intellectual level) passes on the information or the systems, but it is up to the student to resolve it and fit it into his knowledge, belief system, principles, etc.

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The idea of resolving new information into one's own pre-existing knowledge. belief system, principles, etc., is something I explored in an independent study during my studies to get a degree in Cognitive Science. I created an analogy in which knowledge is a structure built on top of instinct and desire. Each new piece of knowledge is connected to those very basic forms of human cognition, like a block glued or stuck (or even just connected by gravity) to the desire/instinct foundation. What I found was that many people had a lot of information that wasn't connected, and it would float off to where they no longer had it. That was about 20 years ago.

What you just described seems to identify one of the reasons people ended up with "knowledge" that wasn't really connected to them - their desire or instinct - enough to be retained: non-classical forms of education - memorization, proof of ability to pass a test - basically performance in contrived activities thought to produce learning. So my attraction maybe is more to classical education methods (Socratic, for example) than to homeschooling itself. But then, school teaches us that school is supposed to teach us, and weakens all our motivation to use other methods. So I'm back to encouraging homeschooling. Or "Unschooling".

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Because it's not an either/or question. If creationism as it must, fails, then there is some other answer. Many people think it's evolution, but many don't as well.

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Okay, tell me about them. The only "other" one I am aware of is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

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Boring subject, I feel. Without a PhD in astrophysics, it's all a bit difficult, and I have to say that not being sure of what happened ~15 billion years ago and an unknown number of light years away doesn't really bother me.

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It's all a bit difficult? Yes, yes, I suppose it is. In terms of this generation, though, is 5 billion years any closer to us than 15 billion? Whether you like astronomy is up to you, but frankly I prefer it much more to, say, geology or botany. To have something that much bigger and visually spectacular and more powerful than humanity is something I find very deeply inspiring and pointing to the - to MY Creator :p.

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This is why your schooling concerns me - you keep asking the wrong questions. Only about three people in the world understand Hawking's BB theory, why on earth do you think you need to be the fourth? You're applying so much faith to religious beliefs, yet demand precise answers on unanswerable subjects. Seems all back to front to me.

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It isn't Hawking's theory I'm attempting to understand, although the, um, ingeniousness of mankind in finding out ways to live without God is deserving of study, I suppose. To begin with, I accept the Bible as literal, factual truth divinely inspired. Yes there's faith in it - but one of my favorite verses in the Bible, in Hebrews, says "faith is the evidence of things hoped for, of things not yet seen." I know it doesn't satisfy you, but I am confident because my faith, and strength, is in something certain - in God rather than chance.

You ask precise answers from me, when there are many things I cannot control in what I believe. I cannot come up with all the answers in many areas of my faith - but I am finite and God is infinite.

As you have led me to believe that evolution has all the answers, then, I am asking these questions. Beyond this point, there is no need to defend myself any longer. If I were to continue arguing I would just be nitpicking and repeating myself. There is nowhere else this conversation can go so I am respectfully removing myself. Not to mention, I've hijacked my own thread something fierce. Should've known better than to mention evolution vs. creationism.

If the main intention of homeschooling is only to learn more than what is taught in a standard public school (I say standard because some public schools offer more or less opportunities than others), then why not delve into extra learning on your own time while going to public school? To strike a balance? It seems that the only concrete difference between homeschooling and public education, other than the fact that your parents teach you, is that parents have the opportunity to indoctrinate their kid(s) with a particular system of beliefs without outside influences "harming" their children's thoughts.

If the quality of public school education is so poor -- I'll agree that, as someone who attends public school, there are many deplorable parts to it -- then why not delve into Bible study and the Great Books on your own time while going to public school? Again, striking a balance: you get the experience of being exposed to different people and different ideas (I'm assuming that isn't a deterrent for homeschoolers in this thread; I truly hope not at least) and then, at the end of a mundane school day of textbook work and food fights, you can go home and have Socratic pow-wows and discussions about creationism with your parents (my parents both dropped out of high school to pursue careers in the sales world, so I never had those discussions, but I'm sure you could and do).

But public school, as deplorable as it is, seems like a more "well rounded" opportunity to me, rather than warping the role of a parent as a caregiver into the exclusive mouthpiece for ideas and beliefs in a child's life. For kids who attend public school, the beliefs of their parents tend to melt onto them naturally, depending on how strong they are, but they also get the experience of being exposed to other peoples' religions and backgrounds.

And you get practical experience, too. I've had plenty of horrible teachers; teachers who would come late after smoking pot in their cars, teachers who would give you a bad mark and when inquired would shrug their shoulders and say they forgot why, and the classic, teachers who sit back and surf the internet and get away with it by hiring student-teachers from universities. There are people like this in the 'real world,' outside of the comfortable confines of homeschooling, and I think that the quicker you learn to adapt to good and bad situations -- believe it or not, there are in fact many good and empowering situations that can come about in public school that I don't believe would be possible in homeschooling -- the more well rounded you will be.

(Sorry if I've derailed the thread by shamelessly injecting my input, as I know my anecdotes are much different in nature than Hawking and evolution.)

Memorization is the greatest skill one can learn for practical education. There is a reason why Chinese and Japanese students are generally thought to be so studious - it is because at a young age, the nature of the written form of their languages requires a strong development of visual and oral memory - later on then, when it comes to learning other subjects, the enhanced cognition due to development since childhood, allows for faster absorption, and better results in fields such as math, and even other fields like languages, or literary studies.

I always here people rip on students learning to memorize, but I am yet to find a more useful skill that one learns from education - after all, the way we speak is determined by our memory of words - English is a relatively class-based (I mean social class) language, and therefore, our memory of words pertaining to a certain social class determine very much our understanding of language.

I may not have liked memorizing Blake's Tyger at a young age, but right now, I chant it to myself every now and then, amongst the other poems I forced myself to acquire. My memory isn't that great visually, so I have trouble with certain things, as I was never very strong with visual memory, but rather have always had a fantastic audio recollection, so naturally even English I understand in phonetic terms, rather than visual terms. Because of this, I perhaps am better at learning languages like Italian, but studying Chinese writing now is murdering me - I generally can remember to read the characters, but when it comes to writing, my memory is unable to recall the picture, only the sound. I didn't develop this part of my brain, and as a result, I need to work five times as hard to develop it now.


Hate to brake it to you Andave Ya, but I don't think creationism as a legitimate area of study can be justified in a pluralistic society, or one that has laws to approach pluralism, such as the United States.

I have a friend, for instance, who believes when you die, an old woman comes with a bowl of soup to you, you eat it, and then wake up in an alternative world, before going through life there, dying, eating another soup, and heading back. There is no proof, or sense to this argument (though, she told me she isn't observant in her beliefs in the magical soup, after I asked her what kind of soup it was) but a tradition behind it, much like creationism is built upon a tradition, though the actual concept is a new one, a reactionary one, as people weren't creationists before, they simply didn't have an answer. In that sense then, teaching of creationism in school is offensive - I see you are observant, and your parents had no problem instilling a fear/love of God into you from a young age, so why then is that really necessary school teaching? Couldn't your parents just have taught it to you beforehand?

But with evolution, the fact of truth has no significance. One can debate Newton, or Einstein (who, by the way, has theories resting on the fact that the very light you see in the sky is millions of years old, and the stars you see often no longer in existence) but the point remains these areas are essential to the study of their respective fields - Darwin to Biology, the same way Bohr and Rutherford are essential in beginning to understand chemistry - whether one's personal beliefs, however out of whack are true or not is irrelevant - what matters is that the discourse requires, for anyone to understand it, an understanding of the basic fundamentals and arguments, of which Evolution has been justified numerous times as appropriate (and even been accepted into the dogma of the Catholic Church mind you).

Lets be honest, there isn't an argument here - in truth, no offense, but I'm happy you were homeschooled - if I had someone in my class trying to refute what was being taught to me, based on religious beliefs I do not have, then quite simply, I would be offended. Creationism is, essentially, in the form you describe, an American Christian doctrine, closely affiliated with evangelical faiths and as such has no place beside science in a school where people who don't share those beliefs study.

if homeschooling is the answer so be it, but I don't think that really gives room to justify homeschooling as being more open minded - if anything, it merely backs up my proof that homeschooling is essentially, in practice, a way for parents to clone themselves on their kids, and to control essentially everything their children learn. If the parent is open minded, perhaps it works, but clearly your inability to even approach a theory like evolution, asserting the dominance of Creationism as a bigger proof (and i guess everything that came before creation was put there, and therefore never happened - 20,000 years of indigenous North American civilization never happened, etc.) that answers every question is a little hard to deal with. I've read scholarship working closely with the text, and the Rabbinic scholars, who, I would argue, work most closely with the text, as they are all or were all schooled in both oral and written traditions, and in the language of the Torah, all are at odds with each other to explain what exactly happened in the book, and what things mean. The translation by your pillow in a hotel room is convenient, but ignores the fact that no one for certain understands what the hell is going on most of the time with any clarity. One merely needs to ask how there could be light without consolations, and the whole thing unwinds, or how the serpent could be wicked if all Gods creations were good, or what exactly is a leviathan (RASHI has it as a crocodile I believe, whereas in modern Hebrew, it merely means whale). You see where I am going? There is no definite answer even within such a definite answer - my copy of the text has about 3 text-book sized pages of tiny fonted criticism per 2 sentences, with disagreement over everything, and that only takes in one aspect of criticism, Canonical Rabbinic literature - there is still much, much more - yet, you still, with certainty can assert that creationism answers things, what I ask is, doesn't it ask many, many more questions than that?

Hell, Clarence Darrow won, lets face it.

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Originally Posted by JacobF

If the main intention of homeschooling is only to learn more than what is taught in a standard public school...

If the quality of public school education is so poor -- I'll agree that, as someone who attends public school, there are many deplorable parts to it...

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What if the problem is that public school tends to become what you ascribe to parents ("the exclusive mouthpiece for ideas and beliefs in a child's life")?

What if the problem is that school teaches us the opposite of what is true (some of these I came up with on my own, but some come from Gatto, Llewellyn, or Iserbyt):

• You can't learn without a teacher.
• We need some kind of system in place to solve every problem that we might have.
• Authorities don't need to earn respect - you must respect them simply because they are placed over you.
• Don't disagree with the majority.
• Following instructions is more important than satisfying your curiosity.
• Gold stars, rather than the things you really want, are appropriate rewards for your efforts.
• You will be judged through testing, rather than doing useful things.
• Everyone should be learning the same thing at the same age.
• Your parents are inadequate.

Would it still be wise to subject your children to these effects? JBI reports that only 30% of homeschooling families cite religion as the reason for leaving public school. I asked for a link to that info, but I haven't seen it.

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Originally Posted by JacobF

But public school, as deplorable as it is, seems like a more "well rounded" opportunity to me, rather than warping the role of a parent as a caregiver into the exclusive mouthpiece for ideas and beliefs in a child's life...

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Yes, I suppose I forgot that one in my list: What if public school makes our children think their parents ideas and beliefs are not well-rounded? I suppose that's like "Your parents are inadequate," but you highlighted a very important specific aspect of it.

I think colleges and universities are much better, specifically because the "well-rounded" aspect is maintained in order to keep up the demand for their services. If college were mandatory, I'm sure its quality would quickly fall too. Many homeschoolers take courses from community colleges for this reason.

You fail to answer the question - what if these values the parents are teaching are wrong? There is a case in the Manitoba courts right now of parents fighting for the rights to custody of their children, after their radical white supremacist ideas were made public - consequently of them drawing Swastikas and other such symbols on the bodies of their children before sending them to school.

Do we want those people homeschooling? what about a less extreme example, that of a parent who, isn't a white supremacist, but a misogynist, whose influence on a female child would be to instill inferiority and prescribed gender conventions that ultimately, later in life studies would suggest, will have severe repercussions.

If parents are the best teachers, than quite simply, as most parents are want to do anyway, they will just teach their kids additional stuff at home - if they had the time to homeschool, ultimately they have the time to homeschool in addition to real school work - I learned Hebrew that way, from an immigrant family upbringing, not from school - there was no problem. Most of the successful people I went to school with did additional work at home - of course, some of them had intense psychological problems from parents pushing them to hard to learn things, that's another problem, but one that is even easier to acquire in a purely homeschooled setting.

You have this idea in your head, it would seem, that teachers being in places of authority is a bad thing - mind you, I've seen that silly show in the US Who Is Smarter than a Fourth Grader, and it would seem there are plenty of stupid people out there, but ultimately, the system for choosing teachers is what establishes the norm - I have had some excellent teachers - mind you the bulk of what I know about the subjects of interest to me are self-taught, but my math teachers in grade school, for instance, were quite excellent, and my physics teacher from high school, though not the most interesting of people, was quite the specialist at teaching basic physics to high schoolers.

In this world, there are teachers - anyone who is trying to become a professional, unless they come from big money, must at one point be a subordinate - whether to a boss, or to a teacher. Even the homeschooled child will need to deal with professors, if they ever make it to post-secondary education. It is good then, perhaps, that a student, from a young age, learn the fundamentals of such relationships, as to better understand the interaction between people of different degrees of learning and authority within the world.


As for your point about Gold Stars and Marks, well, those are more for the parents - most children don't really want anything but to eat, sleep, poop, and run around making noise, until they hit about 8-9 years old, when their minds change primarily to wanting to fornicate. There is, judging by our society, more to life than these excellent pass times - how can someone, who does not have something, actually know what they want? Gold stars just encourage people to try harder, and achieve all they want to achieve perhaps the most fundamental, and important lesson of all - though, there is some varriance by culture - Americans, for instance, seem to opt for the "When I grow up, I'm going to be a president" approach, whereas Canadians, from my experience, seem to think in terms of "When I grow up, I'll have a good job, and a healthy life style." - a fundamental difference in temperament, yet one supported by the institutions.

The main concern of American education, ultimately, should rest in the relation between primary, secondary, an d post-secondary education, and the way the system effects different peoples from different economic brackets - the homeschooled kid coming from a very, very poor family, ultimately would have no chance against the rich private schooled kid, whose parents went to Harvard, and who have the cash to get him there. By that token, the star system, and the marks serve to balance the scale a little bit, and allow those who can achieve to achieve - albeit, the system is incredibly flawed, but that aught to be the goal, though I would by no means suggest that the current American, or even Canadian (though the State control of Universities seems to help things greatly here, by making education somewhat affordable for the top education centres) reflects this, and people from lower income brackets are currently disadvantaged, but to take away the system that tries to correct this, would be beyond cruel - by homeschooling, those with money benefit, while those without get burned - and when the rich start complaining about the public school, and it loses support, the gap between classes widens even more.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

Okay, tell me about them. The only "other" one I am aware of is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

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No, the FSM is a childish ploy and nothing whatsoever to do with alternate ways of looking at evolution. I can show you lots of alternative views to Darwinism, some of which are actually pretty compelling - and they are all supported by genuine scientists using real science.

I won't go into them now, because there's no use at all - the first task is for you to use your critical assessment tools to see whether creationism is a contender. Unless you're able to accept the completely flawed nature of creationism, there's no point at all looking at other options, because your information processing is wrong.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

It's all a bit difficult? Yes, yes, I suppose it is. In terms of this generation, though, is 5 billion years any closer to us than 15 billion? Whether you like astronomy is up to you, but frankly I prefer it much more to, say, geology or botany. To have something that much bigger and visually spectacular and more powerful than humanity is something I find very deeply inspiring and pointing to the - to MY Creator :p.

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I love astronomy! I have a large telescope and have been recently enjoying spectacular shows by Venus in the mornings and Saturn in the evenings.

I can understand you linking it to a creator, but I'd always be wondering why an entity would bother creating something so enormous for just one planet to be inhabited. Bit of a waste, really.

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

As you have led me to believe that evolution has all the answers, then, I am asking these questions. Beyond this point, there is no need to defend myself any longer. If I were to continue arguing I would just be nitpicking and repeating myself. There is nowhere else this conversation can go so I am respectfully removing myself. Not to mention, I've hijacked my own thread something fierce. Should've known better than to mention evolution vs. creationism.

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No problem, but it is all relevant to what you started about - the quality of homeschool education, and if you end up with a belief which not only has no facts to support it, but which also demands that all science is wrong, then the quality test has failed.

I think you're smart enough to ask the right questions in the end, and I hope you do. Note also that disproving creationism does NOT disprove any gods, and most christians around the world have already reached that level. Many respected scientists are christian.

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Originally Posted by JBI

You fail to answer the question - what if these values the parents are teaching are wrong? There is a case in the Manitoba courts right now of parents fighting for the rights to custody of their children, after their radical white supremacist ideas were made public - consequently of them drawing Swastikas and other such symbols on the bodies of their children before sending them to school.

Do we want those people homeschooling? what about a less extreme example, that of a parent who, isn't a white supremacist, but a misogynist, whose influence on a female child would be to instill inferiority and prescribed gender conventions that ultimately, later in life studies would suggest, will have severe repercussions.

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Are you arguing that as long as public school doesn't encourage racism or misogyny, it is better than homeschool because of the few families that do encourage them? If we can find families that encourage their young to grow up into mercenary assassins, then would misogynistic and/or racist public schools be better than homeschooling? Ridiculous, I think you agree. Fearing homeschooling because of the Swastika's on Manitoban children (who were, apparently, schooled in public school) seems just as ridiculous to me.

How do we deal with children raised to be mercenary assassins, misogynists, or racists? How about we institutionalize everyone at a young age? Ok, sorry. I think the right answer is that I have my way of dealing with misogynists and racists and you have yours. I trust you to deal with them effectively, and I bet you trust me too, but you have some idea that there ought to be a system to minimize their numbers. I think I agree with you, and if we had the choice, we could both contribute to whatever institution implements that system. You think public school does. Perhaps you're right, but the harm seems to outweigh the benefits - a side-effect of forced financial support. Misogyny and racism produced by parents seems far less destructive and rampant than misogyny and racism produced in other ways. And there are a lot of other problems that would be more effectively addressed if that list of false teachings I provided were not forced on our young.

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Originally Posted by JBI

You have this idea in your head, it would seem, that teachers being in places of authority is a bad thing - mind you, I've seen that silly show in the US Who Is Smarter than a Fourth Grader, and it would seem there are plenty of stupid people out there, but ultimately, the system for choosing teachers is what establishes the norm - I have had some excellent teachers - mind you the bulk of what I know about the subjects of interest to me are self-taught, but my math teachers in grade school, for instance, were quite excellent, and my physics teacher from high school, though not the most interesting of people, was quite the specialist at teaching basic physics to high schoolers.

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Absolutely. There are those with authority who would have it even if it weren't given to them by the government. Those are the true and good teachers. At least in the USA, they tend to get fired. The problem with people who earn the respect that grants them authority among those they help is that their presence highlights the sham of government-appointed authority. Teachers have authority because the state hired them, not because they have demonstrated to parents that they are an asset to their child's education. This is certainly a bad thing, even when the teacher is great. It teaches us that authority is not to be earned by being helpful and knowledgeable, but through the favor of the rulers. It's subtle, but it's effective and horrible.

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Originally Posted by JBI

... but to take away the system that tries to correct this, would be beyond cruel - by homeschooling, those with money benefit, while those without get burned - and when the rich start complaining about the public school, and it loses support, the gap between classes widens even more.

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?? The alternative is for everyone to be burned ?? Oh I see: you feel that with the extra money from the rich, school won't burn children. Hmm. I think it would burn them more.

I think a lot of people feel the good qualities of socialism without realizing how destructive it is. The system was sold to Americans - or rather forced down their throats (read the history of resistance to compulsory schooling) - with the claim that it would help "correct this."

If it's doing a decent job of correcting it, and those paying for it are appreciated for their help, then removing it would be cruel. However, if it's trying and failing, and actually being used to "Dumb them down," as Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt writes in her book, then it is cruel to keep it. I think it's important to find out whether Ms. Iserbyt is correct or not, and the more I look, the more it seems that she is correct. So what is cruel is to keep making people feel bad and fear those activities (homeschooling) that can help protect their children from being "dumbed down."

However, I haven't been advocating the removal of public education. I've been advocating the choice not to use it. I respect individual choice. I encourage everyone to educate themselves, and if they don't want to bother, at least let their kids read Llewellyn's book and make their own decision. If they disagree with all the signs I see pointing to public school's harmful effects, maybe they can show me where I screwed up.

The system in America is flawed because of people (I am tempted to point the finger at you, though that would be against the forum rules, and counter productive, as well as a gross assumption on my part) believing that it isn't worth saving, or that, somehow, it's better to let it die than to try and fix it, as one's kids can receive alternative education, whereas the rest of the children do not matter. If it were up to me, quite frankly, I'd get rid of private schools altogether, and outlaw homeschooling - let people then try and build the system up, so that other people benefit, rather than merely building their own children, at the expense of the rest.

Quite simply, I'm a self-identifying democratic-socialist. The US, in the brackets that make decisions, seems to be run by the exact opposite - people who try and turn everything into a product, or try to make as much money, or save as much money wherever they can. Education is like medicare - one can merely bet on themselves, and save their money, or one can invest in a system to help everybody. By supporting homeschooling, one is essentially deciding to let the rest burn as long as certain people stay afloat. OF course, of all modern countries, from what I know, The US has the worst health care system, so it is no surprise that such a strange hybrid of education and indoctrination is want to appear to. The American mentality isn't one for social change, it is one for personal, quick fixes, and as such, it is understandable that such a patchwork solution to a problem created out of the very same mentality that is trying to fix it.

You use all American examples here, but the systems in other countries don't seem to show the same problems in the same way - homeschooling is, for the most part, an American phenomenon. The Soviet education system, for instance, though closed minded, did help to boost the actual intelligence and professionalism of the USSR by staggering amounts - though flawed, it can be argued that such a system seems to have functioned properly, simply because massive social action was taken to reform the way education worked - not by abandoning ship, but by letting more people on.

Quite simply, the reason you dislike said teachers, or whomever, is because the system in place isn't as selective as you would like it to be - that's an issue, fix the issue, instead of abandoning ship - you say the material taught is of low quality - fight then for better exposure to core materials - you say the mark system is flawed, - well then, supplement your child's education, rather than removing him from all performance indicators.

JBI- I think you are quite right in saying that the first course of action when we are unhappy with something is to fix the problem, not "Abandon Ship". Even Thomas Jefferson had this ideology in the Declaration of Independence. Alter first, and abolish only as a last resort.
Having said that I do not think that public education is a bad thing. But at the same time there are many problems. Many of the homeschoolers I know (myself included) are not against public education as such, but have a problem with the curriculum and parts the system. And even though I do believe we should endeavor to fix the problem, I don't think we should be required to send our children to be educated at the very place we are trying to change.

And as to your last comment, public education is not the home of "all performance indicators".

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Originally Posted by JBI

The system in America is flawed because of people (I am tempted to point the finger at you, though that would be against the forum rules, and counter productive, as well as a gross assumption on my part) believing that it isn't worth saving, or that, somehow, it's better to let it die than to try and fix it, as one's kids can receive alternative education, whereas the rest of the children do not matter. If it were up to me, quite frankly, I'd get rid of private schools altogether, and outlaw homeschooling - let people then try and build the system up, so that other people benefit, rather than merely building their own children, at the expense of the rest.

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I'm totally with you right up to "...whereas the rest of the children do not matter." They do matter, and probably to me more than to most. Consider that you are very helpful and when others ask you for help, you almost always provide it. But sometimes you see good reasons not to help them, and so you decline, and encourage them to try it alone. If a law is passed that requires you to always provide help when asked, and you're smart, you'll see that the law is preventing you from exercising that good judgment of deciding when it's appropriate to refuse to help. If you care enough, you'll argue that the law is bad, and then you'll be accused of not caring for others enough to provide help. In fact, it's because you were helpful, and smart enough to see the benefits of refusing to help when appropriate, that you argue against the law. This is the general problem with laws: They take choice away - even from those who use it wisely. Does it make sense?

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Originally Posted by JBI

Quite simply, I'm a self-identifying democratic-socialist. The US, in the brackets that make decisions, seems to be run by the exact opposite - people who try and turn everything into a product, or try to make as much money, or save as much money wherever they can.

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It is my hope to show all socialists the difference between encouraging socialist choices on an individual level, which has real benefits, and forcing them, which produces the outcome you just described. I have discovered that I am very socialist when it is my choice to share or contribute, but when it is imposed on me, because I value individual choice so much, I resist. Your description of US decision-makers being the exact opposite to democratic-socialist principles is something I see as a result of the imposition of them, rather than encouragement. The benefits of sharing cannot be created through force. The surest way to prevent learning is to force it on people, and the surest way to make someone selfish is by taking stuff from them and "sharing" it with others. Public school does both. The coercion creates the problem.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Quite simply, the reason you dislike said teachers, or whomever, is because the system in place isn't as selective as you would like it to be - that's an issue, fix the issue, instead of abandoning ship - you say the material taught is of low quality - fight then for better exposure to core materials - you say the mark system is flawed, - well then, supplement your child's education, rather than removing him from all performance indicators.

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I don't dislike teachers. I dislike the unnatural authority given to them through compulsory schooling. It makes them less likable and less effective, but they are still likable. I have fixed the issue by letting my children look to whatever adults they feel make good teachers as their teachers, and protecting them from the unnatural authority of schoolteachers. I encourage others to recognize the problem and find their own way of fixing it, but I would never argue to impose these solutions on others.

Schooling doesn't have to be bad. If it was based on encouraging self-education, and it was optional, and it was funded only by those who choose to use it, it would be great. My feeling is that most of the biggest problems with any government institution stem from the fact that the funding doesn't come from people who feel they have a choice about funding it. I put a lot of effort into fixing systems that don't have that problem, and I put a lot effort into explaining how those that do have the problem get worse and worse over time and are therefore not worth fixing.

The OP:

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

I'm homeschooled. What do you all think of the issue of homeschooling. Yes, no, socialization, all that stuff.

I'm doing a speech on homeschooling and I'd love to get your input. And, I'm really glad I'm homeschooled, too.

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In general I think parents are quite capable of giving their child an adequate education through homeschooling, to an extent. This tends to fall apart for the senior levels of high school. How many parents are truly qualified to give something like an AP level physics class (for the Americans out there), or how many parents educated in the early 80s are aware of current developments in biology. It's that point of preparing children for more specialized post-secondary education that homeschooling is probably not ideal.

I tend to support individual determination, so I'm not interested in limiting the rights of parents to homeschool children. However, I'm all for promoting public schools over private institutions. In Quebec, the system has clearly become tiered because of semi-private institutions. Jewish, Greek, and Catholic schools are capable of charging high tuition and receiving public funding, and this is something I have a problem with.

I have had experience with both systems. I attended public schools until grade 11, then I went to a semi-private Catholic college before university (we had fish every Friday and the dean was a nun, fun place). I know private schools are very good schools (hell that's why I begged my parents to put up the thousands of dollars in tuition), when I got to college (years 12-13 in a British sense not like the rest of North America) I saw quite clearly that the students coming from private high schools got a better education than I did, and I had to play catchup. I was behind the students coming from private schools in chemistry and math. They got trips to Europe to visit historical sites, we got school trips to Stratford Ontario. It's obvious that if you throw money at a school, they can do more for kids. The problem is that every dime a parent gives to those private schools, the public loses out. The choice to give your child a private education comes with the side effect of lowering the quality, just the slightest, for many of the most disadvantaged in our society.

Edit: I ended up borrowing the money for college from my brother, my parents wouldn't pay ;).