Germany May Be On to Something

Tags

child abuse, homeschooling, parental rights

I was just minding my own business when this popped up:

A German family racked up some $10,000 in fines, police visits and forced removal of their children when they refused to stop homeschooling them. They fled to America, and asked for asylum. That may not happen.

Now, I have not have good experiences with homeschoolers, let’s be clear. We demand that our teachers GO TO COLLEGE and be CERTIFIED to teach in our schools. Yet for some reason that defies all common sense, we think, (in some states at least) that it is perfectly okay to “edu-kate” your youngin’s with a high school diploma.

I mean it defies logic.

Now I have no quarrel, as I said in the past, with those who live so far from the school that such a plan makes sense. I’m also, I guess, okay with those who can prove to some standard that their available schools are so substandard that although they don’t have credentials that would allow them to teach, the can prove that they can do a better job than the local system.

I am unwilling to extend the offer to those who simply want to indoctrinate their kids with THEIR religious opinions, and prevent their darlings from learning about the real world, until they have had enough time to brainwash them into their way of thinking, and can safely send them into the enemy camp.

Germany apparently simply doesn’t allow it. When you look at the issue across the world, you find great variance. It seems to have little to do with form of government or population size, or anything else that I can discern. But in MOST of those countries that allow it, it is moderately to severely monitored, and in many cases, you have to show a real need in order to qualify.

While studies don’t suggest that homeschooled kids do badly when compared to their schooled counterparts, (in fact they score better on standardized tests often), they don’t do nearly as well in math and science, subjects that a high-school graduate is more likely to not have the requisite expertise. And of course, when they are being taught religious doctrine to wit: evolution is not true, climate change is a hoax, and similar anti-science drivel, it is  little wonder that these kids are not going on to become tomorrow’s scientists.

This has led some argue that homeschooling is a form of child abuse. While that is strong language, I do feel that there is some merit to the argument.

We have, in this country, a strong thread of “child ownership”. We believe that parents (for which there is no education at all) somehow, by osmosis know “what’s best”. As so many of us can attest to, that is not the case. An all too large number of adults today would admit that they were raised by people who were essentially incompetent.

We are not talking about physical abuse, although surely that exists as well (and of course homeschooling is a great way to avoid detection there too), so much as we are talking about emotional abuse, which is rampant in American families. We can it “dysfunctional families”. We are not talking about evil people, we are talking about people who are wounded themselves attempting to raise a well-rounded emotionally healthy child. Too many parents are as I said, emotionally damaged themselves and woefully uneducated as well. They do the best they can, but they don’t have the tools to do the job well.

Yet, because we have this strong sense of children “belonging” to people, we are afraid to touch this holy grail, even when it means that our children suffer. I know from personal experience of friends whose were fundamentalists and raised their children in such an atmosphere. When their children grew up and got into the world, what happened? They decided that their parents had lied to them, and a rift in the family occurred which never was healed. This is not an unusual outcome either.

Look at the ranks of the atheists. A strong percentage of them were raised in fundamentalist homes. They feel, as they explain it, abused and lied to. They reject, as a result, all religion and faith itself.

How many potential great scientists out there are nipped in the bud by parents who don’t believe in those “Eastern intellectual elites”? Much of the Madison Avenue sell to parents as to why they should homeschool is based on warning them that their kids are being indoctrinated by homosexuals, taught faulty science by atheists, and threatened by liberal elitists  whose intent is to turn their children into Marxists. “Keep you kids home and educate them in our Founding Fathers principles of God and freedom!” they spout.

Surely we need to improve our school systems across the land. Every parent has the ability to supplement their child’s education in dozens of ways. Every parent has the ability to indoctrinate their child in their religious views. But does EVERY parent have the right to keep their child from others and use them as some experiment in “my world view”? I say no.

I leave you again with the words of Kahil Gibran:

I think this sums things up rather well.

Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

you may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable.

Kahil Gibran

Other posts I’ve done on homeschooling:

So You Wanna Homeschool?

Is It Child Abuse?

Related articles

• ” There Is No Right To Homeschooling “ (youviewed.com)
• Dispelling Some Homeschooling Myths, by Lori R. (survivalblog.com)

So You Wanna Homeschool?

Tags

editorial, homeschooling

I happened to run into a post on homeschooling that involved what are apparently yearly conventions held in states each year. I have no clue who sponsors these things, but if you back track on the one offered in Texas, called the THSC Southwest Convention and Family Conference, you find that it at least is “sponsored” by the Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank. I would be surprised if you don’t find similar (if not the same) sponsors around the country.

Now, homeschooling in theory is not a bad thing necessarily. There are people who live so far off the grid that it is their only choice. There are others who live far enough from local schools that the transporting times and costs become prohibitive.  There are school systems that most anyone would agree are so lacking in quality that a well-trained parent can surely do better.

The downsides are also obvious and ones that can be fairly overcome I think by a bit of ingenuity. Children can be involved in all kinds of sports and other activities that gives them the socialization skills that homeschooling lacks. It may not be as good as regular schools offer, but the limitations are just that, limits, not barriers.

Unfortunately, most people today it seems are not homeschooling out of necessity, but rather out of a desire to teach their children differently, and by differently, I don’t mean by a different educational model. They simply want to infuse religion in the curriculum. They disguise it with talking about the failures of public schools.

It is well documented that our public schools are not doing a good job. That is not a reason to remove children but a reason to supplement their education with side trips to museums, cultural events, and more reading lists.

While this is the main reason stated for homeschooling, the real reason, as I said, is to inculcate a certain religious view onto education. Homeschooling parents call it “giving their children all sides of the issue”. In reality it is nothing more than introducing myths and fantasy into education and calling it “alternative” theories.

Such is surely the case with evolution, which most Christian homeschoolers claim is only one of “several” theories about how our world was created. They claim that schools are “close-minded” by refusing to explore these other alternatives. Of course, there are no “several” theories at all. There is one that is factual, evolutionary biology and one that is based on faith in the interpretation of a religious text. One is based on fact, one is based on belief. One has a place in  plain education, one has a place in religious education.

Similar changes are occurring when it comes to history. The right-wingers have been churning out right-wing based revisionist history books that are designed exactly for this crop of consumers. (Funny how that happens) We have all read about these texts, which downplay the contributions of African-Americans, and glorify the theme of American Exceptionalism to the detriment of Native Peoples and other not Anglo-saxon individuals. Periods when the US exhibited immoral behavior are notoriously downplayed in these “histories.”

Even more alarming to me is the fact that most states offer little or in some case no supervision to homeschooling. In many, one must prove that the “teacher” has a HIGH SCHOOL diploma, and provide a “curriculum” covering the basic areas of learning, along with a list of books to be used. That’s it.

Nobody of course is going to check to see what books are actually being used, and what is being taught.

If you doubt the dangers here, take a look at some of the presentations offered at this 2-day convention:

9:30 AM: David Gibbs ~ What’s Next for America?
Description: “What kind of world will your child inherit? In this thought-provoking workshop, Attorney David Gibbs discusses trends in the law that could determine the world of tomorrow and what you can do to make a difference.”

* Following his workshop last year Jeff and I purchased the Understanding the Constitution text and workbook authored by David Gibbs, Jr. & David Gibbs III. This year Jeff is using this text in a U.S. Government course he is teaching at our co-op.

10:45 AM: Jean Burk ~ How to Ace the SAT and Get Free College
Description: “Test-prep Guru, Jean Burk, will share her secrets of SAT success that have helped hundreds of students raise their scores as much as 600 points! Learn how to find shortcuts in test patterns and save time on all types of questions. Math, writing, and verbal sections are all covered in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you have kids in high school, you can’t miss this seminar about preparing them for the SAT and getting FREE College!”

1:45 PM: Tim Lambert ~ Courtship – A Father’s Perspective
Description: “In this workshop Tim explains the basics of courtship. This method of choosing a life-partner is enjoying a resurgence, as young people and their families return to a more scriptural and positive approach. He discusses this issue from the perspective of a father whose role differs with sons and with daughters.”

3:00 PM: Dr. Jobe Martin ~ Raising Defenders of the Faith, Not Defector
Description: “This workshop is about raising children in our culture so that they know biblical truth in their innermost beings. Dr. Martin challenges parents to show their children how to glorify the Lord in what they say and do, and to fear the Lord above all else. He ends with a challenge to parents to train their children to have biblical discernment.”

4:15 PM: Tim Lambert ~ These Uncertain Times
Description: “With daily disturbing news out of Washington, D.C., and concerns about threats to our freedoms at the state level as well, what must we do? Tim will share his thoughts on some of the areas of concern for Texas home schoolers and ways we can have an impact and protect our children’s future.”

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SATURDAY, AUG. 4TH
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9:30 AM: Susan Wise Bauer ~ The Well-Prepared Student (High School): How to Get Ready for College
Description: “In this session, learn what and how to teach your child in grades 9-12—before they fill out those applications and head off for the freshman year. What expectations should you have for high school? How can you teach those subjects that stump you? How should you personalize the high school curriculum for your student, while still making sure that the basics are covered? What skills will your student need to develop in order to thrive in college? As a college instructor, Susan Wise Bauer has taught scores of college freshmen and knows what they should have learned before the freshman year; as a home educating parent, she has graduated one high school student (now at UVA) and is in the thicket of high school with two more.”

10:45 AM:Dr. Jobe Martin ~ Why Should the Christian Worldview be Grounded in Creation?
Description: “This talk includes many of the evidences for creation that the Lord used to bring Dr. Martin from being an agnostic, zen-Buddhist, evolutionist to a young earth creationist. Dr. Martin uses statistics and current studies to vividly demonstrate how our Christian school kids are following the same downward path into secular humanism that the public school kids are taking and that it is only the homeschoolers who are “stemming the tide,” though they are also sloping off into moderate Christianity instead of staying solidly Biblical. This talk will enable young people to stand strong against the attacks of evolution and secular humanism in the academic arena and today’s culture.”

1:45 PM:Voddie Baucham ~ Culture Wars: How They Affect the Home School Family and How We Respond
Description: “There is a mighty clash of worldviews going on all around us, and there is no way to escape. Educating our children at home will only postpone the inevitable. Our children will engage the culture. The only question is, will they do so as lambs going off to slaughter, or will they be sheep among wolves who are “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”? (Matthew 10:16)”

3:30 PM: Susan Wise Bauer ~ Educating Our Own Minds: How to Teach Ourselves as We Teach Our Kids
Description: “Educating our children involves educating ourselves. And that means gaining confidence in our own intellectual abilities—rather than relying solely on “experts.” Come discover a plan for self-education in the classical tradition, including scheduling for busy adults; setting up a reading plan that involves understanding, analyzing, and discussing literature; and mastering the skills needed for reading classic fiction and nonfiction.”

If this list doesn’t frighten you, then I suspect you are not on the right blog. This list of speakers and topics is right out of the right-wing playbook on how to create good Republican stooges.

Such is my take. Yours?

NOTE: the agenda for the conference came from OMSH who contributes regularly to Pioneer Woman. I have no idea if Ree Drummond endorses this kind of stuff or not. The link is to the post wherein OMSH expresses her utter joy at the wonderful conference this will be.

** Please note that I think virtually all public education needs to be supplemented by parents with outside sources.

Related articles

• You are Qualified to Homeschool! (practicalpages.wordpress.com)

Is It Child Abuse?

Tags

creationism, education, evolution, fundamentalism, homeschooling, Iowa, Michigan, religion

Not being a parent, I feel uniquely qualified to give opinion on the practice of homeschooling. At least I am good company, since in a significant number of states, there is zero regulation of the practice, and anyone can declare themselves “teacher.” So, like I said, I’m uniquely qualified.

The chart says a lot. In those states of white, there are NO regulations whatsoever. Thus it allows a mere high school graduate in a state like Michigan (and one’s competence varies of course as to the quality of even that status), to “teach” their children. In red states, the requirements are high, requiring at minimum licensed teachers, testing and evaluations done on a regular basis. Most of these are required in the orange states as well. Iowa for example, required a licensed teacher, and evaluations done periodically along with testing. It does however, exempt the Amish type communities from compliance.

My first experience with homeschooling came in something I read or saw regarding Alaska. Folks who lived deep in the wilderness had no access to schools; heck they receive their mail ofttimes by biplane. As I recall, the two kids, schooled by mom, placed at Harvard and tested well above their peers. Wow, I thought. How lucky. If I had only had well educated parents who could have led me on an independent study into all those places my regular school had no “time” for in the rush to meet the general “citizenship” requirements.

I often thought that homeschooling as an adult would be something I would deeply love–giving my child an extra boost toward college. I still agree, there are circumstances when homeschooling is better. The obvious is when there is no alternative such as living in remote areas of a state. Another situation is well known to many urban dwellers–inadequate and substandard schools in their area.

As the map suggests, homeschooling, as schooling in general tends to be, respects to an inordinate degree, the state and the parent. The differences between states seems wildly variant. This goes hand in hand with our general belief that the state should not exercise too much control over families. They are sacrosanct in some sense, and only a serious state interest should intrude upon the family. One can look at custody issues with in vitro and all the other methodologies of giving birth to realize how ill-equipped the courts feel in tampering with family issues.

So the idea that we should regulate and to what degree is important. I am forced to look aghast at any state that makes no regulation of such an important issue. Having a well educated electorate, and one that is poised to enter college or university on a level of equality with other students, is I would think essential. Our world becomes more and more complicated, and our youth must be armed with the clearest and best information available to compete and make wise decisions, both for their own lives and for the lives of humanity itself.

It seems that generally speaking religion plays a major part in homeschooling decisions. Something like 33% cited religion as their reason for homeschooling.  I ran into this first on a Catholic forum that is decidedly right wing. In fact, many of its posters are former born agains who have discovered the “true” church, but have brought their fundamentalist ways with them. They and other right wing evangelicals are near the largest segment of those who choose homeschooling.

And this seems irrationally wrong to me. These folks seem to object that our schools are too secular, and that they are, and by design. However, the answer it seems to me is not in homeschooling, since the science, math, and so forth are not impacted by religion. In fact the removal of religion from schools was imposed exactly so that information is offered as is, without editorial comment if you will.

The rightful place to indoctrinate kids (if you must) is at home. Kids should be learning biology unburdened by ideology. They can receive that at home, where no one can prevent it. One of my closest friends candidly explained to me how her children regurgitated the “answers” for tests as it related to evolutionary theory, but were at home told that such information was all a tissue of lies, since the good Lord set out all we need to know in one or both versions of creation in Genesis.

Why religious objections to secularized education is a reason for indoctrinating a kid in bad or no science, and splitting the brain into fragments, none of which can be reconciled, is beyond me. I simply object that it is wrong. It is child abuse. Said child is ill prepared for college for starters. Plenty of science professors in colleges and universities across the land gripe about the remedial education that must be given to these kids, and how some of them waste the class time arguing creationism. The vast majority of kids are there to learn evolution and thus prepare themselves for careers in science, not engage in a useless debate with a brainwashed kid.

We all know the consequences, either the child, too tied to parental control, keeps its head in the sand, and either flunks or engages in the repeat it but don’t believe it mode, or they crash and burn as now ex-believers, having had their worldview explode before their eyes in a torrent of actual facts. The former creates a non-thinking human robot, following blindly where no logic has gone before, and the latter becomes an atheist, unfortunate from a believer’s stand point at least.

I’m not against homeschooling, but I am against allowing minimally educated adults, who know not even as much as they are attempting to convey, all with an ideological bent which is demonstrably false,  to screw with the minds of our youth. It is bad enough that our educational system is now substandard to much of the world today, let’s not make it worse by continuing to drag it into the morass of myth and fairy story. A troubled world requires more.

***

Oh, and just for proof, look to Texas which has been screwing with textbooks and such, all designed to push a creationist agenda. The upshot is that graduation levels in Texas are lower than Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Now, no doubt some will quibble with correlations here, but I think that the more irrelevant we make education, the less we graduate. Kids seem to sense mediocrity I’d say.

***
Home Education Magazine has the state laws of Iowa and Michigan, as well as all other states at the bottom of each page of their website. See what the regulations are in your state.

Wearing My Alien-Proof Perfume

Tags

children, creationists, education, homeschooling, Kahil Gibran, parenting

Most of you know that I am transported from time to time into other universes. This is never with my consent, but I’ve grown to accept it. My brain cannot process certain insanities on planet Earth, and so it probably is a good thing.

Last night, I awoke from dear slumber, realizing that for sure, the axis of the earth had tilted just a smidgen quite suddenly. The reason?

Why, McDonald’s has closed its doors in Iceland. Indeed, a near panic has ensued as frantic Icelandicers, or Icelandics? rush to get their last fix. So goes America’s best hope of supersizing  the rest of the world to it’s obesity level. It is a government plan put in play to prove what we all know already, America is exceptional, and fat drives it!

It seems impossible to conceive that McDonalds could suffer such a set back. I mean, let the banks close, let the hospitals overflow, let the fields run empty of potatoes, but good God,  how can humanity continue with any human not within ten minutes of a Ronald Mickey D? The sheer inhumanity of the thing is enough to make one choke with tears.

I figured that from that, everything else would go downhill. And it seemed to. The other day, I was reading the remarks of a creationist, who so happily and proudly proclaimed that she had used a particular creation site to extensive use during her homeschooling days. Does this mean that there are zero requirements for homeschooling to get that diploma?

I mean, do ya just call the state education department, and say, “send me one of dem diplomas. I’s ejucated nows?” Are there no standards of any kind? Or is this part of the great lie that creationist parents put their kids through? Here’s what you need to say to get the grade, but pssst, we don’t believe any of that is true. Is this not child abuse?

I can point to any number of people today who were told such lies as kids. Most all of them have since rejected their parents theology, in favor of none, sad to say. And they of course now know better about science as well. I find it sad, and it makes me mad. We are something like 31 in the world now in science and math, and we can thank in some part such intellectually bankrupt parents who have driven their kids into a scienceless world all in the name of feeling good emotionally. Shame on them. Believe what you want, but you’re kids–they are not property to be used as your emotional crutch.

I think this sums things up rather well.

Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

you may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable.

                                       Kahil Gibran

I guess I come down on the side that parents have a duty to teach their kids morals and ethics, and how to use their minds with discriminating care. We need kids who can think critically and separate the chaff from the wheat. We don’t need to teach them what to think so much as how to think. Then we need to expose them to as varied a world as possible, and to as much varied thought as possible. It is up to them, in communion with their conscience and/or God to decide what to make of it all.

Humans are incredibly resilient. We, most of us that is, turn out okay, even against rather heavy odds against us. That doesn’t mean and shouldn’t mean that parenting is largely not important. It is. And we have become complacent to the fact that most of us turn out okay, and so nothing need watch over the parenting that goes on. But surely, we owe our kids more than to be raised as automatons of ideologically locked down humans. We owe them the true freedom of thought unhindered by psychologically driven mindsets essential to the parent, but not necessarily needed by the child.

Why we have never felt the need for parenting classes as the norm is beyond me. The wreckage of relationships is all around for the viewing. Can’t we do better than this? Are we going to live forever in the land where parent/child relationships are so sacrosanct as to be untouchable absent physical abuse? Do we not care that emotional and educational abuse are rampant in many of our homes? Is there not a better way?