Homeschoolers

Originally posted by xxxenophobe
Dats what i'm sayn about being in a social environment.. i dont know about you.. but i socialised with older, younger, freaks, geeks, jocks, nerdz, preps, teachers, ext ext... I interact well with "almost" any one... hence me getting every job i've ever ben interviewed for... and the shear ease of getn "company" when i need it.. 😉

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Shut up.

Originally posted by xxxenophobe
Grrr... a bit snippy aint we.. shesh.. last time i agree with you grumpy puss. 😛

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
That's fine by me.

Originally posted by telerion
...Finally, I want to combat this growing sentiment that American public schools are filled with rotten kids from bad homes. I am surrounded by products of the public school system. All of these people have been very successful. They worked hard, led there classes, and brought a sense of community to their schools. It's just silly to focus on the lower ...[text shortened]... gelical xtianity. Yet another case of its intimate relationship with scientific ignorance.

I now know why ppl think Im a dropout when I tell them im a homeschooler . . . I guess to you Im just another dropout


Let's cut that crap right here, fly. I don't think that you are a dropout. It sounds like you have a major insecurity. Don't bring it into the discussion.

In fact I learned the construction trade at a very young age and if my parents sent me to a public school I wouldnt had as much of a chance to learn

This is exactly what I was saying about the flexibility of homeschooling. A lot of homeschoolers do not put in the same hours as kids in public school. Beyond elementary level, the teaching method is most often, "Go read what the book says. Do these pages in the workbook. Come back if you have a question. If I don't know the answer, then I'll read what the book says and try to explain it." I will dismiss for now the obvious weakness of such a teaching policy. Instead, I want to share what this policy meant for the kids that I knew. Typically, if the kid puts in a few solid hours in the morning, he/she can complete the workbook questions for the day. Then they are free to learn or do other stuff (like construction) for the remainder of their day. I knew quite a few kids who would spend one solid day working a week ahead in their workbooks so that they could play for another week.


Also dont say my statistics are wrong, as I seen living proof of this,

fly, I didn't say that I don't believe "your" statistics. I pointed out that they all came from a single organization which, after devoting some careful study to its website along with some cross-studies at the US D of Ed, I determined to be an avid promoter of homeschooling.

Now you wouldn't blindly trust Philip Morris for smoking statistics would you? Or trust the CATO Institute for figures on the effects of capital income taxes or of expanding markets in developing countries?

This does not mean that you dismiss them immediately, but rather that you note the publisher's strong incentives to give you very biased estimates.

My criticisms of "your" figures were not that they were wrong, but rather that they seem to suffer from a spurious variables problem. Because homeschooling is strongly correlated with other factors which do have a significant impact on behavior, one can mistakenly believe that homeschooling is causing the behavior. In reality, homeschooling may have some independent positive effect, but in order to know whether homeschooling's independent impact is significant, one must control for the other factors that I gave.

Your claim to have seen living proof is a great example of why researchers use statistical methods. Like you, my family also lived in an area with a lot of homeschooling families. I made observations just like you did, but I came to a very different conclusion about homeschooling. How can this be possible? Well, perhaps the case which you take as proof is an anamoly, or maybe the group that I observed was not a good reflection of the aggregate pool because of geo-economic factors that biased my pool one way or another. Maybe my three brothers were anamolies. Or maybe like I've been suggesting, the success or failure of homeschooling is strongly correlated with other independent factors (e.g. income, economic location, parent's education, the availability of outside scholastic resources) that were different in our two cases.

So back to my earlier challenge. In order to confirm that homeschooling is superior and that it should be the chosen education method of all good parents, it is up to you to demonstrate that homeschooling is actually a significant cause of the positive outcomes. After that, not only must you demonstrate that it is superior to public school in the causal regard, but also to private prep schools.

Show me a study which indicates otherwise.

To be honest I haven't found one that indicates otherwise, though I have found some that are ambigious concerning homeschooling's efficacy. I suppose I could also go to a strongly biased organization and find some counter research. As for my information on the correlation of homeschooling with other factors, I believe that I cited the NCES of the US D of Ed. Just google it and then type in homeschooling in their search box. Go to either the 2003 or the 1999 report.

It seems you are making judgments about homeschooler's based on my post, Maybe thats why you are againts it because of a few people.

My criticisms of your post are based on your post. I make my judgements based upon my experiences. The pool I'm drawing from had somewhere around ten families in it, so probably 20 or so kids. I also had the chance to meet more families at large homeschool get togethers, but I can't really use it first because I don't recall much from those meetings, and second, because I didn't follow those families so I don't know how things turned out for them.

This discussion reminds me of one we got into earlier about why poor people tend to have more kids then wealthier families. In that discussion, I realized that children are the thing you value most in life. That is great, but like I said there, don't assume that everyone shares your preferences. Also don't assume that simply because a parent chooses not to be the primary education provider for their child that the parent does not value their child's education. Some parents realize that they would not be the best teacher for their kid. I think that you have to respect that.

Originally posted by telerion
...To be honest I haven't found one that indicates otherwise, though I have found some that are ambigious concerning homeschooling's efficacy. ...

Everyone has seen the studies about what happens to rats when they are packed together in confined spaces - they become more aggressive, quick to attack any other rat that appears weak. You see that in public schools. It's not that the kids are so bad, it's the environment that is so unhealthy.

So kids are like rats? Or kids sholdn't be packed up in their house all day?

Then there's an absence of moral standards in public schools, and the secular orientation of all the studies. Where you may consider that normal, there is no reason why a religious family should be forced to artificially divide their religion from all other areas of life. Religion and philosophy are integrated into all areas of life. To try to separate are compartmentalize spiritual beliefs from everything else is impossible. But public schools try to do that to the detriment of all students (accept maybe the atheist who are already damaged).

Yes, about 30% of families in the NCES study cited moral standards as their number one reason to be a homeschooler. This portion of your post clearly displays a negative of homeschooling: lack of outside perspective. Don't they brainwash their children enough with church? These kids, if they get to college, are going to be terrified by the complexity of the big world. Stop being so controlling.

Simply put: public schools do not lack moral standards. You just have an extremist perspective of the world and cannot tolerate dissent.

Originally posted by Coletti
For the sake of further discussion - do you think parents should have the right to homeschool - whether or not homeschooling provides a superior education?

Originally posted by telerion
.. Don't they brainwash their children enough with church? These kids, if they get to college, are going to be terrified by the complexity of the big world. Stop being so controlling.

Simply put: public schools do not lack moral standards. You just have an extremist perspective of the world and cannot tolerate dissent.

Originally posted by wucky3
Hiya Mike

Bullying, fighting,friendships etc..it's all part of growing up isn't it. Aren't children who are taught at home missing out on important social skills?

Originally posted by KellyJay
No, and they are not forced to endure some things like gangs and
drug pushers either. It isn't like the kids are kept from the world,
getting into social events becomes a must, so they get it with places
like church or group meetings and events with other home school
kids, not to mention other kids in the neighborhood too.
Kelly

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Wrong.

I'm worried they will pretend they have no views, or that their views have no effect upon their teaching.

I expect teachers to express the truth as they understand it.

Creationism, however, has no place in the science curr ...[text shortened]... r ones are aware of my disgust at Bobby Fischer's anti-Semitism).

Originally posted by telerion
[b] Everyone has seen the studies about what happens to rats when they are packed together in confined spaces - they become more aggressive, quick to attack any other rat that appears weak. You see that in public schools. It's not that the kids are so bad, it's the environment that is so unhealthy.

So kids are like rats? Or kids sholdn't be pac ...[text shortened]... ral standards. You just have an extremist perspective of the world and cannot tolerate dissent.[/b]

I think that in some cases your criticism does apply. Public school boards can be ultra-sensitive about offending people or violating rights. Sometimes in an attempt to comply with the law, they actually violate the rights of a student (It always seems to happen with T-shirts for some reason).

As far as an extremist perspective, I have a hard time believing that the US public school system is extremist. By its very nature, that is by being an amalgamation of teachers and children from different backgrounds, it seems to be anything but extreme. Constrast this to a single homeschool where the only view present is that of the parent (I'm thinking of Coletti here, not Wulebgr.).

Now an individual public school is not necessarily the same thing as the US public school system. Since public schools are drawn up by districts and people tend to live within communities of equivalent economic and racial status, some public schools have very little diversity in student background and philosophy.

then push some moral ideas and attack others moral views
of good and bad behavior.

I'm glad that you recognize that schools do have moral standards. I wonder though, which specific moral systems do you think public schools attack?