Disclaimer: This post is long, I realize that. But I have so much to say. If your not interested than just skip this post and in a few days I"m sure there will be a new one up with details of our extremely exciting life! Oh and there will probably be a follow up post as I remember throughout the day more ideas I meant to write here!
For example, if a child shows an interest and talent for Math, of course they'll be likely to go into Geometry, Advanced Algebra, Trigonometry and probably Calculus and beyond. They were designed to be interested in that. But say this same child who gains high remarks in Math, does poorly in History. This child does not enjoy history, can not remember history facts and therefore gets low remarks in history and feels like he failed there (and I'm sure his parents will be very upset that he's failing history and bringing down his GPA and lowering his chances of getting into the college of their, I mean his dreams). This is what happens when a system is designed to ignore the individual and concentrate on creating a society as a whole that walks and talks alike. If that same child were in a homeschool setting, with parents that recognized this interest and talent (which probably wouldn't be hard for the parent to pick up on), then he would obviously work to excel in that area. He would be able to pursue Math further than he probably ever would be able in a school setting. Plus he would be fostering a love of learning.
We love to do what we're good at and what we are interested in. I feel like I'm pretty good at having kids Birthday parties, scrapbooking and recently couponing. And I LOVE doing those things. I am not good at wiring a t.v. or surround system or working on a car and therefore HATE doing those things. This child would hate going to school to listen to the history lesson and then promptly doing poor on the exam. But because of fostering that love of education, he will continually learn well into adulthood and will probably someday use that love to find out more about the history he hated before. I mean who says learning ends at 18? By growing a love of learning, you are ensuring that your children will never stop try to learn more and more in the lives. I think that's hugely important. I know I"d much rather have children love learning, love getting more and more knowledge, than hating the whole idea of school and feeling a sense of relief when it's over and that now they don't "have to do it anymore" because now they're 18 and can choose not to do it.
A study done by UCLA of 1000 public schools found that teachers on average spent 7 minutes daily on personal interactions with the students. That averaged out to be about 14 seconds per student. 14 seconds of personal interaction from the teacher. Well that is of course unless you're the "problem" student and gets lots of attention (mostly negative), but attention nonetheless. Even if it's a busy day and I give my children 5 or 10 minute doses of attention throughout the day, they have received multiple times more interaction than in the school setting. How much more can a child learn when their mentor gives them a much higher quantity (and quality considering, no one except God, loves your children more than you do) of that personal interaction? I think the readily available statistics of test scores can show you how much children can learn in this type of setting. They outscore children in elementary grades on the Iowa tests and highschoolers on the SAT's and ACT's.
I am vehemently against standardized testing because as I said before I am not at all for testing every kids abilities as a whole on a test written with no consideration for a kids natural born strengths and weaknesses. It's just not fair. And there are even some who are just great "test takers"as I feel like I was in school. I could pass ( and most likely get an A) in almost all subjects (except Calculus) yet not retain an ounce of what I learned. I could not tell you 5 people who signed the Declaration of Independence, the symbols for 5 elements on the Periodic Table, how to conjugate a verb, or how to ask for help in Spanish. Yet I took American History, Chemistry, 4 years of English, 4 years of Spanish. But hey, what should I expect, I'm a product of the conveyor belt. And luckily for me God put in me the ability to get past that and see it for what it is, and strive as an almost 30 year old adult to get an "education". I now feel like the dumbest one in the room when I hear some of these people talk. They all were conveyor belt victims too, but as adults chose to get an education. And I want to be like them. And that happens by reading books. But that's another post. Well, let me just say, how much more can you learn by reading a book written by Einstein, than reading a a quote here and there in a textbook filled with dumbed down information and more than enough opinions (not truths) to go around? When you read the actual words of these great "thinkers' it's like they are sitting there talking to you and sharing the vast wealth of knowledge they have with just you. It's like having a private conversation and they are sharing the secrets of their intelligence. That's exactly how they learned. They learned by reading what the great "thinkers" before them wrote. Well anyway, that's enough on that for now.
Let's talk about socialization as that's always the hot button for anti-homeschoolers. This is an article I found that had some very interesting points and rather than copying the whole thing and making this post longer than any other written, here's the link! www.lewrockwell.com/orig/zysk1.html
or read this article from the Home School Legal Defense Association complete with studies and graphs and tables:
www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Socialization.asp
and here there are several articles dealing with this concern:
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/socialization/Socialization_How_to_deal_with_it.htm
Plus you can find many more simply by googling homeschool socialization and educating yourself in this manner.
If you still aren't convinced that your kids shouldn't be in a public or private school setting, here's some more from the "A Thomas Jefferson Education" book by Oliver Van De Mille (worried about who this guy is, just google him, he seems very reputable).
"Historically the primary goal of public schools, the reason they were instituted, was to educate the poor so they could get a job and take their place in society. The middle class already had private schools and apprenticeships, and the wealthy were tutored at home.
Successful nations in history have had professional schools and leadership education, which complement each other. In class societies, the middle classes have tended toward the professions while the artiocracy received leadership education. Of course that left out the lower classes, so many nations established public schools to educate the poor. This always improved the nation. Delinquency, poverty and enslavement were replaced with widespread literacy and functionality, with resulting increased prosperity and opportunity.
In addition to these considerable benefits of public schools, they often came with a down side. Consider two of the most successful cases: 18th Century Germany and 19th Century Britain. Each instituted public schools to educate the poor, and the standard of living increased. But eventually the professional and leadership schools deteriorated because they simply couldn't compete with free, government-subsidized schools.
In each case the educational system and later the governmental system collapsed or at least convulsed. The lesson seems to be that if you have all three systems working together, society benefits. But when nearly everyone is getting an education for the poor and hardly anyone is being trained as a leader, the whole nation suffers."
So basically I feel that he is saying that public/private schools do have a place in society for those people who have no other choice. But for those who can do something about their education and have parents willing to help in that endeavor, the other choices are vastly better. I just feel like my children deserve the education reserved for leaders. Now I know when I think of the word leader, what immediately comes to mind is government leaders or military leaders. And both of those are great and something to aspire to, but I mean even being great leaders in their families as Mothers and Fathers, or leaders in their churches as Pastors or Sunday school teachers, or worship leaders, or even leaders at the job they are employed to do. The secret is out and you don't have to be "rich" to get the best education anymore. Anyone in any class can offer the best to their children. I mean we give our kids the best in most other areas of their lives, why should we chose not to give them the best here. The best education is not found in a classroom of 20 or more other kids learning from the same book, in the same style of teaching, and testing in the same way. It's just not the best, period. And that fact can be proven. I feel like my kids deserve the best, even if I have to drag myself out of bed every morning to do it, even if I have to work over the summer deciding what curriculum to use, even if I have to plan some field trips or crafts or science experiments, even if I hardly get "a break from the kids", even if my children are frustrated with my style of teaching, even if I feel like they'll never learn from me, even if my house is falling apart with mess and clutter, even if the laundry pile rivals Mt. Everest, even if we haven't eating anything that wasn't made by Chef Boyardee or my dear old Aunt Jemima in weeks, even if I just "don't feel" like doing school today, even if it seems that they are not getting it in whatever subject, even if I feel like pulling my hair out. I know I am giving them the best education. God chose me to be their parents. He charged me in Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it". In the original Hebrew text the word train was chanak which meant to train, instruct or initiate. I feel like he entrusted us to raise up our children in the way they should go (following Him) and I daresay that dropping them off at a public school where God is blaringly absent, is not what He intended for His children. Some say that if while the children are at home, they can work to bring God into their lives and show them there how to live as a Christian. And to that I have two points: One, how confusing must it be for a child to spend 7 hours a day at a school where like I said God is absent, behaving in such a society and learning to strive in such a society and then come home for the 4 or 5 hours in the evening only to switch gears and get into "christian mode" at home. I don't think those 4 or 5 hours will do much good in de-wiring from them the ideals and behaviors they learned earlier in the day. And my second point: How much do you actually get to spend on showing them this Christian life? They spend anywhere from 7-9 hours (including riding the bus to and from) in the actual realm of school. Then when they get home most have at least an hour (when older much more) of homework to do. Then there's projects: science fair, book reports, research papers, etc...that take up even more of the time, even on the weekends. Oh and also the extracurricular activities: band, basketball, play practice, cheerleading, chess club, whatever. So when exactly is the child not in the "school" way of thinking? Do you think they didn't know what they were doing when they designed school to take up so much time? Do you think they offer so many enticing extracurricular choices for a reason? Of course they did. If you are too busy with that, then you don't have time to do anything else, which may hinder their cause. But with homeschooling, they are in the Christian environment from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep and they are not consumed with all things school. They have time to learn by just playing, by exploring, by trying new things. They have time for dance lessons or sports because they are not consumed with the rigorous hours of the school day. There is just no time for kids to learn from the world around them and not just a textbook in the public or private school day.
Now, private school does allow for God to be around in the school day, and that's wonderful, but they are run in the same principal of the same education for everyone. They usually have more money and are therefore fancier, prettier and offer more extracurricular activities, but don't forget that are still a conveyor belt, paying no mind to the individual child. And if you don't mind them receiving such an education, then by all means go for it. But I just know that my kids deserve the best, and I believe all kids deserve the best.
Now one last point, I know you're probably saying thank goodness!! I hear a lot of people say that they just don't have the time to do it. What?? You can't give your children 14 seconds a day!! Just kidding!! Learning doesn't have to happen between the hours of 8-3. That's a public school idea. It's set up to be a free childcare center so that both parents can work out of the home all day. Learning can happen at 9 am, 2 pm, or even 11pm. And the idea of learning is to set it up so that children will learn to educate themselves. Now this doesn't mean you just leave them to their own devices. But as they learn to read, learn basic math principles, learn basic science ideas, etc..they can apply that knowledge to a new idea and probably do most of the work themselves. How often does curriculum introduce a new idea? Probably once or twice every 10 or 15 pages. At least that's what has been the case for the curriculum we're using. So I probably have to spend 10 or 15 minutes introducing that new idea, showing them what it means using manipulatives or another hands on experience and then give them examples and a few problems to do in front of me and then they are ready to tackle the assignment. So in the those 10 or 15 pages (about a weeks worth of work), I spend maybe 30 minutes of one on one teaching and then maybe another 10 minutes going over the assignments (which are usually review of older ideas or practice on newer ideas) on the other pages. And then maybe a total of 5 minutes a week to go over the work and make sure he's understanding the ideas and if not offering help or suggestions to better understand. So for each subject (Noah does 5: Math, Language Arts, Bible, Science and History/Geography) 45 minutes is about all that's required weekly. So that comes out to 225 minutes for all 5 subjects or just less than 4 hours. Can we not find 4 hours in a week to give to our children? Even if it's just a little bit of time during the week and more instruction on Saturday. And of course more time could be spent on reading to them (we do this in the evenings as a family), putting together and doing crafts, field trips, etc..but that's on a mother by mother basis. You are not required to do those things. But I'm sure you could squeeze in a few during the week anyway. And again, how much better will your child do with 225 minutes of individual one on one time per week, than the 70 seconds they get at school?
Now I know I covered ALOT in this post and I'm sure there are still some things I didn't cover, but I feel like the Lord has lead me to write this post, he has put it in my heart for about a week now and I finally have the time and words to write it. I hope no one is offended. I was once just like those who are against it or even if their not against it, don't feel it's right for their family. But now that my eyes have been open to the truth, I feel like I have to share it. My kids deserve it and your kids do too.
And here's another link to the a speech by a man who wrote the book "The Underground History of American Education". He was a New York public school teacher for lots of years and quit and wrote this book and the book "Dumbing us Down". I have the underground history book on order and will let anyone borrow it who is interested. In this speech he talks more about the UCLA study. It also talks about very recent events in the government to maintain their control of the schools. It's very interesting.
http://4brevard.com/choice/Public_Education.htm
