Posted on 11/30/2012 7:11:40 AM PST by Morgana
TORONTO, November 29, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homeschoolers are incensed after Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC’s The Current, decided to air what she called the “last word” on her show discussing homeschooling.
Following her November 14 show, a two minute skit cast homeschooling mothers as incompetent, uneducated, and sexually irresponsible.
The home-schooled teenage male—who was cast as unchallenged, resentful, rebellious, and delinquent—suggested at one point that he would rather not have been created than homeschooled.
“OK, so I’m supposed to learn geometry from a lady who never graduated college and wasn’t smart enough to use condoms?” rants the teenager in the skit.
The St. Augustine Classical Lutheran Co-op from the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario slammed the show as “play[ing] to the tune the establishment likes to hear.”
“The only problem,” the group pointed out, “is [that Tremonti] described a fictional scenario quite divorced from reality. Masked in humour, her message in this segment was all the more insidious.”
In her segment prior to the skit, Tremonti interviewed Paul Faris, president of the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada. She wanted to know why Faris’ association had supported the removal of a section of the first version of the Alberta Education Act that brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Alberta Human Rights Act.
Tremonti attempted to corner Faris into saying that parents compelled the Alberta government to remove the controversial section so that they could teach their children religious teachings on homosexuality. Faris would not take the bait.
Finally, Tremonti suggested: “If you believe religiously that homosexuality is a sin, do you believe that if [homeschoolers] were teaching their child that, that [they’d] be vulnerable?”
Faris pointed out that a “broad public act” such as the Alberta Human Rights Act was not made to “apply to private life in a home,” where homeschooling parents have “private conversation[s] in their own home with their own children”.
Prior to the proposed Education Act failing it third reading due to an election call, parents across the province had expressed grave concern over section 16 of the act, which they saw as an infringement on their parental rights to raise and educate their own children as they saw fit.
Tremonti then brought Kent Hehr onto the show, Liberal MLA for Calgary Buffalo and education critic for his party. Hehr accused the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada of being “anti-gay” and spreading “misinformation to move a political agenda.”
But Garnett Genuis, executive director of Parents For Choice in Education (PCE), told LifeSiteNews.com that it was not homeschoolers alone who were concerned about language in the original Alberta Education Act.
“A wide spectrum of stakeholders had concerns about some of the language in the original version of the education act. These included the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association and various alternative schools and programs.”
“From our perspective, people should have a right to hold differing opinions about moral and religious questions, and to pass those opinions on to their children before those children reach adulthood,” he said.
Genuis pointed out that the revised Education Act has “support of virtually all education stakeholders” since the “government fixed and clarified the language” that threatened “many people - not just home schoolers”.
The St. Augustine Classical Lutheran Co-op criticized the CBC for not taking the “opportunity to engage in a real debate about the state of education in this country.”
“Homeschooling families, as a rule, think about education much more than the average parent, and they tend to take their responsibility of raising the next generation of thoughtful, contributing citizens very seriously,” the co-op stated. “Far from being dysfunctional as portrayed in the skit, homeschooling families are a model of normalcy. Because the parents spend a great deal more time with their children than the average, the relationship between parent and child is most often one of mutual understanding, honour, and respect.”
“The kind of conversation this segment portrayed would be unlikely to occur in a homeschooling family,” it concluded.
The group accused Tremonti of demonstrating “exactly the kind of ‘close-minded’ and ‘prejudiced’ thinking of which she believes others to be guilty.”
“Is committing this kind of logical fallacy not an embarrassment for a nationally-broadcast radio host?”
You may listen to entire podcast here.
Contact: Audience Relations, CBC Online Email form Toll-free: 1-866-306-4636
P.O. Box 500 Station A Toronto, ON Canada, M5W 1E6
The libs know homeschooled kids are better educated so they have to put them down. Down to the level of public school kids just to make the libs feel better.
Hell with these bastards. Nothing redeeming about Canada - bunch of whiny little snots. Couldn’t defend their own damn country if ever confronted.
The key part of the word “homeschooled”, is “schooled”.
With the level of criticism from the “end-justifies-the-means” liberals it’s funny when the homeschooled makes higher scores on the SAT than many in public schools, especially the inner city schools.
I have nothing but admiration for parents who care enough to take the time to homeschool their kids, and those parents are proving that they really care for their kids and their education.
There are way too many “professional educators” with rubber stamped diplomas stumbling their way through, concentrating more on teaching the liberal agenda than the three R’s.
I wouldn’t call any one who teaches “incompetent” if the product of their efforts produced higher scores than most of the publically educated ones.
These “professionals” are union entrenched and afraid that their jobs are being somehow threatened. They see people teaching kids the basics without all of the brainwashing and the liberal agenda is being threatened.
You’re painting with too broad a brush FRiend. As a Canadian who adores the USA, I’m of the opinion that the residents of DC “wouldn’t defend their own damn country if ever confronted” either, but that proves nothing. It’s the remnant of people who do take their patriotism seriously, and their child-rearing seriously who will make the difference in the coming years.
My wife home-schooled 2 of our kids during middle school and the amount of solid learning they received prepared them well to enter and succeed in the rather large state university they attend now.
I say, more power to those Canadian families who do homeschool, considering the amount of persecution they will continue to have to put up with because of leftism. Pray for them.
They’re just trying to prep the public for a total ban on homeschooling. The education establishment doesn’t like competition.
You are right - sorry. Wish I had the courage to home school my child. Glad to see that home schooling was a benefit for your family.
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Well, since they can no longer criticize homeschoolers for poor quality of education, they have to go after them for something.
This goes to show how little they really have in opposition to homeschooling and its phenomenal success.
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.
The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.
Well, since they can no longer criticize homeschoolers for poor quality of education, they have to go after them for something.
This goes to show how little they really have in opposition to homeschooling and its phenomenal success.
And we’re supposed to take seriously someone who writes a *skit* that doesn’t even know that WOMEN don’t use the condom?
The solution to public education's problem is simple.
If a parent teacher wants the responsibility of teaching their child then they should have to take a test in the basic core subjects to prove that they have the ability to do so. I'm talking english [sic], math, science, geography, history, and physical education.
In Buffalo, NY every few years they give the teachers a competency test to see if the teachers have enough of a mastery of the subject material to graduate from the high school they teach.
Without fail, many teachers fail. The resultant screams of *Racism* would be funny if it weren't so sad.
They don't deny that the teachers failed, that they could not graduate from high school THEMSELVES. Nope, they make it a race issue.
To pretend that teachers actually have a mastery of the subject is ludicrous.
Do not even try to convince anyone that your ability to sit in a church an hour a week and read your bible at bible study makes you qualified to teach the required school subjects to the expected standards.
Issues with Christians, eh? That shows through loud and clear.
You just disqualified yourself from being taken seriously on the issue because you just demonstrated your absolutely abysmal ignorance about homeschooling and homeschoolers.
Socialist.....
All you need to know to teach someone something, is to know more than them. Since virtually all parents have graduated at least high school, they are qualified to teach to AT LEAST 8th grade.
What you fail to recognize is that most homeschool parents have college educations. And that having a teaching degree does not qualify someone to teach, as is evidenced by the horror stories we hear constantly about teachers.
In addition, you fail to recognize that a one on one education is far superior to a classroom setting and you don't allow for the fact that they parents can learn along with the kids if necessary.
Not to mention that by the time homeschool kids are in high school, they are self-teaching at that point. They have learned to teach themselves and are motivated to do some, something precious few public school kids ever master.
But you can tell by the way she talks to the customers that she's being taught proper at home......I always manage to leave her a nice tip
I once told her that she obviously has a desire to work and that she should take some classes in finance and investing....she said she'd love to if she could.
My daughter home-schools her four. They will do fine learning various branches of mathematics from a lady who scored a 5 in AP Calculus.
Lets put that teenager up against the average homeschooler in a test of academics, logic, physical skill, any category.
Yes, it is. It is a matter of recognizing legitimate authority.
Parents have the primary responsibility and authority to determine where, when, how, and what their children shall be taught. The State does not have any such legitimate authority, and certainly the self-appointed masterminds in the professional education establishment do not.
It is long past time for separation of school and state; education is far too important to let government bureaucrats and union members screw it up.
I have been told that in the state of West Virginia one has to at least have a college degree in anything to be able to homeschool. I do not know if this is true. Others have told me one can homeschool up to the grade one completed. Ie if you completed up to the 10th grade then you may homeschool your child to that level.
Nan do you know?
Either way I know homeschooled kids at Wal Mart. They don’t act like a bunch of nimrods in the check out line.
“Do not even try to convince anyone that your ability to sit in a church an hour a week and read your bible at bible study makes you qualified to teach the required school subjects to the expected standards.”
It would just so happen that I have seen a situation as you described. Yes they failed at trying to teach and had to quit. I will agree the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I will agree their best bet would have been to send their child to a private Christian school that had certified teachers. Due to the situation however this was not an option. Looking back now I think the best bet would have been what madison10 suggested and that is send the boys to military school.
st. eged thing about the Bible is, our schools were set up to teach the it in the early days. Now it is banned and the schools are not even teaching them to read much less read the Bible.
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