Posted on 08/17/2008 8:01:42 PM PDT by Chickensoup
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
It's a big family by today's standards - "just like stair steps," as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
There's no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully about her task.
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.
Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm, and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism, coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their children's safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a theistic world view largely permeates the movement.
Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California.
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?
Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around the homeschooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around the teetotaler.
Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar's be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.
Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state's bureaucrats on these "trouble makers." Their implicit rejection of America's most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. "Individualism") spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.
Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The rationalizations begin. "A family just can't make it on one income." (Our parents did.) "It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays." (Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the daughter's wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers. We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college education. And most significantly, we claim "our right" to pursue a career for our own "self-fulfillment."
Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens our 401k's. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to fuel the Suburban.
Now the kid is raising h... again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work ... and there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn't you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?
Is it any wonder we hate her so?
ah, a fellow “Voddie-ite”!
[handshake] Well met!
Just finished “Ever-Loving Truth” - and have attended about 10 live speeches of Voddie’s.
“If you can’t say ‘Amen’, you better say ‘Ouch’”.
You didn’t read my post correctly.
I said I spent six hours in the evening with them. I didn’t say I spent six hours in the evening doing homework.
You want to know what happens in that six hours every evening?
I parent them. I take them to activities. I help them do thirty minutes of homework on the two days a week they might have some. I feed them dinner. I see to it that they are bathed. I encourage them to spend time with friends out in the fresh air. I monitor their chores, and I love them!
Hah! I love this argument that I am schooling my children and the public school isn’t.
I have been schooling them since the moment of their birth.
I talk to them constantly about history, art, politics, current events. I try to teach them about the wonders of the world and the love of Christ. I hold them when they are sad and I kiss their bruised knees. I teach them about a mother’s love that knows no bounds and forgives everything. I show them respect. I lead by example. And I love their father so that they know how important family is.
I do not spend six hours teaching them “schoolwork”... they don’t come home with that much homework for goodness sakes! You make it sound like they have fourteen hours a day reading, writing, and ‘rithmeticing.
The next time you want to lecture me about how I raise my children, I suggest you read my damn post correctly first.
We HSed for all 12 years of our daughter’s schooling. For a while, I was getting up 90 minutes earlier than I would otherwise need to, so I could teach her history and government first thing in the morning.
She hated it because of the early hour, but today she has a thirst for those two subjects that is amazing. She knows far more than I do in those areas, particularly history.
She’s a college junior with a cumulative 4.0 GPA, working 20 to 24 hours a week. We did buy her a safe used car so she could drive to & from school and work, but other than that, she’s paid her own way the whole time. (Not that I’m beaming with pride or anything.)
I believe her education will mean much more to her if she pays for it herself. So far, she’s proving me correct.
Just as a different take on the subject, my folks paid for my undergraduate degree and I paid for my graduate work. My wife paid for the majority of her undergraduate degree and her graduate work.
Between the two of us, our loan payments are about $1000/month. We're fortunate that I earn a decent living and the payment really isn't that big of a deal. But if she hadn't married and it were only her, my wife would have a very tough time of things.
I don't personally see how saddling your children with unnecessary debt--essentially amounting to an extra mortgage payment--is a learning experience.
With the advent on online courses to deal with core curriculum, I see more elements of home schooling entering the teaching.
Schools are not schools any more. They are leftists extensions for recruiting.
I hope more and more homeschool so that people will start demanding cuts in public schools.
Bullfeathers. Materialism has nothing whatsoever to do with individualism.
“When such children mature and encounter ‘the outside world,’ they will know what to do and will have formed the habits and the consciences necessary to confront that world as it needs confronting.
“Habits have much to do with the quality of one's life and decision-making. Each time we give in to sin, it becomes easier to do so the next time. Each time we practice virtue, likewise. Bringing up children to practice virtues and suppress vices is our job as parents.”
There is the key.
As the twig is bent, so will grow the tree.
As homeschoolers, we have more control over how and when are children are prepared to meet the world, the good and the bad.
Many public (and even many private) schools are morally toxic and educationally feckless environments. Why would I think that my six year-old or 10 year-old child would benefit from six or seven hours a day of that? Why would I think that my young child would be mature enough, wise enough to encounter that coarsening, deadening environment for 30 or 35 hours per week, 26 weeks per year, with little or no ill effect?
With homeschooling, it is a child's PARENTS who decide how and when to teach a child about the world, good and bad.
As homeschoolers, my children know what evil lurks out in the world. But rather than being introduced to these evils by those who promote their illusive glamor, they have learned about them from my wife and me, and they have learned about it in a context of why things are evil, why they must be avoided, and how to avoid them.
If we have performed our vocations well, they will have the necessary wisdom to distinguish good from evil, and the moral habits to readily choose good and resist or flee from temptation.
But I wouldn't have expected them to have that at age 5 or 6, or 8 or 10.
sitetest
There, fixed it for you.
Need to find some new lines, the old ones are tired and worn out.
Likewise for homeschooling.
Perpetuating stereotypes and quoting NEA code book lines about homeschoolers just shows that you know nothing about them.
She is not accumulating debt at all. A couple of semesters she has had to cut back to as few as 6 credit hours so she could afford to pay for it.
And this is the first semester she has been able to qualify for a full boat Pell Grant. Before this, our income would get in the way, for several reasons I won’t go into in a public forum.
This year, she was legally able to apply as an independent student. She goes to a State college that has a tuition that is just under the maximum Pell grant. Unfortunately, after the grant was approved, the State raised tuitions for all State universities and colleges, so she had to pay the difference of about $200, plus about $300 for books for one semester. I’m sure the books for the Spring semester will be pricey as well, even buying used again.
But she will not go into debt. She made that commitment years ago and won’t violate it.
FYI
Seems that a lot of people missed that.
Schooling your kids doesn’t mean just academic bookwork sent home by the teachers. I didn’t read her comment that way, that you are spending 6 hours a day with academics on top of what they do in school. Besides, homeschooling NEVER takes that kind of time commitment each day.
Your discussing with them history, art, politics, current events, the wonders of the world, and the love of Christ is exactly that- schooling your kids. It is likely going beyond what the school is supposed to be teaching them.
I have to agree with wintertime. You are schooling your kids. The school is just taking care of the academics and grading and sadly they’ll get the credit for how well they turn out. You’re taking care of all the rest of the stuff which ultimately is more important.
Recently, the Tennessee State Board of Education ruled diplomas issued to home-schooled students from religious based schools were invalid as proof of the successful completion of High School should it be presented for employment purposes for a job for which state law requires a diploma. You read that right. According to the State Board of Education, all diplomas are equal but some diplomas are more equal than others.
… anyone from a public school (or a private accredited school) who presents a diploma in order to be hired as a daycare worker, police officer, fireman (or any other position which state law requires a high school diploma for) will be automatically accepted. Anyone who presents a homeschool diploma will be automatically rejected.
Welcome to the state controlled world that we have allowed. It is called OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION and the state controlls the outcome.
Recently, the Tennessee State Board of Education ruled diplomas issued to home-schooled students from religious based schools were invalid as proof of the successful completion of High School should it be presented for employment purposes for a job for which state law requires a diploma. You read that right. According to the State Board of Education, all diplomas are equal but some diplomas are more equal than others.
… anyone from a public school (or a private accredited school) who presents a diploma in order to be hired as a daycare worker, police officer, fireman (or any other position which state law requires a high school diploma for) will be automatically accepted. Anyone who presents a homeschool diploma will be automatically rejected.
Welcome to the state controlled world that we have allowed. It is called OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION and the state controlls the outcome.
Why aren’t the homeschoolers fighting this tooth and nail? This is a year long curriuclumn! Up here in little Maine we can roust 1200 homeschoolers at little notice to fight these SOBs.
if I am not on it would you add me?
Kudos to those parents who homeschool their children. It most definitely is a sacrifice of time and money.
I homeschool and work full time. When their father dropped the ball I didnt think it would be right to dump them in schools. Homeschooling friends came thru during the first few years and now they are old enough to manage by myslelf. How, Well I havent had a weekend off in seven years.
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