“MY WHOLE POINT: the average parent doesn’t have either the skill or the educational background in the basics to teach an elementary through middle school curriculum.”
So, your whole point is NOBODY can teach if they have a public school education, and that includes ALL OF THE TEACHERS TEACHING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS TODAY!!!!!!Because we all know that the teaching credential has no classes covering the said curriculum that you claim the average parent lacks. And if you want to claim different you are going to HAVE to prove it because too many Freepers here have stated that there are NO SUCH CLASSES.
You want the children of the USA to remain in the dead, stupid, indoctrinating, soulless public schools. You want the children to die in ignorance and be enslaved by YOUR kind, so you can have a job. Heartless. Elitist snob.
Re-read my responses.
I said it isn’t a viable general alternative. For certain people, it works. For the majority, it doesn’t.
It’s all I’m saying.
The worst part is you can’t test the parent to see whether they are teaching their kids, or if you have a ‘blind leading the blind’ situation.
Public school teachers are degreed, go through student teaching, and have to maintain their certification. It doesn’t mean that ALL are good teachers. It does mean that someone’s regulating them. If the NEA weren’t around, you may have a shot at retaining the good ones and firing the bad ones.
By the way, the curriculum DOES have the classes on the subject matter they teach. You get certificated in a main subject area, with a sub-cert in a minor area.
Teaching is both art and science. You can have hyper-qualified people in an area of specialty, and they can have zero ability to reach students. Much of a teacher’s degree addresses this very thing, and more.
You’re suffering from media poisoning. The schools are a banquet. Kids pick what they want to eat and leave the rest. Some think it’ll be fat city forever, and the blow it off. Some know different, and make the most of it.
There’s some truth in what you’re saying about indoctrination, but the schools aren’t dead, or are they stupid, and they aren’t soulless either.
Schools are like any other opportunity - you deal with the limitations and make the most of the advantages. Funny how you don’t have to explain this to SE Asian kids.
I’ll tell you this much, I’d be dead right now if it were up to my parents teaching me school on a daily basis. Between school, and the military, I escaped.
You show me a myth that needs to die in America, and that’s the myth that mommy knows best. Mother’s are the most powerful legal entity in the USA.
You want to kill a union? The family court system would be a worthy adversary.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a teacher. I’m an engineer. Any credit for me getting to this point belongs to the teachers I had in 3rd, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.
I had my share of bad ones too. From them I learned how to deal with bad bosses and survive. Same with the military.
They aren’t going to learn that from Mommy. You know what’s worse? If mommy can’t teach, they can’t wait until next year to get a fresh shot at a different teacher. They are stuck with mommy until they graduate. Year in and year out, sticking it out with mommy.
The good news for mommy is that since the kids don’t get another teacher, they never find out for quite a while how bad they were (or how good).
Either way, the kid doesn’t get a say in things, and even if they did, they’re ignorant about the matter because the one teacher’s all they’ve ever had (or two if dad’s involved). No principal’s going to come around and evaluate mommy to see if she’s any good at the job.
Here’s the thing: Public schools can be improved, like everything else. Looking at them ‘half-empty’ is one way to go about it. Parents, from my perspective, are OBLIGATED to teach their kids, even if the kids do spend all day at school.
My kids come home with neo-environmental cultism too. Then they sit and talk with dad. They come home with ‘black history month’, and I tell them it misses Dr. King’s point completely - that it was never about race, but character.
You can’t protect your children from different perspectives. Even homeschooling doesn’t work for that. Parents can, however, prepare them with tools for how to evaluate the merits of those perspectives.
If that’s being an elitist snob, then I guess you’re right.