Hollywood Insults Homeschoolers - The O'keefes

Arkansas Publik Skulz ^

[steplock]

Hollywood Insults Homeschoolers
Date Wednesday, March 26 @ 05:55:51

The O'Keefes

Home schooling is not only getting out of the house, it's getting on the air. Warner Brothers will be airing a half-hour sitcom, "The O'Keefes," in which, according to the television treatment, two parents (played by Judge Reinhold and Kirsten Nelson) home school their three gifted and multilingual kids in order to protect them from a materialistic society.

According to the WB, the O'Keefe siblings can speak six languages, "but have no idea how to talk to kids their own age." An air date for the sitcom has yet to be scheduled, but the proposed show has already stirred commotion among the home-schooling community.

"All studies find home schoolers to be very well socialized and able to deal with their peers better than their high school counterparts," says Chris Klicka, senior counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association of Purcellville, Va., who has home schooled all seven of his children.

"To have a show opening whose main theme says that these kids aren't very well socialized is a complete myth." Mr. Klicka, who has received dozens of e-mail complaints from home schoolers about the show, hopes that his organization can give the WB input before it airs.

"We want it to be entertaining, but we want it to be accurate," Klicka says. The show was created by executive producer Mark O'Keefe and produced by Hamcat Entertainment in association with Turner Television. A spokesperson from the WB would not comment.

* * * * *

The above report is from: Home schoolers get out of the house by the CS Monitor.

About the show: The Okeefes Read the Viewer Comments.

Entertainement Wire: THE O'KEEFES (The WB) I don't know much about this sitcom focusing on a family of home-schooled geniuses, but the eternally grating Judge Reinhold (''Beethoven's 4th'') plays the father, so you know it's gonna be the pits.


eMail Comments to WB at faces@talk.thewb.com or Comment on-line at WB Forums

This article comes from Arkansas Publik Skulze
http://www.gohotsprings.com/school/

The URL for this story is:
http://www.gohotsprings.com/school/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=154

[OpusatFR]

I wonder why Whollyweird and the leftists thought homeschooling in communes was the prefect ideal for children by in the 60's? Wasn't it to protect them against the materialism, commercialism, and capitalism of Amerika?

Man. If you are going to take a potshot, at least be consistent.

[Huck]

Despite a ban on all things pop culture, teenagers Danny (Joseph Cross, Jack Frost) and Lauren (Tania Raymonde, Malcolm in the Middle) and younger brother Mark (Matt Weinberg) are growing increasingly curious about what lies beyond the walls of their school/dining room. They can speak six languages, but are unable to converse with kids their own age. The answer lies in their father's worst nightmare - public school.

[TxBec]

ping.

[BSunday]

This is getting weird. Everywhere I turn on FR today I am reading about morons

[Darnright]

Dang! They can't understand or speak ghetto? Now there's a loss.

[GraniteStateConservative]

It would be a sign of failure by the homeschool teachers that these kids could converse with kids their own age. These kids write in "l33tspeak" and text messaging shorthand, use slang at every opportunity, and would be generally ignorant of the topics the homeschooled kids would be interested in. How is this something that is scandalous?

[GraniteStateConservative]

Exactly. Why are homeschoolers ashamed of this characterization?

"Ha, ha! Look at them! They don't understand what 'fo' shizzle my nizzle' means!"

These kids are supposed to not understand the garbage that regular kids say.

[FreedomPoster]

Homeschooler can simulate the government school socialization process by filling their bathroom with cigarette smoke, taking their kids in their, beating them up and taking their money.

Alternately, they can read Lord of the Flies, to learn about government school socialization .

[FreedomPoster]

Doh!
/their/there/

[Diva Betsy Ross]

The more the socialist freaks and other liberals poke fun at homeschooling the more I know I am doing the right thing .I am glad I have the chioce and the wisdom to remove my kids from people who want to teach self-defeating behavior. What can we expect from white trash T.V. like the WB?

[Rummyfan]

Hey, it's going to be on WB........ no one will see it!

[mamalujo]

Home education must be making an impact on society for the liberals to create a "show" to run it down.

[Darnright]

"These kids are supposed to not understand the garbage that regular kids say."

There's a tired old gambit. Remember the looks of puzzlement on the faces of Sgt. Friday and his sidekick when they would encounter a hippie or a beatnick?

Yawn.

[Huck]

What would they say about John Quincy Adams?


John Quincy Adams was born in 1767 south of Boston, Massachusetts. His childhood was filled with the events of the Revolution. When he was seven years old, he went with his mother to watch the battle at Bunker Hill, early in the Revolution.
In 1778, and then again in 1780, as a young boy, he went with his father, John Adams, to Europe--his father was a leader of our Revolutionary fundraising and diplomacy.

John Quincy Adams's mother, Abigail Adams, wrote to him that he should go ahead with his father to Europe and not worry about missing some school; because, she said, ``This is a time in which a genius would wish to live.'' And, he lived his whole life with this revolutionary sense of excitement and determination, hour to hour, minute to minute.

In Europe, he studied French, and some Dutch, and a whole array of Classical studies.

In 1781, at age 14, in the middle of the American Revolution, in Europe on this mission with his father, he went to Russia as a private secretary and French interpreter for the U.S. minister to the Russian court, who was over there to try to convince the Tsarina to take America's side, or at least to stay neutral.

In 1782, he returned to Paris, as a secretary to the commission negotiating with the British for the end of the American Revolutionary War.

We notice that the treaty (Figure 1), signed and negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, begins with the words, ``In the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity''--very interesting, for an alleged ``deist'' like Franklin, right?

John Quincy Adams studied Plato in Paris. He was working with Benjamin Franklin, and became very close to Franklin, and also he became personally very close to Thomas Jefferson there in Paris. He remarked later, that he was struck at that time with the ``moral beauty'' of Plato's dialogues; in particular, The Laws. And this had a profound influence on him. When John Quincy Adams was President, his wife translated Plato from French into English, in the White House.

Coming back to the United States, he graduated from Harvard College in 1787, and became a lawyer and political writer.

[George from New England]

This garbage is about nothing more than perpetuating the agenda of the NEA (the teacher's union). Never concerned about the children, only about the growth of big and more government.

[azhenfud]

Such is the Balloon Stuffing also being fed to the parents who choose to send their children to private school. One public school teacher said "Your child NEEDS that exposure" of the public school system. My wife's reply was "For what? Why would our daughter need to be exposed to the kind of environment that prevails there?"

We, as parents set the examples of "choice of association" for our kids by the types of environment we subject them to. If they sense being put in that environment is okay, then they will (wrongly) reason the environment itself must be okay.

There are those who claim taking a child out of public school only progresses the deterioration of that system, which may be true. As with all other service providers, if poor service is rendered amid disregarded complaints, there should be no surprise at the loss of patronism as a result.

[Nucluside]

This stupid show will never make it, because there has to be an element of truth to the stereotype or joke to make it credible, and therefore funny. The fools have obviously never been around homeschooled children.

[EdReform]

BTTT

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I wrote a letter:

I'd like to express my disappointment over your choice to air the anti-homeschool sitcom.

You do a real disservice to your audience by not knowing the depth to which you will offend.

Homeschooling families go to exceptional lengths 
to ensure their children receive a stellar education. 

I am sure you are aware that homeschooled children 
repeatedly outperform their public schooled peers by a 
large margin. You are probably not aware that homeschooled 
children are in fact better socially adjusted than their 
publicly-schooled peers as well.

This is no surprise to homeschoolers, as we see the forced, 
age-based educational groupings of public-schooled children 
to be a detriment in social development (don't you think it 
strange that for 13 years, children are forced to be 
surrounded, for 8 hours per day,  by people exactly their 
age, then to be loosed upon the job market with no skill 
to "socialize" with employees from vast and disparage age 
groups? Homeschoolers do too, and that is why 
they "socialize" better with ALL ages, not just their 
peers.)


Homeschooling families make very large sacrifices to be 
able to provide their children with the best possible 
education, but the sacrifices are always worth knowing in 
the end that the children are at an advantage in the world.

They are also guaranteed not to:


1. Get shot or stabbed at a public school
2. Get beat up, ruthlessly harassed or bullied at a public 
school
3. Succumb to peer-pressure at public schools to take drugs
and ruin their lives
4. Get strip-searched by a school nurse.
5. Get in trouble for praying or speaking about their religious beliefs.

One of the most frequent side-effects homeschooled families 
endure, is an endearing, life-long closeness between family 
members. Kids in homeschooled families tend not to fight 
between themselves, but instead are more caring and helping 
than their public schooled peers. It is amazing how 
wonderful the kids turn out when you remove them from the 
NEA's brand of "socialization".


In parting, I ask you to understand that there are over 1.5 
million homeschooling families in this country, and the 
numbers are growing. You risk alienating a large group of 
extremely organized consumers whose base is growing by 10% 
per annum...


Best regards,

A homeschooling father, whose journey towards educational 
greatness for his children went through both public and 
private schools prior to finding that the best education 
begins in the home.