Posted on 06/02/2005 12:55:33 AM PDT by baseballfanjm
ESPN.com ran this article, intending for it to be an amusing take on how to predict the winner of the National Spelling Bee. However, the last "formula" irked me.
Here's what it says:
"Stay away from home-schooled kids.
It goes without saying that these kids don't get out of the house much. There are 34 home-schooled competitors in this year's bee, including speller No. 142 Jack Ausick and speller No. 217 Benjamin Zachary Walter. The first home schooler won in 1997 and others followed, including Lala in '99 and Thampy in 2000. But kids that actually interact with other children at school have won three out of the last four bees."
While he has other "stay away from" picks that fit the joking manner of the article, that one struck me as just lame and as a swipe more than a joke.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Considering how small the number of home-schooled kids, it seems to me that, probability speaking, one would be smart to pick a home-schooled kid as a possible winner.
If 3 out of the last 4 winners have been traditionally group-schooled, then is it significant that 95 out of a 100 kids are group-schooled? You bet. It means that non-traditionally, group-schooled kids are predicted to win only 5% of the time, but they are showing up 25% of the time. Winning at a 500% rate over expectations would make me pick that horse at a race track any day of the week.
I find your take on home school children very puzzling and totally wrong. I have been around home schooled children for years. There are many in college at this time and doing very well. The professors find them refreshing and the professors enjoy the students because they know their subject and how to actually read and articulate what they write. Before labeling home schooled children, go to the very rural areas of America and the Inner cities and get back to me about social misfits because these are the students being left behind due to social promotion. Public School education is a failure. The Founding Fathers wanted children educated not SOCIALIZED. The NEA has ruined the dreams of the Founding Fathers and the American people are guilty for allowing this to take place.
Thanks!
Homeschoolers make up what, one tenth of one percent of the US school-aged population. And yet they win the national spelling bee as often as not.
Yep, that homeschooling is just defective, all right!
I agree but not only to they get along well with others, have manners, and are respectful of their parents they actually have received an education.
Thanks!!
Well, if the schools in your area are this bad, you might think of moving. Simply because the schools in a particular area are bad does not mean that all public schools are bad.
The problem is not one of a line in the sand that every has to stand on one side of. Everyone in these arguments stands on their side of the fence and yells at the other. Not all public schools are bad, and not all homeschoolers are bad. It just so happens that the schools where I live are just fine, so we use them. If the ones in your area are that bad, you may want to move anyway because the kids in those schools will be the people that you deal with on a regular basis.
Amen and Amen!!!!!!!!!!
Definitely a troll.
[Some of MikeyA5150's posts on this thread:
#12: Those social misfits you mention in public schools almost always have self-esteem problems.
#23: We discuss this at home and he learns more than any of your home-schooled sheltered Tali ban govern children would
#32: Well that would mean dealing with different kinds of people wouldn't it? Well then a school is the solution
#35: I believe that home schooling is abuse. Unless you are afraid of your parenting abilities then shouldn't you be able to let you children be with others that are different.
#48: But does your child understand the different religions and why a Sikh carries a knife? Does you teenager feel comfortable enough with the opposite sex to dance at a dance Oh wait Homeschoolers don't get that opportunity
#50: Where did you learn to interact with Muslims or Japanese or Russians? In you school??? Not likely
Actually yes I was blessed to live near a University where I was surrounded by many cultures and religions
#51: If you are a good parent then you child won't be a misfit. Home schooling is not the answer but a problem
#53: home school associations= misfits unable to interact with other misfits.]
Self esteem and diversity have trumped teaching in today's public schools. Lack of discipline has made it more difficult, if not all but impossible, for those attending public schools for an education, to actually get an education.
Most employers want their future employees to have marketable skills. Knowing the latest dance craze and why a Sikh carries a knife, are not skills high on most companies' wish list.
"I can show values at home and from church."
And just how many hours a day do you actually teach your children these values? I ask this question because the public socilist indrocination centers capture your children for about seven hours per day and berate them for even thinking about morals and church values. Their whole goal is to brainwash your child in their beliefs while making them feel inferior if they actually are taught values that count. Furthermore, their goal is to turn your children against you if you don't toe the socialist line.
I don't think that you are even aware of what our public schools do today.
I realize that home schooling a child takes a lot of self-discipline, effort and time and if you have it, do it. However, I do realize that it is impossible for many to do so because they have to work for a living.
Your day will come when your children come home with an entrirely diferent set of values that you think you are teaching them. Remember, peer pressure is much greater than yours.
In any case, my kids are not going to be exposed to the Public Schools when we have them. Now being Jewish, I don't think we're going the Christian route, but at the same time, I sure as hell am not going to have as the highlight of their day where they can recite how to put on a condom better than how many ammendments are contained in the Bill of Rights.
What an asinine, narrow view you hold. Not only are you brushing a whole sect of proven real-world performers with a very broad brush. You are sounding like an uninformed schmo.
In your efforts to slam the proven method of homeschooling by calling it anti-social and harmful (even calling it neglect), you are exposing for the world to see that you, yourself, hold a very limited clue about those who are different from you.
Shall I say irony or just flat out call you a hypocrite?
Hillary? Is that you?
...but children need the social interaction with others of different faiths and different backgrounds....
Sez who?
Good for you!!!!!!!
I don't think that anyone was implying that only Christian private schools were acceptable.
Inculturation and socialization means knowing = how to cuss, how to disrespect parents, how to be lazy and "get by", very little specifically about anything, how to worry more about fashion than substance, where to find drugs among your peers, who the easy teachers are, that everything is relative. That's right folks, make sure your kids get out there and go to public schools!
That's very good.
Ooooo that remark is akin to questioning the Holy Grail. Get ready.
Jost shows their glaring ignorance about homeschooling. The problem with socialization and my homeschooled daughter is that there's too darn much of it!
Sports fanhood -- represented best by ESPN -- has a lot of "forcible social normalizing" in it. So when the priests of Sports Fandom speak in-cathedra or ex-cathedra this kind of ankle biting is exactly what one hears.
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