Home-Schooling 101: An Open Letter to Jamie Glazov

FrontPageMag.com ^ | April 1, 2002 | Izzy Lyman

[Radioheart]

In Defense of Homeschooling: An Open Letter to Jamie Glazov
By Izzy Lyman

Homeschoolers account for only one percent of the school-aged population.  But, given their small numbers, many of their accomplishments are most impressive. continue...

[TxBec]

homeschool bump

[KineticKitty]

A big "bravo!" bump for Izzy Lyman.

[homeschool mama]

Fantastic rebuttal by Izzy Lyman! WooHooooooo!

[vrwinger]

An excellent rsponse to Glazov's remarks in his Yates piece last week... Though my son attends public school and is doing quite well, home schooling is a very necessary option for some families, and I support anyone who chooses that option...

[Redbob]

I generally support home-schooling, but I've got neighbors who homeschool their nine (9) children, and all but one of them have noticeable speech defects, defects of the sort that are easily treated in early childhood. These are defects of the sort that would probably have disappeared if these kids had ever been exposed to other children with normal speech patterns, but now while obviously bright, they're going into adolescence and beyond with the speech characteristics of a four-year-old.

[ICE-FLYER]

An excellent and short review of the outstanding aspects of home schooling. It is not for everyone to do, but those who do it are more often than not highly motivated. The kids abilities speak for themselves.

The real problem with home schooling is once again the same problem they turned to home schooling to escape from......government and their secularist conform or be eliminated ways

[Osage Orange]

You wrote:

"I generally support home-schooling, but I've got neighbors who homeschool their nine (9) children, and all but one of them have noticeable speech defects, defects of the sort that are easily treated in early childhood. These are defects of the sort that would probably have disappeared if these kids had ever been exposed to other children with normal speech patterns, but now while obviously bright, they're going into adolescence and beyond with the speech characteristics of a four-year-old."

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

You mean they aren't saying "You know?" or "like" every three words?

Or do you mean they aren't speaking Eubonics?

Most HS'ers I've come in contact with.....don't keep their children in a cave. You mean these kids...have NEVER been exposed to, as you imply "normal children"?

I'm tweeking you a tad here...Don't fly off the handle, ha!!.....I know there are aberations to every norm. The norm being, in my experience, HS'ers are a pretty savvy bunch..and what you have described is unusual.

FRegards,

[Domestic Church]

Could you be more specific about the speech characteristic "defect"? Think about what it would be like to be in a public school these days with a "noticeable speech defect", especially one that is familial and especially in a large family. Think of the persecution over what many might consider a normal variation. In many schools, a child like that would have a bullseye on their back. Not to mention that a really smart child might have rough going in the public system these days without any other so called oddity. People home educate for many different reasons but they all want the best for their children and they want safety and security.

[vrwinger]

We are lucky to have excellent public schools in our area, but many people don't have that luxury...

The "interaction with peers" aspect of school is a double-edged sword; in the illustration you gave, it sounds like peer interaction could have helped with speech development, but there are also some peers you don't want to be around! Being involved with T-ball, Cub Scouts, etc. may help, but school kids have those interactions, too, plus 6 hours a day at school. Afterall, school is for learning to exist in society as well as the "three R's".

[Exigence]

People home educate for many different reasons but they all want the best for their children and they want safety and security.

They certainly do. Only the uninformed claim that homeschoolers are trying to "escape" *anything* -- other than the poor results posted by the public education system. Our schools are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Those of us that want more for our children homeschool.

Besides, supporting the public ed system means you support, in order: the NEA, the Democratic Party, and liberalism with a socialist bent. If people take the time to look at the facts, no other rational conclusion is possible.

[Domestic Church]

I agree. As one diametrically opposed to the Democratic viewpoint and the NEA there isn't much option. You either place your children under the care of strangers in a private school and hope these strangers have the same morality and viewpoint as you or you homeschool. The social issue is a straw man propagated by the NEA as all large studies have shown that home education produces children with better social skills than their peers. Home education essentially is tutorial education (until the children achieve autotutorial skills) with the added benefit of the supportive family structure and environment.

[Spiff]

"Only the uninformed claim that homeschoolers are trying to "escape" *anything*"

Actually, a growing number of homeschoolers can point to another reason that they homeschool their children - and that is to keep them out of the clutches of the CPS jackals. Statistics show that the "mandated reporters" in the institutional schools comprise the majority of the unsubstantiated reports that, even though they are unsubstantiated, still lead to the removal of children from the home. CPS has unfettered access to your children in institutional schools, expecially government schools. In fact, CPS can force the school not even to tell you that they are regularly meeting with your child (which happens until they finally get the child to say or do something that can be construed as evidence of abuse).

If you don't believe that this happens, it is because it hasn't happened to you or someone you know - yet I've seen it happen - in fact, it is happening right now to one of my relatives, but luckily he's been employing strong tactics to keep CPS away from his kids while CPS is actively going after them. His family has now learned their lesson and will probably never again put their children at risk in state-run schools because of it. They're going to homeschool now.

3,000 children are removed from their home every day by CPS with 80% of that being on initially unsubstantiated reports of abuse. The most common abuse reports come from school teachers, school counselors, or school nurses. And with constant conditioning in schools of children to report anything that CPS says may be abuse (but which might not actually rise to statutory definitions of abuse) there is more of a risk.

Possession is 9/10ths, they say. If the agents of the state can't get to your children, they won't be able to go on fishing expeditions or get your children to say something that can be construed as an excuse for them to intervene in your family's lives.

Suzanne Shell, the director of the American Family Advocacy Center (AFAC) and author of the book Profane Justice: A Comprehensive Guide to Asserting your Parental Rights (see Profane Justice) strongly suggests homeschooling your children for these very reasons. These reasons should be a strong motivator for removing your children from state-run schools as it was for us to never put them there in the first place.

So, while superior educational opportunities and environment may be the strongest motivator for homeschooling, there are certainly other valid reasons, not the least of which is keeping your children away from child predators like CPS.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[William Terrell]

Unless from the WP or the LAT, please post the entire article. The links posted are temporary. If one were to pull this thread from the archives later, the posts to it would be meaningless because the original article would be unavailable.

If you don't care about the logic, just do it because Jim Robinson wants you to. In his comments on 11/27/1999 are these words:

Our chosen vehicle for dissent is to use the media's own words against them. We post their propaganda pieces and then our readers tear them apart and expose the lies and corruption within. It's also interesting to document how the lying liberal press covers events compared to other, less biased sources and it's even more interesting to see it weeks, months or years later when the truth is finally known.

This is why it is important to post articles in their entirety. Many of the media sites remove their articles within a few days of release and in some cases, even the next day. We've even caught the media changing stories by the hour to make them seem less damaging to the government or to certain protected politicians. The media is part of the enemy and thus cannot be trusted.

Do you get it? Or do you just not give a crap.

[Dajjal]

bttt

[meadsjn]

Home-Schooling 101: An Open Letter to Jamie Glazov
By Izzy Lyman
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 29, 2002


DEAR JAMIE GLAZOV,

Thank you for your provocative column about Andrea Yates. You are right. There is no worse crime than killing your own children.

But your comments about homeschooling, Mr. Glazov well, they reveal how misinformed you are about hardworking home educators.

You need a crash course. Take a seat at the front of the class, young man. Homeschooling 101 is about to begin.

You wrote: "As is almost always the case with the cultminded and socially alienated parents who engage in homeschooling" Stop right there.

In two decades of befriending and interviewing home educators, I have never encountered the "cultminded" or the "sociallyalienated." The McGrawHill parent newsletter succinctly describes the type of homeschooler I know and admire: "Contrary to popular belief, however, homeschooled children are more frequently exposed to a wider variety of people and situations than they would be in a traditional classroom with 25 of their peers. Homeschool families, in general, participate in their communities as part of their regular curriculum."

Homeschoolers also like to network with one another. There are national homeschool support groups for the disabled, people of color, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and even homeschoolers for peace.

These social creatures are smart. On standardized tests, like the Stanford Achievement Test, homeschoolers typically score in the 75th to 85th percentile.

Thanks to such a wellrounded education, the homeschooling movement has produced Jason Taylor, who plays in the National Football League; Kevin Johnson, who plays basketball for the University of Tulsa; Rebecca Sealfon and George Thampy, who won the 1997 and 2000 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee respectively; Emoly West, who was a runnerup in the 2001 Miss Oklahoma Teen USA pageant; Kyle Williams, who, at 13, is the youngest columnist at worldnetdaily.com; and Barnaby Marsh, who was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1996.

You wrote: " taking the kids out of public school is just another vehicle to insulate the entire family from the outside world." When children are removed from schools and please be informed that many homeschoolers have never set foot in a school the motivation is often personal safety. Dr. Brian Ray, of the National Home Education Research Institute, offers the reasons why many mainstream, middleclass parents remove their children from government schools: "Increased safety is a main reason for homeschooling (e.g. physical violence, drug and alcohol use, psychological abuse by schools, peer pressure to engage in premarital sex).

Jamie, have you walked down the halls of an American high school or middle school lately? They are packed with folks who routinely exhibit cruel, immoral behavior and who spout statefunded hogwash about saving the rain forest or freeing Mumia. One point of homeschooling is to avoid the company of such miscreants. The point of parenting is to protect children from such educational toxic dumps and provide children with an alternative environment that enriches, not insulates, them.

You wrote: "In this way, the inner demons of the family can be rationalized and left unexposed, while the control of the family tyrant can be solidified"

Rusty Yates may have "forced" Andrea to homeschool, but this movement is a chick thing. In 1999, Jared Green, the former publisher of HomeSchool Dad magazine, polled two hundred homeschooling fathers. This is what he learned: "As expected, we find that moms are the first to desire homeschooling. Of the families who responded, Mom originated the idea 59 percent of the time. Dads were the first to desire the homeschool lifestyle only 14 percent of the time, but they get a good mark for working with wives to make the decision together 27 percent of the time."

Meet Pam Kelly of Concord, California, a "typical" homeschooling mom. In 1994, she began to teach her three children after working as an independent computer/systems analyst for eighteen years. One of her daughters serves in the U.S. Army. Notes Pam, "No job has challenged me as much as being at home and home schooling my children. I am a fulfilled woman challenged as much to my 'gender' max as any triathlon competitor."

Melanie Krumrey was a public school teacher in Austin, Texas. She now homeschools her three young children in Amherst, Massachusetts. "I thrive as I see a warm (home) atmosphere being created for my family," she says.

The voices of the oppressed? I think not.

You wrote: "Robbing children of the fundamental developmental experience of growing up around their peers is just one of the crimes associated with homeschooling."

Homeschoolers are robbed in one way. They are robbed of having to sit, day after day, in rigidly conformist institutions. Meanwhile, they have the freedom to live their lives with purpose and panache, while they enjoy the company of their peers. When my son, Wid, was 14 he attended a homeschool learning cooperative in central Oklahoma. The cooperative had 200 students and a waiting list of 100. Twice a week, he took academic classes with other homeschoolers and even went on a chartered bus trip to Washington, D.C.

For the past ten years he has played ice hockey, football, and basketball. He has shared his bedroom with boys from innercity New York (as a participant in the Fresh Air Fund program), and, along with other teens, has pumped gas at a local service station.

Homeschoolers, according to conservative estimates, account for only one percent of the schoolaged population (about one million students). Given their small numbers, I think many of their accomplishments are most impressive.

Don't you agree, Mr. Glazov?

Class is dismissed. Please have your homework done next time.

[meadsjn]

And below is Glazov's rebuttal.

---

Home-schooling: The Detriment of Denying Peer Interaction
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 4, 2002


I REMEMBER THAT WHEN I FIRST STARTED HEARING ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS of Russell and Andrea Yates’ private life, the first thought that came to my head was: oh, and let me guess, they home-schooled their kids too right?

And they did.

I wasn’t surprised. It was pretty obvious.

That’s right. You heard me.

And before all my "Conservative" haters start writing in again to chastise me about my views and to warn me, as they pathetically always do, that I "better start acting like a Conservative," let me say this: the last time I was sent to stand in the corner was when I was seven. And the last time I was grounded was when I was twelve. So save the disciplinary lecture for someone else.

I fight the Left on several fronts. But I also don’t toe political lines I disagree with. If this means that I’m being naughty and must be reprimanded by the "Conservative" totalitarians who consistently try to tie me into a political straight jacket, then so be it.

In her criticism of my position in her column Home-Schooling 101: An Open Letter to Jamie Glazov, Izzy Lyman informs me about home-schoolers who "network with one another" and how this makes home-schooling kids really socialized. She refers to home-school "co-operatives" and provides a list of home-schooled kids that became success stories.

Great. I’m thrilled.

The point is that we are talking past each other. If home-school "networking" and "co-operatives" create a community of peers for a student, then fine. This already bears the likeness of a private school, rather than the literal kind of "home-schooling" that is specifically the target of my criticism.

The "home-schooling" I am talking about is when parents keep their kids at home and don’t do much more than that. Or yes, maybe they have some weirdoes across the street, and then some eccentrics around the corner, with whom they participate and swap teaching lessons. It’s when little Samantha gets to meet little Billy and then they get to know little Sam.

That’s the "home-schooling" I revile.

So Ms. Lyman, if there are all these great gigantic co-operatives where large-scale networking achieves great success and socialization, then wonderful.

I must say, however, that even then I remain suspicious. That’s because I have an instinctive chip on my shoulder against any situation where there are groups of same-minded people from similar class and social milieus who try to create a fortress for their children.

This might not always be the case in successful "home-schooling" co-operatives, but I am just stating my prejudice. If many "Conservatives" don’t like it, well, life goes on. We don’t need to mould each other into images of ourselves.

I will always have disdain for an environment where young people are robbed of the experience of interacting with different kinds of people that they would ordinarily not be around if it were not for public school. Yes, even bad people. You know, the evil ones that might smoke drugs and have sex. The ones from all those dirty scummy areas that some of my "Conservative" allies wish would be erased from the face of the earth.

I am not promoting cultural relativism, and I am not saying that I champion delinquency and non-achievement. What I am saying is that I will always staunchly support exposing young people, at a certain point, to the existence of the diversity of beliefs, lifestyles and backgrounds, and to some of the elements of the human condition that some of us might wish did not exist.

Yes, this comes with a price. In my view, the price is worth it.

My father was a strong Roman Catholic and a very traditional man. He was strict and tried to guide me with many admirable values and ethics. And yet, while he made our home welcome to intellectuals, priests, doctors and lawyers etc., there were also other kinds of people that I was exposed to from a young age. These included people who spoke Russian, in which I am fluent, but whose conversation I could not understand. That is because these Russians only spoke in swear words and I didn’t know any. They were former inmates of the Soviet gulag, and they had gangster and criminal backgrounds.

They were the most courageous, admirable and noble people I have ever met in my life.

I am grateful to my father for showing me a part of his own life that might not have received approval from some religious fanatic somewhere. While my father grew into an intellectual and a very moral man, he came from the Russian ghetto and his heart never left the hoodlums and rough necks that had been a part of his childhood.

My father did not promote banditry, thuggery or hooliganism, but he clearly believed that that part of the world had a story to tell, and that it needed to be known. There are many lessons about human life in that reality. And it was this part of my father’s life experience that generated in him a tremendous bravery, toughness, empathy and compassion, which, in turn, brought him not only to confront the Soviet regime, but to also accept Jesus Christ in an official atheist society.

One day, when my father was driving me to my first job as a busboy at a restaurant when I was seventeen years old, he was worried for me. I was telling him about how the staff were smoking drugs in the kitchen. I remember he looked at me with concern and said, "Please be a smart and good boy. But yes, it is important for a little bit of dirt to touch you."

I understood his words. He was not promoting the activities I was telling him about. Nor did he want me to engage in them. But he knew it was vital for his son to see the dark parts of the world with his own eyes, because one day I would have to make my own decisions about my life. And it was better to at least know reality –- even its elements of corruption and depravity -- than to be completely blind and naïve about it.

If my critics don’t grasp the point I am trying to make, then let it be so.

In any case, yes, I know that many of our public schools have become, on certain levels, liberal indoctrination centers. I know that homosexuality, Islam, and a lot of other pathology are now being imposed on our kids’ minds. I am aware that much of the curriculum has been politicized and debased. And I know that many realities in our public schools have become contrary to a moral existence.

We have to fight this Leftist agenda every step of the way.

But believe it or not, not everything in human life is about politics and ideas. And some "solutions" are worse than the diseases they are meant to cure.

To the parents who think that human life is only about the reality of children becoming experts in calculus and Aristotle, never hearing bad words and, heaven forbid, ever finding out where babies come from, I have news for you: unless children are exposed to a multi-faceted social life, they have a high chance of becoming frustrated and unhappy social misfits.

I am not saying that we must send our kids to schools that are infested with violent gangs. I am only stressing that we must try our best to keep our children in a school setting somewhere, somehow, for the sake of peer interaction.


Socialization helps a child grow and develop to his/her full potential in life. Because many home-schooled children spend most of their time around their warden parents, and once again I am referring to the "at-home and practically no-where else" kind of home-schooling, they are unable to learn things while interacting with their own age group -– which any educator who knows anything can tell you is a must for kids.

The lack of peer interaction in the classroom is a damaging reality for any kid. Children simply have to be given the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company, share ideas, compete, and work with each other. Interaction provides students with the tools to compare and contrast themselves against their peers. The gift this provides children transcends, in some realms, the importance of test scores.

Interaction and dialogue with peers is crucial in determining how a human being will grow to confront problems in life; it moulds, in a priceless way, how a child will see the world around him/herself, and it also significantly influences his/her goals and aspirations.

Social interaction, especially in an environment of temporary privacy away from parental control, provides a fundamental element of joy and cheer for children that words can never fully describe. And that is why parents do serious harm when they confuse their desire to "save" their children with the denial of autonomy and the abusive enmeshment of boundaries.

Talk to anyone who knows anything about developmental psychology, and they will tell you that kids need to exist in three overlapping realms -- at school, at home and with peers.

Children who are the victims of the kind of home-schooling that I am referring to (sitting at home with mommy and uncle William all day) end up becoming so socially inferior and handicapped that they simply cannot deal with many real-life situations.

Why do you think that, among monkeys, mothers will push their babies away at a certain point and force them into the environment of their monkey peers? Even though the babies desperately cling to the mothers, the mothers still force their babies to go. It’s because the mothers know, instinctively, that if they keep their babies around themselves any longer, that their babies will perish in the environment that they will ultimately have to enter.

In any case, aside from the socialization issue, there’s another serious problem with the ‘I’ll make my kids moral geniuses at home" style of home-schooling: the home-school instructor simply lacks the resources or facilities to deliver a well-rounded curriculum. A home cannot provide the myriad and diverse activities that an institution can. And many home-schoolers, aside from their grandiose vision of themselves, lack the ability and professional preparation to bestow effective instruction.

Guess what? Not everyone can teach. Even many of those who think they can, can’t.

Are you gonna tell me that the home-schooling parents that I am referring to can bear the sole responsibility for educating their children? Can they really answer all of their kids’ questions, oversee all of their progress, know the whole range of subjects, get a hold of all the appropriate texts, and plan all the lessons for every day? And will they really have the motivation and energy to home-school into middle school and high school?

Yes, maybe a supermom or superdad somewhere.

But give me a break.

And there is also simply the issue of happiness. My memories of public school are beautiful ones. Grade two, grade six, grade ten. I have so many memories, so many stories. There were so many friends. And quite a few enemies. So many experiences. I can’t even imagine if it was all taken away and replaced by me sitting at a desk somewhere with one of my parents teaching me from some book, hour after hour, year and year.

The bottom line is that many parents who engage in home- schooling do so because they believe that everything that exists outside of their beliefs is wrong. Their greatest nightmare is that their children might develop critical thinking minds of their own.

I know this one deranged woman who got involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and gradually became infuriated when her kids kept asking why they couldn’t celebrate their birthdays, why Santa Claus could never come, why they couldn’t go out for Halloween etc. She eventually took them out of school because she couldn’t handle the increasing amount of their questions. She also wanted to guard them from the evil that she saw around every corner. Thus, she was able to exist in her own saintly little reality, which primarily involved reading the "Watchtower" newsletter and regurgitating what "the Elders" told her at Kingdom Hall.

I remember seeing her little 8-year-old boy sitting by himself in front of the house every day for hours on end playing with little sticks. He was so lonely, confused and sad.

I hate that woman.

I think she belongs in jail for what she is doing to her kids.

A few months ago, this guy I know who lives several blocks away from me gave me this big condescending lecture on how his wife home-schools his kids. I heard it all before: he was protecting his children from all the "filth" in school and giving them a "much better" education.

While I was very entertained by the moral high ground that this moron arrogated to himself, I spared him the articulation of my own observations, which included the transparent reality that all of his kids were severely messed up. One of them was already clearly out of control. While the 14-year-old obediently mimicked the religious party line that his parents had drilled into him, he was already extremely obese and, at every social function I saw him, he would pound back red wine. It’s the talk of the neighborhood. All of the ingredients are here for dysfunctional family feud.

But for these particular parents, it is far more important to pat themselves on the back for teaching their son calculus, and for making sure that he doesn’t see anyone kissing, than to consider, or even notice, that there might be a problem when their boy eats eight doughnuts, and pours six heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee, in the course of one sitting. But hey, he knows about Plato and the other kids don’t. And he’s definitely not having sex. So what does it matter what pathologies and demons his alienation have engendered in him? Right?

"These cases don’t represent all home-schooling situations," Izzy Lyman would tell me. Well then okay. We are talking about two different things then aren’t we?

I am focusing my criticism and nasty remarks at the "at-home and no-where else" cult-like method of home-schooling.

---

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's associate editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies. He is the author of 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist and of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.

[BADROTOFINGER]

For later...JFK