Posted on 05/17/2002 3:57:59 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
The only effective group of citizens today in open opposition to big government are the home schoolers. They are the only Americans willing to take on the public education system that props up the entire statist enterprise of big, intrusive government. Forget about conservative politicians. They are more concerned about conserving their legislative privileges than rolling back increasingly intrusive government
Although President Bush has said nice things about home schoolers, he is doing more to expand federal control over education than any previous Republican president. His call for standardized testing is, in reality, a call for a federal curriculum, which will be used by the establishment to continue dumbing down the nation.
In the last two months, I've spoken at four home-school conventions in liberal New England, and there is no doubt that those who attend the conventions are revolutionaries in the true sense of the word. They have rejected the tax-supported school system, which is the chief instrument the totalitarians are using to construct a socially controlled society.
Only by reasserting the need for educational freedom can this nation restore its adherence to the principles of a free society. Leading in that fight is the Home School Legal Defense Association, founded by Michael Farris and other home-schooling attorneys, to defend the rights of American parents to educate their children at home in accordance with their own values. Two years ago, Farris founded Patrick Henry College to educate home schoolers in constitutional law and to train them to serve as aides to conservative congressmen.
The fact that parents can still legally take their children out of the government schools and educate them at home is an indication that this revolution can be won peacefully. The simple fact is that the home-school movement has reached critical mass and cannot be destroyed without causing a civil upheaval, and no politician can afford to let that happen.
Why are so many parents home schooling? Because they've come to the realization that the schools are destroying the brains of American children. It all starts in the first grade where teaching methods are used to deliberately cause dyslexia and reading disability. The method is popularly known as whole language, or the sight method, in which children are required to memorize a sight vocabulary. That is, they are required to memorize English printed words as whole configurations, like Chinese characters. Sounds harmless enough, unless you understand what that kind of memorization results in: a holistic reflex.
What's wrong with a holistic reflex? It becomes an obstacle to learning to read phonetically. An alphabet is a phonetic system in which letters represent language sounds. To become a fluent reader, you must develop a phonetic reflex, not a holistic one. With a phonetic reflex, achieved through phonics drill, the reader can easily see the phonetic structure of the words he is reading and discern the syllabic units that make up the word. But a reader with a holistic reflex cannot see the phonetic structure of the words, because he has the automatic habit of looking at words as whole configurations.
In other words, the holistic reflex and the phonetic reflex are mutually exclusive. And it was Ivan Pavlov, in his pysch lab in Moscow in the 1920s, who proved that when an animal is subjected to two mutually exclusive reflexes, it has a nervous breakdown. All of this is known to American psychologists, for the results of Pavlov's experiments were published in 1932 in a book, "The Nature of Human Conflicts: Researches in Disorganization and Control of Human Behavior," by A. R. Luria, professor of psychology, State Institute of Experimental Psychology in Moscow. It was translated by an American student of Pavlov's, W. Horsley Gantt.
The other day, a mother called me on a radio talk show. She complained that her son was having trouble with reading. It turned out that the school was teaching phonics and also requiring the child to memorize a sight vocabulary. I told her that her son was experiencing a collision of reflexes, which was causing his confusion and difficulty. I told her to get my Alpha-Phonics program and teach her child to read at home.
The literacy scandal is only one reason why parents are now home schooling. There are over four million kids on Ritalin, academic chaos in the classroom, a curriculum of boredom, pornographic sex education, school massacres and more. If you love your kids, get them out!
I told her to get my Alpha-Phonics program and teach her child to read at home.
It kind of bugs me that the author puts a plug in for his own material in an article like this.
Now that her child is a little older (5th grade) she is CONSTANTLY having to monitor what is being said and done in the classroom.
She had to opt her daughter out of a session that was to be held today on sexuality.
The note the school sent home explaining what was going to be taught was downright degrading to the parents. It insinuated that the parents wouldn't know how to talk to their children about these issues, etc.
She's beginning to realize that she's spending so much time staying on top of the issues and volunteering at the school so she can monitor what's going on, that she might as well homeschool.
Finally, she sees the light, LOL!!!
Hm, let's see: stupid dictators who actively despise knowledge and the thought process. Yup, that's who I want teaching my kids. You bet.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
Even at the nominally conservative private school we attend, the younger teachers often have been indoctrinated with leftist thought. My son has been trained to watch for liberal slant by my running commentary on current events, so he dissects the liberal slant from this year's history teacher immediately. In fairness, I should point out that a previous Civics teacher was a retired Navy LtCdr or Cdr, still serving in the Reserves. Good stuff!, unlikely to be found in government schools re-education camps.
Peter Hoaglund - Nebraska Senator and Humanist member of the Nebraska Board of Education said this in 1983 … Fundamentalists have no right to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing their children for the year 2000 and life in a global one-world society and those children will not fit in!
Adolph Hitler said….”Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state. The state will take youth and give to youth it’s own education and it’s own upbringing. Your child belongs to us already….what are you?”
Dr. W. Pierce of Harvard University said in 1973…”Every 5 year old student is mentally ill, because he comes to school with allegiance toward elected officials, founding fathers, institutions, government, patriotism, nationalism and sovereignty - all of these prove the child is sick because the well individual is one who has rejected all of these things and is what I call a true international child of the future”.
I can't understand why "public" schools even exist.
I personally know of what he speaks. I nearly learned not to read in public school and it was quite traumatic. If I wasn't privately tutored when I was six I would've been a functional illiterate.
I can never forget the horrified feelings the look/say method instilled in me at the time.
This is what you call giving a child the tools of learning. This is the driving philosophy behind the growing classical Christian school movement. The kids are taught grammar, logic, and rhetoric at the appropriate ages. There is a lot of memorization in the early grades (because kids of that age are good at that) and there is an emphasis on the classic languages of latin and greek. All of this is taught with a Biblical worldview.
Yesterday was dress-up day at my 8 year old son's school. Everybody got to dress up as their favorite literary character. My boy was Legolas. He got up in the assembly and (with a British accent) described his role in the Lord Of The Rings.
Check out this website. I believe they also have a home school curriculum.
While I am inclined to agree with most of the article, the following snippet really turned me off:
It all starts in the first grade where teaching methods are used to deliberately cause dyslexia and reading disability. Note: underline added for emphasis.
I'm glad we homeshool for a lot of reasons. It has been rewarding in many, many ways. I have problems with state-sponsored education, but I don't think that public school teachers are deliberately trying to give children dyslexia and reading disabilities (whatever that means).
I've heard good things about the author, but this is the first of his articles I've read. I'm willing to give him and his views another chance, but I'm not impressed with his work thus far.
A lot of our homeschool friends, regrettably, bag-out of the program when their kids reach the final two years before graduation: fears of getting the kids "certified" for college. Fear not! The trend is that colleges are developing programs to access and recruit homeschooled kids, based upon excellent performance of current and past homeschoolers in the colleges. Such is now the case with Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Roy Fulgueras, Dean of Admissions, will be attending an upcoming homeschool conference in MA to pitch the school--a uniformed, military-styled institution (in its 100th year) that produces engineers and deck officers for Merchant Marine service. In fact, more flag-rank Navy officers come from there than from any other single institution. If your homeschooler is interested in a Navy Academy education, but unsure of the military comittment, that's the place to go.
While I agree with this statement, the problem I see for homeschoolers is that the National Education Assosication will attempt to bring homeschooling under their umbrella through regulation. And the NEA has said so - see:
Reply # 37 in the thread Home-Schooling Under Siege
As we have seen, a wealthy NEA can buy whatever political clout they need to get their agendas passed. And the regulation and control of homeschooling is on their agenda. I believe that one of the biggest favors we can do for homeschoolers is to bust the NEA. To do that, we need to inform teachers that they are entitled to a refund of the portion of their dues that the NEA and their state affiliates used for political activities. This refund can amount to several hundred dollars. See:
Reply # 14 in the thread Let's Help Nail the Teachers Unions -- It is National FReep Time
Here's some interesting information from the The Education Intelligence Agency (EIA) COMMUNIQUÉ (On the Web at http://www.eiaonline.com) -- May 13, 2002 issue:
"1) Are the Fat Years Over for NEA and AFT?
It used to be relatively easy for EIA to obtain accurate, up-to-date membership numbers for NEA and its state affiliates, but recently it has become a lot more difficult. Perhaps it is coincidental that the numbers are becoming harder and harder to find just as the news becomes less and less cheerful.
The tremors are small: lots of talk about needing inroads with Generation X teachers... financial problems here... possible layoffs there. In the past, membership problems were localized in the chronic, hard-to-organize states that had competing organizations. Today, the sounds are more widespread. NEA has grown every year since the mid-1980s, but for the first time the end of the boom may be in sight. The union experienced an increase of some 37,000 members this year -- about half of what it achieved in 2000-2001. More alarming if you're an NEA official is the fact that 20 state affiliates had a decrease in membership last year -- even as the number of potential members nationwide continues to grow at a fairly steady 2 percent annual clip.
EIA cannot yet identify which state affiliates are growing and which are not, though it seems safe to assume that the large states -- California, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, et al. -- continue to enjoy solid growth, while perennial weak sisters are now having serious problems. Activities to reverse the trend are already underway. The NEA Board of Directors granted $175,000 to the Mississippi Association of Educators for additional organizing. The North Carolina Association of Educators is laying the groundwork for an effort in support of collective bargaining in the state. North Carolina law currently bans collective bargaining by teachers.
Accurate AFT numbers are even harder to amass, because more of its members are not K-12 teachers. Nevertheless, the same tremors are coming from AFT. The AFT Executive Council's organizing committee met to discuss ways to get younger members more involved and active in the union. EIA estimates that about 70 percent of teachers are NEA and/or AFT members. Public school teaching may be the most highly unionized sector of the American workforce (the private sector is only 9 percent unionized). Is something about to give?"
We also need to inform teachers and education majors that there are alternative professional education associations that teachers can join for much less than what they are paying to the NEA:
Association of American Educators
25201 Paseo de Alicia, Suite 104
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
Phone: 949-595-7979 or 1-800-704-7799
Fax: 949-595-7970
Email: info@aaeteachers.org
Website: www.aaeteachers.org
Please note that the AAE is not a union. It is a professional association. Annual dues are $125 per year for teachers (includes $2 Million liability insurance - one of the reasons teachers join the NEA or AFT is for liability insurance). Student, retired educator, and associate/support memberships are $25 per year.
Here are some links that will be of interest to teachers (and parents):
"Grading the NEA - What Every Teacher Needs to Know About The National Education Association: A Special Report" by Perry L. Glanzer, Ph.D. & Travis R. Pardo (http://www.family.org/gradingthenea/news/a0012243.html)
"Teacher Unions and Parent Involvement" (http://www.educationpolicy.org/EPIseries/parent-bklt.htm)
The teachers aren't deliberately trying to give children dyslexia. But neither did Blumenfeld say that they, the teachers, were trying to do that.
Go back and read his sentence again. He said teaching methods are doing this. The teacher is simply the carrier wave -- the user of the methods. They know not what they do.
The question you might want to ask is who develops these teaching methods? Where are they developed? Who finances it? Who controls the "research" that supports it?
I still don't believe that there is a conspiracy among the educational establishment to deliberately give kids reading disorders.
In my opinion, the harm is caused by incompetence and disinterest, not active malace. But, as I said, that's just my opinion.
The techniques in use in the 1800's and early 1900's produced almost universal literacy, and at a higher level than exists today. I have a copy of the old "McGuffys Readers" that were in use in the 1800's. In the semi-autobiographical "Little House on the Prairie" series by Laura Engels, she talks about being on McGuffy's 4th reader at around the age of 12-13. I look at that book, and I think many college kids would have difficulty with that reading level. Also look at the Federalist Papers: difficult reading today, but intended for the general populace at the time of writing
We have a "power elite" today, in an environment where intellectual ability translates readily into power. They want their children to inherit their power. They do not want serious competition from your kids. There is a limit to how much of an academic advantage they can give their kids thru extra tutoring, but what they CAN do is sabotage the education that middle-class kids get.
No amount of fertilizer will make a maple grow as tall as an oak. But you CAN make them equal -- with a chainsaw.
I used his $20 workbook to teach my two girls at age 4-1/2 how to read in twenty, half-hour sessions over the course of a month. A total of ten hours.
He's right on the money with this whole language thing. Dewey invented the approach because he wanted to prevent children from learning independently. His dream for a "level," democratic society meant that children were to be "socialized" at an early age, and part of that socialization meant putting kids in teams, working together trying to guess the meaning of words.
Sam's the man!
Maybe this will start a few wildfires - -- -
I assume you mean the band rather than the talk-show host. Yes.
Bet many freepers had the same experience.
So true. When I was in college, there were many girls like her.
It was always beyond me, why they wait until the last semester of Senior year to schedule Sudent Teaching, hands on, real life teaching and coping.
Not everyone has what it takes to outwit and control a room full of kids.
It's not like medicine, where they have to be pretty sure the student doesn't kill a patient before they let them work on them.
I think Freshman teaching students should do a 1/2 day Teaching Assistant program to find out if they have the temperment and people skills required for the job, before they are allowed to continue on to a degree. But what do I know. ahhhhhhh
The incompetence and disinterest does exist...at a lower level. The teachers, principals, etc. are either incompetent or disinterested. However, the people who create these methods, including university professors, know full well what they are doing. They know that their methods do not work, as you and I understand what "to work" means.
On the other hand, these teaching methods DO WORK, and work very well indeed, thank you, if the goal is to dumb down America and produce generations of people more suited for the role of subjects in a socialistic empire than citizens of a Republic.
As a non-homeschooling parent, I don't.
The only effective group of citizens today in open opposition to big government are the home schoolers. They are the only Americans willing to take on the public education system that props up the entire statist enterprise of big, intrusive government.
This is a load of fetid dhingo's kidneys.
I do appreciate your remarks Boxsford about us non-homeschoolers, but I am here to say that not all public schools fit the bleak picture that Samuel Blumenfeld paints. My children attend schools in our town that encourage parent involvement at all levels of the curriculum and administration. It is not run by liberals. There are no Gay Student Associations. There are no metal detectors and not one student has ever been shot or knifed. Not all public schools are factories designed to turn out good little statist robots and I get peeved at those that frequent these threads that see the world of educating our children as black and white. Vis á vis, homeschool your kids or they have to dwell in the sewer.
Some schools suck and some schools are the standard to which all conscientious parents and educators strive. I am proud to say that the schools in my town are striving to set the standards.
The principal of our Middle School is a Conservative with vision and a passion for what he does and has 35 years experience as an educator at EVERY level. He is a jewel and we are lucky to have him. This Commonwealth that so many believe is a liberal sewer, is lucky to have him. His attitude is infectious among the faculty...and I've met all 125 of them. 95% of them I would be proud to call friend. They are quality people.
I jot down these thoughts to let everyone here know that though the public education system has problems, the schools that get the attention do not represent the majority. And not all the problem schools are urban schools. Some of those are shining examples of what education should be in this country.
I do not state these points to brag or belittle. I state these things only to point out that homeschooling is not an option for everyone and some of the public schools in this country are places to be proud of.
I'm out.
Imagine yourself, BSR, in a situation where the school your child attends is liberal (and all that entails)and does promote the gay agenda. It would be a tough road for you to be constantly acting as watchdog to that school For the most part, BSR, I've seen more kids harmed by public school than good done. I've seen some pretty low standards. Hope you see how very blessed you are to be where you are with your kids!
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