Posted on 05/21/2002 4:29:05 AM PDT by xsysmgr
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:38:33 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Thirteen-year-old Timothy Mackie knows almost every capital city in the world and can name the largest island in the Netherlands Antilles.
But he has never set foot in a classroom.
Timothy, who will take the stage today as a finalist at the National Geographic Bee, is among a rapidly rising number of home schoolers who are dominating national contests.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Home schoolers: 1.7% of the students; 10.9% of the finalists. Not too shabby.
Noooo.....they are just normal kids, being taught the fundementals that should be taught in our public schools.
But instead, the public schools are teaching little Johnny and Suzy that "it's OK if your mom is a lesbian...as a matter of fact,
after we get done with our Muslim prayer servive, we'll all play homophobic tag".
Home schooled kids are for the most part the product of intact families with parents who care about their education and who inspire their childrent to excel. If these kids weren't homeschooled, their parents would STILL be very involved with their education, and they'd STILL be finalists in the spelling bee.
IOW, these kinds of things tell more about the type of kid who is TYPICALLY homeschooled, than it does about home schooling per se.
Taking a kid with parents who are lackadaisical about their kids' education, and having those parents home school them, isn't going to do a thing to improve the kids' academic accomplishments. In fact, the whole exercise is a fantasy, because parents who DON'T care aren't going to bother anyway.
Home schooled kids are for the most part the product of intact families with parents who care about their education and who inspire their childrent to excel. If these kids weren't homeschooled, their parents would STILL be very involved with their education, and they'd STILL be finalists in the spelling bee.
IOW, these kinds of things tell more about the type of kid who is TYPICALLY homeschooled, than it does about home schooling per se.
Taking a kid with parents who are lackadaisical about their kids' education, and having those parents home school them, isn't going to do a thing to improve the kids' academic accomplishments. In fact, the whole exercise is a fantasy, because parents who DON'T care aren't going to bother anyway.
Sorry Charlie, You are dead wrong on this statement. I was heavily involved in my son's education at the public school. By the time I pulled him out of the public indoctrination center he was only reading at 22% level for his grade (2nd). At that point I realized that the 22 % was because I was working very hard with him at home after school. They were teaching him whole language instead of phonics and they spent most of their day doing fun artsy crafty projects instead of the 3 R's. That was 10 years ago.
Today he is at grade level or higher. He still struggles with reading but is above grade level.
His brother whom has never been in a public indoctrination center was acting just as bright as the older one when we started school. Last year at state testing my youngest scored in the 60-80% range in every subject except science. The poor lad only scored above the 90% range in science and the state ranked him as equivalent to a 10th grader in this subject. He was in the 5th grade. So, my summationm is, that my situation proves that public system can ruin any kid no matter how hard the parents are working with them at home and volunteering in the classroom. I worked several days a week on campus in the classroom and for the parent club. My husband worked nights so he worked one day a week in the classroom.
Before you make the long jump to the conculsion that we are in a lousy school district, I will inform you that we are in Clovis Unified School District. Clovis is suppose to be rated as one of the top in California.
Kids wanting to succeed!
He had the same potential as his younger brother, but had to struggle with which method he was going to use to decipher the words for years.
Glad to hear that.
Yes, I agree with what you are saying. And I further agree that the education elitists who claim that if only they had access to a limitless flow of cash there'd be "no child left behind" are demagogues of the worst sort.
But all such lofty sentiments aside, what I'm saying is that the "home schooling == genius kids" syllogism is inaccurate because it is too simplistic.
I'm glad you were able to help your kid.
My story is completely opposite yours, but then we live in a school district that is one of the best around, not because it is wealthy (some parts are, other parts aren't) or well-funded (we have the Robin Hood laws to deal with here in Texas).
Rather, it is a good one because the PARENTS run it. The level of parental participation is very high. And some of the horror stories you read elsewhere, about schools pulling secretive shenanigans to pry the kids away from parental influence wouldn't happen here in a million years.
Consequently, whereas before I lived in an area (Tulsa, OK) where about one in six or so kids were homeschooled, it is rare to find that here--and the only family I know who do homeschool (they are very close friends) do so "off and on", letting the kids make the choice if they want to go back to school or not.
To each his own, but my GENERAL observation is that just because a kid is homeschooled doesn't explain why the kid might excel. He would generally have excelled anyway.
To me, reaction for the sake of making a point is just silly.
Thanks mostly to the efforts of my incredible wife, our school-aged child is home schooled with the A-Beka curriculum.
They're not "community" schools though. That would possibly be OK. They are government schools in every sense of the term.
As a Latter-day Saint, would you accept the wisdom of Brigham Young about tax-funded, government schools?
I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another who knows not how to take care of it... I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one tenth to the poor... Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No! (Journal of Discourses Vol. 18, p. 357)
Whatever you do, be careful in the selection of teachers. We don't want infidels to mold the minds of our children. They are a precious charge bestowed upon us by the Lord, and we cannot be too careful in rearing and training them. I would rather have my child taught the simple rudiments of a common education by men of God, and have them under their influence, than have them taught in the most abstruse sciences by men who have not the fear of God in their hearts. (The Gospel Kingdom, p. 273.)
My experience is that the public school system is actively hostile to the concept of "excelling"
I taught my oldest to read with "Hooked on Phonics" going into Kindegarden. I then went on to Hooked on Match, and by 2nd Grade she knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit numbers, knew about square roots, and was doing simple algebra.
The response of the public school was to haul my wife in for a conference, with several teachers ganging up on her to convince me to stop doing advanced stuff with the kid because she was getting too bored in regular class
The school system is an assembly-line, with the speed set to the pace of the slowest third (often slowest quarter). The emphasis today is "no child left behind". In practice, this means thatthe available resources are devoted to making sure that the slowest students achieve the bare minimum, and to hell with the potential of the high achievers
We've used various curriculums and never one particular one at any time, picking and choosing from the best of all. This year, however, we're mostly using Alpha Omega for the core subjects. We'll see how that goes. One of the nice things about homeschooling is how flexible you can be with your curriculum. If you find that a particular curriculum, or piece of it, isn't working out - you can switch right away. You don't need to return hundreds of books after a battle with the Superintendant, the School Board, and a bunch of angry taxpayers who wonder why you're wasting their money.
Right now, we're using a history curriculum that came highly recommended among homeschoolers called The History of U.S. However, I've already had to do some editing and skipping of some chapters. I mean, the first chapter had a quote from Jesse Jackson - ugh! And the whole paradigm seems to be the same paradigm all current history curriculums take - and that is that the evil white man came and destroyed the pristine, utopian Americas. Argh. (It even tried to excuse the human sacrifices committed by the Aztecs under the guise of a diversity of beliefs, while in the same chapter railed on the Christians back in Europe for the Spanish Inquisition.)
Please keep in mind that my oldest just started her sixth year of schooling (some people call it 5th grade). We're still searching for a good history curriculum because, so far, I don't like this one and have to spend too much time countering some of the crap within it. I can't believe that it came so highly recommended by homeschoolers.
Absolutely correct.
That was my experience with the "honors program" for my eldest. It was basicly mostly "busy-work" to keep the bright kids from getting too bored, but which did not advance them at a faster pace than the convoy
One of my concerns, as a libertarian/conservative parent, is the Leftist indoctrination in the schools, and the effect on bright children who refuse to conform to it. My suburban district is fairly Democrat, and the school reflects it. I could just imagine how they would respond to hearing that I have her firing my AR-15 at CMP matches
One added point of concern is the presence of doctrinaire Marxists in the school system, and how they would respond to kids who are very bright, with high leadership potential, who would undoubtably grow up to become the next generation of Conservative/Libertarian leadership. I could see some of the more extreme Leftists deciding that, if the kid cannot be "turned to the Dark Side", then they must be destroyed.
I found the series to be OK in its coverage of the Revolution, but disliked its coverage of post-WW-2. It spent far too much time on liberal icons like Cesar Chavez, and skimped on important aspects of the Cold War. I abandoned it after 3rd grade and went with an old history book from 1956 ("A History of a Free People") I found in a library sale, supplemented by occasional articles from FreeRepublic
It was the standard history text in the early public schools. I've not found its better. Of course, its hard to find references to post-1856 events; but up to that point, it's just fine! I don't know of a source....check a large, old library, or search the New York antique booksellers. Got mine for $5.
I liked Carson's "Basic American Government" for American History to 1990ish. If you can get hold of Bancroft's American history...cool. James Schouler published a nice eight-volume set in the late 1800's that relied on Bancroft's books, and his own observations of mid-19th century history: his dad was Governor of Massachusetts during the War Between the States. The author was a Whig. Title: "The History of the United States Under the Constitution"
There's a really great history written by Mark Sullivan, a newspaper writer, covering the 1900 to 1925 time period in the U.S. He was very close to several presidents. Title: "Our Times, pub 1927. (I like contemporaneous histories)
A lot of history can be gleaned from reading stuff like Churchill's "Birth of Britain"; Blackstone's Commentaries; Adam Smith's works; Jefferson, Washington, Roosevelt, etc.
Hope these help.
When I read stories like yours I wonder what planet this is happening on. It almost sounds too cliche'.
Sorry to doubt your word, but this just doesn't compute.
In fact, the most griping you hear in our school system is "hey, I want my kid to get to do some of the fun stuff the GT (Gifted/Talented) kids are doing!"
I'm just sick of the unwarranted griping about "government schools."
If people have allowed their schools to be "taken over" by the "evil ones," then they need to either face up to their responsibility as citizens, and take them back, or MOVE to somewhere like Texas where school systems still do a pretty good job of teaching kids.
But the blanket statements about "government schools" have just gotten too pedantic.
Once you start reading these old histories with the yungguns, you'll understand why so many kids find history BORING: it's the crappy texts they have to use! They're NOT easy, at the start'; but, like good expresso, are habit-forming and satisfying in the extreme once the taste is acquired.
Up till this statement I thought you were talking about CATHOLIC schools. I had several friends who attended Catholic schools in the sixties and seventies, and they were just as you describe.
Your description doesn't fit any public school I've ever been acquainted with.
No, really, you're still relevant. Ask your mother.
Had my kids continued in those schools--and we not been committed and ballsy enough to do the job ourselves--I doubt not that the one would be resigned to mediocrity, and the other, a rebellious, bi-polar basket case.
You're lucky to have good schools. But be cautious: the schools and my own kids had us buffaloed into thinking they were doing great. They all came really close to getting away with the scam.
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