Home schooling has come a long way

TownHall.com ^ | Tuesday, June 4, 2002 | by Phyllis Schlafly

[homeschool mama]

Email me about the other curriculum though, ok?

[SpookBrat]

"The PC crowd will be against home schooling no matter what"

That's the way I see it. I don't really care what anyone thinks of me. They can buzz off for all I care. I'm having fun with my kids and they are jealous. :)

[Mad Dawgg]

With the advent of the Internet Public Education is doomed! Once some enterprising young teacher or businessperson figures out you can get an entire year's curriculum to a student for $99.95 via e-mail and provide instruction and testing, the Government Public Education Monopoly will fold faster than a house of cards!

[2Jedismom]

I'm homeschooling because I'm madly in love with my children.

Huzzah! I love hearing this! I feel the same way. I have only 18 years (or so) out of my whole life to enjoy these little Jedis and I intend to make the very most of it!

Institutional school just seems like such a waste of time to me. I've said it before, I'll say it again...if you can't get my kids taught within a couple of hours and no homework, give 'em to me and I'll do it!

[madfly]

NOW ON FOX NEWS...SANITIZING OF CHILDREN'S SCHOOL BOOKS AND CLASSIC FICTION.

[Domestic Church]

Thank you for posting this. We HSers in PA are currently in battle for a new law(it would be nice to have one that doesn't conflict with federal code and respects the parents primacy in education,lol!)

If any HSers moved from PA or turned down an opportunity to move here due in part to the current lousy HE law please notify the HB2560 lobby committee that is collecting data for the house education committee hearing on June 13th in Harrisburg. The email for that homeschooling elsewhere committee is hecinfo@yahoo.com

[SpookBrat]

Your Jedis are beautiful children. I don't blame you. I would want to stay home with those babies too. :) My only regret now is that I didn't pull my daughter out sooner. I've lost so much time. We'll make up for it. :)

[2Jedismom]

My three year old told me that he's never leaving home. He said when he grows up, he's just going to stay here and take me to Silver Dollar City!

LOL!!

[Domestic Church]

How encouraging your post is, SLB. We are changing our education philosphy to the Classical style this coming year. Any information or websites would be most helpful in our pursuit of lifelong learning in a living way.

www.classicalhomeschooling.org
Here's one of mine.

[madfly]

Well the PC "editing" of childrens school books story WAS coming right up, until the body of a 7 year old boy was found in an lA swimming pool.

Ah another case of,

IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS...even on FOX!

It still may be on.

[Billy_bob_bob]

A big bump for all of the homeschoolers out there.

Thank you for giving me hope for the future.

[madfly]

Oh well, now the Text Book story has been yet bumped again for a Dallas Stolen Truck Chase on FOX. So until he runs out of gas or kills someone, this will be the most important news for could be the rest of the day.

OUTLAW CAR CHASES.

[dawn53]

So funny you should ping me on this. My 14 year old has a summer reading list assigned by his tutor in composition (I was never much of a writer and felt like this was one subject I needed to "farm" out in order for him to have a good foundation.)

At any rate, his summer reading list consisted of:
Murder on the Orient Express
Screwtape Letters
The Old Man and the Sea
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Uncle Tom's Cabin
All Quiet on the Western Front.

When I went to pick these up from our local book store, the proprietor gave me a hard time about letting a 14 year old read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Told me that I needed to put it in context, how a child might misunderstand it, even told me to have him watch the King and I in order to get a better grasp of the issue. He was very condescending in his attitude toward me as a homeschooler, and in the fact that I was allowing my son to read a book that he felt should be "sanitized."

[Tuor]

Government Public Education Monopoly will fold faster than a house of cards!

Two groups (but not all of these groups) will still be left: the idiot middle-class liberal's kids and the ignorant poor folk's kids.

The former's parents ignore their children or live vicariously through them. They will keep sending their kids to public schools because they mindlessly follow whatever the government tells them to do, and they *certainly* don't want to be bothered having to actually raise their kids themselves. That's what the government is *for*, after all. (To them.)

The latter usually don't have direct access to the internet, are too busy slaving away at crappy jobs to devote the time necessary, and, out of ignorance to what is being done to their kids, wont see the importance of pulling their kids out of school. Finally, as many of them don't have a lot of education, it may be hard for them to teach their children anything...even though, if they believed in themselves, I think they could both learn and teach their kids a great deal, more than they think they can.

Tuor

[SLB]

Here is a good web page to get started on: www.triviumpursuit.com or for some great women's information and encouragement try www.aboverubies.org

[Carolina]

For an excellent resource, check out Veritas Press.

You can download the curriculum guide. The reading list alone is rigorous.

Another site is Classical Christian Homeschooling.

Good luck with Latin next year!

[The Grim Freeper]

Your boys are TOO cute! How lovely they are!

[2Jedismom]

Not only cute, but polite and courteous and funny and most of all HAPPY! They have a pretty clear understanding of right and wrong. However, my six year old pulled the tag off a pillow the other day and read it. He approached me with absolute horror on his face, and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing while explaining it was OK for us to take the tag off, since we were the consumer it was talking about! Poor kid was worried the police were going to come for him!

[Victoria Delsoul]

It takes uncommon commitment by parents to undertake a home-school regimen, but they soon discover that they can do in a couple of hours what takes all day at regular school. Home-schooling parents can save lots of time since there are so many courses they don't have to teach.

Right. But it's not just the commitment and the hard work by the parents but also home schooling inherently focuses on the individual child, while public-school reformers try to devise plans for all children that lead to mediocrity.

[Tired of Taxes]

The last study I read said that the majority of homeschool parents choose homeschooling primarily for religious reasons. Second was academic. Way down the list was safety. Has safety moved up the list? Which study says so?

I think I said that we do it for "educational" - not POLITICAL - reasons. Homeschooling is being used by people outside of homeschooling to promote a political agenda; yet, the HSers I've met - many of whom have adopted a religious curriculum - just want what's best for our children. That's the bottom line. What we each consider as best for our kids. You can put "religious reasons" under "educational reasons", as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how surveys want to break it down.