Home Shooling?
Just curious... I'll make an anonymous poll in case you don't want to fess up, but have you been home-schooled? Do you support home-schooling? And out of curiosity, what is your religiopolitical point of view?
Me, I am a stinking liberal (except after I take my evening shower) and I think home schooling is dangerous and should be frowned upon. If parents want to teach their children they can teach them outside of the school environment, in addition to the curriculum taught to them in school. IMO the only reason parents have to home school their kids is that they want to shield them from something taught at schools that they don't agree with, like evolution, sex-ed, ethnic or religious diversity, liberal influence, etc.
Me, I am a stinking liberal (except after I take my evening shower) and I think home schooling is dangerous and should be frowned upon. If parents want to teach their children they can teach them outside of the school environment, in addition to the curriculum taught to them in school. IMO the only reason parents have to home school their kids is that they want to shield them from something taught at schools that they don't agree with, like evolution, sex-ed, ethnic or religious diversity, liberal influence, etc.
Comments
Being able to teach exactly what the child needs, and when they are ready for it, really can't be beat.
That said, kids who are home schooled should have access to public school libraries, and the public school phys-ed program (if they wanted it).
Implementing reasonable standards will help insulate the world against kids being educated in little Christian fundamentalist madrassas and ensure that the students are receiving an education akin to those of the kids in their local public school. My sister in law homeschooled her daughter from age 13 on. My niece reads and writes at an 8th grade level, can't do basic math, knows nothing outside of VH1 Celebreality, spent a year as an Oxycontin addicted streetwalker, and is now pregnant (the father of the upcoming baby is serving 5 years now). She turned 18 four months ago.
Standards are important to keep that from happening to other kids.
Among those that I know, there are stark differences between the homeschooled and the traditionally schooled.
If you can possibly do it, do it.
Being able to teach exactly what the child needs, and when they are ready for it, really can't be beat.
Good luck with that AP Chem.
If you are the kind of parent who is lazy and likes to beat them too much, for the love of GOD SEND THEM TO PUBLIC SCHOOL! If you are smart, willing to do a lot of hard work and have connections with other smart people like engineers, English tutors/teachers and so on, home schooling can be GREAT.
I do sometimes wonder about the motivations, and whether it's done much of the time to protect children from evil Godless ideas like evolution. I recently went to a home-school shop with books and kits and things (getting a gift for a cousin who home-schools), and it was absolutely filled with anti-evolution materials. Here's one homeschool website with science texts. It was the first one that popped up on google, and seems to be very typical.
I've known a number of college students who were home-schooled up until college, and we also have some neighbors that home-school, and they all seem very well-educated and well-adjusted.
I do sometimes wonder about the motivations, and whether it's done much of the time to protect children from evil Godless ideas like evolution. I recently went to a home-school shop with books and kits and things (getting a gift for a cousin who home-schools), and it was absolutely filled with anti-evolution materials. Here's one homeschool website with science texts. It was the first one that popped up on google, and seems to be very typical.
You want something really freaky, take a look at ACE/School Of Tomorrow...
These people are nut jobs, think Christian Taliban: having used their curriculum for a little while I can say that they not only endoctrinate and brainwash the student, but try to make the student FORCE their views on everyone else...like a Jerry Fallwell boot camp...
Good luck with that AP Chem.
There's software curricula for that. Also, there are people selling whiteboard w/audio lectures as QuickTime movies that go with some of the homeschool curricula. It's the 21st century, time to start leveraging some of this technology.
That said, is High School Chem really necessary? My first college class was chem '101' -- you start from scratch. (not that testing out would be a bad thing)
These people are nut jobs, think Christian Taliban: having used their curriculum for a little while I can say that they not only endoctrinate and brainwash the student, but try to make the student FORCE their views on everyone else...like a Jerry Fallwell boot camp...
...like they took over the public school sytems and forced everyone to teach what they wanted?
No -- they walked away. You guys need to see the trend here.
There's software curricula for that. Also, there are people selling whiteboard w/audio lectures as QuickTime movies that go with some of the homeschool curricula. It's the 21st century, time to start leveraging some of this technology.
That said, is High School Chem really necessary? My first college class was chem '101' -- you start from scratch. (not that testing out would be a bad thing)
My best friend is a protein chemist in philly. She said her experience with two years of chem in high school helped her a lot during her first year in college since they covered much of the same topics-- she didn't have to start from scratch at all. Also, how do you do chem lab at home?
My best friend is a protein chemist in philly. She said her experience with two years of chem in high school helped her a lot during her first year in college since they covered much of the same topics-- she didn't have to start from scratch at all. Also, how do you do chem lab at home?
Haven't gotten too far into that -- sixth grade -- got set back a bit for a decent microscope; the standard things, staining onion, cheek cells, [a water plant I forgot the name of], an experiment with a blue stain(?) to check starch breakdown, and some more dumb-dumb, stuff, seeds in the dark/dry wet test tube. Each curricula for science comes with a corresponding kit that's extra $$, the experiments are built into the schedule.
It's a great setup, each child has a laptop with wifi, with client software loaded that talks to a SQL server installed on a PC controlled by the parent. Grading and scheduling are done on the server and different subjects plug into that framework.
The bottom line is that at school, you get educated by a large number of different people with different opinions and knowledge about a wide range of subjects. It's hard to get that sort of thing from one person let alone your parents. So overall, I would be against home-schooling. I imagine that people can come out of it well adjusted but I think the odds are against it.
Take the AP Chem exam and you can skip Chem 101. That's the point.
I know -- trust me -- I did four AP books this year.
There may be reasons to home school given the area one lives in and the quality of schools in that location. Perhaps the educational quality of the local schools is poor or safety is a concern.
Perhaps a child is uniquely gifted in a certain area and home schooling allows him/her to really concentrate in that area more so than they could in public school.
Having said all this, I would agree that parents that home school their children to avoid the teaching of evolution or sex education are making a mistake.
You want something really freaky, take a look at ACE/School Of Tomorrow...
These people are nut jobs, think Christian Taliban: having used their curriculum for a little while I can say that they not only endoctrinate and brainwash the student, but try to make the student FORCE their views on everyone else...like a Jerry Fallwell boot camp...
The difference of course is that Christian fundamentalists may be a little nutsy, but they're not going to kill anyone who disagrees or comes to disagree. The Pope recently said something to the same tune. In the modern, PC universe it's not cool to say that Christian fundies aren't as bad as Islamic fundies, but in this case it's overwhelmingly true. It's the difference between the 19th century and the 9th.
As for home schooling, I've met a hand-full of kids who were home-schooled, and they were all weird. I have no problem that people choose to home-school their kids, but personally I'd never do it. It's bad for the kids to miss out on the varieties of experiences that just won't occur in a home-schooling environment. Not to mention AP Chem.
The difference of course is that Christian fundamentalists may be a little nutsy, but they're not going to kill anyone who disagrees or comes to disagree.
Think about that beyond individual killings...
Think about that beyond individual killings...
I think not.