Christian vs. public school education

[RickD]

I agree Philip. Kids need to interact in the real world. Unless of course parents are homeschooling to prepare their children for working from home.

Seriously? My son has worked outside of the home since he was age 16 and, as I mentioned above, was an assistant manager at his work at or before age 17. He has a degree in Business from San Jose State, had a paid internship at a company in Hong Kong and went straight from Hong Kong to training in Bangalore, India for his new job. His fiance' was born in New Zealand to parents who came from Singapore. His older sister, as I mentioned above, spent two months in Fiji, and has worked in preschools for some years now with staff, management and students' from a large number of Asian, Central American and South American countries. His younger sister, well just read my post above. All of my kids have each spent weeks working and ministering in time zones as far away as the other side of the International Dateline from their home. How can they be further from working at home without leaving this planet? And, trust me, they are not prodigies or unusual among formerly homeschooled young adults!

Pete,
My post was supposed to be tongue in cheek. I was referring only to parents who homeschool to keep their kids from the temptations of the world. So my joke was that they keep their kids isolated at home, to prepare them for a job working at home, in which they'll be isolated as adults.

[Jac3510]

Are you, perchance, homeschooling your children?

What can I say? The twin hazards of broad-brush condemnations of homeschooling or claiming there are "very negative spiritual/societal repercussions" or posing largely hypothetical objections to homeschooling are finding oneself talking to some one who is homeschooling or has homeschooled.

Yup!

And I was homeschooled, too--six of my twelve years, anyway. The other miserable six were spent in the child-abusing government run "educational" system.

Frankly, I think the socialization argument is the worst possible argument for reasons you've already cited. I actually think the "socialization" you get in public (and private!) schools is downright harmful in most cases (yes, I mean that). Some kids come out unscathed, sure. But they're the minority. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who had a "great" HS experience and, when you start talking in detail to them about it, you find out that they were the ones picking on other kids, thinking it's okay. And yes, often times, that behavior translates elsewhere into life, even if by no other means that stunting their empathy for others. They also tend not to work as well with authority or people of vastly different ages. That's been my experience, anyway.

And to your last point, yes, I always find it funny that people who have absolutely no experience with homeschooling think themselves qualified to pontificate on the subject. They're as bad as atheists pontificating on theology!

[PeteSinCA]

I agree Philip. Kids need to interact in the real world. Unless of course parents are homeschooling to prepare their children for working from home.

Seriously? My son has worked outside of the home since he was age 16 and, as I mentioned above, was an assistant manager at his work at or before age 17. He has a degree in Business from San Jose State, had a paid internship at a company in Hong Kong and went straight from Hong Kong to training in Bangalore, India for his new job. His fiance' was born in New Zealand to parents who came from Singapore. His older sister, as I mentioned above, spent two months in Fiji, and has worked in preschools for some years now with staff, management and students' from a large number of Asian, Central American and South American countries. His younger sister, well just read my post above. All of my kids have each spent weeks working and ministering in time zones as far away as the other side of the International Dateline from their home. How can they be further from working at home without leaving this planet? And, trust me, they are not prodigies or unusual among formerly homeschooled young adults!

Pete,
My post was supposed to be tongue in cheek. I was referring only to parents who homeschool to keep their kids from the temptations of the world. So my joke was that they keep their kids isolated at home, to prepare them for a job working at home, in which they'll be isolated as adults.

Sorry, Rick! Mea goofa! I've been on your end of this kind of thing - the one who was posting tongue-in-cheek but mistaken for being serious - often enough that I frequently include sarcasm "tags" ([sarcasm]Text text text[/sarcasm]) for clarity.

I'm still learning the posting personae of folks here.

[PeteSinCA]

Yup!

And I was homeschooled, too--six of my twelve years, anyway. The other miserable six were spent in the child-abusing government run "educational" system.

I'm a bit older than you, and and there were any of what we would now call homeschoolers around, they were few and pretty much invisible. So my educational experience was entirely campus-based schools: public for K; private parochial for Grades 1-3; public for Grade 4 through high school; the parochial school did have K, and closed its doors after my 3rd Grade year. I loved the parochial school - good teachers, well run and disciplined. While I entered PS a year or two ahead of my "grade level", the instruction and teachers were OK. The PS was larger than the parochial, but the discipline was disproportionately worse. In a word, bullies. Unless a bully was stupid enough to do their bullying under the nose of a teacher or school bus driver - and I don't remember any being that stupid - bullying had no consequences. OTOH, when I finally defended myself, in my junior year in high school, I learned that self-defense was punished the same as bullying.

My Mom had too much awe for "professionals" to have thought of educating me at home. I think she would have done well with the kind of curricular materials then commonly used in campus-based schools. As it was, her love of reading - she checked out and read a large stack of books from the library every two weeks - rubbed off on me, is part of me today, and I passed it on to at least two of my kids (the third reads well enough, but has other interests).

Frankly, I think the socialization argument is the worst possible argument for reasons you've already cited.

Back in the mid-late 70s, when modern homeschooling was just beginning (well before we started), the question used to challenge homeschoolers was the A Question, "What about academics? There's a reason the A Question is seldom voiced in any form, among educators, anyway. The answer is rather embarrassing to public schools. Whether its prodigy challenges, like Spelling and Geography Bees, where homeschooled children, proportionally, are vastly over-represented (as finalists and as winners), or more ordinary contexts, such as ACT test score demographics, the answer to the A Question is that as a whole homeschoolers are doing very well. The "S Question", "What about Socialization" is much more ambiguous, and not as susceptible to falsification through accounts of personal experiences or by direct demographic studies (e.g. homeschoolers' standardized test scores). So the "S Question" has pretty much supplanted the A Question as the a priori "Plan A" for people who need a pretext to voice opposition to homeschooling.

I actually think the "socialization" you get in public (and private!) schools is downright harmful in most cases (yes, I mean that). Some kids come out unscathed, sure. But they're the minority. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who had a "great" HS experience and, when you start talking in detail to them about it, you find out that they were the ones picking on other kids, thinking it's okay. And yes, often times, that behavior translates elsewhere into life, even if by no other means that stunting their empathy for others. They also tend not to work as well with authority or people of vastly different ages. That's been my experience, anyway.

Homeschoolers were turning the S Question on those challenging homeschooling even before we started homeschooling. Unlike many 19th Century public school (e.g. the school at which Laura Ingalls taught), where students were grouped by ability and were often in one- or two-room schools for all 8 elementary grades, modern PSs are age-segregated. This may be convenient for administrators, but it's far from what is typical in real-world society and workplaces. In just the 7 guys in my work group the age span from the youngest to the oldest is nearly 30 years! And in the company, even excluding senior manglement folk, the age range is 20-somethings through 70-somethings ... that I know of. School discipline, putting it briefly and kindly, encourages bullying more than it encourages it; likewise for a wide range of anti-social and harmful behaviors. In the real job world, bullies and dopers get tossed out on their ear, and a wide range of harassing and unethical behaviors lead to discipline or firing.

But I was playing nice-nice by answering the S Question directly rather that deflecting and turning it. After having homeschooled for 17 years, having participated in so many activities, having founded and led a homeschooling support group for four years, and having volunteered at so many homeschooling conventions, directly showing how silly the S Question really is comes pretty easy. And I've been doing it for quite a few years, so I have quite a bit of practice doing it.

[ClassicalTeacher]

Where does the idea come from that homeschoolers keep their children utterly isolated from the world? Seriously?! Homeschooled children never go to church? Homeschooled children never go to Sunday School? Homeschooled children never go to AWANA and groups such as Royal rangers? Homeschooled children never participate in Little League, Pop Warner Football, Upward Basketball and other sports leagues (including, but not limited to sports leagues organized by homeschooling parents)? Homeschooled children never participate in Girl Scouts, Campfire Boys and Girls and Boy Scouts? Homeschooled children never participate in community theater groups or choirs (or organize their own)? Ever heard of homeschooling co-ops – where parents take turns teaching subjects to all children in the co-op?

Please don't take my general observations as an attack on homeschooling. But many of what you mention are very supervised activities where little interaction and playing out of or discussing world views occurs. There's not a lot of one-on-one in many of these activities - certainly not isolated ones or where the parameters are not constantly controlled or monitored by adults. For kids, the real learning about others different than yourself occurs in the corners, on the playgrounds - wherever and whenever adults aren't constantly listening and watching and the atmosphere and the environment isn't controlled. THOSE are when kids truly learn to deal with others often far different than themselves - their opinions, attitudes and actions. That is also how they learn to interact, talk with and influence/or not be influenced. This is where they learn to stand up for their own Christian beliefs.

But the biggest concern I have is withdrawing our massive and collective Christian witness from public schools - this is a wonderful opportunity to constantly witness the Joy within our children's and our own hearts. People act as if their faith isn't strong enough to stand up to the challenges of the world or that God can't or won't guide and protect them as they model their faith in front of children and adults that otherwise would likely not have such powerful exposures. UNLESS one's schools are dangerous, academically problematic or their current schedules/finances/logistics aren't currently conducive to public school, and if the available school standards are high, I just can't see choosing home schooling.

With all due respect, and as a Catholic teacher and administrator for over 25 years, I must disagree with your assessment of where children learn sociological differences. I will agree that, to some extent, kids are exposed to differing ideas and lifestyles out of the view of their parents or those responsible for them. This is not generally a positive occurrence. Most kids learn negative attitudes and are exposed to anti-social activities in these dark, unsupervised corners you describe. That is why adult supervision is critical and essential to a child's proper development. What you describe is typical of what occurs on a daily basis in government run schools. How many parents are shocked by some of the things their kids spew when they come home from school? How many times does a parent have to deal with "Well, Johnny/Susie does it!"? Kids do not learn how to distinguish between morally acceptable behaviors and anti-social antics in government run schools. They learn mob mentality.

Let me now offer another perspective: not all public schools are dens of iniquity--but most of them are. There are pockets of government run schools which are less offensive than your typical urban or even suburban public school. There are also charter schools which, at least at present, are an improvement over what is typically found in other public schools. But, is a Christian (or really any responsible parent) willing to risk their child's innocence and development in order to participate in a environment which does little to edify or cultivate those virtues that are necessary for a moral life? As a parent (which I am not) I would not want my child exposed to any of those "dark cornered, unsupervised" exercises in debauchery of which you seem to think is advantageous. As children mature and are given opportunities to experience life under proper supervision they will gain a balanced perspective on the world in which they live and be able to make intelligent and moral decisions regarding their choices in life as adults.

Also, I have to note that your statement"But the biggest concern I have is withdrawing our massive and collective Christian witness from public schools - this is a wonderful opportunity to constantly witness the Joy within our children's and our own hearts" is not a valid reason to expose one's children to the evils which are a daily occurrence in government run schools. In fact, I would propose that such an attitude, although on the surface may seem altruistic, is, in fact rooted in socialism/communism. In addition, those "opportunities for Christian witness" in public schools are not wanted and are rejected vehemently by government officials AND atheist parents. Christian children are oftentimes singled out for ridicule and animosity by other children and their teachers. Government run schools are, for the most part, destitute and devoid of any redeeming educational or sociological qualities.

Now, after having said all of this, I also recognize very clearly that not every parent makes a good homeschooler, and that there are many parents who cannot afford private education for their children. In these cases, parents MUST resolve to scrutinize and evaluate every single utterance that comes from the mouth of the teacher, school, and curriculum--especially now with the insidious "Common Core" curriculum being adopted. Parents whose children attend government schools must be not just vigilant, but VIGILANTES when it comes to what their children are exposed to everyday in their schools. Only then will their children receive a proper and balanced education.

[PeteSinCA]

In case anyone is curious, because the "Christian cocoon" idea is as applicable - I don't say the idea is correct - to campus-based Christian private schools as to Christian homeschoolers and because Christian homeschoolers are a form of Christian private education (in CA many/most homeschoolers are, before the law, a private school, just not campus-based), I let CT know this thread was again active.

[ClassicalTeacher]

In case anyone is curious, because the "Christian cocoon" idea is as applicable - I don't say the idea is correct - to campus-based Christian private schools as to Christian homeschoolers and because Christian homeschoolers are a form of Christian private education (in CA many/most homeschoolers are, before the law, a private school, just not campus-based), I let CT know this thread was again active.

Thank you, Pete. If there is one topic in which I feel passionate, it is education and particularly Christian education. Thanks again for the thumbs up!

[neo-x]

nice to see you post CT, thought you had left.

[PeteSinCA]

I posted this story on the news/politics discussion site I frequent. Besides showing a direction public education is heading in some states (with educrats in others wanting to go here), it encapsulates and illustrates one response to some comments to which I've not yet responded (to be honest, because I wasn't sure how to make this response without sounding like an fear-monger peddling unrealistic and outlandish scenarios).

Nightmare: Teen Boy Harasses Girls in Their Bathroom, Colo. School Tells Girls They Have No Rights
PacificJustice.org
10/10/13

Florence, Colo.--Attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute sent a strongly-worded letter this afternoon to school officials at Florence High School, warning them against squelching student privacy and speech rights in order to cater to the wishes of a teenage boy who has been entering girls’ bathrooms on campus.
...
Parents at the school, located near Colorado Springs, became irate when they learned that a teenage boy was entering girls’ bathrooms and, according to some students, even making sexually harassing comments toward girls he was encountering. When the parents confronted school officials, they were stunned to be told the boy’s rights as a self-proclaimed transgender trumped their daughters’ privacy rights. As the controversy grew, some students were threatened by school authorities with being kicked off school athletic teams or charged with hate crimes if they continued to voice concerns. The parents became aware of PJI’s Notice of Reasonable Expectation of Privacy and contacted PJI for help.

The school refusing to intervene on behalf of the girls who reported the harassment by the "transgender" boy? Who could predict that? The school, instead, threatening to retaliate against the girls who reported it? Who could predict that? The school threatening the girls who reported it with hate crimes prosecution? Who could predict that?

Before getting to my point, there was one surprise for me in this story. It didn't happen in California! But CA has a similar law which goes into effect in January, 2014. So similar situations, plus or minus a few threats of retaliation, will be happening in CA soon.

So ... when the chips were down, and the issue at hand was a blatantly obvious moral issue, how much influence did good parents have in their school? As this story illustrates, very little or less than none, on multiple levels. Setting aside for a moment the local educrats' threats, they were implementing and carrying out a state law. Selling cookies and cakes at bake sales (if those haven't been banned) and attending myriad PTA meetings - i.e. parental involvement in their children's schools - have no power in the face of a state law. And, as this story demonstrates, school officials want "parental involvement" when it entails fund-raising or getting bond measures passed. But when it's a moral issue like this? Educrats want parents to shut up and sit in the back of the school bus until the net bake sale or bond issue election. And the educrats will retaliate against their children if the parents don't comply.

A third factor, not relevant to this story, but which also trumps parental involvement in local schools is textbook selection. In many/most states, local schools have very little freedom in choosing textbooks. Textbooks are reviewed, publishers arm-twisted into editing, and are approved by state education department committees. Local schools in such states cannot choose texts not on the approved list, and the committees dictate much of texts' content (what is included and what is omitted).