Slashdot Mirror
US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum
A US judge has granted political asylum to a family who said they fled Germany to avoid persecution for home schooling their children. Uwe Romeike and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Tennessee after German authorities fined them for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes. Mike Connelly, attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, argued the case. He says, "Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one of the protected grounds under the asylum law. This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The rights being violated here are basic human rights."
Germany has school duty for all children older than six years up to 9 to 12 years in school (depends on the actual state). And "duty" means that a state examined teacher is required for schooling. You want home schooling? Then get the exam, and you are perfectly fine schooling your children at home.
That's a brilliant way to get you and your family into the US without having to resort to hiding in a shipping container or over staying a visitor's visa and then buying a fake identity.
FTFA:
In 2006 the Romeikes pulled their children out of a state school in Bissingen, Germany, in protest of what they deemed an anti-Christian curriculum.
They said textbooks presented ideas and language that conflicted with their Christian beliefs, including slang terms for sex acts and images of vampires and witches, while the school offered what they described as ethics lessons from Islam, Buddhism and other religions.
Well, obviously other religions can't offer any ethical guidance, and exposing the kids to them will clearly cause them to hate Christianity. Better not even expose them to other thoughts! And the best place to go for that? Here in the US.
We know we're friends and all now... and you've grown up quite a bit, but still... prooobably shouldn't be taking risks with the whole (human rights) thing. Won't look good.
It's always confirmation bias!
This is a very sensible verdict frankly, because no other developed western country stops you from educating your children yourself, which frankly would end up with more focused and ambitious, albeit potenially socially awkward children.
... to all the people who have education problems in other countries? I think we should: all afghani girls who for years could not go to school (did we give asylum to all that requested?), all the africans who cannot go to school because of social problems (did we give asylum to all that requested?), etc. Clearly shows how racist and politically biased the courts are: a group of (likely) right wing white people always get precedence over some poor 3rd world, brown-skinned, poor fellow...
I homeschool my kids. In Texas the laws for home-schooling are quite permissive, since Texas has so many religious whack-jobs. We are required to teach the "basic educational goals of reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a study of good citizenship" -- language from the original statute authorizing private schools. No requirements to teach teh nasty atheist science.
In the 1980s Arlington ISD pulled the same stunt as the German authorities in the article did. The family went to court (Leeper v. Arlington ISD), squandered a fortune, and eventually won a major smack-down to the school district. Since then, we homeschoolers have mostly been left alone. Occasionally a truant officer may harass the kids if they are outside during school hours, but homeschool organizations give instruction to the parents in how to handle the discussion with the truant officer.
We have to keep a basic record of what we taught and when, in case we are challenged about whether we are meeting the "basic educational goals..." listed above, but I do that anyway so that I know what to review later. It's a piece of cake. I can't believe I used to think homeschooling was a scarey responsibility; today I find it equally scarey to trust my sons' minds to a public edifice.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Okay, so this particular family is helped. Great! Wonderful! What about the other families in Germany? Does this get bumped up to the UN?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well, aren't we Mr. Tolerance and Understanding Incarnate! Not an ounce of prejudice here, eh? Only among those nasty stupid old home-schooling types.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The nerd angle is this: an increasing number of us nerds (where 'nerd' == cerebral) are dissatisfied with the dull slow lowest-common-denominator pop-psychology politically-correct schlock ladled out at public schools. Meanwhile private schools are not a whole lot better, and cost too much anyway (typically $650/month/child with discounts for multiple children). So we are homeschooling.
TFA represents a major political victory for homeschooling, at a time when that right is under attack (re: California). I, as a homeschooler, feel like celebrating because this judge's decision will be invoked hither and thither in my defense. It may have had a whack-job religious basis, but the decision stands in defense of my ability to give my sons a non-religious hyper-rational high-intensity education.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
From TFA, it appears that the actual basis for asylum here is freedom of religion, not freedom to home-school. The parents pulled their children from public school because they are fundamentalist Christians and objected to elements of the public school's curriculum, including sex education and morality lessons drawn from other religions. The German government apparently does not recognize a parent's right to "protect" children from opposing religious views through home-schooling, and intended to compel attendance. The US recognizes this as an aspect of free exercise of religion, which can form the basis for an asylum petition. Thus, they are actually obtaining asylum on religious persecution grounds. Whether these facts actually establish a valid instance of religious persecution or not is perhaps an important question; just because something is protected by the free exercise clause of the 1st amendment to the US Constitution does not mean it is necessarily a fundamental human right which should give rise to an asylum claim. Germany is not subject the the US Constitution.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Slashdot likes sparking flamewars related to homeschooling for religious reasons. That's what this will inevitably turn into, and must have been the motivation.
Man, that post is definitely going to be read aloud at the trial.
I don't have a problem with people home-schooling to improve the quality of education. I myself was home-schooled for several years.
I do, however, have a major issue with people pulling their children out of public school so they can be home-schooled according to religious criteria. I recognize this is a slippery slope, but based on what I've read so far I support the German government.
Religious freedom allows you to worship, but it does not in my mind give one free license to program children with it. Children are not property. Religious conflict with a secular school is not a valid reason for home-schooling.
Further, home schooled children should be subject to, at the very least, the same aptitude tests and subject material criteria as public school children. (Yes, I know most public school criteria and tests are a joke, but it's at least a starting point.)
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
White Europeans are a minority in this world, this is just Affirmative Action for White Europeans.
Good. Raising children is the job of parents, not the Government, and it should be perfectly ok for parents to opt out of the school system if it doesn't suit them for any reason. Fascistic governments hate the idea that parents have the freedom to teach their children whatever they want. In Britain we have seen the Government attempting to smear home educators by getting their mouthpieces to spread fear about unchecked child abuse. The pieces are being put into place for an outright ban, and the sad thing is that so-called "liberals" will probably support it on the grounds that it will stop "the children" being "brainwashed" about Jesus, not realising that they are undermining their own freedom to oppose the Government.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Ahm.. how do home schoolers count as a protectable social group if all they have in common is homeschooling?
I am not sure this is a good precedent. This same logic could be applied to any activity that is illegal in one country but legal here. "I do not want to follow the laws of my home country" should not be an automatic 'you can immigrate to the US' pass.
Germans make for good US citizens! They're white. A funny feeling tells me that the judge would not have sympathized with non-Caucasians and/or non-Europeans with the same problem.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
So in your view the only people who home school are racist or religious zealots? Since the majority of children are educated in public schools I would suggest the majority of nincompoops are from there instead. Children taught by the public system that they are special, its not their fault they don't study, no one is better than anyone else, and its not fair if you don't have stuff other people have.
Not all people home school do so because of religion, some do it because they to control the environment their children learn in, they want to give their children a leg up, they truly are that good. Whats next? Vilify people who send their children to private schools are elitist pricks who don't want to have their kids associate with people with the wrong skin color?
Its the blind hate people like you who are the problem, I would take a state full of home schooled kids over one of you.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
> Homeschooling is in no way a human right.
I totally disagree. It's the basic right to raise your children with your own views and values. Today that protects the "Christian Activists", but it also protects any family from being forced to have their children educated by the government.
If you think a government being able to force you to send your children to someplace to teach them what the government wants them to learn isn't a violation of a basic human right, then I don't know what kind of rights you think humans should have.
I on the other hand would much rather send my kids to a magnet or private school in the USA which will most likely be 10x better than the average European or American public school.
Alright, I didn't think it would come to this on slashdot, but this must be understood.
For most families, homeschooling provides an option to help with constant travel (including military families), family changes, or just plain old bad local schools. I have a few friends who were home-schooled through HS, and they are some of the smartest and quickest people I know. In public school, classes move as fast as the slowest student (or just pass him/her by), at home, if you get it, you move on quickly and have plenty of time to be creative/play sports/do whatever.
This stigma against homeschooling has GOT to go already. Not all homeschoolers are teaching racial bias or inaccurate science. Not by far.
It's always confirmation bias!
" Not an ounce of prejudice here, eh?"
One should not have to be tolerant against the religious myths of our ancestors taught as "the truth" and "real history".
Right.... because state schools are completely unbiased.....
To be fair, as the grown son of two parents who are currently teaching in rural public schools, 90% of the folk who are home schooling in their area are exactly as BAG describes. People are actually moving to the rural areas specifically to 'protect' their children from the awful awful danger of mixing with other belief systems.
The other 10% are joes who think they can teach better than the system, and in some cases they are right but in most they aren't and are just pissed because their kids were expected to act like humans during school hours instead of the self-obsessed, impulsive monsters they are allowed to be at home.
My mother is a special needs teacher and it's especially worse in that group since in that area, a good half the parents are at fault for their children's needs (drugs, 'inbreeding', just plain piss poor parenting) and still expect the public schools to pay for things like therapists even if the kid has been pulled to be home-schooled.
I mean the US is granting that its Political Asylum for this family because they didn't want their kids to go to school in Germany, they prefered home schooling, is basically what it boils down to. So the opposite of it would be extraditing, sending them back to Germany to pay for their crimes, this is the States way of saying: We will protect you if you flee Germany because you want to want to home school your children.
Now - I don't know what to think about all this. In one hand, I think Germany is its own sovereign nation and it should be allowed to run its country how it sees fits, however I also think that if people don't like the way the country is run they should be able to leave. So is this the best course of action? I mean the black and white of it is to send them Back to Germany - or to roll in with the tanks and reform the country (a popular choice lately). So this kind of lands in a semi-grey area which should make me happy.
But somehow I see this opening a whole new can of worms. Now Germany is going to restrict people flying to the U.S. - based on facts about children and schooling, and likewise, people might run away to the US claiming they are doing it for their children as opposed to some ulterior motive (other more heineous crimes).
This concise argument sums up the issues perfectly.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I suspect you might be in the minority with your reasoning for home schooling. Don't the majority of home-schoolers do it because they're afraid of evil secular concepts like evolution and geological history? As far as I'm concerned, as long as home schooling is used to shelter children from real information, or present it from a "religious perspective", it should be outlawed. Even with a strict set of rules for curriculum, there will still be parents who give extra qualifying information along with such topics.. ie.. Here's all the nonsense that secularists believe, and here is the real truth according to the Holly Bibble. The material is still covered, and you can't eliminate that loophole, so the only solution is ban home schooling outright.
... a great way to breed more socially retarded Slashdotters.
Well, they have to be made somewhere - God knows they'll never have the opportunity to reproduce once they become "socially retarded Slashdotters".
That is all.
Not just yet. TFA says that this case did not make it up to a sufficiently high court to set a precedent.
Prove to me that this isn't an elaborate holographic simulation you're living in, and then we can talk about "the truth". Truth is the regime of philosophers and theologians; anyone who thinks science is about "truth" is naive.
The fundamental right in question would be that of the parent to raise their own children, as opposed to the State doing so.
This is unfortunately one of those rights that never got expressly enumerated in the Constitution (although in New Hampshire we're trying to fix this) most likely because, much like a right to privacy, the idea of violating it was so beyond the pale in 1789 that no one thought it needed to be written down. What was put into the Bill of Rights were eight articles specifically in reaction to abuses committed by the British government, followed by two catch-all articles clarifying that the powers of the Federal Government are expressly enumerated (Article X), but the rights of the people are not (Article IX). Unfortunately this hasn't worked out too well in practice...
Liberty in your lifetime
How many homeschoolers have you people interacted with anyway? This looks like a case where you've never ever actually met one except that bad kid in the back who argues with the biology professor, who turns out to be one. You then gleefully stereotype every homeschooled kid with that same stamp, along with a few horrific rumours you imagined or picked up on the internet.
I realize there are bad cases out there, but most homeschoolers are never going to be noticed in the end because they turn out just like everybody else. They go on to get normal jobs and like like normal people. There are plenty of cases I could name where people educated in your public schools turn out to be welfare freeloaders and deadbeats.
I'm so glad I live in Canada where homeschooling is actually supported by the government and treated with marginal respect.
Now look, I've refrained from profanity, calling you Nazis, and typing in all caps. All I want in return is to not be treated like some sort of slime because I didn't grow up inside the walls of your public education system.
[/homeschooledkid]
Even with a strict set of rules for curriculum, there will still be parents who give extra qualifying information along with such topics.. ie.. Here's all the nonsense that secularists believe, and here is the real truth according to the Holly Bibble. The material is still covered, and you can't eliminate that loophole, so the only solution is ban home schooling outright.
Yes, because parents would never do such a thing outside school time, would they?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Germany should be happy to get rid of its religious nutters.
As opposed to the modern myths preached in schools?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
There isn't anything technical about this. Nothing geeky.
If there’s nothing technical or geeky about the way you’re doing home-schooling, you’re doing it wrong.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Oh please. Your children are not your personal property to shape in your image. You cannot beat them, and you cannot brainwash them. They have rights, too. And everyone else is going to be affected by your retarded parenting decisions down the road, because we're all part of a society and you can't escape that. Well, unless you live in the mountains away from all other humans. If you do that, well, I don't care what you do.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
But that's not the issue at hand. You are perfectly allowed in Germany to send your children to a private school or even home school them. You just have to warrant that they get something the law recognizes as "education", and this is defined in Germany as "being educated by an examined teacher". The family Romeike wasn't able to name a teacher for their children who got the required exams, and thus the verdict was that they couldn't prove they educate their children at all, which is criminal negligence.
Aww, I see, so you get to decide what morals are good for my children? I really do not think governments around the world have a good track records on teaching morals. Germany is no exception.
Yes, because believing an invisible wad of spaghetti is floating out in space above us, imperceptibly influencing everything that happens towards a goal that seems contrary to what is actually happening is in the same category as believing in your own senses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paolini
Home schooled, graduated HS at 15, 3 published books, 20 million sold. I know close to a half dozen like him thru fencing (foil & epee) - usually 1 or 2 years ahead of peers. Makes you wonder just how screwed up our school systems really are.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as home schooling is used to shelter children from real information, or present it from a "religious perspective", it should be outlawed.
If you take issue with home schoolers presenting information from a "religious perspective" then do you also take issue with parents that choose to send their kids to Catholic school?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You know, as the nerd's nerd I can't say I've ever enjoyed school, and echo a lot of the sentiments in your post. However, there is something to say for being able to adapt to, and relate to, the society that keeps me alive, whether I like it or not. For the crowd who feels that conventional school is too slow and holds them back, I say that school ends at 3pm (ish, depending on location). You have all that time afterward for self-education, go nuts.
These kids are being protected from "evil" and "immoral" ideas from other religions, but will one day have to entire the big world where such ideas are common and, in many cases, respected. If the boy continues fighting, and the girl continues to be unable to focus in the presence of these other ideas, they are likely going to end up in prison or worse.
Education of children is about more than facts, it's about adapting them to the environment they will have to live and succeed in. The older they get, the more "serious" the education is, but they need to learn very early, and very often to get along, how to get along, and how to cope with alien ideas. Buddhists are real, Muslims are real, Hindu's are real, homosexuals are here and they're queer, etc. Get used to it.
It doesn't matter. If we are living in a holographic simulation, well, that simulation is our reality. We are part of a system - if that system is artifical, and we are artificial, it doesn't matter. We do what we do in the context of our existence, we can do no other.
Even if there is a real human body in a slimy podule somewhere, that body is no use to me anyway as it has atrophied muscles and a nutrition system that is entirely dependent on the machines. The Matrix is a movie, if it happened for real then there would be no break-outs.
The other 10% are joes who think they can teach better than the system, and in some cases they are right but in most they aren't and are just pissed because their kids were expected to act like humans during school hours instead of the self-obsessed, impulsive monsters they are allowed to be at home.
In many urban areas, kids are forced to join gangs when they attend public schools. Maybe some of these parents just want to get away from the rapidly degrading society in urban areas and teach their kids how to act right, because they're not going to get that in many schools in urban areas.
Completely agree, while many homeschoolers might be doing it to force Christianity onto their children.
This basic human right also prevents a pro religion government from forcing your kids to learn from a Christian/Muslim/etc. viewpoint.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Excuse me, but exactly what does being the "grown son of two parents who are currently teaching in rural public schools" mean in the context of this discussion? That certainly doesn't give you any qualification whatsoever to discuss the status of homeschooling, unless your parents are also driving the countryside polling homeschoolers as a part of some strange school program.
There are plenty of religious wingnuts out there, no doubt. A quick wiki on homeschooling shows 72% cite religious reasons as an important factor in choosing homeschooling. that's a significant majority and I as a secular people think that sucks. But, I also think they have a right to choose how to live their own lives including how to raise their children, even though I totally disagree with it.
Also why shouldn't public schooling still foot the bill for their kids' educational needs to some degree? It's not like homeschooling allows you to save the 75% of your property taxes that go to local schools.
The fundamental right in question would be that of the parent to raise their own children, as opposed to the State doing so.
This is unfortunately one of those rights that never got expressly enumerated in the Constitution
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights covers it. Maybe we should haul Germany in front of the Security Council to explain their wanton violation of basic human rights?
Article 26 (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There is nothing wrong with homeschooling at all. And you will always find an example of a single person who ran fine with a certain type of education. All the german law requires is that the education is done by an examined teacher.
Yes, what a shame that their kids aren't allowed to go to school with a bunch of gang-bangers and be forced to join a street gang for fear of being beaten.
So your kids are going to be able to go to college with the diploma they got at your home? I was home schooled and I found that mommy and daddy saying so doesn't make it so in the real world. I couldn't go to college because I didn't have the required courses like Math 30. I ended up in the trades so I can make enough money to hopefully be able to go to school one day so I don't have to work in a backbreaking enviroment full of cancer causing dust and fumes. And what about being able to interact with people, do you know what it is like to be 18 just started living on your own with absolutly no social skills? My brother is 26 and he can't even talk to a girl.
If the schools are not teaching your kids enough thats what parents are for. School is the minimum if you want your kids to be better that the minimum show some interest and teach them some of the stuff you know. School teaches more than just math or english it teaches life skills like how to deal with people, scheduling your day, respect for authority, all important thing when they enter the job market. And most importantly there are life skills like how to meet a girl rather than to start learning in your early twenties.
Is something invisible merely because it is That Which Cannot Be Seen?
Germany sensibly determined that Scientology is a cult and outlawed it, while the US has raised it to the status of religion and given it tax-exempt status. The Germans also happen to believe that children deserve a basic education that reaches certain objective standards. Nothing prevents parents from adding to that education.
Any further comment would be superfluous.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
[citation needed]
"Political", maybe, in terms of spin, but its not a substantive and certainly not a legal victory for homeschooling in general, because (among other things) asylum proceedings don't operate under the laws that would apply in domestic homeschooling cases, and aren't controversies between the real parties in interest in the policy for which asylum is sought (the potential asylee and the government whose policy is challenged), but are cases where the parties to the case are the potential asylee and the US government, which may or may not have motivation to vigorously defend (or even really fully investigate the facts of) the challenged practice. (And whose motivation to do so may change between one asylum hearing and the next.)
You might like to think that, but it really doesn't. A legal challenge to a (US) state schooling requirement would operate under completely different laws (the general police powers of the state viewed against only the express limits on State power in the US Constitution, rather than US asylum laws) and be a proceeding where the party with a real interest in the policy was actually represented. This kind of asylum hearing -- raising a different question evaluated under completely different law -- would not only not provide binding precedent, but would not even provide much in terms of persuasive precedent for such a case.
Slashdot articles that involve Germany in some way: Your one-stop one-step Godwin's Law chop shop!
For those that oppose home-schooling, do they seriously think that the government does a great job of educating children? I can't believe there are so many that oppose home-schooling, yet Slashdotters in general rail on the poor quality of the American education system.
To me, home-schooling is a great alternative. Parents in general care the most about their children, not the government. Obviously there are the exception (child abusers, etc.), but that's not necessarily an argument to ban all home-schooling outright.
Seems like as long as the children can pass the standardized tests (SAT, etc.), we should support it. In fact, studies have been done that show that home-schoolers often do better than public school students. For example:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp
Anecdotally, my sister found that some colleges actually prefer home-schoolers for this reason.
"The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right." - Henrik Ibsen
I totally disagree. It's the basic right to raise your children with your own views and values
<sarcasm>You are sooo right. I feel so enraged to be denied to teach my children the basic necessary hatred against Americans. How could they ever learn that the highest achievement a person can have is to eradicate Americans in concentration camps? Here is no higher value that that.</sarcasm>
Homeschooling was originally banned in Germany by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, when he wanted to make sure that all German children were indoctrinated in the ways of the Nazi party. The Hitler Youth was the result.
This is utter BS. "Schulpflicht" (compulsory education) is german law since the 18th century (early 19th for some parts of germany). Google translated german wikipedia page here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSchulpflicht
What a crazy state society is in when people believe it is "activism" to claim a person has an innate right to their lives and their values, free from force.
Or, just possibly, a lot of people home school because of the poor quality of education their local public school provides? Just because it *could* be a religious conspiracy, doesn't mean it is.
Remember to maintain your supply of
These are religious nutters. And let's face it, the US doesn't need any more of those.
But the USA's whole history is based on Europe sending you our religious nutters! If we can't send them to the USA, where can we send them?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
My natural human right to freedom (god-given if you prefer) trumps your personal view. That includes the right to decide the path your children take until they are adults. They are my children. They belong to me, not you, government, or any arbitrary third party
Says the arbitrary third party...
My brother is 26 and he can't even talk to a girl.
Don't talk about me like that ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If you take issue with home schoolers presenting information from a "religious perspective" then do you also take issue with parents that choose to send their kids to Catholic school?
No. I admit I only have a data point of one, but my experience with home schooling was my ex-wife's niece and nephew where home schooling consisted of 8 hours a day of "Veggie Tales" while the mom sat around the dining room table growing obese. It's really sad. The daughter actually had a quick wit and curiosity that was slowly being burned out of her by her fundamentalist, red-neck parents.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
My sister, far from a religious extremist, and then the local PTA president, decided to home school her 3 boys when the school failed to take action on a sexual complaint. Basically, there was an older boy, 5th grade, that was exploring other kids at the school. When he was caught red handed, the school decided "counciling" was more appropriate. 2 years later, when the boy was ARRESTED, she put her kids back into the school system.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You've skipped (1) and (2)
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
Fundamentalist education may conflict with (2) and so the right of the parents to choose that option does not exist.
In the really old days, the parents would teach their children the tools for survival. Typically the father would teach his sons his own trade, the mother would teach the daughters how to be good mothers. ...
Given this model, how would an artistic or tradeskill oriented education stack up on a standardized test?
Lets see
She can can create $50,000 sculptures in a month, but she fails at geography and her english is poor?
He can create a couch from scratch, frame, stuffing, upholstery in 2 weeks, but is doing poorly on trigonometry?
She is bringing in $20k a month on her acting/singing career at the age of 12, but
Our education system is geared towards creating a lot of very similar minded people with boringly similar skill sets. No wonder we no longer have "mechanical geniuses", Renaissance men.
I'd say standardized tests would be all right, but there are a TON of things you can't test for that are very usable real world skills. Homeschooling is a way to break out of this clone world we live in filled with fashion barbies and "All-American" quarterbacks.
My brother has Aspergers. What I see as his biggest hindrance to being more successful is that everyone is trying to make him adjust to being normal. As a society instead of ostracizing those we don't understand, we should encourage them to contribute in their own special way.
http://www.godtellsus.com/aboutraisingchildren.html
[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_child_left_behind#Criticisms_of_the_Act
Please don't flippantly toss out [citation needed] when you know fully well that the issue at hand is currently in debate. If you have a point, make it, please.
I have no issue with the rest of what you're saying. I would add, though, that in the court of public opinion, this weighs rather deeply. We'll allow Germans to come here and do it, but won't allow our own people to do so? I think not. Not for long, anyway.
Homeschooling risks violating the children's rights under Article 26 (1). School isn't always fair (and so is life), but denying your children the right to learn in a school environment isn't fair, either.
In this case, the parents seem to fear that their children could become too open-minded about the world around them. But there are other communities in Germany who do not value education at all, especially for girls (and that's not even restricted to religious fundamentalists and immigrants). In such an environment, a homeschooling ban may not be ideal, but it makes some sense and opens up opportunities to children who would get only very limited education otherwise.
It qualifies me because I spend most of my time visiting them listening to them talk about their jobs and other than the folk who get themselves on the school board to flog teachers that they felt didn't treat their children right, the home-schoolers and their demands of the schools are the main topic de jour.
I'm sure there are plenty of hidden pockets out there, but in the area my parents teach in, almost everyone knows everyone else, and even when they don't, there are things that home-school parents often interact with public schools over. Such as money for special needs.
And as far as footing the bill, the schools do already, the problem comes when the parents expect the school to start footing the bill for things that the school doesn't normally pay for, especially when the school is rural and has a tax base of about 100 times smaller than the urban school the parent yanked the kid out of and is basing their expectations on.
Here's a hint, when the school is still running a win95 office and the 'expansion' to the school is a trailer parked in the back lot, expecting the school to pay for a $100 an hour physical therapist to work with your kid one on one daily is a pipe dream. They'd be paying more annually for the therapist than they will be for any of the teachers.
They also are not property of the state to brainwash under the guise of "protecting their rights".
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Yea, I bet if a mostly black country had a natural disaster, say an earthquake, 'they' would never make streamlined immigration services available to them.
No. I admit I only have a data point of one, but my experience with home schooling was my ex-wife's niece and nephew where home schooling consisted of 8 hours a day of "Veggie Tales" while the mom sat around the dining room table growing obese. It's really sad. The daughter actually had a quick wit and curiosity that was slowly being burned out of her by her fundamentalist, red-neck parents.
Turn them in. You complain about "someone" not doing your job to fix a problem in your family (ok, your ex-family). Furrfu.
Even the most homeschool-friendly of states (such as Kentucky) allow state officials of one sort or another to investigate serious cases of educational neglect. In Kentucky, the local Director of Pupil Personnel does so (and (illegally) so do social workers). Give the officials probable cause, and they can find these people, require a written curriculum that matches state guidelines, and then arrest for truancy when that doesn't happen.
I personally prefer "lax" homeschool laws because Kentucky (at least) is notorious for having terrible school districts who start going broke because good parents pull out their kids (you know, the ones who pay per seat but don't cost much). Said districts then try to punish the good parents beyond what Kentucky law allows. OTOH, parents of troubled kids who pull their kids out instead of facing expulsion or "prison school" are encouraged to go, just to get their monsters out of the system.
The fundamental right in question would be that of the parent to raise their own children, as opposed to the State doing so.
I'd also add that the responsibility of my children's education will wind up being mine with or without the State. If my kid screws up his life, my wife and I will be held accountable via 'blame the parents'. The State, and the system, will be held harmless. I find it absolutely, disgustingly disingenuous to hold accountable with one hand, and limit options with the other. If I didn't think the schools were getting it done, and (rightly) can't escape the responsibility, then I should have the right to take any and all reasonable action, including providing the service myself.
No. I admit I only have a data point of one, but my experience with home schooling was my ex-wife's niece and nephew where home schooling consisted of 8 hours a day of "Veggie Tales" while the mom sat around the dining room table growing obese.
My only experience with black people was getting mugged by one so I guess all black people are all criminals.
Yeah, that's a winning argument you've got there.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Gotta love secularists for whom their philosophy is almost as much of a One True Way as religion is for fundamentalists, don't you? (I'm a secularist---outright atheist, actually. But I'm not into demanding everyone believe things my way.)
We don't need "separation of church and state" in this country. What we need is separation of state from any sort of "my way is the only way, damnit!" philosophy.
Liberty in your lifetime
Secular schools teach children a lot of non-Biblical things besides evolution and geology (if those things even are non-Biblical, I've read the Bible more than once and I don't think they are).
First and foremost, by handing you children off to someone you don't even know, you are teaching your children that you don't care about them and that you are not concerned about their well being. This sets the stage for greater struggles later in life. As we move into adulthood, gaining self-sufficiency will mean severing all bonds to our parents (as dependency was the only remaining bond). The Bible, by contrast, teaches us that parents should love their children, and that children should respect their parents. So yeah, school turns this one on it's head.
Moreover, you are putting your child in and environment where they receive minimal adult attention and are expected to perform. They are taught that their value as a person is dependent on their academic performance, and they are held to a standard that most cannot meet. As a result, many children are told that they are worthless, simply because they are not proficient at math or reading or some other thing. This contradicts the Bible, which teaches that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that each one of us has something unique to contribute, and that God loves every one of us.
Finally, school teaches objectification. It teaches us that our own value is only in what we can provide for others, and that others are valuable only because of what they can do for us. Students learn to form social hierarchies where they use lies and rumors and gossip to gain advantage over each other. Later, boys learn to lie to girls in order to use them to satisfy sexual urges, while girls learn to submit to that treatment in order to feel valuable. In contrast, the Bible teaches that people have intrinsic value, and that we should not do things out of selfishness or vain conceit, but rather that we should build each other up and take each others burdens while carrying our own loads.
These are fundamental christian values, and a christian parent needs to be directly involved in their child's life in order to teach them. If you have the time to home-school, that is ideal. I think it's also possible to teach good values to a child who is in school, as long as you spend a lot of time with them outside school.
If you've ever attended a school, then you should understand that there are a lot of good reasons you may want to keep your children out of it. I think that those reasons are much more important than trying to enforce some kind of universalized information distribution scheme. Children don't learn much about those subjects in school anyway (they mostly learn about the kinds of things I've discussed above).
but denying your children the right to learn in a school environment isn't fair, either.
Who says the "school environment" is the most effective place to learn?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Okay, maybe not your views and values, but the statement was meant more generally.
Last post!
Sorry you had a bad experience, and obviously your parents didn't really know what they were doing and didn't plan ahead, but that doesn't mean the practice should be illegal. I was homeschooled for the last nine years before college (yes, I went), and my parents had the presence of mind to work with a private school for the last three of those years. I took lab courses there (one a year: Chem, Bio, etc.), met with a teacher once a week who rubber stamped all the work I did at home for my mother (who put together the curriculum and graded my work). I graduated with a diploma from the school which continues to keep my transcripts.
Homeschooling is an individual experience. It can be done poorly or above reproach. Don't judge everybody based on a limited sampling, even if that's your own family. And as for being social, I have all the friends I want, and I'm married.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Wow, an anti-rationalist evidentialist rants against people whose epistemic system accepts sources for knowledge outside of the One True Prophet of Scientific Method. It's a pity that the author of the post is probably unaware of his kinship with those he apparently despises.
The religious--even the godless religious--always advocate regulating conscience in favor of absolutism. To them, "real information" is a definite known. It is "truth." The True Believer will not tolerate competition. It's easy to spot true believers; I have enough true believer in me to recognize the language. It's full of "outlaw" and "ban" and other such hate talk.
Fortunately for Americans, we have the "Establishment clause" which is designed to protect a certain basic right of conscience from the well-meaning but misguided people who know what is true and best for everyone else. It doesn't matter if one's religion is godless, as the modern secularism is; it is anything but irreligious. Parents have a right to their children, their own flesh and blood; to pass on their traditions and beliefs as they see fit. Contrary to the religious fanatics of all persuasions, we need not all be the same.
reminds me of the kid at school who wore religious t-shirts ("jesus, the choice of the last generation" in the style of a pepsi logo). somehow we got on the topic of the upcoming 84 presidential election, and he said his dad was voting against mondale because mondale wanted to allow teachers that were gay. we were in 4th grade. what a role model.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
Finally, a decent reason to have a manned space program!
And so you are forcing your kids to learn what you want them to learn.
What freedom do your kids have?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Parents have plenty of rights [citation needed], but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science [citation needed] and borderline racist interpretations of history [citation needed] ought not be one. We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops [citation needed] because of homeschooling [citation needed]. Homeschooling begets more homeschooling [citation needed] in an endless cycle. When you try to push morals and religion into education [citation needed] you end up with none of the above [citation needed].
Wikied that for you.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
One should not have to be tolerant against the religious myths of our ancestors taught as "the truth" and "real history".
In 1943, a group of Jehovah's witnesses sued that State of West Virginia for the right not to salute the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=319&invol=624#Scene_1). The State responded, much as you have here, that it has every right to reeducate those backwards religious nuts 'for the purpose of teaching, fostering and perpetuating the ideals, principles and spirit of Americanism, and increasing the knowledge of the organization and machinery of the government.' For those not familiar with the history of JW in the US, there was a longstanding hostility towards their religion on the grounds that it is insufficiently patriotic. The fact that this law was passed in 1940, in the middle of a World War in which JWs were refusing to be drafted should give some context.
Anyway, the reason I get into this whole long spiel is that it was in this case that Justice Jackson wrote what might be the most stirring defense of the US right to conscience ever written:
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
I do not agree with every belief that animates HSers (that's not even possible, having known socialist HSers that believed the schools were controlled by corporate interests and capitalist HSers that believed the schools were controlled by socialist teacher's unions) but I do believe strongly in their right to educate their children according to their beliefs.
I also happen to work in life-sciences and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the creationist story taught to some home-schooled children is quite simply untrue. On the other hand, it seems quite clear to me that just because I have a degree and wear a lab coat does not entitle me to dictate by force to others what to teach their children. The best I can do (and continue to do) is develop the evidence that drives reasonable men towards the best conclusion. Ultimately, since my position is quite likely correct, such force will not be necessary. Meanwhile, bearing the burden of persuasion is a strong incentive to stay honest.
Finally (since the post was meant to be a short citation and exploded into a morning-killer), here's another oldie-but-goodie from the Supreme Court on what the protection of liberty means. In this instance, the State of Nebraska made it a crime to teach a child under the grade of 8 in any language other than English (motivated by a desire to Americanize recent German immigrants that had this inexplicable preference for their mother tongue over the obviously superior English language):
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=262&invol=390
Btw, ok that first point is legitimate. You are right on that one.
And everyone else is going to be affected by your retarded parenting decisions down the road, because we're all part of a society and you can't escape that.
That's a valid point, except there's no guarantee that our children won't be getting retarded "parenting" decisions in a public school too. In fact, I'd argue very strongly that they currently are.
But while they may also be getting retarded education at home at least it's a different style of retarded education. And as a whole, diversity is a positive thing for any society.
Parents may not provide a bigoted education (at least according to the UN, which is not legally binding most anyplace), but there is no fundamental incompatibility with parents providing and education that is less or at the very least no more bigoted than that provided by the state. In fact there are countries where state schools are highly bigoted by that definition, the Middle East comes to mind, so in such places homeschooling may more often than not be more progressive.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I am not a big fan of public schools in their current form, not because of the teachers but because of the bullying and the peer pressure that goes on there which can damage children as much as the religious ideology. There are some characteristics of the public schoos, the assembly line environment, the rote memorisation of endless facts over learning how to think critically, the one size fits all mentality that cannot adjust to the particular learning style and learning speeds of different students. The rote memorisation factor can completely ruin students and it almost ruined me. I do not have a perfect memory and cannot retain information very reliably and this caused severe problems in schools. I was being held up for not being able to memorise multiplication tables and other such things. I found later on that if i could use notes and instead focused on working off of notes, books, texts, examples instead of memorisation many of the problems went away and I was able to advanced rapidly through algebra and calculus after being stuck for years at long division in the public schools. I think the rote memorisation causes burn out for many students and causes them to give up and fail. So many lives are being destroyed by this inflexible system. The system was holding me up with its inflexible requirements of memorisation, when otherwise i could have been on to algebra rather than doing division and trying to learn multiplication tables. On the other hand, some students have excellent memories, can absorb vast amounts of information and can work very quickly through subjects, and in many cases these people are being held back and kept from progressing by the same inflexible system. We perhaps have the einstiens and so on who are being held back for years and perhaps are being squandered and wasted, much of their critical school years being wasted when otherwise they may have well on their way on having a head start to being scientific geniuses who will become great scientists and inventors. so we have a system that demands students fit into an exact mold, and they cannot perform any less or more than expected, and one also based on mediocrity and excessive and overburdening demands at the same time and cannot understand that people are different and have differing ability. The math clutz might become a great artist. The kid who failed literature might become a great scientist. Yet if a person does not make the systems specification they are completely rejected and ruined, even if their abilities in one area were superb.
The burn out problem is huge and its a combination of factors. Schools have been turned into such a drudgery of memorisation without really it being understood why this is important. Instead of being something exciting and fun which it could be it is turned into a painful and agonising ordeal. I think this gives people the idea that academics, science, and all forms of intellectualism and learning are dull, boring, and arduous difficult tasks, thus ruining countless people through burn out who have potential that will go unrealised.
i think it is important to have a rich, and intricate, broad education, NOT dumbed down in any way, but if a person does not remember everything perfectly, I dont think completely rejecting them and ruining them is the right way to go. This sort "unless your perfect to our specification our your a total failure" mentality makes school a panicked, frustrating and frightening ordeal to many that could perhaps burn them out and squander their potential. Students should also be able to progress as quickly as they can, no depth of understanding or level of advanced learning and knowledge should be denied to them. They should be enabled by having the books, materials provided and their questions asked, and new directions and insights pointed out. its good for teachers to give a discussion and talk about and introduce and discuss topics but the "unless you remember this we will destroy you" mentality is not necessary.
As for schools, i think should be a variety of
Yeah, just look at this tiny list of colleges that accept homeschoolers:
http://learninfreedom.org/colleges_4_hmsc.html
Tinny little crappy schools like Harvard, Yale, USC, West Point, Annapolis, Rennselaer, Princeton...
If you ended up in trades it's not the University's fault, nor is it the fault of homeschooling in general. You either didn't bother to look for an answer or you didn't think ahead to create the proper portfolio when you were in your last few tears of schooling. Either way, it's a personal issue, not the concept of homeschooling, that's at fault.
Ditto your socially useless brother. For every homeschooler you point to with social issues, I'll point to 100 kids in normal school who are socially inept. Can you really look at society today and say that geeks that can't talk to girls is the fault of homeschooling? Not likely. Homeschoolers are higher in civic participation, volunteerism, community involvement and other indicators. Are some of them awkward? Sure. Are some of them great socially? Sure. Just like the rest of the world.
If you think that there is anything inherently good about public schools you first need to read this essay, then read a book written by a public school teacher of 20 years.
The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991
Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn't what I do at all. What I teach is school, and I win awards doing it.
Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:
The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive.
In any case, again, that's not my business. My job is to make the kids like it -- being locked in together, I mean -- or at the minimum, endure it. If things go well, the kids can't imagine themselves anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt for the dumber classes. So the class mostly keeps itself in good marching order. That's the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.
Nevertheless, in spite of the overall blueprint, I make an effort to urge children to higher levels of test success, promising eventual transfer from the lower-level class as a reward. I insinuate that the day will come when an employer will hire them on the basis of test scores, even though my own experience is that employers are (rightly) indifferent to such things. I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and [school]teaching are incompatible.
The lesson of numbered classes is that there is no way out of your class except by magic. Until that happens you must stay where you are put.
The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.
The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.
The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal. As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control. My judgments come thick and fast, because individuality is trying constantly to assert itself in my classroom. Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a contradiction of class theory.
Here are some common ways it shows up: children sneak away for a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels; they trick me out of a private instant in the hallway on the grounds that they need water. Sometimes free will appears right in front of
Thought so. Nevertheless, the statement is worthless. Even the most stupid fanatic would not freely admit nonsense like what I said before. So how do you ensure that something like that does not happen?
Whether they belong in the same category or not is in fact a matter of belief. And senses fail people ALL the time.
there's no good answer to this. who's the responsible, moral, educated, fair decision-maker as to what is the best education children can get? the parents or the state? frequently, neither. but sometimes, the parent, other times, the state. i myself, would bet on the state, especially if i lived in california, and if anything, complement the education at home or somewhere else. as to the germans, their education is fine, and i would rather leave them in germany, legel precedents of political asylum notwithstanding. as to what this has to with linux, programming, and the internet, and /. -- nada.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
whoops. Wasn't logged in.
Just posting this comment to keep track of my AC comment. -ignore me
What you're saying is you don't care about "Truth", which I completely respect, so long as you don't claim to know it. That is what science is all about: we're studying the Rules of the Game, regardless of the purpose or context of the Game.
"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
Adolf Hitler
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
Adolf Hitler
These two quotes alone are worth getting a child out of public schools and into private, religious, or home schools. It is very bad for the government to have total control of all child education, the freedom to teach your child in the way you think is best is a big part of what keeps the US government in check, they don't own the youth.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Well said :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So are there statistics which prove out that homeschooled kids are more likely to end up in jail than publicly schooled kids? Because I would be willing to bet tht it is vastly skewed in the other direction.
Wikipedia has statistics which fly in the face of most of the posts on this topic here today. Homeschooled kids are much more likely to enter college and to graduate from college than publicly schooled kids. Further, only about 33% of parents cited religious reasons for homeschooling, whereas the slashdot fear factor seems to be that everyone who is homeschooled is so that they can instill intolerance, religious bigotry, and an abhorrence for all secular learning.
If homeschoolers are taught that the Bible is right and science is wrong, then why do home schoolers score better on college entry exams in science (and math, and English), than publicly schooled children? Are they clever enough to hold knowledge of creationism along with darwinism? Well, good for them!
It's great that everybody here has the right to share their opinion and all, but when the facts fly in the face of the opinions, then you just need to shut up and admit you're wrong.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Wonder what brainded fanatic modded you troll. Too bad I already posted in this thread. This is definitely worth an 'insightful' and the 'troll' an abuse.
Homeschooling is in no way a human right.
Pardon? As long as the schooling meets minimum state testing requirements, it is and should always be the right of the parents to choose whether to put their child in public school, private school, or homeschool. Depending on where you go, the public or private school education available in your area may involve significant amounts of religious and philosophical propaganda which you won't necessarily want your young child subjected to, even here in the US where that isn't supposed to happen. What's important is that the child ends up getting a testably equivalent (or better) education to what public schooling provides, not that they be forced into attending a state-approved facility.
There are many people, particularly in the US, who would argue that you are utterly wrong on this point, and the law is behind them. Quite a lot of the folks who support homeschooling are NOT right-wing religious nuts, as you seem to imply with your subject line.
While I feel for the family, I also think that if there's families out there who deserved asylum more. You know, in countries where they get shot at, maybe?
My only experience with black people was getting mugged by one so I guess all black people are all criminals.
Yeah, that's a winning argument you've got there.....
But surely you'd lend weight to the experience of thousands of people mugged by black people.
So the "separation of church and state" that atheists harp about so often works to remove "In God We Trust" and voluntary prayers in schools, but when it comes to private family life it isn't applicable?
And just to defuse the inevitable "state tells your kids what to think", while I can't speak for Germany's laws, the required curriculum for Canada was amazingly lax, and I'd be concerned at any parent who didn't want their kids learning it. It was literally the pure basics. Reading (and not *what*, just that they *can*). Writing. Math. I'm not even positive there was a social studies, history, or science component. GED-level stuff.
Considering the quality of education in North America versus the quality of education in Europe, I consider the Judge's decision to be laughable. I'd take a publicly mandated education from a European country over *anything* provided by the US.
You would, they wouldn't. That's the "freedom" aspect of the whole thing.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
That is actually rather well said. Should not have been modded troll.
Exactly. Being in the bible belt we had to take our boys out of public school because religious harassment even from the teachers (the oldest is Catholic, the youngest gay) and because frankly all they taught in junior high was shit any kid should have known by fourth grade. Ever since the "no child left behind" bs all they do here is teach to the test and if your kids are even slightly intelligent they are gonna be bored to tears.
Lucky for us, unlike the bigoted baptists we have here, the local Church of Christ college ( the wonderful Harding Univeristy) helps support locals who are home schooling and even as we speak the oldest is at tutoring learning the chemistry he will need to start college in the fall at Harding to become a doctor. The youngest is being taught art history and advanced trig and algebra by the tutors and hopes to become either a chef or a graphics artist, he hasn't decided. Both kids are much happier, are learning much more advanced theories than they were being taught, and with our family plus the college tutors they are getting a much better education all around than what the local public school provided, which frankly have dumbed down so much it isn't even funny anymore, it is just sad.
So yeah, I'm really glad to see these Germans win. I personally don't care WHY they decided the public schools weren't for them, as long as they are providing an education to their children I support them 100% in their right to choose. Considering how piss poor public education is (at least it is here in the bible belt, can't speak of other places) their children will most likely come out with a much deeper and better education than the cookie cutter dumbed down education they offer at our local schools. The tutors which are helping us (which are students getting their degrees in the fields they are tutoring and VERY good at educating) say both boys will ace their GEDs and ACTs in their sleep and the oldest will already have grants and scholarships set up and ready to go so he can start college a year ahead of schedule. Much better than them both being in trouble all the time for daring to be different, don't you think?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Essentially, it's once again a disagreement over who has the basic right. The USA say parents have a basic right to teach their children how they want. Germany says children have a basic right to an objectively good education. And no, that doesn't mean "no home schooling", it means "teachers with a Master of Education or an equivalent degree".
Of course citizens of both countries are going to maintain that their country's position is obviously right.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Speaking as someone who was homeschooled for religious reasons, I thought that it was excellent social and mental preparation for life. I share the sentiment against education based on religious propaganda, I just don't think it is worse than traditional American education.
The main advantage for me was social. When I went to college, I was extremely disturbed by the herd mentality exhibited by most of the other students, whose main goal in life was to look macho for their friends. (primarily by getting drunk and taking advantage of females) I certainly felt better equipped to deal with peer-pressure than the average student was. When you have friendships with people in every age bracket, it's way easier to stay grounded than when all of your friends are the same exact age.
I can't say that far right ultra-religious education is a good thing, but the artificially age-segregated traditional school certainly doesn't seem like a lesser evil to me.
Furthermore, I think independent thinking is more encouraged by homeschooling than one might imagine. I had to learn to learn on my own, an extremely valuable skill. Creationist propaganda gave me the discipline of questioning seemingly obvious conclusions. This gave me the mental tools (and the balls) to question the creationist propaganda itself, as well as many other things that I had previously accepted without question.
It's great that everybody here has the right to share their opinion and all, but when the facts fly in the face of the opinions, then you just need to shut up and admit you're wrong.
That goes against the entire progressive mentality though!
Who says a "hospital environment" is the most effective place to be treated for illness or injury?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Then you teach the myths, and explain *why* they are myths. The kid will be prepared for the exam, and more informed than if he simply didn't know anything about them.
Don't sonegate. Teach them and explain why it's wrong. It'll lead to a person with a better critical judgment.
Dilbert RSS feed
Science hasn't been done with nothing but our own senses for quite some time. You may think this is pedantic, but for all of us except each specialist doing the work in his field, everything is taken on faith.
Trying to convince people by ridiculing their beliefs, cooking up spaghetti stories, only further polarizes the issue, though I can hardly fault you when that seems to be our society's way of doing things in general.
Your brain is not a computer.
No, whether they fall in the same category depends on how desperate you are at attempting to claim science is less reliable than religion. Regardless whether or not we are part of the Matrix, science actually has the tools capable of explaining how the world works and predicting how it reacts. Belief is miles away from being able to do that.
This turns out not to be the case.
For what it's worth, historians of science note an amazing number of British "polymath geniuses" from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries -- all of them home-schooled.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
Look, I don't think government schools are the holy grail and think alternative methods of teaching in private schools can offer good alternatives. But with the danger of invoking the "think of the children" argument, refusing to teach them major and important topics of life and the world around them is a very special kind of child abuse. If you seriously think the government should take no action to ensure children get at least a minimum level of education, then I strongly disagree with you. The whole argument reminds me very much of parents that neglect or abuse their kids and cry foul on any intervention from the government because they're the parents and think that makes them lord and master over their children.
Since you speak of human rights, perhaps a few quotes from Convention on the Rights of the Child:
1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
(a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
2. No part of the present article or article 28 shall be construed so as to interfere with the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions, subject always to the observance of the principle set forth in paragraph 1 of the present article and to the requirements that the education given in such institutions shall conform to such minimum standards as may be laid down by the State.
It should be large clue that these are Christians refusing the education done in a heavily Christian country (64% christian, 30% no registered religion, 5% muslim), they're hardly evangelizing other religions. They're refusing because their children could even hear about other religions. Or about this whole nasty business of having sex, I'm sure they'll stick their heads in the sand until their daughters come home pregnant. To be honest, sometimes you should worry more about the parents than the government...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Education and medical care are some of the basics provided in a modern civilised society.
They are pretty similar to the state providing such things as police to catch criminals, sewers and rules for driving on the road.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
The problem with granting children adult rights is that they don't have adult responsibilities.
You're right that some do it to indoctrinate their kids in religion, but there's also a significant group of people who do it because the school system isn't meeting the needs of their kids. I was home schooled and have some experience with this. About half the people I met were being homeschooled for religious purposes, and the other half had genuinely concerned parents who didn't think the school system was meeting their needs. While I didn't spend too much time with the religious side the non-religious groups typically had motivated parents with higher degrees who took extra time to help their kids succeed.
There were also a handful of people out there who claim to homeschool and don't teach their kids anything. Those people always made me angry since they were doing their children a disservice by keeping them out of school. At least most states don't allow parents to get away with such neglect if properly reported.
Also just because someone is homeschooled in the US doesn't mean you'll avoid religious indoctrination. There are many private schools that parents can send their kids to to learn evolution is nothing more than a lie. As long as we allow private religious schools there will be no way to avoid the crazy.
Plus, in some parts of the US you might actually have to homeschool to teach real science such as evolution. Parts of Kansas and Texas have been trying to exclude that subject or add "intelligent design" to the curriculum for ages.
But will the US offer asylum to parents from California that want to home-school their kids? While my question is obviously somewhat facetious, California is making it extremely difficult if not impossible to legally home-school children.
The state has no stake in brainwashing children. If you think so, you probably also believe in UFOs and that the US gov was behind 9/11.
Perhaps it has mild stake in keeping them ignorant, but you can augment their education as much as you like while simultaneously allowing them to attend a regular school.
It's a little different in the vis-versa situation. The parent has personal prejudices and a personal agenda, which can be good for traditional 'learning', but also very bad for the growth of independent ideas.
In fact, I'd argue that being exposed to conflicting viewpoints, socialization, and independent thought is much, much more important than being book smart. The latter makes you ace tests; the former makes you ace life.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I picked the FSM because no one actually believes in him and therefore I wasn't actually singling out any one religion but talking about them all.
The difference between science and religion is fairly straight forward, I can reproduce results with science or I can investigate why when I do it, it's different.
There is no reproducibility for religion, and there is rarely any attempt to find it, as 'questioning' why it doesn't exist means questioning your particular god.
I got a friend who also 'graduate high school' at 15 via home schooling through American School of Correspondence. I often brags about how ridiculously easy it was to game the system. Basically every test is open book. And since it was all done at his home, his 'book' was Google. I says he would literally get an entire years worth of schoolwork done in a month or two. Biggest benefit for him is being able to put on his resume he 'graduated high school at 15'. People automatically assume he's way ahead of the curve intellectually (he certainly is not) and it has helped his career. He has been offered opportunities that others his age only dream of. Pretty good angle actually.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
FWIW, the National Spelling Bee has been dominated Statistically, the case that home-schoolers average far better than public-schoolers is iron-clad.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The basis of your argument in your first paragraph appears to be that belief is equal, regardless of what that belief is in. E.g. Whether someone believes in "Science" or believes in "Religion X", it is still belief and those holding those beliefs share a "kinship". This seems false to me. Why should belief separate from that which is believed in be the unit of comparison? Doesn't it make more sense to say that "belief in X" should be compared with "belief in Y" without the object of belief being discarded? If so, then there are important distinctions between a belief in science and a belief in a religion. Namely an evidential basis.
Now I don't see science and religion as exclusive. I am both myself for example. But I don't think you can pick two hypothetical people who strongly believe in something and equate those beliefs without considering what they believe in. At least not usefully. That sort of relativism is dangerous.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The only stipulation here is that the kids are taught in a classroom setting by certified teachers according to a strict curriculum.
Your stipulation is considered and rejected.
Parents have plenty of rights, but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science and borderline racist interpretations of history ought not be one.
The logical error you are perpetrating here is that gov't is an adequate judge of what "destroys" a kid's future, what is "anti-science," or what is a "racist" interpretation of history. It's not. I am a much better judge than government of what is, and is not, a good education for my children; and more to the point, perhaps, government has no right whatsoever to tell me otherwise.
We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops because of homeschooling.
You are, of course, making that up. When you invent something like that in this context, it certainly doesn't help your argument about what education for children should be.
Homeschooling begets more homeschooling in an endless cycle.
There's not much evidence of this, actually, since it's only a recent phenomena on a significant scale. So again, you're making it up. (Although since you've not in the least bit demonstrated that homeschooling is bad in any way whatsoever, you also give no one any reason to think this purported "cycle" is a bad one.)
When you try to push morals and religion into education you end up with none of the above.
Oh come on. That doesn't even make a lick of sense. You're literally saying that morals and religion can't be taught.
From time to time we hear news about parents who do not want to get their children medically treated, even if they suffer of serious diseases. This is a human right, too, isn't it? The doctors in the hospital are all quacks, aren't they? I find the whole concept of parents determining childrens faith and beliefs questionable. Transporting values by giving a good example, ok. But forcing membership in a religion by dubbing the little lads before they even know what's going on? That's perverse.
Weirdest. I'm pretty sure you'd have known that if you had gone to an approved school with an approved curriculum.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
I take it you went to public school. But despite that exalted education, you weren't able to overcome your own bigotry. Should we hold homeschoolers to a standard that public school cannot meet?
Your comments are highly offensive. You are making snap decisions and claims about homeschoolers and you don't know anything about them, save what you have learned from the hype in the news.
In addition, you instantly think that the solution to your perceived problem is to "outlaw home schooling". You want to see a revolution on your hands, just try it.
I was homeschooled as a child by religious parents. But they believed Franklin's statement that, "When Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter." I only wish more secularists believed that. Instead they want the power of government to enforce their opinions.
Because of the vastly superior education I got in home schooling (which took about 3 hours a day, unlike public school's 7 hours... and they still can't get the kids to pass the tests), I was able to go to college at the age of 14. Being home schooled, I took the GED... and got the highest scores ever in my state. I went on to go to law school (having scored in the 98th percentile on the LSAT to get into law school) at a top ranked school and now I am a practicing attorney.
Now, do you think that I am going to send my kids to public school? Not on your life. And yet you want to outlaw it because the government can't guarantee that there won't be a "religious perspective". Not because I can't guarantee how I will educate my child, but because the government can't. So I'm punished for the government's failings. Is that how you view it? Well, guess what... that, coupled with your ignorant proclamations about homeschooling, makes you a bigot.
As an attorney, part of my practice is dealing with juvenile delinquents. When a juvenile is arrested or put on probation, who is expected to pay the court fees, bail, restitution, etc....? The 13 year-old who isn't allowed to work by law? No. It's the parent. Why? Because in our society we think that parents are responsible for the outcome of their child.
I wonder why that is. Public schooled children spend 7-8 hours every day in school, plus travel time too and from school of maybe another 1/2 hour, plus time the kid spends at home doing homework. And that's if the kid isn't involved in extra-curricular programs, which can take an extra 2 hours every day. The national average for time parents have available to spend with their school-age child is about 4 hours per day. So school gets them for 7-10 hours a day and parents get them for about 4 hours per day. And they want to blame the parents when the child screws up.
I think you're falsely assuming something here. Religious whack-job-ism is always a double edged sword. It's never a safe defense for rational thought because it's proponents will see it as a threat to them (it is) and will attack you while cheerfully ignoring anything you might bring up in your defense. Generally what makes them whack-jobs is their ability to treat anyone who doesn't share their beliefs and practices as inhuman.
Apples to oranges. What a lone judge does is not equivalent to what the federal government does.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
The so-called U.N. Declaration of Human Rights also demands that member states compel children to be educated (Art. 26(1)).
Sorry, but the U.N. and their documents are the last place I'm going to look to protect my rights. To begin with, the U.N. is a membership organization for nation-states, and isn't at all based on concepts of individual freedom. (The U.S. Constitution really isn't, either, but at least it's a lot closer to being so.) It's full of so-called "positive" rights that cannot actually exist, in practice, without infringing upon the rights of others (Arts. 22-29). Article 29(1) purports that "everyone has duties to the community." More compulsion.
Art. 29(2) codifies loopholes and exceptions for States to abrogate any rights that this document claims to protect. At least with the U.S. Constitution, the document is clear and unequivocal: "Congress shall make no law ..." (Amendment I), "... shall not be infringed" (Amendment II), and so on. Yes, the Supreme Court has shredded most of this, but that's all through case law, which could be reversed without needing to actually change the text of the Constitution.
Wikipedia has a good summary of all of these criticisms.
Liberty in your lifetime
The difference is that, by and large, Catholic schools these days have a "religion" class, and then, for all practical purposes, the education is demanding, high-quality *secular* education.
At least, that's how it is in the first world
/went to 12 years of Catholic primary and secondary education
//favorite anecdote: Biology teacher was a Creationist but realized his job was to teach Biology, not preach, so taught a demanding evolution-based curriculum
///not sure why I'm using Fark slashies today
Have you by any chance ever read any statistics on homeschooling, or do you prefer to make them up yourself since the facts fly in the face of your personal viewpoint? Check out wikipedia, then come back and share your findings.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
We're not talking about a statistical distribution, we're talking about the people in TFA.
At least if some people think it isn't, they're not forced under threat of fines or prison to go to the hospital. (Yet, at least.)
Liberty in your lifetime
I swear to god, the only black person in my high school was the DC sniper. I'm totally serious.
All I remember about him is that the best friend of a girl I dated sat next to him in history, and he always wore nice looking clothes.
But I certainly don't think that all black people are mass murderers. He is definitely using too small of a sample size.
Man, it's really hard to tie this back into an on-topic comment...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
The State is virtually never responsible for anything it does. Sovereign immunity. Ain't government grand?
Liberty in your lifetime
Just to check, but your suggesting that Germany kick out the ambassador of a country that has full-scale military bases operating inside its borders because 4(?) of their citizens decided to move to said country of their own volition and came up with a legal reason to make said country allow them to remain?
My biggest concern about home schooling when it is done properly (appropriate curriculum, etc.) is the effect of the student not getting as much socialization with peers.
One of my friends who is an aerospace engineer for a major defense contractor was home schooled, and as far as I can tell his K-12 education was better than mine. He doesn't seem to have suffered from any socialization deficit.
If you continue the discussion this way you're going to eventually face that allowing people to make judgements on obvious characteristics is ... well, logical (and it's what our brains do, but somehow applying rationality to people is wrong, ie. racist).
And lots of groups will kill to prevent that. Everybody is equal and all that. Except, of course, they themselves, who are in fact more equal than others.
Raised by two definitely "fundamentalist" (ie religious conservatives) who also happened to be engineers. Actually, rather hardcore engineers based on some of the projects I know they've worked on. At any rate, they homeschooled my wife who graduated with an extremely high GPA in Computer Science, a minor in Math, 3 credits from a minor in Physics and along the way when she took 3 sections of engineering Calculus, she not only got As in each section, but the professor remarked that she was quite possibly the best student he had in at least 10 years.
I know, what a shock that there are "fundamentalists" who don't regard Math as the arcane language in which "that thar Satanic science is writ in."
...from the indoctrination of “become an automate. Don’t think. Do repetitive stuff until all imagination is dead. Obey and don’t question your godlike know-everything teachers.”.
School in Germany stems directly from Bismarck’s idea, of creating something like an army training camp, but for children. To follow the then-ideal of obeying, being quiet and sitting still.
Of course it all stands and falls with if you actually offer them something better. Including the ability to make friends and have social training in the same age. I guess if a group of parents has a group of around 20+ children, and wants to teach modern concepts, like giving every part of the brain and of life equal time, teaching them independent free thought and how to have a secure sense of reality, then this is a really great thing.
But somehow I doubt that this is the case here. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
> after weird gets weirder where do you go?
Tennessee!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
And surely you'd properly weight against the millions of people who have never been mugged by black people?
It's very true that you learn to deal with a lot of less-than-social behavior at school - and that's a good thing. A kid that grows up fully sheltered from any evil won't work properly in our society. If you want your kid to be a saint, try teaching him to distinguish right and wrong and to reject the latter, but don't keep them blind about it.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
The nerd angle is this: an increasing number of us nerds (where 'nerd' == cerebral) are dissatisfied with the dull slow lowest-common-denominator pop-psychology politically-correct schlock ladled out at public schools. Meanwhile private schools are not a whole lot better, and cost too much anyway (typically $650/month/child with discounts for multiple children). So we are homeschooling.
Before I read your comment I figured someone would answer this way, and sorry that is a stretch. I agree with the GF poster who said this is not really related enough to be on /. Interesting, yes, a good thing for german homeschooling parents who want to flee to the US so they don't have their kids escorted to school, yes...but /. material? Nah...if your criteria is enough to make this article /. material then this site is going to get a flood of news articles under the guise that some nerds would be interested...well yea, we are a large population, i am willing to bet that at least one of us will be interested in ANY story printed out there. Just the laws of numbers swing in that favor.
I am not slamming you, i just think this story should not be here. BTW homeschooled != better educated then school schooled
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Well by definition yeah, "That Which Cannot Be Seen" is invisible. It's kinda what the word invisible means.
This is great - now if I ever wanted to move to the US, I'd just violate some local laws that don't apply to the US and claim that I am a special group being prosecuted.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
It has to do with the fact that in most jurisdictions, homeschooled kids being out and about during school is treated as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the parents and can subject them to having their kids forced back into public schools or even taken away in some areas.
And the kids are told all about that, which is why they aren't entirely at ease.
I've dealt with several homeschooling peers; when they were adults they were perfectly fine at social interactions.
And do you have any indication that he is actually less educated than the average high school graduate? Did he go to college and do well or poorly? What?
Because based solely on what you've said it sounds like he's doing a hell of a lot better than most in that regard.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Homeschooling is in no way a human right.
False.
Here's your first lesson in Human Rights: YOUR CHILDREN ARE **NOT** YOUR PROPERTY
The rights of the children to have a proper education trumps your right to "educate" them.
So, the state isn't doing a good job in education? It's a democracy, go and elect politicians that do a better job.
I'm not saying that's what you are trying to teach your children, I am saying that's what you are teaching them. I suppose later on when they put you in a nursing home you will understand that they aren't trying to neglect and ignore you, but rather that they are looking out for your own best interests the same way they learned to do it from you.
To a true religious whack-job like myself there is no difference between "ideological and dogmatic" reasons and "pragmatic" reasons. You seem to believe that your life philosophy should be separate from the way go about your day to day life. I submit to you that if that is indeed the case there is no reason at all to have a philosophy.
What it comes down to here is whether or not you support my freedom to practice my religion the way I see fit. Saying that I can believe whatever I want but that I must live the way you say is as contradiction.
You ought to simply come out and say that you don't want me to live as christian, and that you feel that the government should pass laws prohibiting certain aspects of the christian lifestyle which concern you. You ought to say that the government should repeal aspects of the first amendment to allow these kind of bans based on religious grounds. Making a "quality of education" argument, given the state of public education, makes no sense and is disingenuous.
By and large there seem to be a number of different factors that tend to position Catholic schools rather well.
First, they are private. They can turn people away. Don't minimize the challenge upon public schools to "leave no child behind".
Second, almost certainly (on average) the parents of children are both better of financially and more likely to be involved in the education of their children. Both of these mean (on average) these parents will influence things rather positively.
But another rather subtle issue is teacher pay. It seems (again on average) public schools pay better. Catholic school teachers probably have to like what they're doing quite a bit or at the very least have quite a bit of dedication if they could just pick up and get a raise down the street.
I don't think that parents (who are working most of the time) can replace a set of teachers who have studied fulltime the two subjects they're teaching as well as pedagogy and didactics for 3 or 4 years.
***I suspect you might be in the minority with your reasoning for home schooling. Don't the majority of home-schoolers do it because they're afraid of evil secular concepts like evolution and geological history?***
Probably not. A large number of homeschoolers just think that they can do a better job on their own than a public school with limited resources and a class schedule geared to the slowest non-idiot. And that's probably true for many of them. Having worked in public school and having had a daughter who felt that she could learn a lot more working at her own speed than in High School, I think I can see both sides. Fortunately, we live in a state -- Vermont -- that is generally very supportive of home schooling. I don't think the kid suffered educationally from planning her own curriculum and doing all the paperwork the state required as well as actually doing the work. When you get right down to it, she's read at least part of Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" -- How many High School students in your state can claim that?
Vermont at least, does require that home schooling parents at least go through the motions of planning a curriculum that addresses the same general material that is taught in public school.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
" but it does not in my mind give one free license to program children with it."
Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Our world would not have decended into so much evil as it has if parents taught their children of Jesus' love for them and taught them to demonstrate love for their neighbors. Are you really suggesting that there is something wrong with trying to raise one's children to love God and love their neighbors as themselves?
This is unfortunately one of those rights that never got expressly enumerated in the Constitution (although in New Hampshire we're trying to fix this) most likely because, much like a right to privacy, the idea of violating it was so beyond the pale in 1789 that no one thought it needed to be written down. What was put into the Bill of Rights were eight articles specifically in reaction to abuses committed by the British government, followed by two catch-all articles clarifying that the powers of the Federal Government are expressly enumerated (Article X), but the rights of the people are not (Article IX). Unfortunately this hasn't worked out too well in practice...
The constitution was not meant to enumerate ALL laws, as this would make it cumbersome, and eventually wrong (as it was anyhow in some cases). The more verbose something is the more chances you get for loopholes...hence the ten commandments are pretty much good as written...there is not enough language to find a loophole. You may not agree with honor thy father...but it's straight forward. The constitution was meant to codify the most important laws of the time, and homeschooling wasn't an issue...for one i don't think publci education really existed as it does now and nobody cared if you went to school, worked on a farm or were taught in home. Most "Doctors" didn't even have any kind of medical training (or any higher education training)...they were people who went about saying "hey i'm a doctor, look at my black bag". Plus education is left to the state level, not the federal level.
On a side note - schooling provides you with a certification that says "hey i passed the rigours of class, social interaction, etc" --- home schooling could lead to "yea i watched opera and mom took my math test for me...thanks for the GED". Anyhow, if someone wants to homeschool their kids so be it - i don't care....though if I were looking at their resume' and could tell they were homeschooled I might be less inclined to give them a job involving social interaction or one where the other candidates were taught in school....social interaction is huge - and being home all day just talking to your mom is going to seriously gimp that.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
In such an environment, a homeschooling ban may not be ideal, but it makes some sense and opens up opportunities to children who would get only very limited education otherwise.
So why not solve the problem you have rather than using a massive blanket that sort-of addresses the problem but affects others too? If children aren't being given the opportunity for an education, then deal with that.
If a homeschooler isn't providing a basic education, then deal with that.
Banning homeschooling to deal with a few people who don't educate their kids is absurd, especially when those people will resist educating their children if government school is mandatory too.
It doesn't solve the problem. Has very little to do with the problem, actually.
I agree, but I think that in ones early life, you need your parent or a loving adult to hold your hand and guide you through the process. I feel like sending your kids to school is like throwing them in a river and expecting them to swim upstream.
I think that once they are introduced to the world, and know a bit about it, then you can cut them loose (as they become a teenager) so long as they have a good support structure of loving friends who will be there for them when they need help. I feel like that, too, is missing.
I totally disagree. You do not own the child and if you are not able to teach(pass teaching exam) you are not good enough to teach your children math/other stuff that other children are taught at school. I think you have to look at it from a point of view of a child and not assert ownerschip of him, like with your property.
the kids get indoctrinated at home by parents who are to make sure the kids will never stand a chance in any competitive way in the real world
Now all you have to do is tell us how the government has any better insight than the parents to what "stand a chance in any competitive way in the real world." Of course, you can't.
Now maybe this Judge considers that a 'right' for the parents, but he sure as hell ain't thinking about the kids rights!
The question is: where's the government's right to make these decisions FOR the kids? It doesn't exist.
No college. Just graduated and went to work at Starbucks until he was 18. Now he runs his own business selling Craigslist posting services; basically a Craigslist spammer. He and his wife live with her parents to get by. He has been given numerous management opportunities at various corporations over the years, due to his seeming brilliance, but he has blown them all because he has no experience working in a team or managing his time.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I hope I am qualified to teach those things on an elementary level, I went to school myself for 17 years after all!
... to all the people who have education problems in other countries? I think we should: all afghani girls who for years could not go to school (did we give asylum to all that requested?), all the africans who cannot go to school because of social problems (did we give asylum to all that requested?), etc.
So you think adding millions to a broken, overtaxed welfare system is a good idea? Who do you think would pay to fly them over? Who do you think would pay to clothe, shelter and feed them? Who do you think would pay to build the hundreds of new schools needed? Who do you think would pay to educate them? Considering Welfare and Social Security programs are already the majority of the US annual budget it sure as hell cant be the US, we don't have the money to expand that program so massively. And more importantly why should we give any money to help the people of other countries? It isn't the job of the US government to fix everyone Else's problems, we can't even fix our own educational system. I would be willing to bet you don't think we should be in Iraq or Afghanistan 'policing the world' so why should we going to Africa and fixing all of the problems there?
Clearly shows how racist and politically biased the courts are: a group of (likely) right wing white people always get precedence over some poor 3rd world, brown-skinned, poor fellow...
Why don't you look at some recent civil rights cases. I guarantee you will find that almost every time a white man with 10 years experience is promoted over a black man with 5 years experience the courts will find that the black mans civil rights were violated. But Affirmative Action, a system that does nothing but guarantee minorities will get into a job or college over a white person only because they are a minority not only is legal but considered socially responsible. I assure you if a college implemented a system where white students would be given extra points for being white and minorities wouldn't the courts would come down on them like the wrath of god.
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whites_Only_Scholarship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_bake_sale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_discrimination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_quota
PS: I can assure you by throwing around the word racism so irresponsibly you are only serving to increase the racial divide in the US. Things like Affirmative Action, Hate Crimes Legislation and Frequent Civil Rights Litigation only serve to create an us vs. them mentality.
Interesting, but not insightful. Sounds like you have made the decision for everyone, and we should be asking you what we should think and not think. I assume when you say "real information" you mean information you approve of. Maybe you could be some kind of super parent. Can I call you to see if you think I should take my kids to the museum. I mean I wouldn't want them to get any "fake information". Sorry for the caustic tone but your post scares me.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
The fact remains that your rationale for homeschooling is the minority in the USA. Most people who do it do it for reasons that are detrimental to society.
What you are doing for your children is commendable and should be permitted in a rational society, but religious homeschooling (where children are sheltered from the sorts of basic fundamental facts about our world that form the rationale for universal education in the first place) should not be. As someone else pointed out, anybody in Germany can take the test to be qualified as a teacher; if you're competent, just get certified to homeschool your own kids.
What's important is simply following the steps outlined by where ever you live. Laws vary from state to state. Some require parents to have certain certifications, others college degrees, others a certain number of college credit hours without a degree requirement, or like my parents had to do, working with a supervisory teacher. Many states require some kind of registration regardless of the option you choose. If you skip steps and don't comply with guidelines, then of course colleges/universities/employers are going to look at you suspiciously if they look at you at all, but once again, that's what you get with individual responsibility. It's up to parents to get it right, just as it's up to them to figure out their taxes if they do them instead of taking them to a tax preparer. Exactly the same principle, unfortunately failure to dot i's and cross t's with the responsibility of homeschooling more often becomes the problem of the kids than the parents.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
... or lack qualifications that would allow them to be get a raise down the street. [Notwithstanding whether requirements placed on hiring public school teachers are justifiable]
your ideas are just plain silly. Adults can expose themselves to whatever ideas they want. But they can not compel other adults to expose their children to those same ideas.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
The question is whether or not you have the right to not raise your children, which is what happens in religious homeschooling: teaching children the fundamentals of the world around them is part of "raising" them, and whether parents have the right to demand that that not happen is the question...
Don't the majority of home-schoolers do it because they're afraid of evil secular concepts like evolution and geological history?
No. Most that I know do it because they believe their kids will get a better, more well-rounded, more detailed, and overall far superior education that way. I know some agnostic and atheist homeschoolers, and a majority of the Christian homeschoolers I know are not anti-evolution.
They are, however, pro-Pluto, and I applaud them for this!
And this should be a clue ... in the evangelical and protestant tradition, perhaps the most pervasive characteristic of adherents is that of independent thinking. This is, of course, how Protestantism began, and it's not stopped since. So when an arbitrary body of men says, "Pluto isn't a planet anymore," the evangelical Protestant often replies, "who are you to define that for me?" You see this response in marriage rights, too, of course, and it was also the main reasoning behind the Scopes Trial: not that evolution was right or wrong, but who are YOU to push it on us, if we don't want to think about it or believe it?
And of course, this also is seen in homeschooling directly: who is GOVERNMENT to tell me I have to follow ITS rules for MY kids? And we see this throughout American history, from the Mayflower colonists through the War of Independence and even the Civil War.
Not that this is only seen in evangelical Protestantism, but it is more pervasive there than in many other traditions/subcultures/etc.
So this independent streak, combined with the very low quality generally of public schools today, have been the main fuel for the rise in homeschooling in recent years.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as home schooling is used to shelter children from real information, or present it from a "religious perspective", it should be outlawed.
"As far as I'm concerned, as long as free speech is used in ways I don't like, it should be outlawed."
Yeah, no, you're not making sense.
Even with a strict set of rules for curriculum, there will still be parents who give extra qualifying information along with such topics.. ie.. Here's all the nonsense that secularists believe, and here is the real truth according to the Holly Bibble.
That's THEIR choice, not YOURS and not the government's.
You expressly want the government to decide for everyone what Truth is. Down this way lies utter madness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
Mod parent insightful
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
You seem to forget that Germany has an outstanding education system and thinking you can educate your kids better is well... optimistic to say the least. However, in case you really can offer better education you can! But... your kids will have to take and pass the national exams... The parents did not want to let their kids take those tests. And that says it all to me.
"anyone who thinks science is about "truth" is naive."
You mean like the science ("truth") that produced your computers? Or perhaps that was based on mythological research?
I don't think can classify Europe like that - your kids would probably be lucky to go to an average Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Belgium school - Even German schools are pretty good.
Your mention of dollars and the fact that Germany uses a different currency would imply that the schools you're referring to are not the same ones they're fleeing from.
For one thing the German system is heavily streamed - Gymnasien, Realschule & Hauptschule (in decreasing academic order). It's about as far away from political correctness and "no child left behind as" you could imagine.
They're from Germany. It's hinted at vaguely in TFA. Germany is not part of California, and California is not part of Germany. I bet your kids are just great at geography.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Neh that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that this judge has no clue about human rights. Read my other comments for the full explanation. He is doing the opposite right now, in stead of protecting those kids he is denying them a fair chance and fair education. I know home schooling might be common in the USA but in Europa it isn't and for good reasons. The parents could have home-schooled them, but the parents wanted them not to take on the national exams... and that is just stupid. The kids are the losers in this one.
Probably. I look at it from the point of view of, which of these is a natural right that exists with or without the State ("negative rights") vs. which of these requires some sort of State intervention to exist ("positive rights"). Positive rights are more properly "entitlements" than rights.
The whole concept of public education can only exist with massive State intervention into people's lives---infringing upon one's property rights to fund it, infringing upon one's privacy to force one's children into it, &c..
Additionally, the concept of children's "rights" is an even more severe distortion of the term than the positive/negative rights conflation; much of what people call "rights" of children would properly be called "protections" and/or "responsibilities" (of the parents, the State, society, whatever). It's merely annoying that some people have taken to refer to government-granted entitlements as "rights." But it's downright Orwellian that people refer to, for example, laws forbidding people under 16 or 18 from doing all sorts of things (living on one's own, working, engaging in consensual relationships, &c.) as protecting the "rights of children."
Liberty in your lifetime
Whomever put this on flamebait must have been home-educated lol.
I can only tell you first-hand about the quality of Catholic school teachers, but from 2nd hand stories and the very little contact I had with public school teachers, the Catholic school teachers seemed to be of higher ability and experience.
Now, there's some caveats. Rural schools often have less of a talent pool, so you'll get some variance there. Additionally, it wasn't until relatively recently that Catholic schools stopped primarily using nuns, fathers, and brothers for their teaching/admin staff. As such, anyone who was in Catholic education before (estimating here) the mid-80's probably has a very different view of Catholic schools (the last brother in my primary/junior high left before I got to junior high in the late 1980's and the last nun who was principal retired around 1988).
Even if the curriculum is faulty, children at school learn to live along with other people.
They are exposed to different points of view, they might even have a guy in their class whose parents don't go to church or something like that. They learn that not everyone thinks like their parents do, there are alternatives.
The grandparent is right though, many people here seem to be seriously bigoted against home schooling as if nothing good can come of it. I was homeschooled by non-religious parents because the local school system wasn't meeting my needs. School in many place has become more about warehousing a bunch of kids than actually trying to teach people anything.
Are people just jealous that their parents didn't let them skip out on all the mindless busywork they had to do at school, and let them actually learn as fast as they could?
Home schoolers rarely follow a curriculum
BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
Okay, that's enough. No, really. Stop it, you're killing me here.
Do you realize how HUGE the homeschool curriculum market is? Many folks order a big box from some place like Abeka or Saxon Textbooks or some other "school in a box" company and hand out the books. Just like "real school". The trade shows and conferences for curriculum are massive. Look on homeschool forums, and 90% of what you find is "Which curriculum should I get for [x subject]?" Online schooling, and satellite school are increasing every year.
It's a running joke that the first thing homeschoolers say when they meet is "What curriculum do you use?"
Seriously, read something about your subject before you post again.
Sure I can, Or do you honestly believe that you can compare a magnet school to a regular public school?
Just an FYI incase you're European, magnet schools are schools with students who are gifted in the sciences and arts. That tends to be the problem with American schools, education for gifted students is excellent, however education for average students is mediocre compared to European schools.
Case in point, the High School I graduated from was a magnet public school in NYC. The school has graduated over 7 nobel leaureates, compare that to any European public school.
You can quote all the studies you want, but speaking as someone who was ACTUALLY home-schooled from 6th through 12th grade, I can tell you that whatever efforts the parents make simply can't compare to being in a school for 8 hours a day.
I can of course only speak to my experience, but let me tell you my social skills suffered dramatically because of being home-schooled. Through those 6 or so years I was frequently lonely and had perhaps one or two friends throughout all my time there, whom I would see once a month when my mom took me to the school's teacher, who would evaluate my work and my education. My parents made some effort to help - I was on a baseball team throughout my time at home, but it was glaringly obvious how immature I was compared to others my age and so I made few friends.
Now, about those visits to the district education office (required in Riverside County at least); I looked forward to these less and less because most of the kids there were worse off than I was; shut-ins who didn't know how to talk, or attention-deprived obnoxious kids, and, call it a stereotype if you will, but there were plenty of crazy "fundie" parents keeping their kids out of the public schools whom I actually met. In one very poignant case I remember, the mom stepped in and refused to allow her son to read "Beowulf" because it contained "demonic ideas."
Of course, not all the parents were like that. But the kids more adapted to the environment would simply get away with not doing their work - usually by copying out of the solutions (we graded our own work - there would be spot-checking by the teacher but it was easy to get away with small inflations of one's grade).
I regret every year I spent in the program. When I got into college I was naieve, socially-shell-shocked and had trouble adapting. Perhaps it just wasn't for me, but in my opinion the majority of kids taken out of the schools learn less about life than necessary.
Everyone has the right to education. ... Elementary education shall be compulsory.
You’re doing it wrong. You cannot force rights upon people. If you try, they aren’t “rights” anymore.
Education is not a child’s “right”. It is their civil duty to society to become a productive citizen.
Choosing the method of their education, on the other hand, is a right.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
You seem to forget that Germany has an outstanding education system and thinking you can educate your kids better is well...
Factual.
However, in case you really can offer better education you can! But... your kids will have to take and pass the national exams...
Not in a free country, no.
You supported a religious viewpoint. Militant atheists (which there are several roaming around /.) find anything other than mockery and dismissal of religion to be unacceptable. Just FYI, I agree that your post was well written, obviously on topic and perfectly respectful of the opposing viewpoint.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
The real issue is not bigotry.
It is whether or not you support the UN.
--
UN: the one ring that seeks to bind them all.
No brain, no pain.
A valuable part of being in school was learning how to interact with new people, larger groups, and authority respectfully and responsibly.
I don't think any of my classmates ever convinced me they could interact respectfully with me---quite on the contrary. Instead, they taught me that if I make people dislike me they will make my life hell for eight years, and that I have no control over whether people like me or not.
And authorities? No authority figure ever earned my respect. Maybe if they had done something about the bullies, instead of blaming me for overreacting and telling me to {count to ten, take a deep breath, ignore the bullies, just walk away from them}.
So I didn't learn to interact respectfully and responsibly with new people, or large groups, or authorities, because none of them ever earned my respect. Instead I learned to seek out solitude and knowledge at the nearby public library (they had books and internets).
That worked fine, of course, until I started feeling a need to have sex with girls (and feel loved, and such). I had no clue about what to say and what to do, and I was afraid to try things out, because I had learned the consequences of people not liking me. So I went lonely and unloved for so unbearably long.
The world. So lonesome. So depressing. I want out.
This could happen to your children. Don't put them in those mad places. Put them somewhere where they can become whole human beings who have confidence in themselves, who can trust other people, and who have learned that they are loved and there will always be a helping hand. Don't let them become what I have become. Please. Spare them the pain.
And how do you know it isn't the other way round, and they do it to prevent their children getting brainwashed with concepts like Evolution doesn't exist. I'm sure this is especially true in the US, where there is far too much religious involvement in the education system.
I read that one with a smile because where I live it would have read as follow: ...they might even have a guy in their class whose parents go to church or something like that. They learn that not everyone thinks like their parents do, there are alternatives
Of course the point is moot as where I live there is no homeschooling...
You're right, bureaucracy is better at raising children than parents. I propose that upon birth we remove children from their parents to prevent any untoward beliefs being implanted in their impressionable young minds and hand them over to government-approved guardians who will raise them with government-approved beliefs. Which are infallible. And unbiased.
To answer the question you posed, no, most home schoolers DON'T do it because they're afraid of evil secular concepts. Man, you are a huge fucking bigot, did you know that? That whole concept is just so rife with hatred and prejudice against any form of religion it's appalling. How do you reconcile the fact that the whole scientific and social explosion during the Renaissance was really fueled by the religious? Can you? It certainly seems that in your world, believing in a silly sky monster means that by default you're some kind of Luddite out there teaching kids that the earth is flat and the center of the universe before them evil scientists can rot their brains with secular garbage. That's pretty sad. Both that you paint so broadly the religious as "bad", and that you exempt the rest as "good" -- clearly somebody who isn't religious wouldn't ever homeschool their kids and teach them crazy claptrap like vaccines causing asperger's or chlorine in water being useless for health and instead being simply a way for Big Bad Industry to dump pollutants directly into our drinking water and make money off it. Yeah. No, you're probably right. Totally.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I guess you've found some way to outlive them? Because dying before them (statistically more likely) would constitute abandonment by your logic.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well, I doubt someone who works fulltime is going to be homeschooling. Beyond that, most teachers (particularly at the elementary level) have expertise in educational process/techniques more so than in specific subject matter (though most have some subject matter expertise, but rarely in all - or even most - subjects they teach). Much of this training involves crafting lessons in ways that can be understood and appeal to a broad range of students with different learning styles, needs and capacity. When you have one or two children, whom you know intimately, being a subject matter expert may be much more effective than being an educator. For instance, on a one-on-one basis I know I can teach math and computer science much more effectively than my wife; if I had 30 kids to deal with, perhaps she'd do better simply because she better understands the range of teaching styles and methods available.
My wife is a public school teacher in California - award winning, highly regarded, highly educated, and therefore soon to be unemployed. When we have kids, it may well make great sense to home school, and I wouldn't rule it out.
Let's for the sanity of your kids hope your state doesn't allow home schooling. One of the most important results you get from a regular school is that kids learn to interact with others, experience society.
One of my GP's received home schooling (from no less than his schoolmaster father!) and although he was for a kid a real nice person to be with he remained a sort of weirdo for all his life.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Thank you for pointing this out. I have heard this absurd socialization argument many times. It is very strange if you think about it. Over the history of humanity, it is only very recently that children mainly interact with social groups very close to their age. It used to be that a child would learn a trade from their parents, and although they had friends/playmates, a lot of their time was spend with their parents. Early is US history, there were many one room school houses where children of all ages would be taught by a single teacher. Why do we think that public schools with near-age peers groups is "normal"?
I heard that a Canadian study on home schooling was recently released and they found very positive results. The results showed that home schooled children were better community citizens (charities, gave time, etc). The study found nothing wrong with their social skills.
More or less. Compulsory public education as we know it today started in the mid-1800s. Prior to that, education was the responsibility of local communities and the individuals who actually had children.
This is not how "homeschooling" works at all. Homeschooling parents often work together to school their kids, and such children generally get more---and better---social interaction than they do in public schools. When kids are allowed to learn at their own pace, and interact with whom they want, when and how, they do a lot better than they do by being forced to sit in a classroom learning what the teacher says, when the teacher says, at the rate the teacher says, and then getting a few brief periods of "social interaction" (lunch hour, recess, after school activities) in an equally tightly controlled environment. And like I said in another post, if I had a kid and wanted him to have social interaction public school--style, I can beat him up and steal his lunch money myself. :)
Human beings are curious and gregarious creatures, and like to learn and be social, if you let them do it at their own pace and leisure. Force them to do how you want, and they learn to hate it.
Every year the educrats in the New Hampshire State House try to pass another bill regulating homeschooling. And each time, hundreds of homeschooling parents come out to the public hearings and floor votes, with their kids. I'm not personally involved in homeschooling activism, but I repeatedly get to see how it works since I'm up at the State House on some liberty issue or another on a near-weekly basis. It's amazing to see how well-adjusted and well-behaved all the homeschool kids are. Most of them far exceed what the public schools expect of them at any given age (e.g., someone who would be in the second grade reading at a fifth-grade level). I once had an hour-long debate with a fourteen-year-old homeschooled kid (I'm 29) over the merits of the argument presented in this book (and I would have to say the kid did better at it than I did). And spending a day at the State House watching how the sausage gets made is one hell of a better civics lesson than reading some dumbed-down, error-ridden "social studies" textbook in a boring classroom no one wants to be in.
Liberty in your lifetime
That's what I think is wrong with 100% of all the religious people in the world. They think their children are clay that they must mold according to their beliefs.
And the state doesn't?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I've racked up thousands of air miles. It doesn't make me a pilot.
Basically, no, you are not qualified. You rant about how sending children to school is proof you don't care for them, but you're happy that they have (and I'm being uncharacteristically generous for once) only an elementary level of education?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
[quote]Even if the curriculum is faulty, children at school learn to live along with other people.[/quote] ... that's hardly true, when is the last time you've been inside a school. the only socialization skills learned in schools are "don't do things where you'll get caught and don't mess with people who can hurt you, also the first rule only applies if you or or parents don't raise such a ruckus that the school gives up on disciplining you for doing things wrong because it's too much of a headache for them".
Oh, it also teaches them to play the poor victim as a method for achieving their ends -- because some random kid throwing shit in class and shouting random crap is a BAD KID, but if that kid has ADD or some other "disorder" it's *just not fair* to punish a kid when he couldn't help it! Nevermind that regardless of where we start we all must learn the same shit to function well as a society and exempting some from those lessons merely because they have a harder time learning those lessons will result in... that's right, they don't learn a damned thing.
I did go to public school and got a decent education out of it, but let's not fool ourselves. Schools aren't places of learning. They're not quite jails run by the inmates, but they're not exactly being run by the guards either. Even good schools are poor models for kids to learn socialization skills from, and once you throw bad schools into the mix it's just a joke. What kind of "living with other people" skills are you going to learn in a classroom where even the teacher is fearful for their life because of idiotic students? Looks like the lesson is "if people are scared of me then I can do as I want and they won't stop me -- they'll be scared of me!" What an awesome thing to learn, amirite?
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
North Korea has one of the highest literacy rates in the world at over 99%.
What your parents taught you to gather from public school is a bit different than what every body else learns. What exactly are you doing to raise your kids so that they don't come to highly critical and sweeping generalizations when they meet my children in the workplace? Is my son bound to be a liar and my daughter a whore, because they did not receive a proper christian homeschooling?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Sure they do. Children get tried as adults all the time if they commit a crime.
I resent that remark! I'm a socially retarded slashdotter, and I _have_ actually reproduced! Unfortunately, my daughter, although computer adept, is a jock, a cheerleader, and extremely popular with other kids! Where did I go wrong?!?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I was a candidate for home schooling, but back in the early 80s, it was very harder to do legally and the curricula wasn't there yet, it was in the works.
I spent 1980 to 1984 and 1990-1991 with cancer (ALL) and I had to travel 90 miles each way, three times a week for chemo and blood tests.
My grandmother was educated and a school board president so she looked into it. No joy. So I kept going to the reservation public school, half time, but with full workload, couldn't take time off besides the half days for chemo. In hindsight, I wish I'd been homeschooled, would have made the entire process go easier.
As for your comment about "shelter children from real information", well crap, public and private schools do that too. History, politics, lit and science are pushed in the direction the district and teachers want. As someone who went to a public school/federal school district on a Reservation, I had to attend a year of Lakota Mythology and Tradition. Yep a whole year of religion and beliefs for a tribe I and 1/5th of the students didn't belong to.
They think their children are clay that they must mold according to their beliefs.
Irrelevant to what is being discussed. Let me say it slowly. You want to compel parents to teach their children what you want ("real truth"). I say parents can make those decisions themselves.
Here's your first lesson in Human Rights: YOUR CHILDREN ARE **NOT** YOUR PROPERTY
Children are not anyones property but their care is the RESPONSIBILITY of the parent, not you (unless you are the parent). This is not a question of who's property are they it is a question of who is responsible for them. If my child destroys your property it is my responsibility. Not because they are my property, but rather because I am responsible for them.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
For what it's worth, during most of that period the options were basically home school or no school.
No surprise then that schooling beats non-existent schooling.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why does it matter to you whether or not some random stranger believes in the same "fundamentals of the world around them" as you do?
Liberty in your lifetime
Because it's slashdot and you mentioned religion without bashing it, and that is anathema to the progressive groupthink located here.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
So it is OK to blindly label an individual a racist, but not an entire government?
Tolerance for stupidity is not a virtue. Also, only an ignorant idiot puts in his .sig crackpot formula that fails to pass units check.
This is not how "homeschooling" works at all. Homeschooling parents often work together to school their kids, and such children generally get more---and better---social interaction than they do in public schools. When kids are allowed to learn at their own pace, and interact with whom they want, when and how, they do a lot better than they do by being forced to sit in a classroom learning what the teacher says, when the teacher says, at the rate the teacher says, and then getting a few brief periods of "social interaction" (lunch hour, recess, after school activities) in an equally tightly controlled environment. And like I said in another post, if I had a kid and wanted him to have social interaction public school--style, I can beat him up and steal his lunch money myself. :)
Really? I knew a kid who was homeschooled (medical reasons). In his case the school sent him a teacher from the neighborhood school once a day for an hour to see what he learned. Other then that - he didn't have much interaction with other kids...why? Well, the kids didn't know him (he never went to school to meet them) so he never hung out with them after school. That is social interaction you can't get from mommy/daddy. That is how homeschooling works - you are in an environment where you are more secluded from other people. As for interaction - i am not sure about the school you went to - but i got TONS of interacton with teachers/students during classtime. I couldn't avoid it even if i wanted to. In fact, if you were not a popular kid, you got less interaction time because kids may not have wanted to hang out with you...btw while getting beatup is not a positive lesson of life...it is a lesson of life that I would rather my kid experience in 3rd grade, then when he is 23 and gets mugged by someone who sticks a knife in him. (i know you were kinda kidding, but i wanted to make a point...and by kinda I am not sure if you wouldn't mug your kid ;) )
Human beings are curious and gregarious creatures, and like to learn and be social, if you let them do it at their own pace and leisure. Force them to do how you want, and they learn to hate it.
If kids have limited access to other folks - to how they act, etc then they will have limited social lessons and social lessons are as simple as seeing how you behave when you sneeze (cover your mouth), to picking your nose, to not touching the girls butt without her permission. Being taught at home, meaning spending most of your day not with kids your own age, is removing a large part of your social interaction - and that is not a positive thing since "human beings...like to learn and be SOCIAL" BTW - please re-read my original posts...i specifically said I could care less if someone wants to homeschool their kids (though i think it is a mistake)....I don't care about your new hampshire issues, and your political groups (no offense meant). My concern is that some judge used his power and in my opinion abused it. These people were not repressed - they broke the law and their penalty was a fine and some truant officer escorting their kids to school...which is a far cry from places in the world where asylum is needed from rape, executions, unreasonable jailings, etc because you didn't lick your politicians butt.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
I never touched on that. I mentioned that we assume that children have a right to a decent education. Yes, we take away their right to never go to school and end up homeless (as in Germany you have no chance of getting even a job picking up trash without a school certificate). It's seen as an acceptable tradeoff.
Quite seriously, how do you determine which rights exist without positive protection? The most simple way to go about it is to look at the Declaration of Human Rights but is it really complete? Germany maintains that there is a basic human right to dignits, which other countries don't. And how do you interpret it? The USA take "freedom of religion" to mean much more than other countries do. What do we include? Are we permissive or restrictive? What do we do when we encounter conflicts? Which human right trumps which?
In the end human rights are one of those things we just can't agree on. We can agree on certain basic foundations like "killing is bad" but we certainly can't agree on whether it's more important to uphold one's ability to say what one wants or to protect one's dignity. And thus we end up with human rights that only exist in certain countries like the right to a good education.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I was home-schooled, and got my BS at the University of Michigan. Both of my sisters were home-schooled, and got their BSs at Caltech. Any college that's worth attending will require you to take things like the ACT or SAT, SAT-II subject tests, AP tests, etc. It doesn't matter where you got your education, or what it says on your diploma, if you have these test scores.
Stop! Dremel time!
When religion puts a person on the moon, or when a priest receives schematics for a new invention via divine inspiration, or when a faith healer cures anything in a controlled environment then perhaps I'll start listening.
Science works; science delivers the goods. That's the difference.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Why do private schools send more kids to college? Why do elite suburbs? You shouldn't really pat yourself on the back for taking bright kids with involved parents and getting them into college. If the majority of homeschoolers are schooled by parents with college degrees (using Wikipedia article here), and the majority of public school kids do not have parents with college degrees. Then it's not really much of an achievement to have higher test scores than public schools is it?
Caveat: I did one year of homeschooling and one of correspondance. I personally do not recommend it.
Seriously you shouldn't be so stupid. (Online schooling wasn't available 20 years ago) The religious nuts don't follow any curriculum because they are all bad and teach things contrary to their wacko beliefs. Like science for example do you think crazy conspiracy theory guy that thinks the earth is 6000 years old is going to teach his kids anything related to science, biology, geology,evolution etc. And any books that teach science are against the word of god and are part of a goverment conspiracy to destroy your faith in god so you go to hell.
So mr smartass do you honestly not see a problem with people who drag there kids from remote location to remote location to avoid any government interference with there kids indoctrination. Do you think these people are represented on the online forums? NO THEY ARE NOT. They are fringe lunatics mostly in the mid western states I know because I grew up in that enviroment. I am talking from personal experience and have lived in almost every state while my parents followed some wacko church group around while they tried to keep ahead of the government so they wouldn't lose their kids. My dad even used to be a pastor for the Seventh Day Adventist church. And the people in the article were not following a curriculum RTFA.
And do you realy think people who don't want their kids going to school so they don't get taught from the evil textbooks in school are going to buy the evil textbook? You are a moron.
Hi Chris !
This is your friend again.
I noticed your exchange:
You seem to forget that Germany has an outstanding education system and thinking you can educate your kids better is well...
Factual.
Your statement could be false if your definition of "better" disagrees with that of santax.
I can also confirm that I find your response to santax to be illogical.
I could even go so far as to speculate that you suspect or know that your definition of "better" differs from that of santax, in which case I would speculate that your response tends toward falsehood in its intent.
In any case, I wonder why you made that response.
Do you wonder?
The people in TFA were not following the local laws. How come everyone seems to miss that point?
Must be true then.
Did you control for parents' educational level? Did you control for the children's innate ability? I'm not sure if correlation equals causation. Shall I check wikipedia?
65% of people lie on surveys. At least, that's what the people who answered my survey said.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You might have a point if you had a case example of someone from one of those countries who actually did get denied asylum based on the education system. It is very possible no one ever tried that, and thus you are making things up.
Qxe4
Political asylum doesn't mean citizenship, they can't vote yet, they have to become nationalized citizens first.
Feel free to keep sending folks over you don't like. As someone with German Jewish (came over 1900) and Polish Jewish (came over 1902) ancestry from two grandparents I appreciate the whole "go to the US" thing.
I was homeschooled up until the middle of high school. At that point we had a discussion about my future educational goals and I decided that going to University was what I wanted to do. Although it was apparently possible to just take the SATs and go based on those scores I thought it would be easier to get a high school diploma. So I got the local high school to look through my homeschooling work I had done. Some was deemed equivalent and I got credit for it. Some was close enough, so I just had to take the final exam for the course to get credit. I did take some courses in school because I hadn't completed everything at home, but in most of those courses I was ahead of the rest of the class. I graduated on the honour's list, and got accepted to several universities. I have now graduated from university and am making it in the real world just fine.
Social skills don't have to be learned in school. I was part of several other organizations (cadets, scouts, youth group), where I learned how to interact with other people. Not just other people of my own age group either like I would if I only learned these skills in school.
A hospital environment is by far the best environment to catch an illness.
I don't think the couple in question is going to maintain that their country's position is obviously right.
I would suppose the difference in opinion is rooted in the concept of a child. At one end of the spectrum people view children as possessions of the parents and on the other they are viewed as fully autonomous individuals. Homeschooling as a right meshes better with people on the former end of the spectrum, whereas the latter end would view education to be a basic right that should be handled by the best (unbiased) professionals the state can provide. Obviously few people are on the extremes, but there seems to be considerable variation as to where people stand.
Seeing that I have been through public, private, AND home schooling, and I come from an extended family of both gifted and special needs children where home schooling has been really beneficial, I feel the need to chime in.
Definitely not all home schoolers are home schooled because of religious fanaticism. If I had to guess, I would say that most home schooled children are schooled that way because of a poor education at public/private schools. That poor education can go both ways -- a gifted child might not be stimulated enough at school, or a child with learning disabilities might not be taught at their ability to learn.
Home schooling is news for nerds because it is a topic that hits close to home for many of us. Many Slashdot readers have been home schooled or will home school their children, and I would venture to guess that the reason for that is because most of us here are not normal. Most of us here were not the popular kids at school, and while others preoccupied themselves with sleeping with as many people as possible or skateboarding, many of us watched the Discovery Channel.
Home schooling in and of itself isn't bad. Freedom to teach whatever you want lies at the very heart of home schooling. Parents are free to choose how to educate their children. There will be bad parents, average parents, and great parents, and passing legislation through in order to stop bad parents from badly parenting is as bad of an idea as passing legislation in order to stop parents from teaching children weird religions.
I, myself, have been home schooled, and I have also gone to public and private schools. I have met many people that were horrified that my parents could do something so terrible as to home school me; those sorts of people usually insinuate that home schooling destroys a child's capacity to interact with others socially and ruins them for the real world. In fact, with siblings 6 and 8 years my senior, I have always acted two or three grades more mature than my age, leaving me constantly outcast at typical schools. Being interested in science also further outcast me from having friends in public and private schools. My being home schooled has allowed me to enter my university at an early age (age 13 -- big thanks to IUPUI's fantastic SPAN program); unlike in primary schools, I am comfortable in a University setting, with much more freedom than in primary schools; because of my freedom, I was able to act on an opportunity to study abroad for 1 year; and despite my parents destroying my social abilities by home schooling me, I have been given awards for being a top student by my university, I have been accepted for a Summer Governor's Internship, and I have interned at NASA. This next year, I will be looking forward to entering graduate school for a PhD. in Geophysics.
I am not the only one with stories like this. IUPUI's SPAN program was created in order to help students like myself whose needs weren't being met by traditional schools. After my successful entrance into college at age 13, my aunt and uncle also took my cousin out of primary schools and enrolled him into the same university. He'll be moving on to a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering after next year. And another cousin, who has moderate Asperger's (among other behavioral problems), has always had terrible trouble fitting in at school and being taught in a way that he is able to learn. He didn't enroll in a university early, but his parents took advantage of many of the services and academies that cater to home schooled special needs and gifted children. This fall, he has been accepted for a full ride to a nice, private engineering university that is excited to have him in their Civil Engineering department.
Home schooling is not a bad thing. Like anything in life, there will be people who responsibly home school and people who irresponsibly home school. Stringent legislation will not prevent religious fanatic
Just putting this out there...
I went through public school with no major problems. Sure, I wasn't the most popular kid around (scoff...) but I had a good amount of friends and our own little social circle (and only some of us were nerds/geeks). I'm 24 and I can barely talk to girls, still.
My point is that has less to do with schooling than you would think. Public/private schools do teach a kid valuable lessons about social interaction, but the majority of that is garbage bullshit that stops being applicable as soon as you graduate.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Minors - which we're talking about here - could be compelled bya court. If parents were to prevent or a obstruct a minor receiving necessary treatment, a manslaughter charge could result.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It doesn't matter where you got your education, or what it says on your diploma, if you have these test scores. What about the parents that don't follow curriculums (like the ones in TFA )their kids don't get diplomas or test scores. Maybe you should RTFA before you comment like an idiot.
I guess I shouldn't be too hard on you, since you weren't smart enough to get into college...
First of all, I was replying directly to your comment, not the article. Secondly, I didn't take any of these tests at home. They are generally available tests, that you take at a registered testing site; generally a public or private school. I didn't have any particular curriculum, just regular classes in all the subjects. Then I registered for and took the standardized tests, which were documented proof of my education on which the colleges could base their admission decisions.
Obviously, if you don't meet the admission requirements of a college, you won't be admitted. But you don't have to follow a particular curriculum.
Stop! Dremel time!
Simple: Which require positive action (that is, doing something upholds the right), versus which require no action (not doing something upholds the right). As a thought experiment, imagine you were completely alone. Would you have the right to freedom of thought, speech, religion, conscience, and ownership of property? Yes---because there's no one there to infringe upon these rights. Action by the State is only necessary to protect these rights if and only if someone else acts to restrict them. On the other hand, would you have the right to health care, education, or a job? Of course not---these all need to be provided to you by other human beings. If you choose not to, or cannot afford to, buy these services, the State has to act to provide you with them.
The right to human dignity is an interesting case of where "rights" have been used to restrict people's own choices against their will. There was a legal case in France concerning this that actually went all the way to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights---who ruled that in this case, the "right to human dignity" trumped this individual's own choice to engage in conduct degrading to himself. I've seen similar arguments---not pressed into law yet, but made by various advocates---that the right to human dignity can be similarly used to restrict sexual freedom's. How would you like it if a government started banning voluntarily, consensual sexual behavior between consenting adults because it was seen as "degrading"? (I don't even mean bizarre fetishes; less than a century ago, homosexuality was commonly called "degrading" by homophobes.)
To me the foundation of human rights is an absolute respect for self-ownership and freedom of choice. (Implicit in this is that one can't legitimately choose to violate others' rights, because then one is not respecting the other's right to self-ownership and freedom of choice.) All other legitimate "human" rights---speech, religion, property, &c.---merely derive from this. A person doesn't have the right to life or dignity under this concept: They of course have a right against being killed, but if they voluntarily choose to end their own life, someone can't step in and stop them in order to protect their "right to life." And they of course have a right against undignified treatment by others, but they can't be prevented from voluntarily engaging in degrading behavior by someone insisting on protecting their "right to human dignity."
Liberty in your lifetime
Perhaps it's not your human rights they're concerned with? There's all the people who have to coexist with ignorant fuckers like you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Easy: A significant percentage of home schooled kids have parents who care about education and/or spend a lot of time with their kids to make sure they understand the material.
If we suddenly abolished public schools and had everyone homeschool, guess what would happen to those statistics? Do you think that kids with a mom and dad who don't give a shit are going to miraculously get a better education? Note that I have absolutely no problem with home schooling -- I just don't think that it's a valid solution in a vast majority of cases.
Did you never actually think about what those statistics might mean? It's easy to point at a number like, "inner-city kids are 50% more likely to end up in prison" and claim that, well, inner city kids have more criminal tendencies. The statistic itself doesn't answer the biggest question though, which is *why* it is the way it is. And I'd also argue that 33% of homeschoolers doing so for religious reasons is an extremely large number. If we extrapolated that to the entire population, that would mean that not only would 1 in 3 people not necessarily believe in evolution -- they may have never even been exposed to it at all.
Since you like to draw conclusions that aren't available from the numbers you present, I'll throw out an equally invalid one. You assume that because homeschoolers across the board did better on science entry exams, the 33% of religious homeschoolers did better on science entry exams. I'm instead going to assume that the 67% secular did 50% better than public schooled kids, and the 33% religious did 50% worse. Now, as a whole, they still come out ahead, which makes the numbers work -- and before you claim that the numbers don't support my assumption, I'm going to point out that they don't support yours for the exact same reason.
Similar to this situation, 30-40 years ago, people who went to college for further education were generally highly motivated people that were willing to put in more work to improve their education; that meant that, as an employer, if you found someone with a college degree, that person was more likely to be a good hire.
Now, everyone gets a college degree, and in most cases it only means that you at least attended classes for 4 or 5 years and didn't do anything egregious enough to flunk out.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Which is what I support, I was merely pointing out that substituting one load of crap for another isn't a good solution.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I was merely arguing within the GP's context. I myself support US withdrawal from the UN. We have bankrolled them and been one of the pillars of UN 'peacekeeping' forces for too long, and they constantly work at undermining our sovereignty as thanks. Screw em.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
They elected him to local government?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
school districts who start going broke because good parents pull out their kids (you know, the ones who pay per seat but don't cost much).
I'm confused, do parents who pull their kids out of school in Kentucky suddenly stop paying those taxes? If so, I'll definitely consider moving to Kentucky when I get a kid of my own to raise.
If not, well, then pulling the good kids out still helps, because all the money is focused on the kids of bad parents.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Uh, that's why they left. That's why we're talking about it. They sought refuge where it is legal/valid to homeschool with certain conditions, as opposed to being completely illegal/invalid. I think it is you who is missing the point, as in this branch of the discussion we're talking about anecdotal experiences within the US homeschooling system generally and not really the Germans of TFA specifically. Do you know what 'context' is?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
This supports the claim that people have been critical of No Child Left Behind.
It does not support the claim that an "increasing number of us nerds" are disatisfied with public schools for the reasons cited in GGP.
Please don't flippantly make fact claims unsupported by evidence.
What trial? Anyway, they were just obeying orders.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So you've got a very strong opinion on this matter, enough to post it publicly, and you've never heard of Christian curriculum?
Never heard of Apologia Science ("Apologia provides fun and challenging K-12 creation-based science curriculum...")?
Never heard of incredibly popular "Student of the Word" bible-based curriculum that bases all subjects (math, geography, history, science) on scripture?
Never actually typed "bible-based curriculum" into google and seen the quarter million hits?
And yet you still feel confident enough in your knowledge of the topic to publicly say "homeschoolers rarely follow a curriculum"? Wow.
Do they follow the normal government approved curriculum? No, some don't. Do they follow a curriculum? Definitely.
(There's a tiny (less than 10) percentage of people who identify as "un-schoolers" who don't actually use curriculum as a matter of philosophy, but the true unschooler philosophy is to guide your children to learn on their own, and most are quite serious about it.)
Of course I see a problem with people who do what you said to their kids. But that's not most homeschoolers. That's not even a barely significant percentage of homeschoolers.
There are people who abuse their kids who go to school too. Be mad at child abusers, not homeschoolers.
Sounds like you have a personal axe to grind with your parents and you're transferring it on to the homeschool movement as a whole.
You are sadly under-informed and your opinions are based on your personal experience and not the real statistics or experience of the actual national homeschool community.
* J'raxis goes back and scratches out "Yet, at least."
Hadn't thought of that. Thanks for reminding me of yet more State intervention into people's lives under the excuse of "Won't someone please think of the children." And yeah, what the hell was I thinking? There are myriad examples of people being forced into medical care against their own will, "for their own protection."
Liberty in your lifetime
"Coexist" implies leaving people alone, but you seem to be trying to justify forcing people to do things against their will. Orwell much lately?
Liberty in your lifetime
What portion of the claims do you feel are not attributable to the Act?
You're going to take issue with 'an increasing number of nerds'? Really? Why? Do you have anecdotal evidence to the contrary? It may be a spurious phrase, but it does almost nothing to detract from the statement as a whole.
Whether nerds or not you do not have to search very hard to find people who do not approve of 'dull slow lowest-common-denominator pop-psychology politically-correct schlock ladled out at public schools'. Check out the writings of John Taylor Gatto.
It really seems like you're just being pedantic. If that's the case, no reply is necessary. If not, I'm more than willing to discuss this topic. Public education is far from perfect...
Sorry!
I did not mean to imply that you personally support the UN.
I was shocked that bloobloo quoted "and shall further the activities of the United Nations" and apparently had no problem with that as an educational requirement...
No brain, no pain.
Any western democracy. They can hardly decide what color underpants to wear, much less how to brainwash their youth.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I can only tell you first-hand about the quality of my inner-city urban public high school school. Teachers included a Physics PhD, a Mathematics PhD, a Biology PhD and several MS English. This was one of the top US college-prep high schools, though.
The problem with fringe Christian religious groups is they don't believe what mainstream Christianity teaches and we didn't have Google in the 80's. Plus it's kinda hard to google without a television or computer in the car. People who move constantly don't have homes.
The irony is that public schooled people have been 'brainwashed' into thinking that home schooling is about 'brainwashing' and that they are 'crackpots'.
And I don't really see why I should. My parents had every right to tell me whatever they wanted to; they could even openly object to whatever I learned in school. Not that there's ever been a need to do so (they sometimes objected to the methods used, though; quite openly, in fact).
It is one of those rights which need to be balanced between your personal rights and the rights/benefits/needs of society. It is a bit like freedom of speech vs. insulting or constraining others. The US tends to be more in favor of the personal rights here, Germany tends to be more in favor of society as a whole. Different cultures, I guess.
In high school (secondary) did you ever sit in class and realize that listening to the teacher was a mistake and you were better off simply using the textbook to learn for yourself? Did you ever listen in anguish as the instructor taught the students something that you knew to be fundamentally incorrect? Did you do this in college? I know I had moments like this. Lacking some government certification does not necessarily mean that parents cannot perform at an equal or superior level than so-called experts in the school system. Many involved homeschooling parents are humble and intelligent to pick up a book for themselves, spending time and resources, and teach their children in a complete and responsible manner. Being a passenger in an airplane doesn't make you a pilot but learning to fly a plane does. The pioneers of aviation didn't need some certification to be smart enough to do that. Parents smart enough to educate their own children shouldn't be castigated for being above the cut.
Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
If I had evidence to the contrary, I would say the claim was wrong rather than merely unsubstantiated. Evidence of increasing objections (most of the objections to NCLB I've seen have been the same objections, from the same basic groups, since the bill was singed, and largely the same since it was proposed), much less increasing objections from the particular subset of the population suggested, seems to be missing.
Yes, lots of people string together long series of meaningless buzzwords in complaining about things. Lots of people used that particular complaint about public education long before NCLB. The people using it about NCLB seem to me largely to be the largely the same people that were using it about public education before NCLB (other complaints exist of the various public education systems in the US in general and NCLB in particular, some of them that actually include actual meaningful criticism [some of which I agree with, some of which I don't.])
Right. Show me on any widely accepted declaration of human rights where it says home schooling is a right.
So then your post is really "I didn't use a curriculum 20 years ago, but I was part of a radical movement that is totally not mainstream." rather than "Most homeschoolers don't use a curriculum."
See, I wasn't saying you didn't have those things. I was saying that your brutally broad generalization of your personal experience to include "most homeschoolers" was absurd, and in fact, incorrect.
> First, they are private. They can turn people away.
Not where I live, probably not most places. They can not turn away kids for being too poor, or too stupid, or living in the wrong neighbourhoods. AFAIK, they can't even turn away people for having the wrong world view (although they can possibly give priority to catholics if there are too many applicants). I know of atheists who have sent their children to catholic schools.
Finance isn't much of an issue either here, private idealistic schools are subsidized. Although they recieve less funds than public schools from the state, the cost per month was around 35$ last time I checked. I understand religious schools recieve subsidies in Britain as well, and probably other European countries are similar.
The key issue, I think, is that to send kids to a private school, you have to make a deliberate choice. Not all who care about their children send them to private schools, but those who don't care always go with the default, which is public... having a few kids from a negligent family environment in each class really harms the rest.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
and that is the problem. I am not suprised that you don't log in like me for this discussion or do you really think the USA doesn't has a long history of trampling on human rights?
So I have a right to raise my children without science or math? I don't think so. We all have a responsibility to give our children certain standards of knowledge. To do otherwise is shameful. This family is shameful, as are the judge's actions.
I second inviolet's post.
My wife and I homeschool precisely because we were disgusted with both the quality and the direction of the public school in our district. Before making that decision we attended school board meetings, met with our children's teachers, and had private meetings with both the past and present superintendent. While not too surprised what we found was indifference at just about all levels. Both my wife and I are college grads - I majored in the humanities and my wife in the sciences - and neither of us are religious.
Evolution was too controversial, but letting a community church onto school grounds so they could proselytize and pass out bibles to our kids as they got off the bus and walked into the school building was no big deal. Our children were at the top of their classes, but gifted programming was eschewed for individualized learning plans -- a nice idea except all it meant to the teacher was letting our kids finish their work then tutor the other kids. Classrooms of 25 - 30+ kids in 1st grade were not an issue to be concerned about.
What really surprised us were the supportive phone calls we got from teachers after we pulled our kids out. Teachers know things aren't right, but when their job depends upon keeping their mouth shut during these tough times what's a teacher to do?
Now in our second year of homeschooling things are going great. Science and math are an integral part of our homeschooling, our kids have been exploring another language thanks to some decent support materials on DVD and the web, history is as accurate as we can make it, and we don't have to worry about some other parent complaining that the dictionaries in the library define oral sex. As for extra curricular activities our kids are involved in at least one sport every season through the YMCA and YWCA (in our area they're merged). They have friends who they occasionally spend the night with and vice versa. Their bright, inquisitive, social and aren't afraid of science and math (ok - I'm a proud parent too ;-).
I care about it, but if there is some truth that the rules are so stacked against us that we can never know, then why worry about it? If we see some evidence of it, then fine, let's pursue it, but don't get distracted trying to disprove something that can never be disproven.
[...]an increasing number of us nerds (where 'nerd' == cerebral) are dissatisfied with the dull slow lowest-common-denominator
Even the slowest kid can be a nerd and a cerebral (did you mean intellectual?) if he is only compared to the house pet. Homeschooling certainly gives some parents braggins rights about their kids' accomplishments in education. Way to go!
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
Thank you! I think most home-school parents view their children more as property than people. The thought of their children getting their own ideas or ideas of others frightens the parents.
So you're willing to stipulate to the criticism existing. Your issues are with the positions that it is increasing and that the criticism has any substance?
Because you're not really adding much in the way of rebuttal.
I don't know how I would do teaching other people's children, especially in a classroom setting. But my own son, I know very well - I've followed his developments in a way no teacher can dream of. I know how he thinks, how he expresses himself, and we share a lot of low-level interests and preferences due to common genes and culture. I don't doubt that I could have given him a full-worthy elementary education if I worked full-time on it (like I understand most homeschoolers do).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I agree, that's why I strongly support homeschooling.
IF I was planning on rebutting the claim rather than requesting substantiation of it, I would have posted a rebuttal in my first response to it rather than posting "[citation needed]".
I think that you misread "[citation needed]" as shorthand for "You are wrong and, on top of that, stupid to make this claim!" rather than something more like "This is an interesting fact claim that is, however, as far as I can tell, unsupported by evidence. If you have some evidence for it, would you kindly provide it?"
If I think you're wrong, I really have no problem saying that.
Ahhh... The whole, "send your kids to public school or you daughter will get pregnant" argument. That isn't even a good argument.
Since they don't have rights, let's euthanize the ones we don't like.
I've talked to people who actually certify homeschools in Oregon (Southwest Oregon - where there's lots of hillbillies) and she said based on test scores and the like that it was essentially "state licensed truancy". In other words - home schooled children spent most of there time playing, and little actually studying or learning (teaching is after all is a full time job).
If you think about it - it makes some sense - mandatory education at a accredited public or private school at least tries to make sure that student is actually in a seat at school and takes standardized tests every year to make sure they are at least learning something. Many states they have absolutely zero testing requirements what-so-ever - I wonder how easy it is to get into college?
My son suffered "government schools". I did not stop him learning the best way to place condoms on tropical fruits. who knows? the fruit may feel more protected. What I did was tell him "Accept what they say, nod in agreement, parrot what they want back on tests, then forget ever bit of it." We started at home with Thales, then progressed to Xenophon, Livy, Tacitus, all the way to Michael Faraday and on to Steven Hawkings. Television documentaries (Thanks to BBC Horizon)m recorded lectures on biology linguistics and physics helped too. From the school experience he got a nice diploma worth almost as much as the cellulose it is printed on, from the home experience he gained a wish to be a engineer which he is now training for.. never fight them, do it yourself
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
No, it isn't, not in America anyway. I doubt it is in any country anywhere.
Society has put limits on this 'right', in order to protect children from extremists and idiots. You are allowed a certain level of freedom, but we as a society have said that we only allow it to a certain level and you must comply with some basic standards for education so your child can eventually have the opportunity to make their own decisions without being brainwashed by you to only believe YOUR viewpoints. You are also required to teach them certain specific things if you want to teach them yourself.
Its a compromise between letting you teach your children your beliefs and preventing you from making them nutjobs (which doesn't require a prefix of religious, there are plenty of other ways to be intolerant bastards). You can teach them and educate them your way, but you also have to expose them to certain other bits of knowledge that we as a society have decided that EVERYONE should know.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Just because something is legal in the US does not make it some deep right. I have to raise my children to certain standards. That's the law. I can't treat them any way I choose.
I never said home schoolers are nuts. I said this family is, apparently. My wife and I both have teaching credentials, she teaches in public school, and I have a tutoring center. We have pondered home schooling. However, I'm always wary of untrained, inexperienced people home schooling. I'm ten-thousand more times wary when they home school for religious reasons.
Is that an absolute? As in no science or math at all? If so, you have no idea what you are talking about. These parents would be hard pressed to raise their children with NO science or math. If you mean 'a reasonable amount' of science and math, you have no idea what your talking about, as the parents might be home schooling because the public schools don't teach what they consider 'a reasonable amount'. I know here in the US, the public schools do teach enough math. They don't even come close to teaching enough science, and they don't teach enough critical thinking to properly use the math they learn.
So, if you live in the US and send your kids to public school, we have to ask, who the shameful family actually is.
all afghani girls who for years could not go to school (did we give asylum to all that requested?)
Did any Afghani girls come to the US and claim Asylum? I don't know of any cases.
all the africans who cannot go to school because of social problems (did we give asylum to all that requested?)
Did any of these Africans you mention come to the US and claim Asylum? I don't know of any cases.
Clearly shows how racist and politically biased the courts are: a group of (likely) right wing white people always get precedence over some poor 3rd world, brown-skinned, poor fellow...
You have an interesting definition of the word "clearly." You haven't provided a single example supporting your case at all, in fact-- pretty much the opposite of "clear."
It's a lot more likely that Racism is your pet issue and you're really, really stretching to make this a Racism issue and not a Freedom of Speech issue.
Comment of the year
It seems to me that there is no shortage of people like that being produced by the public education system. Children learn a lot through example. The example you set, as their parent, has a lot to do with it. Also the examples set by other adults they interact with and their peers has a lot to do with this. On the other hand, when a teacher talks about cultural sensitivity, then hands a student an F because they have poor reading comprehension, what is the child learning? Please don't tell me that they shouldn't dumb-down schools because that isn't what I'm saying.
Here is the problem. When you teach children that they should grade people the same way we grade meet, you are teaching them to think of other people as objects. You can't just say to someone that they're worthless because they can't read or they're bad at math or sports or some other thing. People are more complicated than that, they are not a food product for our consumption
We live in a society that teaches young people that it is glamorous and desirable to be liars and whores. If they accept that message, then they will accept the lifestyle. People are individuals and they set their own course. Plenty of lairs and whores come from the "traditional" christian upbringing. Often their parents are lying hypocrites themselves.
Here is the main point I am trying to make: Traditional school is very bad. Homeschooling is only a perfect alternative if you are a perfect parent, but it seems to me that it is often a better one. In that case, I think parents should decide the right course of action to make sure the needs of their children are being met as best they can. Will they be right all the time? No, of course not.
Maybe my broad generalization was incorrect.
"My parents didn't use a curriculum 20 years ago,and they were part of a radical movement that is totally not mainstream." would also be more accurate. My comments are based on what I personally seen as a kid from other home schooled kids as well as myself.
Also I will never home school my children. I will teach them everything I can in addition to school so they can have an advantage above the others.
Im not sure about the timing but i would not be surprised if somebody from the HSLDF didn't meet them coming off the plane.
Mr Smith has been doing this long enough that he doesn't miss all that much.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Yes, we need a standard, handed down from God, the decider of all truths, to tell us what's what.
As was my private Catholic school (an advantage I promptly squandered, alas). Nonetheless, I suspect that the median Catholic school in the US provides an overall superior educational experience to the median public school.
/agnostic
Most states in the US do require homeschool students to meet certain test standards. For instance, in NY, one of the more undfriendly states to homeschooling, we were required to inform our school district of an intent to homeschool. They in turn had to respond by a certain date and inform us what would be required of us if we wished to do so. If they did not respond, or they responded after that date, the homeschool family had no responsibility to interact further with the school district except to inform them of their intent to homeschool when the next year came around. Several of my friends in the next town over had school districts that didn't pay any attention to them. They still took end of the year tests, but chose to use California's tougher standardized tests rather than New York's sadly out of date ones. My school district did take an interest in us, and we took yearly standardized tests with a certified teacher at the end of every school year. Both my sister and I began testing at a post-high school level by the eighth grade.
For those who protest that religious reasons are an unacceptable reason to homeschool your children, I must respectfully disagree. Imagine, if you will, that you live in a society that is ruled by fundamental Islamsics, Hindus, Catholics, Christians, Scientology or anyone else that might attempt to force beliefs and teaching on you or your children that you don't agree with. (They do exist...) Would you not wish to teach your children at home? I believe that the choice to bring a child up with religious training (or non-religious) is still a right. (At least in the US. Correct me if I'm wrong.) I think that in very few instances should the government have the power to tell us how we can live our lives or interact with our family and run our homes. I do think that in cases of physical abuse the law is very clear. But when you start calling down emotional and mental abuse, the accusations are not as clear. The guidelines are much fuzzier. I've heard a lot of people call any kind of religious training brainwashing and abuse. I don't deny that in rare cases it does happen, but I think you ride a very fine line when you attempt to legally condemn an entire worldview.
You're thinking of Portland. Sorry.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Weirdest, I believe.
And should the state violently force* its own people to submit to having their children indoctrinated into believing what you think they should believe?
*("police to escort them to classes")
Revive the Constitution.
If the majority of homeschoolers are schooled by parents with college degrees (using Wikipedia article here), and the majority of public school kids do not have parents with college degrees.
Well, that is a rigged statement. The proper comparison would be:
If the majority of homeschoolers are schooled by parents with college degrees (using Wikipedia article here), and the majority of public school kids ARE SCHOOLED by people with college degrees.
So, why is it that non-professionals consistently do a better job than professionals? Shouldn't you expect a professional to do a better job than a non-professional?
I don't think you got the point of my post either. Homeschooling doesn't mean keeping kids at home in some isolated bubble, away from other children, and only interacting with mommy and daddy. There are hundreds, maybe even over a thousand, of homeschooling parents where I'm from: Enough that there are multiple organizations supporting them, representing them in legal battles, helping them network, giving them places to bring their children for socialization amongst other homeschooled children, and so on. "Homeschooled," when done properly, is more akin to "community schooled"---voluntarily, and without State-vetted lesson plans or the attendant micromanagement.
You have one anecdote about a poorly homeschooled child who was taught that way, and the plural of anecdote is not data. Like I said, there are hundreds of homeschoolers in New Hampshire---and here's how many of their students are like the kid you described: zero.
The last attempt to regulate homeschoolers in New Hampshire was justified by the bill sponsor and Education Committee chairwoman for the reasons you talk about: These two politicians "just didn't want to see any children fall through the cracks." Yet, at the public hearings for the bill, when asked for, not one case of this actually happening in New Hampshire could be presented. Homeschoolers are already required to report that they homeschool to school superintendents, so the State does indeed have some knowledge on the progress that homeschooled children are making---and, not one case of inadequate education or socialization could be demonstrated.
There's some real data.
Liberty in your lifetime
The essential question is who is really responsible for the children? My answer is the parents - the state makes a lousy surrogate. The kids need to be loved and guided - if the guidance is a bit off, then they can think for themselves later. Parents are often lousy at it, but somehow most parents fumble their way to reasonably well-adjusted kids. Nobody should be empowered to subvert the parent-child bond, except in extreme cases of neglect.
It depends whether That Which Cannot Be Seen follows the laws of physics. If the human mind is not allowed to see it, would a camera see it, and if the camera saw it would the human mind be able to see it in the captured image? If the camera images it, it's not invisible, but the human eye might still not see it.
Because their kids are smarter than the average public school student.
Hence my comment about private schools. Private schools can easily ensure that all their students graduate by picking only the smartest students for their schools. Home schooling parents can ensure their kids succeed by only picking their above-average children.
To do a proper control you would need each home schooling parent to be teaching their child and three children of parents without college degrees.
Sounds like the Germans have it right. Having been a victim of homeschooling myself for 7 years, I think it should be illegal. I received a good education (better, arguably, than I would have received in a proper school) but got dumped out into high school without the vaguest idea how to socialize with others. It took me all of high school and into college to learn the social rules I was deliberately sheltered from and it caused me extreme psychological distress. My parents even made considerable extra effort to ensure I'd have friends, etc. that I'd meet at "homeschooling support groups" and such. It just wasn't enough: eight hours per week of socializing with kids equally maladapted as I was just isn't going to cut it.
It's been over a decade since this all ended, and I am still incredibly angry at my parents for the whole thing.
Thank you for pointing this out. I have heard this absurd socialization argument many times. It is very strange if you think about it. Over the history of humanity, it is only very recently that children mainly interact with social groups very close to their age. It used to be that a child would learn a trade from their parents, and although they had friends/playmates, a lot of their time was spend with their parents. Early is US history, there were many one room school houses where children of all ages would be taught by a single teacher. Why do we think that public schools with near-age peers groups is "normal"?
I heard that a Canadian study on home schooling was recently released and they found very positive results. The results showed that home schooled children were better community citizens (charities, gave time, etc). The study found nothing wrong with their social skills.
When the World Trade Center got hit by airplanes, and people were in panic and looking for leadership, the primary message from the establishment was not "Help your neighbours". It was not "Be charitable". It was "Keep shopping". This should give you an idea what the establishments priorities are, why public schools are the way they are, and what kind of adults they are intended to mold children into.
If you trust the disciples of Ayn Rand and John Nash to administer the education of your children, you shouldn't be surprised if they turn into psychopaths.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"I think the pilgrims on the Mayflower would be totally sympathetic in that case."
So would the Taliban.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
After my first 3 years in state school i was homeschooled for 3 years, and learned much faster and more than my former classmates, when i went back to school i had become used to the quiet and effective learning, and was totally shocked and outcast in a rough, tough, loud and unnatural world with awful food and daily beatings. Although getting brilliant exams i had to quit university and society due to the traumatic years in the state school, later reading the "sudbury valley school experience" i realized how absolutely unnessesary the forced schooling system is and the "highly sensitive person" theory i now support all kinds of homeschooling or private schooling with the knowledge of the vast differences between each child and how children can seem perfectly happy while being forced into submission, physical and mental torture
Home schooling parents can ensure their kids succeed by only picking their above-average children.
Did you just say that home schooling parents pick their kids? Really? Wow. Just Wow.
I'm saying home schooling parents chose to educate their children. Thus they are picking the children they educate. They could choose to send their children to a public school. They could decide that one of their children is dumber than the rest and send that child to public school. In this way home schools are more like private schools than public schools that have no discretion over what children they teach.
I'm not sure whether you're being facetious or are just incredibly uninformed, but the situation you're describing is only true of a fraction of homeschoolers and certainly has nothing to do with the chief advantages of homeschooling. The situations you describe are more typical of private schools, in fact.
Let me give you some of my background. I was homeschooled from kindergarten to high school (although the last three years of high school I took additional classes at a local community college). My family is deeply religious (and fairly conservative), but my curriculum incorporated teaching about all of the world's major religions, and in speaking to my public-schooled peers I have found that I know as much as if not more than they know about non-Christian religions. As an aside, several of my good friends in high school were bi- or homosexual; I read a number of books on evolution as pleasure reading in high school; and just a few months ago I attended a lecture by Dawkins. And what I've seen of other homeschoolers has indicated my situation is fairly typical.
As for advantages? Well, there is the flexibility. As I mentioned, I took around 50 hours of courses at the local community college, all while spending less time in schoolwork than any of my peers. (One person mentioned that even if you go to public school you're free after 3. Not true: Several of my friends taking multiple AP classes and going to magnet schools were up late nearly every weeknight doing homework. In contrast, I never once had to lose sleep to finish an assignment.) I was able to achieve quite a bit academically while focusing most of my time on my main interests--which, in high school, meant everything from playing guitar and keyboard in a band to reading extensively (Wealth of Nations and the first volume of Das Kapital in their entirety, for example) to teaching myself C++, Java, and several other languages.
Not everyone's going to want that, though, and that's fine. Let me tell you about my sister. When she was entering elementary school she was diagnosed with minor learning disorders (in addition to hearing loss, a speech impediment, and a few other issues); if she had gone through school as most students do, she would have been placed in a special ed program. My parents chose to home school her, and in eighth grade she entered a local public middle school. Long story short, she's now in the all-As honor roll at her high school, taking classes at a local arts magnet school, and having a blast in her school's marching band. I doubt things would have gone nearly as well for her if not for the flexibility and individual attention homeschooling affords.
Using spelling-bees as a metric for a criterion for how good education is is a really bad idea. Spelling bees are essentially an extracurricular that involves lots of memorization. Moreover, this looks at outliers. That's not useful in that it doesn't tell us anything about either the average of the general sample size. For example, it might very well be that homeschoolers on average spelled about as well or worse than public school kids but since so many homeschoolers get involved in spell bees they still end up dominating the upper tiers of the competition. If you could show that homeschoolers on average had better grammar and spelling that would be a different claim. Or if you could show they did well across the board in intellectually related competitions you might have an argument. Moreover, one could actually argue that this is a negative reflection of how homeschooling functions: homeschooling in the United States is often done by reactionary Christians. Spelling is therefore appealing in that it at first glance seems to be a set of nice, rigid rules.
Well, I did. And I learned a valuable lesson about how to talk to authority figures while correcting them. I didn't have much anguish as I was able to articulate the problem and work with another person to correct the issue. As long as I could point to a line of reasoning or an authority (such as a textbook) to make my argument I never had any trouble. And I learned to do this with many different teachers and their personalities.
Thanks for making another point about how non-homeschooling prepares you better for life!
If people want to teach their kids in their own way, it's their business, not a government's. We homeschooled our first child for a bit, then he decided he wanted to go to regular schools. But we've come close to yanking them out a couple of times, and still might if we run into actual problems. Religion is only one reason to do it. My problem with a lot of current education is that it seems to focus a lot less on the basics and adds more and more stuff that I just don't see as relevant to school.
Many homeschoolers in my area are sending their homeschooled kids at 14, 15, 16, and 17 to college. They get their group education in an environment that isn't as caustic as middle- and high-school. They can also earn college credit to reduce college expenses in the future and there's a nice Federal tax credit to pay for the college courses. Something that I've just read about is parents with students in private school considering homeschooling in order to get them into dual-enrollment programs at community colleges. Some community colleges provide free courses to homeschoolers and tax credits could take care of remaining expenses. Our kids started college at 15. They get the group benefits and learn things that we're happy to farm out with students that are generally more mature than those in secondary schools.
In my experience, the vast majority of home-schoolers do it because of the low quality of public education, not a religious agenda. I don't homeschool my children, but I would if I could. As it is, a few weekly discussions and explanations with my children enables them to stay months or years ahead of other students in their high-school.
Its the social aspect that worries me most about home-schooling - I am glad that you have paid attention to it. Like any skill social skills have to be taught and given plenty of practice or your kids will lose out in the real world. The second aspect is worrying that the kids will not learn how to think for themselves, and be able to judge competing ideas - as they have been taught everything by a single person (i.e. their parents) rather than a large group of people, some of whom they find are wrong. There are a number of these subtle lessons you learn in school that I worry about not picking up when home schooling.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I strongly encourage you to go to school for a week in South East DC before you assume that schools teach people how to "live along with other people". Taking away school vouchers from those inner city kids for a decent future is just another example of compassionate liberalism.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
They are taught that their value as a person is dependent on their academic performance, and they are held to a standard that most cannot meet. As a result, many children are told that they are worthless, simply because they are not proficient at math or reading or some other thing.
Um, that situation is thousands of times better than the school I attended, where academic performance was practically frowned upon, as simply stating you got a good grade on an exam could be interpreted as an insult to your peers. I'm in college now and I live in constant fear of alienating all of my classmates when they ask my GPA and I have to tell them 4.00.
The only metric that was considered valuable was athletic performance, and those who did not perform were deemed "worthless." I would rather have intelligent kids receive positive reenforcement for their scholastic success than idiots receive positive reenforcement in spite of their scholastic failures.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Because those random strangers influence the world I live in. In particular, they get to vote, and I don't want people voting based on false information.
If people are going to be voting on (say) whether or not nuclear power is a good idea, or whether homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals, then I want them to actually understand what nuclear power is, or what homosexuality is.
And these "fundamentals" aren't things that one either believes or not, as though it's a choice. There's simply the way the world is, and society has a duty to make sure that children understand some of it.
What it comes down to here is whether or not you support my freedom to practice my religion the way I see fit. Saying that I can believe whatever I want but that I must live the way you say is as contradiction.
Personally, I fully support the right of any free thinking adult to dictate the course of their own life.
I do not support their right to force their ideology onto their children, who are not capable of making those choices for themselves.
I also admit there is no solution which protects children from any kind of indoctrination, and it would be foolish to argue that one method is better than the other, as there can be no real metric.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Who is missing that point? That is, in fact, the point that most people here do get. Their human rights were being violated by the German government's laws and they got asylum in the United States.
Right. Show me on any widely accepted declaration of human rights where it says home schooling is a right.
As soon as you demonstrate to me why any declaration of human rights, widely accepted or otherwise, has any bearing on what is actually a human right.
I dunno. Do you have any evidence that brown peoples' asylum requests on the basis of denial of education have been rejected?
Parents have a right to their children, their own flesh and blood; to pass on their traditions and beliefs as they see fit.
No, they really don't.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
FTFA: "They said textbooks presented ideas and language that conflicted with their Christian beliefs, including slang terms for sex acts and images of vampires and witches, while the school offered what they described as ethics lessons from Islam, Buddhism and other religions. The eldest son got into fights in school and the eldest daughter had trouble studying."
They obviously belong on the USA. What better place for outraged religious fanatics trying to screw up the life of their kids?
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Good point. It shouldn't be illegal, but it should be somewhat regulated. The mixture you describe sounds like an excellent compromise that could be easily institutionalized and integrated into our current educational system. As long as the kids are held to the same standards, I could care less about the means by which they earn their education, as long as the ends are the same.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
It sounds to me like we are complaining about the same situation. I don't care whether it's academics or athletics we are talking about. Trying to make that distinction is missing the larger point I am trying to make.
If you ended up in trades it's not the University's fault
Or it's because you wanted to be in the trades.
We seriously need to de-stigmatize these professions. The US desperately needs intelligent and well-educated workers in all roles and industries.
And, hey -- in some skilled trades, you can make a pretty nice living if you're good at what you do and/or decide to start your own business. My buddy who dropped out of college to become an electrician makes more money than I ever will with my Physics degree, and is damn good at what he does.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I don't think that phenomena is restricted to homeschoolers. You should see the special needs fights occurring in rural schools here in maine, amongst simply regularly enrolled kids. I hear the same thing from mass as well (via my special needs education teacher aunt there). I think that issue is simply part of special needs education nationwide. Parents want their kids to be treated as special... big shock.
I honestly don't believe it's possible to force your ideology onto your children. No matter how much they believe you when they are young, they will probably make up their own minds when they are teenagers.
What I am talking about is the need to teach children what is truly important, which is how to be an adult. Schools don't do that. Schools get in the way of that (for the reasons I've stated above). I don't believe that it makes sense to waste time trying to get your children to listen to someone lecture them all day long and then try to use what little time is left to teach them the important things. And I think a parent needs to be able to make those kinds of decisions in raising their children.
Counter-sue, pointing out that the ban is violating my dignity. Well, if I could get past the demonstration blocking the streets.
Every human should have the freedom of not exercising their rights for exactly as long as they wish. If I want someone to utterly degrade me then I see a ban on that just as offensive as when I retract my consent and the degradation continues.
We can take all human rights ad absurdum, as one can do with anything. We can point to instances of abuse with just about all of them. And we can argue a lot about this stuff but in the end it boils down that our core values are different ones. You base yours on "freedom is good" while I base mine on "don't hurt others"*. We will agree on many things but we're never going to agree on everything. Therefore, I won't even get much further into this discussion. I've had it before and at the end we have a situation where we stare at each other and both yell "EXACTLY!" while making points we consider insane and the other considers natural.
Just in case you want to make a point on how "don't hurt others" means I must hate freedom because freedom allows people to hurt each other: No. Taking away one's freedom is an instance of hurting them and I will only agree to it if doing so serves to minimize the total amount of hurting done.
* Note that hurting oneself is generally fine, although one should consider the implications of one's actions (killing yourself is okay but often bad style). Also, with "hurt" I mean inflicting damage on people or animals, whether physically or otherwise; consensual BDSM is A-okay. Of course animals can't consent to BDSM, no matter what the sentence structure implies.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I said "citizens", not "all citizens". To say it with LaTeX, I used \exists, not \forall.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
How about the percentage of socially damaged kids between home schooled and public/private schools. I know public/private is higher as I'm one of them and I went to both public and private schools. Social benefits is just BS as socializing is about finding the best place to stick a knife. We are born on an individual basis and we'll die individually, well usually. How about each of us learning at our own speed, in our own way, and to our own limits? It's supposed to be a free world, or is it?
You misunderstand the point of science. Science tells us that if you zap some electricity into one end of a transistor, it only comes out the other end if you also zap some into the third end. It doesn't care if this is happening just because it's happening or if God's making the electricity move around, which is what philosophy/theology/truth is about. Science creates useful models that predict future results, it doesn't try to find out why the models work.
It would appear from all the grandstanding and know-it-all responses to this thread, that the US has gotten something right: every family is able to make choices about schooling according to their values, capabilities, and needs. That freedom is not something to be taken for granted. To those who want to home school -- more power to you! If you want to send your kids to the public schools -- good for you! It's a shame that social structures exist that prohibit parents from doing what they believe is right for their kids.
And do you take issue with those governments who happen to believe that religion is that right way to teach your children and don't allow a secular approach? Governments can't be trusted with deciding right and wrong any more than parents can.
Well the difference is that in Germany you don't get hillbilly teachers trying to explain to you that the earth is just 5000 years old.
and yes, going to school is a law, you have to. You can't just say, no I don't want to. In Austria it is called "Schulpflicht".
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
And the reason for it is of course that Children have to receive education and not put to work on the field by their parents. The duty is a social measure to ensure that they are not deprived from their right of education and have the opportunity to go to school.
Persons who want to home school are a tiny sectarian fraction of the population today.
People are just modding me down because they disagree. I said what the majority of people on this site feel and know to be true.
Err, that is what "truth" is, i.e. it is contextual. There is no "absolute" truth but there is "local" truth, that is as applicable to the context of the "game" of our empirical existence (however brought about). It is the only kind of truth that counts (and in fact the only kind of "truth" that exists).
If you say that there is some sort of "meta" truth, ascertainable only by the method of "sufficiently fanatical and irrational faith", I would simply posit that there is "meta-meta" truth of higher order yet, which is denied to religious wackos ... to which religious wackos would respond with "meta-meta-meta" "truth" visible only to those fanatics who bang themselves on the head sufficiently vigorously with a 2x4 while chanting prayers ... and so on.
Actually "don't hurt others" I would say is at the core of my belief system. Non-aggression principle. The freedom to do anything else is just the flipside of that.
Liberty in your lifetime
The exact same thing is believed by most of the devout fundamentalists out there. Yet, I don't think you want them to be able to force everyone to learn about their idea of "that's simply the way the world is."
I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm saying that just because I believe something is a universal truth doesn't mean I believe it should be shoved down people's throats.
Liberty in your lifetime
You expressly want the government to decide for everyone what Truth is. Down this way lies utter madness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth."
Not to mention the fact that if this same philosophy (government deciding truth) had been applied 100 years ago, we would have been excluding secularist ideas... that wouldn't make secularists too happy, would it? So why do it to Christians? Or Jews? Or Muslims? Or any other religion? Or non-religion?
As you say... madness.
Homeschoolers consistently out perform public schoolers every year (at least in America they do... where we don't let our government run amok). The argument could, therefore, be more easily made that it is public school which denies children well-rounded and limits their education.
I would think that Germans, of all people, would have learned the danger of putting such blind trust and faith in their leaders. Because that worked out SO well for you in the last century.
I guess Sylvester McMonkey McBean was right... "No, you can't teach a Sneetch".
No, numbskull... subsection (3) says that parents have "prior" right... which means that the parent's right to choose education supersedes any state interest. That's what "prior" means.
Yeah because it was homeschoolers that put people in concentration camps, not the government. Hitler with his mandatory homeschooling programs is what spread hatred of Jews.
Jeez... get a clue.
Absolutely. I tell my kids that if they want a secure well paying job, become a tool and die maker, or a plumber.
The original post maintained that he entered the trades because he couldn't get into university, which he blamed on homeschooling. I wasn't trying to denigrate the trades, just disagree with his point.
"You misunderstand the point of science"
No I understand it just fine, either a phenomena 1) really exists or 2) it doesn't, either you can harness knowledge to create computers or you can't. It's a pretty cut and dry question. You have to have absolute understanding of something or else you could not move forward (i.e. you know a door exists in front of you, it is either open or closed, withou tunderstanding that the door is made up of atoms, electrons, etc).
So absolute knowledge is possible, it's just that human beings can only take the easy layers first (Door exists and is closed, therefore don't walk into door).
Your ability to navigate without dying proves that absolute knowledge is possible, in fact human navigation is repeated experimental collisions and their detection. Either those collisions 1) really happened and are there or 2) are not.
For those who think science is ont about "truth" we can do an experiment - put a gun to your head if you are confident science is not about reality and pull the trigger. Just because science is imperfect (because humans are) does not mean truth does not exist, it means human beings do not yet have a full understanding of the truth.
You jump to the conclusion that homeschoolers (even those that homeschool to avoid the "less-than-social" behavior) are not exposed to "evil" or they live some kind of sheltered life.
I was homeschooled but when I went to college at 14 (because of the superior education I received), I got plenty of exposure to "evil". Even before I went to college, my parents owned apartments and I was exposed to all sorts of people. They also owned a clothing store where I learned all sorts of things about human interaction. My dad was also a water-well driller, so I learned about good honest manual labor when I worked with him a full 8 hours a day and did my homework in the truck during lunch and to and from the job site (that's a full day's worth of school work in a couple of hours... the power of homeschooling).
In addition, when I was in college, once people got over the fact that I was so young, I had no problems socializing. I made many friends that were much older than me and they are still my friends today.
Now I am an attorney (graduated from a top-tier law school) and married and we're homeschooling our kids.
So next time you think about ripping on homeschoolers, maybe you should try to actually know what it's about instead of accepting all the stereotypes and hype. Otherwise you're just a bigot.
Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly.
I agree with the first poster, but, the topic did get my attention, even though I'm a nerd, because I'm an American living in Germany.
I knew several families when I lived in the states who home-schooled and the results were impressive. Not only were their kids way ahead of the average school class material, they also seemed more balanced. That surprised me because I thought they were missing the interaction with their peers at school.
On the other hand, regarding "politically-correct schlock" content at US schools is a little different here in Germany. The schools are generally very good. I went to a US university and a very good US private highschool, but when I studied a year in Austria, I was two years behind the Austrians. They, in turn, felt their education system was behind the German's education system.
So, while I think home schooling in the US is almost necessary, given the quality of US schools, the situation is quite different in Germany.
Oh, and on a side note, it is quite an experience, to live in a country were white men are not actually considered the root of all evil.
The kids I know that went to catholic schools didn't seem to be that extreme. Do they teach evolution at catholic schools?
I saw an interview with a staunch Christian studying evolution at a US university. Basically, he said he believed God created man and evolution was the way he did it.
A lot of homeschooling families are trying to instill exactly that indoctrination into their children, especially the religious fanatics (like this family in particular).
When religion puts a person on the moon, or when a priest receives schematics for a new invention via divine inspiration, or when a faith healer cures anything in a controlled environment then perhaps I'll start listening.
Science works; science delivers the goods. That's the difference.
Volapük is actually divinely inspired. God told the guy to design a world language that everyone could use.
The result was something that was so ungodly against so much of what we understand in linguistics as benefiting secondary aquisition that speakers from different countries had no chance of understanding each other.
The only good things that ever seem to come from direct divine inspiration seems to be non-practical fiction.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
13 years on Slashdot...and this very well could be the dumbest comment I have ever read.
The funny thing is, the most passionate home-school parents I know is a pagan family.
-Steve
Trust me, we are.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
They are my children. They belong to me, not you, government, or any arbitrary third party.
Totally disagree. They do NOT belong to you at all. They belong foremost to themselves, and secondarily to the society of which they are a part. Just as I do, and just as you do. Therefore the primary educator should be (and pretty much can not fail to be) the individual themselves, and the secondary educator should be the society. By "the society" in this instance, I mean the state, since the state is the chosen representatives of the will of the society at large.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
That was the case for me (in Mexico... an über catholic country)
I went to 12 years of catholic school too. They are called "Marist Brothers". The funny thing was that my parents are both atheists. However, given that the *best* school in the city was catholic, they decided to put me and my brother there.
Sure, we had our religion classes and every last friday of the month we had a mass. But aside of that everything was the same as in other schools.
At the end of secondary school my mother told us that, if we wanted to believe and go to church every sunday and whatnot, she was happy to take us. Of course, both my brother and I decided not to do it =oP.
The nice thing about this type of schools (Marist Brothers or "La Salle" Brothers) is that they think *high* of the human values and virtues; and try to teach them to the kids. Thus, even if you do not believe in god, marry, santa claus and the three wise men, you can see there are still teaching good things.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
The social aspect of development is not something that's going to sneak by - it's a known issue and been talked about for decades. The overwhelming majority of home schoolers know full well that education includes intellectual, physical and emotional/social development. Between sports, music and all of the other youth programs, there's never been more opportunities available for children outside of school to interact with each other.
And as far as teaching kids to think for themselves, if anything, it is a weakness of public schools in this area that leads to parents choosing to home school.
Vote Quimby.
May I give your advice back to you? Homeschooling is mainly interesting for minorities, who strongly disagree with offcial line of education. During the Hitler time homeschooling might have been a good idea to spare the kids nazi indoctrination. However, when you see no difference between the governments then and now, you are hardly worth an answer here. In that case you are a fanatic crackpot yourself.
Homeschooling is like incest for knowledge!
In a school, you're permanently confronted with other people and ideas, so you can develop your own view of the world by examining and choosing different subjects of knowledge.
At home, your parents teach only what they know themselves and you'll teach the same knowledge to your children and so on. There will be no evolution.
I do not support their right to force their ideology onto their children, who are not capable of making those choices for themselves.
Don't have kids, do you?
This is essentially what parenting is. Sure at the extremes, it's bad news. But being insistent that my kids use good manners - please & thank you, etc is forcing my ideology onto them.
Vote Quimby.
Here in Germany there is an "allgemeine Schulpflicht", i.e. children have the obligation to attend school and are (generally) not allowed to be schooled at home. This is German law for about a century, and generally accepted.Exceptions, e.g. for travelling folk are very strictly regulated to ensure that the children get a decent education.
The Romeike family simply refused to obey the law and claimed "religious reasons" for doing so. In the US they (fraudulently, IMHO) claimed being prosecuted for "religious reasons", and were granted asylum. But this "prosecution for religious reasons" is totally bogus - they were simply prosecuted for breaking the law, like every common criminal. And claiming this "prosecution for religious reasons" is not only fraudulent, it is generally considered an insult in the German public, because we take religious freedom really seriously - something caused by our history.
Imagine someone would kill other people and claim religious reasons for doing so ("Kali told me to rip his heart out!"), would you agree that convicting this person for murder would be a "prosecution for religious reasons" and grant him asylum? The example might be a bit extreme, but at the end of the day both is breaking the law, and purporting religion for doing so.
And even in the US the cop would only laugh if you claimed "God told me to put the pedal to the medal!" when he pulled you over for speeding. Well, maybe not if it was a Tennessee cop, though...
Protip: read the post I was replying to before jumping to conclusions.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Did I make a comparison between governments then and now?
You were the one who posited the "fanatic crackpot" position that somehow, in your twisted view of reality, homeschooling fosters hatred and leads to concentration camps.
You are a bigot.
Nothing in that post (which I did read prior to posting) negates anything I said. You jump from the statements made in the parent-post to the idea of being "sheltered" or not being exposed to "evil". It seems you missed both the parent's point and my point.
Just let go of your bigoted preconceptions and just respect others, even if you disagree or don't understand.
I strongly disagree with your premise. Whether or not the German government's policy is wrong, there's no such thing as Parents' Rights. It's a horrible concept. When it comes down to a choice between respecting the rights of the parents and protecting the rights of the child, the child should win every time -- at least in principal, which is why using the term "right" is wrong. There are good arguments against disallowing homeschooling, including from a civil liberties perspective, but that isn't one of them.
Property is theft.
No, absolute knowledge is not possible. How would you even try to go about scientifically proving that there isn't an all-powerful God making every particle move according to a few dozen rules behind the scenes? What is your experiment, what are the controlled and measured variables? You can't. We will never access that level of truth. But that doesn't mean we should give up. According to science, it doesn't matter if God is pushing the particles around or Zeus or Thor. All that matters is that if you do X to particles A and B, Y will happen. But the true existence of particles is something we can't prove - we could be sitting in virtual reality. All that matters is that we have a useful model with which we can make future predictions. I also have a useful model which says that if you throw a projectile at my brain at 300 meters per second my brain will stop functioning.
Then read it again. The OP mentioned protecting his kids from antisocial behavior, at least until they are "ready", as a reason for his decision to homeschool.
Besides, glass house and stones. I think *you* are the one with preconceptions here. Just because someone argues against a certain aspect of home schooling does not mean he's a respectless bigot (or even that he's opposing it - I actually am all for homeschooling, believe it or not).
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
<p>If you take issue with home schoolers presenting information from a "religious perspective" then do you also take issue with parents that choose to send their kids to Catholic school?</p></quote>
As someone who was sent to a Catholic school by well meaning, but misguided parents, I'd have to say yes, I definitely take issue with it.. My particular school ranked just below the cantina on Tatooine for scum and villainy. Maybe its just my experience, but I've found that the more pure something claims to be, the reverse in nearly always the case.
Besides, I think that schools should only teach facts, not beliefs.. Beliefs are for parents to impose on their children, not the state. If more schools just stuck to the facts and let children think for themselves, maybe there would be less reason for home schooling..
Please do not forget that what might hold true for the US is not necessarily the same for Germany. At least from a German's POV, our government-funded schooling is a _lot_ better.
Over here, home-schoolers are usually the most extreme Christian fundamentalists who object to their children being exposed to evil thoughts. For reference I would call those free will and thought with a dash of understanding for people who think and are different.
And yes, this is the case for this family as well. I for one pity their children.
We would never tolerate a foreign gov dictating our education policy, but there's the arrogance of the USA again...meanwhile, the religious right is waging a war on common sense trying to say my children should be taught "science" based on the notion that all science is evil...while using modern communications based on tech using theoretical and mathematical work done by the very scientists they deride as crackpots. Education *is* a public duty of society, and education must be based on learning factual information. Maybe they want our country back in the dark ages, but we don't have the right to demand the Germans be forced to return to the days when the earth was flat and people were burned at the stake for witchcraft.
> Further, only about 33% of parents cited religious reasons for homeschooling, whereas the slashdot fear factor seems to be that everyone who is homeschooled is so that they can instill intolerance, religious bigotry, and an abhorrence for all secular learning.
For reference, the German family is home-schooling for Christian fundamentalist reasons. Not saying that this is the same for the US, but in German, it's pretty much always the case.
I don't think you got the point of my post either. Homeschooling doesn't mean keeping kids at home in some isolated bubble, away from other children, and only interacting with mommy and daddy.
Oh wow, you definitely didn't read my post. I said homeschooling gives less options. Kids are less likely to hang out with other kids when they don't know them. School, obviously, gives you many options to get to know people, while being at home limits those options...a LOT. Also, in school you don't get to always pick who you associate with - which is important...want to know why? What other place in life will you have to deal with people you don't want to deal with? Well, other then the world the obvious answer is work. School teaches you to deal with people you don't like, and then work with them.
There are hundreds, maybe even over a thousand, of homeschooling parents where I'm from:
Considering you guys don't all live in the same area, you don't all know each other that is limiting your options as to how your kid learns to interact.
Enough that there are multiple organizations supporting them, representing them in legal battles, helping them network, giving them places to bring their children for socialization amongst other homeschooled children, and so on.
Again, why do i care there are organizations supporting them? I don't. My original point, and you keep arguing something else, was that a judge abused their power for granting asylum on this topic.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
I wish I had. I was new to the area and not confident enough to elbow my way into my new (at the time) in-laws family affairs. Some of blame for her and her brother's doomed future definitely does rest on my shoulders. I guess it does take a village.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Very rarely.
No and no.
Even if the answers were all yes, why do you think an unqualified person would be better?
And they frequently fell out of the sky. But you appear to have totally missed the point: being a passive recipient is not the same as being able to do the action yourself. There are things I know and I can do, but I'd have little idea how to plan a lesson, or a series of lessons about them.
How do you decide if they're smarter? Should we just take their word for it?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"No, absolute knowledge is not possible."
And yet you are absolutely sure you said that sentence, either that sentence exists (1) or it does not (0), when people start claiming they don't really exist or are not sure they exist we lock them up.
The fact that you can differentiate (you know there are differences) means in order to be aware, to know the difference between this bit or that bit, to know anything at all, one must be able to have absolutely know there are differences, no matter how imperfect they are presented to you. You knwo that those imperfect differences exist whether you realize it or not.
Well the best way to raise your child to be a "cynical" atheist is to send them to a Catholic school!
Disclaimer - I went to a Catholic school
P.S. Almost all of the teaching was the same as a state school other than compulsory religious studies and links to local churches and a friary.
The most dangerous drug
It was stated incorrectly. If the majority of homeschoolers have parents with degrees, and the majority of public school kids have parents without degrees, there is an unequal footing for comparison.
The correct comparison would be to look at publically schooled children who are (predominatly) white, have annual household incomes in the top 25% (or whatever the hs avg is), single breadwinner housholds, professional & degreed parents, and parents who participate actively in no less than 2 extra-curricular activities per student (or, again, whatever the hs avg is). Those kids almost always succeed in life because they have the resources and parental support.
Now, there are exceptions to every class, but to compare the exceptional circumstances of homeschooling with the population at large is an inaccurate one. My daughter is in public school (hers happens to be very good), and I am just amazed at how uninvolved most of the parents are. Homeschoolers care about their kids and take an active role in their learning - that's 80% of the battle right there, even if they sent their kids to a public school.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well the difference is that in Germany you don't get hillbilly teachers trying to explain to you that the earth is just 5000 years old.
For now. What if the political winds go the other way and Germany pulls a Texas, deciding to drop evolution, or to include Intelligent Design? State-run schools have taught, and continue to teach, all manner of nonsense.
and yes, going to school is a law, you have to. You can't just say, no I don't want to. In Austria it is called "Schulpflicht".
And if you don't trust the government, then what? You get sent off for re-education?
Do you know the Three Laws of Motion? Ever noted how a prism divides white light into color? Used a refracting telescope? Congratulations, you've been learning from Isaac Newton, a theologian.
Most of the scientific discoveries historically have been made within the structure of a religious institution, possibly because said institution has the curiosity to learn more about this world that they believe was created by a deity with structure and purpose, and they are more likely to be capable of supporting full-time scientists.
Actually, our children are a direct result of the combination of their parents' DNA. As such, they are already shaped into our image by a process over which we had no control: the husband's eyes, the mother's body shape, even the likely birthweight of their children.
Now who is better suited to understanding and teaching a child than the people who, working together, contain all that the child contains? I am synesthetic. My child is synesthetic. Am I not as well suited to teaching him coping methods as the non-synesthetic public school teacher?
Many of the most brilliant people in the world were taught at home. Some of them, like Edison, were removed from school after flunking out. When a child is capable of creating blueprints in his head, who is better suited to help him? Someone who can do the same thing, or someone who cannot?
You've put forth a false claim here in linking the shaping of your child with beating and brainwashing him. Would you claim that you cannot braid hair without pulling it out of the scalp, or that you cannot close the snaps on clothing without crushing the metal? Of course not. There's use and there's abuse, and it's a logical fallacy to claim that one is always the other.
Actually, homeschooling is not allowed even if you are an examined teacher. Every single homeschooling family in Germany is operating either secretly or under direct threat of fines or jail time.
In addition, the claim of criminal negligence was made despite the children all excelling at the state-administered tests. Basically, in Germany, educational negligence is defined as not having your child in a public or State-Approved private school, regardless of his or her actual achievement level.
Blah, that's BS, Coward.
Um... no he doesn't say the word "ready" at all... he doesn't even hint at the idea of being "ready" for the evils he describes. And the evils he describes are specific evils unique to public school. He provides no framework in which these things should, at some future point, be learned by a child... or even an adult.
He makes three points:
1. Sending a kid to school teaches him/her that you don't care about him. There was nothing in there about a kid not being ready... indeed, any good parent would never want to teach their kid that they don't care about them.
2. Sending a kid to school puts them in an environment where they receive minimal adult attention and are expected to perform. Most adults can hardly be expected to perform when they are given little to no instruction in advance. Again, nothing about being "ready".
3. Schools teach objectification. There is nothing redeeming about objectification and no one should ever learn it... so no one is ever "ready" to learn it.
None of these things that kids learn in schools have a proper time to be learned, because no one should learn them, not even adults. These are categorical evils to be avoided by all.
The only reply I have is this:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/science.jpg
I'm not saying that you didn't go there and measure it yourself. I'm just surprised that you did it and got out to tell the tale.
I suppose there's a small possibility that the figure is completely made up, either by you or the Glorious Shining Leader or whatever he calls himself.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have never met a single home school family, and I have met over a thousand, that sent their dumb kid to public school and kept their smart kid home. How many have you met that have done that? I have met many home school families that have started homeschooling because their kid was dumb, or because they were "dumb". (as in they did really poorly at public school, but as soon as they were not being held back, they suddenly stopped being "dumb")
So, unless you have something other than personal denial, we can come to the conclusion that you are wrong about that.
The question comes down to this: are children people with rights of their own, are they members of society, or are they property of their parents?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Statistically, with a large enough sample, extremes tend to cancel out. This is why trial by jury exists - the odds of 12 random people all being nutters (and being the same kind of nutters) are much lower than the chance of a single judge having extreme opinions on something or other.
On that basis, the state - by virtue of being composed of a very large number of individuals who influence its government and policies[1] - is considerably more likely to take a moderate position than two random parents.
[1] This of course only apples to democratic states, but last time I looked Germany is one.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I apologize for using a rhetoric in a conversation for someone who clearly cannot handle it. Let me be as plain as possible:
Home Schools and Private Schools do not have students assigned to them.
Public schools have students assigned to them.
Therefore you can not draw direct comparisons between these school types. Public schools have to educate all students and Home and Private schools get to chose their students.
Try to follow along here. I am not saying something ludicrous like parents can pick their children. I'm saying that home school parents DO have a choice whether to home school their children or not. In that sense they are choosing which students they teach, just like a private school. In their case they would opt NOT to teach their children, in the case of private schools the would opt TO teach your child, but in both cases they have a choice, which public schools do not.
I totally agree. My father was a skilled auto mechanic, and was always able to support his family because he was very good at the job. My brother followed in his footsteps and is a partner on a NASCAR team. He does pretty well for himself. The father of one of my best friends growing up was a plumber, and he made a lot more money than my dad. Electricians are always in demand and can charge a great deal for their skill.
Trade skills are just as important as professional skills because not everyone is capable of doing those kinds of jobs. A healthy free market economy needs all kinds of workers to prosper. Oh, that's right. Our economy is not particularly healthy right now.
You'll have to forgive me. I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged right now, and it is seriously affecting my worldview in relation to what's going on in the U.S. today. Odd how a book published in 1957 is more relevant today than when it was first on the NYT best seller list.
Yeah. I mean who are we to say that incest is wrong and being above ground is right? That's just liberal nanny-state fascism!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, you can't act as you like. That's not what freedom of religion is about. It's "hands off my mind", not "don't tell me what to do".
You're simply wrong about Gore. The academic consensus is very strong. Popular media might not portray it very reliably or well, but it's there. Academia is the most reliable institution for determining truth that we have. What it says might not be aimed at countering a spirited opposition by industry, the faithful, or the politically inspired, but that does not change things. You might "make up your own mind", but if you don't study the field, you might as well be making stuff up - without relevant background, we can't understand the fields. I have limited expertese in a few fields, reasonable understanding of several more, and much more limited understanding of other fields. You'd be a fool to listen to me speculate on physics - no matter how much I tried to make sense (or how good I might sound if I worked on it), I simply lack the background to be authoritative. It's too easy for vested interests to hire talking heads to dispute the experts.
False. You have had plenty of opportunity to say what gives government this right, and you've failed to even try. (And simply saying "society gives them that right" is, of course, not a serious argument, because that would justify all manner of atrocities, including the Holocaust.)
Unfortunately, you've failed by Godwin's Law here, and you shamefully lose the discussion (with no demerit to your actual position). Pity. I was enjoying the back-and-forth, and now I don't even need to read the rest of your argument. Oh well. Be more careful next time.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
You're confusing the public school system for the crap that children watch on television.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I would say what matters even more is the fact that parents care about their child's education in the first place. Both my parents are teachers, and from what I have gathered from them, the worst problem children come from families who don't care. I'm referring to parents who don't check their kid's report card, doesn't see to it that homework is getting done, and sometimes isn't even bothering to make sure the kid is actually at school at all. A child quickly learns from this attitude that their academics don't matter, and thus most of them stop putting any effort into it.
Home-schooled children by definition have parents who care, be it for religious reasons or not. And really, even an education mutilated by religious concerns is still better for a child then absolutely no education at all, which is what happens for some in public schools. Instead of crying about parents caring enough to intervene in their child's education, I think we need to worry much more about the children who have no one to care for them at all.
It's not the goal of religion to explain *how* the world works (i.e. the rules of the game). Or rather, those people who expect religion to explain how the world works are bound to be disappointed, or labelled as blind fools (cf fundamentalists); I would call that superstition. Even a young-earth creationist can be a productive biologist, as long as he accepts the fact that the Law of Evolution makes useful predictions; whether it does so due to science or because God likes it that way is beside the point, as far as science is concerned.
The problem with fundamentalism isn't WHAT they believe, it's that they try to force you to live your life based on their beliefs. But that's not religion, it's jackassery (which unfortunately exists in all human cultures), and I'd be pleased if people could learn to tell the difference (just as I would hope that I could go abroad as an American and not be personally blamed for Iraq).
Seems to me that "there is no global Truth" and "Truth is contextual" is meta-truth. :)
Personally, I see Truth as a many-dimensioned object, which, like a hypercube, we can never fully picture in our minds. Each one views it from a different angle.
But I try not to be dogmatic about it, and I only get grumpy when people (either fundamentalist or atheist) insist that they alone know what Truth is, and everyone else is naive (although I've called people naive in turn, so I'm a bit hypocritical).
who is GOVERNMENT to tell me I have to follow ITS rules for MY kids?
So because they are your kids, the government can tell you NOTHING about how to raise them. So if you want to pull them out of school and teach them how evolution is evil, or blacks are evil, or Muslims are evil then you should have that right. And if you want to sexually abuse them and smack them around at your own will then thats solely your business too and the government has no right to interfere.
Free does not mean absolute freedom to do anything you wish as any time.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Well, incest is wrong.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
You seem to miss my point, and also you make my point. If my child destroys your property the question of negligence/responsibility you cede is asked of the parents which is my point. The fact that degree is considered doesn't invalidate the responsibility.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
Heh! You've been watching Contact.
Anyway, I am myself a religious person (albeit lacking a religion) so I can understand your point and I suspect on all practical questions we take the same approach. I merely enjoy debating logic and classification.
Always a pleasure,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
So because they are your kids, the government can tell you NOTHING about how to raise them.
Correct.
So if you want to pull them out of school and teach them how evolution is evil, or blacks are evil, or Muslims are evil then you should have that right.
Also correct.
And if you want to sexually abuse them and smack them around at your own will then thats solely your business too and the government has no right to interfere.
If by "smack them around" you mean to cause serious physical harm, then the answer to both is no, because that is a violation of their rights. That's where the distinction (obviously) lies.
But as long as there's a First Amendment, government has no right to say that teaching a child any of those things you described is a violation of that child's rights. For it to do that, it would have to assert that my views are wrong, and it is literally incapable of such an assertion.
And that's a great thing. I am grateful, as everyone should be, to live in a country where the government is not allowed to decide what is goodthink and what is badthink.
Free does not mean absolute freedom to do anything you wish as any time.
No one ever said or implied that. I said the equivalent of, "I have the right to swing my fist, and government can't tell me how to do it, when to do it, or when to stop." That's absolutely true, but what is also true that I am not allowed to punch someone else in the nose.
So you seem to assert that the "right religion" tells adherents that "Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins"...
Do I have that right?
Because you have been so quiet on this matter for so long, and so many of your writings seem to me to be so unchristian, that I thought you might have changed...
There is no "right religion" to choose
False. Of course there is.
they shouldn't brainwash the children into any religion
If by "brainwash" you mean parents cannot teach their children that Jesus Christ is their Savior who died for their sins, then you're wrong. This is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Make your mind up. Earlier you claimed that parents always know best.
Do you think parents should be allowed to prevent a child from receiving a life-saving blood transfusion? I don't, but Jehovah's witnesses do.
Do you think parents should be allowed to prevent a child from receiving sex ed classes? I don't, but some do.
Do you think parents should be allowed to prevent a child from learning about evolution? I don't but some do.
How about arranged marriages and polygamy? Many religions practice these. How about genital mutilation?
Whether you like it or not, there is a line where the state intervenes (rightly) to protect children against the idiocy of their parents.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Newton was a devout bible scholar and a subscriber to the idea of Arian Heresy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism/
Copernicus was a priest.
What's your point?
Religious believers/advocates doing science is still science. Science is a method.
Newton didn't discover calculus or the laws of motion in the bible or the koran. He observed and experimented; he was doing science.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Clearly you do not equate physical abuse with mental abuse. Talk with some women who have been mentally abused by their husbands by condescending and derogatory statements, swearing and yelling, and see if no harm has ever come to them.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Clearly you do not equate physical abuse with mental abuse.
Clearly you never demonstrated that anything having to do with homeschooling constitutes abuse.
Like I said, I believe home schooling CAN be a very good thing, and some children will prosper under home schooling vs institution learning. The ONLY thing I asserted is that ALL learning institutions must conform to a minimum standard of care and curriculum for the children. If a parent or teacher or priest want to teach more than that then that is their right. I'm talking about a minimum acceptable standard of teaching. Thats it. I don't see why you are opposed to such a thing.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
So because they are your kids, the government can tell you NOTHING about how to raise them.
Correct.
So if you want to pull them out of school and teach them how evolution is evil, or blacks are evil, or Muslims are evil then you should have that right.
Also correct.
But as long as there's a First Amendment, government has no right to say that teaching a child any of those things you described is a violation of that child's rights.
So by your logic, it is perfectly acceptable for certain Muslim children to be brainwashed that America is evil and to be taught how to use a weapon and kill, and that they will be rewarded b y sacrificing their life? This brainwashing is perfectly within their rights according to you since they are only TEACHING the children not actually doing any physical harm to the children or anyone else.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Like I said, I believe home schooling CAN be a very good thing, and some children will prosper under home schooling vs institution learning. The ONLY thing I asserted is that ALL learning institutions must conform to a minimum standard of care and curriculum for the children.
But those two sentences are incompatible.
If homeschooling is not inherently bad, then the very act of homeschooling is not evidence of any wrongdoing. This is obviously a true statement.
And if there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, under our Constitution, the government has no right to force me to provide them with any information about what is happening in my home. This is also an obviously true statement.
So you're stuck. You can think that I should have to conform to a "minimum standard" of education, but constitutionally, you have no way to enforce it, unless you are going to claim that homeschooling itself is evidence of wrongdoing.
I don't see why you are opposed to such a thing.
If nothing else, because government simply has no right to do it.
Practically, what if I am against testing? There's very good educational reasons to be against them, but pretty much all states use them to see if standards are being met. What if I decide that certain things are not worth teaching? For example, I think that -- for most people -- learning a foreign language is a gigantic waste of time (not that it is a bad thing, but that the time can be used in much better ways, if English is your native tongue); what if the government decided I had to teach it?
I know better than anyone else what is best for my kids in their education. I am doing a disservice to my kids, and failing my obligations as a parent, to subject my will for what is best for them to the government's will, especially when it has no right to enforce its will in the first place.
So by your logic, it is perfectly acceptable for certain Muslim children to be brainwashed that America is evil and to be taught how to use a weapon and kill, and that they will be rewarded b y sacrificing their life?
Legally acceptable? Yes, of course. If the line is crossed to where they are encouraged in any way to commit a crime (I did not read in your description any such encouragement), then that's obviously a different story.
Note that I have absolutely no problem with teaching kids how to use a weapon and kill. And I have no problem with teaching kids that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for sacrifices made on Earth. I see nothing wrong, legally or practically, with any of that.
I assume you mean that it is a matter of context, but again, that's where we need to see whether any actual encouragement is made to commit criminal acts.
It's not hard, really: if parents commit a crime ... then they commit a crime. Nothing I said implied that you can commit crimes with or against your children. Homeschooling is not justification for criminal activity. But homeschooling ITSELF is not a criminal activity, nor evidence of such, and as such, government has no business weaseling its way into it ... because that's what the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments say.
But those two sentences are incompatible.
Not in the slightest.
So you're stuck. You can think that I should have to conform to a "minimum standard" of education, but constitutionally, you have no way to enforce it, unless you are going to claim that homeschooling itself is evidence of wrongdoing.
That argument makes absolutely ZERO sense.
I am doing a disservice to my kids, and failing my obligations as a parent, to subject my will for what is best for them to the government's will, especially when it has no right to enforce its will in the first place.
This makes no sense. Your point of view is completely without basis.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
This is ridiculous. I can't believe you advocate brainwashing of children to kill. How Christian of you.
You keep bringing up the amendments (actually you just added to the list) but I dont see how any of that applies to a minimum standard of education:
First - freedonm of religion and speech. Nothing about education.
Fourth - guards against unreasonable searches - nothing about education
Fifth - due process in the judicial suystem - nothing about education
Fourteenth - citizenship, right to vote, and you cannot question the federal debt - nothing about education
So why exactly do any of hte above apply to the discussion of noone being able to impose a minumum standard of education? If you want to make up excuses to keep your children stupid, then go ahead but I really dont see what the problem is.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Err, that is a fallacy. If the truth is infinitely different when viewed from different "angles", then essentially anyone can pick any "truth" and act accordingly. There would be some kind of a "fundamentalist wack-job truth" that is on par with "rigorously analyzed and empirically proven scientific truth". Every bomb-strapped-to-his-ass fanatic would be right as equally as an arithmetician writing 2+2=4.
This is of course what fanatics of all stripes have been braying all along, things going so far as some political lunatics claiming that they "create their own reality" because they are somehow "special".
And naturally this id radically different from what I was saying: that our empirical experimentation can expose the truth of our common and current reality (as far as it is testable) and the question of any additional meta-truths beyond, truths which cannot be empirically experienced (and thus are untestable) is irrelevant because with or without additional "meta" levels of reality nothing changes as far as our life is concerned and there are infinite (literally) number of possible "meta" worlds with their attendant "meta truths".
Common sense does. Doing something and having it done to you are not the same thing. Learning and teaching are not the same thing.
Do you understand the difference between having some teeth pulled and being a dentist?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That argument makes absolutely ZERO sense.
I don't think you know much about law (and you've already clearly demonstrated you know almost nothing about rights).
To anyone who knows anything about law, what I said makes perfect sense. There's room for disagreement, but its very clear. If you really don't understand it, perhaps you could tell me what you're having trouble with and I could explain it to you.
This is ridiculous. I can't believe you advocate brainwashing of children to kill.
There's no such thing as brainwashing. When you use the word "brainwashing" I substitute it with its actual meaning in real life: "teaching."
And what's wrong with killing? There's nothing wrong with hunting, and there's nothing wrong with killing in defense of your own life, or that of others.
How Christian of you.
Shrug. Show me in the Bible where it says killing is wrong. MURDER is wrong, of course, but you didn't talk about teaching children to MURDER.
You keep bringing up the amendments (actually you just added to the list) but I dont see how any of that applies to a minimum standard of education
Yes, you don't.
First - freedonm of religion and speech. Nothing about education.
My religious beliefs are such that I believe the government has no role in the education of my children.
Fourth - guards against unreasonable searches - nothing about education
Government has no right to take from me evidence of whether or not I am instructing my children according to their standards.
Fifth - due process in the judicial suystem - nothing about education
Government has no right to force me to prove that I am educating my children according to their standards.
Fourteenth - citizenship, right to vote, and you cannot question the federal debt - nothing about education
Again, due process. This is the same amendment used to give women the "right to privacy" in abortion. And for the exact same reasons, I have the right to privacy in the education of my children.
If you want to make up excuses to keep your children stupid
Don't make yourself look like more of a clown than you already have: my children being homeschooled would have a far better, broader, and successful education than the overwhelming majority of children going to public schools.
I really dont see what the problem is.
Yes, because you know very little about law and rights.
Well, we back from good old Europe have a very different view of the gouverment. Nor will they every come up with any "intelligent Design" BS.
Because religion is a minority here. None will ever state anything like "God bless us" or something similar.
Things just run different here.
Oh, and who here can homeschool their kids? The amount of home-stay moms is a very very minority. Mostly rich ones, and they are the last who would homeschool their kids.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
There is no point in continuing this discussion. You dont believe in brainwashing and you don't believe in mental abuse. Maybe for mindless religious crackpots such as yourself this may be true, but for the rest of us with a brain these are very real.
You claim to be a Christian but poor people can simply rot without receiving needed healthcare, while you refuse to even acknowledge they have a problem, let alone help them.
You think it is perfectly ok to teach children religious dogma and racist bullshit and to justify killing other people - you are sick.
Your arguments are circular and consist on nothing more than stating truisms. It's clear you know nothing about religion, law or the constitution except your own flawed understanding of it, which is more about what you *think* the law should be rather than what it is.
Open your eyes and your mind and really try to understand the world around you - not just the distorted version you learned from your religious cult.
I will pray for your soul and those of your family to hope that you will eventually see a better life, free of the hatred and prejudice that you now have.
Don't bother responding, I refuse to read any more of your drivel.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You dont believe in brainwashing ...
That's only because there's never been an example of it found, in any way that could be scientifically verified.
Why do you hate science?
... and you don't believe in mental abuse
You're a liar. I never stated or implied any such thing.
Maybe for mindless religious crackpots such as yourself
If I am mindless, what does that say about you, since I completely destroyed every argument you made against me?
You claim ... poor people can simply rot without receiving needed healthcare, while you refuse to even acknowledge they have a problem, let alone help them.
You're a liar. I never stated or implied any of those things.
You think it is perfectly ok to teach children religious dogma
There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with "religious dogma." No evidence has been presented against teaching religious dogma other than the thoroughly unconvincing "I disagree with it."
... and racist bullshit ...
Legally, yes, of course it is OK. It MUST be, if we have freedom.
... and to justify killing other people
Um. So if someone breaks into my house, and tries to kill my family, and my best way of protecting my family is to kill the assailant ... that's not justified? YOU are the one who is sick.
Your arguments are circular and consist on nothing more than stating truisms.
Then you should have been able to demonstrate this. You could not.
It's clear you know nothing about religion, law or the constitution
Then you should have been able to demonstrate this. You could not.
Open your eyes and your mind and really try to understand the world around you
That's MY line to YOU. You want to bury the things you dislike in society, so that those things you dislike CANNOT BE understood. I want to allow freedom to bloom, so that everyone might have the greatest understanding of everyone else possible.
I will pray for your soul and those of your family to hope that you will eventually see a better life, free of the hatred and prejudice that you now have.
You're a liar. I never expressed, in the slightest bit, any hatred or prejudice, toward any person or group of people.
On the other hand, you are the one has consistently, including in this very comment I am replying to, demonstrated vile hatred of people who disagree with you.
It's called "projecting."