What’s Wrong with the World

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry for the shouting. That's hilarious.

It makes me think of one of those paragraphs making fun of spell checker. For example "know where" would pass the spell checker test...

This is a perfect example of something that needs to be studied by anthropologists: the meme of the "socialization" so-called "problem" of homeschooling seems to have sprung forward from sheer nothingness full-blown into the minds of educators, parents, and children, without any steps in between to pick up facts along the way. People who think the theory "makes sense" are, typically, people whose command of the facts stops at point 1: homeschooled kids are not in school all day long. That's it, beyond that they simply don't have any facts upon which to begin thinking. They don't even know that the minimal phrasing of point 1 above is structured to avoid saying that "they are not in class" at all, because plenty of homeschool kids do co-op classes intermittently, or go to community college for advanced classes, or join with schools for certain classes (shop, sports, etc) in some magnet schools and other open-minded arrangements.

In reality, I suspect that by any rational test of social capability, homeschool graduates so far exceed public school graduates that it is unfair to even put the two groups into the same category. But that's not my point. It's just funny hearing the "socialization" issue come from the mouths of people who have NEVER studied a single thing about homeschooling, even a popular magazine article. It appears to be a meme that spread by mental virus starting around the early 90's. There is no science that even CLAIMS to support it, there isn't even much of a pop-science theory that owns the idea as its own. It would be a back-ground prejudicial assumption of the culture, if only it actually were a part of the background culture in some sense. But the idea was never even mentioned until 1985.

It's probably as bogus as the self-esteem movement. That much of adult life is organized around junior high-like socialization is a bug not a feature of our culture and is hardly an argument against home schooling.

Tony, although I have not studied the matter in much depth, it seems to me that the contemporary idea of "socialization" with regard to school is a holdover from century-old "progressive" arguments in favor of compulsory state schooling. The basic idea then was for state schooling to supplant local and familial prejudices with a more cosmopolitan spirit. I think that this aim persists, though the usual talk of "socialization" is a watered down, unreflective expression of the idea.

But the idea was never even mentioned until 1985.

I didn't know that, Tony. I had the impression it was something the educators pulled out of the hat the moment anyone thought of home schooling, which was somewhat earlier than 1985. Of course in the mid-80's home schooling became more widespread, which would naturally result in our hearing the anti-homeschooling canards more commonly then as well. But I thought it had been around all along.

"When you are home schooled, you automaticly loose the whole social experience of school. In the real world you need to be social."

Heh...as if the bizarre "social experience" of the average American high-school - where so many long-term losers are short-term winners - were in any way a preparation for the realities of normal human life.

Young children & teenagers ought to spend as little time amongst themselves, and as much time amongst adults, as possible.

Heh...as if the bizarre "social experience" of the average American high-school - where so many long-term losers are short-term winners - were in any way a preparation for the realities of normal human life.

Exactly. A point that cannot be made too often.

"When you are home schooled, you automaticly loose the whole social experience of school. In the real world you need to be social."

This reminds me of an argument I had with a girlfriend in college who was a goth in high school. She used this used this line of argument on me, which was ironic because she told me that after Columbine a few of the jocks at her high school joked about gang-raping her "to show them" (the goths, nerds, punks, etc.) whose boss.

So I asked her which socialization lessons she needed "for the real" world that only public schools teach. Was it forming hostile cliques? Learning to deaden your emotions to survive in a crowd? How to identify the weak and get away with tormenting them?

For many kids, public schools are Lord of the Flies minus the somewhat redeeming tropical locale.

Tony, our oldest was born in '76. We decided we would homeschool when he had learned to read by the time he was three, with no instruction from anyone. We did extensive research on the issue so that we could write up an apologia for our horrified parents and others -- and everything we read had this issue at the forefront. Those opposed to homeschooling brought this up as the first and foremost reason to do oppose it; those in favor addressed this issue very early on in their arguments. So it's been around ever since the beginning of today's movement, I'm sure (our research included books and articles from the early 60s).

Beth,

All you need to know about the public schools is that the original model for mass public education was built around the goal of training semi-literate quasi-automata fit for working in an industrializing Germany who would not rebel against the Prussian aristocracy. The main difference today is we do it for obedience to Big Business/Government/Labor instead of 19th century nobility.

* "to oppose" -- I can't type.

Yeah, Mike T -- that would've done it for our parents! After all, *they and we* went to public schools and turned it just fine! :) (They actually did; us, not so much.)

@Mike T:

"forming hostile cliques? Learning to deaden your emotions to survive in a crowd? How to identify the weak and get away with tormenting them?"

Yeah - I think that's a pretty good summary of what people learn in the average public high school.

* turned "out" just fine -- I think it's time to go home and read instead of trying to communicate with anyone. Sheesh.

This is why we need to dismantle the teachers unions. Our population is being told, in convincing fashion, that the irregular and dysfunctional arrangement created by the public school system is somehow "normal" and indeed "normative". Home schooled kids are "deprived" because they aren't shuttled into a gulag where they only interact with kids their own age and adults who are, by all objective metrics, the dumbest and most ideological of those get a college degree.

True story: Those who become "teachers" are, by all objective measures, the dumbest of our educated classes. Moreover, their state-sanctioned monopoly on education is propped up by kickbacks and lobbying.

End result: We are participating in a system in which a bunch of low-IQ liberal ideologues control the education of our kids. This cannot end well.

I think it's not surprising that the "socialization" criticism came up very early in the attacks on home schooling.

We social conservatives who (understandably) inveigh against the "individualism" of our society must never forget how essentially collectivist twentieth century progressivism was and how that has carried over into the 21st century. The family was attacked as a bourgeois institution. Everybody had to mach mitt for "social good." I forget who it was--possibly Hayek--who wrote a wonderful rant against the use of the word "social" in his time. It's not at all surprising that a cognate of that word should have been used as a criticism of so anti-collectivist an activity as home schooling. It truly reflects the progressive hatred of people who won't walk in lockstep and turn over their kids to them for "social" training.

Translation of Macie P: "It's more important for me to run in a feral pack of consumerist hedonists than to be edumacated and civilized (like, ugh!)."

I don't want my children in the public schools because of the socialization.

Amusing.

I was homeschooled, K-12, and there is some truth to the lack of socialization; many homeschooled kids tend to be awkward around others of the same age. At the same time, they tend to be respectful of elders: parents, coaches, etc.

And this lack of socialization tends to resolve itself during college and young adult life. I'm 28 years old, I've got a good career, I'm a public speaker, I've got a great wife, two kids, a house, friends. Ditto for the other homeschooled folks I grew up with; they likewise are no longer awkward shy nerds, nor are they lacking social lives today.

Bottom line: there's truth in the lack of socialization during childhood and teen years, but ultimately, you come out a decent person. :-)

I like the way she ends her reasons against home schooling by telling us she would never even consider it.

There would be less home schooling if there were more private and parochial schools, modest incentives would help. But da guvmint is allergic to competition,[sorry Mike T, but Big Business doesn't have a Dept. of Education, and in any case was big before the slow death of educational alternatives.] This is the age of Mass, of commonality, control, and uniformity. There is a species of human, not uncommon, that craves the Great Pigeon Hole, the faceless, the manipulated group, the catagorized. Less themselves of course. Memory is a dying faculty. less favoritte rock songs, movies, and unmentiobale sensory experiences. But as such as Burke to Kundera have said, it is the tutor of civilization. Best to strangle it, it is more than modernity, and modern education, can handle. Diversity has adopted new meaning, as has much of our language.
And we contniue to blather about the gods, Math and Science. Technics rules, but true civiliaztion withers.

Beth, I stand corrected. I personally had never heard anyone use "socialization" in terms of schooling (home, private, or public) in any context at all. Given that I was at least 3 times better read than 98% of my school peers, having one of my peers in his 20s come up with the socialization canard as if it were something already well understood was, to me, like hearing a child spout a doctoral dissertation as if were old hat.

Mike T, I thought "Lord of the Flies" was actually modeled on British school children - probably a British public boarding school (which we would call a private school). Wasn't Golding just panning the boarding school mentality? (Well, I am sure he was poking his finger in the eye of a lot more as well, of course.)

Lydia, homeschooling never fully "went away" in this country, there has always been a small steady stream of it, I believe: families who lived too far out in the boonies for buses, rich people who could bring in tutors for the full panoply, and other unusual situations. There has always been a low-level Protestant do-it-yourself sentiment, although I don't know how many of them managed to school at home in the 40s, to 60s.

And I think she's right. I think she shouldn't homeschool. The system has failed her so badly I don't think she has anything to offer her children. So sad!

Why won't people give this up? You'd think by now the results should be pretty obvious.

Judah H., a portion of the awkwardness displayed by homeschool kids during their teen years is in trying - and being miserable at - figuring out and conforming to the irrational school-yard social dynamics of their silly school peers. Once they cease to be forced to deal with that silly dynamic, they immediately lose a portion of the awkwardness. (I will admit it is only a portion: there are a number of homeschool kids who are odd because their parents are odd. Is this a case of more so than school kids whose parents are odd? No telling, it cannot be measured.)

johnt, there might be MORE homeschooling if there were comparable monetary incentives: if there was a tax credit for money paid to private schools AND for money spent directly on home education costs like text books, computer & printer, and so on. In any case, I believe that it is a bad idea for schools (especially in primary years) to be non-sectarian, and therefore I believe that there should be virtually no place for state-run education in the lower grades. The money now spent on that should go to a myriad of small neighborhood and church-based schools of 50 to 200 students, with ton's of parental input on curriculum and teachers selected.

I looked through the comments and they all seem really similar. Are they for real?

"So I asked her which socialization lessons she needed "for the real" world that only public schools teach. Was it forming hostile cliques? Learning to deaden your emotions to survive in a crowd? How to identify the weak and get away with tormenting them?"

Some of this anti-public school rhetoric is as bad as the homeschooling rhetoric.

"Hostile cliques"? I made great friends, some of which I'm still friends with today.

"Learning to deaden your emotions to survive in a crowd?" Um...no, not even really sure what that means but whatever it is I was spared that trial.

"How to identify the weak and get away with tormenting them?" Oh come on now, I detested bullies as did my friends. I BECAME friends with the weak. And yeah, there's something to be said for having to deal with bullies and social struggles young so that you can handle them later. I honestly think dealing with bullies helped me later in life.

Furthermore, several public school teachers had a major, positive impact on my life, and I'm glad I mean them. None had an overtly negative impact.

I mean, I actually AGREE with you, homeschooling is a very good thing, but you're making yourselves look bad by being so over-the-top about this.

By the way, when I say "I became friends with the weak", I don't think my friends were ACTUALLY weak, I'm using the term in the sense you seem to be, which means susceptible to bullying which could be due to a LOT of factors besides "weakness".

JaG, I think you missed Mike T's point. He was giving examples of "socialization lessons" that one could identify as being available in state-run schools and not through homeschooling. One can make friends, deal with bullies, and be influenced by good adults without attending school.

So you really believe that homeschooling has all the positives of public school and none of the negatives?

Doesn't that seem a little far-fetched? You really won't concede that there are at least SOME benefits to public school?

I mean, sure, you can be influenced by good adults, but I've had some great teachers who I never would have met except through public school. Sure, you'll always deal with bullies, there were experiences I had that only happened to me because of public school that shaped my character in a positive way today. And sure, one could make friends, but without public school I would never have met some of my best friends.

By the way-I AGREE with this article 100%! I think that homeschooling is an excellent thing. But really, as somebody who had good experiences in public school I think some of this vitriolic hatred is over the top and not really indicative of the actual state of public schools.

"So you really believe that homeschooling has all the positives of public school and none of the negatives?"

What did I include in my comment that would lead you to infer that I think that?

Young children & teenagers ought to spend as little time amongst themselves, and as much time amongst adults, as possible.

We are all going to spend the majority of our lives as a chronological adults, we might as well get on with the business of learning to be a psychological adult as soon and as completely as possible.

Judah: Bottom line: there's truth in the lack of socialization during childhood and teen years, but ultimately, you come out a decent person. :-)

A child whose time is spent in the company of adults may be "awkward" when thrown abruptly into the shark-tank of a mass of other children, but that's hardly a reason to force all parents to always subject all their children to the shark-tank. I think it's rather a datum to argument for eliminating the shark-tanks altogether.

BTW: hello; long time.

But really, as somebody who had good experiences in public school I think some of this vitriolic hatred is over the top and not really indicative of the actual state of public schools.

I know that I would never have finished high school, much less have gone on to college without the three-year respite I had from public schools during the 8-10 grades. I also instanly went from being (at best) a C-student to being nearly a straight A-student (I was even the valedictorian of my 8th grade year, and was 10th of about 250 in the 12th grade year), and which carried through the remainder of high school and into college.

I imagine that there _are_ young people who have a good experience with peers in public schools. They're the lucky ones. Anecdotally, one certainly hears and sees more to the contrary, including young people who think themselves that they had a good experience but who turned out in such a way that one is very glad not to have children who resemble them.

And my guess would be that there is, as one might say, a lot more educational standardization even than social standardization. That is to say, I doubt anyone got through any public school in the last twenty years (or more) without a certain amount of liberal indoctrination ingrained in the curriculum, at least. Whether they found nice kids or not and made good friends will probably vary more by region or even school district.

"Yet, as someone who had experience of both public schools and religious schools, I find the "vitriolic hatred" of public schools to be spot-on."

Sure, some will. But me and (almost) all of my friends, who have turned into well-adjusted adults and certainly aren't popular, don't find it spot-on.

I mean, sure, there will be kids who have a hard time in public school. No denying that at all. But I know too many people who enjoyed it and went on to have successful lives to think that we're SUUUUCH a huge minority.

I mean, the comments against homeschooling are full of holes and are terrible arguments (and I do, after all, support homeschooling), but the very fact that so many people on there are SUPPORTING public school has to at least tell you that there are a decent amount of people who liked their experiences there.

"What did I include in my comment that would lead you to infer that I think that?"

Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting you, that's not my intention, but here's how it looked to me:

I pointed out that I thought that a lot of Mike T's points were very over the top, and then I gave a couple of examples of certain positives I found in public school.

You said that his point really was to say that homeschooling allows you to learn all of the things that I just mentioned, but in a home environment, which is superior to a school environment.

That seems to me like you're basically saying that homeschooling as all the positives of public schooling and none of the negatives.

Lydia:

"Whether they found nice kids or not and made good friends will probably vary more by region or even school district."

No argument there. Public school has its flaws, no denying that.

BTW, just so I don't mislead people, I DID go to Catholic School in High School, and enjoyed it more than public school (although the teachers were definitely inferior). My public school experiences were from middle school, and my particular grade had a reputation for being a "bad" one. I still enjoyed a lot of my teachers and my friends.

@Just a guy:

Look, I don't doubt that plenty of people can come out of the public school system intact. But plenty of people can eat a high cholesterol diet without getting heart disease, and plenty of people can drink inordinate quantities of alcohol over their lifetimes without getting liver disease. The public school system in its present form(one which I was forced to endure for 12 years) is a dysfunctional, slow-motion social disaster. It misshapes people and it turns them into neurotic, dysfunctional, immature and narcissistic personalities of the sort that have been in superabundance for the last decade.

The public school system forces children into an unnatural and dysfunctional social environment. It segregates them by age and it creates a milieu in which there is no incentive to emulate adult behavior. Hence, the "cool" kids can exercise social power over the "uncool" kids because, in this unnatural age-segregated environment, the "cool kids" become the default models for peer mimesis. And becoming "cool", in the eyes of your typical 12 or 13 or 15 year old, bears no positive correlation to any socially desirable behavioral traits.

So there is no incentive to emulate adult behavior, nor is there any mechanism which rewards maturity or responsibility. This is why those who are outliers get bullied relentlessly in our schools. It is because there is no civilizing exposure to elders or adults, and no proper authority that can impose tacit standards of behavior. At the end of the day, the public school system imposes a mild version of Hobbes's "state of nature" on most of its participants. It is an unmitigated disaster.

This is why most of the homeschooled kids I know always seem to act as if they are three to four years more mature than their public-school peers.

And this is to say nothing of the subversive, hyper-leftist garbage and nonsense that is drilled into public schooled kids by the liberal educational establishment and the low-IQ, low performance ideologues who control it.

JaG:

"You said that his point really was to say that homeschooling allows you to learn all of the things that I just mentioned, [...]"

No, I did not. You pointed out that Mike T did not include certain things in his list and I explained why it would be reasonable for him, in the context of his comment, to exclude those things. (He was listing what one might identify as "socialization lessons" that one could learn in state-run schools and not in the course of homeschooling. The making of friends, for example, has no place in such a list, because one can make friends outside of school.) That was the extent of my remark. I never said that his "point" was what you describe; I cannot even tell from his comment whether he considered the specific things that you mentioned or whether he even considered those things to be "socialization lessons" (such as being influenced by adults).

"[...] but in a home environment, which is superior to a school environment."

My interpretation of Mike T's comment did not include this at all.

"That seems to me like you're basically saying that homeschooling as all the positives of public schooling and none of the negatives."

Even if you're right that I interpreted Mike T's comment in the way that you describe, what makes you think that I share his opinion? A man may attempt to clarify another's expressed opinion without holding that opinion himself. Furthermore, what you state here isn't even necessarily Mike T's opinion, since he addressed "socialization lessons" and not all "positives" and "negatives" that one might imagine.

J. W.:

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Your response seems to be kind of angry but all I was asking for was clarification. So thanks.

Untenured: FYI, my Mom was a teacher and she was not at all liberal, although I think your points made in your last paragraph were in general good ones and I agree with them. Just pointing out the inherent danger in generalizations.

Look, all I can say is I honestly don't find my experiences in public school to be that uncommon. That's the last I'll say on the subject, I promise.

Oh, and before I go, once again: I think homeschooling is a very good thing. I have absolutely no issues with it. I just want to make that clear.

There _are_ some non-liberal public school teachers, even non-liberal Christian public school teachers, but things can be made tough for them. For one thing, they don't get to choose their own curriculum, and for another thing, they're pretty muzzled as far as what they could get in trouble for saying.

@ Untenured, 11:57 a.m.:

Yes, yes & yes. It's hard to single out the best point that you're making, here, because they're all so good. But this stands out:

"The public school system forces children into an unnatural and dysfunctional social environment. It segregates them by age and it creates a milieu in which there is no incentive to emulate adult behavior. Hence, the 'cool' kids can exercise social power over the 'uncool' kids because, in this unnatural age-segregated environment, the 'cool kids' become the default models for peer mimesis. And becoming 'cool', in the eyes of your typical 12 or 13 or 15 year old, bears no positive correlation to any socially desirable behavioral traits."

JaG - having both suffered through & taught in public high schools, all I can say is that, if it was good for you, then you must have been one of the bad (i.e., complacent, self-satisfied) guys, indifferent to the misery of your social inferiors.

Untenured, I am not sure of what in your description applies specifically to the "public" in public schools. I think most if not all applies to private religious and to private non-religious schools as well.

Just a Guy, my experience is that on average public school teachers have higher competence in their subject matter than parochial schools do. This is mostly because parochial schools are forever underfunded, and cannot afford to pay a fully accredited teacher what she or he is actually worth. Those who have the competence will often go where that competence will be paid appropriately. This is not to carp at such teachers - most of them need to raise a family, and you CAN'T raise a family on the income of a parochial school teacher. I know 2 people who taught in a Catholic high school: one had to work weekends at a pizza shop to make ends meet, the other could only continue his career teaching while he was single.

It is an open question whether the subject matter competence by which public school teachers exceed that of the parochial school teachers more than offsets the religious training and moral discipline. The variation in how much of either you get at a religious school is so great that any comparison probably doesn't actually mean anything.

One of the "positives" in a very large school, (which usually translates even better in a university), is that there is, mostly, some kind of "group" for most kids. There are typically more clubs and more students for one to find "fellow travelers" for even some oddball types: the nerds that would be mocked at a modest-sized school can find the nerd group that's building robots and hang out with them. But you have to realize that this is a "positive" more in relation to the other option - the smaller-school shark tank - than a positive simply speaking. In the wider sphere of the city that most people will live as adults, there is very little need for a nerd (or other oddball type) to constantly saddle himself with the attention of those he doesn't wish to be around.

There are indeed some perfectly sound kids coming out of public schools. And out of private schools. I know some truly excellent adults who thought their school years were just dandy. What you will find very often, I think, is that they either (a) were part of one of the "in" groups and rarely had to suffer mockery, or (b) had enough independence and self-reliance that they would have done well in virtually any environment. It is hard, in my experience, to find well-adjusted adults who NOW view their schooling as a positive for them precisely on account of the specific school-room dynamics where they had to suffer regularly from said dynamics. So, I don't put much stock in proclaiming that said shark-tanks are good for development. Those who manage to come out as whole persons don't much think so themselves.

JaG:

"Your response seems to be kind of angry but all I was asking for was clarification."

My comments tend to be blunt, and sometimes people mistake my bluntness for anger.

Here's the thing though. You just invented a position for me with no basis for doing so, not to mention you misused a remark by Mike T to launch an argument against a point that he didn't make. So, I implore you, in the future please make use of the reading comprehension skills that you acquired through your schooling.

Tony, I can't agree entirely about subject-matter competence when we're talking about the teaching of basics in the lower grades. What experience I've had indicates that when it comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic (plus basics of spelling, grammar, and mechanics in writing), parochial schools with their underfunded teachers tend to excel over public schools because they are self-consciously countercultural and insist on teaching the basics in old-fashioned ways. Their teachers have less often been trained in whatever disastrous trendy fad happens to be on tap in the education establishment. In fact, the tiny schools that have the least funding (and therefore have problems offering a top-class high school education) are often the best of all in K-8 compared with their public school counterparts, because they use curriculum that insists on phonics, memorization of basic math facts, and the like, and the teachers are on-board with that.

To make it concrete, I'll go out on a limb and bet that never in a small Christian school would one have found teachers teaching "inventive spelling," which was all the rage in our supposedly top-notch local public schools ten years ago. (I don't know if they've given it up yet.) It featured, I was told, leaving out vowels and encouraging children to make up whatever consonant usages seemed right to them. Sort of like texting before texting.

"JaG - having both suffered through & taught in public high schools, all I can say is that, if it was good for you, then you must have been one of the bad (i.e., complacent, self-satisfied) guys, indifferent to the misery of your social inferiors."

steve b-I would like an apology. That was a downright libelous comment and I'd prefer it to be removed completely by the moderators.

Your comment violates this posting rule: "Neither will we abide personal insults".

And yes, I consider calling me one of the "bad" guys "indifferent to the misery of my social inferiors" a personal insult. Especially since you based this bold claim from what you know of me based off of four comments I made on the topic of schooling in a blog (and none of particularly great length either)!

Don't even try the "I said IF it was good for you" excuse, since that's exactly what I claimed and do claim. So you did, indeed, call me a bad guy indifferent to the misery of my social inferiors.

For your information, I WAS a social inferior and I DEFENDED people from bullies. I got into fights because of it (and yes, I still think public school was good for me, fights aside).

Please DON'T imply that I was "indifferent to the misery of my social inferiors". I was one of the people in my school who LOOKED OUT for them.

And yes, you did indeed touch a nerve.

J.W.-I'll do my best to make use of my reading comprehension skills, but perhaps you can use your writing skills to better convey tone through the written word, eh?

Oh, and steve, I suppose you agree that the kids tony speaks of in this paragraph:

"There are indeed some perfectly sound kids coming out of public schools. And out of private schools. I know some truly excellent adults who thought their school years were just dandy. What you will find very often, I think, is that they either (a) were part of one of the "in" groups and rarely had to suffer mockery, or (b) had enough independence and self-reliance that they would have done well in virtually any environment."

...are also bad guys indifferent to the misery of their social inferiors? Or is your point that public school was not actually "good" for them, they just "survived" it?

You really don't think that anybody who is a part of the group of kids tony just mentioned would describe public school as being "good for them"?

And if you concede that several of those kids WOULD say that public school is "good for them", are you prepared to stand by your comment?

This is mostly because parochial schools are forever underfunded, and cannot afford to pay a fully accredited teacher what she or he is actually worth. Those who have the competence will often go where that competence will be paid appropriately. This is not to carp at such teachers - most of them need to raise a family, and you CAN'T raise a family on the income of a parochial school teacher. I know 2 people who taught in a Catholic high school: one had to work weekends at a pizza shop to make ends meet, the other could only continue his career teaching while he was single.

I thought that particular statement was worth repeating. And it's another one of the many unique tragedies of the job market for at least the past 30 years.

There are indeed some perfectly sound kids coming out of public schools. And out of private schools. I know some truly excellent adults who thought their school years were just dandy. What you will find very often, I think, is that they either (a) were part of one of the "in" groups and rarely had to suffer mockery, or (b) had enough independence and self-reliance that they would have done well in virtually any environment. It is hard, in my experience, to find well-adjusted adults who NOW view their schooling as a positive for them precisely on account of the specific school-room dynamics where they had to suffer regularly from said dynamics. So, I don't put much stock in proclaiming that said shark-tanks are good for development. Those who manage to come out as whole persons don't much think so themselves.

Amusingly, the folks who would've made my school years hellish if I hadn't had the family, online support and personality that I do have break down into two groups: the ones that are pretty much the same as they were in high school-- in some cases including their job and hours-- and the ones that look back on high school with horror. One even walked up to my mom and apologized to her for how he'd treated me in high school, and he was one of the folks I thought I got along fine with. (On an aside, the ones that are unrepentant about how they treated "inferiors" like me? Big advocates of the current anti-bullying push.)

There is a high correlation between folks who talk about how wonderful high school was and being the ones who were in-groupers dishing out mockery. Heck, one of our teachers was a living example of it. (Not a good teacher, either.)

On an aside, the ones that are unrepentant about how they treated "inferiors" like me? Big advocates of the current anti-bullying push.

That's because the new anti-bullying push isn't about stopping bullying. It's about politics. But that's a different topic, I suppose.

That's because the new anti-bullying push isn't about stopping bullying. It's about politics.

Also control-- which seems to be the root complaint with standard schooling vs home schooling or even distance schooling. IF the kids aren't put in school control for eight hours a day, THEN a lot of power is lost. Doesn't matter if you banned sodas and peanut butter on school grounds if my kid can drink a rootbeer and have a PB&J at the kitchen table.

Actually, I think anti-bullying and zero tolerance are litigation-proofing.

Lydia, I agree about the primary grades. I was thinking about the middle years and above, really. One of the great things about homeschooling is that you get to choose the ABSOLUTE BEST source materials for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic that hundreds of years of practice have developed, instead of the "latest and greatest" fad that sweeps the corridors of "educators" based on the recently published theories of recent Ph.D. candidates. The frequency with which those fads get swept away seems not to phase them in choosing the very next fad.

Doesn't matter if you banned sodas and peanut butter on school grounds

I find it pathetic, absolutely PATHETIC that schools think they should be able to ban peanut butter. I believe that the attempt to do so should result in mass revolt, including lots and lots of parents just plain disobeying.

I believe that the attempt to do so should result in mass revolt, including lots and lots of parents just plain disobeying.

Maybe we need an outbreak of food poisoning brought on by bringing meat sandwiches to school which are then insufficiently refrigerated. Not that I'm wishing for that, understand, but it would perhaps bring home the reason why PBJs have been so popular as take-to-school meals.

By the way, years ago my daughter saw when we were visiting a school that it said, "Nut-free zone" on the door. It took her a few minutes to figure out what that could possibly mean...:-)

JaG,

So you really believe that homeschooling has all the positives of public school and none of the negatives?

Doesn't that seem a little far-fetched? You really won't concede that there are at least SOME benefits to public school?

I mean, sure, you can be influenced by good adults, but I've had some great teachers who I never would have met except through public school. Sure, you'll always deal with bullies, there were experiences I had that only happened to me because of public school that shaped my character in a positive way today. And sure, one could make friends, but without public school I would never have met some of my best friends.

I don't see how any of this is an argument in defense of public schooling. The lessons you learn on bullying, especially today, are not applicable to the real world. In the real world, if you are assaulted in the workplace and your employer fires you for defending yourself you can pwn them in court for wrongful termination and a host of other very serious offenses. If a cop hears that you are assaulted and you didn't use clearly disproportionate force, they typically won't even ask you for more than a few choice quotes for a one off report. If you, as a modern student, are thrown to the ground, straddled, repeatedly punched in the face and even slap at your attacker you can be expelled in some jurisdictions, and suspended in virtually all of them.

I too wouldn't have met some of my friends if I hadn't gone to the public schools. But so what? The primary function of a school is education. On that front, the average public school is a pile of truly Epic Fail(tm) by international standards. If you fail at your primary objective, success on your tertiary objectives is irrelevant.

By the way, years ago my daughter saw when we were visiting a school that it said, "Nut-free zone" on the door.

Given the effort to emasculate boys, I can understand her confusion.

Mike, please. No, the confusion was related to the notion of ideological nutcases.

Mike- it's gotten worse; now even raising your hands to protect your face-- not make any notion at them, just try to cover your own face-- then you're "fighting," and are equally guilty.

Mike- it's gotten worse; now even raising your hands to protect your face-- not make any notion at them, just try to cover your own face-- then you're "fighting," and are equally guilty.

Whenever I hear conservatives talk about taking back this country, I ask where the mobs are at times like this. 50 years ago, if a public school administrator had punished a child for something like that, the parents would have rioted to such an extent that the police would have been afraid to get involved.

JaG - if you seriously believe that anything I wrote, above, counts as "downright libelous," then I seriously believe that you ought to hold your breath while counting to three.

Whenever I hear conservatives talk about taking back this country, I ask where the mobs are at times like this.

Sometimes I don't agree with Mike's energetic-to-violent pushing against the rule makers, but in this case I agree. These parents are losers for letting their kids be cowed by the administration in such an unjust and blatantly irrational fashion. They are contributing directly to the formation of children who cannot discern authority from power, justice from coercion, and intelligent obedience from abject servility. You cannot raise kids for freedom in such an environment, which means they are raising kids for tyranny.

Sometimes I don't agree with Mike's energetic-to-violent pushing against the rule makers, but in this case I agree.

9 times out of 10, I do that just to shock the sensibilities of the liberals and more conformist conservatives.

These parents are losers for letting their kids be cowed by the administration in such an unjust and blatantly irrational fashion.

To some extent, I sympathize with them. There is a thin line between any administration and the police. The moment a cowed little bureaucrat running a school calls the police, a parent is suddenly faced with the prospect of respecting their authority by proxy (the police officer(s)) or risking a fight for which they aren't prepared. That most parents wouldn't even consider giving them moral support is not far from their mind.

All things considered, this is why I support a return in positive law to the status quo between police and the public of about 40-50 years ago which was before qualified immunity and when cops who lacked arrest authority were immediately guilty of the felony crime of kidnapping. The people won't stand up until either they're desperate or the law grants no special favors to the government's agents. I would rather the latter, as it is more likely to result in reasonable behavior. My instinct tells me that parental rights are more likely to be resecured by the SHTF even worse economically, the government getting coercive on a bunch of veterans and their kids and the veterans snapping.

The moment a cowed little bureaucrat running a school calls the police

"Reasonable people" may assume I mean objectively intimidating behavior, but the moment a manipulative person utters the words "I feel threatened," the entire legal angle of the situation changes. This is especially true if it is a father going toe-to-toe with a female principle. It's a trump card that works rather well regardless of his behavior.

Most of the parents were never taught how to deal with authority-- my mom is a natural authority figure, so I never realized this until I started to watch parents I know are trying to deal with things correctly. She made it very clear that we had rights and responsibilities, and that she would back us up if we were in the right.

Knowing what level to deal with things is an important aspect-- a lot of "bulling," like the neighbor boy who had his head slammed in his own car door in front of multiple witnesses, should have never been a question of going through the school. Call the cops, that's black-and-white assault. Going through the school system is going to result in massive tail-covering, destruction of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, etc.

Mike T., my Dad taught me that the best thing to do when a bureaucrat threatens to call the police is to offer to call the police yourself. This can help the bureaucrat remember that the cops do not exist to enforce the bureaucrat's slightest whim, and that the cop, given the chance to hear both sides of the story, may be disinclined to side with the bureaucrat.

Guaranteed to work every time? Nope. Guaranteed not to backfire? Nope. But it is a decent way to call their bluff and show that you are not afraid of proper authority.

Just a quick note:

Everyone has an opinion about education--many of them strong and poorly informed. I suggest taking some vacation time and substituting at a few local schools (especially if you haven't had children go through a school system yet). Glimpse the situation from the inside. The last thing we need are more passionate, poorly informed internet chatter.

JaG:

J.W.-I'll do my best to make use of my reading comprehension skills, but perhaps you can use your writing skills to better convey tone through the written word, eh?

I don't care what you think my "tone" is. My comments contain propositions that are true or false and arguments that are valid or invalid regardless of whatever emotional state someone might perceive me as having when I write.

Daniel:

Everyone has an opinion about education--many of them strong and poorly informed. I suggest taking some vacation time and substituting at a few local schools [...]

"Education" isn't synonymous with "schooling."

Glimpse the situation from the inside.

Daniel, you might want to consider that most homeschooling parents today were public schooled themselves. I spent 13 miserable years glimpsing the situation "from the inside", thank you. Fifteen years after graduation I worked as a consultant for 19 public school districts in California, which confirmed for me beyond any doubt that public schools are just getting worse. It's true that some students do relatively well, in comparison with their peers, but in my experience most who think they have done well in public schools are not only blind to the radical defects in their own education, but also to the moral, spiritual, and intellectual rot that has deformed their characters.

Having said that, I have seen some good public schools here and there. Usually they are quite small, run by a board with strong religious convictions, with a larger-than-usual proportion of students from intact families, and lots of parental participation. They are still limited to a large degree by curriculum, but it can work out to something better than the usual nightmare. Unfortunately such schools are the exceptions that prove the rule.

The last thing we need are more passionate, poorly informed internet chatter.

You mean like assuming that everyone commenting doesn't know what they're talking about?

Some of us are acquainted with logical fallacies-- no thanks to the public schools--such as "appeal to authority." We tend to avoid saying things like "well, I have X, Y and Z qualifications, therefore A and B!" We may say "well, when I did X" or "I know Y, so-" and such so it's not argument by declaration, but that's a bit different.

This thread is full of people sharing things that happened to them, or to someone they personally know.

Of course I make a typo in a thread about education. I meant:

The last thing we need *is* more passionate, poorly informed internet chatter.

And I should have quoted, because I wasn't referring to you specifically, Jeff, but rather to a certain tone (the same tone I hear in many conversations about this topic). For example,

Those who become "teachers" are, by all objective measures, the dumbest of our educated classes.

How do such sweeping generalizations improve the quality of our discussion? Anyway, I don't want to fall victim to trolling.

This is a good blog, and stumbling upon it helped open my eyes to major issues. Since then, I've started reading the Catechism, Augustine's Confessions/City of God, studying Latin, and substituting occasionally at a local Catholic school. I'm impressed by the students' discipline and maturity, and I was inspired when we started the day with a school-wide prayer. There's something in the air there...

Keep up the good work folks. I'll go back to lurking (until I feel the need for another "quick note"). ;p

"Those who become "teachers" are, by all objective measures, the dumbest of our educated classes."

How do such sweeping generalizations improve the quality of our discussion?

I'm all for sweeping generalizations, when relevant and accurate, but you're right: this one meets neither criteria. Schools aren't failing because teachers aren't smart enough. Teachers come in all kinds of flavors, and many are outstanding and brilliant - which is a bonus, not a necessity. But they are hamstrung by a system that is stacked against them as well as their own inadequate formation. Dealing with a dumbed-down and militantly ideological curricula, students without effective parents, the ubiquity of pop-culture dysfunctionality, the inability to discipline and deal with disruptive students, the myriad problems resulting from a co-ed environment, massive quantities of bureaucratic busywork, ever-expanding testing requirements and the pressure of "teaching to the test", etc., makes providing a quality education virtually impossible no matter how competent the teacher.

This is a good blog, and stumbling upon it helped open my eyes to major issues. Since then, I've started reading the Catechism, Augustine's Confessions/City of God, studying Latin, and substituting occasionally at a local Catholic school.

Daniel, that's a very high compliment for any blog, and says more about you than it does about us. Thank you kindly, and I look forward to more of your comments in the future.

I believe that some of the studies done by universities to gauge the types of students that tend to choose each major show that education majors are typically near the very bottom of the student body in terms of GPA and test scores. Since education majors are the biggest group among teachers that would certainly complicate things.

Ironically, my wife has a B.S. in Computer Science and nearly enough credits for dual minors in Physics and Math and may have to get several teaching classes before she can be "qualified"enough to safely hokeschool our future kids.

Mike T- most of the good teachers I know (my mom included) have a minor in education, not a major. Never chatting with and thus don't know about the bad teachers, other than one that I'd toss out of the sample since his life goal was to be a high school football coach. I seem to remember mom saying there was a lot more make-work if she'd majored in it, which is what tipped the balance. (Two swimming classes?)

I just went and checked-- thanks to the Navy's giving-college-credit-for-work-you-did program, I'm qualified to teach my daughters at home, barring legal changes. If I file their immunization records with myself..... >.