From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: RE: Homeschooling (was  Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 31 DEC 92 17:16:23 GMT

Michael McDonald wrote:

   Thus far, the arguments proffered here in favor of homeschooling strike me 
   as profoundly selfish, as primarily a matter of wanting to ensure that 
   children are good little reflections of their parents.  Talk about 
   indoctrination! 

John Scott wrote:

   here is 
   my goal in homeschooling.  I want my kids to have to the skills to learn 
   anything they want about the world, to pursue any interests they have, to 
   try to do anything they want to do.  I want them to be able to think, to 
   have confidence in that ability and all their other abilities, and to have 
   respect for themselves and their own minds. 

Evelyn Leeper writes:

>I would agree with Michael McDonald, but for entirely different reasons 
>than he puts forward.  (Well, okay, I might say "shortsighted" rather 
>than "profoundly selfish.") 
> 
>If one believes (as I do) that a society benefits by educating all its 
>members, 

I have never heard *anyone* disagree with this idea.  The question is how to
go about doing it.

>than for people to say, "Well, the school system is bad, so 
>rather than work to fix it, I will pull my kids out."  I certainly 
>believe that parents should be concerned about their children's 
>education, but it seems to me that this can be done in addition to 
>sending them to public school, rather than in place of. 

That can, and should, be the case.  

>Why is this important?  Well, you may be committed to homeschooling 
>your children.  But what about the single parent who has to work 
>full-time (or more) just to *support* his/her children?  What about the 
>parents who for whatever reason can't homeschool their children?  Maybe 
>they can't speak English very well.  Maybe they are illiterate.  Maybe 
>they are handicapped.  These children need a decent education, and 
>abandoning the public school system and saying homeschooling is the 
>answer seems to me to guarantee that the next generation will be even 
>worse educated than the current one. 

I don't see that wanting to homeschool your children means you are in favor
of junking the entire public school system.  The people I've heard talk about
homeschooling have never said anything about it being "the answer" for the
rest of society.  It's the answer for *them*.  If anything, increased
homeschooling sends a warning signal to society that, in fact, public schools
are not providing a decent education.  Would you also say that parents who
send their children to private and parochial schools are abdicating their
responsibility to work within the public school system and improve it?

It appears that many people feel threatened by homeschooling, rather than
private and parochial schooling, because the power is taken away from large
institutions and given to the individual.  They seem to trust large
institutions more than they trust individuals.  I don't.  What is scary to
*me* is that there are still parents who leave the burden of educating their
children to the American public school system.

I think it's fair to expect homeschooled kids to pass some standardized tests
in order to prove that they have learned the basics.  From everything I've
read and heard, this is not a problem.  Homeschooled kids seem generally to
be far ahead of their public-schooled peers.

>And you say your children can become environmental activists or nuclear 
>engineers.  Can you homeschool them to do this?  Do you have the 
>science labs, the language labs, all the accoutrements that come with 
>having a school that serves hundreds of students?  

There were a handful of homeschooled kids in my college, a few of whom hadn't
attended any organized school at all until that point.  They took lab science
courses and did well.  As far as languages are concerned, people have been
learning languages for millennia without the benefit of language lab tapes. 

>Can they really pursue any interests they have, regardless of cost? 

Cost is another question entirely.  No education takes place without some
kind of cost.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books