It's 2021. Government schools have been in a state of chaos for over a year now as they struggle to respond to COVID-19. People are adapting with everything from distance learning through school to anarchic unschooling. Yet fear of alternative education still runs rampant over four decades since people started to promote home education as an alternative to the status quo.
People want to homeschool for many reasons. US government schools do not have a good track record academically, and standardized test scores have been declining while problems like bullying and abuse are all too often left unaddressed. People may object to the values taught in schools, whether on religious grounds or otherwise. People also want to tailor education to suit the needs and interests of the student. What a shocking concept!
No link for credit here. Sorry!
I shared the meme above on BookFace, where a critic promptly piped up, and I hope I satisfactorily rebut that individual here:
If you're raising a kid in a cult, can't let them be exposed to ideas that may undo the brain washing. Better to homeschool them so that they can really absorb the idea that their divine leader was handpicked by god. Otherwise they may not follow the thousands of rules meant to micro-manage their lives.
This does happen. However, by and large, homeschooling does a far better job of teaching kids to be self-directed learners who know how to research topics to build an informed opinion, while government schools teach that truth is derived from authority, and authority is determined by titles and hierarchy. Further, there is no more dangerous cult than nationalism, and the Prussian education model has always been first and foremost about training obedient subjects *citizens.)
School is also touted as an introductoin to the "real world" of adulthood. The Prussian model was also developed to feed workers into the industrial revolution, but is that really the way to develop a child's mind? Schools are an artificial environment that restricts students to someone else's schedule. Work is often the same, but that doesn't justify the school model. This past year has revealed to innumerable people that actual academic work is only a fraction of a school day, and the irreplaceable time of these kids is being devoured by soulless bureaucracy. Time is wasted where kids understand the subject, and they are shortchanged when they need more time to learn. This is child abuse, not responsible child-rearing.
Another frequent complaint is that kids who are homeschooled find themselves socially stunted due to a lack of socialization with others. First, this actually contradicts the first complaint that they are tied to religious institutions where they... socialize with people! Further, at church, they interact with people of all ages, not just their age group.
Fitting in is for LEGO, not for people. Image credit
As a librarian, I serve a lot of homeschool families. I see kids who can converse with adults, who have the freedom to explore their interests, and who have not lost the curiosity that schools seem to stifle. Fitting in isn't for humans, it's for LEGO bricks. LEGO is awesome, but treating people as a factory product who exist to satisfy someone else's intentions is despicable.
Worst of all, I find that people who complain about the shortcomings they perceive in home education are invariably blind to the identical or even worse shortcomings in government school, but appeal to the status quo to handwave away the concerns of critics like me. Nationalism is a cult. Segregation by age and imposition of an arbitrary regimented schedule is conducive to neither social skills nor development of independent minds. Home education may be used to justify bad parenting, conceal child abuse, or excuse not educating kids. Still, this is a minority, and it's not really like the tax-funded mandatory system has a good record in academics or abuse prevention. Freedom is always preferable for developing a well-adjusted individual.
I don't get criticism for homeschooling anymore, I get a lot of praise and then usually slightly defensive stories about how they couldn't possibly.
The last "criticism" I got was from someone several years ago now who said and I pretty much quote "but you went to uni you're educated why would you homeschool" and my initial response was to look at them like they were stupid (because really) and then to answer "...wat."
Would love to say I spat out this succinct and concise spiel that completely destroyed any incorrect notions (and I may have managed to cobble something together out of my automatic answers) but it was just as likely that I was too stunned by the nonsensical question to get too far past that and they probably picked that up from the look I was giving them XD
By far one of my favorite memes hahahahah. I needed that laugh!
Pretty sure my face was not too far off that too XD
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.My mother also had a degree in education, and had been a teacher before she married. That probably helped her defend her choice against some critics when she chose homeschooling. Back then in the late 80s and early 90s, it was far less common, and people had even more fear of such pioneers.
Now, though, with more support than ever through online resources, libraries, numerous curriculum providers, how-to guides, support groups, co-ops, etc. where parents can pool expertise, I really can't see how anyone except the religiously statist can fear homeschooling.
She probably would have had an edge in arguments if nothing else, apparently it's okay if you're a teacher because you're "qualified" then XD
I'm probably lucky with the area I'm in too, there is a LOT of dissatisfaction with public education.
Also in Romania, schools are focused on children's grades and not the child's needs. The curricculum is MEGA overloaded, many times with unnecesarry things that only hinders the learning process. Kids get exhausted by learning and writting. Not to mention a lot of homework and projects. The creativity is zero. All is exposed like kids being robots. This is especially happen to older kids, from 5-6th grade.
In preschool, kindergarden are other problems.
Let's just say that homeschooling is a good choice if you want your kid to be...a Happy Smart kid!
Aaaa, and just to mention, most of the schools don't have educational programs for Gifted kids. Not even the interest to help those children meet their special needs. They will only make it worse. In Romania, is kind of this: "Ohhh is your child really smart at the age of 3? Well, don't let it be too smart! Schools can't handle that". WT...heck???
The people's mentality is soo freaking ignorant: They will say "Education system is not prepared to educate such smart children"......it happens in RO
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.Yeah a fair amount of people thought we were weird when we told them we planned to home school our son from the very beginning when my wife got pregnant. I’ve heard the same crap, socialization, weirdness, all kinds of stupid shit to try to get you to destroy your kid and make them conform to the system. Our son has such a beautiful and vibrant imagination it would be a disaster to send him to boot camp that is the American school system model. We want to send him to a Waldorf school for a year or two to help him get exposure to others teaching him besides us but after that we plan on finishing his education at home where he belongs with us so we can teach him the many wonderful things. Showing him stuff lately I realize how utterly lacking the system is at doing some basic things that are right around you! I never learned the plants, trees and animals that live in our area. I’m learning it now because that’s actually useful stuff to know instead of the sham story that is the dinosaurs.
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.How about adding...
This includes subjects that you would never think of, such as English and Science
All bow down the greatness of Einstein who made a theory that is so complex that few will ever challenge it. However, the theory fails at every practical application. It is completely disproven.
But, as you said, school is not about teaching, about learning for yourself, it is about schooling.
And the reason "they" are afraid of homeschooling is that the children do not all get indoctrinated the same. The children will swim on their own, in their own direction, not as one with the school.
When you say "the theory fails at every practical application," what are you talking about? If you are referring to the Theory of Relativity, explain to me how GPS works then.
Look, everything else you here say is spot on, but you have a LONG history of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater when it comes to science, as it were - so much that, sometimes, I wonder if you're trolling.
!ENGAGE 30
ENGAGEtokens.Perhaps the most powerful position is being able to say, "I don't know." We are long past the time when one individual could conceivably grasp the entirety of human knowledge. Specialization means advanced fields are closed off to those who have nor dedicated their entire lives to understanding them.
Is Einstein's relativity theory an accurate description of physics? I don't know. I'll assume so, while acknowledging it could all be wrong. After all, the body of scientific knowledge is constantly being refined and revised in light if new information, and even if Einstein is right, that doesn't mean his model won't be superceded by something better one day.
Is COVID-19 even real? Is it a deadly plague or an overblown media-driven excuse for a political power grab? I don't know. I'll assume it exists while rejecting most of the fearmongering and acknowledge that I am not an epidemiologist or virologist.
The real danger lies with those who use their feeling of certainty regarding complex subjects to justify aggression.
Personally, I think the most powerful position is "hold on a minute, it's actually a bit more complicated." People like simple explanations and simple solutions because they've been conditioned to think in simple terms.
Science works in terms of taking old knowledge, throwing out what doesn't work, and replacing it with something new that reconciles the problems with the old knowledge. Newtonian mechanics, for instance, hasn't been thrown out as much as it has been built upon by Relativity, a necessity that became apparent because the perturbations in Mercury's orbit weren't consistent within the constraints of the old system. Relativity doesn't explain everything, and at least in physics, I know that Big Bang Cosmology and Quantum Electro Dynamics are incompatible, ergo only one, at most, can be true in its entirety. The reason that both BBC and QED are still used is simply that they both work for their respective fields.
Unfortunately, hot-button topics are always going to be meddled in by those who have a political agenda to push. Any real science that is inconvenient to the narrative is shut down. However, the composition of the sun's surface doesn't fall into that category, which is why Pierre-Marie Robitaille is unlikely to be silenced by either the legacy media or silicon valley, despite the controversy surrounding him in smaller circles... unless, of course, internet censorship is ever automated in the way that former Goolag CEO Eric Schmidt (it's always the f^ck!ng Germans) once proposed.
I just made a post about this. https://hive.blog/hive-123046/@builderofcastles/einstein-vs-tesla-the-time-has-come-for-the-truth-to-be-shown
And it's an important part of this.
Everything i learned in college science class, i later learned was wrong. EVERYTHING!
So, i appreciate your ability to change your mind.
However, i have shown that the theory of relativity is wrong, disproven, goes completely against observable reality. Sooooo, what does it actually take to change your mind?
What most people do, is say, i don't know. But i can't deny the authorities that taught me this stuff (garbage.)
Further, the laws of the universe are really simple.
Or the better term is simplex.
Each individual law is really easy, but the combinations of them are really mind blowing.
And so, people in the future will each have a very good understanding of physics.
Honestly, the validity or invalidity of relativity theory has zero impact on my day-to-day life, and I do not have a deep interest in the subject. I haven't pursued the requisite information to weigh the validity of your post versus mainstream science. I just don't know, so I only provisionally accept anything on the topic.
Oh but it does.
Down one road, you are left in a world that is controlled by power (oil companies, electric companies, or what not)
Down the other, you are in a world of free energy and peace on earth.
I comprehend your position.
There are few people who can grok the Theory of Relativity.
There are even fewer who can go beyond and see the holes in it.
(and here i am asking you to understand it enough to know the holes i put into it)
But, what i want people to know is that the "Theory of Relativity" is not the only thing.
It is a pattern that has been done to science over and over again.
In the near future, modern science text books will be used for door stops, if not discarded forthwith.
A lot of those stigmas you mentioned are the reasons homeschooling is still frowned upon. In the Bible Belt, some of the more extreme religious sects exclusively homeschool, so it often means people will think a homeschooled kid has some LDS breakaway parents or something like that.
Perhaps one of the few upsides of the pandemic is that now homeschooling is done for hygienic reasons, and that will surely remove some stigmas.
Maybe it depends on where you live but in the part of the country I live in (East Central Florida), I don't really feel there is a stigma with home schooling. I bet it is different in bigger cities though.
insert Florida Man joke here
Leftist urbanites and the political class seem the most hostile to homeschooling, while the rural community mostly embraces it. I'm not entirely on board with all things Republican, but the Right is friendly toward a lot of personal liberty aspects that the more elitist left-wingers hate. Among those are education freedom and firearm freedom.
Public schools have gotten progressively worse for the past decade, but its good that Florida's governors and others are banning critical race theory.
I was hoping this one would get some conversations going. It didn't disappoint! 😁
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