Homeschooling

04.08.2010

I haven’t touched upon an extremely controversial topic in a while, so I think I’ll talk about one today. Homeschooling.

About a year or two ago there was a huge dilemma when a family in Los Angeles County was charged with neglect and abuse of their children and it came out that the family was homeschooling their children. This prompted the government to pass a law (I think it was a law) that homeschooling had to abide by the same rules as public education and if someone did not have a teaching credential they had no business teaching children.

Well, all the parents who homeschool their children went into an uproar about this saying their rights were being denied and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. Oh my…where do I begin?

Many parents who were interviewed and vehemently defending their choice in their kids’ education had only a high school diploma. Some went to college but never finished.[1]

Let me write the sentence again. “Many parents who were interviewed…had only a high school diploma.” A high school diploma. Those of us who went to high school, let’s think back. Twenty years later, do you remember Algebra I and Algebra II? How about Chemistry and Trigonometry? Oh, I know, how about Biology? I went to college and hold an MA today and I would be unable to teach a high school student Algebra, any of the sciences or even Spanish or French. And I took 5 years of French. So let me state this sentence again: Many parents…had only a high school diploma.

Where the HELL do they get off thinking they can teach their children?

Oh, wait, let’s see. You know what they’re teaching them? The Bible. That’s what encompasses their “schooling.” Every single parent interviewed in the article said the #1 reason they weren’t sending their kids to a public school was because they didn’t teach the from the Bible.

(See, there’s this thing called “separation of Church and State” that our founding fathers made sure to put into our Constitution. Shocking, I know, because so many people are convinced our founding fathers were Christian.)

I hate homeschooling. I absolutely hate it. Unless there’s an illness or some other kind of physical handicap, (and even then I waffle), I don’t see any reason for it. It makes children grow up to be socially challenged, scared of the world, and just naive. I have to agree that academically, many homeschooled children get higher marks on their tests and stuff, but I attribute that to the fact that they’re getting such single and undivided attention. Why did the education system put less children per teacher? It’s for that very same reason. But, when it comes to homeschooling, higher test scores, I feel, comes at a huge cost. These kids are more aloof and find it hard to trust.

Someone I know used to have a roommate who was homeschooled and he found it difficult to deal with her. He said she was totally sweet but because of her innocence, she was used and abused by people left, right and center. She just trusted people right off the bat and was always socially awkward in groups. How is this fair to do to a child? You make the child even more dependent on you (the parent) for their every need including social networking. I think it’s a horrible disservice to the overall developmental growth. You’re supposed to experience support, sharing secrets, fantasies and even fights and jealousies with friends. It’s all part of growing up and discovering the world around you. When you’re homeschooled, you’re entire life is your parents and any siblings that you may have. I can’t even fathom how that would appear to be an inviting way to raise children.

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[1] I read this in an LA Times article.