Yesterday, I bought more home school books. I found a really great book on the rules of phonics that contained drills and memorization games. I found another book of word games to teach Latin and Greek Root Words, and I purchased an American History/Geography workbook.
I home school my kids for a variety of reasons. I guess the big one for me, is that my decision to home school was an innately political act.
I do not care for the moral instruction that children receive in schools [see bullying, sexism and bigotry]. I think it's bullshit to teach kids "both sides of the evolution debate" in Science class. I also object to the herd mentality that is established amongst children in public school and perceive that to be the first big step towards the herd mentality I see in adult-American society [read idiocracy].
Oddly enough, those reasons are often common ones when asking Christian parents why they home school. Only the emphasis is slightly different. Many Christians parents feel the same way, only unlike me, they want to teach Biblical principles, they want to teach intelligent design, and young earth "science", and they also want to diminish the atmosphere that causes peer pressure [read herd mentality] in their children's lives.
Someone made a statement in my general direction, "Just what the hell happens in those home school clubs?"
The comment was premised on the assumption that only Christian-NeoConservatives home school. And that they are teaching their children bad things, if they teach them anything at all.
With the home school issue, and all the assumptions that are floating around out there, I feel compelled to clarify some things.
First of all, I dare anyone who is curious about home school to go to a shop that sells home school books and supplies and start looking at the material closely. You can also do this online. In some chain book stores you can purchase a variety of individual workbooks and instructional books. Online you can buy boxed curriculum for an entire grade [religious or secular].
So far I believe that most people assume that the curriculum that home schoolers use must be inferior thanks to crazy crank stories out of Texas involving the revisionist text books that at best have been described as historically inaccurate. But honestly, that is but one supplier. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Be sure and watch the video in that last one!
If you are entirely convinced that Bible-based home schooled children are going to be ignorant and unskilled, you are underestimating them, and that will bite you in the ass in the near future.
I am sure there are bad examples out there. Kids whose parents "say they are home schooling," but not really. I have yet to meet any of those people.
The home school families I have met, including the Christian home schoolers are very smart. Those kids are drilled every day in the basics. They are more than proficient in Math, Science, History, English, Reading, Writing, and more.
Many learn Ecclesiastical Latin plus a living foreign language.
I knew of one who had been a member of a Robotics Team, they built battle bots and won contests.
I have met kids who run their own businesses, and do it well. They are in 4H clubs, and many, at some point are required by mom and dad to participate in some kind of community volunteering.
Most home schooled kids I have met, including my own, read way above their pay-grade.
You don't have to trick them into reading, because you aren't trying to convince them that despite the peer pressure all around them, that reading is cool. So they read avidly. They teach themselves how to do things by reading instructions.
The point is: If you are going to operate on the assumption that future home schooled Christian conservative children are going to be dumb, you are in for a rude awakening.
These people want to remake this country from the ground up. You see what they have accomplished in general politics, the ravages of the culture war. And now, they are and have been, educating their children to out compete with your children. This is the next step after outbreeding the rest of us [shades of Quiverfull]. Seriously, you all need to connect the dots.
You imagine that they are at home repeating bible verses while learning the fine [hillbilly] art of ciphering. And you are wrong.
The majority of those kids are going to hit the ground running. They will be well educated, and they will have a religious network that will open a lot of doors for them, that you and I do not have, that our children will not have, because our doors rely exclusively on money and names.
It doesn't matter if you want to compete with them or not. They are competing against you and your kids, and they are in it to win.
The abstinence only education, the revisionist history issues are important, but those are only aspects of the education these children are receiving. And that education is a practical one, delivered by parents who are diligent in their roles as teachers.
So if you are going to be critical of Christian Home Schoolers, I would suggest focusing on future policy issues, and social issues. I wouldn't operate on the assumption that these kids will be uneducated and unskilled. Many of those kids are being groomed to become future politicians and policy makers.
The only way to counter this future is to do what it takes to ensure your kids receive a practical education as well. That they will be equipped to compete with these other, future graduates in college and the workplace.
9:20 AM PT: Something in the *realm of this discussion:
http://www.alternet.org/...