The State Thinks It Owns Your Kids--does it? by Al Benson Jr.
Back in the very early days of the Unitarian/socialist inspired public brain laundry movement, there were some men like Robert Owen the socialist and Amos Bronson Alcott, the meandering Transcendentalist, who firmly believed that public education was the best way to reform society, and the best way to do that was to get the children out of the hands of their parents at the earliest possible age.
These men and others became avid supporters of something called the Infant School Movement, a program designed to get children out of the home as early as two years of age. The poor kids supposedly learned all their nasty habits at home during those early formative years. So, if you could get the kids out of the home and into the infant schools of the public school promoters, you could then get rid of all those bad habits, and by the time the youngster was six years old, the public "educator" (change agent) basically controlled him body and soul.
Even though such men, and women, did succeed in foisting their radical government school program on a mostly Christian populace that should have known better, they had somewhat less than spectacular results with their infant school program. A few years later, one of their spiritual contemporaries came up with the kindergarten program, designed to get children out of the home at about five years of age. Who, you might ask, came up with this "new" kindergarten program? None other than Margaretta Meyer Schurz, wife of the 1848 socialist revolutionary Carl Schurz. Mrs. Schurz established the first kindergarten in this country in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856. Kindergartens were private at that point. However by 1873 the first government-run kindergarten had been established in St. Louis, Missouri, another area strongly influenced by the Forty-eighter socialists in the Midwest. The possibility of using such schools to advance a socialist agenda had not been lost on these radicals. It apparently had not been lost on the Prussian government in the German states either, because the Prussian government, in 1851, a short three years after the socialist revolts there, outlawed kindergartens. That being the case, the socialist revolutionaries simply brought the concept to America. Now kindergartens are pretty much mandatory all over.
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http://albensonjr.com/doesit.shtml
Can't believe I just wasted 3 minutes I'll never get back reading that..............................you think I'd have learned better by now.
I think Steve can find his manure by clicking on that link!
And where did the author learn to read and write? Public schools were started to break illiteracy and keep only the wealthy from having an education. Even people who home school learned somewhere. Cheap shots.
I don't know what that dude was smelling, but it sure wasn't the coffee!
Red, I think that was one of your better posts. Good work.
Just a quick question for the rest of you...if our public school system is so great then why is it that the education our children recieve today is of a lesser standard than what kids got 50 years ago? Why should the public school system foster a loyalty to the state in our kids? Why should a parent have to have "teaching credentials" to homeschool their kids? What does it matter where the author learned to read and write?
You're raising some excellent questions there, Billy.
Certainly, the gov't and public schools will never get
better. To think otherwise will require more gov't money
and interference - what a waste. Gov't money is on the
side of public education but there's better options and
more folks are seeing the advantages of better education
outside the gov't circle everyday.
Red, you are right.
Everyone else, two days and no answers...?? This isn't a classroom, you don't have to raise your hand, just shout them out...anybody??
Why should I answer when I don't accept your premise in the first place? I know a baited hook when I see one. So have you offered any workable solutions to what YOU have defined as problems? You have no respect for my previous comments and answers and I've been teaching for more than 40 years, so I couldn't possibly know anything about the learning process.....speaking of respecting one's elders.
Quote from: Varmit on October 16, 2009, 01:34:29 PM
Red, you are right.
Everyone else, two days and no answers...?? This isn't a classroom, you don't have to raise your hand, just shout them out...anybody??
I didn't answer because I don't sit around and bitch about what the public school system is or isn't teachin. Like I said, I ask my kids what they are learning and then fill in the blanks. But I guess that's too easy....
"Public education is nothing more than an experiment (a failed one by decent standards) in state socialism--and that is all it has ever been since day one. Don't buy into the counterproductive line that you need to get in there, join the parent-teacher group in your area and "reform our public schools." They have been peddling that line for 100 years now and it has kept many people fat and happy in the school system that, had they ever begun to realise the truth, would have gotten their children out. "
Public education built the greatest nation in the world. Put man on the moon. You are kidding yourself if you think we would be where we are with out it. You can grip about it all you want. But telling people that joining a parent-teacher group keeps many people fat and happy is the biggest joke I have ever heard. Just a quick look at the BMW, Mecerdes, and Jags in the school parking lot shows how fat and happy they are.
If you don't care what your children learn then by all means don't teach them anything new. Why is public education socialism but getting together in groups of homeschoolers not?
I think it has to do with faith and control. You don't have faith in a system that someone out of your control can do something, say teach effectively, you so try to control the situation by keeping kids home.
There's some pretty wealthy people in this country who are socialistic.
Socialist own vehicles just like the ones that you've mentioned.
Seems too that more and more socialists are driving trucks nowadays.
What are you driving?
Where do homeschoolers get together? Most seem to be independent
and well mannered with good social skills.
Quote from: redcliffsw on October 19, 2009, 05:48:09 AM
There's some pretty wealthy people in this country who are socialistic.
Socialist own vehicles just like the ones that you've mentioned.
Seems too that more and more socialists are driving trucks nowadays.
What are you driving?
Where do homeschoolers get together? Most seem to be independent
and well mannered with good social skills.
If they are socialists than would in not be in their best interest to share their wealth with the commoners....Isn't that what socialism is but for the betterment of the whole not the individual?
Idiots own computers. More and more of them use keyboards to type mindless trash into electronic garbage. What are you typing on?
I don't drive...I have an independent well mannered driver that takes me where ever I say.
Isolated one on one instruction is not the place I would think a social skill would be aquired.
I don't follow you faulty logic. I am very independent and very unsocial. Extremely bad mannered.
Well, I do agree that a lot of public schools in this country are there to push their socialist agenda. They also push a lot of other things I don't care for. Not true of every public school, but a large majority of them, especially when government steps in and demands that they teach this or that. I also take a dim view of government thinking kids need longer days and longer years. It's the parents responsibility to teach kids, not the governments.
Now before anyone jumps, I've had some really good teachers in my life that I loved dearly and I have a lot of respect for them, but I also have relatives within the public school system and know what goes on there too and it is true that this country, as far as education is concerned, is way behind other countries that go to school for LESS time than our kids.
And I can't say that we learn everything we know from school teachers. Many things I have taught myself as I've gotten older. The main thing is if you can teach a child to read, they can teach themselves almost everything else.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 16, 2009, 03:05:32 PM
Public education built the greatest nation in the world. Put man on the moon. You are kidding yourself if you think we would be where we are with out it. You can grip about it all you want. But telling people that joining a parent-teacher group keeps many people fat and happy is the biggest joke I have ever heard. Just a quick look at the BMW, Mecerdes, and Jags in the school parking lot shows how fat and happy they are.
?? Henry ford, Thomas Edison, Nikolai Tesla, Dr. John Stith Pemberton, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Dr. Virginia Apgar, Ransome Eli Olds,Leo Hendrik Baekeland (inventor of bakelite and photographic paper), James Naismith, Earl Dickson (INventor of the bandaid), Beebe and Otis Barton (inventors of the bathysphere, Alexander Grahm Bell, Dr. Charles Richard Drew(started the first blood bank)
George Eastman, Robbert Goddard (father of modern rocketry)
What do all of these great individuals have in common? They weren't publically educated under a Government controlled system. They were educated in one room schoolhouses, that had no federal government controlling what was taught.
As for putting men on the moon. I knew Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, Thomas stephenson, and a few others that Put Armstrong and his crew on the moon. They worked in huntsville at the Nasa facility. Non of these men had a public education. All of them were homeschooled.
Actually, Thomas Edison was homeschooled as was: Agatha Christie, Pearl Buck, Alexander Graham Bell, Ansel Adams, Robert Frost, Woodrow Wilson, Mozart, Laura Ingalls Wilder was for awhile and Louisa May Alcott.
Should we list all the famous people that went through the public education system?
Take the list of presidents. Ok you got Woodrow Wilson who was home schooled. What about the 44 other presidents?
Quote from: Anmar on October 26, 2009, 08:39:09 AM
Should we list all the famous people that went through the public education system?
Take the list of presidents. Ok you got Woodrow Wilson who was home schooled. What about the 44 other presidents?
There were 9 US Presidents that were homeschooled, including: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt
There are also other famous people that were homeschooled. Which, when you think about the sheer numbers that go to public school, you're going to have quite a few that go on to do great things, but considering the limited number that are homeschooled, the percentage that go on to do great things is wonderful.
Quote from: Anmar on October 26, 2009, 08:39:09 AM
Should we list all the famous people that went through the public education system?
Take the list of presidents. Ok you got Woodrow Wilson who was home schooled. What about the 44 other presidents?
At least ten of our presidents were home-schooled. James Madison's mother taught him to read and write. John Quincy Adams was educated at home until he was twelve years old. At age fourteen, he entered Harvard. Abraham Lincoln, except for fifty weeks in a grammar school, learned at home from books he borrowed. He learned law by reading law books, and became an apprentice to a practicing lawyer in Illinois.
Other great Americans were similarly educated. John Rutledge, a chief justice of the Supreme Court, was taught at home by his father until he was eleven years old. Patrick Henry, one our great Founding Fathers and the governor of colonial Virginia, learned English grammar, the Bible, history, French, Latin, Greek, and the classics from his father.
Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, and Florence Nightingale were all taught at home by their mothers or fathers. John Jay was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, a chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and a governor of New York. His mother taught him reading, grammar, and Latin before he was eight years old. John Marshall, our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, was home-schooled by his father until age fourteen. Robert E. Lee, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, George Patton, and Douglas MacArthur were also educated at home. Booker T. Washington, helped by his mother, taught himself to read by using Noah Webster's Blue Back Speller.
Public schools weren't the norm til 1870. Quite frankly since then i can only think of maybe 3 presidents that were of the caliber that could stand amongst Washington, Jefferson and Adams.
We talk about educating our young with the best but what are we getting from it? It seems that the best have come and gone 100 years ago. They were the captians of industry, the inventors, and today what do we have? There are far fewer inventors with new innovations, there are far fewer captains of industries, Note that most industry has gone offshore.
We haven't come up with a tesla, or a edison. Shoot those two individuals stand alone with the greatest inventors of history like gallileo, michael angelo, other great inventors. Michaelangelo invented the submarine, the helicopter, hundreds of years before they were actually produced. Look at the automobile. The combustion engine has not changed significantly since the first diesel engine was made in over 100 years.
This is like saying the earlier presidents were idiots because they never even learned how to drive. Yes a couple hundred years ago any schooling was something of a novel idea. The only problem I have is that if you are limiting the exposure of a child to what you believe they need to know. As they are growing up how are they going to adapt and how quickly to the socialists, communists, and others that have polar opposite educational upbringing? They have never had peers looking down or up to them so how will they react? It is all about a level playing field. If you are brilliant and can teach, have unlimited resources, then all means home school till your heart content. But don't expect me to pay for you baseball uniform or allow your kid to play in the band just because. If you want the benefits of public school then go to public school. I see a lot of people home school until the kids are old enough to go to junior high or even high school. Public school isn't good enough for their kids from prek-6th grade. But as soon as the home school kid complains that they don't get to play ball or join the wrestling team, how many cheerleaders do you need if you and your brother are the only players?..... What that does is not fund the school system for the first 8 years of the students education. Then expect the public school to have the best programs money can buy available at the convenience of the parent. I don't like the teacher next year so I will home-school you until there is a better one. You can't deny me attendance because I live in the district. The student might have the brightest intellect and ace all tests put before them but there is more to school than education. I don't buy the recess is bad for the child crap. They might see someone smoke at recess? What happens when you have never been exposed to a idiot bully like we all had at grade school recess. How will your always been around relatives that love me child react the first time they are confronted by a strong willed uneducated cheerleader set on defacing you at all costs?You don't let my kid talk in class so therefore the entire school program must be bad. You learn from the other kids. Kids teach each other. The bright ones help the dim ones. They, by the way don't care where they are educated. School is fun. School is interactive. School builds lifelong friends. You can't pick your relatives so you always have that fact, that you are related to your kids.
Impress me with your home-schooled alumni. Got any Bill Gates? Tell me Sam Walton was homeschooled in Oklahoma. Warren Buffet stay home with mom? Name someone in the current century or even decade that has gone above and beyond to greatness. Cure cancer with a homeschooling science budget. Bring about a new economic model for the 22nd century and quit telling me how great the 18th was.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 10:30:42 AM
If you are brilliant and can teach, have unlimited resources, then all means home school till your heart content. But don't expect me to pay for you baseball uniform or allow your kid to play in the band just because.
You know those that homeschool have been saying this for many years. Don't expect them to pay for your kids baseball football and band practices either.
QuoteIf you want the benefits of public school then go to public school. I see a lot of people home school until the kids are old enough to go to junior high or even high school. Public school isn't good enough for their kids from prek-6th grade.
That is because from pre-k to 2nd or 3rd grade your child learns everything that will mold them for the rest of their lives. After about 8 years old, if they haven't learned right from wrong, your life as a parent is going to be hell. The reason why public school was founded, and the reason why any public school is founded is to institute institutionalized thinking. Control what is being taught, and you control the population. Public schools were started shortly after the civil war because the goal was to destroy the individualism that created individuals like Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson.
QuoteBut as soon as the home school kid complains that they don't get to play ball or join the wrestling team, how many cheerleaders do you need if you and your brother are the only players?.....
And rightfully so. They are forced to pay for those programs, so they should be able to utilize those programs without their children being subjected to Government indoctrination.
QuoteWhat that does is not fund the school system for the first 8 years of the students education. Then expect the public school to have the best programs money can buy available at the convenience of the parent.
Sorry but your wrong there. The schools are funded by homeschoolers.
QuoteHow will your always been around relatives that love me child react the first time they are confronted by a strong willed uneducated cheerleader set on defacing you at all costs?
Well first of all they don't get expelled for knocking the **** out of them when they do!
Quote
Impress me with your home-schooled alumni. Got any Bill Gates? Tell me Sam Walton was homeschooled in Oklahoma. Warren Buffet stay home with mom? Name someone in the current century or even decade that has gone above and beyond to greatness. Cure cancer with a homeschooling science budget. Bring about a new economic model for the 22nd century and quit telling me how great the 18th was.
Sandra day Occonner,
Frank Vandiver (President - Texas A&M)
Fred Terman (President - Stanford)
William Samuel Johnson (President Columbia)
John Witherspoon (President of Princeton)
Dr. Condolezza Rice
Blaise Pascal
French mathematician and philosopher
Charles Sanders Peirce
American logician, mathematician, philosopher
Bernhard Riemann
German mathematician
Erwin Schrodinger
Austrian physicist
Erik Demaine
associate professor of Computer Science at MIT
Ray Kroc
founder of McDonald's fast food restaurant chain
Dave Thomas
founder of the Wendy's restaurant chain
Samuel C. C. Ting
Chinese American physicist
its estimated that 2 -4% of our homeschooled kids will be our future leaders. Can't say that about government schools.
School does not necessarily build life long friends. I don't know but one person that I knew in school. And most of my memories from school are being picked on and bullied. Oh yeah, there's fond memories and from private schools no less! And your reasons why people homeschool, like the playground comment and such, I have never heard. A large chunk of homeschooling families homeschool for religious reasons and feel it is there God given responsibility to teach their children. The second is to control what they learn and when instead of leaving it up to the government to teach them what they see fit and when they see fit to teach it. And then a lot of families have children with special needs and they excel with the one on one teaching that they receive from their parents when they cannot excel in a group. Homeschooled kids are not kept from society and are proven to get along as well, if not better than their school counterparts, in society.
For some, public school is a better option and their kids turn out beautifully, but for others homeschooling is what they choose and it is their right in this country and not for anyone else to decide whether they should or shouldn't. Each family needs to decide that on their own and not be told by anyone else how they should raise their kids.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 10:30:42 AM
that has gone above and beyond to greatness. Cure cancer with a homeschooling science budget. Bring about a new economic model for the 22nd century and quit telling me how great the 18th was.
Thats the point, there aren't that many right now because for a long period of time homeschooling was illegal and those that did homeschool did so at great peril. Now its legal in all states, we can return to greatness as a nation when these current homeschoolers take their place in society as leaders.
The government school system had about 15 - 20 years to push through their great prodigies and failed at it. Gates didn't do squat as far as intellegence, he just happened to see a opportunity and jumped on it by taking something someone else created and selling it. So he's a good salesman. Where he is smart as hell is that he recognized he was no genius and surrounded himself with people that could do specific things and then market that. Thats good business.
Warren buffet is old school. Not in the last decade or two like your asking. Buffet was in the right place at the right time when he made his money. He's smart not by public education but life education.
Samuel Clemmons said it best. I don't let schooling interfere with my education!
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 10:30:42 AM
Impress me with your home-schooled alumni.
Why?
What have you accomplished? What awesome feat have you done, that puts you in a class that i should have to spend my time to impress you! Do you have something i need or want? Is your name on millions of Ohm meters or Oscopes? Is PEP electric a national or world wide chain? IF so then i might attempt to impress you.
i don't disagree that some kids do better in government schools. I just know that my kids when they had to go to government school, were so far ahead of anyone in that school that they were bored stiff and couldn't go into college courses because they were only in the 8th grade.
That in itself tells me that the government schools are not equipped to teach to a childs potential.
Quote from: srkruzich on October 26, 2009, 11:26:21 AM
Why?
What have you accomplished? What awesome feat have you done, that puts you in a class that i should have to spend my time to impress you! Do you have something i need or want? Is your name on millions of Ohm meters or Oscopes? Is PEP electric a national or world wide chain? IF so then i might attempt to impress you.
I have something that you will never be impressed by or grasp. The ability to change a broken system for the sole sake of improvement of the system not of myself. I don't gain anything from your homeschooled economic policy. The public system does locally provide jobs to skilled employees. This local system works very well with acedemic tests to certify that fact. It is getting better all the time. Just because one teacher didn't challlenge your kids doesn't mean the system is flawed it means you weren't sending your kids here. You are missing the point of the thread. The local pta doesn't contribute to the slush fund of the education system. You are wrong one one account. You have impressed me. You have impressed the fact that you know nothing of your local public school that you are so quick to condemn.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 12:39:06 PM
Quote from: srkruzich on October 26, 2009, 11:26:21 AM
Why?
What have you accomplished? What awesome feat have you done, that puts you in a class that i should have to spend my time to impress you! Do you have something i need or want? Is your name on millions of Ohm meters or Oscopes? Is PEP electric a national or world wide chain? IF so then i might attempt to impress you.
I have something that you will never be impressed by or grasp. The ability to change a broken system for the sole sake of improvement of the system not of myself.
Ok no problem grasping this. What results is your change going to get? What is your change going to produce? At what cost. Can your change do it on the same cost level that our homeschoolers do?
The point of the homeschoolers is that we produce leaders of everything, for half the cost of your Government school system. Why can't the Government do it for the same cost?
Private schools are half the cost of Government Schools. Why can't the Government do it on that budget? And last but not least, why can't the Government produce the level of education that Private and Homeschoolers produce at half the cost.
QuoteI don't gain anything from your homeschooled economic policy. The public system does locally provide jobs to skilled employees. This local system works very well with acedemic tests to certify that fact. It is getting better all the time.
So ok jobs are produced. IF this was your business, and your employees produced half the production of another business, you would either get the employees to produce more, or go out of business because your costs are higher.
Why would you settle for anything less than a Government schooled kid having the same education level than a homeschooled or private schooled child that has been educted at half the cost. Right now its a major issue that costs are closing down elk schools. Why is it that you can't do it for less?
QuoteJust because one teacher didn't challlenge your kids doesn't mean the system is flawed it means you weren't sending your kids here. You are missing the point of the thread. The local pta doesn't contribute to the slush fund of the education system. You are wrong one one account. You have impressed me. You have impressed the fact that you know nothing of your local public school that you are so quick to condemn.
You know i don't doubt there are smart kids here. I dont' doubt there are excellent teachers here. I also know that there is a ton of waste in the system. I do know that education is not at the level it should be, and i know that the teachers aren't paid well.
As far as my understanding of the local schools, thats not what started us peeing in each others bowl of cheerios. It was your blanket statement about homeschooling producing nothing of interest in the 20'th century. What has elk produced in the last 2 decades? I mean if you want to point out accomplishments, i posted several current day homeschoolers that are famous and contributed to society greatly.
Don't get me wrong, i am not saying the kids here aren't good kids or important or anything like that, but your talking about bang for the buck, aren't ya.
[/quote]
just can't help myself......................
QuoteWhat has elk produced in the last 2 decades?
a whole lot of good people, some who went on to college, some who went to work, some who traveled, some who married and had kids.
30 years ago it produced me, most of the people I know who went there are INDIVIDUALS despite the government brain-washing you insist we most likely underwent :P few of us may be rich OR famous but we all make contributions to the lives around us so I'd say that makes us successful by any stretch of the imagination. Anybody who does what needs doin and takes care of business makes a valuable contribution to society. Worth canNOT be measured by wealth and stature alone or at all.This whole either/or argument is pointless! Neither way is the "right" way. Combination and balance..........that's what REALLY works.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 01:21:46 PM
just can't help myself......................
QuoteWhat has elk produced in the last 2 decades?
a whole lot of good people, some who went on to college, some who went to work, some who traveled, some who married and had kids.
30 years ago it produced me, most of the people I know who went there are INDIVIDUALS despite the government brain-washing you insist we most likely underwent :P few of us may be rich OR famous but we all make contributions to the lives around us so I'd say that makes us successful by any stretch of the imagination. Anybody who does what needs doin and takes care of business makes a valuable contribution to society. Worth canNOT be measured by wealth and stature alone or at all.This whole either/or argument is pointless! Neither way is the "right" way. Combination and balance..........that's what REALLY works.
And that's like I said, neither way is right for all kids. Each family has to decide for themselves what's best for their children and their family be it public school, private school or homeschool. What's right for one child isn't necessarily right for another.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 01:21:46 PM
just can't help myself......................
QuoteWhat has elk produced in the last 2 decades?
a whole lot of good people, some who went on to college, some who went to work, some who traveled, some who married and had kids.
30 years ago it produced me, most of the people I know who went there are INDIVIDUALS despite the government brain-washing you insist we most likely underwent :P few of us may be rich OR famous but we all make contributions to the lives around us so I'd say that makes us successful by any stretch of the imagination. Anybody who does what needs doin and takes care of business makes a valuable contribution to society. Worth canNOT be measured by wealth and stature alone or at all.This whole either/or argument is pointless! Neither way is the "right" way. Combination and balance..........that's what REALLY works.
But none of these are a Bill Gates. Thats the criteria that pep set. not me.
QuoteBut none of these are a Bill Gates. Thats the criteria that pep set. not me.
I happen to think every ONE of us is as successful and viable as a Bill Gates. I'm sure Pep does too.
QuoteAnd that's like I said, neither way is right for all kids. Each family has to decide for themselves what's best for their children and their family be it public school, private school or homeschool. What's right for one child isn't necessarily right for another.
True. I happen to believe the MORE my kids learned and LEARN the better off they are. I do NOT believe in insulating my kids..I never did and still don't. I have one daughter left in school and three grandkids coming up in school...PUBLIC school that is....I think in terms of exPANDING their minds not NARROWing them. The world is made of good AND bad, knowing about both prepares them to deal with it because deal with it they will whether you want them to or not...that's life.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 01:37:24 PM
I happen to think every ONE of us is as successful and viable as a Bill Gates. I'm sure Pep does too.
That depends. On business level and intellegence, no were not. He was smarter than the rest of us. He's the one sitting on billions not us. He is smarter, better and more important in that sense.
On a self worth level, no he's not. He puts his pants on the same way we do. one leg at a time.
If we were on the same level as he, we would be sitting on billions don't ya think?
I'm successful too in that i have produced kids that are all taxpaying citizens that stay out of trouble. 3 of my brood are serving in the military and making a differnece in peoples lives. Thats success. Financially, i'm not so successful. Businesswise, i never stop trying to build one or succeed at one.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 01:37:24 PM
True. I happen to believe the MORE my kids learned and LEARN the better off they are. I do NOT believe in insulating my kids..I never did and still don't. I have one daughter left in school and three grandkids coming up in school...PUBLIC school that is....I think in terms of exPANDING their minds not NARROWing them. The world is made of good AND bad, knowing about both prepares them to deal with it because deal with it they will whether you want them to or not...that's life.
Here we'll have to part ways in our agreement. I don't think public school kids learn MORE in public school. I think homeschool kids are able to get their hands on more things and experience more IF they have parents that are engaged and give them those opportunities. That's not always the case, but there's the potential there for it.
Also, as a Christian, I do not believe we are to "learn" evil. Learning it does not help you to deal with it, just as being picked on or beat up teaches you anything but to have a low self esteem.
I'm not saying in any way that this is true at West Elk or any school IN PARTICULAR, but rather public schools IN GENERAL. I don't know any homeschool family that narrows their childrens minds. Not learning about homosexuality in 1st grade is in no way narrowing their experiences. The whole world is nothing but experiences and our minds are expanding every day depending on what we're exposed to and I think IN THAT WAY, homeschool kids definitely have the advantage over kids that are locked up in a class room all day. A lot of homeschooled families go out of their way to see that their kids experience as much of life as they can possibly give them.
look yall its like this. When you run a business, you look at every possible way to cut costs increase production and maximize profits while putting out a quality product. A lot of our businesses today produce a cheap product to maximize profits, so they bring in product from china.
What my point is, is this. The Government schools have resources that Homeschoolers and private schools don't. YET the private schools and homeschoolers manage to produce higher educated kids than the government schools do and at half the cost. On a national average it takes approximately 18k per student to educate our kids in Govt schools yet its done on a national averge by private schools for 5k -10k a year per student. And a private shool teacher is paid more than a public school teacher.
homeschoolers can do it cheaper but thats because there is no salary involved in paying for a teacher.
My problem with Government schools is that they take money from all of us and what they give us in return is sub par compared to what private industry would give us. Why are we settling for less? Shouldn't elk co and all public school kids be on the same education level as private schools especially since they get twice the resources that private schools get??
QuoteHe's the one sitting on billions not us. He is smarter, better and more important in that sense.
Not really
QuoteIf we were on the same level as he, we would be sitting on billions don't ya think?
I am on the same level as he is. I AM sitting on billions of what matters to ME, three great kids, three great GRANDkids, a few good friends! My bills are paid, we have groceries, a good roof...I AM financially successful. It's all relative......Money does not impress me, it never has. More is just that...more. I have enough, how much more successful do I need to be? Businesswise, I sell a piece of art here and there, to somebody who REALLY likes it...or even give it away to somebody who really loves it..how much more successful could I be? No I'm not some pollyanna goody two shoes, if you actually knew me you would know that is actually the way I am and have been since I was little bitty. So yeah Bill Gates ain't got NOTHIN on what I got :)
ok.I type slow now I'm two behind :P
Sarah, knowing something exists better prepares you to deal with it IN MY opinion. Seein as how I managed to raise three drug free kids in that neck of the woods it seems to make sense to me. You teach em about it, what it can do to them and teach them how to have enough self respect to stay away from it. Whether it's drugs or any OTHER bad habit.
I didn't mean they learn more in public school I meant they learn MORE if they have public school AND home teaching.
Yeah experiences expand our minds, only if we are allowed to HAVE said experiences tho. As for the learnin about gay in grade school...face it they exist, I just figured it was an opportunity to explain why things aren't supposed to go that way when my kids asked about it...and since none of them "caught" gay guess it worked :P ( that's a wee bit of sarcasm I know you can't CATCH it)
MY point is I never trusted the education of my children to ANYbody totally. I participated and expanded or contracted on what they learned.
Pros of Home School
•Free to choose curriculum
•Free to choose schedule
•Small teacher to student ratio
•Teaches students to be independent in their learning choices
Cons of Home School
•Usually more expensive than public school
•Teachers are not always qualified to teach all subjects
•It's harder to provide social interaction
•Colleges sometimes have stricter admission policies concerning homeschooled students.
Sources:
nheri.org
familyfun.go.com
Who is going to be the ones out working while you are home schooling the children?? If you are correct and every one quits sending their kids to school stays home and teaches them everything from shoetieing to thermodynamics who is going to be the ditch digger? Who works the cattle? Where do the kids ride on the backpack at the aircraft plant? I think it would be wonderful if the entire world just quit working for other people to stay at home and teach their own kids. It is not practical. It is irresponsible for the entire working class to take 13 years off just so their kids won't have learn from a stupid teacher. What makes you think that you can teach better than a trained teacher?
Why can't you just augment what they get at school at home? They are still home more hours of every day then at school. If you would play the role of parent you could let the teacher teach. We have too many kids that don't get sent to school even with coats. You want them to be taught at home? A parent that chooses cigarettes over a lunch? A beer instead of shoes without holes?
You want me to condone and recommend that? It is not a cure all. It would work for the smartest and the brightest. The ones that would need special skilled educational techniques would be very hard to accomplish by your self. It works for those that make it work. It is a lifestyle choice.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 02:05:46 PM
ok.I type slow now I'm two behind :P
Sarah, knowing something exists better prepares you to deal with it IN MY opinion. Seein as how I managed to raise three drug free kids in that neck of the woods it seems to make sense to me. You teach em about it, what it can do to them and teach them how to have enough self respect to stay away from it. Whether it's drugs or any OTHER bad habit.
I didn't mean they learn more in public school I meant they learn MORE if they have public school AND home teaching.
Yeah experiences expand our minds, only if we are allowed to HAVE said experiences tho. As for the learnin about gay in grade school...face it they exist, I just figured it was an opportunity to explain why things aren't supposed to go that way when my kids asked about it...and since none of them "caught" gay guess it worked :P ( that's a wee bit of sarcasm I know you can't CATCH it)
MY point is I never trusted the education of my children to ANYbody totally. I participated and expanded or contracted on what they learned.
OK, we're on the same page more or less. Like I said, there is no one way for every single child. What's right for one isn't necessarily right for another and I agree that even if parents send their kids to public school, they need to be proactive and teach their kids at home too. That's the only way any parent is going to know what their kids are learning.
But the basis of this whole argument was that some thought no one should homeschool, that that's the governments job unless you have a teaching degree and that public school turns out better kids, which isn't necessarily always true, just as it's not always true that homeschooling turns out better kids. I've seen homeschool families fail miserably. It depends on the motivation of the parents.
:)
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 02:09:17 PM
Pros of Home School
•Free to choose curriculum
•Free to choose schedule
•Small teacher to student ratio
•Teaches students to be independent in their learning choices
Cons of Home School
•Usually more expensive than public school
•Teachers are not always qualified to teach all subjects
•It's harder to provide social interaction
•Colleges sometimes have stricter admission policies concerning homeschooled students.
Sources:
nheri.org
familyfun.go.com
Who is going to be the ones out working while you are home schooling the children?? If you are correct and every one quits sending their kids to school stays home and teaches them everything from shoetieing to thermodynamics who is going to be the ditch digger? Who works the cattle? Where do the kids ride on the backpack at the aircraft plant? I think it would be wonderful if the entire world just quit working for other people to stay at home and teach their own kids. It is not practical. It is irresponsible for the entire working class to take 13 years off just so their kids won't have learn from a stupid teacher. What makes you think that you can teach better than a trained teacher?
Why can't you just augment what they get at school at home? They are still home more hours of every day then at school. If you would play the role of parent you could let the teacher teach. We have too many kids that don't get sent to school even with coats. You want them to be taught at home? A parent that chooses cigarettes over a lunch? A beer instead of shoes without holes?
You want me to condone and recommend that? It is not a cure all. It would work for the smartest and the brightest. The ones that would need special skilled educational techniques would be very hard to accomplish by your self. It works for those that make it work. It is a lifestyle choice.
It may be somewhat more expensive to homeschool, but far better IMO.
What parents can't teach, there is this wonderful thing called homeschool cooperatives where parents get together and there is always someone qualified to teach certain harder subjects such as chemistry.
It is not any harder to provide social interaction and actually provides advantages as you can, if the parents so desire, make sure that their kids interact with kids of like mind. There are many many many homeschool activities these days including sports teams, music, bands, and many others.
And as far as colleges go, colleges nowadays are actually seeking out homeschool kids for enrollment. It is not the hurdle that it used to be.
Who stays home? Not all families need to be a two working parent home. You make sacrifices, you work at it. But you are right, from the families I've seen, it is a lifestyle. You're never really "out of school". It's an ongoing thing 24/7.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 02:09:17 PM
Pros of Home School
•Free to choose curriculum
•Free to choose schedule
•Small teacher to student ratio
•Teaches students to be independent in their learning choices
Cons of Home School
•Usually more expensive than public school
•Teachers are not always qualified to teach all subjects
•It's harder to provide social interaction
•Colleges sometimes have stricter admission policies concerning homeschooled students.
Sources:
nheri.org
familyfun.go.com
Who is going to be the ones out working while you are home schooling the children?? If you are correct and every one quits sending their kids to school stays home and teaches them everything from shoetieing to thermodynamics who is going to be the ditch digger?
Well the thermodynamics can be taught later on when they go to college for that subject ;)
QuoteWho works the cattle?
Hmm lets see, how bout the parents as well as the kids?? You have to do many things with cattle, of which all of them can be turned into a classroom lesson that they learn.
QuoteI think it would be wonderful if the entire world just quit working for other people to stay at home and teach their own kids. It is not practical.
Why not? You have a electric company, put the youngins to work running wires. helping out meanwhile teach them ohms law and about capacitive reactance, and inductive reactance. teach about finding the average value of the current running through a parallel circuit utilizing trigonometric functions.
What about the resistance load of 12 g romex? It's all a classroom you know.
QuoteWhat makes you think that you can teach better than a trained teacher?
The fact that NO teacher will look out for my child in the way i do. Lets take one field of expertise. No teach out there including college teachers has a current education in the field of computers. So your kids taking a computer course at elk co high is getting taught a 10 year old technology lesson. The excuse is they are getting basics, which is hogwash cause if you ever went through the "college" courses, their college course is 20 years out of date.
English, math, core classes like that don't change, and we all go through them. So that gives us all the ability to teach it. Science is like computers, it changes daily and most science textbooks are years out of date, even the current ones.
So that gives those of us that teach at home the unique ability of learning with the kids.
QuoteWhy can't you just augment what they get at school at home? They are still home more hours of every day then at school.
Thats working for some.
QuoteIf you would play the role of parent you could let the teacher teach. We have too many kids that don't get sent to school even with coats. You want them to be taught at home? A parent that chooses cigarettes over a lunch? A beer instead of shoes without holes?
The role of parent is to be the teacher.
That is crap. You can't takes kids in to the kind of plants that I work at. Oh honey don't but the antifreeze in your mouth. Please pour the hexane out of your sisters shoe. You can't expose them to the hazards of high voltage or heights. No that is not a H1N1 cough we just worked at a grain elevator yesterday. In ten years someone asks where did you go to school. I was in the front seat of the truck for the last ten years because of the OSHA regulations, child labor laws, and my fathers commitment to homeschooling.
I am going to drag all three kids in the cab of a pickup for the next six months to feed cattle. Where would the dog sit? We already have assigned seats.
The computer class is a prime example of what I am talking about. How can you teach something you have no clue about? Technology changes constantly. If you are taking a refresher course on networking who is taking the refresher course on macroeconomics? Where is the study guide for the feed rations with ddg comparisons? How can you possibly be all things at all times? Why do you think that you are the only human on face of the earth that cares about your kids? Where are your teaching credentials? If you are an axe-murderer do you teach your kids only axe-murdering or do you expand out to slicing with a katana? You might be the best axe-murderer in the world and would make any mother proud but is that what you want the next generation to learn?
You say that you are a better businessman than Bill Gates, that gun laws don't apply to you so with that judgement call on your resume`how can you honestly say that your teaching skills are superior to that of every teacher in the public school district?
You are not letting your kids have a level playing field if you limit them to your experiences.
I know I am very late at jumping into this, but I just have to make some comments. All schools aren't the same, just as all people aren't the same. Private schools that can cherry pick the kids they accept are always going to have kids with good grades and attitudes or they are sent packing. Public schools have to take what they are given. I'm really sorry that some of you had bad experiences, but you shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. Some inner city schools in the biggest, oldest cities do have problems, but not all of them do.There are very innovative creative teachers out there who do miracles with tough kids. As far as our Government "indoctrinating our kids"...think about that. One of you said other countries' kids can top ours with less time in school. So, it's OK if they they totally indoctrinate their kids as their Gov't sees fit as long as they can beat our kids in math? Socialist countries, communist countries...Some have tough education standards and the kids can parrot back things that can be memorized. But at what cost? They can spew the party line at a very young age. You want your job threatened because your kid isn't quite good enough in school? You want to go to prison because your child acted up? Your kid gets the best grades and suddenly you are qualified to get a bigger house or a nicer apartment? You want some Gov't telling you how many kids you can have? (But the one you are allowed will get a great education...or else!) Be careful what you wish for. Or maybe we can go back to chaining kids to the looms again, just think how much they can learn. That's why there are child labor laws....notice the big exemption for farms and ranches...they need all the child labor they can get, maybe throw in a few orphans while we're at it.
Around here ( I know you aren't interested) private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers are. I had private schools try to hire me away a number of times, but the pay was worse than mine.
As far as the parent needing to be the main educator.... Well of course they should, but most don't. Does one toss those kids aside?( What kind of Christian thinking is that?) When I was teaching in Maryland we had kids come into Kindergarten who weren't even toilet trained!
By the way, the IT guy and computer teacher at Newark Charter is a computer specialist, hired just for that. Now if I was teaching computers, I'd agree. I'm definitely not qualified. If you have some short comings in your school system out there, do what you can to fix them. Don't assume we all have them.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on October 26, 2009, 03:33:59 PM
I know I am very late at jumping into this, but I just have to make some comments. All schools aren't the same, just as all people aren't the same. Private schools that can cherry pick the kids they accept are always going to have kids with good grades and attitudes or they are sent packing. Public schools have to take what they are given. I'm really sorry that some of you had bad experiences, but you shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. Some inner city schools in the biggest, oldest cities do have problems, but not all of them do.There are very innovative creative teachers out there who do miracles with tough kids. As far as our Government "indoctrinating our kids"...think about that. One of you said other countries' kids can top ours with less time in school. So, it's OK if they they totally indoctrinate their kids as their Gov't sees fit as long as they can beat our kids in math? Socialist countries, communist countries...Some have tough education standards and the kids can parrot back things that can be memorized. But at what cost? They can spew the party line at a very young age. You want your job threatened because your kid isn't quite good enough in school? You want to go to prison because your child acted up? Your kid gets the best grades and suddenly you are qualified to get a bigger house or a nicer apartment? You want some Gov't telling you how many kids you can have? (But the one you are allowed will get a great education...or else!) Be careful what you wish for. Or maybe we can go back to chaining kids to the looms again, just think how much they can learn. That's why there are child labor laws....notice the big exemption for farms and ranches...they need all the child labor they can get, maybe throw in a few orphans while we're at it.
Around here ( I know you aren't interested) private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers are. I had private schools try to hire me away a number of times, but the pay was worse than mine.
As far as the parent needing to be the main educator.... Well of course they should, but most don't. Does one toss those kids aside?( What kind of Christian thinking is that?) When I was teaching in Maryland we had kids come into Kindergarten who weren't even toilet trained!
By the way, the IT guy and computer teacher at Newark Charter is a computer specialist, hired just for that. Now if I was teaching computers, I'd agree. I'm definitely not qualified. If you have some short comings in your school system out there, do what you can to fix them. Don't assume we all have them.
Diane, I think we already said that we were not talking about West Elk IN PARTICULAR, but about public schools IN GENERAL. Yes I realize that public schools have to take what they get and a lot of times that's parents that couldn't give a twit less about their kids. This whole argument is to Pep who thinks that NO ONE should homeschool. This argument is not about the teachers out here or the kids out here or the school out here, but in general across the nation. Teachers in public schools do what they can with what they've got, but it is a right as a parent to school their children at home if they so desire and often times, homeschool children come out shining ahead of their public school counterparts. Not always, but a large chunk of the time they do. And your apology for our experience was probably about inner city schools? Nope, mine was actually at a private school, you know, those ones that cherry pick their kids and it wasn't any better in the school district which I grew up in which was Goddard. You know, the one that's always bragging about how they're the best in the state? I had friends that went there and it was just as bad or worse. West Elk's advantage is that they are a small school still. That keeps it nice. Keeps parents more involved in what's going on. Still has that small town way of thinking and that's what helps.
Now I know what's wrong !!!!! Hell, Mom made me go to school. ::) ::) ::) ::)
Quote from: greatguns on October 26, 2009, 05:46:56 PM
Now I know what's wrong !!!!! Hell, Mom made me go to school. ::) ::) ::) ::)
Awweee, now I knew you couldn't stay quiet forever. ;D
Quote from: Sarah on October 26, 2009, 05:23:14 PM
This whole argument is to Pep who thinks that NO ONE should homeschool.
Really, I was just stating that joining a pta organization does not make the school fat and pad their pockets.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 03:00:33 PM
That is crap. You can't takes kids in to the kind of plants that I work at. Oh honey don't but the antifreeze in your mouth. Please pour the hexane out of your sisters shoe. You can't expose them to the hazards of high voltage or heights.
I'm sure you do some jobs there that don't involve 440 and hexane. Still you miss my point about teaching them.
Quote
Where is the study guide for the feed rations with ddg comparisons?
WHy not utilize the computer your typing on, to look up the feed rations comparisons. I know i do. Shoot how about this, i look up the protein levels of corn, oats and soybean so that I can mix my feed to meet the needs of my animals.
QuoteHow can you possibly be all things at all times?
Well where theres a will theres a way. What about you? You are electrician right? you run a grocery store Right? You probably have SOME knowlege of prescription drugs....
QuoteWhy do you think that you are the only human on face of the earth that cares about your kids?
I never said i was.
QuoteWhere are your teaching credentials?
well, lets see. 2 AS deg, 15 years of Computer Sciences including telecommunications, Satellite Communications, 4 years of OTR Truck driving, Construction, cooking, and about 20 years of mechanical repair and Mechanical engineering.
Now before ya get all hot n bothered about the time, I started working on engines and cars when i was 8 years old. Been doing it since. Started working in construction at 13 years old and OMG I was wiring! At 15 i was wiring up service panels. Then comes the fun part, cooking for a living.... Lasted all of 3 years before i said the hell with this. OTR was fun, got to learn a hell of a lot about our country by seeing it first hand. All the major historical places. Lots of history. Then you get into my career in the electronics and computer sciences.
QuoteIf you are an axe-murderer do you teach your kids only axe-murdering or do you expand out to slicing with a katana?
Well being that if i were a axe murderer, i would probably be adept at every type of cutlery available to my trade. I would only choose to use a axe if that was my preferred weapon and i would give them an array of wonderful sharp instruments to practice with to find out which one would suit their educational needs.
QuoteYou might be the best axe-murderer in the world and would make any mother proud but is that what you want the next generation to learn?
Maybe, if its good enough for lizzy its good enough for them.
QuoteYou say that you are a better businessman than Bill Gates, that gun laws don't apply to you so with that judgement call on your resume`how can you honestly say that your teaching skills are superior to that of every teacher in the public school district?
Actually no i don't. My English skills suck these days. SO i would go back to class and bone up on my skills. ;)
QuoteYou are not letting your kids have a level playing field if you limit them to your experiences.
I can tell you something, I had a grandfather that taught me tons of things growing up, and I still wish i could have learned more from him. There wasn't enough time in my life to aquire his skills and knowlege.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on October 26, 2009, 03:33:59 PM
I know I am very late at jumping into this, but I just have to make some comments. All schools aren't the same, just as all people aren't the same. Private schools that can cherry pick the kids they accept are always going to have kids with good grades and attitudes or they are sent packing. Public schools have to take what they are given. I'm really sorry that some of you had bad experiences, but you shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. Some inner city schools in the biggest, oldest cities do have problems, but not all of them do.
Ok diane, private schools will take kids that can pay the tuition fee. What are you talking about cherry picking? IF your talking about the ones that won't abide by rules, yeah your right. Personally i believe education is a priveledge not a right. you have to earn it. I am of the belief that if a kid decides they do not wish to abide by the rules and learn, then send em down the road. Let them live in ignorance.
QuoteAs far as our Government "indoctrinating our kids"...think about that. One of you said other countries' kids can top ours with less time in school. So, it's OK if they they totally indoctrinate their kids as their Gov't sees fit as long as they can beat our kids in math? Socialist countries, communist countries...Some have tough education standards and the kids can parrot back things that can be memorized. But at what cost? They can spew the party line at a very young age. You want your job threatened because your kid isn't quite good enough in school? You want to go to prison because your child acted up? Your kid gets the best grades and suddenly you are qualified to get a bigger house or a nicer apartment? You want some Gov't telling you how many kids you can have? (But the one you are allowed will get a great education...or else!) Be careful what you wish for. Or maybe we can go back to chaining kids to the looms again, just think how much they can learn. That's why there are child labor laws....notice the big exemption for farms and ranches...they need all the child labor they can get, maybe throw in a few orphans while we're at it.
I agree! Thats why i am against the indoctrination programs. Europe is that way, we have succombed to that teaching method, not totally though.
QuoteAround here ( I know you aren't interested) private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers are. I had private schools try to hire me away a number of times, but the pay was worse than mine.
That is a regional thing too.
QuoteAs far as the parent needing to be the main educator.... Well of course they should, but most don't. Does one toss those kids aside?( What kind of Christian thinking is that?) When I was teaching in Maryland we had kids come into Kindergarten who weren't even toilet trained!
Ok so where did the parents go to school? I'll guarantee you that they didn't go to a private school.
QuoteBy the way, the IT guy and computer teacher at Newark Charter is a computer specialist, hired just for that. Now if I was teaching computers, I'd agree. I'm definitely not qualified. If you have some short comings in your school system out there, do what you can to fix them. Don't assume we all have them.
I don't know what network charter is. sorry. Computer classes i any school cannot be properly taught unless you draw away from the business world a IT guy. the technology goes out of date faster than it can be taught.
What is next after the deconstruction of sentences? Explain to me dinosaurs. Use any bible reference you want.
My kids are so stupid I don't waste my time teaching them things they can learn off the tv. :)
You have a drivers license to drive a car. But you don't think you need to be an accredited teachers with certificate to teach. If there was a fine involved, maybe? There is a big difference between knowing the knowledge and teaching the child. I am talking about a well rounded education. I mean that you teach the student to the extent of the students abilities to learn not the limitations of the teacher. You can't offer the unlimited supply of knowledge that an entire school can about every subject. Yes you could handle the basics but that only gets you in the door. You still have to get out the door. The difference between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher. The part that is the same between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 06:13:10 PM
What is next after the deconstruction of sentences? Explain to me dinosaurs. Use any bible reference you want.
My kids are so stupid I don't waste my time teaching them things they can learn off the tv. :)
You have a drivers license to drive a car. But you don't think you need to be an accredited teachers with certificate to teach. If there was a fine involved, maybe? There is a big difference between knowing the knowledge and teaching the child. I am talking about a well rounded education. I mean that you teach the student to the extent of the students abilities to learn not the limitations of the teacher. You can't offer the unlimited supply of knowledge that an entire school can about every subject. Yes you could handle the basics but that only gets you in the door. You still have to get out the door. The difference between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher. The part that is the same between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher.
You know, I for one am not going to argue with you any more. There are 1,000's of kids that are homeschooled that are coming out ahead of their public AND private school counterparts that proves that yes parents can teach all things and the idea behind teaching any child is to give them a love for learning so that they can go on and learn and teach themselves whatever interests them for the rest of their lives. You know, our oldest daughter was actually raised by my mother-in-law and was homeschooled her entire life. She is now grown up, but she knows above and beyond most public school kids. At 18 she was already through college courses and knew 2 major languages including latin. She can go on to do anything she wants and she was taught by my mother in law. Was she certified to teach? Nope. She never went to college, in fact, she never graduated high school. It can be done and it IS done every day across the country. Don't knock what you know nothing about.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 06:13:10 PM
What is next after the deconstruction of sentences? Explain to me dinosaurs. Use any bible reference you want.
My kids are so stupid I don't waste my time teaching them things they can learn off the tv. :)
You have a drivers license to drive a car. But you don't think you need to be an accredited teachers with certificate to teach.
No i don't think they have to be accredited. Sorry but I have known too many "Accredited Teachers" that couldn't do their job! Accreditation is a joke. The BEST teacher i have ever had was one i had in Chem and physics class. He made the subjects fun. Always had something up his sleeve and if you weren't paying attention you most likely would end up with something gooey on you from one of his experiments. Accreditation didn't give him that.
QuoteThere is a big difference between knowing the knowledge and teaching the child.
Thats true. We have universities full of those who "teach". The ole saying those who can do, those who can't teach college courses. Its so true.
But going back to what you said, In IT industry i had to unlearn all the new guys that came into the business and teach them what they needed to know. They come out of college with these skillsets that are dated back to the 70's and 80's. Most of the colleges have to reteach the kids going into colleges. I was in one college in 2006, sat there taking these entrance tests, and out of 100 people that took it, 35 of us did NOT have to take english and math courses to catch us up to college standards. Those 35 were over 40 years old. The rest were highschool grads. Unacceptable.
QuoteI am talking about a well rounded education.
Ok whats a well rounded education to you?
QuoteI mean that you teach the student to the extent of the students abilities to learn not the limitations of the teacher.
Ok how do you propose to do that if the teacher in the classroom doesn't have the advanced knowlege?
QuoteYou can't offer the unlimited supply of knowledge that an entire school can about every subject.
Why not? In todays education setting, we have something i never had and that is internet capability. There is a VAST wealth of knowlege to access and utilize in furthering learning. It encompasses just about every subject a student can possibly want to learn. From gardening to string theory, to Electro mechanical design. Why can't we offer that to our students? JUST BECAUSE the teacher doesn't know hwo to teach it doesn't mean we can't teach our children to teach themselves!
QuoteYes you could handle the basics but that only gets you in the door. You still have to get out the door. The difference between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher. The part that is the same between home and public education is the extent of the knowledge of the teacher.
Ok getting out the door. So what if i dont' know something. I can learn too! My son josh, was in highschool and was studying physics and we both worked on a laser project. We both designed and built a CO2 laser. He entered his laser in the school fair and won 2nd place. Now i could have done like you said and let the teachers teach, and he wouldn't have gotten his laser built. His teacher had no training in that. I didn't know squat about the laser but we both went and read up on it on the internet, bought parts made parts, blew up parts, until we both got a working laser.
Doesn't matter what you don't know. What matters is that you know where to find the information to accomplish your goal.
Quote from: srkruzich on October 26, 2009, 06:36:50 PM
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 06:13:10 PM
Thats true. We have universities full of those who "teach". The ole saying those who can do, those who can't teach college courses. Its so true.
Oh that is so true. Most college professors can't "teach". Went through college. They're excellent at giving lectures, but as far as actual teaching skills go, nope.
So if all you are going to do is teach off the internet then what makes you any better than any internet kiosk? You are one person. You would assuming you had more kids be teaching your kids. Do you honestly think that every person that wants to homeschool has the skill set to do so? I want to play the oboe so I read about it on the internet? There has to be oversight. There is more to schooling than quizzing out of the final. Why is one person teaching 7 subjects more qualified than 7 teachers teaching one student? Just because you built a laser doesn't mean that you are a physicist. I have torn down a transmission does that make me an auto mechanic? No... You are a genius if you get it back together and it works.. :)
Just because you are good at doing something doesn't mean you know how to teach it correctly or even at all. So if accreditation = a joke. Then experience = putting in hours. Just because you do something for a long time doesn't mean you should. I have been speeding since I learned to drive that means, because I can also turn left I am equal to any NASCAR driver? Does that further mean that I can teach other drivers how to do it?
My daughter has a question? What happens when you are sick? Do you call a substitute dad? My kids seem to like the fact that they would never be late to school.
I think we will quit school tomorrow. I could use the help.
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 07:39:37 PM
So if all you are going to do is teach off the internet then what makes you any better than any internet kiosk? You are one person. You would assuming you had more kids be teaching your kids. Do you honestly think that every person that wants to homeschool has the skill set to do so? I want to play the oboe so I read about it on the internet? There has to be oversight.
Why? I taught myself to play a guitar. So did my middle son. My oldest son learned the trumpet. Youngest learned the keyboard and taught himself to play it. Granted the trumpet was painful at first but he got better and is now a wonderful player.
No teachers involved. You see, you can learn anything you want to learn IF you know how to aquire the information to learn.
QuoteThere is more to schooling than quizzing out of the final.
agreed.
QuoteWhy is one person teaching 7 subjects more qualified than 7 teachers teaching one student?
Well generally we learn all 7 subjects being in school. So that does give us the qualifications to teach it. :) I mean isn't that the point of sitting under 7 teachers? To learn all 7 subjects?
QuoteJust because you built a laser doesn't mean that you are a physicist. I have torn down a transmission does that make me an auto mechanic? No... You are a genius if you get it back together and it works.. :)
Well then i have gotten several trannys back together. :P It doesn't take genius it takes the ability to think through a problem. Just like programming a computer. If you can follow the logic flow, you can program a computer. Knowing the particular language like C or pascal or basic isn't important. What is important is the flow of the logic. Once you master that, you can program in any language you choose.
Again its about knowing how to aquire knowlege.
QuoteJust because you are good at doing something doesn't mean you know how to teach it correctly or even at all. So if accreditation = a joke. Then experience = putting in hours. Just because you do something for a long time doesn't mean you should. I have been speeding since I learned to drive that means, because I can also turn left I am equal to any NASCAR driver? Does that further mean that I can teach other drivers how to do it?
Uhmm generally if you know what you are doing then you can teach it. Generally you teach basics, then toss them into the fire so to speak with on hand training. Let them make mistakes and then show them where they screwed up. Its a effective method that works with most kids and adults.
QuoteMy daughter has a question? What happens when you are sick? Do you call a substitute dad? My kids seem to like the fact that they would never be late to school.
You know, dad is sick, you get a day off of school. :) Homeschooled kids get done quicker with their schoolwork than regular schools. You don't have to wait for 30 kids to learn the lesson. spending 1 hour on a subject isn't necessary if you grasp the concept.
Some stuff takes memorization such as times tables some stuff doesn't.
Pep,
Why are you so sure homeschooling isn't effective? Why are you so sure that one person can't teach 7 subjects? How many homeschoolers families do you know? How many have failed? What is your knowlege on what is taught in a homeschool environment.
Stay right in there SRKruzich. You're doing good.
I know of none that have failed. I know plenty that have been great.
I just don't think the concept as a whole is viable or good for the populace of Elk county. I am sure in larger areas where the public schools are shit it makes perfect sense. But here I think it would just put more of a drain on a depressed area.
Private school would be even worse. Get you to quit public school then kick you out when your check bounced. Private schools would bleed off the best and brightest and leave special ed and problem children.
I was a pain in the ass student with a IEP to prove it. I didn't have crap teachers. I had some really great teachers. Some are still teaching here at WE. A lot of blood sweat and tears built this school that you dismiss as sub par. I personally think that it is still worth stick up for. It would be an insult to the generation that came before me to do otherwise. What you pass off as home schooling I would call growing up in a typical Elk county house with parents that actually care. Hell yes I learned more from my parents and grandparents than I ever did at school. But that doesn't mean that I should not have went to school.
Why should I endorse something that I done like, understand, or would run contrary to my continuing education?
It's looking like you're very supportive of the indoctrination that you received
in the gov't school. I got a dose of it too, but have been fortunate to rid ot it.
Indoctrination my *&^. What is this indoctrination yall keep spoutin off about? Just another boogieman hidin in the closet to scare your kids? Why is it that anybody who doesn't agree with you has been..... oooooooooo......"indoctrinated"! I'd think everybody on here would agree with everybody else if we had all been "inDOCtrinated"....talk about boring ass conversations........hey.... maybe YOU all been indoctrinated.......
?? ?? ?? ??
well I'm takin my indoctrinated(<- sarcasm) ass off to bed...mornin comes pretty early around here. Y'all have a most excellant evenin.
Quote from: pamsback on October 26, 2009, 09:28:09 PM
Indoctrination my *&^. What is this indoctrination yall keep spoutin off about? Just another boogieman hidin in the closet to scare your kids? Why is it that anybody who doesn't agree with you has been..... oooooooooo......"indoctrinated"! I'd think everybody on here would agree with everybody else if we had all been "inDOCtrinated"....talk about boring ass conversations........hey.... maybe YOU all been indoctrinated.......
Like the military, public schooling operates in a top-down, command-and-control manner. It's a perfect model of socialistic central planning, a system in which government officials plan and direct the activities of the citizenry rather than simply leaving the citizenry free to plan and direct their own affairs.
Whether the control comes from the state government, through the state department of education, or the local government, through a school board, the principle is the same — a group of appointed or elected government officials is directing the educational decisions of multitudes of students. That's different from the private sector, where consumers, through their spending decisions, determine the direction of entrepreneurial and business activity.
Government officials decide the textbooks and the curricula in government schools. Thus, they decide the substance of what is to be taught to the students. In socialist countries like Cuba, we usually call that process indoctrination.
An American teacher might deviate from time to time from official doctrine, but if the deviation is major and persistent, the teacher will ultimately be forced into conformity. For example, suppose a schoolteacher begins teaching students that the drug war is immoral and destructive and, therefore, that drugs should be legalized. Outraged parents would bring their wrath down upon the school board, which would pressure the principal, who would send an appropriate message to the teacher.
Good post there, SRKruzich.
By the way, the Cubans are well educated. Yeah, the Cubans are......
So what you are saying is that homeschooling is just a cult that hasn't had the kool-aid yet?
Quote from: redcliffsw on October 26, 2009, 09:18:51 PM
It's looking like you're very supportive of the indoctrination that you received
in the gov't school. I got a dose of it too, but have been fortunate to rid ot it.
I really challenge your sanity. What part of crazy paranoid delusional thinking would lead you to believe that I would ever buy in to your come in here the water is warm love campaign. I support what I believe in. I think you got a dose of something illegal. There is no question that you need care. Go back to sleep the voices you hear are your own. You wouldn't know a good post even if you could make a porch swing out of it.
This thread is interesting and funny at the same time. Who would have thought that insanity can be humerous?
Quotepublic schooling operates in a top-down, command-and-control manner
that ain't government indoctrination.........that's LIFE. Everything in life operates that way...even your HOME-school......just instead of goin thru the school board to censur information YOU are the school board. By your own definition you are INDOCTRINATING your kids to know and believe what YOU want them to.
My position is something that was taught me years ago....only a fool turns their nose up at knowledge because knowledge of something prepares you to DEAL with it. Even the things you don't agree with.
Just like in studying history....there is the story the WINNERS tell...the story the LOSERS tell..and then there is the REST of the story....you instill in children the desire to find the REST of the story, no matter about what, and you will have done well.
as for the rest of it, just indoctrination in general....parents do it....churches do it....businesses do it....it's all about bein part of the "club" Some of us don't join the "club" actually a LOT of us. Any time you "train" somebody be it your kids or whatever...you are inDOCtrinating them into your way of thinking and knowing so in all actuality I am inDOCtrinating MY kids to be OPEN-minded and non-judgmental. To be seekers of ALL knowledge not just SOME knowledge. So that indoctrination argument DOESN'T hold water as far as I am concerned.
All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.
~~Mark Twain~~
You can't stop or operate with HALF the story............public AND home education are the two HALVES of the ONE.
Quote from: pamsback on October 27, 2009, 06:42:26 AM
Quotepublic schooling operates in a top-down, command-and-control manner
that ain't government indoctrination.........that's LIFE. Everything in life operates that way...even your HOME-school......just instead of goin thru the school board to censur information YOU are the school board. By your own definition you are INDOCTRINATING your kids to know and believe what YOU want them to.
My position is something that was taught me years ago....only a fool turns their nose up at knowledge because knowledge of something prepares you to DEAL with it. Even the things you don't agree with.
Just like in studying history....there is the story the WINNERS tell...the story the LOSERS tell..and then there is the REST of the story....you instill in children the desire to find the REST of the story, no matter about what, and you will have done well.
as for the rest of it, just indoctrination in general....parents do it....churches do it....businesses do it....it's all about bein part of the "club" Some of us don't join the "club" actually a LOT of us. Any time you "train" somebody be it your kids or whatever...you are inDOCtrinating them into your way of thinking and knowing so in all actuality I am inDOCtrinating MY kids to be OPEN-minded and non-judgmental. To be seekers of ALL knowledge not just SOME knowledge. So that indoctrination argument DOESN'T hold water as far as I am concerned.
I was with you right up until that line I bolded. We all teach what we want our kids to value. The school also, teaches what it values, or rather what the government says it should value. Parents teach what they value. Or parents send their kids to private school that upholds the values of the parents and will instill it in their kids. That's our right and our freedom in this country. If you don't believe what is going on in the public schools around this country than you are really not paying attention and yes, schools here in Kansas and I'm not necessarily talking about the big public schools in Wichita and Kansas City. I'm talking about the smaller schools in small communities also. Not necessarily all of them, but a lot of them and if you don't know it's going on, then I would highly suggest you start reading more. You might start with a really good book called "The Dumbing Down of America". You might learn something.
But I am curious here....how can you teach a character quality that you yourself do not possess?
Quote from: pamsback on October 27, 2009, 06:42:26 AM
Quotepublic schooling operates in a top-down, command-and-control manner
that ain't government indoctrination.........that's LIFE. Everything in life operates that way...even your HOME-school......just instead of goin thru the school board to censur information YOU are the school board. By your own definition you are INDOCTRINATING your kids to know and believe what YOU want them to.
My position is something that was taught me years ago....only a fool turns their nose up at knowledge because knowledge of something prepares you to DEAL with it. Even the things you don't agree with.
Just like in studying history....there is the story the WINNERS tell...the story the LOSERS tell..and then there is the REST of the story....you instill in children the desire to find the REST of the story, no matter about what, and you will have done well.
as for the rest of it, just indoctrination in general....parents do it....churches do it....businesses do it....it's all about bein part of the "club" Some of us don't join the "club" actually a LOT of us. Any time you "train" somebody be it your kids or whatever...you are inDOCtrinating them into your way of thinking and knowing so in all actuality I am inDOCtrinating MY kids to be OPEN-minded and non-judgmental. To be seekers of ALL knowledge not just SOME knowledge. So that indoctrination argument DOESN'T hold water as far as I am concerned.
How are public schools financed? Through coercion. Everyone, even people who do not have children, is taxed to fund this government enterprise. It's called taking money from everyone to subsidize those who have children. Or as Karl Marx would have described this process of spreading the wealth, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Quote from: Makemeturn! on October 26, 2009, 10:36:36 PM
So what you are saying is that homeschooling is just a cult that hasn't had the kool-aid yet?Quote from: redcliffsw on October 26, 2009, 09:18:51 PM
It's looking like you're very supportive of the indoctrination that you received
in the gov't school. I got a dose of it too, but have been fortunate to rid ot it.
I really challenge your sanity. What part of crazy paranoid delusional thinking would lead you to believe that I would ever buy in to your come in here the water is warm love campaign. I support what I believe in. I think you got a dose of something illegal. There is no question that you need care. Go back to sleep the voices you hear are your own. You wouldn't know a good post even if you could make a porch swing out of it.
Pep your a Advocate of government schooling and you claim that parents are not competent to make educational decisions for their children.
That raises an obvious question: Why not?
Aren't most parents products of public schooling? If public schooling has produced a nation of adults who lack the competence to guide their children's education, why do we want to continue a system that is likely to produce the same result?
Government schools get their customers? Through force. That's where compulsory-attendance laws come into play. If a parent fails to send his children into the public school system or fails to subject them to some alternative form of
government-approved education (e.g., charter schools, government-licensed private schools), the parent is subjected to extreme sanctions, including imprisonment.
This is the only way the Government can get good citizens that vote the right way, think the right way, and act the right way.
?? ??
How humorous......she doesn't agree with me so attack her character.......ssdd there.....
Am I talkin with my mouth full of mush or something? I mean seriously.....how is saying we need BOTH make me lack some character trait or mean I am "attacking your whatever blah blah blah"
Don't make the mistake of thinkin I don't know what you are talking about with your "dumbing down of america" stuff. I deal with the stupidity of people every day of my life. I just choose to go AROUND it and TEACH my kids the REST of the story. People only get "dumbed down" if they ALLOW it and that goes for home schooling OR public education.
I don't know you so guess I won't speculate on YOUR character......................or lack.....
LOL guess I'm gettin better,,was a time I would've just told you to f off LOLOLOLOLOLOL
I'll be right here at your disposal if you would like to trade some insults about my character or lack of said character....or whatever :P
I'm still here.......but I ain't got all day to wait.............
Quote from: pamsback on October 27, 2009, 07:45:22 AM
?? ??
How humorous......she doesn't agree with me so attack her character.......ssdd there.....
Am I talkin with my mouth full of mush or something? I mean seriously.....how is saying we need BOTH make me lack some character trait or mean I am "attacking your whatever blah blah blah"
Don't make the mistake of thinkin I don't know what you are talking about with your "dumbing down of america" stuff. I deal with the stupidity of people every day of my life. I just choose to go AROUND it and TEACH my kids the REST of the story. People only get "dumbed down" if they ALLOW it and that goes for home schooling OR public education.
I don't know you so guess I won't speculate on YOUR character......................or lack.....
LOL guess I'm gettin better,,was a time I would've just told you to f off LOLOLOLOLOLOL
Hmmm......trading insults? I think not. Do we NEED public education? You'll always need public schools. I think private schools, charter schools and homeschools fill in quite nicely. Public school is fine for some. Not everyone has the money for private schools, not everyone has the time or even the desire to homeschool. In some areas public schools are still awesome schools. But in a large chunk of the areas they're not and as a whole, the whole government system and the whole America way of thinking is going down hill and it is true that "public education" was never provided for in the constitution and was to be a private matter. It should still be that way. But public education was started by one man who got the idea from another country as they took the kids early and figured that if they were taught by the state, they were then controlled by the state and if Obama gets his way of longer school days and longer school years, of which I know of schools that are already going to year around schooling, then parents will have less and less influence on their children and be at whatever the public schools are teaching.
The book? If you took that as a personal insult, I am sorry. It is an excellent book on what is going on in the public schools and the media around the country. Read it. You might like it. It's very good. You can find out a lot of what is going on around the country. Maybe not in your neighborhood.......yet. Maybe not here. But it is going on.
State-sponsored schools were not part of the original make-up of this country. None of the Founders – all of whom were educated at home or privately – saw providing compulsory, state-sponsored education as a proper function of the central government, which is why education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. There were no government schools in any modern sense of that term until the 1840s, when Horace Mann's Unitarians started them up in Massachusetts as what were then known as common schools. Mann had been to Prussia where he learned of a far different view of the relationship between central government and its citizens than our own tradition which sees the individual as special both morally and economically. Prussian schools just like American schoolsconsidered children property of the state, and educated them accordingly. They were raised to be obedient to the state, their purpose being to advance the interests of the state.
Vast difference from our forefathers who believe exactly opposite of this mantra.
Shortt also cites Robert Owen, one of the Anglo-American world's first influential socialists, who developed a similar philosophy of education. Owen believed that children should be separated from their parents as early as possible and raised by the state. He believed people were exclusively the products of their social environments, and that if nurtured properly by the state, could be molded into whatever was desired. A key to the thinking that went into forming the official ideology of state-sponsored education was that human beings are innately good, not sinful, and that human nature could be perfected by the right kind of educational system. The ideology that eventually developed would hold that children could be molded into willing consumers of the products of big business and obedient servants of government. In short, the aims of state-sponsored schools were to transform thinking, highly individualistic and very literate citizens into an unthinking, collectivized mass. The slow but steady decline in literacy of all kinds was a by-product.
The official philosophy of state-sponsored education gradually became a materialistic humanism, protected by statism. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), it made the federal courts arbiter of what the states could do regarding religion in government schools. This opened the door to the eventual court-ordered removal of officially-sponsored prayer (even, in some cases, prior to athletic events), by virtue of the Court's new "wall of separation" doctrine. This misreading of the Constitution holds that Establishment Clause in the First Amendment means the need to remove Christianity from all public institutions.
Various forms of ethical subjectivism, relativism and nihilism become unavoidable. They took forms such as "values clarification," which urged children to talk openly about "their values" but provided no direction. "Everybody has their own morals," teenagers learned to say (complete with grammar mistake). While the dialogue over moral theories may captivate career academics, the absence of definitive moral guidance in young people's lives has proven catastrophic. During the past half-century, with materialistic humanists more and more in control, we saw the rise of teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, a cavalier and casual attitude toward sex (and at ever-younger ages), the break-up of families – and epidemics of cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty. In the last analysis, what needs to be said about humanist ethics as that they don't work. Humanism's message, essentially, is: we are responsible for our own moral lives, and one should never be judgmental (and never mind the contradiction here). Humanistic approaches to morality, combined with opposition to "judgmentalism," leads to the idea that all "lifestyles" are morally equal. Shortt adds to the burgeoning literature on the incursions of radical homosexuals in government schools. Their methods, predictably, have assumed and attempted to inculcate the moral equivalence of gay and straight "lifestyles." Inroads have been made into elementary schools, affecting grade school children who, not long ago, were considered too young to know what sex was.
The plummeting levels of literacy have been even more pronounced. Shortt reiterates how government schools are graduating legions of seniors who cannot construct grammatical English sentences, do arithmetic beyond a rudimentary level, and have little or no knowledge of the history of this country or its Constitutional foundations. These results are hidden by grade inflation, recalculations of GPAs, and the dumbing down of standardized tests, often in accordance with the politically correct need to remove "cultural bias." This ought to concern everyone worried about the status of our liberties in what little is left of our Constitutional republic. Shortt is addressing mainly Evangelicals. But it ought to be clear to anyone that we are in serious trouble when a sufficient number of students graduate from schools not knowing anything about our founding documents or their authors, or what rights the Constitution was written to encode and protect, or how our government is put together and what functions it is supposed to serve.
The situation is even worse. Children are actually in more danger in government schools than they could ever be from terrorists. Back in the 1990s government schools were witness to an epidemic of well-publicized shootings, the most dramatic being the Columbine killings in 1999. One root of the problem of violence in government schools is the collapse of discipline, resulting in a "blackboard jungle" where not just children but teachers must fear being assaulted, robbed, or even raped. Shortt cites two more Supreme Court decisions, Tinker v. Des Moines School District and Goss v. Lopez, as watersheds events leading to the end of discipline in government schools.
Quote from: srkruzich on October 27, 2009, 08:05:24 AM
State-sponsored schools were not part of the original make-up of this country. None of the Founders – all of whom were educated at home or privately – saw providing compulsory, state-sponsored education as a proper function of the central government, which is why education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. There were no government schools in any modern sense of that term until the 1840s, when Horace Mann's Unitarians started them up in Massachusetts as what were then known as common schools. Mann had been to Prussia where he learned of a far different view of the relationship between central government and its citizens than our own tradition which sees the individual as special both morally and economically. Prussian schools just like American schoolsconsidered children property of the state, and educated them accordingly. They were raised to be obedient to the state, their purpose being to advance the interests of the state.
Vast difference from our forefathers who believe exactly opposite of this mantra.
Shortt also cites Robert Owen, one of the Anglo-American world's first influential socialists, who developed a similar philosophy of education. Owen believed that children should be separated from their parents as early as possible and raised by the state. He believed people were exclusively the products of their social environments, and that if nurtured properly by the state, could be molded into whatever was desired. A key to the thinking that went into forming the official ideology of state-sponsored education was that human beings are innately good, not sinful, and that human nature could be perfected by the right kind of educational system. The ideology that eventually developed would hold that children could be molded into willing consumers of the products of big business and obedient servants of government. In short, the aims of state-sponsored schools were to transform thinking, highly individualistic and very literate citizens into an unthinking, collectivized mass. The slow but steady decline in literacy of all kinds was a by-product.
The official philosophy of state-sponsored education gradually became a materialistic humanism, protected by statism. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), it made the federal courts arbiter of what the states could do regarding religion in government schools. This opened the door to the eventual court-ordered removal of officially-sponsored prayer (even, in some cases, prior to athletic events), by virtue of the Court's new "wall of separation" doctrine. This misreading of the Constitution holds that Establishment Clause in the First Amendment means the need to remove Christianity from all public institutions.
Various forms of ethical subjectivism, relativism and nihilism become unavoidable. They took forms such as "values clarification," which urged children to talk openly about "their values" but provided no direction. "Everybody has their own morals," teenagers learned to say (complete with grammar mistake). While the dialogue over moral theories may captivate career academics, the absence of definitive moral guidance in young people's lives has proven catastrophic. During the past half-century, with materialistic humanists more and more in control, we saw the rise of teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, a cavalier and casual attitude toward sex (and at ever-younger ages), the break-up of families – and epidemics of cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty. In the last analysis, what needs to be said about humanist ethics as that they don't work. Humanism's message, essentially, is: we are responsible for our own moral lives, and one should never be judgmental (and never mind the contradiction here). Humanistic approaches to morality, combined with opposition to "judgmentalism," leads to the idea that all "lifestyles" are morally equal. Shortt adds to the burgeoning literature on the incursions of radical homosexuals in government schools. Their methods, predictably, have assumed and attempted to inculcate the moral equivalence of gay and straight "lifestyles." Inroads have been made into elementary schools, affecting grade school children who, not long ago, were considered too young to know what sex was.
The plummeting levels of literacy have been even more pronounced. Shortt reiterates how government schools are graduating legions of seniors who cannot construct grammatical English sentences, do arithmetic beyond a rudimentary level, and have little or no knowledge of the history of this country or its Constitutional foundations. These results are hidden by grade inflation, recalculations of GPAs, and the dumbing down of standardized tests, often in accordance with the politically correct need to remove "cultural bias." This ought to concern everyone worried about the status of our liberties in what little is left of our Constitutional republic. Shortt is addressing mainly Evangelicals. But it ought to be clear to anyone that we are in serious trouble when a sufficient number of students graduate from schools not knowing anything about our founding documents or their authors, or what rights the Constitution was written to encode and protect, or how our government is put together and what functions it is supposed to serve.
The situation is even worse. Children are actually in more danger in government schools than they could ever be from terrorists. Back in the 1990s government schools were witness to an epidemic of well-publicized shootings, the most dramatic being the Columbine killings in 1999. One root of the problem of violence in government schools is the collapse of discipline, resulting in a "blackboard jungle" where not just children but teachers must fear being assaulted, robbed, or even raped. Shortt cites two more Supreme Court decisions, Tinker v. Des Moines School District and Goss v. Lopez, as watersheds events leading to the end of discipline in government schools.
Yeah. Remember that law they tried to pass to lower the school age to like 4? Now Obama is wanting to lengthen the school day and the school year. Already they only have like 2 1/2 months off and the kids don't arrive home out here till like 4:30-4:45. That's a long day for any child. Hardly any time to just "be a kid".
Quote from: Sarah on October 27, 2009, 08:09:15 AM
Quote from: srkruzich on October 27, 2009, 08:05:24 AM
State-sponsored schools were not part of the original make-up of this country. None of the Founders – all of whom were educated at home or privately – saw providing compulsory, state-sponsored education as a proper function of the central government, which is why education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. There were no government schools in any modern sense of that term until the 1840s, when Horace Mann's Unitarians started them up in Massachusetts as what were then known as common schools. Mann had been to Prussia where he learned of a far different view of the relationship between central government and its citizens than our own tradition which sees the individual as special both morally and economically. Prussian schools just like American schoolsconsidered children property of the state, and educated them accordingly. They were raised to be obedient to the state, their purpose being to advance the interests of the state.
Vast difference from our forefathers who believe exactly opposite of this mantra.
Shortt also cites Robert Owen, one of the Anglo-American world's first influential socialists, who developed a similar philosophy of education. Owen believed that children should be separated from their parents as early as possible and raised by the state. He believed people were exclusively the products of their social environments, and that if nurtured properly by the state, could be molded into whatever was desired. A key to the thinking that went into forming the official ideology of state-sponsored education was that human beings are innately good, not sinful, and that human nature could be perfected by the right kind of educational system. The ideology that eventually developed would hold that children could be molded into willing consumers of the products of big business and obedient servants of government. In short, the aims of state-sponsored schools were to transform thinking, highly individualistic and very literate citizens into an unthinking, collectivized mass. The slow but steady decline in literacy of all kinds was a by-product.
The official philosophy of state-sponsored education gradually became a materialistic humanism, protected by statism. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), it made the federal courts arbiter of what the states could do regarding religion in government schools. This opened the door to the eventual court-ordered removal of officially-sponsored prayer (even, in some cases, prior to athletic events), by virtue of the Court's new "wall of separation" doctrine. This misreading of the Constitution holds that Establishment Clause in the First Amendment means the need to remove Christianity from all public institutions.
Various forms of ethical subjectivism, relativism and nihilism become unavoidable. They took forms such as "values clarification," which urged children to talk openly about "their values" but provided no direction. "Everybody has their own morals," teenagers learned to say (complete with grammar mistake). While the dialogue over moral theories may captivate career academics, the absence of definitive moral guidance in young people's lives has proven catastrophic. During the past half-century, with materialistic humanists more and more in control, we saw the rise of teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, a cavalier and casual attitude toward sex (and at ever-younger ages), the break-up of families – and epidemics of cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty. In the last analysis, what needs to be said about humanist ethics as that they don't work. Humanism's message, essentially, is: we are responsible for our own moral lives, and one should never be judgmental (and never mind the contradiction here). Humanistic approaches to morality, combined with opposition to "judgmentalism," leads to the idea that all "lifestyles" are morally equal. Shortt adds to the burgeoning literature on the incursions of radical homosexuals in government schools. Their methods, predictably, have assumed and attempted to inculcate the moral equivalence of gay and straight "lifestyles." Inroads have been made into elementary schools, affecting grade school children who, not long ago, were considered too young to know what sex was.
The plummeting levels of literacy have been even more pronounced. Shortt reiterates how government schools are graduating legions of seniors who cannot construct grammatical English sentences, do arithmetic beyond a rudimentary level, and have little or no knowledge of the history of this country or its Constitutional foundations. These results are hidden by grade inflation, recalculations of GPAs, and the dumbing down of standardized tests, often in accordance with the politically correct need to remove "cultural bias." This ought to concern everyone worried about the status of our liberties in what little is left of our Constitutional republic. Shortt is addressing mainly Evangelicals. But it ought to be clear to anyone that we are in serious trouble when a sufficient number of students graduate from schools not knowing anything about our founding documents or their authors, or what rights the Constitution was written to encode and protect, or how our government is put together and what functions it is supposed to serve.
The situation is even worse. Children are actually in more danger in government schools than they could ever be from terrorists. Back in the 1990s government schools were witness to an epidemic of well-publicized shootings, the most dramatic being the Columbine killings in 1999. One root of the problem of violence in government schools is the collapse of discipline, resulting in a "blackboard jungle" where not just children but teachers must fear being assaulted, robbed, or even raped. Shortt cites two more Supreme Court decisions, Tinker v. Des Moines School District and Goss v. Lopez, as watersheds events leading to the end of discipline in government schools.
Yeah. Remember that law they tried to pass to lower the school age to like 4? Now Obama is wanting to lengthen the school day and the school year. Already they only have like 2 1/2 months off and the kids don't arrive home out here till like 4:30-4:45. That's a long day for any child. Hardly any time to just "be a kid".
They don't want kids to have time to be kids. They might become individuals.
Quoteif Obama gets his way of longer school days and longer school years, of which I know of schools that are already going to year around schooling,
they've been trying to do that since I was in grade school, it's not Obamas baby. (and no for the ten billionth time I did NOT vote for obama so spare me)
screw it, I had a long reply to your "moral decay" blah blah blah but figured what is the point. So yall just teach your kids and I and the public school system will teach mine and yall just have a great life yhear?
Just as a side note, my daughter gets home off the bus at 4:15, she leaves at 7:15, we still have plenty of time to talk and for her "to be a kid". Been the same since the fifth grade. LOL she ain't "indoctrinated" in any way shape or form LOL
QuoteThey don't want kids to have time to be kids. They might become individuals.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL......
Interesting stuff from all sides. I think a public education system is good to have for people to fall back on, but parents should take responsibility for the education of their kids. The bottom line is that everyone has a choice. The government won't teach (or indoctrinate) anyone who doesn't volunteer.
Quote from: Anmar on October 27, 2009, 08:40:11 AM
Interesting stuff from all sides. I think a public education system is good to have for people to fall back on, but parents should take responsibility for the education of their kids. The bottom line is that everyone has a choice. The government won't teach (or indoctrinate) anyone who doesn't volunteer.
Well that does make it easier for the kids that are homeschooled or private schooled by cutting down the competition for the leadership positions and good jobs out there.
Quote from: Anmar on October 27, 2009, 08:40:11 AM
Interesting stuff from all sides. I think a public education system is good to have for people to fall back on, but parents should take responsibility for the education of their kids. The bottom line is that everyone has a choice. The government won't teach (or indoctrinate) anyone who doesn't volunteer.
Excellent post and you said in 3 lines what I've been trying to say in many posts. We're free to decide! :-)
Quote from: srkruzich on October 27, 2009, 08:46:28 AM
Well that does make it easier for the kids that are homeschooled or private schooled by cutting down the competition for the leadership positions and good jobs out there.
It all depends on who's doing the teaching/parenting. Going to a public school doesn't kill creativity if the parents do their job.
Quote from: Anmar on October 27, 2009, 09:10:35 AM
Quote from: srkruzich on October 27, 2009, 08:46:28 AM
Well that does make it easier for the kids that are homeschooled or private schooled by cutting down the competition for the leadership positions and good jobs out there.
It all depends on who's doing the teaching/parenting. Going to a public school doesn't kill creativity if the parents do their job.
Amen and HALLELUYAH..............
QuoteShortt also cites
Steve, who is Shortt?
Quote from: srkruzich on October 27, 2009, 08:05:24 AM
State-sponsored schools were not part of the original make-up of this country. None of the Founders – all of whom were educated at home or privately – saw providing compulsory, state-sponsored education as a proper function of the central government, which is why education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
After the Declaration of Independence, 14 states had their own constitutions by 1791, and out of the 14, 7 states had specific provisions for education. Jefferson believed that education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society. Others who vouched for public education around the same time were Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Robert Coram and George Washington. It was still very difficult to translate the concept to practice because of the political upheavals, vast immigration, and economic transformations. Thus, even for many more decades, there were many private schools, and charitable and religious institutions dominating the scene.
Jefferson - 1786 August 13. (to George Wythe)
"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."[2]
There's no mention of "government/public" education in the above post.
The word "tax" is in there. Do you know of anyone else that has the power to tax other than government?
Quote from: flintauqua on October 28, 2009, 08:18:03 PM
The word "tax" is in there. Do you know of anyone else that has the power to tax other than government?
If i remember right the collecting of tax was from import export taxes. The govt got their operating funds from the states. Not the other way around. And thats the way it should be. You can control growth in that formula.
Good point SRKruzich.
The 16th & 17th amendments ought to be repealed.