Experimenting with Education

[pepelect]

"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. 

[redcliffsw]

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. 

[pepelect]

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. 

[Sarah]

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.

[srkruzich]

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.

[Sarah]

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. 

[Anmar]

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?

[Sarah]

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. 

[srkruzich]

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.  

[pepelect]

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.