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Angie Mc
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| Posted: July 24 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged
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I woke up this morning to my radio alarm, dialed to the local sports channel. I hear, "So tell me more about homeschooling..." I'm still a little groggy...something about golf...callers sharing their stories connected to homeschoolinig, all good...two sports announcers. I finally put together that this is a call in radio golf show and something must have triggered the topic of homeschooling. In the end the good cop (announcer 1) states, "If I could have homeschooled, I would have been up at 4 am and had all my work done by ten so that I could be on the golf course or playing baseball." The bad cop (announcer 2  ) replies, "Ya, but there wouldn't have been anyone to play with. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't have wanted to homeschool." End of segment.
I appreciated the bad cop's honesty! I would rather hear someone (especially someone who isn't informed about homeschooling) say, "No thank you, I enjoyed school," rather than..."I'm concerned about your/all children's socialization," and the like.
What do you think? Do you think that most people's philosophy of education is based less on objective measures of academics and more on their subjective personal experience as a whole?
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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JaysFamily
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| Posted: July 24 2010 at 12:29pm | IP Logged
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Before I decided to homeschool, I viewed the issue strictly based on my personal experiences. I won't speculate about other people, but I know that I find it difficult to picture myself doing things that I am completely unfamiliar with. When I first heard of homeschooling, I imagined traditional schooling with a teacher's manual, textbooks, boring lectures, etc. I thought that had to be incredibly boring and lonely for children who weren't sharing the experience with 20 others.
There was also a lack of confidence. I went to traditional school, as did my parents, my grandparents, etc. We were all taught by teachers and were of the mindset that one had to be certified in order to teach. It wasn't until I started to evaluate different aspects of traditional schooling that I began to look at other people's successful experiences and comparing the academics.
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Paula in MN
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Based on experience, completely.
Probably 25-30 years ago, a homeschooling family lived just down the street. I would drive by them daily on my way to work, and my only conscious thought was the family was very weird. I NEVER EVEN MET THEM!!
About 20 years ago I found out my cousin was homeschooling her sons. I love my cousin, but she was the "surprise" child to much older parents, incredibly spoiled, and when she was first married told people she would do anything in order to stay home every day. My opinion of homeschoolers didn't change.
Then 16 years ago my brother told me he and his wife were homeschooling their kids. At the time they lived in Japan, and I believed their kids should be raised as American kids and not as Japanese kids. I was shocked when my brother and his family moved back to USA...and chose to homeschool. The kids were intelligent, well-behaved, and had lots of neighborhood friends.
We are starting our seventh year of homeschooling!
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 24 2010 at 2:57pm | IP Logged
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I find it interesting that if any problems ever come up with children who are homeschooled, there is frequently a mentality of "Well, there you go. They homeschool."
But the reverse does not seem to be true... parents of school kids in trouble are much less likely to hear "Well, there you go. With all the stuff going on in the schools, it's no wonder your kid is in trouble."
I believe that mentality will be changing over the next 20-30 years as the school systems in many areas continue to struggle. Also, I think that mentality is a very "generational" thing.
I have to laugh... my mother's answer to every problem is either "Put them in school" or "let them watch a show on TV" 
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albeto
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| Posted: July 24 2010 at 3:24pm | IP Logged
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Angie Mc wrote:
What do you think? Do you think that most people's philosophy of education is based less on objective measures of academics and more on their subjective personal experience as a whole?
Love, |
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I think philosophy of education follows the philosophy of division of labor. I outsource so many things to people who have higher educational degrees simply because they've been trained to do those things I can't invest the time to learn. Things like medical and legal advice is left to people who have studied their fields intensely. I go to grocers rather than grow my own food because I don't have the time to come up with what they specialize in. I think education is looked at in the same way, or it is in my experience. Teachers are educated and trained to teach children (including self control for young children, and specialized subjects for older).
My parents and in-laws thought I was nuts to consider homeschooling my oldest son who has always been a behaviorally challenging child. They've seen success and have changed their minds about homeschooling, but I think they think of our success as the exception, simply because if someone hasn't been trained for hundreds of hours, what do they really know? Only, I've been "trained" in raising my children and so I actually DO know a thing or two. And besides, I can still access the knowledge and advice of people specialized in home education.
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CatholicMommy
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I do think that most people's perceptions of homeschooling are based on subjective experience. But this is the case with anything. When I first became interested in Montessori, I was told horror stories by a few individuals about particular children they knew (who were by then adults) who were terrible in particular subjects. For two boys it was math; for another it was reading; for another it was expressive communication; for another it was art; etc, etc, etc. The only thing that experience taught me is that some children will just not GET certain subjects no matter how it is taught. (turns out, I met one of those boys who was terrible in math all the way through - turns out, he's a world traveler and uses math routinely and loves it - he "got" what was presented to him in the Montessori environment - he was just so bored with middle school and high school work that he didn't do the work is all!
But then, I turned to homeschooling (Montessori-style) - and the horror stories that have awaited me there! Yet, here I am, in the midst of it!
I turned to it for the relationship-building aspects - for the desire to BE a mom, to KNOW my children, and to take seriously my responsibility to train up their souls for heaven. The rest is icing on the cake
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Elena
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I find the "bad cops" mentality very telling. Because the truth is, there really would be someone to golf with. Lots of avid adult golfers are out there when the sun comes up! What he meant was there wouldn't be any kids from the same peer group to golf with! and is that really true socialization?
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 26 2010 at 4:55pm | IP Logged
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Elena wrote:
| I find the "bad cops" mentality very telling. Because the truth is, there really would be someone to golf with. Lots of avid adult golfers are out there when the sun comes up! What he meant was there wouldn't be any kids from the same peer group to golf with! and is that really true socialization? |
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Excellent point- and said so well! 
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Barbara C.
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I think a lot of people just get stuck in the "this was how I was raised and I turned out ok" mentality...whether it's about school, not even considering breastfeeding if they weren't, automatically sticking baby to sleep in another room, etc.
That's another reason why it is hard for schools to make the drastic reforms they would need to make to really help students...everyone is just scared of what they don't understand.
I just spent yesterday on Facebook reminiscing about the wonderful Thanksgiving tradition my high school had. And there were things that I loved about my high school, but there were also things that weren't very good on a variety of levels. I think the further removed from it you are the easier it is to gloss over a lot of deficiencies. And a lot of people have this impression that the deficiencies of regular schooling are really pluses (like the whole thing about how constant negative social interaction just "toughen" someone up or teaches conflict management).
One thing I've noticed is that many people who say "I would have never wanted to homeschool" could also give you a list of grievances as long as your arm about their school experiences. And of course, they can't imagine that homeschooling might have opened the door to opportunities much more exciting than pep rallies or the prom.
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Willa
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Angie Mc wrote:
What do you think? Do you think that most people's philosophy of education is based less on objective measures of academics and more on their subjective personal experience as a whole?
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I think it's that way on both sides because there really isn't any absolute certainty about the objective measures. It comes down to "prudence" which can only have probable certainty, not complete mathematical certainty. And very often, people make their prudential decisions based on some kind of emotional judgment.
Pro-homeschoolers and anti-homeschoolers both agree that there is more to education than the academics which are narrowly measured by standardized tests. But they disagree about which of the non-academic factors are more important.
Actually, I said "emotional judgment" but it's probably something more like a vision of the likely outcome, at least in me or people I've talked to. If you imagine a homeschooler as lonely and under-stimulated sitting at a kitchen table with some outdated textbooks, vs a school-kid as connected with a big network of friends and lots of social savvy and access to expert teaching and excellent curricular materials and enrichment opportunities, you probably wouldn't want to homeschool much. If you have a vision of polite, enthusiastic kids who are allowed to develop their own interests and talents at leisure in a close, connected family environment vs kids who are forced into a high-intensity, very regimented and arbitrary, peer-pressured environment away from normal life, you'd probably be more likely to want to homeschool. Those "visions" are sort of taken at random -- but it seems to me that almost everyone has one, and it shapes their point of view. Since we are all by definition educating for the future, the "vision" of the future becomes important.
Most peoples' homeschool "journeys" seem to start with seeing some things less than ideal about the public or private education available to them, along with seeing some credibility in the homeschool option, either because of reading books, or seeing some homeschoolers that impressed them. That was how it was for me.
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: "I wouldn't have wanted to homeschool."
