Homeschooling

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One more thought on why some of my neighbors homeschool: at least in this part of Tennessee, the obsession with the need for kids to do well on the standardized achievement tests has resulted in a terrible degradation of the educational approach in our schools. Not only do teachers teach to the test, they teach like tests, all the time. There is little opportunity for alternative learning styles and way too much time is taken up with pencil and paper worksheet exercises.

One the people I know who is homeschooling her now-second grader and who is herself a certified teacher bemoaned what she saw in her child's kindergarten public school class. She watched a color identification exercise in which children were given papers with colors and asked to match color names. She was appalled that the teacher didn't get them out of their seats and ask them to walk around the room finding red things, or green things, or whatever. After that she took her child out and began teaching her at home. She isn't sure what she'll do as her daughter gets older.

Nearly every professional educator I know bemoans the negative effects of mandatory testing. I don't think it's because they don't want to be evaluated themselves, but because the inevitable result is adminsitrative pressur to tailor their teaching to the test.

BTW, off topic a bit, but from a teacher I heard how she coached a mentally challenged child to bubble in the "B" answer all the way down his work sheet, since he couldn't read the test questions. His score passed.

 

revmaf - My wife is a teacher and she would agree whole-heartedly with your statements. While there have been standardized tests administered in school for decades - heck I remember taking some when I was in elementary school over 20 years ago, the occurance of these tests have exploded since the No Child Left Behind Law was enacted.

The results are as you describe - since school funding is based on the percentage of children who pass the test, there is a great deal of pressure to get as many people to pass as is possible, which means teachers only teach what's on the test. It got so bad this year that since subjects like social studies, science and health weren't on the test that these subjects were rotated on a weekly basis. So one week you got some science, but no social studies and health, while the next week you did some social studies, but no health or science, etc. Conversely reading (with a focus of reading comprehension) and math were taught everyday - but only inasmuch as there were problems on the test relating to the teaching. My wife insists that the cirriculum has changed so much in the seven or so years she been a teacher that they are actually teaching LESS now than they were before.

 

On the flipside, SOME standardized testing is necessary to ensure some sort of uniformity of material. A 95% mark in Mr. Jones' English class is great, but often that same student and work would be only an 85% grade in Mr. Smith's class. This does not necessarily mean that either Jones is a pushover or Smith is a vicious bugger; it simply means that they are two human beings with two different styles. Universities want some sort of universal, objective measure of a student's abilities.

That said, though, here in Alberta we have standardized tests at year 3, 6, 9 and 12. I think that the year 3 tests should definitely be ditched, and the year 6 ones should probably go too. I think that's a little two early to stress the kids out.

I hated teaching to the test. But I have a family to feed. My performance was closely linked to how well my students did on those tests. A former administrator told me "on the bright side, when you are teaching to the test, you are teaching curriculum." He didn't like it eaither, but it was a placating thought. Of course, teaching English, I taught essay writing skills and how to avoid certain logical fallacies and horrendous grammatical errors. Even if it was primarily because the kids had to face 2 brutal essays, it was good stuff to teach and I stand by my methods.

 

EDIT: I was kind of dumb when I was 14

 

@lwelyk: You make a decent point about homeschooling. Too bad it's grossly undermined by your grammar and punctuation.

 

@Rallymama: BWA HA HA HA HA!

But seriously, it's not as bad as the spelling and grammar some kids I've seen who came up through the public system -- more on that in a bit.

lwelyk, despite the hoopla, schools are pretty safe -- at least here in Canada they are. I don't think that anyone here thinks that ALL homeschooled kids will turn out to be socially inept dorks, but it stands to reason that the probability is higher that that will be the case if the child has significantly less contact with others during his formative years.

The kind of parents who want this for their otherwise normal child are often the ones with superiority complexes a mile wide who think that the world should be filled with people exactly like them. While I can understand they don't want their children cheek by jowl with criminals, the diversity experienced at public schools is hard to replicate.

Getting back to the grammar and spelling issue, if a child is to be successful at these and other academic endeavors, he needs parental support. There's just no two ways about it. People who send their little darling to school and then complain that the child cannot read have no one but themselves to blame. The public system has always wanted and required parental reinforcement for the instruction received during the short time the child is at school. A teacher cannot undo in 7 hours / day what the parents have done in 24 hours a day in the past (if you get my drift.) We can offset some screwups, sure, but we can't fix major parenting flaws.

 

^^^Well put.

 

LKD:

Isn't that the whole point of having kids? Producing little versions of 'you' that have the opportunities which you never did?

I see a lot of assumptions in this thread, with little substantiating evidence.

 

You've obviously never had children.

 

Because parents have kids out of the good of their hearts?

 

Yep. Definitely never had children. Kids happen when people have sex. It's how I got mine. I didn't choose to have children to vicariously relive my youth or to produce another "me". In fact, I never chose to have kids at all. They just happened in the course of normal marital relations. Do I want my kids to have "the opportunities I never had?" No. I just want my kids to be happy. In other words, I want my children to have the opportunities that they wish to have. I'm not going to railroad them down the path I wish I could have taken. If one of my sons chooses such a path, I will do everything in my power to make it happen, but my children aren't me.....and I don't want them to be, either. I don't love my sons because they look, act, sound, or talk like me. I love them because of who they are.

[ August 09, 2007, 14:35: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Such as the assumption you made regarding why people have kids? I will second Drew's opinion. My wife is due any day with our first child, and I can tell you that while there were several reasons we decided to have a child, "producing little versions of 'us' to have opportunities we never had" was nowhere on the list. I think you will find most parents will answer the same way. Do you think that's why your parents had you?

 

EDIT: UGH I was dumb when I was 14.

 

If you want your kids to have opportunities you didn't have, then you have to expose them to different things and not sequester them.

The arrogance in assuming that all other people who have different ideas than you are "filth" and therefore you must protect your children from them is stunning (not all home schoolers follow this line of thinking, I'm not saying they do, but some certainly do.)

 

Drew:

So all of your kids are essentially accidents?

So if they wish to be crack whores, you're A OK with that?

 

Somebody has to do it.

 

Hah, yeah. But I hope to hell that it's not MY kids doing it.

 

There's a difference between "unplanned" and "accidental".

Where the hell did that come from? If you want to be insulting, at least do it in a PM.

 

Drew:

Not really.

http://www.answers.com/topic/accident?cat=biz-fin

So you don't mind if your kids end up being crack whores who live in the gutters of the Red Light District, as long as they are 'happy'?

I find your mere presence on this board insulting. But you don't see me complaining.

An animal rights activist who is also a humanitarian. FEH! Never have I heard of two ideologies which are so contradictory. It's like a doctor trying to cure his patient of gangrene, while refusing to prescribe antibiotics because he doesn't want to kill bacteria.

You must use some Orwellian double-think in order to stay relatively sane.

[Warning pending. -Tal]

[ August 10, 2007, 12:00: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

EDIT: Never mind. It isn't worth it.