Homeschooling or Homefooling Q2: One World View April 11, 2008

(Editor’s note: This is one of a series of questions about homeschooling that will all be posted with answers. Eventually.) 

Question 2. Teaching one world view usually Christianity. Home schooling like private schooling is often designed to have a Christian-based curriculum. For home schoolers or private schoolers, basic subjects such as science and history have a Christian slant. In science, evolution is absolutely wrong, and creationism is absolutely right. In history, more emphasis is placed on religious groups such as the Puritans than on atheists. I’m a Christian myself, and I find nothing wrong with Christian teachings. But children should be given a wide world view of different cultures and different religions. Not everybody is white and Protestant, and an educational curriculum should reflect that. Teaching children a wide world view also gives them the chance to decide for themselves if they want to believe in evolution or creationism or become an atheist or a Christian. Parents shouldn’t home school to brainwash their children into little versions of them.

This paragraph treats at least three completely separate arguments as a single topic: history (Puritans v. atheists), social studies (cultures, religions, worldview), and science (evolution v. creationism). Let’s look at them separately.

SOCIAL STUDIES

>> Children should be given a wide world view of different cultures and different religions. Not everybody is white and Protestant.

Who said they were? Not all homeschoolers are white and Protestant, either, so you are guilty here of the same sort of pigeonholing you are accusing others of. The Christian segment of homeschooling may be the most vocal, but it is not actually much larger than the non-Christian segment.

Most homeschooled children meet with a much wider variety of people in their everyday lives than do their school peers, who are cooped up with twenty-nine other children every day, all day; children who are exactly the same age, who live in the same neighborhood, and who belong to roughly the same socio-economic group. Homeschoolers, on the other hand, are generally out on field trips, doing public service projects, and just living life in their communities; all of which give them access to a much broader range of acquaintance in age, race, experience, and socio-economic range than is possible in a schoolroom. I think most people would agree that living life in the real world and meeting real people from all walks of life is a more valuable cultural experience than doing a worksheet on “My Colorful World.”

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION v. CREATIONISM

>> In science, evolution is absolutely wrong, and creationism is absolutely right.

Christian homeschools, atheist homeschools, homeschools of other faiths, private schools, and public schools all promote a single point of view, pro or con, regarding evolution. In other words, teachers teach what they believe, or at least what they are paid to believe in the classroom. Most Christian homeschools and some private schools will teach creationism and will choose to do any of three things with Darwinian evolution: (1) ignore it completely, (2) touch on it in order to give arguments against it, or (3) study it in-depth to give their children a thorough grounding in why they believe creationism to be a better argument. Atheistic homeschools, most public schools, and some private schools teach evolution exclusively and if creationism gets any mention, it is merely to ridicule. So if your argument is that children need to be taught the wide spectrum of views on the beginning of the universe so that they can decide for themselves, well, then they need to drop out of public school for sure. Almost without exception, no homeschool of any faith and no private or public school actually teaches a nonjudgmental multiplicity of views on Darwinian evolution, creationism, and other theories on the beginning of the universe so that their students can make an informed choice. Almost without exception, every homeschool of any faith and every private and public school promotes a single viewpoint on this issue. Many homeschools at least give a blow-by-blow of why they think the opposing viewpoint is incorrect, whereas public schools merely assume it is not worth airtime at all; so as a whole homeschools touch on more diversity in this area than public schools.

HISTORY

>> In history, more emphasis is placed on religious groups such as the Puritans than on atheists.

And public schools teach a balanced point of view? When were you in school? The truth about the Puritans is that they had strong religious motivations. In order to understand why they did what they did, we need to learn the truth about their motives. In US history, the biggest motivating factor in the settlement of the colonies was the Christian faith. And yet, that Christian faith is written completely out of most public school textbooks these days! What about the textbook that teaches that at the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims were thanking the Indians … where is the truth in that? Where is the objectivity?

It is true, some Christian homeschools may focus on Christian history to the exclusion of other parts of history, but how is that worse than teaching a deliberately skewed version of history? Let’s be honest, whoever is teaching history is picking and choosing what to teach - there is simply not enough time to teach every interesting or important point of history. So, guess what? Everyone has gaps. Why are some gaps better or worse than other gaps? Gaps are not a problem; gaps are inevitable. Deliberately falsified history, on the other hand, is a problem.

>> Teaching children a wide world view also gives them the chance to decide for themselves if they want to believe in evolution or creationism or become an atheist or a Christian.

You imply that children taught at public school will be given a chance to decide for themselves if they want to believe evolution or creationism, atheism or Christianity, while those taught at home will not have such a choice. First off, this is a baseless argument since there are plenty of children raised in Christian homes (homeschoolers or not) who later become atheists or followers of other religions, just as there are children raised in atheistic or other religious homes who later convert to Christianity, so that’s a count against your argument right there. But more important, your implication is that home education proffers a single point of view while public education gives a multiplicity. Since when do public educators teach anything about Christianity or any other religion, other than secular humanism? As we have already seen, they see nothing wrong with twisting history to actually remove factual, historically verifiable religious motives from the picture. Since when do public school science classes teach anything about creationism? They teach a single view: Darwinian evolution. How is that equipping children to choose between the two?

Public school teachers are in the business of teaching a single worldview, just as you accuse homeschoolers of doing. So how does being taught a single, atheistic viewpoint better qualify children to choose between atheism and Christianity (or any other religion) than being taught a single, religious viewpoint? The happy outcome you envision, of children being free to choose between equal options, requires that the children actually be taught the basics of each viewpoint in an unbiased manner. Hmm, what about it? Put a religion course in the public schools, in which the basic tenets of atheism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc, are taught in a comparative and non-judgmental fashion. But wait … that would first necessitate that history be left intact so that children can understand why our ancestors – such as the Puritans – did what they did. Then the children would indeed have a good basis for making an informed choice. But, just leaving religious teaching out and teaching an anti-religious viewpoint does not equip them for making such a choice.

So, it is possible to teach the pros and cons of both creationism and Darwinian evolution, and atheism v. Christianity; and it is possible to teach children how to think through the evidence and decide for themselves; but that is emphatically not what public schools do. Admittedly it is not what most homeschools do either, but we have already discussed the fact that most teachers teach with bias toward their own belief system (or bias toward the demands of their paycheck), whether homeschoolers or public school teachers. Which brings us to your final point:

>> Parents shouldn’t home school to brainwash their children into little versions of them.

Since when is it brainwashing for parents to pass their own values on to their children? It is what has been done by every people, in every era, throughout history. It is natural. Every parent is familiar with the oft-repeated questions, “Mommy, do we do this?” and “Daddy, what do we do?” Children want to know what their parents believe as much as parents want to pass their beliefs on, whatever those beliefs may be. Only in modern times, with modern schools, has this prerogative of parenting been preempted. If parents are not to “brainwash their children into little versions of them” then on whom shall children model themselves? The Hitler Youth are one shining example that comes to mind of public schools taking over the parental job of teaching values to children. That is an example (admittedly extreme) of what can happen when loving parents abdicate their responsibilities to the state and let their values be shunted aside.

Your implication is that teaching children a single point of view without giving them other options is brainwashing. But we have already established that schools teach a single viewpoint on science, history, and social studies, just as you have accused homeschoolers of doing. All teachers pass on a set of beliefs and values to their students. So who is it really doing the brainwashing? Is it the parents, who love their children and have their best interests at heart, or is it the person who sits with the children for eight hours a day and may violate her own belief system in order to teach a children the prescribed curriculum in order to receive a paycheck?

To sum up: there will always be gaps in every child’s education. There are simply not enough hours in the day to teach all about everything, and even if there were, every teacher – homeschool, private, and public – teaches with bias either toward personal or paid beliefs. But living life in the real world and receiving a loving education in family values and mores seems like a much safer bet for actually learning a diversity of perspectives on a variety of subjects than sitting in a desk doing coloring pages and worksheets on the politically correct viewpoint du jour.

Homeschooling or Homefooling Q1: Teacher Qualification February 16, 2008

(Editor’s note: This is one of a series of questions about homeschooling that will all be posted with answers. Eventually.) 

Question 1. The Education/Ability of the Parent/Teacher. In my state, home schooling parents don’t need a teaching degree or even a bachelor’s degree. I believe some states do require this. A person with a bachelor’s degree is not necessarily smarter than a person without one, but there should be some kind of teacher’s training especially for children with special needs. School teachers have to have degrees so that they know how and what to teach, and no matter how great the parent is, parenthood doesn’t automatically make great teachers.

Parental education – or lack thereof – has absolutely no effect on one’s ability to teach one’s own children. The anecdotal evidence for parents successfully teaching their children at home is overwhelming. After all, when Stanford University admits more homeschooled than high schooled teens (relative to number of applicants), you’ve got to figure that those parents are doing something right. Desire to learn and love of learning have a far more profound effect than a teaching credential; and those who choose to educate their children at home have this in abundance. The other thing parents have in overflowing abundance is a desire to give their children the best and a knowledge of their own children’s abilities and interests. (Yes, we all know parents who do not desire to give their children the best, but let’s face it: if you want to bring your children home and spend all day, every day, with them, you are a parent who enjoys your children and wants to give them good things.)

Besides, every teacher and school administrator knows that the biggest predictor of a child’s academic success is the level of parental involvement. And what is homeschooling but total parental involvement! The truth is, if you’re clever enough to be online finding and reading things you want to find and read, you’re clever enough to be your child’s teacher. (And here you are, reading this!)

Completely apart from parental qualification, we place far too much credence in teaching credentials. Granted that the majority of teachers are people who care deeply about children and their education; but there are also more than you might suspect who are there simply because they couldn’t decide on a major, and teaching is easy with summers off; or who couldn’t qualify for a more difficult major (sad to say, in any given university the college of education is generally one of the easiest to get into, and has the fewest requirements [see *comment]); or who thought they wanted to teach and discovered too late, after receiving their degree, that they don’t really enjoy working day after day with someone else’s children, but lack time or money to prepare for a different vocation. So, simply having teaching credentials is a far cry from a guarantee of being a good educator.

As the holder of a bachelor’s degree in elementary education myself, I can assure you, dear readers, I was in classes with all of the above students, none of whom I would want teaching any of my children anything. I can also unequivocally inform you that teacher training does not consist of “what to teach” as the questioner assumes. Since the teacher trainee is in college, the teacher trainee is assumed (baselessly, I must regretfully inform you) to have the basic content knowledge needed to pass on to the students. Without naming names, I would like to state here that it was the extreme dearth of knowledge displayed among my fellow teacher trainees (the inability of many to write a grammatical sentence comes to mind) that first sent me scurrying to the library to discover John Holt, a fellow educator who is often named the father of the homeschooling movement.

No, the truth is that teacher trainees are taught classroom discipline, and crowd management, and record-keeping, and tricks for capturing the attention of thirty bored pupils, and a little (a very little) about child development and learning styles, but zero content. Now, learning about child development and learning styles has some merit, but most of it is common sense, and it is amazingly easy to find anything more you wish to know on your own in any number of accessible books on the subject.

In fact, it was my class on child development that sent me scurrying back to the library to find Raymond and Dorothy Moore, also fellow educators who are frequently termed the grandparents of homeschooling. I was feeling a serious disconnect when I would leave my child development class, where I learned that children develop at different rates (what a shock!) and are cognitively ready to learn skills such as math or reading at different ages, and proceed directly to my elementary language arts class, where I was taught how to start all of my first-grade children on the same material regardless of their ability or development levels.

What happens to a child who is unready to read at age six, but forced to try? The sad result is that by age nine or ten, when his brain has matured to a point of readiness, his educational experience thus far will have convinced him that that he cannot read and wouldn’t enjoy it even if he could; his teachers and parents are convinced also; and he very likely has a mental block about reading and may never read beyond a second-grade level. And yet this is unfortunately what trained teachers are required to do by the nature of their institutional employment: pressure all children to perform at the same level at the same age, and label them as defective if they cannot.

Now, explain to me why any caring parent would want to have such training?

Homeschooling or Homefooling? February 16, 2008

Many moons ago, when Themestream was a bright and shining star on the internet horizon, I came across an article there entitled “Homeschooling or Homefooling?” which posed some queries and opinions that are fairly typical of people wondering about this whole homeschooling thing. I answered the questions there and, since Themestreme is sadly no more, reproducing the Q&A here seems like a worthwhile endeavor. It was a long article, and the replies make it much longer, so I will break it up by putting one Q&A in each blog post.

Before we start, I’d like to say I don’t mean to attack anyone who questions homeschooling, but I do hope to answer some of these reservations and perhaps dispel a few myths about homeschooling for a few people. Oh, and I also have to say before writing this that both of my parents and my older sister are teachers (not to mention I have an elementary education degree myself), so I know first-hand that the majority of teachers are dedicated, caring people who truly want to help children learn. It is the institution of schooling that is at fault, rather than (for the most part) the teachers.