mdehners ([info]mdehners) wrote,
@ 2009-01-05 08:03:00
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Current location:home base
Current mood: angry
Current music:Tesla

Stupid Human Tricks....
When I was a kid, you could tell the Homeschooled. They were generally smarter yet socially retarded. Back then, folks who Homeschooled had basically a "phobia" about people thinking their kids wouldn't do as well in the world as those in schools(Private and Public) and made damned sure their kids were at least better Educated. Sadly, those days are pretty much over.
Christian, Pagan, Heathen...doesn't matter. It's Separate that's the "Ticket", not "Equal". There's nothing wrong with you wanting to Homestead, and/or living a pre-tech Lifestyle. There is, when you've made sure that your kids will only be able to do so. I'd friends in the Bay Area that I loved dearly, but I personally found it horribly sad that the only jobs their son could work in was as a Renfair strolling "character" or Dealing. I've folks I know here whose parents raised them "Christian" to the point that off the compound the only jobs they can do are working in the "Underground Pharmasuticals" Industry....or sexworkers, if they leave the Church.
There is nothing Inherently wrong with Homeschooling. WHere it goes wrong is when it limits the child so that it is forced to live as it's parents CHOSE to....
Truth,
Pat


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[info]heethen_crone
2009-01-05 06:27 pm UTC (link)
The home schooling craze is pretty big here too, especially with the xian fundies. In the school district that we live in, home schoolers are encouraged to take part in regular school activities, classes that can't be adequately taught at home. Some parents take advantage of this and their kids do well after they leave school. Some don't. They think their dead god on a stick will take care of them.

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[info]mdehners
2009-01-05 06:58 pm UTC (link)
Not just Himself's followers. I think some family's ae really hoping for a Zombie Apocalypse or somesuch because even their kid's table manners are barely Iron Age!
What really pisses me off is that some Heathen and Pagan parent Homeschoolers have made esp. their daughters useless in a modern economy. "Starflower" can make her own clothes from shearing to sewing but at 16 has the Math abilities of a preschooler. The idea that you've literally made it so your daughter has less choices in her Life than your great gradmother's is sickening, esp to those who consider themselves "Progressive"...
Cheers,
Pat

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[info]heethen_crone
2009-01-05 08:29 pm UTC (link)
Agreed. I think it's important for children to be learning how to DIY 'cause the day _could_ come when they'd need those skills. But that day may not come either. Something I've always tried to drum into my kids is not to limit their choices by taking bad actions. To limit your child's choices by your own bad judgement is little short of criminal.

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[info]mdehners
2009-01-06 09:30 pm UTC (link)
The thing is, most don't consider it a bad action. They're happy living on a historical rec farm or as craftspersons supporting the Renfaire/Mideval Reinactment industy and expect their kids to do the same. In my friend in the Bay area their son IS and enjoys "wenching" and "fighting", wearing period garb. He's also in his early 20's. That his folks can never afford a home ,car or major medical is fine for them but he may wake up some day and realise that drinking and dropping his codpiece behind the player's tents is not all that he may want out of life. Funny thing. His folks are computer folk that used those skills to allow them to create the jobs that allowed them to be 24/7 Renfair folk. He doesn't have those skills....
A parent needs to give their child the base to be anything they could be with their Innate Abilities, not just a xerox of themselves. The sadest is that they themselves resented and rebelled against their parents wanting them to be little copies.....
Truth,
Pat

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[info]weofodthignen
2009-01-19 01:15 pm UTC (link)
IMO there's plenty inherently wrong with homeschooling. No parent can be as good a teacher as a raft of professionals, no matter how much they avail themselves of the internet, local museums, materials they send away for, and other parents. After all, the teachers can also avail themselves of all those things. If anyone is as good a teacher as the pros, they should be teaching school so others can benefit too! And the simple fact that they're only one or at most two makes me extremely skeptical. The days of the one-room schoolhouse are gone.

Plus, all that effort put into educating their kids alone, when there were free places waiting for em in the local schools? There are huge numbers of things that parent could have contributed to society instead. And should have, IMO. It's deeply selfish. "No. I will do an at best mediocre job teaching my kid and the rest of the town can go hang." I don't much approve of voluntary full-time housewives and mothers either; there comes a time when they are sitting around the house watching the soaps. But at least you can say most of the time they are wrangling dust-bunnies or nurturing Precious. If they have enough time to teach Precious, they should at least start a home business as a wedding planner, answer phones for a mail-order company, or something.

And then of course there are your completely valid points about what it does to the kids. Heck, I don't even approve of unnecessary private schooling--if the local school plus supplementation from the parents (museums and art galleries; nature study; ancestral language study; reading suggestions; and stuff that costs money like music and dance . . .) is good enough, then save the money for college, that's when they will really need cash help--let alone the aristocratic tradition of tutors in lieu of school, which produces idiots like Lady Diana "I'm going to be a playgroup assistant so I can catch a man by flashing my legs and giggling, and so I couldn't be bothered to pass more than 2 O-levels," most expensive slut in British history.

The fundamental problem is that people homeschool because they think they're too good for the local schools and the local people. This is a recipe for kids who don't know anything about other people or how to talk to them, no matter how many opportunities for interaction with other homeschooled preciouses are provided. These are not bubble babies. They need to meet a variety of people and get exposed to a variety of ways of seeing the world or they will grow up etiolated.

And as you say, the parents are taking away all sorts of possibilities for them. In fact this is a pervasive issue--many parents seem unable to handle the notion that their kid might want something different from them. And it's more acute these days, with circumstances changing and possibilities multiplying all the time. One of the girls who graduated from my school a year ahead of me didn't know what she wanted to do, and didn't like the thought of university. So she took an entry-level job at IBM. She's not only very wealthy now, she's made a real contribution to the world, and has been quite happy. Her parents likely had no idea such a career was even an option, let alone that it would appeal to her. My father tried to push me into art conservatorship, probably because the Kennedy girl was going into it. And what I wound up doing in academia was quite different from what I expected. Homeschooling the poor kids is just one of the extreme forms of parental know-it-allness, like choosing their spouses.

I'm horrified that something invented by fundie Xians for transparently selfish and closed-minded reasons and based on their horrendous view of family life (women as free labor for their men, children as proof of virility and sacrifices to their god, neither ever, ever to count in decisions above said god's maunderings) should be embraced by so many heathens. Shame on them.

Frith,
M

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[info]mdehners
2009-01-19 02:32 pm UTC (link)
I've been re-reading Pratchett's books and am presently in those dealing with Susan, the grand daughter of DEATH. If you're not familiar with the books, her parents wished her to be "normal" which left her Poorly able to "deal" with REALITY. The only jobs she can get is that of governess where she teaches the two children of a couple of social-climbers how things really ARE. one thing is that she points out that there is no need to teach children to BE children...they have that down "pat". Also, much to the horror of her employers, she takes the children down to the local playground, pointing out that it is a perfect microcosm to teach human interactions on all levels.
ALL of my Homeschoolers do it to "Separate" their kids from what they consider to be the "chaff" of Humanity:Religion, Race, Caste, etc.
What Pisses me off the most is those that make a big deal about their Choices when they've made it so their kids won't have any....
Truth,
Pat

There’s the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is “Don’t do what you will, do as I say”.

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