Who decides what sufficiently educated means?

I think it’s great that you’re open to homeschooling, but it isn’t just about education, as I think you’ll find when your children come home. Most importantly, the level of education that a parent has attained according to what we traditionally view as “education” is absolutely no limit to the achievement of the homeschooled child.

Daisy

Public education, as it is now, has only been around for about 150 years. To say that homeschooling is unnatural just goes to show that the public school teachers who use this line of arguement don’t know anything about history. I liked your point about teen attitudes being a result of the public education system. It drives me crazy when people say that teen attitudes are natural and you can’t do anything about it. The attitude of these parents also contributes to their teens behavior. Our teenagers don’t have to be rebels without a cause. I can show you thousands of teens whose parents have done something about it.

I have a lot of respect for public school teachers, I couldn’t do what they do, which is to say, I couldn’t put up with what they have to put up with and the politics and system they have to work in. What I don’t respect are teachers who don’t care, who have bought the socialist party line, believe all parents are incapable of knowing and raising their own children, and whine about the amount of money they make.

#1 You had to of known what the pay was when you started that job and if you don’t like it then don’t take it. Teachers aren’t the only ones not getting paid what they are worth. #2 The system itself largely helped to create the problems that teachers have to face so if they want to gripe about not being paid enough, then complain about and at the NEA. Not that the NEA would listen to that line of thought.

Again, I enjoyed your blog. Thanks for letting me comment.

Abiding in the Vine!

No one needs to decide anything about parents and their children except the parents. As a society, as a nation, we must give the family back to the family. Family has been encroached upon way too much by government. Government needs to stay out of the business of raising children except in the most egregious of circumstances–obviously criminal activity directed at the child.

Now, when I say that homeschooling is for people who are “sufficiently educated” that is really for the parents to decide. I have no problem at all with a high school educated parent educating their child. 1) That’s their child and they need to raise that child as they see fit. 2) On a more practical note, just because you only finished high school doesn’t mean that you don’t have enough sense to take advantages of all of the resources that are out there. For instance, if math is not your strong point, you could hire a tutor. (As a matter of fact, soon I’m coming online with a mathematics teaching site to address this issue.)

I hope this clarifies my post!

As always, I appreciate your comments!

Thanks for the input!

Visit often! Lee

Teaching reading can be done in 15 minutes three times a week if you do it the right way–phonics with no sight words. It can be done. Phonics Pathways is an excellent book that doesn’t use sight words, and Don Potter’s 1824 version of Webster’s Speller is another excellent method that uses no sight words. He also has available a free book called blend phonics that is very easy to use in the classroom.

And, if you follow up a good phonics program with 5 - 10 minutes a day of spelling based on phonetic spelling rules in grades 1, 2, and 3, you will get an excellent speller and reader with very little effort.

You can find Webster’s Speller and some other great free phonics programs at Don Potter’s Page: http://www.donpotter.net/ed.htm.

And, you can find a history of reading instruction here: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/historyofreading.html It shows an interesting period from 1826 to 1876 where an elecutionary mode of whole word teaching was used. I found out about this era from Geraldine Rodgers’ “The History of Beginning Reading,” and have verified it from research at the Library of Congress.

You might also find interesting this about the harmful effects of sight words: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html

Finally, I have free online spelling and phonics lessons that you can recommend to any of your students who read or spell below grade level.

And, the full title of Blend Phonics is: Reading Made Easy with Blend Phonics for the First Grade

Actually, many homeschoolers believe that hippie-type parents were really the first homeschoolers, but that people didn’t start homeschooling in large numbers until conservative Christians started doing it. Both groups wanted to keep their children away from the schools, but for different reasons.

Why do I make the distinction between “ultra-Christians” and Christians? I read your comment this morning, and I’ve been mulling this over nearly all day. I believe I was trying to draw some sort of distinction between Christians who believe their own version of Christianity is the only path and Christians who are more ecumenical, or even interreligious. I’m obviously of the interreligious sort.

As far as the power spoken of in Timothy. I believe the power, love, and self-control that God has given me does not mean that I have to choose to send my children to be schooled in an institution that in some respects has more in common with Gomorrah than the haven of safety and learning that I believe school should be.

Finally, and this might be the most important part of this response. I’m basically a pragmatist. I rarely operate by applying theory or doctrine (even if it’s 100% correct) to the world I live in. My approach is more seeing and understanding reality and then navigating my way through it using the wisdom of theory and doctrine to my advantage.

I am entirely cognizant that my approach might be completely bogus. This way of dealing with the world, however, has evolved through my life and has gotten me successfully through some extremely trying times. In other words, from a pragmatic point of view, I do what I do because it works.

I’ll enlarge on this more in my next post or the following one.

Again, thanks for the very thought provoking comment. I’m coming to realize this is what blogging is all about.