Home schooling

[NickGlover]

My point regarding the use of mostly religious schools for data is that they are not a sufficiently wide cross-section of the population. The social abilities necessary to be a leader in a religious setting may be different than those necessary in a more diverse setting (for example more tolerance might be required at a non-religious school).

So, my problem is not with bias on the part of the people who conducted the specific studies at each religious school. The people who conduct a study could be biased either way regardless of where they are conducting the study. My problem is with the seemingly biased presentation of mostly studies from religious schools which might skew the results simply because of the nature of social interaction that occurs at a religious school.

[nomadicus]

Originally Posted by NickGlover

My problem is with the seemingly biased presentation of mostly studies from religious schools which might skew the results simply because of the nature of social interaction that occurs at a religious school.

I think the religous study is but one example.

Aren't major presentations alwasy biased? Take for example a telephone survey research company (I used to work for one) doing a business development survey for the owner of a large tract of land. Wouldn't the owner in turn use that data and present it in (the most) positive way to prospective clients?

So I would expect religous and public schools, business developers, the media, the government, etc., to present the better senerio which coincides with their goals.

I think it is up to the individual to determine if the studiy was skwed during its presentation religious or secular.

[NickGlover]

Originally Posted by nomadicus

Aren't major presentations alwasy biased? Take for example a telephone survey research company (I used to work for one) doing a business development survey for the owner of a large tract of land. Wouldn't the owner in turn use that data and present it in (the most) positive way to prospective clients?

So I would expect religous and public schools, business developers, the media, the government, etc., to present the better senerio which coincides with their goals.

Well, I wouldn't say always, but generally, yes, studies are biased. When such a thing occurs, it seems like a good idea to me to point such a thing out (as I have done in this case). I also think that the people conducting and using these studies should try to avoid this bias (especially when operating in a non-commercial context). I try to avoid being biased myself, which is obviously somewhat true in this case since I actually agree with the conclusion that eepiccolo's link advocates.

Originally Posted by nomadicus

I think it is up to the individual to determine if the studiy was skwed during its presentation religious or secular.

True, and my point was simply to try to convince individuals that these particular religious-oriented studies are likely to be skewed. A further point against the use of Bob Jones University, is that this school did (just a few years ago and possibly still does) forbid interracial dating. I think there are many people who consider condoning this type of behavior not to be very "socially healthy".

[kwstone]

I don't believe that the real issue is the credibilty or bias of anyone's particular study. As I pointed out previously, I don't believe that any study of homeschoolers is likely to compare badly with the state schools, simply because homeschooled kids are already preselected, because of their parents convictions and concern about education, in a way that makes them atypical of (and usually academically superior to) the general population.

(BTW I deliberately use the term "state schools" rather than "public schools" for the benefit of English readers. As you may know, in England the term "public shool" means a private school . I'm using "state" in the sense of nation-state, not Oklahoma or Alabama).

In any case, I believe that the issue of superior or inferior performance of either system is rather beside the point. Surely the real issue at stake here is who has the responsibility for making choices in the raising of children? This is a philosophical or religious issue, rather than one that can be pragmatically decided by which gets the highest marks in a comparative study.

For a true historical Socialist it is a simple issue; children, like everything else, belong to the State, and it must be the State that ultimately decides how and for how long they are educated and what beliefs are to be instilled in them. Therfore, state schools, exclusively. For Reconstructionist and historic Reformed Christians, children have been entrusted by God to the care of their parents, who should ultimately decide these issues (under God). Therefore, free parental choice. For most other people, AFAIK, there is a kind of grey area between these two extremes. What I'd like to do is understand where people stand along this continuum, and why?

I'd be curious to understand better what are other philisophical opinions on this issue. I've never heard a clear Libertarian argument with regard to it, let alone anything from any othe major political parties. Anyone care to enlighten me, or give their personal slant on this?

[PageFault]

As a Statist, home schooling is one of the greater effronts in the abuse of the concept of Liberty. Home schooling is the work of beardies and as such should have zero tolerance in the modern scheme of things.

This is not to be confused with socialism, which presents the same argument but for the purposes of early political indoctrination.

Originally posted by kwstone

I'd be curious to understand better what are other philisophical opinions on this issue. I've never heard a clear Libertarian argument with regard to it, let alone anything from any othe major political parties. Anyone care to enlighten me, or give their personal slant on this?

[eepiccolo]

Originally posted by PageFault
As a Statist, home schooling is one of the greater effronts in the abuse of the concept of Liberty. Home schooling is the work of beardies and as such should have zero tolerance in the modern scheme of things.

This is not to be confused with socialism, which presents the same argument but for the purposes of early political indoctrination.

You should note, PageFault, that kwstone was interested in an argument from other philisophical viewpoints, in order to better understand their opinions, not just the opinions themselves.

Unless you claim that your statement that home schooling is the work of beardies is the argument. That's not going to win any debates, my friend. But even if that is the argument, you need to back up that argument, with proof that beardies started home schooling, and explain why things that beardies do are always bad.

Originally posted by eepiccolo

You should note, PageFault, that kwstone was interested in an argument from other philisophical viewpoints, in order to better understand their opinions, not just the opinions themselves.

Unless you claim that your statement that home schooling is the work of beardies is the argument. That's not going to win any debates, my friend. But even if that is the argument, you need to back up that argument, with proof that beardies started home schooling, and explain why things that beardies do are always bad. [/QUOTE]


404: irony error.


Paul

[eepiccolo]

Originally posted by plugh

404: irony error.


Paul

Would you care to be a little more clear on what you mean by that?

[Lumly]

To me, there exist only two reasons why someone would want to school their own children.

1. The “state school” system and the “private school” system aren’t good enough to educate their children properly.
2. Both types of schools are bad environments to expose your children to.

It’s clear to me that whether a child does well in school or not has less to do with the school itself but rather the capacity of the child to adapt to that particular method of instruction, namely the “classic” 30 kids per teacher impersonal style.

On what do I base this? Well, my own life of course. I can honestly say that I had no scholastic problems in grade/high school at all. I did very little studying, but rather paid attention in class and sometimes read ahead in the text books. To me that was enough. I was a rather poor student with bad study and work skills but easily maintained 85% averages.

My nephew, on the other hand, is in his first year of high school and is failing fast. Most of it has to do with his poor reading skills. If I don’t understand something I look it up. If he doesn’t understand something looking it up won’t help him because even if the answer is given to him in written form he’s not likely to understand what he reads. On top of that I don’t think he even knows how to look things up.

It frustrates me to see him struggle, but I do not blame the education system for his problems. Whatever afflicts him isn’t going to be changed by switching instructional methods. My sister currently has to spend about 2.5 hours a night with her son just to get his homework done… which pretty much equates to home schooling to me.

So much for reason number one.

Reason number two is by far much for interesting. Again, in school I wasn’t really picked on, nor was I singled out of the glory of popularity. I had my measure of friends, but for the most part I kept myself to myself, but this doesn’t mean I was blind to what I saw. What I saw appalled me.

Kids were being socially ostracized not because they were geeks, nerds, etc, but rather because they were different. I remember one girl who, at least to me, was rather pretty being called a dog by an acquaintance of mine. I was shocked. Then I realized that she had gotten rather tall over the summer, taller in fact than both me and my “friend”. Another girl had pretty much no friends because she was plain looking and her family was poor.

I was not totally unaffected by this. A girl I had previously known from the age of 5 to 11 and with whom I spent a lot of time with in school pretty much totally ignored me after we got to high school. I think we didn’t speak more than 4 words to each other for 5 years and I still haven’t heard boo from her. Why? In elementary school it as ok to hang around with me; in high school I was a nerd and lets face it, she was a knockout.

And then there were the guys who had it even worse, but I could go on forever. Back to the point...

This, I think, is the kind of nonsense that home school parents want to avoid. Their kids will still have neighborhood friends. They will still go through all those little steps the sociologists say are so important to development. I think it is unnatural to spend eight hours a day with your peers at that age, especially “unsupervised” hours. All that interaction without any sort of moral interpretation or adult intervention is not that sort of thing I’d ever want to expose my kids to. It’s like a miniature Children of the Corn.

In the adult world some people still act the way they did in high school. Why wouldn’t they? If it worked for them in school there is no reason to change a good thing. Thankfully, in the real world you aren’t fenced in with these people day-in-day-out unable to escape.

This brings me back to my nephew. Although he’s never been very well adept scholastically, my gut feeling is that he is being hounded on at school and he’s unable to function to his best because of it. If this isn’t reason enough to support home schooling then I don’t know what is.

Random musings with no coherence, but at least it’s mildly diverting.

[jinydu]

When peer abuse reaches its full power, ostracism (being left alone) is felt as a wonderful blessing.