Here is an interesting profile of Deborah Ross, the American entrepreneur who also manages to home-school her children. Naturally, the thought does occur to me, in the light of the recent controversy kicked up by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s thick-headed remarks about sharia law, whether parents with strong religious views who want to indoctrinate their kids, against their children’s will, might bring the idea of home-schooling into disrepute. Personally, I think the benefits of letting parents play a much more hands-on role in schooling outweigh some of the disadvantages, particularly if children have the ability at a certain age to choose how they want to be schooled (the issue of giving children more freedom is still a very controversial one, even among liberals). The key change that must come, in my view, is an end to compulsory schooling or at the very least, a sharp reduction in the existing school age, rather than raising it ever further. I am also in favour of hacking away regulations to make it easier for companies to take on youngsters as apprentices. Many young folk are bored senseless at school and would be far less disruptive if they could learn a trade and generate the pride that comes with a paying job, while keeping up with academic subjects at a later date if they want (this might also reduce youth crime a bit).
Children are naturally inquisitive and rebellious against authority – thank goodness – so my reservations about some of the people who want to school their kids at home are not very large, although I do not dismiss them lightly. I sometimes hear in discussions about home-schooling the old canard about how children educated this way are less well ‘socialised’ than their supposedly more fortunate, state or private-school peers. I doubt this: having myself suffered the joys of state schooling, with all the charms of bullying and indifferent teaching that went with it, the idea of encouraging a possibly more individualistic culture as a result of home schooling is to be welcomed (my education experience was not all bad: I got a good degree in the end, so must have done something right). Many people who have been subjected to more than 11 years of compulsory education in a boarding school or some state school never recover their self-confidence as adults. In any event, the whole point here is that education should not have to follow one ‘ideal’ system at all. As a libertarian, I say let education evolve where it will. Does that mean that Walmart or Barclays Bank should be able to run schools? Yes, why the heck not? I look forward to reading headlines like this: “Education Ltd, Britain’s largest listed schooling company, launched a daring bid for Lycee France, the Paris-listed school chain which has boasted the highest examination result tests for the last five years. The deal, if it goes through, would produce a group to rival that of School Corp, America’s largest education chain by market cap.”
Anyway, I strongly recommend people read the whole article. This Wikipedia entry is also a pretty interesting overview with loads of links for different approaches around the world to homeschooling.
There are two categories of parents who homeschool: those who want their kids to learn more than what they could learn in public school, and those who want their kids to learn less (i.e., no evolution, no reproductive anatomy, no teh gheys).
The question therefore becomes: which groups are growing or shrinking, both in absolute terms and relative to the other group?
In the U.S. those trends are depressing, approaching terrifying.
I have given some consideration to home-schooling my now 20 month old son. In the main to get away from the propagandized rubbish that children are fed and the religious rubbish that my step-children come home spouting.
My main worry with home-schooling is that I would be unable to teach my son things about which I have little understanding.
1-with all the charms of bullying and indifferent teaching that went with it
2-which has boasted the highest examination result tests for the last five years
Compulsory state education is much more about the former than the latter. Certainly at the ideal root is some sort notion about equal oppurtunity on through outcome, but we know this to be unattainable (a century of socialist education in the US has hardly brought about some sort of utopia). But the resources are brought to bear, and even if the ideal is known to be out of reach, well, you might as well teach the little snot flingers to stand in line if nothing else.
3-my education experience was not all bad: I got a good degree in the end, so must have done something right)
Once the three R’s were uploaded, did your moribund teachers have anything to do with your desire to learn more? Or did you accumulate knowledge despite them? Don’t give them credit for not completely extinguishing your desire to learn.
Again, homeschooling is a great idea that would be fantastic if most people met the ideal. However, for every parent that would homeschool in order to ‘bring out the best in their child’ there are ten that would homeschool to ensure their child never gets any funny ideas (like modern western values,) five that would be putting their child through the homeschool equivalent of a battery farm in order to raise their own status by proxy, and god knows what else.
While the actual education provided by the state school system isn’t much to shout about, I think that the environment created by that system (everyone learns together and learns the samething, irrespective of race, religion, culture) is the real hidden treasure. With a more fractured school system (or a much greater prevalence of homeschooling) most children would end up learning according to their parents cultural beliefs. The libertarian in me loves the concept, the realist in me knows that ‘multiculturalism’ fails because most cultures have a central belief that ‘people of different cultures are lacking/infidels/untrustworthy/enemies’
Difficult. I honestly think that without the forced mixing of the state schooling system (which has always been the default in America even for relatively rich members of society, unlike in the UK where private schools are much more common – probably due to the UK being more class-oriented) then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that modern western values remain prevalent in the long term. I don’t _like_ the idea but I really believe that it is a cornerstone of western civilisation.
The very use of the term “Home-” Schooling reveals something about both the historical changes in group teaching (in the U.S., at least) and changes in the “community” relationships with families and their children.
Today, what is called “public” education, has become a governmental function; whereas, as little as 100 years ago it was a “community” function (particularly in more agrarian settings). Communities, and the families that formed them, probably because they were more homogenous, had more similar objectives for the training of children. Those objectives originated within the familes and were shared (and compromised) within the community.
Intense (and rapid) urbanization dispersed what had been more homogenous groupings, and the nature of “community” changed. What had been a largely co-operative effort in the former communities became a compulsory obligation in the urbanized society that was evolving. The family input on child training and development was impacted by what had become a governmental function (generally proportionate to the degree of “local” control or influence in that function).
Reactions to the historic changes have included restructuring the communities into more homgenous units, specific suburbs, for example; movements to townships known for “good schools,” etc.
For many, this has not repaired the impacts that are perceived as lessening the input of families in shaping their children.
It is probably not so much about the “education” as it is about the relationships within a family and the ultimate relationships of the children of that family within some community. In a broader sense, it may be about how the children will be shaped to chose the community for the relationships they come to desire.
My sister has home schooled all of her children in a state that gives home schoolers carte blanc. By state law, the government bodies are forbidden to even test home school children unless they are entering the school system and are being tested for placement.
She is a fundamentalist, the wife of a fundamentalist preacher. She believes in creation and kept computer internet connections out of her house until very recently to prevent access to child inappropriate content. Her definition of child inappropriate.
So how bad did things turn out for those poor helpless children. Four of them have reached college age. All four have gone to college and graduated with full academic scholarships. All in ‘hard’ sciences. 2 have bachelor of science degrees, one is going on farther, the other one just graduated and may go on later. One is now working on a PHD in some extremely mathematical micro electronics. One has a health related degree and wants to work in the 3rd world.
All of them can pick and choose their jobs and are actively recruited by headhunters.
Yup. Sure is dangerous letting fundamentalist parents teach their own children. A lot safer to turn them over to the teacher’s union. -P
mandrill– My main worry with home-schooling is that I would be unable to teach my son things about which I have little understanding.
Is there no option for part time home-schooling? Where you take the reins where ever possible and let the state school take over in the areas you have a lesser understanding.
What are “teh gheys”?Isn’t English the Lingua Franca on this site?
50 years ago ago one could get 12 years of a decent education in NYC (as I did) and presumably elsewhere in this country. Such is not the case now in NYC now,largely due to incompetent administration. My wife taught 20 years here and I have friends who are looking forward to their pensions. Anything run by the government eventually goes tits up-politicians can’t help themselves. I’ll take that back-they certainly can help themselves-and do.
Alternative-20 to30 K for a private school or homeschool.
Mandrill,
It is easy to spot a good teacher. Their students surpass them. My sister did not understand all of what she taught. But she taught them to learn, and that is by far the single most important thing you can teach a child.
My son was home schooled by my father. Although my father was brilliant in all subjects, he relied on a purchased curriculum from a few schools that supply diplomats and others whose children are abroad. IE: the Calvert School and Keystone High School. In that way my son was exposed to standardized testing and lesson plans not unlike what public school should provide.
However, my father required mastery before my son could proceed to the next lesson. And, naturally, the course work was augmented as my father saw fit.
I hasten to point out that I could never have mustered the discipline to demand such performance from my son, particularly during his adolescence. It was without reservation that I surrendered the entire “Education of Sam” project to my father, as I knew he could manage where I could not and would commit to the task completely without wavering. For my father, self discipline and determination are the essence of his being. Plus, single mother and son dynamics and all have made me wishy washy toward the boy at times, and the boy certainly knows how to finesse me.
I am very pleased with the results. As is Sam. Of course he wasn’t always happy with his circumstances. However, my son’s ACT and SAT scores were far higher than mine or any of his peers and more than sufficient to earn him a goodly number of scholarship opportunities.
Socialization was a concern. Fortunately, my son had the boyscouts (he achieved Eagle), a kid-populated neighborhood and his gaming buddies.
Today he is doing very well indeed with honors in his college studies. He is very comfortable in the academic environment. He seems well liked by his teachers. And he manages to work 20 hours a week too. And very importantly, he still loves and reveres his Grandfather! 😉
Lunacy
I have several friends who have successfully home-schooled children — and one who tried but failed (by her own standards); she ended up sending the kids back to state school.
One of the successful home-schoolers had a son who was repeatedly bullied at school — school administration did nothing, since the bullies were “minorities”. The family home-schooled as a last resort because (unlike the Clintons), they could not afford the fees for private schools. One of their observations was that the state-specified curriculum they followed at home was astonishingly undemanding; it took only half the “school” day to accomplish, leaving lots of time for real education. The boy is now a successful well-socialized college student.
One of the interesting parts of that family’s experience is that a network of co-operating home-schoolers spontaneously developed in the area. Part of the schooling took place in small groups in other families’ homes — the parent engineer taught the kids math while the lady born overseas taught them her native language, etc. The home-schooled kids even formed an amateur dramatics society and put on plays, some of which they wrote themselves. What was that about “socialization”?
On a societal level, the problem is that a Hilary Clinton sends her daughter to an expensive private school while daring to tell ordinary Jane Doe what kind of ineffective schooling her own child must endure. Home schooling is not the answer to that problem, but it is a vital safety valve until the rest of us find the courage to deal with the political class.
In my academic field, linguistics, we have an acronym for children – LAD – i.e. language acquisition device.
I would change the limitation of L to learning.
Humans are LADs – learning acquisition devices – and what’s more they are happiest when they are learning.
The tragedy today in our schools is that the so-called learning children are exposed to bores them to tears and is monumentally counterproductive.
It offers nothing in terms of challenge or value added to knowledge of the world around them. Instead the schools concentrate on touchy feely pap guaranteed to produce eye glazing over boredom. Alas!
The commenters above are right on target when they say :
“It is probably not so much about the “education” as it is about the relationships within a family and the ultimate relationships of the children of that family within some community.” (R. Richard Schweitzer)
and
“…taught them to learn, and that is by far the single most important thing you can teach a child.” (Midwesterner)
[though I would say that children come into the world learning voraciously and we need to support their learning and not squash the desire – to assist and advise children in their explorations… teaching implies an authoritarian Imparting of Knowledge, whereas learning is where the action is, with the learner in charge of his/her own processes in creating knowledge for his/herself]
One of the great advantages and joys of the (home)unschooling lifestyle is that parents continue to learn right along with thier children. With access to internet and satellite tv, most of what we want to learn about is available at our fingertips. We google up answers to our questions many times a day.
Combined with living our lives in the context of local community – which in our area can include taking a class or two at the gov’t schools, if we like – and with travel to other places, along with visits from other home/unschoolers from not only our country but from other countries as well, a sort of ‘unschooler exchange student’ arrangement, there is no shortage of learning how to live with and conduct relationships with other individuals. Doing so without the compulsory and coercive aspect of the school institution greatly enhances the learning, imo&e.
We are all members of many communities. The possibilities have expanded greatly since the advent of the internet. The things I have learned from participating in online communities have helped me in my learning and pursuits in the physical universe as well, as have the things I have and am learning from living a libertarian unschooling lifestyle with my family.
Transformation of existing rigid schooling customs and ideas is slow, but in the process of happening. Despite all the imperfections of the gov’ts we live with, I am grateful to live in a country and time when me and my family can benefit so greatly from the freedom and ability to live our lives as we see fit, with minimal intrusion from the powers that be. It is possible, at least in this state, at this time, in the U.S.A.
I think the situation in the UK, legally, is that there is compulsory education but not compulsory attendance at a state school so long as the parents can satisfy the local authorities that education is being provided (and not just by Richard and Judy).
Jonathan’s other point about privately run school companies is interesting. They do actually exist and some failing schools have been taken over by private management. The trouble is that most parents are too heavily taxed to fully pay for the private sector and so there is a monopoly customer – the local Council. Without parent purchasing power, strong recognisable brands and companies don’t seem to have emerged.
Incidentally, I know of at least one council looking to have a new school built and run:
http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/jennettsparkschool
(Link)
Any EduCorp PLC’s out there want to put in a bid. (I suspect the only outside bidder will be the Church of England)
Looking at what has been said so far, is there not something to be learned “in the home,” even if it is not being “taught?”
If so, consider what that “something” (or somethings) should be.
The socialization thing is overstated anyway. Children who grow up in the company of adults learn to be adults. Let’s not forget that the whole state education is a reasonably recent development and children were growing up fine before that. In any case, there is plenty of opportunity for “good” socialization with friends and within the homeschooling community.
There’s also the issue of bad socialization which can occur in state education where otherwise well balanced kids are forced to interact with those who are borderline sociopaths.
It’s never stopped teachers. There are many many good teachers but there are also those who just teach from a book. If nothing else, if something needs to be learned, you have the incentive to learn it whereas a teacher might just be working for the next paycheck.
I also am not overly concerned with religious parents teaching their children. Firstly, it’s really no business of mine. One of the main poles of my libertarian position is that “I might be wrong” on many issues and therefore should allow others to make their own choices. Secondly, much better someone that has received a decent education and the ability to think through things than the conformist athiesm of state school.
There are some very thoughtful comments here about this critical subject, and I salute any parent who has approached the education of their children with the kind of careful concern indicated in many of the posts in this thread.
When education is discussed, among other subjects, one can observe the set-in-concrete mindset of the modern statist in full rigor mortis.
For untold thousands of years, all teaching, all schooling, was home schooling. Except for a very small minority, children learned from family members and selected local artisans, learning by doing, helping, by example, and in long apprenticeships.
In terms of human history, the mass education format of modern schools was invented yesterday, and is very much an unproven, experimental form of passing information on to the next generations.
Yet, if you ever engage a modern “progressive” educational advocate in debate about the nature of what is needed in the future of educating our children, it quickly becomes clear that anything but the current, mass public school, assembly line process is utterly inconceivable to them.
The only point allowed for discussion is how much more money is required to finally make the system actually do eduction well. As in AGW, all other debate is closed, and any possible alternatives to the current model are suspect, at the very least, or condemned outright as elitist, racist, or in some other way fatally flawed.
In the collectivist mind, nothing but mass, collective mechanisms, financed by massive amounts of public money, are possible as solutions to any perceived social need or problem. And, once a scheme is in place, it can never be fundamentally questioned or altered.
Only modifications, and money, always more money, are allowed as acceptable improvements. The only modifications allowed, of course, are to further increase the power and authority of the system, never decrease or scale them back.
My wife and I send our children to private schools for academic rigor and moral clarity, two items rarely found in the huge educational factories that dot our metropolitan landscape. Two more years and the youngest will graduate high school. After that, as with his older brothers and sister, he’s on his own, to work and pay his own way as best he can.
We don’t mind offering some occasional help, but we have tried to raise independent, productive adults, not perpetual children who require endless support, and are unable to find their own way in the world.
It’s how we were raised, and so, in our own form of family tradition, we continue the most important “home schooling” of all—the lesson that your life is yours to live. Get out there and do it.
I only know one bloke that was home schooled (along with his siblings) and they all turned out decidedly weird. But I think that is down to the fact that their parents didn’t undertake any of the other kinds of activities that would socialise them properly (like Scouts, as someone else mentioned).
At the other end of the spectrum, I had 8 years of boarding school, and some of my friends think that I turned out pretty odd as well.
Are some home schooled kids getting the rough end of the pineapple in terms of outcomes? Sure, there have to be some that are not performing when taught at home. But at least the parents have the option of putting them into a school if they are not up to it.
I’m not worried about a percentage of home schooled kids “failing” at life – so long as that percentage is lower than that achieved by state schools. If 10% of home schooled kids turn out weird and useless and unable to read, as opposed to say 30% from state schools, then I reckon the home schoolers are doing ok!
A central tenet of socialism is that it is imperative to educate the unwashed masses to become good socialist citizens, for the improved future of society. For this purpose it is necessary to snatch the children from their parent’s paws, send them to compulsory government education, where they will be indoctrinated the right (socialist) way. God forbid that retro parents teach their children some undesirable, reactionary stuff, like religion or libertarianism.
The purpose of establishing the universal, government system of schools was not only to provide “free” and egalitarian education to all, but also – to enable the state to indoctrinate all the children the “correct” way, and thus – to “improve” society. The government, by taxing our money away to finance “free” education, forces us to send the children to government indoctrination camps.
The principles of a free, liberal (i.e. libertarian) society are the exact opposite of this. The parents, and only the parents, decide what education their children will get. They can send them to a school of their choice, from among many, different, private schools, that have different curricula, or they can home-school them. And the parents decide what they should learn.
Of course, the children themselves also learn what interests them, many times even against their parents’ wishes.
In a libertarian society there are no “one fits all” solutions imposed by force from above (by the state), and not one correct system of beliefs that need to be taught.
I was surprised by Johnathan’s worry about parents teaching their children religion “against their wishes”. Nobody can, or should interfere and expropriate the children. The education of children is the sole responsibility of the parents.
It is nobody’s business to interfere, conclude that children are not “correctly” educated, and force them to get government education.
home schooling works
They must be proud.
One last blast:
In public schools children learn of their rights and what they are required to do.
At home (if fortunate) they learn of their obligations and what they ought to do.
Those two learnings seem to flow in separate beds in these times
I had 6 years of school in the USSR. I now look at my son who is going through the standard western government education system (“going through” is about right, meat-grinder style), and I pull my hair, because he is much worse off than I was. He is actually learning a tiny fraction of what I had, (and I mean real, hard-math-and-science learning), and is subjected to the same, if not greater, amount of indoctrination. I had MUCH better teachers, MUCH more vigorous curriculum, MUCH more personal responsibility expected from me. How sad is that?
This magnificient government schooling system in the USSR did them a lot of good… look how rich and technologically and culturally advanced those Russian now are…
Could it be that there is a tendency to romaticize the good old days ? Or that USSR gov. propaganda left some mark on some young minds ? I don’t know.
I happened to read about the amazing mathematician , who was home schooled; never went to any school or college, was self educated and published papers in matematical journals. The first time he actually reached a college was when he was made professor.
Ops,
The mathematician is George Boole(Link).
Sorry for the error in the post above.
Here is a more detailed biography of George Boole.
Jacob, who said anything about the Soviet education system being magnificent? The system was lousy in many ways, and the sad part is that my son’s “education” makes me miss that lousy system.
In fact many of them are technologically and culturally advanced – too bad they no longer live in Russia. And the reasons they have left do not necessarily have to do with the Soviet education system, as that education system was far from the only problem with those countries, as you well know.
Alisa,
I have an aunt who always extols the quality of the communist education system (and how it was available to all…), and she is by no means a commie. (She also extols the quality of Russian TV programs, then and now, but on this I’m totally ignorant.)
Though I myself, too, tasted a bit of that education system, and I do have fond memories (at least some fond memories), I’m not sure now, that the system was indeed superior, even in the field of sciences alone. Maybe it was, but maybe I’m just nostalgic. Can’t make up my mind…
One thing, though, seems to me true: there was discipline, and a commitment to learning, far beyond what we have in our schools now.
Jacob, it was certainly superior in the field of math and science, but quite inferior in humanities, especially history – for obvious reasons. And of course you are right about discipline and commitment to learning.
As for fond memories: I have learned long ago that the mere fact that I am nostalgic of something says nothing about its objective quality. This goes for TV shows, music, etc. These days I often enjoy hearing an old song that at the time I thought was tasteless crap. It is still tasteless crap, of course, only now it has nostalgic value, that’s all.
From what I saw during some substitute teaching in government-run schools, I wouldn’t want any kids to be subjected to that moron-driven schooling, that substitute for education. (Middle schoolers in a relatively good school who overwhelmingly think that “could of done” is more correct than “could’ve done”? English teachers who don’t know its most basic idioms?) One of the many organized home-schooling networks could easily do a better job, keeping their kids out of the union thugs’ reach.
There is a supplementary math school in Newton, MA, organized by Russians who know just how badly their kids are getting screwed. What surprises me is that with all their initiative and brains they seem, as inferred from what I’ve heard, to be stuck in a government-school-as-foundation mentality.