16th February 2008

Everyone Knows Homeschooling Moms Are Ticking Time-Bombs of Psychosis!

posted in Issues, Pop Culture, School |

So I got three votes for the economy and foreclosures, and three votes for homeschooling.  And one that said "I’ll read anything you write!" (BadMutha, you sure know how to make me blush!  And, honest, 75-100 is not too shabby as regular readers.  Nothing like The Big Guys, but still not too shabby.  I say so as someone with an average visit of just around 100.)

Since Mrs. Fibgy voted for the economy but said she’d be interested in the homeschooling critique critiquing, I used that as a tie-breaker.

Whilst wandering around ScienceBlogs last week, I came across a snippet of a "critique of homeschooling" on Greg Laden’s blog.  I followed the link to this article.  I read it.  Really!  I actually forced myself to read it, even though my former editor’s brain kept shrieking, "ACK!  ACK ACK!  ACK ACK ACK!" and my analytic brain kept grumbling "cherry-picking, dammit!" and my marketing brain kept snickering, "Ooooh, yeah, let’s get some more stereotypes in there, why don’t we?!"

Of you go.  Read.  Go on, go go go.  I’ll just wait right here.

Done?

First, let me reveal a snobby bias:  A poorly written article automatically prejudices me against the author’s viewpoint.  I hang my head in shame.  Lots of people who Think Good Thoughts can’t write their way out of a paper bag.  But clunky construction, poor verb-subject agreement, awkward (or nonexistent) segues, and downright errors in articles make my eyes cross and my brain stutter.

But, hey.  We all know that this particular post of mine will be inevitably riddled with errors, this being the Way of the Kozmik All.  "Whom the gods destroy they first make proud" and all that.  So let’s take that as a given, and I don’t want to hear any grumbling from the roaring mob about how not only am I a snob but an utter hypocrite to boot.

Let’s get to the substance.

The author ranks the reasons for homeschooling as:  Violence in the school system/safety and desire to provide better education.  She mentions in passing that many homeschoolers are religious, but doesn’t list that as a reason.  She waves her hand at "my research" but doesn’t say where she researched or what information she got.

So I had a go at looking for reasons for homeschooling.  The U.S. Department of Education performed surveys of homeschooling parents in 1999 and 2003.  The "most important" reasons for homeschooling given in the 2003 responses were:

Concern about environment of other schools 31.2%
To provide religious or moral instruction 29.8%
Dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools 16.5%
Child has other special needs 7.2%
Child has a physical or mental health problem 6.5%

That "concern" about the environment included drugs and peer pressure, not just "safety".  And having an "analysis" so poorly written that reason #2–religious or moral instruction–was conflated with other reasons and not discussed separately bugs me.

Then the author goes on to sniff at any concerns about the school environment, asks homeschooling parents what the crime rate is in their neighborhoods (?), and immediately takes off after…

…all those psychotic moms and dads who homeschool their kids and abuse or kill them.  Like Andrea Yates.  Or a lady named Deanna Landrey, who beat her kids with rocks to Save Them From Satan.

Because the Big Problem with homeschooling, dontchaknow, is that the kids are socially and physically isolated, and that’s a good way to hide child abuse.  Aside from the everyday horrors of not being socialized.

I stop here to say, yes, I know that there are, indeed, plenty of homeschooled kids who are socially isolated.  And social isolation is an excellent method of hiding abuse.

But then I look at all the homeschooling families I know of.  I worked in ITS with two.  I’ve made friends with a bunch via the web.  The parents of one of the dotter’s friends (another child adopted from Guangxi, whose birthday is one day later than hers) are homeschooling their child.  And the parents of one of her fellow ballet dancers are more homeschoolers.  Every single one of these parents has been using what’s known as a "home schooling co-op".  Some have been religiously oriented.  Some have been definitely non-religious.  All the kids that I’ve met are happy, healthy, dreadfully social children.  They go on homeschooling co-op field trips.  They play sports with other homeschooling kids and in the soccer leagues and the softball leagues and dancing and gymnastics.

The author goes on to say that those who are concerned about their kids’ educations should be more concerned about homeschooling than public schooling, because there are no requirements for teaching in a homeschool and the parents won’t be able to teach all the various subjects.  Amazingly enough, most of the homeschooling parents I know recognize quite well when they’ve reached the limit of their knowledge, and turn to the homeschooling co-ops for help.  Their children get taught science or math by parents in the co-op who are (gasp!) scientists or mathematicians.  They get taught English by parents in the co-op who are literature or English majors.  They learn online.  Or their parents study the subjects before their kids reach that point, so they can guide them.

Ah, but public (or private) school teachers are certified!  They’ve studied pedagogy!  They’ve done student teaching!  They have all the latest teaching theories under their belts!  They know how to handle 16 to 30 kids at once!  In some states, they need masters’ degrees!  A person without all that preparation simply can’t teach children!  Because they don’t Know How To Teach!

To which I say–pish tosh.  Again, the homeschoolers that I have encountered are wildly motivated to get their kids to learn.  Some have specifically taken their children out of school systems because…because…their kids weren’t learning.  All that teacher training, the masters’ degrees, the certification, the theories…and their kids weren’t learning.

To top it all off, she says that homeschoolers will share their biases (not "there bias’s") with their children.

Um.  Yeah…?  Do you know of any parents who do not share their biases with their children?  The only way I can think of for parents to not share their biases with their offspring is to…well…just keep their mouths shut.  All.  The.  Time.  In addition, the implication that teachers in school systems don’t share their biases with the children they teach is mind-boggling.  In every way, in every word, in every path of teaching, those teachers do share their biases.  The kids learn a whole slew of biases from the school system.  And from their parents.  And from their aunts, uncles, friends’ parents, and everyone they encounter.

Of course, being exposed to one, and only one, set of biases isn’t the best of all worlds in my mind.  Many parents do homeschool precisely because they don’t want their precious loinfruit to have their ears sullied by the word (or concept) of evolution, or sex education, or Harry Potter books.

I am not an apologist for homeschooling, trust me.  I do think that some people are quite capable of fucking up their children via homeschooling.  But to use an "analysis" such as this one to trash homeschooling is insanity.  This article is so full of stereotypes, misconceptions, scare mongering, lack of citation, and just bad writing, logic, and grammar, that it is, in my opinion, totally worthless.  If you’re going to disapprove of homeschooling and attempt to persuade someone that it’s a bad idea, this is not the article to use.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Issues, Pop Culture, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 22 responses to “Everyone Knows Homeschooling Moms Are Ticking Time-Bombs of Psychosis!”

  1. 1 On February 16th, 2008, Kate said:

    Hi, O;
    I’m on the fence.. Not much good comes from the learning in public schools. However! It certainly teaches us how to deal with all the other people we’re forced to interact with every day of our lives.

    Those survival instincts are priceless in the corporate world and just as important for getting what you want out of the local council meetings!

    -k

  2. 2 On February 16th, 2008, Adso of Melk said:

    Thanks — it was a dreadful article, and I too tend to disregard the validity of an author’s ideas when s/he is a terrible writer. I agree that worthwhile and intelligent thoughts may not always go with good grammar and spelling, but chalk that up to one of my many “bias’s.”

    In our case, we homeschool out of academic concerns, and I’ll tell you — the pedagogical approaches to teaching vs. homeschooling are utterly different. Much of public or private school teaching has to do with classroom management, of course: how to present material to learners who may have attitudes ranging from receptive to hostile, who may have abilities ranging from gifted to challenged, who may have learning styles as diverse as you can get.

    Automatically, those issues are minimized tremendously in homeschooling just by the 1:1 nature of the instruction, which is why I think it tends to be successful for most of the homeschoolers who do it.

    And yeah, there are nut cases out there — but so are there in schools. For every Andrea Yates, there’s a Steven Kazmierczak. Unfortunately, neither home nor school cannot protect you from nut cases all of the time. However, I think it’s a far stretch to say that “school” is defined by Steven Kazmierczak or “homeschool” is defined by Andrea Yates. Clearly, neither is.

    Thanks for an interesting post.

  3. 3 On February 17th, 2008, Dawn said:

    I am the mother of six grown children, 3 of which I homeschooled periodically. I am an ardent believer in the power and benefits of homeschooling — for ALL of the reasons listed. It makes me crazy when educators and ignorant “others” fall back on that pathetic “socialization” argument. Homeschooled children have been proven to be MORE socially well-adjusted and adaptable than public schoolers.

    My daughter homeschooled her children (she now has 8) until recently. Two years ago, the three oldest children entered public school. All three have been recognized and awarded for academic and leadership excellence. One has been accepted into the “gifted” program. They are incredibly well-adjusted, but the transition to public school was a real culture shock for them.

    Oh,. . . and did I mention that I am also a certified teacher? I teach 8th grade English for a state-wide online school - and I absolutely hate it. My dream is to run my own “Mom School” — convert my living room into a classroom and teach other parents’ children in my home. ..with no accursed interference from state or federal regulations or NCLB.

    I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and I’ll vote for homeschooling every time.

    But. . . did you really need to throw that “F” word in there?

  4. 4 On February 17th, 2008, Mrs Figby said:

    Ugh! That article was HIDEOUS. If you’re a snob, so am I because that was the most god-awful piece of writing I’ve seen in years. It was physically painful to read it. And not just because I am firmly in the camp that feels homeschooling is a valuable and very often superior way of getting an education. But then, I feel strongly that different children have different needs and, if possible, should be educated in concordance with those needs. (Says the woman with one child attending an online high school, another at a public middle school, and a third in a private language immersion school.)

    Anyway. Nice rebuttal.

  5. 5 On February 17th, 2008, Lauri said:

    I am on the fence with Homeschooling… something about it has always intrigued me, but I tend to believe that a formal school environment is best for the total development of a child.

  6. 6 On February 17th, 2008, Lisa said:

    Ha, while I was reading this article, all I could think was, man this woman can’t write. On top of that, she didn’t back up any of her arguments, so I pretty much wrote off what she was saying.

    In terms of home-school, I can definitely see both sides of it. We had next-door neighbors who home-schooled their 10 kids while I was growing up. The mother pretty much abandoned the kids, locking herself up in her bedroom and leaving the kids to prepare meals, clean, etc and did not teach them a thing. I’m not exaggerating. The kids were left pretty much in squalor and literally had next-to zero contact with the outside world. I taught one of the oldest kids how to read when we were both around 9 years old. Before that, she couldn’t read.

    That said, that was *one* scenario, and as a child who spent most of my time in public school (in a very good public school system in Connecticut) bored out of my mind b/c I *got* the material in the first five minutes of class and had to suffer through another 40 minutes while the teacher wrangled the other kids/attempted to teach them, I think I could have benefited from an accelerated home-schooling program.

    I think home-schooling relies heavily on the intelligence/motivation of the parent administering the instruction and the curriculum. If the parent is smart and motivated, it can be better than public school, but it goes both ways.

  7. 7 On February 17th, 2008, Johnny said:

    I have to say that my sister’s 9 kids are homeschooled. I can’t say that homeschooling is bad, but I have seen (with my sister’s oldest daughter) that in one instance she was denied access to “science” because she was a girl. The cooperative they were in was only teaching boys science because the dad teaching since didn’t want to “mixing sexes”. So, she had to wait until there was someone willing to teach girls. Is that fair? Or just tough cookies kid?

  8. 8 On February 17th, 2008, Johnny said:

    ooops, embarrassing. Should read, “the dad teaching science didn’t….”

  9. 9 On February 17th, 2008, Miss Cellania said:

    Since my kids are neither homeschooled nor public schooled, I have no deep insights to share. But your post here is MUCH better than the one you cited. And while you were out of town, I put this up:
    http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2008/02/where-i-star-in-romance-novel.html
    I needed a “best friend”, so you were drafted.

  10. 10 On February 18th, 2008, Principled Discovery » The life and death of homeschooling, a eulogy said:

    [...] Tip: Omega Mom, who shares a few thoughts of her own, although perhaps not so heavily influenced by [...]

  11. 11 On February 18th, 2008, Dana said:

    Well, I started to comment, but it got to take to long so I decided to make it a post.

    http://principleddiscovery.com/2008/02/18/the-life-and-death-of-homeschooling-a-eulogy/

    Not much of an argument, but a lot more fun to read. : )

  12. 12 On February 18th, 2008, Dawn said:

    Laurie said:
    “but I tend to believe that a formal school environment is best for the total development of a child.”

    I think a lot of people believe or feel that way because they’ve been through school, had their kids in school and it’s what they know. It’s generally not a matter of having really examined homeschooling and finding it lacking but rather simply accepting that what they’re comfortable with is what’s right.

    That’s something we all do though with different matters. I’m a homeschooling mom and I’m quite sure I have feelings about the inadequacy of public schools or at least our local one that I haven’t fully examined.

  13. 13 On February 18th, 2008, Erika said:

    Thanks! It took me forever to get through the article - I am no grammar guru and it had my eyes crossing. I admit that the lack of citing her “research” made me question the whole thing too. Then again I am a scientist, nearly everything I read is thoroughly cited.

    I appreciate you sharing your experiences with Dotter’s homeschooled friends. As I mentioned before, we are looking at our options for elementary school. I am starting my own research, and value your opinion. My teacher friend in our school district is mostly concerned about what she calls “teaching to the tests”, and how binds her and her colleagues hands. From this post and the comments, it sounds to me like the best thing a parent can do is be educated and involved in their child’s life, so that they can make the best decisions for their children. And then not be afraid to change course if the need arises.

    Thanks again.

  14. 14 On February 18th, 2008, Crimson Wife said:

    This “Katie Criss” apparently has degrees in Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education but can’t spell or use correct grammar. So all her arguments about teacher certification don’t strike me as all that convincing…

  15. 15 On February 18th, 2008, Rose said:

    Yes, using established grammar and capitalization rules along with some clear organization of thought might have been a better argument for the benefits of public schooling. If only her parents had homeschooled. *sigh*

  16. 16 On February 18th, 2008, dosia said:

    I am a former homeschooler; my parents homeschooled my older sister, me and my younger sister for several years. My parents did not try to beat me with rocks — but they did instill us with their own insecurities, bad socialization, and weird notions of how to behave in the world. We are all still recovering from this influence in our lives! As a sophomore in high school, I made the decision on my own to enroll in the local public school. My parents didn’t stop me, but they didn’t try to help either. It was the most difficult transition I’ve ever made. I truly believe that a parent would have to be a saint, and a brilliant teacher, to successfully homeschool their child.

    The public schools are flawed, no question. But that love of learning, and intellectual excitement, can be taught at home alongside the regular schoolwork. Parents can arrange special classes and trips for their children. Many schools will accept credit from local junior colleges if the child is advanced and wants to branch out. I feel that a lot of the support for homeschooling comes from people who see the “benefits” of schooling their preschool age children — which is a very different process than teaching writing, biology, and algebra. Just my two cents!

  17. 17 On February 18th, 2008, Julie Pippert said:

    I think homeschooling—when handled well—is an excellent option. It’s crossed my mind more than once.

    School isn’t the only—or even the best!—place to learn how to deal with other people or gain socialization.

    And while some public schools are fine, others are NOT. And even some good ones aren’t a good fit for all children. Sadly, we have the case of a not so good school being a not so good fit.

    Thanks for the article link (NOT!) LOL and the discussion (TRULY!). :)

  18. 18 On February 19th, 2008, dosia said:

    I’m back — sorry to hijack your comments! I just wanted to add that a common theme amongst homeschooling families is a stated belief that their way is “better”, not just for their own children but in general. (this is present in the comments above as well). Sometimes this comes across as very judgemental, as kids are raised to be contemptuous of ’schoolkids’. A child will end up with the idea that their family’s way of doing things is ‘best’, even if they go to school and are exposed to other viewpoints. Homeschooling reinforces this pattern to an unhealthy extent, in my opinion. I certainly would have benefited from some exposure to other influences!

    Of course some public schools are awful, and there’s no problem with acknowledging that, but instilling an attitude of contempt for the educational system in general is a sad way of going about raising your child. Eventually, they will have to participate in it (ie, college, graduate school, etc.) and will be surrounded by people who did well in the conventional system and even enjoyed it. I have observed many homeschooling families with this attitude — including my own — and it was not helpful for us to try to assimilate into the wider community as we grew up.

    All this is to say that I do believe it is possible to properly homeschool one’s children, it is REALLY important to be aware of all these issues. Parents (obviously — this is the human condition) are not usually fully aware of the limitations they impose on their kids through their own limitations. I was not adequately schooled in math because my mom wasn’t good at it, and deep down in her heart of hearts, she thought it wasn’t important. (and it wasn’t to her career — she was a minister). Now I’m studying economics, after a decade of doing something else because I had no quantitative skills. If I had gone to school as a child, I would have had the opportunity to excel at something that neither of my parents could have or would have taught me — because they didn’t think it was important.

  19. 19 On February 19th, 2008, OmegaMom said:

    [...] My homeschooling post has generated a lot of chatter, new viewers, and an absolutely lovely take-off a la Mark [...]

  20. 20 On February 19th, 2008, Spacemom said:

    Man, I’m late AGAIN!

    IMHO, homeschooling can work for people. The trick is to actually homeschool your child, not just pull them out of public school. The effort to homeschool is immense. You need to be organized, arrange for the children to cover all of the subjects, arrange for social activities, etc. I don’t think one NEEDS to be in public school to work well within our society, but I do think children need the social interactions they get in group settings.

    The article you pointed us to was TERRIBLE. The grammar was one thing, but the not-so-subtle hints that homeschooling mothers are insane was an insult to anyone with a mental illness.

    Different children learn in different manners. Teachers are stuck in an impossible situation where they must cover all the different learning methods while making sure all of the students move forward. That’s HARD.

    Sigh….

  21. 21 On February 19th, 2008, Crimson Wife said:

    Homeschooling is really not as hard as some people imagine it to be. You don’t need to be super-organized or a rocket scientist in order to homeschool successfully. There’s a wonderful book by Terrie Lynn Bittner called “Homeschooling, Take a Deep Breath- You Can Do This!” that I recommend to everyone considering homeschooling because it’s very reassuring and down-to-earth :-)

  22. 22 On February 20th, 2008, ruralaspirations said:

    Yeah, it’s my dirty little secret that homeschooling my kids is easy. We are unschoolers (Wikipedia has a good definition for it) and I have to say I love our life. When the sun is shining we’re out in it. When the kids have a passion we follow it until they are done with it. I get to have fun with them. I don’t teach them, I facilitate their learning by providing them with access to the materials and resources they need, and often I learn right along with them. We don’t use any curricula. We are in a program funded by the Ministry of Education (I love my province!) that provides funds and Learning Consultants to each child in the program. We are free to unschool but have access to resources and a great online community of learners. If anyone is interested I recommend reading some good Blogs by unschooling families, such as Nurturedbylove.blogspot.com (my fave). See what the lifestyle is really like. It isn’t for everybody, but everybody should weigh it equally with other options to make the right decisions for themselves.

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