My kids are 4 and 2 years old. We have considered home schooling, but I am against it. If we did home school them it would only be until 7th or 8th grade. After that they would go to a regular school, like a local Christian school, or a public school depending on the school system and area, town size, etc.

I would like to find a school that does not teach how to properly use a condom or that being gay is O.K. Nor do I want a school that is too leanient, if my kids screw up then punish them, that is what builds character.

I also will not leave it up to schools to raise my kids. That is what parents are for. Too many parents let the school system do thier parenting for them. Then they are surprised when they catch thier kids misbehaving (smoking pot, sex, etc.).

Anyone know where there are "real" people anymore?

 

FAtdaddy, my point is these people that you are talking about are the teachers in the public schools, they have no morals or values of any kind. I sure as hell wouldn't want my kids in that environment.

 

It kinda depended on the recruiter when I joined. I got in without a high school diploma.

 

What I was saying was that rural area schools are better than urban schools. I have learned more through shop classes/FFA and Boy Scouts than any other class I've been to. The way I have experienced life is that school, in any form, public, home, or private, will not teach character. Its what they're involved in that does. Being involved in "extra-curricular" activities helps to make a student well-rounded and build character/morals. If any of you are Eagle Scouts or big into any organization, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

 

Yeah, doing something is definately the best way to learn. There are reasons to learn through studying though. Most people who learn through activity ultimately achieve the same goal, and more, but do similar things. Like those who study their Haynes manuals, those who study the layout and function of a ship, those who draw scematics, ect. I say both are ideal. Ex., study up on that job you're about to do on your truck, then get it done. The preparation is valuable, and actually doing it really shows you how things are done.

 

FWIW, I started in private school, grades K-6, and finished in public, grades 7-college. We had our eldest in a very good private school through 1st grade, and after that's when we were convicted. 'Convicted' that instead of sending the kids off to have someone else raise them 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, WE should have the most impact on their learning years. 'Convicted' that if WE weren't in charge of constantly reinforcing the values WE know they need (yes, even in a private, church-school setting), they wouldn't necessarily get where they should be going.
We realized that since our eldest was at or near the top of her class in academics, there would only be so much that the teachers could do to keep her focused and challenged while still being fair to those who needed more help. (Side note: we all remember those who were complete cut-ups in high school, only to surprise everyone and graduate in the top 10 of a class of over 400; they were too bright to waste their time on the menial day-after-day repetitions needed by the majority to learn, so they finished early and found something BETTER to do!)
My wife and I started home schooling our 3 kids 3 years ago, and at the same time more than a few of our close friends were making the same choices. We don't have a problem with 'socializing' our children, between all the community sports associations, Church & Sunday School, field trips, vacations, Scouts, and other opportunities.
Aside from the tobacco, drugs, wasted time, immoral attitudes, relativism, and just plain criminal activity they'd get to experience, WHAT other than socializing would they gain from public school?!
Would you send YOUR school-aged children to a JAIL just so they could experience THAT?!
We pray constantly that God will prepare for our children a godly spouse, and they're probably not going to find THAT these days in a public school, either -- not that they need to be going THERE before they're ready, anyway. There have been a few highly-publicized tragedies in the recent news involving home schooling families, but those simply serve to remind us that ANYONE in any situation can stumble.
Why expose your children to the things of this world before they've got a solid foundation from which to base their decisions? So they're more 'well rounded'? I don't think I'm more well-rounded for some of the things I was exposed to once I reached the public schools, and that was 25 years ago!
Would you remove the barriers and allow the traffic to flow over fresh concrete just because you're finished pouring it? Or would you wait until it's solid and can withstand the pressure? Just like fresh concrete, our kids can be ruined by exposing them to life's pressures before they're ready. And we can't just tear them out and start over.
Yes, we have very good friends and family who have their kids in public schools, and we don't 'look down on them' or think they're any less loving. We do, however, see their children REGULARLY doing 2-3 hours of homework every night, just to keep up with what is assigned each day. Regardless of whether they get it or not, they're inundated with endless, mindless repetition so every last student can learn it. In our home schooling, we're generally starting around 9a, taking a break mid-morning, working until noon, and finishing with history by 1p. No 'home work' in most cases with home schooling for us. We're already doing our 'home work' during the day, and if we 'got it' we move on. If not, we take as much time as needed to 'get it'. No time wasted waiting on everyone else, and no getting left behind when we struggle. We even have a large co-op that meets every Friday for 10 weeks in the Fall and 10 weeks in the Spring to allow even more socializing and to share the expertise of many other teachers and the experience of those families.
Guess I've gone on long enough, as well. Hope anyone faced with the decision of where to school their children will seriously consider this rapidly-expanding, well-accepted choice. You won't be disappointed, if you're doing it for the right reasons. We wouldn't go back, and although we say we're taking it a year at a time, we don't think we'll be changing our minds anytime soon.

 

a few things...

about the whole socialization "issue" I was homeschooled for 12 years, ive been in college for 3 now and have been told im by far one of the most social people my friends at school know. these are not my words I am only repeating what I have been told.

i attribute this to my mother. she is simply an excellent conversationalist who will talk to the cashier, the repairman, the server at a resteraunt, most any one she comes into contact with. (not many telemarketers though ) but even in my own family there are LARGE differences in between children. i was definately a strange kid (and I still am strange) people tell me this along with being popular. i think they some what go together though, me being allowed to be my self instead of conforming to a set standard at school. what ever.

i also know that ive seen a lot of wierd homeschool kids. kids that even i consider off. i think it has a lot to do with parents. parents who wear denim jumpers and only drive old rusty ford E350 conversion vans. (seriously, this is a known sterotype among homeschool kids in my area. its like a sure fire way to get a laugh)

one of the strange but cool and equally funny kids i knew got several letters in the mail. they were full ride offers from harvard and stanford. (he chose harvard, and ceremoniously burned the standford letter) that kid was smart.

pt 2 coming up...

StomP

 

Compulsory Government Education: Origins and Solutions

by Rick Gee

Origins

A year after Napoleon’s amateur army defeated the professional forces of Prussia at the battle of Jena in 1806, German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte delivered his celebrated “Address to the German Nation.” In essence, he told the Prussian people that forced schooling in which all would learn to obey orders was the only way for Prussia to rebound from this most ignominious defeat.

Modern compulsory schooling began in Prussia in 1819, the first time in human history that education was foisted upon a nation by force. The goals were simple: obedient soldiers to the army, subservient workers to the mines, submissive civil servants to the government, compliant clerks to industry and citizens who thought alike about major issues. The results were no doubt pleasing to the Prussian ruling elites; industry boomed and warfare was successful.

In Prussia, the Volksshule educated 92 percent of the children. Its purpose was not to develop the intellect, but to socialize the children in obedience and subordination. Only eight percent of children were schooled in Real Schulen. For the masses, intellectual development was seen as the major contributing factor causing armies to lose battles.

Compulsory Schooling Arrives in America

How did Prussian-style compulsory education make its way to America? Thousands of young men from important American families went to Prussia in the 19th century and brought home Ph.D. degrees, a credential that was then unknown in the States. Eventually, those with Ph.D.s assumed the highest positions in government and academia, effectively closing such opportunities to those lacking the degree. Almost all the founders of American schooling had made the pilgrimage to Germany; many, most notably Horace Mann in his legendary 7th Report of 1844, extolled the virtues of the Teutonic methods.

In 1852, the famous “Know-Nothing” Massachusetts legislature rammed though education by compulsion. Within 50 years, state domino after state domino fell in line, ending school choice and creating a vast government monopoly.

Minimizing the Individual in Favor of Collectivism

By 1889, U.S. Commissioner of Education William Torrey Harris was assuring railroad magnate Collis Huntington that American schools were “scientifically designed” to prevent “over-education” from occurring. In 1896, John Dewey at the University of Chicago said “independent, self-reliant people were a counter-productive anachronism in the collective society of the future.” Dewey went on to assert that, in modern society, “people would be defined by their associations – not by their own individual accomplishments.”

Such was a long leap toward state socialism, a vision that runs counter to the traditional American purpose – to prepare the individual to be self-reliant. The underlying premise of Prussian schooling, and therefore that of the American system, is that the government is the true parent of all children, i.e., the State is sovereign over the family.

What can be done about this deplorable state of affairs?

 

Solutions to the Public Education Debacle

Political candidates on all levels, and from both major parties, continually trumpet the need for more tax dollars to be spent on education. They accurately perceive that the electorate considers the education of our children to be an important issue. Opinion polls consistently show education to be one of the chief topics of concern among the American people.

Since the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law in 1965, the federal government has spent more than $130 billion to improve public schools. The latest education bill passed by Congress is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which provides $44.5 billion for the Department of Education for fiscal year 2002, an 11.5 percent increase in budget authority.

I would argue that the government spends far too much on education, not too little. If that sounds controversial, you are not alone. But counting on politicians to solve the education problem is sheer folly. The crux of the problem is the politicians themselves.

The current dismal state of education in America is directly attributable to the government’s monopoly, wherein more than 90% of school-age children are forced into this failed system.

The Ultimate Solution

Government schooling is a duress-based system, a monopoly funded with confiscatory taxes. Rolling back the income tax and property taxes and kicking government at all levels out of the education business is the supreme solution to what ails us. The government’s one-size-fits-all model of education is archaic. With the State out of the picture, entrepreneurs would be free to develop a myriad of educational solutions that would be tailored to fit the many different learning styles of our children. While some traditional schools might remain to serve the needs of children who do learn well in that setting, new education paradigms, some not even conceived at this time, would emerge in a free market of ideas and school choice.

The chances of this happening in the foreseeable future seem remote, especially with the stranglehold that the National Education Association (NEA) has on the Democratic Party. We are 150 years into compulsory government education, and it may take decades before enough people stand up and say, “Enough is enough!” Until that time comes, only one viable option exists.

The Interim Solution

Private schools offer an alternative to government education. Limitations exist, however, and foremost among them is the sometimes prohibitive cost of tuition. Aside from that, most private schools labor under some degree of government regulation. Most also employ the government model of grouping kids together by strict age divisions, beginning and ending learning sessions at a prescribed time by the sounding of a shrill bell, and subjecting students to the same pre-determined academic standards, grading policies and behavior standards. So while private schools may have superior teachers, more rigorous standards and a safer environment than their government school counterparts, the model is similar.

The best option at the current time is to homeschool your children. Homeschooling is based on a foundational American belief in freedom. Such freedom allows families to teach whatever they want, on their own schedule, in order to suit their lifestyles. Homeschool parents may teach their children evolution or creationism without the fear of offending any politically correct interest groups. Very importantly, homeschool families don’t take any money from the taxpayers.

When most people think of homeschooling, they imagine Johnny at the kitchen table with mom, buried under a stack of books. While instruction of this type is common in homeschool families, the flexibility and range of homeschooling promotes an immense variety of alternative educational models. They range from child-led learning, or “unschooling,” to the more traditional classroom model with professional instructors. Some methods that can comprise a homeschooling education include distance learning (correspondence courses), commercial learning centers, tutors, cooperative teaching between parents, and taking community college or university courses. Such is the great advantage to homeschooling: flexibility and variety.

More Advantages of Homeschooling

Besides the aforementioned flexibility of the homeschool paradigm, many other benefits of homeschooling have become apparent. The average homeschooling family spends approximately 10% of the per-pupil costs typical of government schools. The academic achievements of homeschoolers cannot be denied. An extensive 1999 study by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) analyzed the standardized test scores of more than 20,000 homeschooled students across the country and revealed that a large majority of homeschooled students scored well above the national average, with most of the scores in the 75th to 85th percentile.

Beyond standardized test scores, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected 150 homeschooled high schoolers as semifinalists in 2000. Homeschoolers have also excelled in the National Spelling Bee and the National Geographic Bee.

The Socialization Question

Perhaps the most often-mentioned objection to homeschooling is “How will a homeschool child acquire social skills? How will he make and keep friends?” Government schools have a well-earned reputation as non-democratic societies in which cliques emerge and bullies dominate weaker kids. Defining socialization is capricious at best. In fact, a study by J. Gary Knowles and James A. Muchmore at the University of Michigan revealed that homeschoolers appear to grow up to be content, hard-working adults with a strong sense of right and wrong.

Believing that kids can only make social contacts at school is narrow-minded at best. Homeschool kids can make just as many friends by joining sports teams, attending scout meetings, going to church, volunteering, working part-time jobs and engaging in countless other activities. In addition, many homeschool support groups have emerged, where parents can combine their efforts to provide educational and social opportunities for their children. Parents are the greatest judges as to how their children will best achieve socialization.

A Worthy Sacrifice

There can be no doubt that a considerable sacrifice must be made by parents who opt to homeschool. Parents may need to forego certain creature comforts, or live on one salary to accommodate the homeschool experience. But the alternative is to turn children over to the government for six to eight hours a day, 180 days a year, where they will be subjected to ideological indoctrination, inferior academic instruction, and a one-size-fits all system that is antithetical to their nature as individuals with very different needs. All kids need education, but parents, not government, should provide it. To allow government to educate kids is no different than to allow government to provide their religious training. Homeschool your kids.

 

Being a father of three boys, 5, 4, & 2. I understand that everyone has their opinions about different subjects. But no one will every agree with everyone else. Thats life, thats America. I guess what I am saying is no choice is right or wrong. Just part of life. I turn 26 on July 6th. To some having three kids is wrong, some its right. I had the great fortune or growing up on a farm until the eight grade and then moving to the inner city for high school. Talk about a reality check. But it has made me a better person. I see things from both directions. I watch these "little me's" grow up every day. I watch the world destroy itself, watch people look for God while others turn their back. I see people with religion and people without. I have heard people say that God has turned his back on us. I have heard that the school systems are crap. I have heard that our government is corupt. Isn't this all opinion? American in it greatness has always based itself on change. But change come from opinion does it not? But among all the chaos that we call life, I still have the three little boys that only care about making me smile. I guess what I am shooting for here is. Live today..... You might be gone tomorrow.


But then, who am I to preach.....

I like this quote from pfogle:
Did you know that the founding fathers of the country were all homeschooled.......... Neat fact huh.

But I wonder if you were taught that our "founding fathers" were great men. I think you might want to do a little research. Honest law abiding citizens, NO. Americans, Yes. If you don't agree, ask a Indian what he thinks. I know what I do. And for the record I and part Cherokee. But then again who isn't these days right
Actually, I have something to post about our founding fathers, I think it it interesting, a little off subject but interesting.

 

The Founding Fathers
From "The Great Quotations" compiled by George Seldes, Citadel Press, / 1993 ISBN 0-8065-1418-3

Laura Darlene Lansberry
The United States of America was in no manner founded on Christian or Jewish principles; quite the contrary the founding fathers found organized religion, particularly Christianity, Catholicism or Protestantism, to be the bloodiest religion in the history of the human race. The Christians, in their religious fanaticism, have created lies twisting and contorting, in order to hide, disquise, and defuse. Thomas Paine did not recant on his death bed, Thomas Jefferson despied Christianity, and the lies about Albert Einstein were started while he was still alive to refute them. In order to redress the wrongs done these distinquished gentleman by a barbaric, bloody, and lying religion we offer their actual quotes in their own words.

John Adams (1735-1826)
2nd President of the United States
" As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion ...."


Article 11, Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.
As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed?"


Letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
" Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents, wave succeeding wave in the Catholic church, from the Council of Nice, and long before, to this day."

To Jefferson, Dec. 3, 1813

Ethan Allen (1737-1789)
American Officer in the Revolutionary War
"I have generally been dominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."

Reason ,the Only Oracle of Man, 1784, Bennington, Vt. ; Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, N.Y.C.
"There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt inspiration of all the books of the Old and New testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries in Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most states, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all blasphemers of any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books."


Ethan Allen to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825
"In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles ceased; but in those parts that are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."


Ibid., p. 265
"That tradition has had a powerful influence on the human mind is universally admitted, even by those are governed by it in the articles of discipline of their faith; for though they are blind to their own superstition, yet they can perceive and despise it in others. Protestants readily discern and expose the weak side of Popery, and papists are as ready and acute in discovering the errors of heretics."


Ibid., p 337

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
American scientist, diplomet, writer
"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon hearing ... of making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing Deity."


Works, Vol. VII p.75
"The way to see by Faith, is to shut the eye of Reason."


Poor Richard, 1758
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."


Ibid.
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects of Christianity, we shall find few that have not in turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it on the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice both here (England) and in New England."


Ibid.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
3rd President of the United States
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisioned ; yet we have not advanced on inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."


Notes on Virginia
"They (the christian clergy) believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man.


To Sr. Benjamin Rush, 1800
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."


To Carey, 1816

James Madison (1751-1836)
4th President of the United States
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion to all other sects?"


A Memorial and Remonstrance addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785
"In the Papal System, Government and religion are in a manner consolidated, and that is found to be the worst of Government."


To Adams, 1832

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
American revolutionary writer
At the time of his death, Tom Paine was acknowledged by his peers, other founding fathers, to have accomplished more for human freedom, for the abolition of physical and mental slavery, and for the brotherhood of mankind than any other American. To Paine belongs the honor of naming our country the United States of America. He was the first to use the name in print, and it was his own creation.

"Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from the impious thing called religion. and this mostrous belief that God has spoken to man?"


Cardiff
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."


The Age of Reason
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled it would be more consistent to call it the word of a demon than the word of a god. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."


Ibid.
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."


Ibid.
"Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms, The one assumes to itself the right of withholding the liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it."


Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty, 1791

George Washington (1732-1799)
1st Elected President of the United States
"The United States is in no manner founded on Christian principle."


Treaty of Tripoli

Again sorry to get off subject. But isn't this a bit crazy?
Maybe it is me. But if this country wasn't formed by religion then why Under God, whith liberty and justice for all? Why In God We Trust? I am not starting a fight. Just looking for anwsers. I believe that there is a God, but that's what I was taught. I have never met him/her/it. The reason I ask these question is due to all the talk that when religion was taken out of the schools, thats when the problem began. Anyone wanna take a stab at it?

 

Thanks, Stomp, for the great article! I'll have to search for more from Rick Gee.
And to Omen, you're right about individualism and how America was (and still is, to some degree) based upon the right to choose how we live our lives. However, what's happening now in our public (READ: GOVERNMENT) school system is nothing more than moral relativism, where nothing is truly right or wrong. As long as that is the driving force behind the education of the vast majority of our nation's children, our country is on the road to oblivion. Examine the downfall of all the 'greatest' civilizations, and it started with the moral decay of the people.
As more and more people stand up and say "we've had enough of your way; we'll do it better, in less time, with more civilized results AND happier, more well-adjusted children", we'll also see our country experience a dramatic turnaround in our fortunes as we had into the new century. We can REFUSE to be the generation that allowed our country to fall!
On the academic side, home schooling may not be for everyone, and public schools may be ok for some (look at a bell curve, and you'll see how many fall into the middle or 'average' range), but our publice schools continue to downslide into the lower area of that 'average' range, and those toward the top of 'average' are not being challenged enough to keep them remotely interested. Home schooling allows so much more flexibility in focusing on strengths and improving on weaknesses.
Live today, you may be gone tomorrow. But live it right, and show your children how to live it right, as well.

 

i think the problem was not when religion was taken out of school. but it started when kids were forced into school!

blame the children!

StomP