RE: Thoughts on homeschooling?
September 4, 2012 at 5:01 pm
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2012 at 5:03 pm by TaraJo.)
Home schooling is like non-home schooling in that it's only as good as the people you have running it.
I have a friend who was home schooled down here in Houston. Her parents were anything but fundamental religious loons and she turned out just fine. There are lots of reasons a parent might choose to home school their child.
However, the largest reason seems to be one simple thing: religion has pretty much been expelled from public schools. Some families send kids to religious schools to get around that, but it can be difficult to find a local religious school if you aren't Catholic.
One of the problems here winds up being something I've noticed happening with religious fundamentalist families: they raise their kids in a 'bubble.' My boyfriend was raised in 'the mormon bubble' where all his friends and acquaintances were all other Mormons. I see the religious home schooling as another level of that bubble; you want to prevent them from having class mates who are outside your 'acceptable' group, you don't let them go to school. The problem is that school is supposed to prepare kids for getting out into the world and if you aren't learning to deal with people different from you, it's not going to happen. I mean, if they've never learned to tolerate homosexuals from having to go to school with a gay kid or a lesbian teacher, how are they going to react when they get a job and they have gay coworkers or supervisors?
Also, in the name of religion, I've seen some pretty awful science books written. Has anyone here seen the science book that was approved by Bob Jones University?
http://www.bjupress.com/about/electricit...ystery.php
I have a friend who was home schooled down here in Houston. Her parents were anything but fundamental religious loons and she turned out just fine. There are lots of reasons a parent might choose to home school their child.
However, the largest reason seems to be one simple thing: religion has pretty much been expelled from public schools. Some families send kids to religious schools to get around that, but it can be difficult to find a local religious school if you aren't Catholic.
One of the problems here winds up being something I've noticed happening with religious fundamentalist families: they raise their kids in a 'bubble.' My boyfriend was raised in 'the mormon bubble' where all his friends and acquaintances were all other Mormons. I see the religious home schooling as another level of that bubble; you want to prevent them from having class mates who are outside your 'acceptable' group, you don't let them go to school. The problem is that school is supposed to prepare kids for getting out into the world and if you aren't learning to deal with people different from you, it's not going to happen. I mean, if they've never learned to tolerate homosexuals from having to go to school with a gay kid or a lesbian teacher, how are they going to react when they get a job and they have gay coworkers or supervisors?
Also, in the name of religion, I've seen some pretty awful science books written. Has anyone here seen the science book that was approved by Bob Jones University?
http://www.bjupress.com/about/electricit...ystery.php
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"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
