Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
Good job Barry. Keep it up. Saving our children, one dumb federal program at a time.
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In my opinion it would be smarter to work on the problem instead of avoiding it. If public schools are that bad, they should be improved and not avoided by homeschooling kids. That wont solve anything.
If done right, public schools are much better for multiple reasons. One being that a huge amount of teachers who each got a degree in his/her specific field (including education obviously) can teach much better than parents who have to look those relevant things up on the internet first.
Do you really think the average parent can teach math (such as linear algebra & infinitesimal calculus), chemistry, physics etc. as good as a professional teacher? Even with the internet, those things stay difficult to understand (even for many adults).
There is no way that homeschooled kids learn as well as those in (proper) public schools. I can understand criticizing public schools for various reasons if necessary, but homeschooling isnt really a smart solution.
Furthermore it's a huge advantage (and very important) for kids to socialize, meet other people the same age, participate physical education classes and so on. Class trips are a great experience as well.
If it's a matter of teaching the right values (political, religious) then there's a better solution as well. In most countries there simply are a lot of different schools to chose from, for various religions, politics etc. So you could decide to send your kids to a catholic/jewish/whatever school you want where they grow up to your values. Although in my personal opinion, kids shouldnt grow up to certain politics and religion anyway and rather learn/chose those when they're old enough to decide on their own.
Visiting a public school I've learned 3 languages (as you might tell from this post, English isnt my native language), physics, biology, chemistry, political science, literature class, religious history and world history (no politics/religious views have been enforced of course), computer programming (which I am now attending at university level), I've been educated in Geography and history in my native and a foreign language (French, but this was my choice and optional as explained later), art history, philosophy, learned to play music instruments. The whole class has visitied France, Spain and the UK - that was a great and important experience, especially because we have been living in France for a month and were visiting another school there. Furthermore additional languages such as Spanish, Latin and more were optional choices.
Each of these fields have been taught on a basic level at least once, throughout my school attendance many things were mandatory but I had several choices as well. I did not have to learn history and geography in a foreign language additional to my native language. I could chose between religion, politics and programming for 3 years (couldve done 1 year each, 2 & 1 or 3 years of one alone - but each subject was taught on another occasion for at least 2-3years, except programming). While English was mandatory and started at age 8-9, French was optional on two occasions and could be started at age 10 or 12. I could chose between Latin and French, later on I could chose between Spanish and something else (forgot what it was).
Furthermore there were some other classes offered every year, each student could decide which of these he wants to attend. Those subjects changed every couple of years. Early on (age 6-10) those were simply cooking, P.E. and handcraft work (something like pottery). Later on it was history of religion, psychology, history and philosophy. The last couple of years it was engineering, programming, educational science and advanced political science. There have been more throughout the years, I just cant remember every single one because having the choice - nobody had to attend all of them.
For the final 3 years I could even decide which area I want to learn on a higher and more advanced level, I could chose certain languages, political science, biology, physics, history and science of sport (I think I forgot some other options I had, I assume there were more). The choice made there determined which final exams I hat to attend (while English & German on standard level were always mandatory, optional on advanced level). Of course other subjects still had to be attended, simply put I had the choice which classes I want to learn on a higher level to prepare myself for my university career.
On other schools it was different (some subjects like English were mandatory everywhere), so there simply was a huge amount of choices and possibilites. Whatever you want for your child, or most importantly what the kid wants can be done.
By the way, each teacher has to have a university degree in those 2-3 fields he is teaching and in educational science in order to be allowed to teach at public schools here. So during the time children will have many different teachers who each are experts on their fields. No parent can learn all those fields that well from the internet and then teach it to their children. No way. Not possible.
Tell me how parents who most likely speak 1 language and have no advanced knowledge in more than two (but have to teach 10-15) of the previously mentioned subjects are supposed to beat that ... It's just not happening. Not because the parents wouldn't want to, they sure try their best, but no parent can have an advanced knowledge of all those subjects mentioned above.
Another problem is that parents would have to give up their jobs to at least get close to the amount of time kids learn at school. At early years I was at school from 9AM till 1 PM at least, later it changed from either 7 or 8 AM until 3 PM at least, twice a week till 5 or 6 PM. Overall about 35+ hours a week, not including home work. If the majority would be homeschooling, not working for >10 years, that wouldnt be very good for your state's financial situation I guess...
Bottom line & TLDR:
I get it that you criticize public schools if necessary, but you shouldnt generalize because not all schools (or educational systems, depending on the country) are the same. If done right public schools offer much more choices and quality than homeschooling could ever do. And it's not even close. If you really want to help your children, support a movement to improve schools and not to close them and homeschool your children.