Why and how homeschooling? - Page 5

Andy Catsimanes · 11-10-2006, 05:48 PM

Nothing like stirring an old pot...

I've been doing research for a salesletter I'm writing and thought this was worth posting here:

(brutally edited for space)

Quote:

AGAINST SCHOOL
How public education cripples our kids,and why, By John Taylor Gatto

I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around... And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. ...Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children.

Who, then, is to blame? We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. ...That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student...

..My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling.

But we don't do that.

And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? ... Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up? Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years.

Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right...Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead....

Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else. (emphasis added)

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here....

In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

....School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up...

...Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions.

We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults.

We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too.

Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored.

Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day...

...After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious.

Let them manage themselves. Back to Gatto page
OR, click here to read a variant on John's views which might just offer a positive proposal for an educational alternative to high schools as currently organized.

Mr. Subtle · 11-10-2006, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy&Shawn Catsimanes

Nothing like stirring an old pot...

Don't make me resurrect "Jesus, A Master Copywriter?" thread. hahaha

MichaelWinicki · 11-10-2006, 06:52 PM

Wow!

I never knew how f'ed up I was having a typical "American" education.

Hell, I bet I could be earning 7 digits a year instead of 6 if my parents had known how cruel they were sending me to public school.

And the funny thing is I did the same nasty shat to my own daughter! LOL! Sent her to public school where we thought she became a responsible adult and upon graduating volunteered to protect her country and joined the army and is right now attending to wounded soldiers and civilians as a medic in the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq.

I think I'm going to sit in the corner, Indian-style, and contemplate all this failure.

Andy Catsimanes · 11-10-2006, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Subtle

Don't make me resurrect "Jesus, A Master Copywriter?" thread. hahaha

Bring it, you reprobate, I've been going to Bible study!

Here's a great site on that:

bethinking.org | Engage with Culture | UCCF's Apologetics Website

Andy Catsimanes · 11-10-2006, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelWinicki

Wow!

I never knew how f'ed up I was having a typical "American" education.

Hell, I bet I could be earning 7 digits a year instead of 6 if my parents had known how cruel they were sending me to public school.

And the funny thing is I did the same nasty shat to my own daughter! LOL! Sent her to public school where we thought she became a responsible adult and upon graduating volunteered to protect her country and joined the army and is right now attending to wounded soldiers and civilians as a medic in the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq.

I think I'm going to sit in the corner, Indian-style, and contemplate all this failure.

OOOOHHHHMMMM.

It's anecdotal, therefore unprovable, but I think I could make a case that the success you and your daughter experience is more due to parenting and in spite of the education you received.

My daughter thrived in the public school system, my son, not so much. He's a Marine now, and it was the best choice he could've made.

A.

Deb Holder · 08:09 PM

I couldn't help but add my own two cents.

I am a college instructor, and I homeschooled my children for three years. I originally began teaching my youngest child--my son--at home because he has an anxiety disorder that manifests in mutism. (Welcome to the Website of the Selective Mutism Group - Childhood Anxiety Network) At home, he's a talkative child, but his selective mutism keeps him silent around others. Although the school worked with me, it became a chore to keep up with the requirements. I had to audiotape his voice (while reading aloud) and go to the school and videotape him while reading. There were meetings to attend. There were special provisions. I was exhausted.

Like many people, I was misinformed about homeschooling when I first considered it. Once I looked into it, however, I discovered that the pros outnumbered the cons (prior to high school).

First of all, most homeschooled children are NOT sheltered. I taught my children, but they played with friends every day, attended church weekly, participated in sports and scouting, etc. We also participated in a homeschool group that brought together homeschoolers from all over the state for activities. Some homeschoolers have groups where parents teach specific subjects to other homeschoolers, although I taught all the subjects to my children. There was never a sheltered day.

In fact, my children will tell you that we could accomplish more in two hours than they did in seven hours at a public school. (We studied longer than two hours; I was just illustrating my point.) We FINISHED textbooks. My children often worked in books above their grade levels. (Many times, my children ended their school year in public school without finishing their books.) What many people don't realize is just how much time is wasted in public school shuffling from class to class, disciplining disruptive students, etc. Plus, in America, homework is an issue. From a very young age, many students are bringing home hours of homework.

I began homeschooling my son, and then my youngest daughter decided to do it, too. (My oldest daughter tried it for awhile but didn't like it.) I did it for three years. We had wonderful quality time together. My two youngest entered the public school system again this August, and I became so disgusted with it that I enrolled them in private school last week. Don't get me wrong; there are a lot of great people in the school system, but there are flaws in the system that affected the well-being of my children.

Keep in mind that this is not an attack on the American public school system as a whole. There are many wonderful school systems. I received a great education from public schools. I was a good student. It worked well for me. But, the milieu is changing. One factor in taking out my son from public school this year was bullying--from two girls! He came home with bruises on his legs from being punched and kicked. Nothing was done about it the first time I called the school. The second time, the one girl admitted to only one incident and was "talked to" and given a warning. The other girl was talked to. My son isn't allowed to hit girls, and they knew he wouldn't hit back. One girl hit him just because she could.

I could elaborate on many other issues: lack of confidentiality, the way some teachers treat students, etc. When my oldest began high school, a teacher told the class to "shut the f*** up." Need I say more? (I would probably get fired--at the college level--for saying that to a class.)

Now, as a college English instructor, I can tell you that MOST students I see are not prepared for college when they graduate from high school. I've had "honor students" in class who couldn't write a coherent sentence. The work ethic from many of the younger students is terrible. (They're used to their parents raising a fuss to get them out of trouble.) I spend a lot of time teaching what they should have mastered in K-12. What I've noticed--and other instructors have noticed it, too--is that my students who were homeschooled are very well-behaved in the classroom, treat me with respect, ask questions, and have a great work ethic. They felt that homeschool was a privilege. In fact, they feel that any type of education is a privilege.

In the end, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't change a thing. It became difficult for me to keep up, and the kids were ready for a change, so they started public school this year. Although their grades were good, I found myself dealing with my daughter's crying fits from hours of homework. My son loved school but didn't want to return due to the bullying. I'm proud to say that my children are intelligent, free-thinkers. They aren't trouble-makers. I've given them the best that I can give them, and now I'm comfortable in knowing that they're getting a great education from people I respect and trust.