Education Desk

Interesting datum of the day: "black children are five times more likely to be homeschooled than they were five years ago."

Comments

[Lefty]

A pro teacher must get an education and jump through certification hoops. What does a home schooler's teacher do to qualify? I know a guy and his wife, high school dropouts, who are doing it in order to teach the bible.

[Tom from Texas]

If I may add to Kevin's dead-on comments, our public school system today is still based on a century-old model that revolves around an agricultural calendar and that seeks to instill the "virtues" needed for assembly line factory jobs - show up and punch a clock on time, respond to bells and whistles, learn to do rote tasks, take a lunch break only at a certain time, take a piss only at a certain time, etc.

From my experience as a sub teacher at our local high school, I can say that the kids know they are being nothing more than warehoused for the day, given makework to keep them quiet, and processed through the system, as Kevin says, to be someone else's "human resources."

[Lefty]

Gosh, that pushed a button.

From what I hear, the leading country in the free world has stupid, incompetent teachers with students who don't care and just kill time. Maybe the rest of the world should try it, too, given that it's at the very root of our success.

[joe]

Surely, Lefty, at this point you recognize the Libertoid Three Step when you see it.

1. Point out a legitimate failing in existing system.

2. Magnify imperfection, and call for elimination of said system.

3. Express breezy confidence that something better will spontaneously spring into being, without doing any spade work to actually make that happen.

[Tom from Texas]

Lefty and Joe,

Do you or have you had any children of your own in the American public school system? Many public school systems are fine and do a great job. Many suck.

Our "spade work" is that we are willing to seek out and pay for, out of our own pockets, the curricula that will give our children a better education than what is available in the local public schools, in addition to continuing to pay our local property taxes to support a failing system.

Our first obligation is to see that our own kids get a decent education. If you are content to leave your kids in public schools, then that's your option.

OUr boys (twins) recently took a text to place out of 6th grade math, as it appeared from the curriculum catalog that the material would be what they have already covered. This state-approved test, administered through a state university program, consisted of 36 multiple choice questions, with no requirement that work be shown. Only one question dealth with pi, which for the sake of the test was rounded to 3.

NOw, might you as a parent not be a little concerned that your state feels that all your 6th grader needs to know about math, including the foundations of geometry, can be boiled down to 36 multiple choice questions, with no means of determining if their work was accurate, inaccurate, or if they just made a stab in the dark at one of four answers?

[Tom from Texas]

So much for proofreading when you're pissed off. That's "test" and "dealt" in paragraph 4.

[Kevin Carson]

Lefty,

We certainly have an economy where the State subsidizes the cost of reproducing human capital. And we have an economy where big business can cartelize its training costs through the State, so they aren't a matter of cost competition between businesses. If that's your bag, you must really like the corporate state Hjalmar Schacht designed for Nazi Germany. It's quite "efficient," if you consider efficiency at generating income for people who don't pay the costs. Overproducing scientific-technical and clerical labor through the State has a very predictable effect on the price of that labor; that's why cubicle drones work 60 hour weeks for declining wages, while CEO pay quadruples every decade. I wouldn't have thought anybody who calls himself "Lefty" would consider that a success story.

joe,

The "spade work" is also known as the invisible hand. There isn't an administrative mechanism for insuring "quality" in existence that compares with the ability of customers to take their business elsewhere. I know this is cliched, but are you more careful spending your own money, or other people's? And are you more careful spending on yourself, or on others? So what does that say for a bureacracy that spends other people's money on other people, when the other people can't refuse to cough the money? What would you think of any other failing enterprise that said the solution was giving it more money? That sounds pretty close to the philosophy of the military contractors who gave you the $600 toilet seat.

[Kevin Carson]

Tom,

Not only do the skools teach a set of skills appropriate for a Taylorist factory, they're organized on that principle. The cheapest thing in the world to move is information. It blows my mind to think of what Illich would have made of the internet's potential for self-education and self-organized learning networks if he'd written Deschooling thirty years later. But instead of seizing on the revolutionary decentralizing potential of information technology, the educrats want to transport human beings to the "knowledge factory," where they can have the most useful (to their owners) ideas pounded into their heads, in a central location, under the supervision of proper authority.

[Tom from Texas]

Kevin,

It gets worse. Recently somewhere on here posters were reminiscing about '80s computers and software, the game/history lesson "oregon Trail" in particular. Hell, my kids were using that in the local public school three years ago. (Maybe it was a more modern version, but from their descriptions it sounded like early 80s software).

Two years ago they were using an American history book written in 1986, that included passages about the ongoing rivalry between the US and the USSR. I buttonholed their teacher one day and asked if maybe the school could get some more current history texts, say, at least through the 1991 collapse of the Soviets. "Oh, we never get that far in history by the end of the school year, anyway, so we keep using the books because the beginning sections are still good," she replied.

[Kevin Carson]

Last day of school on The Simpsons:

TEACHER: Wait! We haven't finished WWII yet--
[students stop and wait expectantly]
TEACHER: We won!
STUDENTS: USA! USA! USA!

[Lefty]

Kevin, if you think that all the children of around 100 million Americans being home schooled is in the public good then I just can't agree. If you have the ability and means to do something else, fine. But don't screw the entire public school system because of some bad ones.

If you thought I was picking on home schoolers in the above posts, I really didn't intend to. In truth, I'm ignorant of the subject and was looking for some input on what hoops home schoolers have to go through to get approved; be assured they aren't just skipping school or being diddled by their uncle. Is there a curriculum? An attendance requirement? Any tax breaks or subsidies? Any qualification requirements for parent/teachers at all? Other stuff I haven't thought of?

I just don't know and am all ears to be informed.

[Tom from Texas]

Lefty,

We homeschool our children. I have a bachelor's degree, my wife a doctorate (a real one, in medicine). We taught our kids how to walk, talk, eat with a knife and fork, and poop in the toilet. It's not so great a leap to teach long division or the Bill of Rights. Our kids are now enrolled in a distance learning program with Texas Tech University. Their work and tests are graded by certified Texas teachers (that's not really saying much, but it matters to some). They can move at their own pace, completing a semester's worth of work in one subject in a month and then moving on to the next. They are not shackled to the slowest common denominator in the public school classroom.

We actually pulled our kids out of public school to get away from the fundamentalist influence here in the Bible Belt. Around here you can walk down the halls and hear a teacher leading kids in the song "Jesus loves me this I know? 'Cause the Bible tells me so". It is a form of suicide in small Bible Belt towns to buck the local religious, so we decided to take control of our kids' education.

Because so much homeschool curricula is religious based, we had to search for a secular program. I even asked some Unitarian/humanist types for any input on homeschooling ideas, and they were horrified that anyone but a Bible thumper would consider pulling their kids out of public schools.

We have found that homeschoolers run the gamut from religious crazies to granola-lovin' hippie retreads, with all flavors in between. Since much of education (especially the social sciences) is spin, at least our kids are getting our spin. Just ask my youngest his opinion of trade unions.

[Kevin Carson]

Lefty,

Teachers are absolutely the worst-educated "professionals" out there. The human raw material that comes into the education colleges and normal schools has the lowest SATs of any college major. And most of their curriculum is pedagogical gut courses like "Audio-Visuals 101, 201 and 301." The "hoops" they jump through have a lot more to do with absorbing their professional/institutional culture and developing the correct ideological mindset toward authority, than with critical thinking skills. A great deal of the design for certification requirements, under the political influence of the NEA, is aimed at EXCLUDING teachers who are more competent than average in their subject areas than their "peers." That's why the NEA squeals like stuck pigs when someone actually suggests hiring teachers who majored in English or history, instead of "Audiovisuals 101."

Most of the teachers I had possessed a barely adequate knowledge of their subject matter, but many were the most ignorant human beings I've ever encountered. And the ones who were genuinely intelligent and capable of critical thought were in constant strife with their colleagues and the administration.

Schools are not designed to encourage thinking or critical reflection on society's instituions; they're designed to process human raw material into "human resources" for those institutions.

All my life, the people I've known who actually knew ANY subject in depth, and cared passionately about it, were self-educated. Some of them jumped through the educational hoops enough to get a piece of paper in their discipline. But the bulk of their real education came from their own asking of questions, pursuing one book to another, criticizing the work of others and subjecting their own work to criticism, without getting a checkmark on their resumes for it. And most of the people I've know who developed a genuine interest in any subject, who cared enough about it to pursue independently, quickly knew more about it than their teachers were competent to evaluate.

And as Tom says, not all home-schoolers are fundies. The back-to-the-landers and hippies had a large role in founding the movement. There are probably some people out there who'd like their kids to learn American history from Charles Beard, Merrill Jensen and Gabriel Kolko (and Murray Rothbard) than from some half-wit textbook designed by a committee to avoid saying anything that might offend anyone.

I don't expect to convert you to my opinion on the worthlessness of publick skools. But for God's sake, you don't seem to even be AWARE of any arguments outside the NEA party line. Are you aware that people like Ivan Illich, Paul Goodman and John Taylor Gatto even exist? Illich's "Deschooling Society" and Gatto's "Underground History of American Education" are available online. The founders of American "public" education were pretty clear from the beginning that its goal was to create docile and obedient drones for the corporate State, and to train them not to think or ask questions above their station in life.

Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society. http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/illich/deschool/intro.html

John Taylor Gatto. The Underground History of American Education. http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

[buzz harsher]

Lefty: LOL. Yer kidding, right?

The concept that the process of acquiring a teaching degree and certificate makes one "qualified" to teach is amusing. Not amusing prima facie, granted, but amusing de facto.

The dismal quality of professional teaching in this country is clear demonstration that the educators are woefully unqualified.

[Lefty]

Thanks. I appreciate it.

[joe]

Still, the system (or unsystem) seems open to a lot of abuse. "I'm homeschooling 'em" can a right-PC way of saying "I don't hold with no fancy book larnin." Maybe standards tests could actually do some good. Ultimately, a kid's right to a decent education outweights a parent's desire to keep him ignorant.

Note: I realize I'm talking about a minority of homeschoolers, and don't mean to put down the decent and competant majority. But the huge cracks that exist, combined with the libertarian eagerness to say "Oh well" when people are getting screwed, raises a flag for me.

[Kevin Carson]

Tom,

Isn't one of the virtues of public education the fact that the kids are being diddled by PROFESSIONAL diddlers who have degrees and certification in diddling, and diddling is no longer haphazardly left to unsupervised amateurs?

Lefty,

I thought the whole point of homeschooling was to get AWAY from the public educationist official culture. So why would anyone want incompetents from that official culture supervising their curriculum plans?

[Tom from Texas]

Lefty,

"Homeschooling" is almost too broad a concept to define. To begin with, depending on your state, all you have to do, as a parent or legal guardian, is walk into the public school office and declare, "My child(ren) is/are going to be homeschooled from now on." Or, if you're dealing with little ones, never enroll them to begin with. (Some states have a little more stringent requirements).

Homeschooling runs the gamut from those who "school at home" complete with requiring the kids to wear uniforms and sit in school-type desks, to practicioners of "unschooling", who believe that a child will automatically search for knowledge and you can pretty much leave their education to them with little intervention (I'm not completely sold that this practice works).

Curriculum can be what you want. There are a number of packaged curricula, both religious and secular, available, or you can design your own based on your kid's abilities. As I mentioned before, our kids are in an extended studies program from Texas Tech U., following the identical curriculum as the state requires for public schools (we can augment it as we see fit). Their work is reviewed and graded by certified teachers in the employ of Texas Tech, and their completed coursework is to be accepted by any school in the state.

Upon "graduation" from Extended Studies, they will have met all the state requirements for high school work, and can apply to the college or university of their choice.

Our kids socialize with their friends from public school days, as well as the neighbor kids. They actually are more comfortable conversing and interacting with adults, a trait you see in many homeschool kids who are not immersed in youth culture for most of their waking hours.

Homeschool kids have been successfully guided through their education by parents who have only high school diplomas as well as those with advanced degrees. Three homeschooled siblings from Houston were this past year admitted to medical school. They were taught primarily by their mom, a housewife with no advanced degrees herself.

And having personally worked in the public schools, and with a wife who's a pediatrician, let me assure you that far more public school kids than homeschooled kids are being diddled by their uncles.