Geez, I'm a homeschooling parent, science fiction fan, and education major
that scored well on his SATs whose parents were both teachers in the public
schools. I feel so inadequate.
Very interesting.
Wayne
-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of rosenblatt, joseph
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 4:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Don't Know Much About Geography
As Wirt so correctly points out home schooling is elitist. There is a good
reason it is elitist. Educating young minds is not a job for Mr. & Mrs. Joe
Sixpack.
Greg points to the winners of the national geography bee as being home
schooled. I am willing to bet that the home schooled kids either won or
placed in the top 1% in the spelling, history and math bees as well. If we
are going to judge an educational theory by its results then let us look at
the entire spectrum of results. Failures among home-schooled kids never make
the papers.
We hear about public school failures and home school successes not
vice-versa. I have heard semi-literate, language butchering, single
point-of-view people brag about "home schooling" their children. I have a
hard time believing that these are the students that win anything but the
"find your @$$ with both hands" bee.
The home schooling theory assumes that anyone can become a teacher,
overnight. The home school "industry" has educational videos and pamphlets
to help you become a "teacher." Add to this the attitude that no one can do
better for your children than you can yourself along with a large dose of
control issues and you can see some large points of failure in your model.
Let us hope that the next trend isn't home pediatric surgery.
As a person with 18 years of classroom teaching experience and a M.A. in
education, I feel pretty qualified to state that overall most students are
average. You will have those that exceed expectations and those that do not
meet the required level of competence but for the most part, just as the
word implies, most people are average. Will home schooling help bring
everyone up a little? Maybe but so what?
The issue is not how well you in geography bees and the like. Bloom's
taxonomy covers what each type of cognitive ability means in the overall
education of a person. We can debate to fruition whether rote learning
proves intellectual superiority or not. The issue is what is the purpose of
education.
Both public and home schoolers are for the most part missing the point. Our
educational system seeks to produce a product that fits its given norm. At
best, we teach our students to "excel at mediocrity." Instead using Rudolf
Steiner, Krishnamurtai, Abraham Maslow and Alan Watts as models, we turn to
philosophical lightweights, corporations, politicians and quick-fix artists
to set our educational standards. Our education system seeks to turn out
corporate cannon fodder instead of innovators. Our education system seeks to
turn out people that will willing spend the whole of their working lives in
cubicles; physical, intellectual, philosophical and moral cubicles.
So, go home school your kids if you must but do it right. Augment your
child's education even if you don't home school. There are millions of works
by thousands of people that can broaden a person's scope of thought. Examine
the implications of ideas not just the technical process of thought. Instead
of attempting to excel at mediocrity, don't we owe ourselves the right to
excel at excellence?
Work for Peace,
The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my
employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
|
