Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League

Don't paint homeschoolers with a roller!

Submitted by IP Ale (not verified) on August 5, 2009 - 10:21am.

The right wing Christian homeschoolers are indeed frightening, and need to be watched, closely. But, PLEASE do not fail to use the modifier "Christian" before "homeschoolers" when you write or talk about them.

There are a large number of people, like my spouse and I, who are disgusted with the quality of public and private education that is offered and want our kids to get better, more critical and more secular educations than are offered at the typical institutions. Our experience with schools revealed a shocking amount of intolerance.

We are more interested in our kids learning their science and history from people who are actually excited about those disciplines rather than simply getting paid to provide enough training to hit a decent score on the mandated standardized tests. Our institutions of elementary and secondary education (public & private) do not teach critical thinking, alternative history or social responsibility. My spouse and I both learned to think critically in college, and only because we both were disgusted with the orthodoxy we'd been spoonfed in secondary school. Kids can learn to question, in a critical way, a lot earlier than college.

My kids are fascinated by things like global warming, particle physics, string theory, cosmology, architecture. Herb Zinn is in their history curriculum, they learn science from practicing engineers, math from retired college professors, they study local architecture and ecology. They learn that Darwin IS SCIENCE. They understand that a belief is something that cannot be disconfirmed and thus cannot be categorized as knowledge, let alone theory.

There is NO religious instruction. Nor will there ever be. By teaching them how to think, and doubt, and question, and test authoritative pronouncements and form rational judgments, we leave the decision about their adopting non-rational beliefs for them to figure out on their own. In the home, they are exposed to progressive values, humanist ethics, skepticism of received wisdom and left-alternative politics. E.g. they are (and have been) disappointed in Obama, something many on the so-called left haven't yet figured out.

Homeschoolers are not all crazy Christian fundies (but a lot of them are!). Some of us are highly educated, lefty, atheist, progressive parents who believe that kids are capable of much more challenging educational experiences than orthodox institutionalized "education" our school offer them. We are trying to give them tools to analyze society, humanity,politics, history and economy outside the 4 corners of the orthodoxy that is spewed by the typical public and private institutional settings, the media, and their public schooled buddies. We can help them to learn socially responsible ways of dealing with the world and creatures that inhabit it, at the same time they are doing algebra,spelling and languages. In this type of environment, at remarkably young ages, they discover their own intellectual passion, pursue it as long as they have the energy, and then find another passion. It can be done, but not in a room with 30-40 other kids. And, NOT in a Christian-homeschool environment either.

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perspective: not all

Submitted by anoni (not verified) on August 6, 2009 - 4:06am.

perspective:
not all home-schooled kids are fundies

raise-your-hand/shut your mouth/no running:
institutionalized babysitting is much more insidious than just asking for permission to go to the bathroom... 'sucks to your asthmar piggie'

management sucks:
unions or administrators, why should someones formative years be set in the crossfire... the nyc charter school with principle making 70K and teachers making 125K is a start
( http://preview.tinyurl.com/l9cdmx ), but i dont live in the bronx

toll-workers got spirit:
ive seriously seen toll-workers with more spunk and qualifications than many unionized teachers. just hire qualified tutors who work in the industry (engineers, community college profs, online resources, native language speakers), its probably cheaper than paying a ritzy neighborhoods property tax.

social:
kids can play soccer, tennis, take music lessons, join lgbt clubs, science fairs... plenty of ways to socialize with a diverse group of people beyond just an instutionalized set of cohorts which traditional schooling presents as 'normal'

$:
the trick is how do you pay for all of this with two working parents... even just hiring a nanny to babysit and setting up a queue list of free online academic videos, seems expensive, (and doesnt sound like a well-thought out plan)

?:
so how does a working couple (>125-150K) pay/plan a science/music/language(math) oriented curricula ?