HOME SCHOOL and the upcoming generation of scientifically illiterate kids

by Terry 75 Replies latest jw friends

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  JeffT

  Terry, as a history buff I applaud your game, its a good one. Here's a set of events to put in the correct order: the start of the civil war, the confederate states suceeding, Lincoln's election, and Lincoln taking office.

  We are currently home schooling our grandaughter, with the help of a three day a week support program. It's a good blend of structured education, socialization, and time to enhance her education ourselves. It helps that her father (our son), her aunt, her grandmother (an early childhood educator) and myself all have college educations. The support program is doing some really innovative things, particularly with teaching math and reading/writing. In the four years we've been there, every one of their graduates has been accepted into every college they applied to.

  I agree with what Blondie quoted from Bill Nye, there is a remarkable like of critical thinking going on.
• 

  konceptual99

  I don't think Home Schooling itself is the issue - it's the quality and nature of the curriculum followed. There are some parents who are able to provide a better education that the mean in their area but the problem is that the majority of home school kids are doing it so their parents can manage the curriculum.

  Why do JW parents home school? Not so the kids get a better education but so that they can minimise contact with worldly kids and avoid subjects that may challange the faith of the child. They have no interest in further education. They simply want to mould the child to focus on "spiritual" goals.

  Ultimately the critical factor is the interest that the parents have in the child's education. Focusing on education as a key factor in enmpowering your children and their ability to have the freedom to make choices in life is not simply a case of choosing one method of education over another - it's about constantly monitoring the quality of the education being recieved and ensuring those implicit messages are clear and understandable.
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  Terry

  I was rewatching the 1965 Charleton Heston epic about Michaelangelo and Pope Julius II, THE AGONY and the ECSTACY

  and remembered my favorite concatenation :

  The year Michaelangelo died, Galileo was born and then the year of Galileo's death, Isaac Newton was born.

  Talk about cause and effect--were it not for the antagonism between Julius and Michaelangelo there would be no Cistine Chapel ceiling.

  Were it not for Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni's perf ectionism, Julius would have used Rafael the Divine's work exclusively.
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  cultBgone

  Have to agree with Konceptual...homeschooling when done properly can provide a great education...it's when the parents ill-advisedly choose to follow a narrow curriculum that the problems arise. And the kids are the ones who suffer.

  Let's not use the broadbrush technique like the wts/gb to label ideas with which we might disagree. Remember, we are now "those horrible worldly people" who are all inherently "evil", "bad", "reduced to taking drugs", "sexually deviant", etc. etc. etc.
• 

  Terry

  The premise of Christian philosophy is very direct and simple:

  Influence the worldly so they will accept the benefits of Christian truth and consequently embrace Christian lifestyle.

  The premise of Christian Homeschooling is the very opposite:

  Prevent your own child from being influenced by worldly children. (Unintended consequence: worldly children are denied exposure to Christian children and their "better" lifestyle, beliefs, etc.)

  The confrontation between Theory (Christian Truth) and practice (Protectionism) demonstrates a shallow fear that

  one's own Christian ideas are INFERIOR to worldly ideas which can / cannot withstand challenges or comparison.

  I personally don't care how well-intention d motives are.

  It is irrelevant to the consequences of denying Christians and Non-Christians a dialogue and a clash of cultures.

  But--Wait! Stop a moment!

  Ha ha ha ha ha....This is laughable.

  There IS NO CLASH between cultures going on. We in America only have a clash of IDEOLOGUES.

  1. An ideologue is only interested in their own view of the world to the exclusion of fresh ideas or counter arguments.

  2. An ideologue is never satisfied with the personal opinions of others because they want to convert others to their own opinions

  3. An ideologue cannot compromise because everything is black and white. If you continue to disagree they must label you as an enemy. In fact,

  one clear sign you are dealing with ideologues is their tendency to smear with labels those who disagree with them.

  4. The ideologue has no interest in the free exchange of ideas. They prefer to lecture with rehearsed persuasions reciting memorized arguments.

  5. Ideologues prefer their own source material which they present as material fact rather than opinionated bias. Excluding other people's source material is their chief strategy in disallowing counter-factual disproofs of their world view.

  Conclusion?

  HOME SCHOOL is the strategy of ideologues who seek to enforce exclusive right over dominance of their child's intellectual development.

  Parents who home school may give other reasons, but fear of the weakness of their own value system in standing up to challenge is at the bottom

  of it.

  Exceptions?

  Children with emotional or cognitive disabilities should NOT be put in the crucible of bullying because it will never be a fair fight.

  True, life isn't fair--but the point is to grow, develop and succeed. Cognitive and emotional elements are internal and not external struggles.

  Nobody can win on two fronts simultaneously, especially developing children.
• 

  Phizzy

  Any kind of Schooling is as good, or bad, as the teacher/s involved.

  An inspirational teacher can give you an understanding and appreciation for a subject that in reality you do not care for, an inept teacher may impart next to nothing, and in fact discourage you from further pursuing something you would enjoy.

  Mrs Phizzy and I watch a number of T.V Quiz shows, (I know , we could use our time in a better way), and we are amazed at the appalling ignorance of many people, of all ages. Education has been poorly delivered for many a long year !

  I do agree too, with the above statement about the importance of teaching Critical Thinking, so much more in-depth learning is achieved by using such skills. It was not until my offspring went to University that they were really taught and encouraged to use Critical Thinking.

  Fortunately they both had a measure of natural ability in this area, where did they get that from ??, and they both rejected the JW/WT religion as nonsense whilst in their early teens.
• 

  PaintedToeNail

  GrreatTeacher-My children were taught far more critical thinking skills than are taught at school. We had books, workbooks and discussions about assumptions, propaganda, general statements and so on. It is this critical thinking ability that has allowed my 10 year old to be selected to attend the Washington D.C. conference. The conference will examine the great leaders of the past, the great losers of the past and current leaders to evaluate their performances and so forth.

  It makes a huge difference of whether you think President Lincoln fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, it makes you look like an unintelligent idiot if you thought he did. Who could take anything you said seriously? Also, not knowing basic facts prevents one from being able to form proper opinions on basic subjects. Memorization is important. It worked for thousands of years, and can continue to work to make a well-rounded mind.

  I often feel at a distinct disadvantage when talking about world history, they rarely teach that in school. We have wonderful books now, because of homeschooling, that we dig out an read, often in reference to ongoing matters, such as the hatred between the Muslims and Christians.

  Homeschooling can be far more successful than you give it credit for, as long as it isn't following a religious agenda, which we NEVER did. Terry is correct in that the Beka program is garbage. There are rotten homeschoolers out there, just as there are rotten public school teachers and horrible, violence riddle school districts and districts who exist solely to promote football.
• 

  ablebodiedman

  I am learning more now than I ever did in school:

  https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy/playlists

  Trigonometry is actually kind of fun!

  That is not what I thought about trigonometry while I was in school!

  Oh yes, and Calculus is really, really, really amazing!

  abe
• 

  GrreatTeacher

  I agree that facts are important. Saying that Lincoln fought at the battle of Gettysburg is unacceptable. I am just saying that knowing those facts by memory are less important than they used to be because we have access to them at any time on our smart phones. I'm glad we agree that analyzing facts using critical thinking is most important.

  I think maybe we are coming from different places regarding our local school districts. Maryland is one of the highest achieving states in the country and my county is consistently in the top 5 in the state. Our local high school is on the list of the top 2000 in the country. We strive to teach at higher levels of thinking ability.

  As an education major, let me share with you Bloom's Taxonomy of levels of cognition and examples of a type of learning task for that level. I'll start with the lowest level and work my way up. The higher the cognitive demand of the learning task, the more depth of understanding.

  1. Remembering - Recall events leading up to WWII.

  2. Understanding - Classify events leading up to WWII as "causes of" or "unrelated to."

  3. Applying - Interpret a speech given by Adolph Hitler leading up to WWII.

  4. Analyzing - Question the involvement or lack of involvement of various countries during WWII.

  5. Evaluating - Defend the decision of a country that decided to involve its military in WWII.

  6. Creating - Design a timeline showing possible changes to our history if the US got involved in the events leading to WWII earlier.

  My point is simply that memorization of facts is a very low level of cognitive demand. It is mandatory that facts be correct AND that depth of knowledge be sufficient for deep understanding.
• 

  Band on the Run

  I am not impressed by home schooled students getting high grades on objective tests. Trained seals do well. Public school is about much more than facts. I learned diplomatic skills at school b/c we had race riots. It is where I first encountered Jewish and Hindu students. The extracurricular activities are important. My school was once a competitor to top prep schools but had slid far down by the time I arrived with great fear. While the school had PhDs as teachers at one time, a local teachers' college could barely graduate our teachers. The bottom line is that perhaps I could teach history and civics, maybe English. There is no way I could teach six subjects. I graduated from the Ivy League with honors. The real world contains all sorts of people.

  Home schooled kids are not sophisticated. Families can be too incestuous. When it comes to Witness indoctrination, public school was my salvation. Ok, a rare homeschooled kid makes the Ivies or comps. The vast majority of students graduated from real private or public schools. I also learned a lot on the bus to school.