OT: Home Schooling

"Karen C - California" ...

I have found that sometimes children listen more attentively to the explanations of someone who is not their parent, like a caution to watch for traffic, don't pick on the younger ones, etc. Maybe it's just the shock value, or that when if they respond with a question and are answered directly, they can see the reasoning for themselves, or feel their opinion has been valued. Doesn't always work, true.

-- Carey (just my .02 )

Thank you Melinda for a long letter , We really are far in our opinions as we are geographicly.

Strange , i always believed that education is ONLY about Social training =indoctrination ,,,, Any set of values practiced by more than one person is a Social value , or a doctrine .hence if you teach it you indoctrinate it.

So in your opinion , if Education will be 100 % free you will allow the government to teach what ever they want ???? >

it is part of something you allow the government to rul.

yes , i agre until a certain age ,

This might be part of a cultural habit ... >

And is this enough , By Homeschooling you give an opposite example of what you say you tell them. >

I am not sure i follow you here? may you give more details ?? Are you a minority ? and what part of your lifestyle is squashed ???

In response to Melinda opining:

I think if we could get to the heart of this matter, that there would be a more full understanding in the greater U.S. I keep hearing this said over and over, but I'm not sure what anyone means. The word "values" is bandied about, but again . . . not sure what that means. It's often used in the context of: "Because you don't believe in this particular value, you are therefore immoral."

To clarify: I am not accusing Melinda of anything. Just that I thought Mirjam's question was a good one. I'm trying to understand myself. Dianne

Yes, I had the same thing happen when my kids were small. I stayed home for 9 yrs., there were no children the same age as mine in the neighbourhood. When my eldest was 3 yrs. we put him in pre-school for

3 mornings a week (he's a Nov. b'day so started kindergarten at age 4). When he went in to Gr. 1, I put my youngest in pre-school for 2 mornings a week, the following year I put him in pre-school 3 mornings a week. The main reason being he had no one to play with in our area except me...and Mom just isn't the same as a little boy his age.

...L>I am a SAHM. There aren't any others in the neighborhood. That means

Mirjam,

I must say you have a very interesting way of looking at things, it's fascinating to read what you have to say, and I do agree with most of what you've said on this thread.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

...Linda

Sorry this was sent unfinnished , am cutting off the part sent ,,,,,

Well you probably are at least better off than many people i know ! We had our priorities just like you we raised 2 academics by turning every coin twice before spending it. still even for quality time , you need to have time and affordability, I am sure 99.99 % parents put their kids in priority .... I find it very patronizing the way you put Your HOME SCHOOLING as a matter of having the Right Priorities and in a forner letter as a matter of loving your kids ,,, If you have no proper food , and no roof over the head ,,,, how do you work that out?

I can compare anything i want ,,, i don`t know how many Educational systems you know ? and how close ? My kids went to school Here In Israel, In UK and In USA ,,, thus there are Good and less good things in every system ... I also worked as adviser in Education Ministry . and in other education realted systems,,, i think i speak with a bit of experience ,,,, Education , is not about undemining your authority as parent , nore about keeping it .... Education is about providing your child with as many tools as possibkle to become a well ballanced person and a ful participater in society , in a world where half the things you teach won`t be valid or useful anymore by the time they grow up!!!!>

What work ?

Why together ?? will you always be there with them ?

I am impresed , and they of course talk with those people , sit next to them and share ideas about books read , films seen , games played together , and even giggle about common jokes ....

Yes they meet people , grown ups ,and what about meeting other kids ..who also bud now in their education and ideas ,???

EXCUSE ME ?????? You just gave the example, to my question , of how you teach your kids to interact with other people Different than them.

Are those the words you teach them .. is this what you learned from your Culture ???

I think you made yourself clear , as to what you think of other people by calling them vermin ... To me YOU broke the Law by calling other by that name ... Those who used this terminology , ended up murdering other people.

You are right i don`t know much of how you raised your kids , But I am quite qualified in knowing what kind of people call other people vermin . .mirjam

Karen C - California wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

Gee, not where I live. My biggest problems are convincing the elderly neightbor who lives next door that he doesn't have to risk falling and breaking a hip to plow my driveway or shovel a path on my lawn for the mailman*, and finding enough vases for the lilacs the widow lady on the other side likes to share with me.

K

• Especially sinve he likes to do it bright and early in the morning, and snowdays are the days my housemate and I get to sleep in...

I've found since I've started home schooling my DD, that suddenly I'm not as "stupid" as I used to be. (she's a "tween") Amazing that Mom can actually know more than she does and teach her stuff! LOL Kim

snipped-for-privacy@actcom.co.il (Mirjam Bruck-Cohen) wrote in news:428f7455.6978587 @ar.news.verio.net:

I couldn't agree more that the more you are exposed to, the more you learn, and that there is nobody in the world that you cannot learn anything from.

But I find that in my life I have gone from a more liberal viewpoint with less tolerance toward others who aren't like me, to a far more conservative viewpoint with *more* tolerance toward others who aren't like me.

Please don't misunderstand me when I talk about "tolerance." What I mean is best exemplified by two neighbors we had at two different times when my children were small. We are fundamental separatist Christians, and one neighbor was Conservative Jewish and the other was Sunni Muslim. In both cases we were each convinced that our own faiths were the correct one and those of the other party, albeit sincere, were misguided. But we both held the same basic moral values for the most part and after the parents got past the point of polite questioning and answering as to the other's religious (for lack of a better word) viewpoints and where we needed to draw the lines, we found that the fact that we each held strict religious beliefs, even though they were different, made our children most compatible as playmates compared to those children in our lower- middle-class neighborhood who were being raised with absolutely *no* values at all. We each respected the right of the other parent to raise their child the way they saw fit, and we just avoided areas that could be potential conflicts while allowing the children the freedom of learning a little bit about the other's faith. That is what I call tolerance -- like that old saying, "I don't agree with what you believe in, but I will defend to the death your right to believe it."

snipped-for-privacy@actcom.co.il (Mirjam Bruck-Cohen) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ar.news.verio.net:

I am not so convinced of that as far as it relates to parents who live in my neighborhood.

No, I wasn't talking about home schooling, I was talking about raising your own children, and to me home schooling is an extension of raising my own children.

Well, I was talking about raising children as a whole there.

Not in my local public school district, it isn't. There is another, smaller school district a few towns over who support, complement, and augment parental authority, but this school district doesn't seem to believe in that.

Well, if I sent my child to a public school, I would hope that they would put a priority on the 3 Rs and not on social indoctrination.

Because many places will not let younger children do volunteer work on their own, but they will let them do it if they are under the direct supervision of their parents.

As a matter of fact, we pretty much do.

When I was proofreading textbooks, the sociology textbooks said that socialization from adults was an equally acceptable model of socialization that peer socialization.

There are good influences and bad influences. Right now the only peers my children have in our own neighborhood tend to be bad influence types, and my children have had to keep their distance from them at the suggestion of the local police in order that they not end up getting into the same legal entanglements that they are getting into -- car theft, vandalism, drugs, breaking and entering, etc. I'm sorry if this offends you, but these are not the type of children I want to have be my children's closest friends. My boys aren't mean to these kids like they are to my boys -- they have had switchblades pulled on them, etc. -- but they know that they have to be careful how much they get involved with them, and we have boundaries to keep them safe from being tarred by the same brush that the local police department has these other kids tarred with.

The parents who care about their children and who can afford it send their children to a different school for school. I can't afford it, but I do care about my children, so it is in my best interest and theirs to keep them out of the local school that was a closed former school but reopened so that all the underachievers that live in this neighborhood can be grouped together and not skew the test scores downward of the schools they were assigned to before they reopened the school in this neighborhood.

I meant no offense by the term. Would you have preferred "hooligans"? It is not a generic reference to them, it is the description of what type of people they are.

Well, if I use that term, it might not mean exactly the same thing that you mean, and I am world famous for not completely explaining myself on the first pass.

snipped-for-privacy@actcom.co.il (Mirjam Bruck-Cohen) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ar.news.verio.net:

*chuckle* I guess you are right about us being diametrically opposed in our world views. But I think that lifestyle choices need to be taught by parents and not by a one-size-fits-all government mold. And I am absolutely opposed to any children going to school to learn social values to the exclusion in any degree of the 3 Rs.

The government says they are required to provide an education for every child; therefore, the government *has* to provide an education for every child. Since they have to provide an education for every child, they have to hit a middle ground. They cannot provide a superior education for every child. In the case of education as well as anything else provided by government (police and fire services, welfare, etc.) what the government provides is what they consider a minimal acceptable level, and if you want better than that, you have to take it upon yourself to do better, whether through the government-provided venues if possible or through taking charge of whatever it is into your own hands.

So if someone goes to a government school, they have to accept that (a) it is not going to be a top-quality school, because those schools are very expensive, and the government doesn't have the money to pay for top- quality schools for everybody, and (b) the government schools *ought* to (but don't) accommodate everybody no matter where they come from. Thankfully, it is not required in this country that every child attend public school, only that they attend *some* school. As a result, if I do not like the public school options open to my children, I am free to choose another form of education for them.

My theory is that most of my child training needs to be done by the time they hit 13, and after that I am limited to things like mid-course correction. My youngest is 13; I have practiced this with each child and so far they are all doing okay. They are responsible, well-adjusted children who relate to people and children of all ages equally well.

I know *LOTS* of children whose parents are disgusted with the clothing their children would like to wear.

That is not a logical conclusion. Home schooling is a choice. Public school is a choice. Private school is a choice. Each person has to do what they believe is best based on the best information available to them.

I am a fundamental separatist Christian, and Christianity is not very popular with government entities in this country. I am not asking that the government turn into a Christian theocracy, as this country was founded with the purpose of of providing freedom of religion to all people, but I am asking that the government also allow me freedom of religion, and being someone of traditional Christian beliefs puts me in a minority status.

Dianne Lewandowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

I see "values" as being the things that are most important to you that affect your life's choices. I have had many people over the years tell me that things I have done were wrong/a mistake/whatever. Sometimes they have been right and I was wrong. But in many cases, the people who were trying to tell me I was wrong just didn't know my whole situation, and I know this for a fact because I have had a handful of people come back to me 10-15 years later telling me that they have changed their mind about my being wrong way back then because they see that the results of my choices have worked. And in fact, in my early years as a parent, there were times when I have listened to these people and gone against my own good judgment, feeling that they were more experienced and therefore must be right, and it has been a colossal disaster.

I have no problem with someone telling me that I am wrong, as long as they are sincerely concerned about my best interests and are telling me in that vein. But I reserve the right to act on or not act on their suggestions based on my own judgment.

Unfortunately, a lot of people today don't even want someone coming to them and saying, "I am really concerned about you because I see this potential pitfall up ahead for you and I just want you to know it might be there, because I would never forgive myself if I didn't say something and your not knowing it caused a catastrophe in your life."

I hope you are speaking for yourself and not positioning that liberals (in general) are less tolerant. :-) I would imagine that, on either side of the political/social spectrum there are those who are more, or less, tolerant. And yes, I understood your definition of "tolerance" as you outlined it. Dianne

That's interesting. I would have said that being someone with traditional Christian beliefs in this country would put you in the majority. What about your kind of Christianity puts you in the minority? What do you mean by "fundamental separatist?"

Elizabeth

I think it can be extremely difficult to write out one's thoughts and have them understood by all who read them. Just as a conversation can get lost in the translation.

You've done extremely well explaining your position, and of being patient when you've been misunderstood. Which is one reason I've enjoyed it.

I live in a town that is not much different than your neighborhood, sad to say. And my husband and I have often said we were very glad we didn't have children. We ended up here later in life. We've discussed the school system and would probably send them to a private school.

I WILL say, however, that we know some upstanding citizens of this town who send their children to this school system and they grow up and go on to college. I don't know how they do it, but they manage. And manage well. I think you're immediate neighborhood is a tad more "rough" than our town as a whole. I don't envy you your task. Dianne

"Melinda Meahan - remove TRASH to reply" Dianne Lewandowski wrote in

Possibly it's because people don't approach them with a helpful attitude, but rather one that starts out with "You can't/mustn't/shouldn't do that," in more of a commanding tone than conversational or compassionate tone. The wrong tone just seems to automatically put one on the defensive, and they don't really hear the words, more times than not.

-- Carey (whose other half is constantly guilty of the commanding tone, which sets off the defensive tone, which gets on to the combative tone.....and STILL doesn't see that it happens all the time. Too bad he's so far past home schooling.)

I will admit I have no clue what a "separatist" christian is. I know what fundamentalism means, which is different from evangelical and the two terms are often misused.

But as a christian, you are definitely not a minority in the U.S. Nor am I sure you meant to use the words "traditional christian", because that means everything from Methodist to Catholic and all those in between. And that's certainly not a minority of the population. It's a huge majority.

I also don't believe it's correct to state that christianity is not very popular with government entities in the U.S. I think it's more correct to say that government is separate from religion and tries hard to keep itself separated. Our founding fathers thought that one through very well. Dianne

Dianne Lewandowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

No, certainly not. I just find it funny myself that traditionally liberals have been more tolerant and conservatives have been less tolerant, but for me it seemed to have gone in the other direction.