Barely Literate? How Christian Fundamentalist Homeschooling Hurts Kids

[DaisyDeadhead]

Since I am not Christian, I consider homeschooling to be a political issue, rather than a religious one. So that's why I put this here. Sorry if it should go somewhere else!

Article by a friend of mine about homeschooling:

Barely Literate? How Christian Fundamentalist Homeschooling Hurts Kids
http://www.alternet.org/story/154541/bar...age=entire

This was published back in March and I wanted to post it here but was afraid people would get mad at me. Since everyone is mad at me now anyway, I figure that doesn't matter and I can post it anyway.

My question: is this true? Or does it depend on education levels of the parents? Do most people here think homeschooling is a better education than 1) private or 2) public schools? Is math or science harder to teach kids at home than other subjects? What about history and social studies (the areas I have seen the most shortcomings)?

Admit that I am largely agnostic on the issue. I also know left-wing and African-nationalist homeschoolers, so I am aware it is not simply a Christian or conservative thing. I tend to think it is xenophobic, but of course it doesn't have to be.

Opinions? Personal stories?

[Zadig]

From my experience it's pretty accurate. I work with students who come from a variety of backgrounds including homeschools. I'm not sure which is more astonishing, how far behind the homeschool kids are, or how far ahead their naive parents think they are. Homeschool parents seem to be under the impression that if their child excels in just one subject that this indicates a superior education. Some of these kids can win a spelling bee but can't solve a basic math problem. Others can't spell anything unless they sound it out. Sadly no one taught them that hooked on phonics doesn't work for a significant portion of the English language. And history and science? Fuggedaboutit.

They all seem to be well versed on arguments against abortion though.

[Darrell]

I was home schooled.

I write here and work a highly technical military contracting job.

I'm obviously a moron.

[Waldo L]

I was homeschooled, or home schooled. I tend to write one word, but I forget at the moment which is technically correct. I usually attempt to assert my influence on my language. Language is not static, and I will certainly allow myself to be part of the avant garde of language.

But back to the topic at hand, I am a straight-A student beyond high school. I feel that my BJU-printed curricula were sufficient for my education. But then, it's also at the big Bob that I'm achieving my 4.0 GPA, so take it with a grain of salt.

I'm not sure what all influences a person's ability to benefit from being educated at home. I think a parent's willingness to ensure it is vital, but parental education may be less important.

Regarding home schooling as a political issue, is it not a freedom of this country to raise your kids as you see fit? Due to human imperfection, I am not a fan of European social democracy or "cradle-to-grave" care or communism. I do not think any "right to education" (the value of which, when being offered by the state, is probably anemic) trumps the right to raise your children as you deem fit. With a rise in single-parent homes and no-parent homes, I can see how society at large might try to require state-provided and state-directed education, but for my traditional two-parent home, state education would have been vastly inferior to what my parents chose and implemented.

[Zadig]

(06-25-2012 10:39 PM)Waldo L Wrote:  Regarding home schooling as a political issue, is it not a freedom of this country to raise your kids as you see fit?

Not entirely, no.

[lucrezaborgia]

I think if parents have the right education and the ability to teach, they should have no problem teaching their children. Not everyone has that ability or the education to do so. My experience with public schools in South Florida would lead me to think that not all public schools can teach well either, tho my experiences with public schools in my part of Wisconsin have shown me that yes, public schools can be great places. It still takes parent involvement and I see a lot more of that up here than I did in Florida.

[lucrezaborgia]

Also, not everyone thrives being with their parents 24/7 and vice versa.

[Historian]

I was homeschooled through high school, and my younger siblings from various elementary school grades on through high school. All of the five of us, with the exception of our youngest brother who just got his BA very recently, now have masters degrees from accredited (actually accredited, not pretend accredited) universities. One of my brothers is currently working on his doctorate at the University of Maine. We all excelled in higher education, beyond most of our Christian– or public–schooled peers.

However my family was not fundy. We did not use A Beka or BJU Press or any other fundy-produced curriculum. My mother went through an organization whose name I cannot remember: it was Christian and aimed to present a Christian worldview to the students, but it used whatever material was deemed best for each class. In the lower primary school you'd occasionally see some BJU Press stuff, particularly in the grammar. But at the high school level there was mostly secular material, particularly for the higher sciences, mathematics and economics. The materials we used for social science, history, etc. were largely produced by reformed Christians.

We were part of a homeschool co-op that my mother founded. She talked to retired professionals in our church–among them a former public high school music teacher, a computer programmer, a nurse, a retired Spanish teacher, and a mathematics professor, economics professor and biology doctoral student from the University of Tennessee–and they provided classes on Fridays at our church in computer programming, Spanish, chemistry, basic sciences, biology and physics, as well as running a choir and band (both of which won a number of state competitions) and providing individual music lessons. My father, who is a pastor, had been offered a full scholarship to study mechanical drawing before choosing the pastorate instead. He gave lessons in geometry and history. All these were designed to help homeschooling parents in areas where they lacked expertise to educate at the high school level. Most of the homeschoolers who took advantage of these programs (and we had several hundred) were being very well educated and ran rings around students from traditional schools in our cities in standardized tests, in every area tested: so much so that it was a tremendous irritation to the public school teachers unions, who were constantly lobbying to make homeschooling illegal, and constantly having their petitions rejected when the general homeschooling community consistently outscored the general public school community in every area.

Now, having said all that in defense of homeschooling, I also have to say that there were almost no fundies among us. The fundies had their own homeschooling co-op and didn't mingle with us heathens. (In our homeschooling co-op we had students from Presbyterian, Catholic, Methodist, Church of Christ, non-denominational, non-fundy Baptist, Charismatic, Mormon and atheist families. I know nothing about the fundy group in our areas, other than that they wouldn't associate with us. I can't say whether their education was sub-standard, in general. It might have been. But homeschooling itself is no more likely to fail than any other type of schooling–whether a kid is homeschooled, public-schooled or private-schooled, they may or may not get a good education. There are plenty of sub-standard traditional schools, and even at a good school students still fail if they aren't motivated or diligent, or if they have no supportive parents.

[EmilyKing]

That varies widely. I went to public school. One difference I noticed between the types of schooling while at HAC was that homeschooled and church schooled people had learned a lot of grammar points I'd never heard of, such as diagramming sentences. However, they seemed to be worse in math and science than those who'd come from public schools.

In the end, it depends on the teacher. Some do an amazing job of homeschooling, while others are lacking. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be stuck at home all day with my parents and no social interaction. It would have been miserable. That may depend on the kid's personality.

[Kim G]

I think certain branches of Christian fundamentalists are more literate than others. Education was very important to my fundy homeschooling family, but I knew kids who were idiots who were graduating from their fundy schools with 4.0 GPAs.

My mom was very good with math and science, but not very good at English or history. So we had online or video courses for those subjects. Today, many Christian schools will let homeschoolers take individual courses as well, so that the student can have access to a chemistry lab, for example.

I LOVED being homeschooled! Since I was the only one in my class, each subject only took as long as I needed to understand and practice each concept. I woke up every morning at 7 and finished my school work no later than noon.

My mom wanted us to have the same education as the public school system, so we took all the same courses. We did not take shortcuts.

Looking back now that I am outside Fundamentalism, there was only one major downside to homeschooling. I was never exposed to those who disagreed with me in an academic environment. I never participated in vigorous discussions on morality, theology, etc. with a democrat or a feminist or an agnostic until after college. Sure, I encountered people I disagreed with at my music recitals and on my volleyball and soccer teams and at my job, but not in an academic environment.

(On a side note, in South Carolina public school students now have the option of online at-home learning. So secular people are definitely seeing that there are some benefits to learning at home.)